_Oregon
Historic Landmarks_
WILLAMETTE VALLEY
[Illustration: DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION]
Oregon Society
Daughters of the American Revolution
[Illustration: _The Blockhouse at Dayton, Oregon_]
This building was a military blockhouse built at the Grand Ronde Indian
Agency by Willamette Valley settlers in 1856. U. S. Troops were sent to
the station the same year and it was named “Fort Yamhill.” Among the
famous Army officers stationed at this fort were Phil Sheridan, Joseph
Wheeler, A. J. Smith, D. A. Russell, and W. B. Hazen.
By permission of the U. S. Government, Fort Yamhill was moved from Grand
Ronde Agency to Dayton in 1911, through efforts of John G. Lewis, a
patriotic citizen. The structure was rebuilt on this spot as a memorial
to General Joel Palmer, a pioneer of Oregon, Superintendent of Indian
Affairs, founder of Dayton, and donor of this park.
LANDMARKS COMMITTEE
1963
Mrs. J. Dean Butler, Chairman
Mrs. W. D. Foster
Mrs. Lester Horton
Mrs. George R. Hyslop
Mrs. Albert H. Powers
Mrs. A. R. Quackenbush
The State Society Daughters of the American Revolution assumes no
responsibility for statements of contributors
Copyright 1963
by the Oregon Society
Daughters of the American Revolution
Printed in the United States of America
by the Metropolitan Printing Company
Portland, Oregon
Contents
Joe Meek Donation Land Claim—Harvey E. Tobie, Ph.D 4
The West Union Baptist Church—Ruth McBride Powers 6
Old College Hall—Irene S. Story 8
General Joel Palmer Home—Carl H. Francis 10
George Fox College—Mercedes J. Paul 12
Belleque House—Helen E. Austim 14
Champoeg Farm House—Henry Zorn 16
The Old Mission Hospital—Robert Moulton Gatke 18
The History of Wheatland Ferry—Mrs. Ross Rogers 20
George Kirby Gay—Lenna J. Wilson 22
The Amity Church—Dr. James Matthew Alley 24
Bethel College—Dr. James Matthew Alley 26
La Creole Academy at Dallas—Joseph D. Lee 28
The David Stump House in Monmouth—David Campbell 30
Christian College—Oregon Normal School—Oregon College of
Education—David Campbell 32
Fort Hoskins—Preston E. Onstad 34
Bishop Simpson’s Chapel—Madeleine L. Nichols 36
The Mitchell Wilkins Family Home—Lucia Moore 38
The University of Oregon—Nina McCornack 40
The Applegate House—Josephine Evans Harpham 42
The Cartwright House—Josephine Evans Harpham 44
The Condon House—Josephine Evans Harpham 46
The Christian House—Josephine Evans Harpham 48
The Montieth House—Henrietta Stewart Brown 50
Providence Baptist Church—Lenore Powell 52
White Spires United Presbyterian Church—Mrs. Wayne Dawson 54
Boston Mills (Thompson Mills)—Lottie E. Morgan 56
The Chase Orchard—Fannie Chase 58
History of Early Albany Schools—Mary Myrtle Worley 60
Linn County Courthouse—Florette Nutting, and Helen J. Horton 62
Joe Meek Donation Land Claim
_Harvey E. Tobie, Ph.D., author of “No Man Like Joe”_
[Illustration: (uncaptioned)]
Oregon’s first sheriff and marshal, Colonel Joseph LaFayette Meek,
should be remembered, not so much as a witty adventurer, a part much
overplayed by writers, but as one of the very most important—at times
the most important—political leaders in this northwest society. True,
distance and lack of formal education limited his contribution,
especially to national developments. The fact that his mother was a
member of the important Walker family, that his uncle Joseph married
Jane Buchanan and that his cousin Sarah Childress married James K. Polk
might otherwise have opened doors leading to distinction for a man of
great natural ability and winning personality.
