Week 2 - Family Legends
Week 2: Family Legends “Uncle Jim” is a much beloved character in my family. He is my 3rd great-uncle or as Ancestry puts it, my 2nd great granduncle. He was orphaned as a teen and he and his brother (my 2nd great grandfather) came out west along the Oregon Trail to seek gold in 1850. Jim was 17 years old, and Robert was 12. They moved from place to place, chasing gold and ended up in Idaho City, Idaho when this story takes place. This comes from the book Melvin Alsager put together about the Kirkpatricks. “Idaho City grew with the Basin gold boom to a peak population of about 10,000 in just a few short years. A large number of miners including Chinese were from Oregon and California chasing one gold find after another. Jim caused quite a stir in Idaho City when he cut off the hair queue of [a] Chinese laundryman for stealing a chicken from him. The Chinese gentleman was upset because their belief was that God would not be able to pull him to heaven without his queue. Big J...