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Published: August 2nd 2017
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HENRY
Henry eventually lost his home in Eagle Valley due to 20 years of back taxes owed the State of Nevada. He tried to prevail upon Brigham Young to pay the tax debt out of Church funds, but Brigham refused to become involved in a secular dispute. Before it was over with Henry got himself ex-communicated and moved clear up to the Wallowa Valley in northeastern Oregon. It was land that had been the ancestral home to Chief Joseph's band of Nez Perce. In 1888 a diphtheria epidemic blew through the Wallowa Valley and killed Henry's wife and three of his children. CANFIELD Underway at 0645 am. The impoverished little town of Caliente has a restaurant called the Branding Iron but it only can afford to open three days a week and Tuesday is not one of them. I missed my breakfast, got no coffee and left town a bit surly. There is another little eating place called the Silver Café up in Pioche. It is open six days a week, but Tuesday is not one of them. The reason for choosing this route up Hwy 93 was to visit the little community of Eagle Valley. My other great-great grampa, Henry K. Chamberlain, was a pioneer settler there and I was hoping to find a friendly Mormon to show me around the old fort, and maybe see where Henry raised his family. They were all peacefully slumbering though, the store was closed, and they were not much concerned about a wayward Gentile in their midst. Left there still hungry and surly and it is over a hundred miles to the closet eating place in Ely. I determined to pull in to the first eating place I found there. It turned out to be Taco Time. My cousin, Lori, will be
EAGLE VALLEY
The Mormon pioneers needed a fort to protect themselves from marauding Paiutes upon whose ancestral land they were trespassing. The fort was located in the trees in the background near the mouth of the canyon. smiling at this up there in Heaven when she sees this. One of her iron-clad road trip rules is that when you see the first Taco Time you must stop there. I had four tacos and some Mexi Fries for breakfast. A fine meal like that will sit heavy in your gut and make you glad enough to not eat anything more for several long hours. I stopped off in Glenn’s Ferry, ID to locate and photograph the grave of the outlaw, Charlie Canfield. Charlie was a horse thief, a horse killer, a murderer of Chinamen, and robber but other than that he was a handy blacksmith. Charlie wasn’t even his real name. The good folks of Idaho have bumped up the speed limit on I-84 to 80 mph. Good God those old potato farmers are driving like maniacs on it. Somebody ought to nuke Boise. There are altogether too damn many people living there now. I turned off of the Interstate onto Hwy 55 through Meridian, but there just as many damn fools there as there are in Boise. Warm up the Enola Gay. Hwy 55 runs up the Payette River and is a gorgeous drive, but not if
CANFIELD
His real name was J. Titus Canfield. His pals took to calling him Tighty. you are tired of driving and looking for a motel. Did not find one until I got clear up to Donnelly. Local time was about 8 pm, which is late for those little Idaho mountain communities. Went in to a pizza joint for supper and they told me that they were slap out of dough for making another dang pizza, but they would fix me a hamburger. Glad to get it. My hearty breakfast had finally worn itself out.
Henry K. Chamberlain Henry prospered in the Wallowa Valley. He settled down adjoining the land taken by Joseph Johnson Oliver and acquired nearly 500 acres of good farm land. He put in a sawmill on Bear Creek to supply lumber needed in a growing community. His son Frank put in an irrigation canal known to this day as the Chamberlain Ditch. The Olivers and the Chamberlains soon became fast friends. Frank married an Oliver daughter named May, and our great grampa, Henry William Oliver married Ella Chamberlain. Henry and Ella moved up the river to Joseph, OR where Henry had taken a job as school teacher. They quickly produced a yowling infant named Glen, and then three months later diphtheria took the lives of both Ella and Franklin, as well their mother. Lucy, and another sister named and Emelie. Ella was only 18 years old. Henry buried his family in unmarked graves at the Bramlet Cemetery, sold his property and moved with his only surviving daughter, Lucinda, to California. They are buried in Ione.
The Chinese Massacre. In 1887 Canfield and a pal of his Bruce Evans stole some horses from an Imnaha Valley rancher named Nodine. The horse thieves, and their gang of schoolkids, tried without success to cross the Snake River at the mouth of Deep Creek where some Chinamen were placering gold. In what seemed like a good idea at the time the Evans Gang decided to murder and rob the ten Chinamen present, and throw the bodies into the river by way of a decent Christian burial. By the time the first of those bodies washed up on a sandbar near Lewiston 24 other Chinamen had disappeared. In the meantime Nodine had pressed charges against Evans and Canfield for stealing his horses. The two culprits were indicted on those charges a week after the massacre on Deep Creek. They made bail and prudently skipped town after burying the stolen gold. Before Canfield left the area he dug up the hidden booty and buried it where Evans could not later find it and then he shot Nodine's prize stallion and all of the pregnant mares he could see in the pasture. Evans was heard from nevermore again in Wallowa County, but Canfield got himself arrested down in Kansas and served a stretch of ten years in the state prison. While there he learned the blacksmith trade. When he got out of jail in Kansas he dug up the stolen gold, changed his name from Titus to Charlie, moved his parents to a ranch near Glenn's Ferry, and took a bride named Jenny. Together they raised a boisterous family and were well thought of the community.
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