JOHN MCKENNA, Our Yesterdays, Jefferson Co., MT USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. Files may be printed or copied for personal use only. "List transcribed and organized by Ellen Rae Thiel, thieljl@aol.com All rights reserved." Copyright, 1998 by Ellen Rae Thiel. This file may be freely copied for non-profit purposes. All other rights reserved. JOHN MCKENNA John McKenna lived in Boulder Valley iln 1870. He was thirty-five years old at the time and worked as a farm hand. His birthplace was Ireland. It is likely his parents and their children, including John, immigrated to this country because of the famine in Ireland which was devastating. Many people there had died of starvation. John, after deciding to come west, ust have had a long, hard and sometimes terrifying journey across the continent. He was no doubt very glad to land in the valley and get a farm job with plenty of good food to go with it. He worked for a number of years for other people and on March 20, 1886, applied for a homestead. On May 17, 1899, at 1:00 PM, John McKenna, unmarried, recorded his Homestead Certificate No. 230 for 160 acres. It was signed by President Grover Cleveland. John worked hard to make the necessary improvements on his place. He dug a well by hand as did most of the old timers. This in itself was no small job working all alone as he did. The dirt was put in a bucket and pulled up on a windlass. As the digging went down the sides were rocked up to keep dirt from sloughing. John McKenna s rock work was some of the best around. His sod roofed log cabin was small, but always very neat. He was also neat about himself. His buildings were jut above the road from the present Monty DeMers place. His barn, however, was below the road and Monty still uses it. On his place is McKenna Springs (named after him) which has never been known to go dry, although in some of the very dry years the flow was lessened. With the money he had saved from years of working as a farm helper he bought a few head of cattle, a team of horses, and enough machinery to put up his hay. Most of the other ranches in the spring of the year, pulled a drag around their meadows to break up the manure. John did not do this. Instead, he went through his meadow with his team and wagon and picked up the cow chips and put them in piles. Around these piles of cow chips was a good place for mushrooms to grow; often the neighbor children would come to gather mushrooms to take home. John was always glad to see the children and they were welcome to the mushrooms. In September, 1899, John McKenna sold his place to D. D. Twohy of Anaconda, Deer Lodge County for $3,000.00. John signed with an "X". It was witnessed by Charles Scharf, County Clerk of Jefferson County, State of Montana. Before long John moved on and as he had neither chick nor child that anyone could recall, there s no one knows where he went. SUBMITTED BY MR. AND MRS. GEORGE DAWSON