Joel Perkins

The board says only that Perkins was murdered in southern Oregon on his way home. It happened in July 1856 at a ranch on the Klamath River, on the California side of the Siskiyous. His hired man, John Malone, came back alone from checking the stock and said Indians must have killed him. A small boy traveling with them told the rancher he had heard Malone and Laura Perkins plan it. Malone confessed, saying he loved her, and hanged himself in the Jacksonville jail; the charge against Laura was dropped.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Champoeg — 11 mi
  The river-bend meadow where settlers voted for a government in 1843, and where the Willamette took the entire town but one warehouse eighteen years later.
• Vanport — 31 mi
  Briefly Oregon's second-largest city, built in about 110 days for Kaiser's shipyard workers, washed away in an afternoon in 1948, and later renamed out of existence.

More markers nearby

• Abigail Scott Duniway — 0.2 mi
• Dayton Blockhouse — 2.5 mi
• Willamette Post — 8.3 mi
• Champoeg — 10 mi