Joseph MCMINN

11 Jun 1795 - 12 Dec 1884


Family 1 : Charlotte DERRICK

  1.  Lucretia MCMINN
  2.  Alzira MCMINN
  3.  Selina MCMINN
  4.  Pascal MCMINN
  5.  Joseph MCMINN


Family 2 : Mary Hull DIXON

  1.  Mary Ann MCMINN
  2. +John MCMINN 
 
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Notes:

From History of Sonoma County , by J. P. Munro-Fraser (San Francisco, Alley, Bowen Co., San Francisco: 1880), p 650:
  McMinn, Joseph, Whose portrait appears in this work, was born in Washington County, Maryland, June 11, 1795. His parents moved to Hawknis county, Tennessee, when Joseph was quite young, and where they resided till 1830, thence to Madison County, Illinois. After five years here, they took up their residence in what is now called Dallas county, Missouri. April 27, 1852, the subject of this sketch came to California, crossing the plains and settled in this township on his present farm on October 15th of that year, where be has since resided. He married for his first wife, Charlotte Derrick, in Hawkins county, Tennessee, on April 20, 1820. She was a native of that county, and was born February 7, 1800; and died April 18, 1836.
Lucretia, Alzira, Selina, Pascal and Joseph are the names of the children by this marriage. He married for his second wife, Mary Martin, in May 1837. She was born February 7, 1802. Mary Ann and John, are their children, and reside in this county. Mr. and Mrs. McMinn are the oldest couple living in Santa Rosa township, now being, respectively eighty-four and seventy years old. Mrs McMinn is the great -grandmother of forty-four children, and grandmother to forty-three.
In 1858 [1857], while residing on another portion of their farm, the old lady received an injury which it is not out of place to record. There was a loaded gun of the ancient flint-lock kind left in the house, and in order to have it in a secure and out-of-the-way place, Mrs McMinn placed it underneath the bed. A little Negro boy about six years old who was living with the family, found the gun, and in playing with the weapon, it was accidentally discharged, the ball passing through a wooden partition and into Mrs. McMinn's ankle, which caused the amputation of her limb. She is now using, an artificial leg and moves around in a remarkably sprightly manner.
 		 


From Index and Abstract of Wills Sonoma County, California 1850-1900 (Sonoma County Genealogical Society, The Sonoma County Library, and The Sonoma County Historical Records Commission: Sonoma, May 1985, Reprinted November 1991), p. 128:
  MC MINN, JOSEPH   Written: 4 Dec. 1884   #1447  
  Sonoma Age 90 Died: 12 Dec. 1884 Bk. D, Pg. 11  
      Rec: 5 Jan. 1885      
  Wife: Mary  
  Sons: John, Pascal, Joseph (deceased)  
  Daughters: Lucretia Parker (deceased), Alizira Wallace,  
  Selina Bidwell (deceased), Mary Ann Matthews  
  Executor: Son, John  
  Witnesses: M. G. Richie, John Brown  

The following material is from Ted Peck, a Hardin/McMinn Family researcher:
Mr. Jackie McMinn, a Scot, sent this to the McMinn mailing list. He wrote "The following was provided me by Leo Estes, by way of Noma Lee McMinn Taylor".
Joseph McMinn was born July 30th, 1829, in Hawkins County, Tennessee. In 1830 his parents moved to Madison County, Illinois, and five years later, they moved to Dallas County, Missouri. He came to California in 1852, then went back to Missouri, returning to California in 1854, with a drove of cattle.
Uncle Dan Drumheller has published a book of his own early days, and in this story of his life, gives the following account of the trip.
  Joseph McMinn, in 1854, was planning to start for California. He had crossed the plains two years before and knew the trail wonderfully well. He was the same breed as the pioneers that McMinnville, Oregon, is named after. He wanted to venture to California again with 175 head of cattle he picked up at around twenty dollars apiece. In California he would get ninety dollars for good steers three or four years old.
He had three wagons, each drawn by four yoke of oxen, and there were three families, with six men in his party, three women and a little child or two, and a couple of boys. They had half a dozen horses for handling their cattle. I, Dan Drumheller, got mother's consent to go, and McMinn was glad to have me, for I was a handy youngster at handling either horses or cattle. He let me put my two Arkansas steers with his bunch, and he provided me with a wonderful saddle horse named Arch. The old pinto breed was a small round percheron quarter horse that came originally from England to America. I rode her behind the bunch of cattle all the way from the Ozarks to the Sacramento River. Oh, she was a lovely animal, with a crease down her backbone that you could roll a ball along. Fifty years later, in the Santa Rosa Valley in California, I met some of the McMinns, who were driving a beautiful mare. "Why that looks like old Arch," I said, and they told me she was the grand- daughter of Arch.
We struck out for California April 22nd, 1854, and we crossed the Missouri River south of where Kansas City now stands, but there was no such thing as Kansas City then. We crossed the Rockies at Sweetwater Pass on the Green River and went to Box Elder, now the site of Ogden, where we met some Mormons, the first whites west of Fort Laramie, except for the emigrants.
Striking west, we got into the Thousand Springs Valley in north- east Nevada, (then part of the territory of Utah), then followed the Humboldt River to its sink and went forty miles further to the Carson River. Then we went to the Truckee River where Reno is now. We crossed over the Sierras at Donner Pass and saw where the ill-fated Donner Party were caught in 1845. You got some idea of the depth of the snow from the stumps twenty feet high where they cut trees for firewood. Those stumps are still standing. Most of the Donner Party perished in their camp. The rest were rescued by pioneers from Sutters Fort. It seemed to me fifty or sixty died.
On the west slope of the Sierras, we went through Hangtown, now Placerville, which was a camp of 2500 people with a few women, and we crossed the Sacramento River at the mouth of the Feather River September 22nd, 1854, just five months to a day after we started. The trip was nearly 2200 miles long. We had moved every day. We did not lose a single animal. I left the McMinn Party at Feather River. McMinn sold my steers for me at about ninety dollars apiece and I did a little trading in the cattle on my own account.
He was married to Mary Hull Dixon in May 1837 in Missouri.

 		 

Listed in Santa Rosa Rural Cemetery, 1853-1997 (Heritage Books Inc., Santa Rosa, CA: June 1997), p. 115, as being buried as Joseph McMinn, Sr. in Plot MC 92. Listed as being born 11 Jun 1795, Washington Co., MD and died 12 Dec 1884. Wife: Mary Dixon, TN, "Came to CA 27 Apr 1852"

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