Edmund S. Quirk
Edmund S. Quirk
arrived in Redding, Shasta County on July 24, 1892, from Missouri. The
train ride to Redding may have been tiring. When the train pulled into
the station, there was much excitement, the first thing Quirk saw was the
hanging of the infamous Ruggles brothers!
A furious
lynch mob broke into the Shasta County Jail and hung the siblings on Shasta
Street in Redding for robbing the Shasta-Weaverville Stage and killing
shotgun messenger Amos "Buck" Montgomery. It wasn't just the robbery and
murder that sparked the hanging, but legend has it, the Ruggles brothers,
were hung because they were so hansome that the women in town started bringing
them baked goods, and the men were jealous of this.
What a site that must
have been! This first glimpse of Redding, Edmund, was shown did not scare
him off, as it did to many others, who were scouting Redding out as a possible
place to live. Edmund was nicknamed "Ed" and he found work with the Southern
Pacific Railroad, PG & E, and Shasta County. In 1898 the pioneer married
Jessie Mae Kidder a daughter of Shasta County pioneers Reverend WIlliam
Samuel and Mary Elizabeth McFarlin Kidder.
The Quirk family
lived in the Bald Hills in Western Shasta County. During the winter they
lived in Ono and during the summer they lived on Duncan Creek. In 1919
his sister arrived on trin 14 pulling into the station in Redding. Quirk
hadn't seen his sister, Olive Quirk Chinn, in 28 years and this sparked
a happy reunion.
Jessie Mae Kidder
Quirk, was a homemaker who died in 1929 and is buried in the Ono Cemetery
in the Kidder family burial plot. Edmund died in 1951, to their union,
two daughters were born. Their descendants still live in present day Shasta
County.
Contributed by Jeremy M. Tuggle
Resource "Rooted In Shasta County" by Jeremy M. Tuggle
published by Preserving Memories in 2003, 2nd Edition 2004.
A History of Shasta County by Shasta County Book Commission;
The Shasta Courier, September 26, 1919