Mineral water bottle, embossed with “G. M. Henderson’s Bonanza Mineral Water Mendocino, Cal.” (Western Bottle News)
February 13, 1938 – J. Albert Henderson died at his home on Little Lake Road following a stroke at the age of 72. He was born in New Brunswick, Canada in 1865, and after his mother’s death, he was sent to live with his aunt, Anna Jane Henderson Mann, in Mendocino about 1876. His father followed a few years later.
By 1888, Albert’s father, George Henderson, owned 360 acres of land at the head of the North Fork of the Albion River. This property contains a mineral water spring, and George began selling his own soda water about 1889. Sadly, George died of stomach cancer in 1892, and the bottling business closed. Albert inherited the property but was forced to sell most of the acreage to pay off debt. The Albion Lumber Company purchased 280 acres of timber land, and Albert kept the house, some land, and the soda spring. Albert sold the rest of this property in 1896.
In 1891, Albert married Daisy Gregor of Caspar, and they raised four sons and a daughter. Although he mostly worked as a carpenter, Albert also owned several businesses. For a short time following his father’s death, Albert partnered with H. K. Taylor, operating a butcher shop in Fort Bragg. In 1903, Albert partnered with John Ivett to open a jewelry and watchmaking shop on the northeast corner of Ukiah and Lansing Streets. The following year, they moved their shop to the Kelley Building on the northwest corner of Main and Lansing Streets.
From 1910 to 1915, Albert was the proprietor of the Halfway House on Comptche-Ukiah Road, a popular spot for weary travelers located midway along the winding 50-mile mountain road connecting Mendocino and Ukiah.
In 1918, the Henderson family moved to Oakland, where Albert worked as a carpenter. Following a near-fatal workplace accident in 1922, Albert and Daisy returned to Mendocino where they spent the rest of their lives. Daisy died in 1945.
Albert’s funeral services were conducted at the chapel of the Cannarr Funeral Home in Fort Bragg, with Rev. J. L. Kent officiating. Interment was in the family plot at Evergreen Cemetery in Mendocino.
Survivors included his widow, Daisy; two sons, Robert of Eureka and John of Reno; a grandson, Delbert Henderson, of Ukiah; a granddaughter, Elaine Sedgwick, of Camp 19, Caspar, and two great-grandchildren, Sandra Lee and Walter Sedgwick.
A Mendocino Remembrance, c. 1942. When Alvin Mendosa’s long-time friend Buddy Fraser passed away in 2018, Alvin received a copy of Buddy’s memoir of town life during World War II. Curated by former Kelley House director-curator Karen McGrath, this charming memoir brings to life the unique place that was the town of Mendocino, California before it became the artist colony and tourist destination for which it is well known today. During the 1940s, Mendocino was a quiet community of unpaved roads and Victorian-era architecture perched on bluffs above the Pacific Ocean. Fraser’s reminiscences are accompanied by vintage photographs from the Kelley House Museum archives paired with contemporary color images taken by photographer Jamie Armstrong, offering readers an enjoyable “Then and Now” view of Mendocino. $35