There were twelve, or by one account, fifteen children in Meek’s
Virginia family, too many for one man to educate in a day when schooling
was neither universal nor free. Joseph L. Meek chose to go west. From
his brother Hiram’s home at Lexington, Missouri, he enlisted in the fur
trade in 1829 and continued that wild career for eleven years. Decline
of the fur trade forced him to move to Oregon in 1840, driving one of
the first wagons ever to reach the present Oregon-Washington area.
The record summarized in the most definitive Meek biography, _No Man
Like Joe_, reveals not only a man with important ancestral ties which he
proudly and affectionately maintained, but the fond, doting parent which
he always was. Unlike many less responsible trappers, he did not
unfeelingly desert his Indian wife and his children, but he took them
along with him into the far west.
Adjustment to family life in Oregon was somewhat difficult for mountain
people. It was 1842 before Joe had a field of wheat of his own. Besides,
his heavy involvement in public affairs interfered with successful
farming. Nevertheless, as shown by a letter written to brother Hiram and
republished so widely as to reach London, he was a prosperous farmer by
1845. His north Tualatin plains estate, consisting of 642.7 acres of
combined prairie and timber land of excellent quality, later became
Donation Land Claim no. 61, notification 122, Twp. 1 north, range 2
west. Here, in the autumn of 1845, Joe hauled lumber from Oregon City by
ox team and built the first frame house in Twality County. The old log
cabin was made available to Uncle Ben Cornelius, his wife and nine
children.
The boards used in the new house were probably one by twelves, sixteen
feet long, either set upright to form what was known as a box house, or
nailed lengthwise on a frame of hewn logs and poles and covered by a
shingled roof. This unpainted building was large enough for a
house-warming dance, but very inadequate according to present standards.
It was a one-story affair, with an attic, no doubt, that could
accommodate one or more sleepers. The effective size of the front room
was reduced by storage of saddles, pumpkins, apples, and other produce.
Thus, although the long kitchen was adequate, the large and maturing
family had little more than one-room sleeping quarters. Used to better
conditions in the east, daughter Olive, after her return in the fall of
1862, promoted improvements. Unbelievably, there was room for
over-winter visits of relatives.
The successive family houses on the original site no longer stand, and
the 1866 barn has been torn down. Fortunately, the home of Mrs. Emma
Ross Deardorff, in which she has lived since 1872, still exhibits what
are close similarities to the dwelling in which Colonel Meek lived
during his last years. Living on the original residential site, now the
Ernest Zurcher farm, are Mrs. Zurcher (Marjorie Meek), her husband, and
the grandchildren of Stephen A. D. Meek—the great grandchildren of
Joseph L. Meek.
There was a “lost generation” of Meeks. The Civil War and racial
discrimination in the years that followed were principally responsible
for the fact that marriages of all surviving Meek children were delayed
until later in life than is normal. The grandchildren of Joseph L. Meek,
who are now at the peak of their careers as average, respected, useful
citizens. Best known in Oregon is druggist J. Fred Meek who is now,
after another reelection, serving as representative in the state
legislature.
The West Union Baptist Church
_Ruth McBride Powers_
[Illustration: Oregon Historical Society]
“We the undersigned agree to pay the sum annexed to our names severally
for the purpose of Erecting a house of worship; to be the property of
the West Union Baptist Church of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour; said
house to be built in Washington County O. T., upon a lot of land
furnished by David T. Lenox which the said Lenox and wife secures to the
church by lease as long as they shall use it for a house of Worship,
together with a burying ground, the lot of land is on the east side of
the Lenox land claim at a point of timber adjoining the prairie, the
house to be of good style frame 30 foot by 40 foot Square finished in
good Style, the payments to be made to the trustees, David T. Lenox,
Henry Sewell and Reubin W. Ford.”
* * * * * * * *
Thus reads a subscription paper dated April 20, 1853, which records
pledges of $749.70 toward the total cost of $1,512.43 of the West Union
Baptist Church. The average gift was $5.00 but David T. Lenox heads the
list with $200.00, his son, Edward, $60.00. Generous pioneers of other
faiths made contributions, including Dr. John McLoughlin, D. H.
