J. H. TWOGOOD.        

    When my brother, O. B., and I crossed the plains in 1851 there was no settlement west of the Missouri River until we got to the great Columbia River, where Dr. Whitman and family had started a mission to try to civilize the treacherous red man, as early as 1836. We had a rough trip over the Cascades, arriving at Oregon City August 20, 1851, and losing everything we had trying to help others. At this time Oregon City was the commercial center from whence all goods went south to the Willamette and Umpqua valleys. Losing my tools, I could get no work, and times were dull and money scarce. There was no Portland then, only on paper. There was nothing doing anywhere in the Northwest.
    We heard of real gold mines at Yreka and in Southern Oregon. Sam Hadley and I had a slight attack of the yellow fever. We rigged up a tent and with two pack and two saddle horses started south to the new Eldorado. Traveling up the valley we found it very sparsely settled. Many sections of good land could be taken up by immigrants, lived on five years, and it was a donation from our dear old Uncle Sam. In the valley we came to Eugene Skinner's place, where he had taken up a section of land. He had a log house and barn and part of his yard was fenced, where he raised garden truck. Today Eugene is a big city with an opera house.
    We then traveled south over the Calapooia Mountains, up the creek to the North Umpqua. Here we ferried to Winchester, which was then the county seat of Douglas County, a town of one log house. The county reached from the Siskiyou Mountain on the south to Calapooia on the north, 200 miles, and from the Pacific Ocean on the west to the Rocky Mountains on the east, enough territory to form 15 or 20 states like New "Jarsey."  Five miles farther south we found Deer Creek, likewise Aaron Rose and family, who were our traveling companions when we crossed the plains. Rose had located a half section donation claim, which today is the present site of the town of Roseburg, the county seat of Douglas County, but the same territory is now carved up into a dozen counties.
    Traveling on up South Umpqua River 28 miles we came to the mouth of the big Canyon, a horrible road of 12 miles on the old immigrant trail. I do not see how it was possible for people to [get through there] with wagons. In 1852 I saw a man start over that road through the canyon with two yoke of oxen and a good wagon and at the end of two days, he got through with only the front wheels. Here we found Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Knott, who crossed the plains in 1850 from Ottumwa, Iowa, and had located a ranch, built a log tavern, and called it Canyonville. They had three grown children, Levi, Jack and Libby, whom Vince Davis called "Sis."  She married Bob Ladd, a wealthy banker of Portland. The rest of them all crossed the great divide years ago, and I am the only one left.
    After getting through the canyon we traveled down Cow Creek seven miles, then crossed over the mountains and on to Grave Creek, where we found a beautiful little valley with a [big white] oak tree and a grave right beside the road. Clover grew to the height of six inches and it was an ideal camping ground. Did we camp there? I should say not. No one would dare to camp there on account of Indians. It was considered the most dangerous point on the road. On south [twenty] miles [after] we crossed Jump-Off Joe and Louse creeks [we] came to the Rogue River. Here we found Ben Halsted had established the first ferry on the trail between Oregon and California. We crossed here and went down seven miles and found James N. Vannoy, Jim Tuft & Co. had taken up a splendid ranch and put in a ferry. Both were as good men in principle as ever lived, and both are now dead. From here we traveled up the Applegate into the Illinois Valley, which we followed up to a point where Kerbyville now stands. We struck off north and found Sam Fry, who was running a horse corral.
    It seems as though a small company of California miners, during the month of August, 1851, left Yreka and traveled north in search of gold. They traveled on the old Hudson Bay trapper trail over the Siskiyous, down Bear Creek and right by Jackson Creek, where there were good diggings, and on to the Illinois Valley. Here they went north over pretty steep mountains and found gold in two different creeks. One they named Canyon Creek, and the other Josephine, in honor of a young lady who was a member of the party. This was the first gold found in Oregon. Afterward Sailor Diggings, Althouse and many other good diggings were struck. I was with the Joe Knott party in February, 1852, and we were the first white men to ever make the trip up Galice Creek, where we found good diggings.
    Halsted and Vannoy had the only two log cabins in the Rogue River Valley in [September] 1851. It seems to me like a fairy tale when I read about a fruit ranch being sold there for $168,000, and land near Medford producing $500 worth of fruit per acre [in 1909].
    It was in the fall of 1851 or early spring of 1852 that gold was first discovered in the Rogue River Valley. It was found on a little creek in paying quantities by a man named Jackson, who called it Jackson Creek, close to where Jacksonville, the seat of Jackson County, is located today. [Twogood is alone in identifying the otherwise unknown "Jackson" as the discoverer of gold on Rich Gulch.] Sterling Creek was located by Mr. Sterling later. That proved rich and built up Jacksonville.
    In 1851 there was no sickness on the plains, but in 1852 there was a big immigration, and people died by the hundreds of cholera, all owing to the fact of their not taking the precaution of providing themselves with a bottle of Perry Davis' Pain Killer. In Chicago during the summer of 1849, when the epidemic was raging, there were 30 deaths in one day. I was taken with the cramps one day; I took a big jolt of Perry Davis' Pain Killer, laid down on a lounge and went to sleep and waked up in the evening feeling as frisky as a young colt.
    In the spring of 1852 a big immigration from the Willamette Valley went out to what is today called [Jackson] County. There was no county then, no sheriff or tax collectors, but a happy, happy people. The valley and villages settled up very rapidly, many coming up from around Portland and that section--Dave Birdseye, Colonel W. G. T'Vault, Captain [Martin] Angel, the Millers, and many whose names I have forgotten. C. C. Beekman is the only one left whom I [knew] of from Yreka. My dear good friend, a banker today, rode the first pony express from Yreka to Jackson.
