Robert Franklin McConnaughy

https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/KCZW-19Z

• Farm #84 √ Robert Franklin McConnaughy b. Ohio Sep 1838 ; farmer
• the first man to build a house at Ft. Bidwell (see page 69 of Grove)
• acquired cattle during the great drought of '64 and drove them from the west back to Surprise Valley
• family = wife Mattie (née Rasmussen?) b. Germany and 4 of 6 children (2 died by 1900)
• McConnaughy families had land holdings in 1870
• 1875 voter reg.: age 35 farmer from Ohio
• see 1880 census for Ft Bidwell dwelling 290
  

sources

A Collective History of the Early Years of Settlement in Surprise Valley by Tami Grove (1977)

• http://archives.csuchico.edu/digital/collection/coll14/id/1628 page 36

"Robert McConnaughy was also the founder of the former MC ranch in Adel, Oregon."

"Robert Franklin McConnaughy was a farmer and rancher and early settler of Modoc and Fort Bidwell. He migrated to California by way of the Oregon Trail. "He and his brother, Martin, founded a ranch in Surprise Valley in May, 1865. The following year Indians drove off their stock, and McConnaughy was shot in the arm. He was taken to Fort Bidwell where he was under the care of an army surgeon for six months. His neighbors formed a posse and pursued the Indians but ran into a camp of over 800 warriors. They were able to escape and go to Smoke Creek for a company of soldiers. After a chase of twenty miles, they caught up with them and in the ensuing battle, eighty Indians were killed and the army lost, with eight wounded and one killed. Mr. McConnaughy and his brother were early settlers of the Fort Bidwell area." ~• From The Modoc Record.