As part of preparation for a family reunion this summer, I have crafted this brief story of two heroic relatives, Paatrick and Mary Doherty of Vinson, Oregon. It is a good story and I am glad to share it with you.

THE 1904 SHOOTING OF PATRICK DOHERTY

 

          Patrick Doherty of Vinson was born on March 14, 1868 , at Carndonagh, Ireland. He was the son of John “Big Shawn” Doherty,  and grandson of Philip Doherty, one of the sons of John Doherty of the Isle of Doagh. John moved his family from Lagacurry to the Ballylosky area outside of Carndonagh after being displaced by a gigantic storm which ruined the family’s original farmstead. Pat, who was known as “Red Pat” by many in Oregon, emigrated to Umatilla County via Canada at age nineteen, about 1887. Here, he joined his brother Bernard. Bernard had immigrated to the area two years before Pat arrived.

          After his arrival, Pat worked first for James Nelson, whose wife Catherine, was a cousin. He worked on the Nelson ranch for six months. Pat then worked for Charles Cunningham for a year and learned quite thoroughly the sheep business as it was conducted in the Umatilla area. Pat then hired on with  his brother Bernard in Morrow County. In 1890, the brothers sent for their Father (John or “Big Shawn”), and other members of the family. Bernard died in 1897, and Pat joined with his brothers John and Joseph, continuing the sheep business as “Doherty Brothers”. The Doherty Brothers prospered in their efforts and added thousands of acres and thousands of sheep  to their enterprise. In 1901, Pat returned to Ireland and there married Mary McLaughlin, returning to Oregon with his bride.

          In the spring of 1904, (that is, on April 16, 1904), Pat was lambing in the vicinity of Hog Hollow. His wife Mary and son Joe were with him.  One of Pat’s sheepherders named William Morton quit his employ and wanted immediate settlement of his wages. The ranch’s bookkeeper was brother Joseph whose was working was at the “Middle Ranch”, about four miles away. Pat had to go there to get Morton’s money. After he left, time passed, and Morton became convinced that Pat was not coming back. Morton produced a  gun and pointed it at Mary and demanded that she start walking. Mary had to carry the child, Joe, who was not quite two years old. Morton kept his gun pointed at her, and she was afraid that Pat would be shot when they met with him.

          John Lang, who later married Pat’s sister Anna, was working close by, corralling sheep at the top of a hill, and he was forced to march along with this group. As Morton and his forced entourage approached the bridge at Middle Ranch, Morton saw Pat’s brothers Joe and John. They were unarmed, and were forced to line up in the group with John Lang. Morton had a drink of water from the little stream, but wouldn’t let Mary have any. He was of a surly disposition.

         Pat, who was armed, was approaching and was obscured by brush. He was wearing a white shirt and Morton spotted him, and called him out. As Pat stepped out from the brush, Morton fired and hit Pat – a side hit in the chest. The bullet passed through both lungs and lodged below Pat’s shoulder blade. Someone was sent to Pendleton for Doctor W. G. Cole, who treated Pat.

          Four days after this incident, the East Oregonian printed Dr ole’s assessment that  “Doherty will live unless complications follow.”  Quite a few days later, on May 6,1904, The East Oregonian printed “Patrick Doherty of Vinson, was up and out of bed Sunday.” On May 13, the newspaper reported that notices had been served to all witnesses of the shooting affray between Patrick Doherty and William Morton in which Doherty was shot through both lungs, to be in the city tomorrow (May 13^th, 1904) when Morton will be arraigned.” Morton was pleading self-defense, but the district attorney said that a charge of manslaughter would probably be filed against him.

         In the same article, Dr. Cole is quoted as saying that Pat is “completely out of danger, and is able to look after his sheep ranch.” The next day, the newspaper printed that “District Attorney T. O. Hailey today filed information against William Morton, charging him with assault with a deadly weapon and another information charging him with assault and robbery. The first information says Morton shot Patrick Doherty at the latter’s ranch with intent to kill. The second says Morton assaulted Mrs. Doherty, wife of Patrick Doherty , and robbed her of $4.30. A number of witnesses of the affair were in the city today and were examined by Mr. Hailey. Morton will be arraigned tomorrow, when it is supposed he will plead guilty, as he still maintains he shot in self-defense.”