    It was about 1859 that another great mining excitement broke out, away up north in the Fraser River country. It fairly set people crazy. They flocked up there by thousands, by steamer from 'Frisco, and by the California and Oregon stage route. The stages were loaded to the guards every trip. At Grave Creek House, a dinner station 40 miles north of Jacksonville, we used to cater to 10 or 12 passengers every day.
    Alex Rossi, a pioneer of Boise, came to California in the early days. He was a natural-born [all-round] mechanic and good surveyor. He drifted north [I think] in 1853, crossing over the Siskiyou Mountain. At the foot of the mountain he found a town called Ashland. It was here, I think, that a Mr. Thomas, a big, jolly, 200-pound German, built the first flouring mill in Rogue River Valley. He was an old friend of John Krall, a well-known pioneer of Boise. Mr. Rossi went to work for Mr. Thomas and stayed until October 1, 1855. Then he again drifted north and came down to the Grave Creek House, stayed all night with us and started for Salem.
    In the meantime the Indians in the Rogue River Valley, under Chiefs Joe and Sam, had been committing depredations, robbing and killing white men. About October 3 the citizens of Jacksonville commenced to talk of the matter of retaliation. About October 8 they raised a company of volunteers and started for the Indian headquarters at Table Rock, near Fort Lane, which was established by General Joe Lane during the Indian war of 1853. This volunteer company was under command of my good friend, Major Lupton. They attacked the Indians [I think] Sunday morning, October 9. Quite a number of the whites were wounded, and Major Lupton was shot through with an arrow that proved fatal. Hon. John Hailey, one of our most honored pioneers of this city, helped extract the arrow. That fight gave the Indians a [scare] and the whole tribe came rushing down Rogue River, killing and burning everything before them. They caught me with a pack train down at Galice Creek and I did not get home for three days, but that is another long story for the future. Suffice to say, this precipitated the biggest Indian war ever known on the Pacific Coast, reaching from California on the south to British possessions on the north and where Idaho now stands on the east. When Mr. Rossi reached Salem we had a full-fledged Indian war on our hands. Here he met Governor George L. Curry, who insisted upon mustering him into the service. As war had been declared, he was assigned to the quartermaster's department as clerk and remained in the office until the close of the war in June, 1856, when all the Rogue River and Umpqua Indians were gathered up and transported to the Siletz Indian Reservation in the Willamette Valley, where they were placed under command of Lieutenant U. S. Grant. [Grant was never stationed at Siletz, and the Coast Range is between the reservation and the Willamette Valley.]
    Again Mr. Rossi headed north, landing in Oregon City, the head of navigation on the Willamette River. Here he took a view of the great Willamette Falls. After a few days' study he concluded he would harness a little of this surplus energy that was going to waste and build a foundry, as there was none at that time north of San Francisco. He did so, and Len Richardson, now clerk of the supreme court of Idaho, went to work for him learning how to make patterns.
    Man builds up, but frequently in a few hours the elements of fire and water destroy the accumulations of a lifetime. It was in the [winter] of 1861 there came the most disastrous flood ever known on the Pacific Coast. I well remember traveling down the Sacramento River in the fall of 1862 and seeing large, fine ranches entirely [denuded] of all signs of habitation. Houses, fences, barns and everything had been swept away down the river out through the Golden Gate into the Pacific Ocean, leaving the ranches all covered with [sand and sediment].
    It was in 1862 that gold was first discovered in north Idaho. Florence, Orofino and several other camps were opened. After the flood Mr. Rossi took a view of the field and then and there came to the conclusion that he was "busted," and would have to begin life all over again. Knowing that the mines were the last resort for getting a new start, he accordingly, with Richardson and Albert H. Robie, from French Prairie, packed their blankets, got a grub stake and hiked for Florence. At that time there were no public conveyances west of Utah, except the steamer from Portland up the Columbia River. This route avoided the worst road west of the [Missouri,] through the Cascade Mountains.
    The mines in Southern Oregon seemed to be mostly worked out in 1862. There were no more Indian wars, no excitement, people got restless, as times were dull, and they felt they must be doing something. It was Marion Moore and company, I think, that concluded that Florence and such mines were not good enough for them, and so they rigged up pack trains and started [south and] east in quest of gold. Coming up Snake River to the Boise, they followed this stream until they came to a creek which flowed in from the north. They packed up that some 15 or 20 miles and came to the place where Idaho city now stands and discovered gold in what they thought was paying quantities. The called the place the basin country, owing to its peculiar formation. It proved to be the best diggings ever struck on the Pacific Slope, and there has since been millions of dollars taken from that small gold field. It was in the spring of 1863 that news of the gold discovery in the basin country reached Jacksonville, causing a great excitement there, and a stampede toward Idaho began. Some of the best and most prominent citizens of Oregon, finding this a most delightful climate, camped here. Many of that early company have crossed the river, but a few are left [in Boise] today and still make this their home.
