R. C. Johnson Buried June 16

Pioneer Mail Stage Driver
And Homesteader Passes Away

     Rand Christian Johnson was born in Denmark in 1858¹ and was one of a family of three brothers and a sister.  His parents came to America in 1867² with all the children except the oldest son³, who remained with his job as a policeman on the Copenhagen police force. They homesteaded in Steele County, Minnesota.

     Mr. Johnson grew to manhood and married Emma Engelking in 1883 and to this union three children were born.  When about six years later the attraction of the west became great he and his family, and accompanied by his parents, made the long overland trek to the Milk River country in Montana where they stayed less than a year when they assembled three covered wagons and resumed their western journey over the old Oregon Trail.

     They faced many hardships on this trail; the eastern-bred horses could not stand the trip and died, leaving the party marooned by snowstorms in the Cascades.  They finally managed to trade for some cayuses from the Indians and these tough wiry little animals hauled the big prairie schooners into the Oregon territory.  R.C. and his family settled down here but his parents returned to their former home in Minnesota.

     The next home was near Walla Walla for two years at the end of which he bought a traveling picture show and visited many towns in Washington, and it was while on this tour that he saw the Okanogan country and decided to make his home here.  In 1903 he filed on a homestead at the south end of Wannacut Lake which he farmed until the dry years forced him
to come down out of the mountains to Oroville.

     Mr. Johnson was one of the early mail carriers of the Okanogan country, hauling mail and passengers from Oroville to the booming mining camp of Wehesville, where A. George Wehe was postmaster.  Later when the mines closed down and Wehesville was deserted the post office was moved down to Wannacut.  For about ten years he made the long trips down and up the mountain, leaving early in the morning and getting back in the late afternoon, six days a week, in spite of dust, rain, heat or blizzard, as
dependable as the train, which brought the mail from Spokane and down the long winding grade into Oroville.

     He hauled the mail by hack, sled, horseback or afoot as occasion demanded, although in later years he scared the cattle on Golden Flat and astonished his patrons by purchasing a Model T which have much better mail service in good weather.

     Of a talkative, friendly nature, he loved company and could regale for hours with stories of his experiences. He was a constant reader and enjoyed a good discussion most any subject.  Of late years, however, he became almost totally deaf and the only way one could penetrate his lonely world of silence was by writing messages to him.

     He leaves to mourn his passing his widow and companion for 60 years, Mrs. Emma Johnson, two daughters, Mrs. Frank Buckingham, and Mrs. Luella Jaynes of New Florence, Missouri; a son Dr. Sidney Johnson, professor of anatomy at University of Louisville, Kentucky; six grand children and two great grandchildren.

     The funeral was held from Barnes Chapel, Wednesday June 16, and burial was in the Odd Fellows Cemetery.

 ¹ Rand Christian Johnson was born “Christen Jensen” on 26 July 1857 at Skee, Haraldsted Parish, Sorø County, Denmark.  He was indeed 85 years old.  Chris was the son of Jens Hansen and Karen Johanne Thomasdatter Hansen.

 ² The Jens Hansen family booked passage for New York at Copenhagen, Denmark on 5 May 1869, not 1867.

 ³ Mr. Johnson’s sister, Karen Marie, stayed in Denmark, keeping house for an uncle, until she came to Steele County with her husband, Ole Jacobson in 1880.