Josephine County
Biographies
Some old timers in Waldo in the
early 1900's by Bob Haskell
[This is a hand written
piece with no date on it, copy is
verbatim:]
Bob Haskell was a welchman. he was an
expert placer miner, he also understood
the dialect of the Chinook indians. he was
the man that brought Jim Logan and Phil
Frainey to Waldo for their first time in
1896. They had been working at provolt on
Williams Creek, and got layed off. Bob
said they would find work in Waldo. So
they walked out to Waldo, and got jobs for
the Simmons saw mill on the Illinois river
near the end of Dick george Road.
Bob was a quiet sort of
man who always attended to his own
business, and was very sensitive about
offending people. He never played poker at
the Waldo store where there was a game
everynight, but would play two hand
cribbage. He would sit and watch the other
men play, and you could find him every
night in the back part of the store where
there were lots of chairs and a card table
and a big wood stove.
George Elder closed the
store promptly at 9:00 pm , and when he
began closing the big iron doors and
windows, Bob and the rest of the men would
get up and leave.
When Jim Logan became
successful in the mines, out of
appreciation for Bob bringing him to
Waldo, he took care of him, gave him a
house to live in and he became a general
handyman around Logans place, taking care
of the garden, orchard and berry patches,
with a good deal of time left to mine.
Logan let him mine anywhere he wanted to
on the Simmons Logan and Cameron property.
Bob would prospect around
and find a good place to set up sluice
boxes or a rocker. he went over to french
Flat, where the french miners never let
the chinamen work, and at the upper edge
of their working, he was surprized at the
amount of gold that he found there.
He began to feel kind of
guilty; so he ask Logan how much gold he
could take out. Logan said all he could
get, Bob said how about $10.00 a day for a
few hours work (wages at the Logan mine
was $3.00 a day for 12 hours work). Logan
said he didn't believe him; but Bob showed
him how rich it was. Logan them moved his
entire operation to that location and with
two miles of 16 inch hydraulic pipe moved
there for three years and took out
$50,000.00 in gold. For this discovery.
The next winter Logan sent Bob on a
prospecting trip to Alaska, and although
he found more gold in the mines in Alaska,
he decided on account of the freezing
weather there it could not be mined at a
profit, so Logan gave up the idea of
mining in Alaska.
George Elder hired Bob to
drive the grocery delivery wagon. It was a
light box wagon with a light team of
horses.One of his jobs was to go over in
"the Valley" or Holland as that area was
known, to the creamery once a week for
butter. (the road to holland was down the
stage road now known as the rockydale road
to just north of Jimmie Little hill, and
turned right at a slight angle and forded
the Illinois River just below Hogue hill
and then on almost a direct line to
Holland).
One day on the way back
from the creamery, Bob fell asleep while
driving along, the horses pulled up in the
shade of a tree and let him sleep. When he
awoke it was way late, and George was
waiting for the butter which was in a bad
condition when he arrived at the store: so
he fired Bob. The job didn't pay much only
$12.00 a month with three meals a day. He
could sleep in any unoccuied building in
Waldo of which there were many.
George elder operated the
hotel and store having taken them over
when Mr. Veatch, who married Charlie
Deckers widow and had moved to Cottage
grove.
Bob was a good story
teller and one of his stories was: of one
time when he was mining in the mother lode
country of California. he had a cabin back
on a creek where when he wanted freash
meat he would go to the hill back of his
cabin and kill a deer.. he had a 45-70
single shot rifle. he used to reload his
shells and after firing them several times
they would become enlarged and stick in
the chamber.
one day while hunting on
the hill he came on a grizzley bear, so he
decided to have some bear meat. he shot at
the bear and missed, he tried to reload
his rifle but the cartridge failed to
eject. The bear took after him so he
dropped the rifle and climbed a tree. The
bear came up to the tree and saw the rifle
, picked it up pulled back the lever and
the shell bounced out., then he looked up
at Bob and motioned for him to throw down
another shell. Bob said of coarse the bear
knew I wouldn't do that because he would
have shot me if I did. Then the bear tried
to climb the tree; but it was to small for
him to climb, then he tried to shake him
out but that wouldn't work, then he got a
pole and tried to poke him out with no
better success. So after lookin over the
situation he went down the trail to Bobs
house. As soon as he got out of sight Bob
came down out of the tree and relaoaded
his rifle being curious to know what the
bear was up to he went back towards his
house and here comes the bear up the trail
with an axe over his sholder. he was going
to chop the tree down.
The Logan Simmons Cameron
mine was sold to Mr. Esterly. Logan done
some mining in the Happy camp area in
which he lost a good deal of money. Bob
Haskell went with him, and when Jim Logan
stopped mining, Bob was along in years and
went to the Old Folks home in Yreka where
he died a few years later.
Submitted by Sally
Return to Bios Index
Return
to Home Page
This
page was last updated on -05/29/2010
Compilation
Copyright Linda Blum-Barton
2008 to
Present - All Rights Reserved.
|