By Carolyn Zeitler Boontling is a local nickname for a fabricated language that developed in the Anderson Valley between 1880 and 1920. It started out as a game by children who wanted to talk freely without the adults being able to understand what they were saying. Based on English, it featured abbreviated words and sentences, a “lingo,” (Boonville and lingo becoming Boontling), of more than a [...]
by Katy Tahja, Kelley House Museum docent Browsing the shelves of the library in the Kelley House Museum Research Office, I found "Lumberjack Lingo" by L.G. Sorden written in 1969. While it's focused on how vocabulary was adapted to walking around the Great Lakes states, many of those walkers moved west and brought their terms with them. The cookhouse in a logging camp provided many unique [...]
This Saturday, April 14, visitors to the Kelley House Museum can view "Bridging the Gap," a locally produced short film on the building of the Albion River Bridge.
The scene is Mendocino’s Shipping Point. The characters are unnamed crew members of the steamer Noyo, longshoremen and a railroad crew of three. The time is 90 years ago this week, April 11, 1928 to be exact. According to the Mendocino Beacon, at approximately 7:30 in the morning of that day, an accident occurred involving eight railcars and 33,000 board feet of lumber. Oh, yes, there [...]
“Up From Below: Dolls, Pipes and Bottles” will showcase items discovered in the Kelley House Pond. There also will be artifacts relevant to our local history that have been recovered from nearby sites, including Little River and Caspar. We could speculate about the doll torsos and which of Mendocino's children might have lost or tossed their dollies into the pond. Did the Kelley Pond serve as [...]
Sneak Peek for Kelley House Members! Up From Below: Dolls, Pipes and Bottles Have you ever wondered what might be lurking in the Kelley House Pond? Here's your chance to experience marvels from the deep -- something no bottle collector will want to miss! Join us at the Kelley House Museum on Thursday, May 3, from 4:30 until 6:00 p.m. for delicious hors d'oeuvres, beer and [...]
A little girl in a wicker chair holds a parrot. She is gazing down at the toy and dressed in a white, ruffled gown. Meet Hazel Packard Dennison, born on this day in 1897. She was the youngest of eight children who, along with her parents Charles Oscar and Hannah Cline Packard, made up one of the better known families of historic Mendocino. The original photograph, [...]