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I took a photo of this barn from Chateau Chantal’s driveway to the west. So the road you see behind the barn is Smokey Hollow Road. This barn and parcel has been owned by the Lehto family for some time, but prior to that it was Missy Jamieson’s place. Missy (aka Myrtle?) was Harold and Les Jamieson’s mother, though I can’t remember their dad – her husband’s – name (someone help me out, if you know). Floyd maybe?
My husband, Tim Boursaw, remembers visiting Missy with his best friend Jack Jamieson, who was her grandson. Tim says this land was also owned by the Boursaws at one time; they owned from East Bay all the way up to what’s now Chateau Chantal. The big hill to the right of this photo was called “Boursaw Hill” (we and other old-timers still call it that).
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I believe Tim’s dad and uncles walked from their house on the corner of Bluff Road and Boursaw Road up to school at the old schoolhouse on Center Road (to the north of the intersection of Kroupa Road and Center Road).
Tim’s Uncle Johnny (his grandpa Garrett’s brother) owned the block where Kim Fouch and Linda Seibel live, as well as the little subdivision on the corner of Boursaw Road and Bluff Road. Tim thinks Uncle Johnny ‘s parcel stretched to the last house to the east on Boursaw Road, and the land beyond that and to the north was his grandpa Garrett’s. These weren’t square parcels, though.
The side hill behind and to the north of Kim and Linda’s house was planted with corn at one time, but Tim thinks it was planted with pine trees during the Depression, when farmers were paid to plant pine trees on land that wasn’t easily farmed with machinery.
As for which Boursaw owned the Lehto place (where this barn is), Tim thinks it might have been John Baptiste Boursaw, one of the original Boursaw’s on the Old Mission Peninsula.
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Was there any farming on the land you call Boursaw Hill? The neighbors seem to remember a farm at the base of the hill near the intersection of Smokey Hollow and Boursaw.
Hey Jayne! Right – Tim says there was a cherry orchard at the base of the hill on the south side (so, near the corner of Smokey Hollow and Boursaw Roads), but thinks the hillside itself was used for pasture.
Love hearing the history of our living, breathing peninsula. Thanks for keeping the oral history alive through your articles!