In the valley of mist and morning frost, a house stands alone, almost like it's lost.

And the violets bud, and the dew turns to moss, and the house sees the world go by.

And the years are threads, a massive string.

Arrive, stay, leave, it knows everything.

It perceives the gunshot, the man who died, and a few other things as the world went by.

The tree named for her who was buried nearby, the land and its form under cobalt skies.

Then the house kept its secrets till she came by, till she found an echo and wondered why.

My name is Heather Palladini, and I live here in Williams.

I moved here in 2023, and I am the owner and operator of Wild Oak Preschool, a nature based indoor outdoor preschool program here on my property.

I learned about the Applegate Valley from my dad's friend who was living here at the time.

I was looking for a change.

I'd always had this romantic kind of dream of living in a 100 year old farmhouse, you know, but I never really thought it would be a reality.

And, when I started looking into the Applegate Valley, I realized compared to where I was living in the Puget Sound, property values were much more affordable.

So we decided to take a trip down here, my dad and I and the kids, and look around.

And we stumbled upon this property.

It had been on the market for probably six months.

And I saw that it was built in 1900.

And I was like, No way.

It's a 100 plus year old farmhouse.

When I first saw it, we parked right in front there and we kind of watched the house for a little bit.

And I just thought like, wow, this is my dream house.

I felt really called to it.

The first day my house was on the market, I got a full asking offer in Olympia.

And then this offer was accepted and we had a three week close.

So everything moved really fast.

And the closing for this house ended up being 5PM on May 5, which was my fortieth birthday.

So that was a little bit magical.

I had already anticipated diving into the history of this house because 123 years old at the time, I knew there wouldn't be a lot of history.

When I first got here, the house was very dirty and there was a lot of stuff left here.

So I ended up finding a couple of people to help me clean the house because it was more than I could manage myself with me and just the kids.

During the cleaning process, we focused on the kitchen and bathrooms first because they needed the most work.

On top of one of the kitchen cabinets, there was a a wooden bowl, and in it were some old letters.

I was like, oh my god.

I can't believe these are still here because the kitchen has obviously been remodeled.

I couldn't believe somebody would have left them here, but I figured somebody must have found them before because the kitchen's been reconfigured.

It made me wonder what else is hiding in the walls, you know, and the attic crawl space and things like that.

But I definitely knew I'd stumbled upon something, a real gem.

Thinking that I was going to probably settle into the house first and then begin my research, I was immediately taken a hundred years into the past with these letters that were dated 1918 and 1922 to a woman who used to live in this house.

It felt like like this house had been waiting for me to come here to tell its story.

To Myrtle Litikin, Provolt, Oregon.

Portland, Oregon.

07/04/1918.

Dear Myrtle, I'll drop you a card to let you know that I am still alive, but not feeling so good.

How is everybody around Provolt?

Jolly, I hope.

I saw Ned D yesterday and Jim and Ivy and Earl Spencer in St.

Helens City last week and saw Pete Beagle today.

Write and tell me the news.

Probold, Oregon, 03/04/1922.

Dear Myrtle, don't you think you have flu long enough?

I do.

Two times a day I have called up Central or somebody to find out how you are getting along.

Say, pal of mine, that is awful hard on the nervous system.

So please come out of it.

We had a spell of something, but don't know whether it was what everybody else is having or not.

We didn't have to call the doctor.

Mrs.

Kavanaugh has been having the asthma the last three days and has been here so I could help her jaw the kids as she runs out of breath too quick.

Don't you get in a big hurry to do things, but take care of yourself so you won't be all fogged out all summer.

The violets are budded if there is snow on the ground, so just cheer up.

Spring is coming.

Well, I must get busy with the ironing.

Cal said he was going to the store, so I thought I would just drop you a line to let you know you wasn't forgotten.

I don't like to phone to you when you all feel bad.

It is a nuisance to answer phone calls.

With love, Mrs.

Hill.

