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Anyone interested in the family of Job McNamee of Fairfield County, Ohio might be interested in the following item I stumbled across.
Source: Portland, Oregon, its history and builders.
By: Joseph Gaston
S. J. Clarke Pub. Co., Chicago, 1911
Available at HeritageQuest on line.
Extracted: EEA 30 Apr. 2004
ADAM McNEMEE
Among the sons of the pioneers of Portland is Adam McNemee, who for more than twenty years has been engaged in the express and transfer business. He has been identified with the coast region ever since his boyhood and has been a witness of the great charges that have taken place in the settlement of the country and the vast commerce that has grown up on the railroads, rivers and the ocean coast, bearing the products of forest, mine and farm to the most distant markets of the world markets.
Mr McNemee is the son of Job McNemee, who was born in the early part of the century in the Buckeye state and spent his boyhood in Fairfield County, Ohio. At the time the country west of Ohio was largely a wilderness, although a few settlements were scattered along the Mississippi river and at favorable locations in Indiana and Illinois. The McNemee family carries pioneer blood and the Ohio lad turned his face toward the west, stopping for a time at St. Joseph, Missouri, where he engaged in farming and also on a small scale as a grading contractor. In 1845 he joined a wagon train that was bound for the northwest coast of the Pacific and drove an ox team up the valley of the Platte past Independence Rock and the trading posts at For Laramie and Fort Hall, arriving safe in the valley of the Willamette after and arduous journey of six months. The spot now occupied by the beautiful city of Portland was then a dense forest with probably one or two cabins standing on the bank of the stream. Mc McNemee took up a donation claim of five hundred and fifty acres on the location where now stands the city of Portland but owing to litigation his claim passed to other hands. For a time he engaged in the hotel business and in 1849 he was among the excited gold hunters who sought fortune in the lands of California. A year later he returned to Portland and for four years was connected with the retail liquor business. For several years he took contracts for clearing land in the vicinity of Portland and for three years was identified with the manufacture of wooden pumps. He finally sold out his business and in 1873 was called away. Mr. McNemee married Hannah Cochran, who was a native of Indiana, and to them were born thirteen children, three of whom are now living: Adam, whose name appears at the head of this sketch; Andrew Jackson, now a Methodist minister of Longley Island, Washington; and Eveline, formerly the wife of Charles Shroder but now Mrs. Harry Barkenstein, of Sellwood, this state.
Adam McNemee was reared at Portland and educated in the public schools. For some years after arriving at man’s estate he engaged in teaming, but since 1888 he has been continuously identified with the express and transfer business in this city. Since 1875 he has been identified with Samaritan Lodge No. 2, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of Portland. In the early days he was for eighteen months an active member of the volunteer fire department, No. 4. He is identified with the Pioneer Society and is remarkably well informed concerning the early days and the trials and sufferings of the first settlers of the Willamette valley. By a life of industry and close attention to business he has gained the good-will not only of the older setters but of newcomers who are quick to recognize worth when it is possessed by a man who is thoroughly trustworthy and who endeavors according to his ability to exemplify the principles of friendship, love and truth.
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