Lounsdale, and James Failing.
On May 25, 1844, five Baptists met in the log house of David Lenox on
Tualatin Plains, about eight miles northwest of Hillsboro, and
constituted the first church of the Baptist denomination in Oregon.
Their Minute Book shows that they named their church the West Union
Baptist Church, decided to meet once each month at the homes of members,
and elected David T. Lenox temporary Moderator. Subsequent entries
clearly show that Lenox was the leading member of this pioneer church.
He was born in New York State in 1801, lived in Illinois and Missouri
before leading a company of the 1843 wagon train to Oregon. Lenox sent
out the call in 1848 that resulted in the formation of the Willamette
Baptist Association. Although he was elected Moderator and Deacon, Lenox
was voted out of his church in November, 1862, but was reunited with it
before his death in 1872. His grave may be seen in the burying ground
adjoining the white, turreted church situated on his Donation Land
Claim. The West Union Baptist Church is the oldest Baptist Church west
of the Rocky Mountains and one of the oldest Protestant buildings still
standing in Oregon.
The Minute Book records the appointment of three committees to locate a
site for a Meeting House, but it was not until David Lenox offered a
portion of his land on April 9, 1855, that any progress was made toward
the erection of the church. The Reverend Ezra Fisher, who was sent to
Oregon by the American Baptist Home Mission Board in 1845, delivered the
sermon of dedication on Christmas Day, 1853.
The West Union Baptist Church is the only pioneer church in Oregon,
measured, blueprinted, and photographed in the Historic American
Buildings survey in 1934. This project was carried out by the Civil
Works Administration in cooperation with the National Parks Service of
Plans and Designs within the Department of the Interior throughout the
United States. It was a depression measure that offered employment to
architects and secured records of great value pertinent to early
American architecture.
Thirty-nine districts for research were designated. Oregon and
Washington were “District 39.” The Oregon members of this district
committee were Walter Church, architect, Portland; Nellie B. Pipes,
librarian of the Oregon Historical Society, and W. R. B. Wilcox, Dean of
the Department of Architecture of the University of Oregon. They
employed twenty architects and two photographers. On the closing date of
the project, April 28, 1934, forty-seven structures in Oregon and seven
in Washington had been studied, delineated and photographed.
A list of these buildings may be found in the Oregon Historical
Quarterly for June, 1934. Photographs and facsimiles of the blueprints
may be inspected at the Oregon Historical Society Library in Portland or
purchased through the National Archives in Washington, D. C.
Old College Hall
_Irene S. Story_
[Illustration: (uncaptioned)]
According to the caption on the bronze marker placed by the Multnomah
Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution on May 12, 1939,
“College Hall (is) the oldest building in continuous use for Educational
purposes west of the Rocky Mountains. Here were educated men and women
who have won recognition throughout the world in all the learned
profession.”
In this building Tualatin Academy developed into what is now Pacific
University. When the Academy was chartered in 1849, the classes met in
the log cabin erected for the Congregational Church in West Tualatin
Plains, now Forest Grove. But in 1850 the board of trustees authorized
the erection of a two-story frame building. Here are the words of one of
the students, Marcus W. Walker, concerning the “raising”:
“It was in 1850 but in the early summer and never did a brighter sun
shine through, a bluer sky or more brilliant green bedeck forest and
grove and plain than did those in which boys reveled during those days
in which the frame of the old Academy building was placed in position.