         Family recollection and lore is that Morton did go to prison. But the bullet that wounded  Pat was not removed and he carried it in his chest for the rest of his life.

         Acknowledgement: The bulk of information in this post was compiled from family members by Eva Doherty Gremmert and privately published in her genealogical book, “The Descendants of John Doherty (Newman) from the Isle of Doagh, County Donegal, Ireland. Born about 1765.” June, 1996. Newspaper coverage was scant, and serves primarily to corroborate that the event did take place, with no contradiction of detail supplied by Gremmert’s informants. Packy Doherty of Pilot Rock, Oregon and Nancy Doherty Oppenheimer of Boise,  Idaho were also consulted for accuracy of detail. Pat lived a full life and died in 1948, at almost 80 years of age.

                                                                                                        Jan 28, 2023 Roger Doherty

 Rememberance of the 1967 USPO Finlan Commemorative Stamp

    Back in 1967, I lived amidst many sons and daughters of Finnish descent while spending a couple of wonderful years in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. In this year, the United State Post Office issued a very nice stamp commemorating the fiftieth year of Finnish Indepencence. However the official first day of issuance ceremony was assigned to a small Minnesota community. Learning of a consolation prize, a local "second day issuance"event in Hancock, Michigan. I essayed to obtain spamped covers of this event to add to a very new stamp collecting attempt. A few years later, I conceded defeat and abandoned my unrproduction efforts to create a first class accumulation of little colored pieces of paper. However, in this Finland Stamp area, I did have some fun, and a few years later (1992) I wrote a little account of this event which was published in First Days, the magazine of the American First Day Cover Society. It has been 54 years since, and I am here republishing my small contribution to philatelic history.

    On October 6, 1967, a simple and beautiful stamp commemorating the fiftieth year of Finnish independence was issued in Finland, Minnesota (pop 300).

            Many communities of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan were very disappointed not to have been chosen as the official FD city. That fifteen county region contains the largest number of persons of Finnish descent outside of Finland. The Upper Peninsula hosts a number of Finnish cultural institutions, such as Suomi College, Hancock, Michigan.

            I had been introduced to FDC collecting about a year before this, and I was living in the Upper Peninsula at this time. It seemed to me that it would be great fun to prepare covers for the Finland issue. In the midst of this effort, I read a notice in the local newspaper that greatly confused me! A “second-day-of-issue” for the Finland stamp was to be held on the campus of Suomi College! The article went on to state that “This marks the first time in post office history that a second-day issuance of a commemorative stamp will be made.” The guest speaker at this second-day event was the regional director of the Post Office Department’s Chicago district.

            As a brand new member of the AFDCS, I had just read about the “Second Day of Sale” for the 1932 NRA commemorative in July/August 1967 First Days. Could this Finland stamp event really be a first? I turned to Mr. James Schaeffer, then the Corresponding Secretary of the AFDCS for advice in this matter. His response is shared below.

“To the best of my recollection, the NRA stamp was originally announced to have its first day of issue at Washington, D.C.  on August 17^th , 1933. However, it was later decided to also issue the stamp through the Nira, Iowa P.O. on August 17^th, 1933. Advance notice of the original first day was sent to all collectors on the mailing list of new issues (I was one of the recipients of new information), but no notice was given, except to stamps editors, dealers, etc. of the additional issue or second day.”

“I had to obtain my covers from a dealer of the second day issue, although I sent my envelopes to Washington for the first day.”

“Back in those days, collectors obtained souvenir covers of the actual first day when the stamps went on general sale, usually obtaining them from Washington D.C. post office. This was sort of a semi-official second day of issuance in those days, since the commemorative stamps were not distributed to every post office in the USA like they are these days. Then, new stamps were sent automatically to the larger post offices and the smaller post offices had to requisition them from those post offices, with the third and fourth class post offices not obtaining many if any.”

