Our Hammersley connection begins with the marriage of Jacob Hammersley to Lucy Virginia Vincent.
Jacob was a postmaster in New Pine creek, Oregon for several years. The first post office in New Pine Creek, Or. was on a porch room of Jacob and Lucy's house. Some information has reported that he was the first postmaster of New Pine Creek. But other information and documents show his brother Solomon was the first postmaster. Historians report that the first post office in Lake Co. Oregon was at New Pine Creek in 1872. Letters from the National Archives state the first was at New Pine Creek, in 1876, with Jacob Hammersley as the first postmaster. I have a photo of this first post office which appeared in an article which Eddie Fisher wrote about the area. According to Ruby Hammersley, Lake Co. Historian, not all of Eddie Fisher's information may be totally correct. However; I have a report that was brought back by Georgia Stevens from the Nat. Archives and which were given to me, by Kathy at the Lake Co. Museum, which shows the exact order of the postmasters and their routes. Solomon is unmistakably listed as the first postmaster in 1876, and Jacob was postmaster in 1884 and 1889. Apparently the postmasters served about a year at a time.
He and Solomon brought their families to the west by emigrant trains to Reno, Nev. where they were met with teams and wagons and taken to Goose Lake Country. They took homesteads at the town of New Pine Creek. It is located on one of the original land claims.
The report in the Vincent family book, says that he enlisted in the Missouri home guard; but was captured and paroled, in the Civil War. He tried to enlist in the regular Army; but was rejected because he was a "cripple".
Jacob was a miller with his father in Missouri. In the spring of 1870, Jacob and Lucy left for Oregon, by train, with his brother Solomon, his mother, Catherine and her Uncle, Josiah Vincent. Jacob took land in the north part of New Pine Creek, where he had a sawmill. He was a government blacksmith at Fort Klamath in 1876, where their son Guy was the first white child born on the Klamath Reservation.
In 1884, Jacob purchased the flour mill at New Pine Creek and ran it for 16 years. After Jacob retired from active life in 1900, his son, Guy ran the mill for many years. Jacob retired, a well respected man, who had provided well for his family.
Jacob and Lucy were members of the Methodist Church, and always labored for the spread of the faith. Most of this was taken from Wanda Hauser's Hammersly genealogy.....excerpts which appear in Imogene Vincent's 1986 Update Book.
In a report about the First Baptist church and its history, which is found in the "Lake Co. Examiner" Progress Edition, Lakeview, Oregon, Thursday, April 30, 1998, we learn that Jacob sold 1.17 acre lot to the church. That was in 1898. The church had been built in 1886, on the John Perkins ranch, now the Stringer Wild Plum Orchard. It was dedicated in 1887. Eleven years later; in 1898, they bought the acreage from Jacob Hammersley and Lucy, to move the church. That was for the "sum of Fifty dollars in gold coin." The deed is recorded in Book 12, of the Lake County Deed Records, page 197. A team of horses belonging to Darvin Covin, along with volunteers moved the structure. This was reported by Mattie Cook, whose husband, Charles kept track of the moving process with block and tackle equipment.