   In the spring of 1863 the Idaho mining excitement ran high in California, Oregon and the East. People flocked in by the thousands--a conglomerated mass of humanity of all nations and professions of the civilized world--and quite a number of soldiers from the sunny South, who tried to dominate the camp and run things their own way, but it did not last. People coming from the West could take steamers from Portland and land at Umatilla all right, but here their troubles began. Many young men came up there without any visible means of support, but with them it seemed a groundhog case. It was [tussle], for gold they must have. A few young men would chip in and get a cayuse [Indian pony] to pack their blankets and grub and lead the pony and walk into the basin, a distance of 285 miles. Young, healthy, husky boys, sleeping with one would do the most good. He employed a pair of blankets on the wet ground, subsisting on a pone of bread baked in a frying pan, a slice of bacon and a cup of coffee, walking 40 miles a day, were the pink of perfection and good health. They are [How] different today. They come into Boise on a Pullman and have to rest for a week [and then some]. People are never more healthy than when they have to camp out and rough it. The appendix is something I never heard of until I came to Boise. It seems to be quite a popular fad here now.
    It was in the month of March, 1864, that the big crowd came in with a mad rush for the basin country in the quest of gold. Steamers from California landing at Portland left their crowds, and they took the Oregon Steam and Navigation Company's boats to The Dalles. Big crowds congregated at Umatilla. In order to relieve the congestion, Bill Ish and John Hailey, my old friends from Jacksonville, Ore., conceived the idea of putting on a combination saddle and pack train. The fare was $50, with a reasonable amount of luggage, including blankets and clothing, grub and cooking utensils furnished for the trip. Passengers were obliged to do their own cooking. They camped at 3 or 4 p.m., went to bed with the chickens and were up again at daybreak, tramping, tramping until they wore out another day, and all living in hopes. Gentle reader, if it were not for HOPE what would there be worth living for in this cold and uncharitable world, where so many good people meet with a sort of refrigerator reception?
    The summer of 1863 Messrs. Ish and Hailey did a very good business with their saddle train. Of course, in the winter time there was no travel, as it was impossible to get feed and everything was [hauled off and] shut down. That summer Mr. Ish ran the office, while Mr. Hailey made the trail trips. He tells me today that some of the crowds of California miners were the most congenial, whole-souled men that he ever met. Getting into camp they would spread their blankets, lie down to rest, take a smoke, and then take turns getting supper, after which they would rest and smoke again until bedtime. They were up at daylight to get breakfast while he went hunting the mules, with never a kick or a growl out of any of them.
    In 1864 there were a good many pack trains on the road, so Ish and Hailey had to give up their saddle train, just as they were accumulating a little wealth. They then established a stage line up in the Blue Mountains, and about the first of June they put on a line through to Placerville, [285 miles,] over what was then a very rough road. They had just begun to gather in their shekels on this line when another [Richmond] appeared on the field. It was my old friend, George L. Thomas, of the California Stage Company. I had kept stage station for him for eight years, and knew with their great mail contracts from Sacramento to Portland they had become very wealthy and were a hard proposition to buck up against.
    Mr. Thomas concluded to camp at Umatilla, and stocked the road in fine style with American horses, good wagons and Concord harness. There was no hay or grain in the country then, which was necessary for the American horses, and which they had to have to be kept in condition even though the expense was great, while Mr. Hailey could keep his hardy broncos in good condition on bunchgrass. The first stage line, carrying mail from Yreka to Jacksonville, was in 1857, when, with fine stock and Dan Cawley and Joe Leach as conductors, the first trip was made. Many a fine ride I have had with them. Mr. Ish saw the style with which the new outfit started out, and I think that he must have got stuck on Mr. Thomas, as he sold out with Hailey and bought in with Thomas, but the California Stage Company without a mail subsidy was too great a proposition for that section, and the next winter they threw up the sponge and pulled off. Mr. Hailey stayed with it for several years and ran the Overland Stage Line from Kelton, Utah, from the Central Pacific Railroad station, 250 miles from Boise to Umatilla, up to [1869], when the Northwestern Stage Company got the mail contract and Mr. Hailey sold out to them. I think it was Ben Holladay, that indefatigable man of nerve, push and energy, that carried the first United States mail across the plains by pony express, away back in the fifties, that put on the first stage line from Ogden, Utah, to Boise. He sold out to the Wells Fargo Company, which put on a line from Utah up into Montana. Also in 1870 they put on a line from Salt Lake to Pioche. They were a pretty stiff firm, and, aside from the old California Stage Company, I am told they did some of the best staging ever done in the world. It was Ben Holladay that first had the nerve to try and connect Oregon and California with steel rails.
    In the sixties there were many people engaged in running stages up in the basin country, among them Ebner and Joseph Pinkham, and George and Henry Greathouse. George in the seventies had a bank in one of John Broadbent's little stone fronts on Main Street, east of George H. Twitchell's hardware store situated at Eighth and Main streets. George had a splendid family, and these good neighbors lived in A. H. Robie's cottages, the finest in town in the sixties. Today it stands next [north of] the Elks' hall and is but a mere shack in comparison to the thousand built here since. About the year 1875 George Greathouse and George Bayhouse, both old-time pioneers, went to Silver City. There they passed over the great divide, mourned by a host of friends.
    In 1863 Robie, Rossi and Richardson drifted up into the basin country, where they found one of the liveliest mining camps on the Pacific Coast. There were 4000 men working on Buena Vista Bar, where some men were taking out over $100 per day. Ten dollars per day did not count at all during those times. Everybody had money and jolly good times. No sheriffs or tax collectors, everything free as water. There was a big crowd of my old Oregon friends congregated there. Nearly all are gone now. It was in 1864 or 1865 that Robie and Rossi came down to Boise and built a saw mill on a little tributary to Moore's Creek, 12 miles above Boise. Today it is called Robie Creek, where so many people have gone picnicking, hunting and fishing for the past 40 years, and so this creek stands as a lasting monument to Albert H. Robie, one of the best men I ever knew. They had their lumber yards located at Fourth and Main streets, where it still stands today. They afterwards moved the mill up to the Shafer Creek district, 20 miles north, where they worked a big crew of men. Len Richardson was office clerk. Lumber here in 1864 sold for 10 cents per foot[, $100 per M]. In 1872 common rough sold for $40 per thousand[, clear $60]. Later W. B. Morris bought out Robie and ran the business with Mr. Rossi until his death, when it was turned over to his nephew, W. H. Ridenbaugh, who still operates the yard and mill.