            So it seems that the post office did sanction some form of at least semi-official second day of issuance event for the NRA stamp in 1933.

            Regarding the Finland  stamp, Schaeffer  suggested that if an official announcement of the second day was found in the Postal Bulletin, this would be the first time that an “official” second-day issuance of a commemorative stamp was ever made in USPO history. Schaeffer later informed me that he had discovered no announcement about a “second-day issuance” of the Finland stamp.

            Schaeffer also pointed out that some small POs are not open for business on Saturdays. Since the First Day was on a Friday, the actual general sale of the stamp would not be made until the following Monday. Possibly the sale of the Finland stamp at this Saturday event was the reason for the local newspaper’s claim of the first Second Day issuance in USPO history.

            In an exchange of correspondence some months later, John P. Funkey, the Hancock Michigan Postmaster stated that “The Second-Day issuance at Hancock was unique in that it was the first time in history that the post office has held two special events in connection with issuance of a new stamp.”

            The absence of an announcement of an “official second-day issuance” in the 1967 Postal Bulletin probably means just that – the October 7, 1967 Hancock cancellation was not officially a “first time in history” event. The rubber stamp used for the Finland second day event certainly is not the same level of official cancellation as those illustrated in Dunaier’s article, in which the “second day of issue” is designed into the official cancel.

            However, as in 1933, it seems that the post office in 1967 did at least sanction something for the Finland stamp. Perhaps a “semi-official second day of issuance” event? That Saturday event was certainly an authentic Second Day of Issue. The statement of the Hancock Postmaster that the event was a “second special event held by the post office” in connection with the Finland Stamp, the presence of the Chicago Regional Director of the Post Office Department, and the application of the “SECOND DAY OF ISSUE” rubber stamp impression by the Hancock post office all point to a sanctioned, if unofficial, second day of issuance event by the post office. Have other such actual, but unannounced or unofficial events taken place?

SHERMAN'S HORSE The Strange Connection to William O. Douglas

                    A recent and fruitless genealogical trail included an unexpected mention of William O. Douglas, a western boy from Washington State who made good and served a lengthy spell on the Supreme Court (1935-1975). These guys try hard to present a very somber image. You rarely see one of them with a part-time gig at a comedy theater. When agreeing to give up mingling with the rest of us hoi-polloi, they are relieved of any worry of unemployment or of being made redundant.

And so …. I was surprised to learn that Douglas claimed in his autobiographical book, “Go East Young Man: The Early Years” that while teaching at Yale, he and fellow professor Thurman Arnold were riding the New Haven Railroad and were inspired upon seeing the sign "Passengers Will Please Refrain ..." to create this slightly ribald song by the same name. They set it to the tune of Humoresque #7 (Anton Dvorak) (See Douglas’ entry in Wikipedia).

Ordinarily, I myself, would refrain from sharing such ribaldry on this forum. But I missed it in my youth, and because of its association with this great jurist, I am making an exception. There seem to be a wealth of subsequent versions of this ditty, but perhaps the following is close to Douglas’ and Thurman's original:

Passengers will please refrain

From flushing toilets while the train

Is in the station, darling, I love you.

We encourage constipation

While the train is in the station.

Moonlight always makes me think of you.

If you wish to pass some water

Simply call the Pullman porter.

He’ll place a vessel in the vestibule.

If the porter isn’t here

Try the platform in the rear.

The front one’s more than likely to be full.

If the women’s room is taken

Do not feel the least forsaken.

Never show a sign of sad defeat.

Try the men’s room cross the hall.

And if some man has had the call,

He will kindly offer you his seat.

If all these efforts are in vain,

Simply break a window pane.

This common method’s used by very few.

Let’s go strolling in the park,

Goosing statues in the dark.

If Sherman’s horse can take it, why can’t you?

 For those of you with musical skill greater than humming, here is the tune:

        And here, for the rest of us is an audio version on You Tube:     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyiMYI4oQTU

                    More versions and verses are at

https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=143752 . If you go here, you have only yourself to blame.

