Enter a name, company, place or keywords to search across this item. Then click "Search" (or hit Enter).
Volume 078-1 - January 2024 (6 pages)
Go to the Archive Home
Go to Thumbnail View of this Item
Go to Single Page View of this Item
Download the Page Image
Copy the Page Text to the Clipboard
Don't highlight the search terms on the Image
Show the Page Image
Show the Image Page Text
Reset View and Center Image
Zoom Out
Zoom In
Rotate Left
Rotate Right
Toggle Full Page View
Flip Image Horizontally
More Information About this Image
Get a Citation for Page or Image - Copy to the Clipboard
Go to the Previous Page (or Left Arrow key)
Go to the Next Page (or Right Arrow key)
Page: of 6
Oral history states she
opened the collar of
Joe’s lead mule and
NCHS Bulletin January 2024
The Kneebone Cemetery
at Bridgeport is located
just off Pleasant Valley
found his money had wre Road at the beginning
not been disturbed. rs mameae MEEEsoce : of the historic VirginCARY oe oat on ; ia Turnpike alongside
Then on-February 14, DOSERH: ** NEERONE’ 3 TAY . Kentucky Creek at South
1907, almost nineteen : JUNE ‘PO $9BB 0 24s Yuba River State Park
years after the death of “JOSEPH RNERBONE. sR:
at Bridgeport. This
st MURDERED i
reser Reed, J sep FEB. 14 1907 cemetery is maintained
Kneebone was foun Ls re by the Kneebone family
murdered, lying on the ee 2 a eee ee
of Grass Valley. Family
members are still being
interred at the cemetery.
World War II Brought Drastic Changes
for Spenceville Ranchers
The Kneebone Cemetery grave names shown in this 1942 photograph are ground between the
now missing. Camp Beale News, September 16, 1943.
barn and his home. He
was known to have kept
considerable money in gold coins in his house. He was
sixty-four years of age.
With the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the lives of the Spenceville area ranchers
and farmers changed forever. Homes and ranches like
those of Andrew and Joseph Kneebone could still be
found throughout the landscape of Spenceville prior
to the attack, which set in motion the federal government’s establishment of Camp Beale.
Amazingly no one was ever convicted of either murder. The suspect in Joseph’s trial resulted in a hung
jury and in the case of his son Joseph Reed the judge
released the two suspects for lack of evidence.
Thirty-five years later, when the Army acquired the
Kneebone Ranch in 1942, the government removed
the Kneebone cemetery
gravestones and poured
a covering of concrete
with the names of the
deceased inscribed on the
slab to protect the graves
from potential damage
due to training by the
troops.® The concrete
slab shown above clearly
shows the names of those
buried within. Why the
names have recently
disappeared is unknown.
Throughout the summer
of 1942 federal agents
made offers to the ranchers for their land. Most
refused the offer as far
too low.
Clarence Aumer, son of
Louis Hermann Aumer
and Sarah Kneebone
, Aumer were among the
many families that lost
their ranches to the government war effort.
Alfred Alexander Pictured at the Kneebone Cemetery are Kneebone descendants Richard L. Sarah, fondly known as
Kneebone Help ed Hill, and his sister, Karen Hill. Courtesy of the author. “Aunte Aumer,” was
Develop Bridgeport Joseph Kneebone’s
daughter. Clarence had been able able to acquire other
ranches and his siblings’ shares of the Kneebone ranch
in the Spenceville area.’
Alfred Alexander Kneebone, son of Andrew and Victoria Kneebone, and his wife Lucy Moynier Kneebone
lived at Bridgeport in 1918 at the home of Charles
Cole, his maternal grandfather where he farmed at his
grandfather’s ranch. In 1927 Alfred opened the famous
Bridgeport Swimming Pleasure Resort and gas station
which he completed in 1944.
One example of the government action during the
establishment of Camp Beale was the acquiring by
eminent domain of Clarence and Sarah Kneebone Aumer’s land, which represented the consolidation of the