I definitely felt compelled to research into who Myrtle Ledekin was and see what I could find about her story and her family.

Myrtle Ledekin is the granddaughter of Samuel Probalt, and Samuel Probalt was an Oregon Trail pioneer.

Samuel Probault was an early settler of the Applegate Valley, and he arrived with his wife, Harriet, and seven children around 1866.

He became really successful with gold mining and began to pursue agricultural ventures and eventually acquired over three sixty acres of land in the Applegate Valley.

He also owned a lot of real estate in Grants Pass that he leased out.

And these were grandparents of Merle Ledikins.

They owned the property from 1905 until 1919.

He then leased it to his son-in-law, John Ledekind and his daughter, Thangia, and they lived there with their children and they would farm the 160 acre parcel.

Samuel Probalt died in 1919, and Lithangia then held the deed for the property until her death in 1944.

In Samuel Probalt's will, the farm property was referred to as the Antwan Place.

I came upon early maps of the area, the first maps of the area, actually.

I learned that the first owner of this property when it was 160 acres was actually almost twenty five years before this house was built, and it was in like 1876 approximately.

And it was an immigrant from the Azores Islands, Antoine Joseph, and he was a gold miner.

The more I started researching into him, the more, fascinating that story became.

I found that he was considered eccentric.

He kept to himself.

He didn't speak very good English, so people thought he was ignorant.

But he was successful with his gold mining.

And because he didn't speak English, he didn't trust people.

He didn't trust banks, and he hid all of his gold in the walls of his house, which would have been a different house, but still on this property.

It was public knowledge that Anton Joseph had money and he didn't use a bank.

The counties back in the 1870s, 1880s within, in the newspaper would publish these lists of, they call them their heaviest hitters, the people who paid the most taxes.

And Anton Joseph's right there in the list.

I research and write about history daily on Facebook, and I write a quarterly article for the Apple Gator News Magazine, which Heather is now very involved with.

So not long after she moved here and started to learn about the very interesting background of her property, she reached out to me to find out if I had any information specifically about her property.

Off the top of my head, I didn't, but I started to, you know, do some research and read some articles about the things that had happened there, and I realized I did know a lot.

I had a lot of information about some collateral things.

In particular, Anton Rose, who was the nephew of the owner of Heather's property.

He was called to come and help care for his more elderly uncle.

And then also the Schlegel family, a member of that family being the one who murders Anton Joseph.

Now Anton Rose was born on Pico Island in the Azores in 1849.

His uncle, Anton Joseph, was born there in 1819, but he was in The United States by the 1840s and had come to Oregon Country before we were even a territory by 1844.

So Anton Rose and Anton Joseph had never met each other.

Anton Rose's family came probably around the 1860s.

Many of the immigrants to Southern Oregon who were Portuguese were actually Azorians.

The first wave came just like searching gold maybe, like Anton Joseph, or perhaps he was working for furred companies to be in Oregon country that early.

But the second wave that included his brother was mainly attracted to be involved in the whaling industry.

And they settled in Massachusetts, Rhode Island.

There are still very concentrated, very vivid communities, Portuguese communities there.

And so that's how Anton Rose gets into this story.

His uncle here doesn't speak English very well, can write a letter in Portuguese and writes to his brother in Boston and says, I need help on my farm.

There were letters that documented Antoine Joseph writing back East to family, asking for someone to come and assist him because he didn't speak English and help him with his property and things like that.

And in exchange, that person will become his heir.

Antoine Rose was that person.

He was actually a very erudite.

He was a city fied person who came here and he actually ends up marrying in a Shigilson family.

He marries Mayette Rose, who was a teacher and was so well respected that in 1894, she was the Democratic party's nominee to be the superintendent of the county schools.

She couldn't vote, but she was the hot, the top of their ticket.

So that really, woke my eyes to the fact that we had two different migrations of Portuguese people here in Jackson County.

And frankly, the first wave were really kind of ostracized and looked down upon by the more prosperous people.

