Up the road we went, yesterday, headed north and east to see the Rail Canyone Fire that burned about 800 acres between Ford and Springdale, Washington, over the past several weeks.
We drove up to Hunters, then, across the Huckleberry Mountains to Springdale.
It was a beautiful day.....
blue skies.....hills golden with ripe grasses.....
....lush in the mountains where they get more rain.....
drier on the east side of the Huckleberries.....
meadows and farms....
and lost dreams.....
cows in the shade..... It was beginning to get very warm.
A dairy farm....
and a horse farm which raises Tennessee Walking Horses. Then, another horse farm where they were raising......well, these look like brood mares but I'm having trouble identifying the breed or breeds.....
Lovely farm homes....
lots of haying going on....
and old barns.
We drove south of Springdale to an area called Whiskey Flats near where the fire began. The winds are usually from the south and southwest here so the fire burned from near Rail Canyon Road all the way north to the Charles Haines farm, now, owned by Lester Hay.
One of the hills at Whiskey Flats where the fire must have been really burning fast because it jumped trees.
See how it burned right up to the highway. In these trees, south of Whiskey Flats, there were quite a few homes, only one of which was lost.
Whiskey Flats, again...
and again. Whiskey Flats sits between these steep, sudden hills and a prairie of several hundred acres called Walker's Prairie. The prairie was named for the first protestant missionaries there in the 1840's, colleagues of the ill-fated Whitmans of Walla Walla. Reverends Walker and Eels, and their families lived near Ford and proselyted the Spokane Indians. Their place was called the Tshimaiken Mission for the creek that runs out of the mountains near here and south to Ford.
Homes in the burned area near Rail Canyon.
The fire burned quickly down to the southern edge of the Haines Farm.
This is the old Charles Haines home, near the northernmost reaches of the fire (to the right but not visible in this photo).
The Charles Haines home in about 1900. Mary Haines, her sister, Lucy, and Lucy's daughters standing in front. Behind the house in this photo, is where the fire was halted by the brave fire crews. Everyone is very grateful for the wonderful men who put there lives on hold to fight forest fires. Well done!
The Charles Haines family in early days: the four Haines boys on the top, with Lucy, just below. My grandfather, George, AKA "Bush", is second from right. Then, in the foreground, Mary, Emma and Charles.Charles and Mary were half Indian.
Charles' mother was Esther or Es-pes, sister of Chief Aneas of the Little Aneas Valley of the Okanogan. I believe the name, Aneas, is a corruption of the name, Ignatius, given to him, possibly, by the Jesuit missionaries. Charles' father was Guy Haines, who was born in Lancaster Co., PA, and came west with McClellan to survey for the railroad in the 1850's. He bought a farm from Solomon Pierre, which included the place where the old Tshimakain Mission was founded in the 1840's, just north of Ford.
The four Haines brothers in manhood. They worked the only steam thresher in the southern Colville Valley (Walker's Prairie) in the years 1915 to 1920. Second from right is my grandfather, George Haines.
Lucy, as a young woman, with her fiancee, Al Cary. Sparking! Dig the sounds.
Threshing. The middle girl is my great aunt, Deloria Hoffstead, who married my great uncle, Harry Baughn, brother of my grandmother.
Lucy and my grandmother, Olive Baughn, clowning at the Haines Farm.
My dad, Theodore, son of Olive and George Haines, WWII veteran (11th Airborne Paratroops).
George Haines, WWI veteran.
George Haines in later years. He died early, in his 40's of complications of appendicitis.
Thomas Baughn, father of Olive. Thomas's family came west to Peru, IN, via Washington Courthouse, OH, from Rockingham County, North Carolina. His grandfather, Benjamin Fewell Baughn, was born in NC, the family leaving there about 1812. From Peru, where the family lived many years, Thomas came out to the Pacific Northwest about 1907. He owned a candy store in Deer Park, WA, and logged. In those days, one could take a road directly across the mountains, west, to the area north of Ford, WA. In fact, the trail came out on the northeastern corner of the Charles Haines ranch. Thomas went over to Walker's Prairie and logged in Rail Canyon during the week, returning home on the weekends. They were cutting timber for the railroad, thus, the name, Rail Canyon. Thomas, himself, was very probably mixed blood Indian of the Eastern Sioux Nation. His ancestry also included Palatine German and Irish blood. He was descended from Mordecai Boughan and Eve Baumgartner, of the Germanna Colony of Virginia (founded in1717).
Mary (Heller) Haines and her children at the Haines Farm. George, "Bush", on the left. See Lucy's kitten?
Lucy and her folks, Charles Haines and Mary. Mary's mother was an Indian woman named Esther Gingras (Gangro), daughter of Joseph and Marianne (Bastien) Gingras. Her mother was mixed French (Canadian), Shasta and Rogue River Indian on one side; and Okanogan on the other.
Mary's father, Thomas Heller, who was born at Harper's Ferry, VA, in the 1830's. He came west about the same time as Guy Haines, with the US Army. He took a homestead at Orin, just south of Colville, Washington. His father was Benjamin Heller of Ottumwa, Iowa.
We drove south from the Haines Farm about 5 miles to the south end of the old Guy Haines farm at Ford. This portion of the farm was given by Guy for the Pleasant View Cemetery. Most of the Haines family are buried here.
"Perpetual Care" is provided by the families and descendants of those buried here. The Haines burials are right of center.
The site of the original Guy Haines home, built about 1890. Notice the tree to the right of the house.
Guy Haines, sketched from an old postcard photo. His parents were Frederick and Sarah (Guy) Haines.
The original Guy Haines farmhouse. The road, in those days, ran right through the farm. Now, it runs to the right of the barns in this old photo.
In the 1980's, I visited the farm and met the current owner, Bob Segal. He was a very nice fellow. The home he lived in was just a ways in front of the original. He had bought the home and moved it to the farm. Later, Bob's house was removed and a triple wide put in its place. This original white house (above) was still standing, as I said, behind Bob's home. Very near to it was an ancient icehouse (very desirable before electricity) with a date carved on the lintel of 1904. I have an old news photo of Guy Haines cutting ice in Tshimaiken Creek about 1900. The creek runs about 1/4 mile to the west of the farmhouse. In the winter, you cut ice, for the coming summer days.
In the yard, outside Bob's door, was an ancient lilac tree, about 100 years old, according to horticulturalists. It's still there!
Barns, today, on Guy Haines Farm.
Leaving there, we drove further south, stopping at Long Lake Dam on the Spokane River. Here's a picture of the dam and spillway. It's a very old dam, backed by granite cliffs.
The park at Long Lake Dam where we used to picnic on our trips from Spokane to Ford.
It was getting up around 90 degrees and the water looked so refreshing. However, one would not dare swim here because of the currents that would drag one under. Lots of turmoil around a dam.
Looking from the park toward the Hwy 231 bridge across the river. Lovely.
In the 1980's, when I was tracing my Indian family history, I met Ella McCarty and her daughters, Darlene and Edith. Ella (Hill) was from the Lower Spokanes who lived at Little Falls, now a dam, further downstream from Long Lake Dam.
Ella knew a little about my family and we became fast friends. Eventually she adopted me, Indian style, and gave me a Salish Indian name. She held a powwow at Wellpinit for her retirement and gave me my name, then. Here are her friends and relatives dancing the Naming Trail with me. It was a very sweet time.
Ella (Hill) McCarty.
A very memorable experience......rest peacefully, Mother. Thank you.