Roger Doherty

STREET PAINTINGS OF EARLY DENVER BY A CIA ARTIST

     Antonio Joseph Mendez was a man with many stories. Born in 1940, in Eureka, Nevada, current population 610 persons and once labeled “the loneliest town in America, he arrived in Denver in his early teens. After a short stint at the University of Colorado, he was employed as a technical drawing artist

Aerial photograph showing the Park Lane Hotel and looking south

at Washington Park. Circa mid 19960s before the hotel was demolished.

courtesy of Stephen H.Hart Library and Research Center, History Colorado.

and did commission art on the side. His “legacy” to Denver are two large oil paintings of early Denver which he did for the no longer existing Park Lane Hotel in 1964.

Denver Street Scene by Tony Mendez, 1964

Courtesy of Mr. Simon Lofts, WorkAbility

     The Mendez paintings are early Denver street scenes which Mendez painted from photographs. They are very bright oil on masonite and were cleaned for display.  They were displayed at the Park Lane for only a few years and apparently were carefully packed for storage.

Early Denver Street Scene by Tony Mendez, 1964

Courtesy of Mr. Simon Lofts, WorkAbility

     When the hotel was demolished in the late 1960s, the 300 pound paintings were stored in a warehouse until acquired by a Denver man and stored in his garage for years. After Mendez’s death in January 2019, the paintings were rescued by Simon Lofts, a co-founder of WorkAbility, a co-working space located near the Colorado Capitol Building. The paintings are now displayed in the Workability offices and open to the public for viewing.

     But …. there is more to this story. Who was this man, Mendez, and what makes his paintings of interest? In 1965 while working as a technical artist for Martin Marietta in Denver, Mendez answered a blind newspaper ad which turned out to have been placed by the Central Intelligence Agency. Hired as an artist to specialize in counterfeits and forgeries, Mendez rose higher in the CIA.

     When Islamic militants took over the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979, six American diplomats escaped and were sheltered by Canadian diplomats until a dramatic rescue plan devised by Mendez brought them out of Iran. This escape was depicted in a 1997 movie, “Argo”, which won three Oscars. The American diplomats were posed as a Canadian film crew, and spirited out of the country with Canadian identities by Mendez himself! No surprise, then that Mendez became known as a specialist in “exfiltration”.

     Mendez continued to paint before and after his retirement in 1990. He wrote with others, including his wife Jonna, four books on the CIA, disguises, and the Argo operation. You can see Mendez’s Denver Street Paintings at the WorkAbility offices, 1576 Sherman Street in Denver.

Roger Doherty

LINDA’S BEAR SOOTING

I am thinking, with flashbacks, about a trip Eileen and I are taking next week to Michigan. Here is where I tell you that when I graduated from the University of Oregon back in the weird 1960s, I had no firm idea about how I would find employment or make a living. I slipped through my undergraduate years taking liberal arts courses and reading poetry. So, in my last month on campus, I stumbled upon a table set up by recruiters for a Lyndon Johnson Great Society program called Volunteers in Service to America. Now that sounded very preferable to military service in America’s most unpopular war in history – the Viet Nam War. And in no time at all, as I was used to the speedy answering of test questions, the fine art of determining what the test administrator wanted to read and the ability to nimbly supply some pretty arty sentences and a few obscure words and references, I had signed up for this noble-sounding service to my country.

Very soon afterward, I received a billet-doux saying “Your country needs you” and I was in. A couple of weeks later I was on a train to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Here, the story turns good for me. After some training, I was turned loose in a strange country, very Appalachian-like, and populated by an American sub-culture made up primarily of hoards of “Finlanders”, a few Italians, and fewer Polish persons. In my three-quarters of a century, I have never been among a finer group of people. They may now be called “Yoopers” according to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary.

So, back to the title of this essay, it took me a little while to get the hang of the speech-dialect-slang of my dear Finnish friends. And as time went on I grew to appreciate the straightforwardness of their speech patterns.