But Anton Rose, when he comes, he can really fit into that upper crust of society, even before he's in line to inherit his uncle's fortune.

Jacksonville, Oregon, June 30.

Anton Joseph, Portuguese who has resided on a farm on Williams Creek in Josephine County, 20 miles west of Jacksonville, was missing from his home the first of this week.

As he was rarely known to leave his farm, the neighbors became apprehensive and a search was made resulting in finding his dead body a short distance from his home with a bullet hole through his head.

From indications, he was shot in a small trail near his house and the body dragged into the brush where it was found.

It is believed that he had accumulated considerable money as he was frugal and industrious.

He was about 70 years of age and was never married and lived alone on his farm.

A nephew was the only relative living there.

Robbery is supposed to have been the motive for the murder.

There were a couple of people that were of interest right away.

It was Charles Slagle, who was of the Slagle family, which was a fairly prominent family in the area.

Slagle Creek out here is named after them.

And George W. Meath, who I think was married to someone in Charles Slagle's family.

Slagle family came from Kentucky and the first group was headed by Conrad Slagle.

They first settled up more in Willamette County.

Conrad's brother brings his family out more around 1860 and he has three kids, two girls, but then his son, Charles Schlegel.

He became a fugitive and so it crossed county lines, I believe even into California.

Medford Mail, 07/28/1893.

Charles Slagle, who is lying in the Klamath County Jail awaiting trial for burning Dennis Crowley's house, is believed to be the man who foully assassinated Anton Joseph in Josephine County.

Slagle left Klamath County about the twenty second of June and reached George Meeks place on Saturday, June 24.

Before leaving Klamath, he borrowed a revolver from Miss Jones.

The weapon was a small cheap 38 caliber rimfire five shooter.

With it, he got 10 cartridges.

On reaching Meek's place, he emptied his revolver firing five shots by the way of a salute.

Slagle informed his friends there that he came over on business, but although asked several times, he avoided direct replies and told no one why he came.

When people would arrive sometimes they would shoot a certain number of bullets into the air and he shot like one less than that and it was like presumed that, oh, he was missing a bullet.

And because he had the same kind of tobacco on him that Antoine Joseph smoked.

He admitted it.

Although bizarrely, it was after he was already convicted.

He went to trial, the jury said you're guilty, he's sentenced for life in prison, he goes to prison and that's where he finally says, you know, he spills the beans and discloses that he never made a cent off of it.

Capitol Journal, 09/08/1894.

The writer was given the privilege of an interview with Slagle, the young man who was only this week committed for life.

Raised in the mining districts of Josephine County without the advantage of an education and his associations thrown with the low and vicious, with no one to encourage him in ways that are upright, but companions to lead him into every vice, he was at the age of 22 hardened to the degree of skulking behind an innocent fellow man and shooting him down with impunity.

He now confesses the crime and says he killed Anton Joseph in June because others persuaded him that they might come into possession of his property, and having made himself a tool, he got none of the spoils.

He did admit to committing the murder, but said it was a murder for hire.

But he didn't say who hired him to commit the murder, but he was promised a third of the riches and said he never got a penny.

It seemed to allude that the people, the person or persons behind the hire may have been known, but were not going to be named.

I can't see how there's any credible evidence that Anton Rose had a hand in murder.

Because as soon as the murder becomes knowledge, he goes out with the sheriff and he has knowledge of where the fortune is cashed, right?

And very well hit.

The old man had mitered away part of some woodwork so he could stuff $1,700 in wrapped up $100 bills.

But Anton knew where that was and he knew where kind of a decoy purse with some more money, with some more gold had been thrown.

And he gives that up.

That was pretty exculpatory on Anton Rose's part.

So after Anton Joseph died, other family members came out of the woodworks, contested the will, and because it was a verbal will, it was not documented, and said, No, you didn't live up to your end of the agreement.

You didn't caretake for him.

You were always gone.

You weren't even there.