    It was in the spring of 1870 that some eastern capitalists got the overland contract for carrying the United States Mail. Parker, Huntley & Barlow came here, bought out John Hailey's Overland Stage Line and established the Northwestern Stage Company, with a young man named Matthews as manager. In 1871 W. B. Morris was sent out and took charge of the whole business. Matthews was made chief clerk. The Northwestern Stage Company bought out and ran all the stage lines in 1870 in the Territory of Idaho, portions of Oregon and Washington, Kelton, Utah, to Boise; Boise to The Dalles via Umatilla and Walla Walla; Boise to Winnemucca via Silver City; Boise to Placerville via Idaho City; Boise to Canyon City, Ore., covering over 1200 miles in all, so you can see they were a pretty stiff company. Hill Beachey, the veteran sheriff of north Idaho, ran the Silver City stage for awhile. I well remember in the sixties there was a man killed in northern Idaho. Beachey, as sheriff, started after the murderer and followed him to Portland. Here the slayer of Mr. Magruder took a steamer for 'Frisco. There was no other steamer leaving for 10 days, but nothing daunted Beachey. He purchased a good saddle horse and started after his man overland. He rode 700 miles to Sacramento. At my place, after a 300-mile ride, he made a short stay and next morning seemed fresh and pushed on to 'Frisco, where he got his man and brought him back. He was tried by jury, and the judge sent him an affectionate invitation to a necktie party, where he could perform on a single string.
    When W. B. Morris came to Boise he was possessed of considerable means and was the most energetic business man that ever came to the town. He was a most indefatigable worker, putting in night and day, and I never knew him to take one night off until [he,] it was in order to patronize the Boise fire department. He purchased a $5 ticket to their masquerade ball, which was held at the Good Templars hall with a sumptuous spread at the Turnverein hall, the best affair ever given here. Mr. Morris and his estimable lady took the character of ye old folks away back in the seventeenth century. They were dressed in the height of fashion, and that night Mr. Morris had the time of his life. Dear good man, why is it that such useful men to a community have to go?
    The Isaac brothers came to Boise in the early sixties and built a toll bridge over the Boise River, also a big flour mill and a distillery. Mr. Morris purchased all this and also Mr. Robie's interest in the lumber business. At that time I think Mr. Morris must have run out of a job, but his energetic instincts would not permit him sitting down or going home and folding his hands, for besides being a benevolent man he was a deep thinker. People thought he was spending his money wildly and had "a little surplus money to throw at the birds," when he conceived the idea of building a canal from the Boise River to irrigate a vast tract of sagebrush land that was considered good for nothing but jackrabbits and coyotes. [An alkali soil] Land which people would not have taken at that time as a gift if they had to pay the taxes on it, and which could have been secured for $1.25 per acre. Today that same land is covered with beautiful orchards and cannot be bought for $500 per acre.
    It was in the summer of 1877 that Mr. Morris conceived the idea of starting that folly, as [Boise] people called it, the building of an irrigation canal. Those same people today can see his foresight, wisdom and judgment. Alexander Rossi, a partner of Mr. Morris, was a practical engineer, and was prevailed upon to make the survey, and I think that he told me he gave it a grade of one-eighth of an inch to the rod. The canal was started on the river bank two miles above town and ran to the top of the bench within two and one-half miles. The [Oregon Short Line] O.S.L. could not possibly get into Boise in 1884 as the grade was too steep, to hear them tell it. In the fall of 1877 the Morris canal was started in earnest. It was pretty dull here then and lots of men were idle; many of them would have gone hungry before spring if they had been unable to get work, and the building of that canal was a godsend to them. Mr. Morris had a little wad and he proposed to scatter seeds of kindness where they would do the most good. He employed all the men and teams he could get and appointed Virgil Lamb as his timekeeper. Lamb at that time lived on the corner where the great six-story Kerr Hardware building is being put today. He could not see to write very well in the evening, and being a near neighbor, he used to come down and have me make out his time checks.
    Mr. Morris crowded work on the canal as fast as possible, but it was not finished until 1878, and he did not live long enough to reap any benefits from his hard labor. At the time Mr. Morris started that canal he did not dream and could not possibly realize that he was sowing the seed and laying the foundation to make Idaho one of the biggest little empires of any state in the Union, but that canal was the starter of what Idaho is today.
    Morris was a dear, good man; no one knows of his innumerable charities or how many a poor devil he pulled out of the rut of despondency and gave a new start. I will give you a little incident of his life which will show his goodness of heart. He was one of the strictest business men I ever knew. He kept close watch over his books. (What a grand president of a bank he would have made.) He was agent for the Wells Fargo Express Company, and one day in running over the accounts he discovered a delinquency. Did he call an officer and have the young man arrested and placed behind the bars and put in stripes, as most cold-blooded business men would do? No, he simply called the young man into his private office and gave him a caudle lecture. He talked to him more kindly than a father would have done, and in a few minutes tears were streaming down both of Billy's cheeks, and he was a reformed young man. Morris said to him: "Billy, you shall retain your position in the office; your wages shall go on just the same, but aside from your living expenses I shall retain the balance of your wages to liquidate your indebtedness to the Wells Fargo Express Company, but be careful in the future and make no more mistakes." Billy promised he would not, and he worked hard and made good all shortage. He married a native Boise girl, and is today living San Francisco, a respected and prominent citizen.
