Skinner family papers, 1840-2013

Silas Skinner was born in 1834 on the Isle of Man. He immigrated to the United States in 1862, and the following year began to build a toll road in western Idaho and eastern Oregon for gold miners to use. Skinner and his business partners maintained the road until 1878, when Owyhee County purchased it. Skinner also began to raise horses in eastern Oregon and, later, in Napa Valley, California.

Skinner married Anne Jane "Annie" Callow (1846-1928), who had also been born on the Isle of Man, in 1870. The couple had seven children: William Silas Skinner (1871-1960); Catherine "Carrie" Skinner Norton (1873-1970); Annabel Skinner Hampton (1875-1962); Thomas Lewis Skinner (1877-1958); Horatio "Ray" Skinner (1879-1918); Sarah Ellen Skinner (1881-1883); and Mona Skinner Platt (born 1883). Silas Skinner died in 1886.

Sources: "High Desert Promise: The Skinner Family Legacy," by John Sackett Skinner (Hillsboro, Or.: Skinner Family, 2009); collection materials.

William Silas Skinner, known as W. S. Skinner or Will Skinner in his life, was born in 1871 in Ruby City, Idaho. After Silas Skinner died in 1886, W. S. Skinner helped to look after the family's interests. He also managed property in Jordan Valley, Oregon, that Silas Skinner's business partner, E. H. Clinton, had owned. Skinner would later purchase this property, as well as lease another property, the Ruby Ranch, from Ruby Beers.

Skinner married Ella Sackett (1868-1941) in 1891. The couple had nine children: Silas Kirtland Skinner (1892-1983); Thomas Harold Skinner (1894-1970); Ruby Aileen Skinner Gheen (1896-1991); Verna Claire Skinner Van Matre (1897-1991); Nancy Irma Skinner Palmer (1898-1985); William Callow Skinner (1901-1982); Ella Marjorie Skinner Carlsen (1903-1998); Anna Beatrice Skinner Owings (1907-1977); and Hugh Sackett Skinner (1909-1962). W. S. Skinner died in 1960 in Jordan Valley, Oregon.

Sources: "High Desert Promise: The Skinner Family Legacy," by John Sackett Skinner (Hillsboro, Or.: Skinner Family, 2009); collection materials.

Johanna Murray was born in 1889 in Lairg, Scotland. In 1909, she came to the United States with her uncle, Alexander Murray, who was a rancher in eastern Oregon, and began a teaching career there. In 1913, W. S. Skinner and Ella Skinner hired her to teach their younger children. Through this job, she met the Skinners' eldest son, Silas Kirtland Skinner (known as S. K. Skinner or Kirt Skinner), who had been born in 1892. The two married in 1917. S. K. Skinner lived in Jordan Valley, Oregon, and worked as a rancher. He also served on local school boards for almost five decades.

Both Johanna Skinner and S. K. Skinner were interested in the history of southeastern Oregon and western Idaho. In the 1950s and 1960s, their research helped identify the grave of Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, who had been with the Lewis and Clark Expedition as an infant, as being located at Ruby Ranch in Jordan Valley.

Johanna Skinner and S. K. Skinner had seven children: William Murray Skinner (1918-1942); Robert Harold Skinner (1920-2012); Silas Kirtland Skinner, Jr. (1922-1995); Verna Christine "Chris" Skinner Moore (1924-2016); Daniel Herbert Skinner (1926-2016); John Sackett Skinner (born 1929); and Jesse Johanna "Joanne" Skinner Owens (born 1932). Johanna Skinner died in 1972. S. K. Skinner remarried to Doris Burgess in 1979 and died in 1983.

Sources: Sources: "High Desert Promise: The Skinner Family Legacy," by John Sackett Skinner (Hillsboro, Or.: Skinner Family, 2009); collection materials; obituary in the Idaho Free Press and Tribune, July 3, 1972; obituary in the Ontario Argus Observer, September 8, 1983; editorial in the Ontario Argus Observer, September 11, 1983; obituary in the Owyhee Chronicle, September 14, 1983; vital records on Ancestry.com.