And it was in courts, in and out of courts, the contested will for over ten years.

I believe it ended up going to the sheriff, and that is how Thomas Kinney acquired it.

Thomas Kinney, the notable historical figure of Jacksonville.

Thomas Kenny, whom Samuel Probalt purchased the property from in nineteen o five, was possibly the second owner of the farmhouse and fourth owner of the property.

Kenny was a notable historical figure of Jacksonville, and he owned the entire business block downtown.

Records show that he bought the 160 acre farmhouse property from Sheriff Ed Lister in 1900 who held the deed very briefly perhaps due to a contested will.

It's not clear whether the house was yet built when he acquired the deed since the house was also built in 1900.

We know that Thomas Kenny never lived in the farmhouse since we know that he lived in Jacksonville during that time, but he did successfully farm the land on Williams Creek, and perhaps he had the house built for whoever managed the farm.

He grew wheat, oats, barley, corn, potatoes.

He only owned it for five years before he sold it to Samuel Probalt.

So it's possible that they built the house, or it's possible Thomas Kenny built the house in 1900.

That part, I'm still trying to figure out.

There's still a lot of mysteries I have yet to uncover.

So the shot ends a life and the house is built and the land wraps around it like an heirloom quilt.

It's a tale of two Antons, then Thomas, then Samuel, then Samuel's descendants, a swift running channel that leads back to Myrtle and the letters she kept that endured through the years as they sprinted and crept.

But this isn't the houses only thread.

There are thousands more with thousands yet.

This all started with letters intended for one named for a tree grown by years, rain, and sun.

As the violets budded beneath cool skies, Myrtle lived with the echoes as the world went by.

Myrtle Ledeken was unmarried, and so she lived here with her parents until she died at age 31.

She was hit by a car in 1924 while crossing the street with her mother, Ethangia.

It was a young girl who was driving her father's car who ran into them.

Myrtle died at the scene and her mother was injured.

I believe that the myrtle tree planted right here next to the house was planted in honor of myrtle.

It is very large.

It's a California Bay Laurel tree, but people in Oregon called them Oregon myrtle trees.

And it's a remarkable tree.

It's very big.

I would suspect it's about 100 years old, which is about how long ago she died.

I don't know a whole lot about myrtle herself.

I have never found any photos of her.

She's mentioned in a couple of articles going to the circus with her sister, Maisel and Lizzie Lemon from up the road.

They went to the circus in Ashland and things like that.

Fast forward to the sixties, families that lived here, the daughter got married here in the front yard.

The arbor for her wedding was built by one of the lemons.

All of the Ledeckens and Probalt are buried at Cemetery, which as the crow flies, like it's just right over on the other side of Williams Creek.

The first time I went there to go look for Myrtle's grave, there's like a little loop that goes through.

And I thought, well, I'll just drive to the back of the little horseshoe and park and start my search there.

And I got out and I went over to the passenger side of my car and I started looking.

I was like, oh, how perfect.

Here's the entire Provolt family.

And I'm looking and I'm like, well, I don't see Myrtle's grave.

And so I went back over to the driver's side of my car and the one closest to my driver's door was Myrtle Ledeken's grave.

What are the chances that that would happen?

I just happened to park right in front of it.

I'm a sentimental person by nature, but I've never felt this way about a house before, but I feel like I was meant to be a part of this house's history and that this house was meant to be a part of mine.

I've talked to a lot of people who have ended up in this area and who have also felt called to this area by some sort of indescribable ceiling or urgency, like this is where I'm meant to be.

I feel like part of my story is to tell the story of the house.

And I feel like that's part of my calling.

It was one of several pieces of a much bigger jigsaw puzzle that we can keep putting together and not only learn curious, interesting little stories like this one, but start to recognize patterns that really inform and focus more research into the history of not only the Applegate Valley, but all of Southern Oregon.

It's like the thread that weaves all these different people together across time.

It's a sort of romance to it.

It's beautiful to think about that.