McKercher Mill
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In 1887, John H. McKercher traveled from Canada to the Calapooia River east of Brownsville. John's ancestors had been millers in Scotland. In 1888, Duncan McKercher, his wife, and their sons, Daniel V. and John M. McKercher, came to Oregon and settled east of Brownsville. About 1890, Daniel and his uncle John H. McKercher purchased the Finley mill, then called the Oxford Mill, and Dan ran the mill. John H. McKercher died on May 11, 1895, leaving a wife and son. So the mill was managed and operated by Dan. Based on newspaper clippings, recollections in 1937 and a personal interview, Patricia (Hoy) Hainline gives the details [with some paragraphs combined here] that she and Margaret (Standish) Carey pieced together of how Dan's brother, John, inherited the mill.
". . . Dan McKercher, 24, was a young Canadian bachelor from Winnipeg who had worked in the mill before finally buying it. His brother, John McKercher, lived with his wife and children including their young daughter Florence, on a 200-acre farm a few miles up Courtney Creek.
"John Montgomery, 44, and his wife Elizabeth, 40, owned a hopyard halfway between Crawfordsville and Brownsville. Their son, Lloyd, was 19. John's father, Robert Montgomery, was a pioneer of 1847, and he and his wife, Evaline Brown Montgomery, lived in a house still standing, east of Montgomery Butte, now called Thornton Butte. Through his mother, Eveline, John was a grandson of Hugh Brown one of Brownsville's founding fathers. This would make his son Lloyd a great-grandson of Hugh Brown.
"It was on the afternoon of November 19, 1895, when young Lloyd Montgomery murdered his father and his mother, and Dan McKercher. Young McKercher was murdered simply becomes he happened to be there. John Montgomery owed him some money, so upon hearing that Montgomery received payment for his hops, Dan McKercher rode his white horse the few miles from the little grist mill on the Calapooia to the Montgomery farm.
"The story was told to us in 1977 by Dan McKercher's niece, Florence, whose father, John, inherited the mill after his brother's murder and ran it for many years. The story also appeared in newspapers of the day, in lurid detail. Florence was seven years old at the time of the tragedy, and even 82 years later, when she told us the story she became, upset over the telling. [She operated the McKercher Store in Crawfordsville for severaI years.] She died in 1980 at age 92.
"'He didn't have a thing against my uncle, not a thing,' said Miss McKercher, 'but he was just standing there. It appears that Lloyd Montgomery was a troublemaker. His uncle, Hugh Montgomery, brother of the murdered John Montgomery, told interviewer Leslie Haskin in 1937 that Lloyd was 'a spoiled, unruly youngster.'
Finley/McKercher Mill [Now McKercher Park]
Lloyd was caught before he could escape to Eastern Oregon [where he intended to kill seven other people], tried in Albany and hanged. The McKercher family was given the noose as a souvenir of this, the last public hanging in Linn County. Robert and Elizabeth Montgomery were buried in the McHargue cemetery between Brownsville and McKercher Park. Florence concluded her comments by saying, "And that's the reason my dad had to take over the mill." {"An 1895 Triple Murder", Northwest Passages, March/April 1995} [This sounds similar to the May 21, 1998 incident in Springfield, Oregon, where a student shot his parents and several students at Thurston High School.] For a time the mill was known as Calapooia Mill. One of these flour sacks is in the Linn County Historical Museum at Brownsville.
The Albany Democrat-Herald for May 28, 1948, contained a page 1 article telling about the mill that was mostly correct. "The picturesque building was erected by Dick Finley and R. Cuncle, early Linn County pioneers, who operated it at top speed during the California gold rush, when grain was brought from as far as northern California to be ground Into flour, for this was the only grist mill then in the Oregon Territory within reach of the goldseekers. Grain was packed in on the backs of horses and mules.
"In those days the mill was powered by a water wheel, motivated by a flume Ieading from a log dam which had been constructed immediately above the mill, and which stands today as it did then. . .
"The original mill was equipped with slow-grinding store burrs, which have been preserved by the McKercher family, but the new owner replaced them with machinery which was modern then, and he substituted a turbine for the water wheel. [A few years ago a millstone was found in the McKercher field opposite the present McKercher Park. It is still in the field.]