    My dear kind friends, I cannot understand why Morris had to be taken away [while not yet] in the prime of his life when he was so good and did so much for suffering humanity. How much more he could have done had he been permitted to live, and I wonder why it is that so many bank robbers, murderers and grafters that are a menace to humanity at large, and can have no valid or reasonable excuse for existence, still roam over this earth, while some of God's noble men are called over the divide.
    William B. Morris passed away August 23, 1878. His funeral was the largest ever held in Boise, and the floral offerings were the finest I ever saw. His friends here and all the employees of the Northwestern for 100 miles around were in attendance, and it was one of the saddest funerals I ever witnessed. [I am very sorry I have not got a photo wherewith to embellish this article, but Mr. Morris was a very busy man; never had time to have one taken.]
    In conclusion, dear reader, I hope you have not gone to sleep over my long article, which I trust has not been too tiresome, although I realize I am no writer, but just an old fogey in my dotage. I was 10 years old before matches were made, and burned tallow dips and lard in a cast iron saucer with a rag for a wick. There were no free public schools in my day. My last "skule" days were in Chicago. Sam Bennette was my teacher, and the school was at State and Madison streets. It was during the years 1842-3. I was the chief dunce in the school, having an impediment in my speech, my mouth balking whenever I wanted to say anything, so I was not allowed to get up on the floor with a class. I never could learn anything; I was always too much taken up with pretty girls, which I thought were the prettiest things on earth except a full-rigged ship. I still hold that opinion today, except in regards to the ship. My grammar was illustrated with cuts of a penknife. There were some 75 boys in that school, many of whom in after years were the chief factors in the upbuilding of the great city of Chicago. Nearly all have crossed the great divide. There was Lewis [A.] Kimberly, a natural-born sailor, who in after years was made a rear admiral. He wrote me a very nice letter from his home near Boston during the war in Cuba. Jim Ballentine, the well-known stock raiser of Boise, was also a member of that school. Both are dead now.
    Out of the membership of the old volunteer fire department, which I joined in 1845, I believe I am the only survivor, as I have been unable to locate any of the other members, and I kept in pretty close touch with them until recent years. At that time we had two hand engines, and all our other apparatus was crude.
    I have endeavored to give a brief history of the pioneers and upbuilders of southern Idaho and Oregon, but I cannot remember the names of more that one out of a hundred of my old friends who have passed away. Among those who were identified with the upbuilding of this great empire were[, in Jackson]: Colonel John E. Ross, whom I knew in Chicago; Colonel Foudray, Mike Hanley, Chambers, John Love, Colonel T'Vault, Ambrose, Hardin, Sim Oldham, Dr. Cleaveland, Dr. Rose, Bill Bybee, H. Klippel, Huffman, Burpee, Judge Tolman, Henry Judge, [Josephine Gow,] George E. Briggs, George A. Logan, Althouse, Kerby, Doc Holton, J. V. R. Witt, Harkness brothers; [in] Umpqua, Barney E. Simmons, John Redfield, John Fortune, Hardy and Tom Elliff, Dan Levens, the Joe Knott family, John Fullerton, Abe Gazley, Sam Gordon, John Boyle, Sol Abrahams, Asher Marks, Aaron Rose, Merritt, Oppenheimer, [&] Thompson, General Joe Lane, Creed Floed, L. F. Mosher, Waltons, Perrys, Jones, Dick Dearborn, Bradbury, Colonel Joseph Hooker, a Massachusetts Yankee, who built one of our first roads and was a well-known general in the Civil War in 1862; [in] Willamette, Applegates, [Jesse, brother & families,] Captain Jim Nesmith, who won his rank in 1853, was made colonel in 1855, and was later a United States Senator; Thomas J. Dryer, who first started the Oregonian [and was a good old-line Whig]; Henry Corbett, a United States Senator from [our country, Troy, N.Y.] Portland (the last time I saw him was in the Chicago convention which nominated Grant for President and Colfax for Vice President); Attorney General George H. Williams; Dave Thompson, who surveyed my ranch in Southern Oregon in 1854; Al Thompson, his brother, who for many years was a surveyor in Boise; and there was John McBride, a promising young lawyer from the land of the webfoot. He came down south in the month of May, 1854, stumping the Territory, as he wanted to be a delegate to Congress on the Whig ticket. This was the first election ever held in Southern Oregon, which was all Jackson County then. The Whigs carried the county[, but, sorry to say, it has gone as its name indicates ever since]. I next met Judge John R. McBride in Boise in 1870. He was superintendent during the construction of the United States assay office. He lived here for many years and his brother-in-law, [Alanson] Smith, a lawyer, died here many years ago. Some years ago McBride wrote a very clever article on the early settlement of Silver City and the battle for gold, where Marion Moore, Lockhart and others were killed. Hill Beachey and many others mixed in the fray. [In the manuscript Twogood appends a reference: "Pioneer Dept., Sunday Statesman, May 22, '10."]