About eighteen months later and shortly before I left the Upper Peninsula, I picked up a book of regional poems which has become a favorite of mine. I wish to share a delightful, Finnish dialect poem by Jingo Viitala Vachon, a skilled raconteur, and poet from this area. This poem involves a Finnish girl from the tall timber of the Upper Peninsula, a wildlife encounter, and a well known type of architecture which Kent Haruf in “Plainsong”, his novel of life on the Eastern Plains of Colorado called “the stepout” and which my Kansas raised father-in-law called “the Eleanor”. We called it “the outhouse” when I was growing up.

LINDA’S BEAR SHOOTING

Up nort vere ta voods meets ta town of toivola

Now Linda ta housevife is sarp sooter tere,

An’ here is ta story of Linda’s great glory

See von on tat morning see sooted ta bear.

Vas early vun Monday, ta day after Sunday

Her husband vas leaving for vork vit no care,

Now, how could he know tat as soon as he’d go

See vould haf a new caller, a black saggy bear.

Her dog gafe her varning tat October morning

Tat something vas eating her garbets outside;

He started to bark an’ altough it was dark

See could tell tat big bear by his black saggy side.

In all ta commosen ta kids took a nosen

To also get up an’ see vhat vas ta fuss;

Ta ports light vas on, but ta bear vas not gone,

An’ he simply kep’ eating an’ stayed vere he vas.

See opened ta door vit a ear splitting roar

Ten ta bear slowly rose vit a sad injured air,

Ta dog sent him loping but Linda vas hoping

Ta nex’ time he came see vould soot her a bear.

See vent to see Charlie tat evening to parley

An’ see if he’d skin him if see sot him dead;

He said tat he vould, an’ see tought, “Vell, tat’s good,

Cause I want nutting else but his hide an’ his head.”

Tat night tey vere sleeping, tat bear he came creeping,

An’ Linda got up an’ vent to ta john.

See saw tat big sadow, an’ boy, see vas glad, oh,

See’d pick up ta rifle tat October dawn.

So ten see got ready, ta gun firm an’ steady,

An’ bang-bang ta bullets let fly.

Ta bear squealed and started to sviftly depart, it

Yust yumped in ta bushes and lie down an’ die.

So tis is ta story of Linda’s great glory

Ta people vill alvays remember her name,

An’ nuts to Ann Oakully, Linda is locally

Toivola’s sarp sooting lady of fame.

Ve’ll alvays remember her every November

Ven rifles are pewing an’ sots fill ta air,

How see, in October, vit face grim an’ soper

Sat down on ta toilet an’ sooted ta bear.

                                             Jingo Viitala Vachon

The Ku Klux Klan in Heppner, Oregon

Here I present some information about how the Irish of Morrow County smashed the Ku Klux Klan in the early 1920’s. I wouldn’t have had an inkling of this had I not chanced on a very interesting article, “The Empire and the Editor: The Ku Klux Klan in Heppner, Oregon” by Gavin D. Cronkrite. This is a 2015 BA thesis for the University of Oregon Department of History. I tend to think that Heppner doesn’t attract its share of attention and it’s always interesting to find local history. This is a short article, thirty-nine pages of double spaced text, but rewarding to the memory of our Morrow County ancestors in that Cronkrite portrays the county as somewhat of an outlier to the popularity and political power of the Klan.

I have reached out to Cronkrite to ask him why he chose this topic and Morrow county for his thesis, but have been unsuccessful. But this is the sort of thing that you ponder in your early schooling. What happened here, you ask yourself, when the Klan was becoming so powerful in Oregon? What did our grandparents think and do about this? What was going on at the time of the Klan’s singularly successful strike at Catholics with the Oregon Compulsory Education Act of 1922.

Cronkrite spends quite a bit of text outlining the reemergence of the Klan in this period both nationally and in Oregon. About page 20, in the chapter titled “Shepherds in the Blue Hills” he gets to Heppner and Morrow County, which he treats interchangeably. He notes lack of major industry in the county, predominance of agricultural production (Wheat, Hay, and Wool), and the influence of the Irish population as factors related to the lack of acceptance of the Klan. He says that “The stereotypical shepherd on the hills of Morrow County was an Irishman.”