Concerning John McKercher, the July 4, 1974 issue of The Times of Brownsville noted that, "He was night miller at Thompson's during World War I." John's death on February 9, 1943, is noted in his obituary. "Since 1847 the wheel of the old water [powered] mill at Crawfordsville has been turning the machinery to grind out flour and feed and saw wood. Today the old mill wheel is silent because the miller has gone away. He, like other millers before him, who opened the gate to the turbine to let the rushing water in, who poured the grain into the gate to the hoppers of the great millstone, who adjusted the screws to the rolls that ground out the flour, has dusted off his cap and jacket and slipped down that westward trail that leads to the land of the far off forever." {Linn County Historical Museum, Finley file}
Prize Winner
The Times article continued. "For nearly half [a] century John McKercher kept the old mill in operation. In late years the mill ground only feed and meal. Competition of large mills made it unprofitable to grind flour. However, at the Lewis and Clark exposition in Portland in 1905, John McKercher carried off the gold medal in producing the finest flour in the world contest. ["It was before the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition of 1905, a World's Fair in Portland to celebrate the explorations of a century earlier by Meriweather Lewis and William Clark. John McKercher was at work in one part of the mill, his wife in another, when two strangers arrived. They told John that they had come for samples of his flour to take to the Fair, but he sent them away, saying he wasn't interested, that he didn't produce any of the fancy flours, only plain ordinary flour for his customers. Mrs. McKercher, who had been listening, stopped the men as they left, and took them to another part of the mill where she found some flour samples. Nothing was said to John, and the incident was soon forgotten. Later in the year when a package arrived for McKercher, he was surprised to discover a gold medal and a certificate. John McKercher's flour had won first prize at the World's Fair against competition from Australia, Canada and several other countries. It was the best flour in the world." {The Times of Brownsville}]
"When the writer [Ben Maxwell] came to this country 34 years ago, our first sack of flour was at the door of the old mill, from John McKercher. It was good flour - none better.
"John McKercher was born at Utica, Province of Ontario, Canada, Sept. 26, 1857. When 12 years of age he moved with his parents to the Red River valley of Manitoba. He was the first white child in that part of the country and became friendly with the Indians and always remained their friend.
"In 1881 he was united in marriage to Sophia Farrell of Winnipeg, Manitoba [Canada]. To this union was born four children: Duncan F., Florence and Mrs. Isabella [Anna] Braden, of Crawfordsville, Ore., and Wallace of Junction City, all surviving, including a granddaughter, Pauline McKercher of Junction City, Ore. [Duncan died on August 1, 1944; Wallace on May 23, 1947 and Florence on March 1, 1980.]
"John McKercher came to Oregon in 1887 and had resided at his home just across the road [Highway 228] from the old mill for 49 years.
". . . He was a faithful member of the Presbyterian church. Mrs. McKercher passed on October 26, 1928." [John McKercher had operated the mill until he was past 80, then closed the mill shortly before his death] {Linn County Historical Museum in Brownsville, McKercher file}
About 4:00 o'clock on a Tuesday afternoon in May 1948, the 87-year-old Finley/McKercher Mill collapsed near the site of the first mill built 101 years earlier by R. C. Finley. "The structure had apparently just become tired, witnesses said, for the walls caved in without visible cause, on a quiet, sunny afternoon, and crashed to the ground from under the roof, which was left sprawling over the debris. [Another account says, "It collapsed in a wind storm and fell over in May 1948."
"The fold-up obliterated one of Linn County's landmarks, which had stood since 1847 on the north bank of the Calapooia river a scant mile west of the present site of Crawfordsville." [In a September 6, 1994, interview with Neil Farwell, who lived on the Richard Farwell's Donation Land Claim just west of the Boston Mill, Martin E. Thompson learned that, "Equipment was removed from the McKercher Mill and relocated to the Boston Mill for use as spare parts.]
Miller Morgan married Elizabeth Helmick on December 16 1846, in Des Moines County, Iowa and arrived in Oregon prior to November 1847 with one wagon pulled by three yoke of oxen. They spent their first winter in Oregon with 1846 pioneers Henry and Sarah Helmick on their claim on the Luckimute River. When Sarah Helmick died in Albany at age 102, she donated five acres to the state for Helmick State Park. Clara C. (Morgan) Thompson, was born on the Miller Morgan Donation Land Claim near Saddle Butte on November 6, 1858. Clara's husband, George B. McClellan 'Clell' Thompson, is the son of Joseph Thompson and nephew of Mercer Thompson, two brothers who settled near Shedd in 1846. Clara's brother, Joseph William Morgan, had a son, Elza Morgan. Clara stated that Elza Morgan's ". . . wife is a daughter of Alex Brandon who was one of Finley and Crawford's millers at 'Boston'. [Elza 'Elzy' Morgan married Anna Lois Brandon on October 12, 1904.] His daughter, Lottie Morgan, is a teacher here in the Albany schools." {PS, Vol 4, p 82-86} [Joe Morgan is Elza and Anna's grandson.]