“All spring, men and teams had been hewing out and hauling timbers while
other men under the oversight of ‘Squire Tuttle,’ as he was familiarly
called, had been framing them and now they were ready to be put
together. It was yet in the days of log houses and ‘bee-raisings’ and
notices and invitations had been sent out naming the day when everything
would be ready. Men with families came from other neighborhoods in
white-covered ox wagons, camping out for the time, and the affair
greatly resembled the old-fashioned camp meeting. Tables were set in the
old log building, partly school house, partly church, which has passed
into history as the birthplace of Tualatin Academy and Pacific
University, where bountiful dinners were provided by the women for the
men at work. This department being under the energetic oversight of
‘Grandma Brown’ with her somewhat stern face and dignified bearing, but
we knew that behind them lay the kindest heart that ever befriended a
homeless orphan whose name is, if possible, more intimately associated
with the history of this institution than that of Rev. Harvey Clark, its
founder and patron.
“Squire Tuttle gave the signal, ‘He-oh-heave’ and up it went and settled
into place. Money was scarce in those days and houses were built in a
hurry so a winter and a summer passed away before even one room was
ready. It was a frosty morning in October 1851 when 25 or 30 of us
gathered in the lower north room and school began with J. M. Keeler on
the platform. The fresh ceiling on the walls and overhead, the large new
blackboard, the new double desks, homemade as they were, all combined to
make it a veritable palace, used as we were to the rough log walls of
the old building with its rough benches and long shelf running around
the sides for desks.”
The building cost about $7,000 and the trustees were $2,000 in debt. The
Rev. Harvey Clark gave 200 acres of land at first; this plot of ground
was divided into lots and many of them were sold to help pay for the
building. Later he gave more land for the same purpose. Tabitha Brown
mentions in a letter that she gave $100, a big sum in those days,
especially for a woman of 69 or 70 years of age earning her own money.
Mrs. Mary Walker, wife of Rev. Elkanah Walker, gave her watch which was
sold and the sale price added. Others gave generously also and the
Society for the Promotion of College and Theological Education in the
East contributed to the upkeep of the Academy.
In 1854, the Territorial Legislature granted a new charter with full
collegiate privileges to “Tualatin Academy and Pacific University.”
General Joel Palmer Home
_Carl H. Francis_
[Illustration: (uncaptioned)]
The impressive home of General Joel Palmer, with its stately columns,
catches the eye and excites the curiosity. In Dayton’s City Park one of
the few authentic blockhouses remaining, compels attention, and each
year thousands of tourists read that it stands as a memorial to General
Palmer; out of the dusty past ride the well-known figures of Sheridan,
Grant, Russell (who died at the Battle of Winchester), Wheeler, (both of
the Confederacy in the War between the States and of the Union in the
Spanish-American War), all identified with the historic blockhouse. But
no note is made of the regal structure which views the passing parade
from its vantage point of the State Highway which traverses the small
town; and history has itself passed by one of the most colorful persons
who helped hammer out the destiny of Oregon.
Let us look first for a moment to this man—a man who shaped the future,
first of the Indians who occupied the land, and then of his fellow
countrymen. As Superintendent of Indian Affairs, he negotiated the
treaties whereby the red man ceded title to the Oregon Country; these
were ratified by the United States Senate and became the law of the
land. Because of his humanitarian attitude toward the Indians, Palmer
was the victim of unfair criticism. But when the Whitman massacre
resulted in the Cayuse Indian War, Palmer readily took the field against
the errant, and it was in this War that his title of “General” was
obtained. Yet all the while, he served his fellow countrymen in numerous
ways. In Indiana he had been a member of the legislature before his
first trip to Oregon in 1845.
As Faith Holdredge Watts says, he was then “on a journey of exploration,
to test the feasibility of taking his family out later and establishing
a permanent home there.” He was immediately elected captain of one
company and in the fall of that year with Sam Barlow established what is
now known as the “Barlow Trail”—a portent perhaps of how perverse
history would refuse to recognize this leader, and give its laurels to
another. Palmer then platted the Town of Dayton in 1850, setting aside
the City Park as a “Court House Square” and the Brookside Cemetery in
which he was later buried. His picture, in the Oregon State Capitol,
looks down upon each Speaker of the Oregon Legislature, for he was the
second Speaker of the Assembly—but again, perverse history dismisses him
with a reference to a “Joe” Palmer; he was a State Senator, refused to
run as a candidate for the United States Senate while in government
employment, but in 1870, was the candidate of the burgeoning Republican
Party for Governor, being defeated by less than 700 votes. He was
characterized as a “man of honesty and integrity.” This was the man who
built the house.
