previous one the colony was indebted for improvements
Dr John P. Ponjade died at his residence at Gervais, in July 1875. He was born in France in 1790, and was a surgeon in the army of Napoleon 1812. He came to Oregon in 1847. His son, T. C. Ponjade, resided in Salem. Salem Record, July 9, 1875.
Robert Crouch Kinney was born July 4, 1813, in St Clair Co., Ill. At 20 years of age he married Eliza Bigelow, and shortly afterward removed to Muscatine, Iowa, of which city he was one of the principal founders. Engaging in milling business, he remained 15 years at Muscatine, when the tide of Oregon emigration bore him to the shores of the Pacific. Settling in Yamhill County, he farmed for 10 years, save a short interval when he was absent at the gold mines of California. He served in the territorial legislature, and was a member of the state constitutional convention. After 1857 he returned to his old business of milling, and with his sons owned large flouring mills at Salem, where he died March 2, 1875. Mr Kinney had 8 children. Mrs Mary Jane Kinney Smith, wife of J. H. Smith of Harrisburg in Lane County, was born December 16, 1839, at Muscatine. Albert William Kinney, who married Virginia Newby, daughter of W. T. Newby, was born at Muscatine, Oct. 3, 1843 and resided at Salem. Augustus Crouch Kinney, who married Jane Welch was born July 26, 1845, at Muscatine; studied medicine and lived at Salem. Marshall Johnson Kinney, born at Muscatine, January 31, 1847, resided in San Francisco. Alfred Coleman Kinney, born in the Chehalem Valley, Yamhill County, January 30, 1850, graduated at Bellevue Medical College New York; residence, Portland. Josephine Elarena Kinney Walker, wife of James S. Walker of San Francisco, was born January 14, 1852, in the Chehalem Valley. William Sylvester and Eliza Lee Kinney were born at Chehalem in 1854 and 1858. Robert C. Kinney was a son of Samuel Kinney, who in 1800 settled on Horse Prairie, west of the Kaskaskia River, Illinois, and Samuel Kinney was son of Joseph Kinney, who in 1799 resided near Louisville, Ky., and had a family of 7 sons and 4 daughters. One of his sons, William, drove the first wagon over the road from the Ohio River to the new home of the family in Illinois, of which state he was afterward lieutenant-governor Robert had a brother named Samuel who settled in West Chehalem and who died October 20, 1875. His other brothers and sisters remained in the States. Salem Farmer, March 12, 1875; Or. Statesman, March 6, 1870; Salem Mercury, March 5, 1875.
Robert Cowan, a native of Scotland, emigrated to Missouri, where he married, and joined the Oregon companies of 1847. In the following year he settled in the Umpqua Valley, Yoncalla Precinct, and with the exception of Levi Scott and sons, was the first white settler in Douglas County. 'His cabin stood near the old trail which the pioneer gold-seekers of 1848 and 1849 travelled, and is remembered by many as the last mark of civilization north of the Sacramento Valley.' He was killed by a splinter from a tree which he was felling March 9, 1865. Or. Statesman, March 20, 1865.
Samuel Allen settled on the Abiqua, in Marion County.
Joseph Hunsaker settled 10 miles south of Salem.
J. H. Pruett resided at McMinnville in Yamhill County.
Jacob Comegys, of Hagerstown, Md., born 1798, came to Oregon in 1847; removed to San José, Cal., in 1856, where he died in 1870.
Charles Sanborn was drowned in the Willamette River near Eugene City, Oct. 1875.
John F. Taylor never had a home, but lived among the old settlers, dying at the age of 78, and buried at public charge, an exception generally in his habits to his old companions.
J. C. Crooks, of Marion County.
Samuel Whitley resided on the southern border of Marion County—a native of Virginia—and died September 1868, aged 80 years.
William S. Barker, a cabinet-maker, settled at Salem, where he died July 2, 1869, having been a respected citizen of Oregon for 22 years.
