History Corner

By August of 1878 the Bannock War was winding down. It isn’t clear whether Council Valley folks were still spending time in their fort. On August 6th a few wagons wound their way along the primitive wagon trail that George Moser had established and entered Council Valley. These wagons contained people who would become an integral part of the area’s story for years to come. Among them was the family of George Andrew Winkler, his second wife, Letticia, and George’s children from both marriages.

Exactly who the other people in these wagons were involves a convoluted and contradictory timeline.

In Marguerite Diffendaffer’s book “Council Valley – Here They Labored,” she wrote that also in that wagon train that journeyed west were Alex and Martha Kesler who would become well-known pioneers of Council Valley. Martha was Letticia Winkler’s sister. Other pioneers of Council Valley / Fruitvale in those wagons were George and Martha Robertson.

Mrs. Diffendaffer’s book is a priceless historical resource, but it contains some inaccuracies. Alex Kesler and his bother, Andrew Kesler, were already living at Indian Valley in June of 1877, so they could not have come west in the same wagon train as the Winklers. Ed Kesler told me he was pretty sure the Keslers came to Indian Valley in 1876. Ed’s grandfather, James Kesler (born 1874 to Alex and Martha Kesler) told Ed that he (James) was two years old when he came with his parents to Indian Valley. Alex’s obituary in the May 9, 1913 Council Leader said he came to Salubria Valley in 1875 and to Council Valley in 1877.

Elsewhere in her book, Diffendaffer said George and Martha Robertson didn’t arrive here until 1881, which contradicts the book’s information above. For the most part, I think she recorded what people told her, and those people didn’t always give the same info.

Just how many people lived in Council Valley at this time is also confusing. Diffendaffer wrote: “The Winklers arrived in Council Valley August 6, 1878, having spent six months and fifteen days on the way. The two families who were there before them were those of George Moser and Robert White. There were several bachelors living there. Zadock Loveless and his son, William, lived near the mouth of the Hornet Creek and Henry Childs and John Milligan lived a bit farther up the creek.”

The above is true, in that the people listed were already here. But there may well have been others here as well. Idaho statesman editor Milton Kelly commented on the population of Council Valley in June of 1877 – a year before the wagon train in question arrived: “This Valley was settled this spring; there are five or six families and about 10 men, and as many ranches taken up.” Of course Kelly may have been inaccurate, and the picture is also muddied by the fact that several pioneer families of Council Valley (Keslers for instance) were living at Indian Valley in 1877; exactly when they moved north, and whether they were actually here in one account or another is not clear. I have found that people from that era had a sense of history that was sometimes romanticized into a good story, rather than a history based on hard facts. Come to think of it, human nature hasn’t changed much since then.

A note of interest: The Council area was always called “Hornet” or “Hornet Creek” in mentions at this time, as it was the place where Hornet Creek entered the Weiser River. The name “Council Valley” started to be used by 1879.

Winkler Family

George Andrew Winkler’s father, born in Germany, was also named George. The name “George” would appear at least once in every subsequent generation of that family, so keeping them all straight is a chore.

George A. Winkler was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1826. He married a woman named Artemicia, and they had as many as 11 children between 1848 and about 1866. Several died in infancy or childhood. Artemicia died 9 days after giving birth to her last child, William F. Winkler, in February of 1866. Their other children who will appear in this account were George Maddux Winkler (1856–1920) and Mark Winkler (1858–1921).

George A. Winkler married his second wife, Letticia Summerville, and they had two sons, Lewis and James. The family seems to have lived in Virginia for the most part, before moving to other areas in the 1870s, apparently preparing to move west. They started west from Arkansas to Idaho with wagons in 1878 with sons William, George M., Mark, Lewis and James.

In Missouri, George M. Winkler (age about 22) ran away with, and married, Elizabeth Harp (age 16), who was traveling with her parents, James and Sarah Harp, in the same wagon train. The Harps stayed in the Boise area for a year or two, so they didn’t arrive here with the Winklers.

The Winklers settled on what later became the George Gould Ranch three miles north of Council where Todd and Donna (Gould) Nelson live today (2301 Hwy 95).

Continued next week.