Among his major sources are Heppner’s two newspapers (The Gazette-Times and The Heppner Herald) and two locals who published reminiscence articles in the Oregon Historical Quarterly (Elinor Cohn Shank and John F Kilkenny). Cronkrite meticulously cites newspaper coverage from about 1917 through 1924, making for an impressive four pages of small print research notes.

The core of Cronkrite’s paper, and I present here his complete paragraph,  is “Morrow County’s large Irish population may have helped slow the process of Klan organization. The Irish were an integral part of county business, with some men like John Kilkenny owning large ranches and employing community members. News of St. Patrick day Celebrations and well-attended Ancient Order of Hibernian events filled the local newspaper pages. While the Klan initiation ceremony in January 1923 attracted a crowd of several hundred persons, it is likely that many of the audience members were there simply to witness the spectacle. In comparison, Hibernian events regularly attracted attendance varying from 150 guests to several hundred, as evidenced in the extraordinary claim that 'the promoters of the [A. O. H.] affair expect to sell 1000 tickets of admission.' Morrow County Klan’s thirteen person inaugural recruitment class was eclipsed by the size of the Irish Catholic community.”

I wish there were a little more passion and excitement in Cronkrite’s paper. For example, he tells us after some recruiting events, that the first actual meeting of the Klan in Morrow County was in Lexington on January 28, 1924. I would like to think that my grandfather, James G Doherty, whose ranch was up Blackhorse Canyon a few miles outside of town was there, ready to wade in if things got out of hand. But that’s a Walter Mitty kind of thinking, projected back a couple of generations. 

I take from this paper two messages. First is the “Heppner Spirit,” a phrase coined by the Gazette-Times in 1918, characterizing the community as resilient and optimistic following the flood of 1903 and subsequent disasters. Second is the leadership and prose of Sam Pattison, Editor of the Heppner Herald beginning in 1917. Cronkrite’s take is that …. “The Herald changed the discourse: it led Heppner residents to examine Klan rhetoric by challenging it at its very core of Americanism.”

The article is unsurprisingly academic and a little thin, but if you slog through it, you’ll almost certainly end with a sense of pride in our area and our ancestors.

You can read “The Empire and the Editor” at: https://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=mcafee&type=E211US105G91207&p=the+empire+and+the+editor

SOME COPPER ETCHINGS BY FRANKLIN NORWOOD

     I want to introduce you to a really good printmaker in Colorado. Almost fifty years ago – 1972 to be exact, I met Franklin Norwood at a community fair in Denver – the Capitol Hill People's Fair. Norwood taught art classes and produced copper plate etchings for three years in Denver, before moving to Colorado's Western Slope, where he continues to show his etchings and offer occasional demonstrations in his shop, the Main Street Gallery.

     I like small prints, so in two successive People's Fairs, I bought small prints from Norwood, and they have been displayed in my living room since. If you have been visitor to my home, you have seen them.

Buffalo

Anthem

     Alas, Norwood disappeared. He wasn't at the next People's Fair. But you will recall the biblical phrase "I have found my shekel which was lost?" In 1973, Norwood moved his studio to Colorado’s Western Slope and continued to produce etchings, opening his Carbondale gallery in 1982.

     Yesterday, Eileen and I were in Carbondale where she was conducting two gerontology workshops in the area and really didn’t want me around to disturb her. So I went searching for Norwood. I found his shop, the Main Street Gallery but unfortunately, Norwood, now a grandfather and semi-retired, was not in. His gallery manager was very gracious and allowed me to browse and to photograph a couple of his works. Norwood’s art now seems to be more whimsical and he embellishes most of them with hand-coloring. They still give pleasure. And they now command about fifteen times the price that they cost in 1972. Good on him for his success.

Walrus

Balance

     After darn near half a century, I almost got to say hello again.  I’m really sorry I missed him, but if you’re ever visiting in Carbondale, please look in on Franklin Norwood at the Main Street Gallery and enjoy his work.

Roger Doherty

October 23, 2018