    Creed Floed of Roseburg married General Joe Lane's daughter. His two sons, Fred and [M. W.] Floed, are [publishing the Boise Citizen here] citizens of Boise today. George Haynes, a partner of Creed Floed, was one of those jolly, whole-souled, big-hearted, congenial sort of chaps that it was a pleasure to know. He passed away a few years ago. Judge S. F. Chadwick and A. R. Flint, who ran the land office; John D. Bowen, S. W. Crane, father of A. A. Crane of north Idaho; Howe, George and LeRoy Whitmore and hundreds of others whose names I have forgotten, have all crossed the great divide and, looking back over the past years and seeing the ranks of the pioneers thinning annually, makes me feel lonesome.
    My thinker is getting decidedly defective, but I want to live long enough to write up the big Indian war of 1855-56 from its beginning on October 9, 1855, to its close in June, 1856. It was the biggest war on the Pacific Coast, and, incidentally, about that time I had a thrilling ride for life. There were several hundred white men killed and wounded and quite a number of women. I guess I am the only one left who can write up this war from the southern part, as our place at that time was in the center, and was headquarters for the Southern Battalion and was known as Fort Leland.
    Now, to go back to the Ridenbaugh canal. That ditch caused lots of expense and trouble last year. The dirt embankment directly south of the city gave way and washed out for a long distance. A big force of men and teams was put to work night and day until the gap was filled up and the water again turned in, when down it came again, and the shortage of water caused by the two breaks caused the ranchmen in this section to lose about [ten or] $15,000 in crops. It was then decided to fix the place right, and early this spring a big force of men and teams was put to work shaping the banks to line them with cement. It required about as much work to get the banks in shape as it did to put in the cement, as they had to be slanted on an angle of about 45 degrees. Some 12 to 18 teams were employed hauling sand, gravel and cement by the carload. After everything was in readiness for the cement work it stormed for about 10 days and nothing could be accomplished, yet the contract called for the completion of the job on April 20, and the time was fast approaching. It began to look bad for the contractors, but everything went all right, and with a big force of men the job was finished on time. All the available men that could be mustered were put to work. There were fully 100 men on the job and the expenses were $1000 per day. Concrete mixers were located at each end of the gap and no time was lost. The men worked every Sunday, and arc lights were put over the canal, the wires being strung from [dry cedar poles] trees, and a force worked at night. The canal is now 10 feet wide on the bottom and 31 feet 6 inches across the top. I took a view of the work on April 18 and there was still a big gap to fill, and I did not think it possible to complete the work on the date agreed upon, but a few minutes before midnight on April 20 the last trowel of cement was put on the bottom, and a finer or more beautiful job of cement work has never been done in the [state of Idaho] Northwest. In all 4064 feet of cement was put in, and next spring it is proposed to put in 9000 feet more, thus eliminating all possible chances for further breaks in the big canal.
    [In conclusion, gentle reader, I think you have been bored to a sufficiency. Many people don't object to being bored by a two-inch auger, but draw the line at a gimlet. As I only use a corkscrew, I hope to be excused.] My thinker is beginning to desert me at the age of 84, but if the lamp holds out I will write up one more piece, "A Ride for Life," which I will illustrate with cuts of my [jackknife] penknife, as illustrations are a fad and no newspaper or magazine article is complete without them.
   It was in the summer of 1850 that James A. Pinney, in company with his father, left Iowa and crossed the plains to California. Later Mr. Pinney drifted up into Southern Oregon, Jacksonville, just as the Rogue River country began to settle up. He ran a pack train to Crescent City, on the coast, for some time.
    In the summer of 1854 he joined a volunteer company in Jacksonville, consisting of 90 men and 50 packs under command on Captain Jesse Walker, B. F. Dowell and others, to go out on the plains to escort in emigrants. They started out east via Klamath and Goose lakes and through the Modoc country, were out all summer and helped many people who were short on rations, and saved many a family from being massacred by the treacherous redskins. Jackson sent out a second train with provisions, the most humane expedition ever got up by the good people of Southern Oregon. For his summer work Mr. Pinney received the munificent sum of $50 from the Territory.
    In the early spring of 1863 J. A. Pinney, Uncle Dick Tregaskus and Ruf Johnson left Jackson for the north with three pack trains of 20 mules each--60 mules and a bell horse. As this was the biggest train ever on the road, it created quite an excitement through the Umpqua and Willamette valleys. Arriving at Portland, they all shipped on the steamer for the upper country. At Umatilla they loaded with general merchandise for the basin country. Mr. Pinney stopped at Idaho City, started building stores, of which he built three, and sent his train back after more goods.
    Uncle Dick settled in Silver City, Owyhee country. It will be remembered by the old-timers that he was elected a member of the Idaho parliament in the early seventies. That winter Dick had the time of is life. I well remember Dick was stylishly dressed and wore a plug hat. His wife, a society woman, was well gowned, and they were the guests of banker Moore. Poor Dick, he seemed to strike a streak of hard luck and he, too, has gone to join the silent majority.
    Mr. Pinney was in the mercantile business, doing well up to 1867, when that great disastrous fire came and nearly wiped Idaho City off the face of the earth. He was appointed postmaster at Idaho City in 1864, and resigned in 1872. He came down to Boise in 1869, bought out the Ben Lamkin book store and placed his then partner, Charley Blake, in charge. The post office was then in the store, and that and the Overland Hotel, kept by Captain Griffin, were the two most prominent places in Boise during the seventies.
   Thomas E. Logan was the postmaster for many years, but when John Hailey was made delegate to Congress, I think in 1872, he had John A. Post made postmaster, and he made the best we ever had. Mr. Pinney closed out in Idaho City and came to Boise to live permanently in 1870. He was elected mayor four or five times, and made one of the best Boise ever had. It was while Mr. Pinney was mayor that he purchased an 80-acre tract of land with a perpetual water right for $2000 for the home and resting place of our dear departed city of the dead. He called it the Morris Hill Cemetery, and it will ever stand and be the lasting monument to one of the most noble, generous, kind-hearted men that ever came to the Territory of Idaho.
