Modoc County Record
Centennial Edition
1874 ~ 1974
Goose Lake Settlers
Henderson Family Recollections
(Picture)
Martin Henderson – Early Modoc Settler
Lewis Henderson says he walked ahead of the wagons and threw the rocks out
of the road when his family came to Modoc County in 1870. He was only six
years old then, and after seventy-one years the rocks in the trail are the
chief things he remembers about the long trek over the Cascades and across
the sagebrush plateaus down into the Goose Lake Valley.
Martin and Elizabeth Ellis Henderson, his parents, came from Jackson County,
Mo., over the old Oregon Trail to the Willamette Valley in 1852. They
settled near Corvallis, and Lewis Martin, ninth in a family of 12 children,
was born there on July 30, 1864. Only one child, Edgar, who is still living
at Davis Creek, was born after the family came to Modoc.
They settled a little to the northwest of the present site of Davis Creek on
land which was later to become part of the Lakeshore Cattle Company’s
holdings. Hendersons must have found it a good place to live, for, being
true pioneers, they would have grass knee-deep to stock. The antelope were
everywhere and exulted in the freedom of living in a large valley where only
three other families had settled.
Joseph Ross had been first. He entered the valley in 1867, taken up the
land which is now the Longwell place. McJiltons followed in 1868 and set up
a station north of Davis Creek which became a stop-over for freight teams.
Another family the Lovells, where in the valley at that time. With the
exception of these three families the Hendersons had the beautiful, swift
stretch from the full lake o the blue Warners to themselves.
Goose Lake, then thirty-six miles long and fourteen miles across at its
widest point, must have furnished many amusements as well as chores for the
Henderson children. When he was a little boy, Lewis helped drive hogs to
and from pasture on an island near the shore. The hogs would swim out to
the island and stay until someone came to drive them back across the water.
In the winter of 1872-73 Captain jack and his renegade braves were forted up
in the Lava Beds, and on clear, frosty mornings the boomings of the U.S.
soldier’s cannons could be heard by the settlers at Davis Creek. All the
fear of the Indians which he settlers naturally felt then, was doubly real
to Lewis, a little boy of eight, and he remembers that one day during the
war he was sent to the hills for wood in the company of an Indian his father
had hired. They had gone only about a quarter of a mile when the little boy
started thinking things over and became frightened. He was on the seat
beside the Indian when he decided he wasn’t safe. Warily he clambored down
into the box and edged then inch by inch to the back of the wagon. When
close enough for safety, he leaped out and ran for home as fast as he could
go.
Lewis spent his first school days in a log house with a dirt floor. His
fist teacher was Miss Sutton, a sister of Mrs. William Groves and an aunt of
Mrs. Ida Clark and Billy Groves of Davis Creek.
In 1875 his family moved to a ranch on Davis Creek near the foothills. This
farm, long known as the old Henderson place, is now owned by Alpha Henderson
a nephew of Lewis.
In January 1887 he married Minnie A. Taylor, whose family had bought the
Joseph Ross ranch. They were married at the Davis Creek church. John
Southerland minister of the Church of Christ, of which Lewis was a member
performed the ceremony. Mr. Henderson states that in those days a minister
thought nothing of walking twenty miles to a service.
For several years after his marriage he worked for different ranches, among
hem Stanley & Berry and Carlson E. Crowder, foreman of the Lakeshore Cattle
Company. He supported his growing family on wages which usually mounted to
little more than thirty dollars a month.
In 1910 he embarked in the Hotel business, moving his family to the Pioneer
Hotel in Lake City and from there to the Lakeside Hotel in New Pine Creek.
He owned this business during 1911 and 1912, the peak of the High Grade gold
rush. After selling the hotel he returned to Davis Creek and resumed work
for Carson Crowder. When the Lakeshore ranch was sold, the Company gave
Mr. Henderson a Howard watch. On the case was engraved, “L. M. Henderson –
for long and faithful service – Lakeshore Cattle Co.”
Mr. Henderson has been a well known Modoc County political figure. He was a
school trustee at Davis Creek from 1895 to 1900. Later he was Justice of
the Peace for one year, resigning when elected Supervisor from the third
district in 1916. He served in this capacity for twelve years, during which
time the canyon road from the Surprise Railroad station to the Joseph Creek
ranch was constructed.
In 1916 Lewis purchased the McKinney house in Davis Creek where he ran a
hotel for many years. At that time they had five children, one boy and four
girls. Three small daughters had been lost in the terrible diphtheria
epidemic of 1909.
In 1920 Mrs. Henderson was commissioned Postmistress and served seventeen
and one half years with her husband acting as her assistant.
Until they moved to Alturas a short time later, their home in Davis Creek
was a favorite gathering place for the Henderson’s friends, as well as
friends of their children and grandchildren. Days and evenings in that
house, filled with laughter and music, good food and good talk, will long be
remembered by many people.
~~~~~~
Billie C. & Anita 'Jean' Reynolds
(Our Family Genealogy)
http://www.rh2o.com
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