Mbhs #: 0818
First Row: Claus Kleinhammer (1832-1908)
Notes: Claus Kleinhammer was born in Schiffdorf, Prussia on October 28, 1832. His father died when Claus was 10 years old. At age 14 he "went to sea as a cabin boy on board a sailing vessel from Hamburg, and in the course of time the vessel upon which he sailed landed at New York, where Mr. Kleinhammer determined to remain. Securing employment at a wholesale grocery house, the three years following his arrival in that city found him packing goods, etc., in that establishment, and about that time he, like many others, yielded to an intense desire to try his fortune in the far distant land of California. The trip to the Golden Gate was made via the Nicaragua route, and for several years after his arrival in that state he followed prospecting and mining with fair success." Portrait and Biographical Record of Western Oregon (1904) pp. 407-8. Claus came to Oregon to mine on Sterling Creek in 1860. In 1878 he purchased a 143-acre farm 2 miles south of Medford, and sold the farm in 1904 after moving to the Talent/Phoenix precinct pre-1900, and later moved to Ashland where he died in 1908.
