As violent as his adult life was — first as a member of Horace Bell's Rangers, meting out vigilante justice in Los Angeles in the 1850s; then fighting over land in Castaic for the last 30 years of his life and reportedly having been shot a total of seven times — William Wirt Jenkins didn't die violently except to the extent that his body attacked him. According to his death certificate, he long suffered from hardening of the arteries, and in the end, a blood clot in the brain got him.

Jenkins, born (as William Willoby Jenkins) to Richard Jenkins and Elizabeth Myers on Oct. 12, 1835, in Ohio, died seven days after his 81st birthday, Oct. 19, 1916, while visiting relatives at 1823 S. Flower St. in Los Angeles.

His death certificate lists him as a retired "mining man," a reminder of his attempts to hold land for mining (which included oil exploration) to the exclusion of farmers like his nemesis, William Chormicle.

Married to Olive M. Rhoades Jenkins, W.W. had two daughters, Ruby Jenkins Kellogg and June Jenkins, who was the informant on his death certificate and apparently married a man named Owens before marrying William H. Kinler. At the time of their father's death, Ruby lived in Saugus and June lived in Los Angeles at 2618 Dalton Ave., which is off of Adams between Western and Normandie.

W.W. Jenkins was cremated; apparently his ashes were interred in a mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale because his name appears with that of Olive (1858-1947) on a shared vault plaque with their daughter June Kinler (1893-1971) and her husband William Kinler (1897-1967).