    Mr. Pinney built a theater in Idaho City, where many of the old-timers played in the sixties, J. B. Robinson, Julia Dean Hayne, Fred and Sue Getzler and many others that I saw in Chicago in 1848. This playhouse was wiped out by fire.
    Mr. Pinney ran the largest book and music store in Idaho for many years. In 1868 Good Templar Hall (size of a sluice box) was the biggest and best for assemblies in Boise. Many good theatrical attractions were booked there, including the territorial legislature.
    The legislators those days were the good old rugged pioneers, imbued with a little solid horse sense. That is more than can be said of our Ninth session that enacted that beautiful Sunday rest law. This is the bitterest pill that a free American people was ever force to swallow. The idea that one can't buy a loaf of bread, peach, plum or pear on Sunday is carrying the joke a little too far. There will come a reaction someday. It looks on the face of it as though this law was gotten up by a lot of fanatics to force the people to go to church. They seemed to lose sight of the old saw that says, "You may lead a horse to water, but you can't force him to drink." Church and state were badly mixed up in Rome and Spain, and in France they are reaping the benefit. It certainly never should be tolerated by a free American people.
    It was in the year 1887 that Boise had outgrown the wooden buildings, and Peter Sonna put up our first brick opera house, on the corner of Ninth and Main streets. Mr. Pinney was manager for several years, but the population increased soon and got too large for a small house, and in 1892 Mr. Pinney built the Columbia on his home block, Eighth and Jefferson. This theater cost $35,000, and was one of the most substantial, well put up and convenient little playhouses west of the Rockies. The acoustics were perfect; none better except the Mormon Temple at Salt Lake, commonly called the Beehive. This, I am told, is the best in the world.
    The Columbia had a seating capacity of 850. The new house was opened by Julia Marlowe, December 11, 1892. The gross receipts were $1113. Many people stayed away because they thought the building was not safe. Since then on Decoration Day of the Grand Army Mr. Pinney always gave them the free use as long as the building lasted. There was every year a full house. In the aisles every foot of standing room would be utilized and we would have as many as 1200 people in the house and it did not fall down.
    The theater staff at that time was James A. Pinney, owner and manager; W. S. Walker, treasurer; M. L. Twogood, stage carpenter; Oden Athey, seating director; Robert Stringer, janitor and bill poster, and J. H. Twogood, door keeper and correspondent of the New York Dramatic Mirror. Of the old stock, Pinney, Stringer and the subscriber are all there are left.
    Alex McPherson built the Columbia. It was one of the best-constructed buildings in Boise. He also built the city hall the same year, 1892, under Mayor Pinney's administration. And the city hall is one of the best-built buildings in Boise today. McPherson built better than he figured on, went broke, locked his tool chest, and another good mechanic was out of the ring. In the spring of 1908 Mr. Pinney sold his home block of twelve 50-foot lots to a hotel syndicate, moved across the street and put up a most magnificent playhouse, with a seating capacity of 1400, the best house on the road, and called it the Pinney.
    Note--This is the last write up of 1851, from the fact that there is no one left to write it.
James H. Twogood Papers, Newberry Library.  Transcribed by Dale Greenley from an undated full-page newspaper clipping, apparently from the Idaho Statesman, printed shortly after August 1910. The Newberry also preserves Twogood's manuscript of the article; edits have been inserted into the newspaper article in brackets or struck out to better reflect Twogood's original intent. Also serialized in the Jacksonville Post, beginning November 19, 1910.

    The news that death had claimed Mrs. James H. Twogood Monday morning was received with sorrow by her many friends in the city that has been her home for more than 30 years. Mrs. Twogood has been seriously ill for the past six weeks. She rallied somewhat about three weeks ago, and her daughter, Mrs. Loring, who had been sent for, returned to her home at Portland. A week ago Mrs. Twogood again became critically ill, and her daughter arrived New Year's night in time to see her mother a few hours before she died.
    Mrs. Twogood's illness appeared to be stomach trouble, and her suffering was intense. Mrs. Twogood was Miss Permelia A. Custer, one of a family of 10. She was born at Monroeton, Penn. January 25, 1837. She moved to Cedar Rapids in 1860 and was married to James Twogood at the home of his younger sister, Mrs. J. F. Hervey, at Marion, Iowa, June 17, 1863. The bride and groom started at once for their new home in Southern Oregon, going by way of Chicago, New York and the Isthmus for San Francisco, from there taking a 400-mile stage ride to their Oregon home, where they lived until 1866, when they returned with their two boys to Rockford, Ill., by way of San Francisco and the Isthmus. They remained here for four years and then came to Boise October 1, 1870.
    At one time in the '70s there were five sisters of the Custer family living in Boise. The oldest, Mrs. J. M. Betts, came in 1863; Mrs. Amos T. Bennett, Mrs. E. R. Sherman and Mrs. Thomas Healey coming later. They are all gone now except Mrs. Sherman, who lives at Spokane.
    Mrs. Twogood leaves a husband, J. H. Twogood, one of the well-known pioneers, and two children, Mrs. Carrie Twogood Loring and Merritt Twogood. The body was taken to Schreiber & Sidenfaden's parlors Monday and will be brought back to the family home, 1110 Idaho Street, this morning. The funeral will be held from Schreiber & Sidenfaden's chapel Wednesday at high noon. Bishop Funsten will officiate. Mrs. Twogood affiliated with the Episcopal Church in 1871, receiving communion from Bishop Tuttle. Interment will be at "Elk's Rest," at Morris Hill.
