Modoc County Biographies

Martin Henderson

Submitted by Billie C. & Anita 'Jean' Reynolds(Our Family Genealogy)http://www.rh2o.com 

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

 

MARTIN HENDERSON 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.  Henderson's 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.  McJilton's followed in 1868 and set up a 
station north of Davis Creek which became a stop-over for freight teams. Another family, 
the Lovell's, were in the valley at that time.  With the exception of these three 
families the Henderson's had the beautiful, swift stretch from the full lake of the blue 
Warner's 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 the 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 first 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 them 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.