Byrd Baker and his whale sculpture, 1976. (Photographer: Nicholas Wilson, Gift of Bruce Levene) On March 15, 2025, the Kelley House Museum hosted four original members of the Mendocino Whale War Association: Heidi Cusick Dickerson, Barry Cusick, Sally Welty, and Lee Welty. Also present was Shana Hadley, granddaughter J.D. Mayhew, who was a founding member of the Mendocino Whale War Association. The panel discussed [...]
Studio portrait of James Nichols. (Gift of Nannie Escola) On October 15, 1879, the Beacon reported Mendocino had been “thrown into a state of excitement hitherto unparalleled by the occurrence of a shocking calamity … two of our most esteemed citizens were atrociously murdered and a third wounded within four miles of our town, their comrades narrowly escaping death.” What made these murders so [...]
Edith Nichols, 1896. The French may be glad to die for love, as the old song goes, but Auggie Heeser was willing to live for it – a very long time. Heeser, son of pioneer Mendocino Beacon publisher William Heeser, fell in love with Edith Nichols when he was 21 and she was 15, but 50 years passed before she married him. Dante met [...]
Ford Family tintype. First row, seated, left to right: Mrs. Martha P. Hayes Ford, Ella Jane Ford, Jerome B. Ford and Susan Fidelia Ford. Second row, standing, left to right: Jerome C. Ford ("Chester"), Catherine Pauline ("Katie") Ford and Charles Denslow Ford. Dated November 1869. (Gift of Alice Earl Wilder) For much of U.S. history, being a mother and wife was more than a [...]