Idaho Statesman, Boise, January 3, 1911, page 7


Editor of Post,
    In my last I forgot to thank you for printing my last write. Received yours of 24, think it's good reading.
    Enclosed please find book of stamps; will you kindly send me a few extra copies of the 24th.
    Wife taken dangerously ill six weeks ago with stomach trouble, can't eat, and is getting weaker every day. I hardly expect she will last the year out. We were married in Iowa, June 17, 1863. Took steamer in New York, across the Isthmus to Frisco, stage from Sacramento to Grave Creek. Landed in August 1863. Returned to Chicago Sept. via Frisco 1866. Came to Boise in '70.
Jacksonville Post, October 7, 1911, page 3

    James H. Twogood, the oldest correspondent in point of age attached to The Mirror staff, and a pioneer of Idaho and Oregon, died shortly after five o'clock Saturday morning, Jan. 25, at his home in Boise City, Idaho. Mr. Twogood, better known to a large circle of friends as "Uncle Jimmie," was born at Troy, N.Y., July 12, 1826. In 1837 he settled in Chicago with his parents and there received his early education. In 1850 he crossed the plains and located the Grave Creek Ranch in Rogue River Valley, Oregon, in 1851. During the Indian wars of 1853 and 1855-56 he was an enlisted volunteer, and took an active part in the fierce battles against the Indians. In 1870 he made his permanent home in Boise, and contributed many important articles on the early history of the West.
    The Boise Capital News of Jan. 25 says: "He was prominent in the Capital City Lodge No. 310. Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, in which he held the office of tyler. Since 1892 he had been correspondent for the New York Dramatic Mirror and was a conspicuous figure in all the theaters in the city, even to the picture shows, and he continued his correspondence until a short time ago.
    "Mr. Twogood is survived by two children, Merritt L. Twogood and Mrs. Robert Loring, of Boise, and four sisters, Mrs. M. L. Satterlee, of Chicago, who is past ninety years of age; Mrs. S. P. Jones, of Jacksonville, Oregon; Mrs. J. H. Hervy, of Riverside, Cal., and Mrs. Sarah Chapin, of Rockford, Ill. He also leaves a brother, W. L. Twogood, of Los Angeles. The funeral will be held tomorrow afternoon at 2:30 o'clock at the Elks Hall, at Seventh and Idaho streets. The body will lie in state at the hall from 10 o'clock in the morning until the funeral service. Burial will be in Elks' Rest in Morris Hill Cemetery."
The New York Dramatic Mirror, February 4, 1913, page 17

    The post office of Leland, on Grave Creek, had the largest and best stockade on the road. James Twogood was the postmaster. The Indians killed his partner Harkness. The Indians called Twogood Jimmy Mox (Two) Close (Good), and it was said that a young squaw gave Jimmy a warning of the Indian outbreak at the risk of her own life. I think I told you before how Grave Creek got its name.
    Leland was one of the chief rendezvous and harbors of safety for the whites during the war.

    Paul W. Michaels of Woodside, N.Y., who is writing a history of the Harkness family, left Grants Pass Sunday, after spending several days here seeking information regarding members of the Harkness family, particularly McDonough Harkness, his great uncle, who was killed by Indians in the war of 1855 and 1856.
    Some years ago, Michaels had learned from the Daily Courier's Golden Anniversary issue, published in 1935, many of the details of the death of Harkness. Harkness had accompanied a military dispatch rider, named Wagner or Wagoner, from headquarters at Fort Leland, which at that time was at Grave Creek, to the command of General Wood [sic] near The Meadows.
    The two men left Fort Leland just after dark on April 27, 1856 [there's no agreement among contemporary sources as to the exact date], and were not molested until they were within a couple of miles of the soldiers' camp at Lower Meadows. Harkness was riding in the lead, when Indians rose on the upper side of the trail and fired on him. His horse, struck in the neck, whirled and threw him. Harkness' horse ran back past Wagner, exciting Wagner's mount, which turned back. Wagner, wounded, returned to Fort Leland.
    Soldiers at The Meadows heard the firing and came out to find Harkness dead. A section of his chest had been torn out, his heart cut out and hung on a bush, his legs slashed and otherwise mutilated. He had been scalped and stripped of all clothing. His body was buried where it fell. It was later buried at the fort, opposite the present Sunny Valley school house. Relatives later removed the body to the Pioneer Cemetery, where it has remained.
    Visiting the Pioneer Cemetery between Ninth and Tenth streets in north Grants Pass Sunday, Michaels found a moss-covered marble headstone with the inscription "McDonough Harkness, Killed by Indians, April 21, 1856, aged 39 years 4 months 5 days." On the reverse side of the stone, another inscription reads "Morris M. Harkness, born December 2, 1811, died April 5, 1892."
    In a Saturday interview with a Leland pioneer, Mr. Goff, Michaels learned that Harkness' heart had been buried in an unknown spot and his scalp had been seen hanging from a pole in the Indian camp. While Harkness' body had found three burial places, his heart and scalp rested elsewhere.
    Michaels found that the present Grave Creek House, now unrecognizable because of extensive remodeling during the past 100 years, is the original building which his uncle operated as a stage stop. He learned that it originally had boasted two bars, each with a large fireplace, one for women and the other for men.