Unsolved Mysteries

San Francisco Call, Sept. 1, 1899

In late August 1899, Fred A. Keener was traveling by bicycle from Visalia to San Francisco.  Fred was the son of Henry A. Keener, brother of my great-great-great-grandmother Emily S. Keener.  Fred was eighteen years old at the time.  After passing through Los Banos, he lost his way in the hills near Pacheco Pass.  As he tried to find his way, he sat down on a rock to rest.  He then noticed some fabric fluttering in the breeze behind some bushes.  When he took a closer look, he saw a decomposing body!  The skeleton was clad in blue overalls and a dark coat and wasn’t wearing shoes.  

Fred eventually found his way again and continued on his journey to San Francisco.  However, on the return trip home, he stopped in San Jose and reported his discovery to Sheriff Langford.  On Wednesday, August 30, Sheriff Langford and several deputies, along with Keener, traveled by horseback into the hills to find the body.  They searched for two days but didn’t find anything.  Fred thought he might have more luck if he could start the search from the direction that he had been traveling.  He had to get home but told the Sheriff he would return if needed.  He continued home and along the way thought he found the spot where he had left the road.  Once he was back in Visalia, he wrote the Sheriff to inform him.  Sheriff Langford immediately replied and asked him to come back.  

On Monday, September 4, Fred met Sheriff Langford near Mountain Home which was approximately half way between Los Banos and Gilroy.  The Sheriff and Keener tried to retrace Keener’s original journey in hopes of finding the body again.  They traveled in a northward direction but, after searching for three days, they still were unsuccessful.  

Throughout this time, the discovery of the body and the ongoing search attempts were covered in newspapers throughout the state.  Many people suspected that the body was that of accused mass-murderer James Dunham.  In 1896, in the Santa Clara valley, Dunham had murdered six people, including his wife and in-laws, on the family farm.  He fled into the hills and had never been captured and some wondered if he had died in the mountains.  Some suspected it was Dunham's body because he was known for wearing sacks on his feet, instead of shoes.  However, after the two unfruitful searches, some people began to wonder if Keener “dreamed about the bones.”

The searchers resumed combing the hills on Tuesday September 19.  Fred again returned to help, this time accompanied by his father Henry Keener.  They, along with the Sheriff, deputies, and several men familiar with the area, spent several days looking without finding anything.  It was on Friday that the Sheriff and his men decided to give up the search and return to Mountain Home to spend the night.  But Fred decided he wanted to keep looking and around five o’clock he found the right spot.  However, they were in for a big shock.  The body was gone!  

Los Angeles Herald, Sept. 25, 1899

Fred and his father found the Sheriff and they all returned to the spot.  It was confirmed that there had been a body there (be sure to read the details in the above article. I'm sure Deputy Stayton was itching the next day!) but it was now missing.  They also found wagon tracks leading to the spot.  There were a couple theories about why the body had been taken.  Perhaps the dead person was not Dunham but someone else who had been murdered.  In this case, the murderer did not want the authorities to find the body so they came and moved it.  The other theory was that someone else found the body and took it hoping to receive a reward if it was Dunham’s body.  However, evidence later surfaced that it was definitely not Dunham's body.

Ultimately this story leaves us with a cliffhanger.  There is no resolution for any of its mysteries - Whose body did Fred find?  What happened to James Dunham?  And who took the body from its resting place in the Pacheco hills?  Perhaps answers are out there but my research hasn’t uncovered them.  The story of James Dunham and the ongoing national obsession with finding him is both a tragic and fascinating one.  However, it still remains an unsolved case.  If you’re interested in reading more about him, a quick Google search will give lots of information but here’s a link to get you started:  http://murderpedia.org/male.D/d/dunham-james.htm

Fred went on to become a jeweler/watchmaker with a shop in San Francisco.  He married Margaret around 1906 and died on October 27, 1881, at the age of thirty-seven.  He is buried in the Visalia Public Cemetery. 

A Grove of Big Trees

Photo credit:  National Park Service

This article takes us back to a time when California was still full of unexplored land and undiscovered wonders.  It makes me thankful that these groves were eventually preserved through the creation of Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks so that we can still enjoy them today.

Sacramento Daily Union,  Nov. 16, 1856

ANOTHER MAMMOTH GROVE -- We are informed, says the Mariposa Democrat, by Judge Burke, who has recently returned from Visalia, that a grove of big trees have been discovered upon a branch of King's River, near the saw mill of O.K. Smith, the Representative elect of Frezno and Tulare counties.  The grove contains over 1,000 trees, by actual count, varying in size from eight to thirty-two feed in diameter.  Many of them are from 325 to 375 feet high.  The species of tree is the same as those in Calaveras county, which are attracting so much attention.  Many have, since the discovery of this grove, visited it, and the above statement, we are assured, is no exaggeration.

Lost in the Snow

Peter Q. Turner (1828-1882) is my great-great-great-grandfather and someone I've been researching for years.  He was an early California settler, arriving in Visalia in the 1850s and eventually settling in the Dunlap area of the foothills east of Fresno.  He and his wife Emily had at least fourteen children.  I have lots more I could share about him but, for today, I wanted to share this little article I found last week.  I was so excited to find it because it confirmed a family story about him.  I had been told by a relative that Peter had been lost in a snowstorm and, because of frostbite, had his legs amputated.  However, that's all I knew and, even then, didn't know how accurate the story was.  This article from the Sacramento Daily Union on December 30, 1864, gives all the details of what happened to Peter that day.

Sacramento Daily Union, Dec. 30, 1864 -- BADLY FROZEN -- The Grass Valley Union of December 27th says:  On Saturday last four men -- P.Q. Turner, Misservy, Irons, and another whose name we could not learn -- were overtaken by the storm a few miles from Aurora (Nov.) as they were coming in from Adobe Meadows, and all of them were more or less frozen.  The three last mentioned escaped without being seriously injured, but Turner became so exhausted that he was obliged to stop some two miles from town, where he lay all night in the snow, and was terribly frozen.  In the morning Sheriff Francis and a party went to search for him, and found him making his way to town on his hands and knees.  His feet, hands and face are frozen in a most shocking manner.  We are informed that the doctors waiting upon him say that both his feet will have to be amputated.

We do know that Peter did have both his feet and fingers amputated because an article in The Fresno Bee on August 30, 1879 describes him as “a man well advanced in years, with a large family, not rich and without feet or fingers--but a good scholar, a good writer and a man whose bond no property owner would hesitate to go on.”

Welcome!

I've had a love of history ever since I can remember.  Maybe it was the Little House on the Prairie books that my mom started reading to me when I was three years old.  The stories of Laura, Mary and their little family surviving alone on the great American prairie caught my imagination and transported me to another world.  As I grew up, many historical fiction books, visits to Gold Rush country, a trip to Washington D.C., and even a subscription to Smithsonian magazine all fueled my interest in the past.  So when as an adult I started doing a little research into my family history, it gave me an outlet to explore the past in a more personal way.  Some people study their family genealogy to see how many names they can add to their family tree or how far back they can trace their lineage.  But what I love is to see how much I can learn about them.  What was their life really like?  Not just the big events like when they were born, married, and died.  But what happened in the in-between times?  To dig down deep into the past and mine out those hidden gems and nuggets of information is so exciting.  This blog will be an outlet to share those finds with my family and anyone else who might be interested.  And I'm sure you'll see some random posts about totally unrelated people or events because, well, I just can't help myself, interesting things shouldn't stay hidden in the past forever.  Thanks for reading and if you see some connections with your family history, I'd love to hear about it!