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EDWARD COFFIN McKINNEY 1866-1930
LENORA SARAH GAYLOR 1871-1947
Married: 27Mar1893 Lander(Fremont)Wyo

PIONEER SETTLERS OF FREMONT COUNTY, WYOMING

1898

(Donald Earl McKinney, Jr)
EDWARD COFFIN "ED" McKINNEY was born 25 Feb 1866 on a sugar plantation near Kaneohe, Oahu of the Hawaiian Islands. His father was ANDREW JACKSON McKENNEY who left Stetson, Maine shortly before the start of the Civil War and stowed away aboard a ship which ended up in the opposite ocean in the Hawaiian Islands.

Ed's mother, LOUISA GRACE RICHARDS, was from Cornwall, England, but settled in the Hawaiian Islands after completing a world cruise to Austrailia and other ports with her sister. Louisa married sugar plantation owner William Rowan. After William died, she married Ed's father, Andrew, who worked for them on the plantation. Ed's brother Andrew Jr and sisters Catherine & Lydia were all born and raised in Hawaii. Their father was also a uniformed member of the King's Guard at the palace of King Kamehameha V. When the father died in 1878, Ed and his older brother Andrew Jr were sent to Utah to live with half-brother Charles Rowan who had settled there several years before. Their mother and sisters followed them 2 years later.

About 1881, Ed rode into Wyoming with a cattle drive, probably the drive his half-brother Charles Rowan is known to have made in that year from Utah, along the Oregon trail route through Wyoming to Pony, Nebraska. Ed settled in western Wyoming after the drive while his brothers remained in Utah. He worked for several ranches as a cowboy and horse breaker in the Sweetwater River area of Fremont County, Wyoming and made several cattle drives bringing the herds from Texas to the northern grasslands of Wyoming. After he married Lenora "Nora" Gaylor of Lander, Wyoming, they settled at Split Rock and ran horses on the open ranges with partner Gus Lankin. They lived and worked on several ranches until they established a partnership (on shares) with James Graham on one of his ranches along the Sweetwater River in the Myersville District of Fremont County. They raised their family on this ranch which was later called the Flagg Ranch when it was owned by Graham's daughter Donna Flagg. Ed's mother, Louisa, lived with them for several years at that ranch before she went back to Utah.

In 1910, they purchased a ranch of their own in an area of Sinks Canyon called Borner's Garden. Ed and his son Earl ran horses and cattle on the open ranges of the Sweetwater River and Beaver Creek. In 1923, Ed & Nora sold the ranch and moved to Covina in southern California. Their grown children & families made the trip with them in a caravan of cars. They went through Utah and visited with some of Ed's relatives along the way. Their oldest son Earl and his family soon returned to Wyoming where he was a cattle rancher for the rest of his life. Ed & Nora's other son Lloyd and his family remained in California as did their daughter Viola, but they all made frequent visits to their home & family in Wyoming. The youngest son Bill & his sister Ida also eventually returned to Lander, Wyoming where they lived the rest of their lives. Ed returned by himself to Wyoming in 1928 and worked on the Ellis place along the Sweetwater. He sent the money he made back to his wife in California. The next year, Ed returned to California where he was involved in an auto accident. He received serious head injuries which left him an invalid with his legs partially paralized. After being bedridden for over a year, Ed died of pneumonia at their home in Covina in 1930. His body was brought back to Wyoming for burial in the family cemetery at Borner's Garden. Nora died in 1947 and was also brought back to Wyoming for burial next to her husband. Nora's mother Sarah (Pendleton) Gaylor and brother Walter Gaylor are also buried in this little cemetery, as well as Ed & Nora's 2 children, Baxter & Elsie, who died in childhood.
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LENORA SARAH "NORA" GAYLOR was born 19 May 1871 probably near Fort Gibson in the Cherokee Nation, Indian Territory of what is now Oklahoma. It is believed her parents, ANDREW "Jack" & SARAH (PENDLETON) GAYLOR settled there in 1870 with other family members after leaving Texas. Jack's brother John Thomas "Tom" Gaylor & sister Sarah Matilda Gaylor Uhls and well as their mother Martha remained in Indian Territory where they raised their families. Nora's father was a freighter in that area and in Arkansas, but about 1875, after her sister Abbie was born, they crossed the plains to Placerville, California where their father mined for gold. They also resided in Sacramento part of the time while the father was mining. The family moved to Cheyenne, Wyo about a year later and their father drove a stagecoach to and from Deadwood, SD and freighted throughout Wyoming and the Black Hills. They lived at South Pass, Wyo from 1880-1882 when their father served as a scout and packmaster for the War Department at nearby Ft Washakie. This is where her brother Walter was born in 1881. Nora's parents soon established a homestead in Sinks Canyon, where mother Sarah died the day after Christmas 1886, leaving the children without a mother.

Abbie married Charles Rhodes and raised her children on a ranch in that area. Nora married Ed McKinney, a horse breaker and cowboy from the Sweetwater River country. Nora went to live with him in a small log cabin shared with partner Gus Lankin at Split Rock which was more than a day's wagon ride from Lander. Gus Lankin's diary mentions a Thanksgiving family gathering in 1894 when Nora's father "Jack", brother Walter & sister Abbie Rhodes & family visited for a week and had a feast of beef & venison from a deer they shot. Ed & Nora operated several ranches but eventually ran one of James Graham's ranches in the Myersville District of the Sweetwater River area. This is where they raised their family. (See Notes on husband Ed McKinney for continuation of this family)

Children of Ed & Nora McKinney:

Child 1: JAMES BAXTER TAYLOR MCKINNEY
Born: 3 May 1894 Lander(Fremont)Wyo
Died: 4 Jul 1897 Lander(Fremont)Wyo
Buried: Borners Garden

Child 2: EARL EDWARD McKINNEY
Born: 8 Sep 1895 Lander (Fremont) Wyo
Died: 5 Apr 1974 Lander (Fremont) Wyo
Marr: Amelia Grace "Dottie" Farthing 19 Sep 1913 Lander (Fremont) Wyo
Buried: Mount Hope Cemetery, Lander, Wyo

Child 3: LLOYD ELLIOTT MCKINNEY
Born: 6Jun1897 Lander(Fremont)Wyo
Died: 21Nov1972 Gonzales, CA
Marr: MABEL NICOL 25 Jul 1917 Lander(Fremont)Wyo
Buried: Mount Hope Cemetery, Lander, Wyo

Child 4: ELSIE LOUISA MCKINNEY
Born: 6Mar1899 Lander(Fremont)Wyo
Died: 4Jan1911 Lander(Fremont)Wyo
Buried: Borners Garden

Child 5: EDWARD C. “Bill” MCKINNEY
Born: 10Mar1900 Lander(Fremont)Wyo
Died : 5Sep1982 Lander(Fremont)Wyo
Marr: MARY VIOLA FACINELLI 15Sep1921 Lander(Fremont)Wyo
Buried: Mount Hope Cemetery, Lander, Wyo

Child 6: IDA MAY MCKINNEY
Born: 10Aug1905 Lander(Fremont)Wyo
Died: 15Mar1974 Lander(Fremont)Wyo
Marr: CHARLES R. MURPHY 15 Mar 1921 Covina(LA) CA
Buried: Mount Hope Cemetery, Lander, Wyo

Child 7: VIOLA ELLEN "Babe" MCKINNEY
Born: 14Jan1912 Lander(Fremont)Wyo
Died: 21Jan1954 Long Beach(LA)CA
Marr: ALLEN GEORGE RUSSELL (1)//WILLIAM FREDERICK HAWKINS (2)
Buried: Westminister, CA