The house itself has been rebuilt, added to, and a part destroyed.
Gertrude Palmer, granddaughter of the General, lives today in Lafayette,
Oregon, and her mind leaps quickly back to the olden days; she recalls
as a small child holding her grandmother’s hand while the original
structure (one story and attic, with a double fireplace) was demolished.
In the 1860’s, Palmer built an additional part which was remodeled in
1911, giving the present structure a “southern plantation” look.
Palmer’s original Dayton home was Dutch Colonial. He was a “bound boy”
in his youth; with no formal education, he struggled to achieve the
recognition he received. The house would reflect his personality.
To this home, says his granddaughter, came orphans—and one sees here his
hope that they be spared the rigors of his own youth. One of these,
Christopher Taylor, drove the wagon train that brought Palmer’s wife to
Oregon. Christopher Taylor was from Dayton, Ohio; and so the Oregon
counterpart came to be named.
Palmer, although a distinguished leader in the pioneer community of
Oregon, was apparently not fully aware of Oregon’s rainfall when he
built his home. To the Civil-war period portion of his house (and
incidentally, as a Republican leader he was strongly pro-Union), he dug
a deep-bricked cellar, which filled with water during the winter months.
Gertrude Palmer reminisces that when it so filled, “We used to get our
shingle boats and play in the cellar.” This pastime became denied to
juveniles with the 1911 remodelling.
George Fox College
_Mercedes J. Paul_
[Illustration: (uncaptioned)]
Ten years after William Hobson settled near the site of Newberg in 1875,
the Friends had opened an academy for their children, the first Quaker
school in Oregon and the forerunner of Pacific College, now George Fox.
In 1883 the pioneer Quaker parents, feeling the need of education for
their children beyond that offered in the Oregon public schools, brought
the subject of building an academy before the Monthly Meeting. Mary
Edwards, Dr. Elias Jessup, David Wood, and Ezra Woodward were appointed
to investigate.
By September, 1883, the committee reported $1,865 secured in good notes
and that the subscribers had met and decided to call the school, Friends
Pacific Academy.
C. J. Edwards recalled the establishment of the academy vividly. “One
evening in the spring of 1884, as I was returning from school, I noticed
that someone had cut a wide swath of wheat down along the west side of
our garden and that several loads of lumber had been hauled to the place
where the Friends Church now stands.... My father said he was very much
dissatisfied with having to sell some of the land in the center of his
farm for an academy building but that he was so anxious to have the
privileges of the school for his family that he had consented to its
erection near the center of the 80-acre field on the spot where the
Friends Church now stands.”
On September 28, 1885, Friends Pacific Academy, a school of high school
rank, opened its doors. Dr. Jessup had hauled the first load of lumber
with a mule team for the building, and Noah Heater and Charles Vaughn
had contracted for the carpenter work.
The first academy building was moved in 1892 to the present campus where
it became known as Hoover Hall in 1932 and was used as a men’s dormitory
for twenty years. The architects declared it was suffering from “extreme
fatigue,” and it was torn down in 1954, destroying a wall on which
tradition says Herbert Hoover signed his name “Bertie.” The senior rose
garden marks the site of the historic academy building.
Among the first to enroll on opening day was Bert Hoover, later
thirty-first president of the United States. Then eleven years old, he
was living with his uncle, Dr. Henry Minthorn, Pacific’s principal. On
the college’s fiftieth anniversary Mr. Hoover was granted Pacific’s
first honorary degree and his fiftieth.
When the academy opened, there were two of senior rank, eleven in the
first year, twelve in the second, and thirty-four in the first year of
the grammar department. There were two teachers besides Dr. Minthorn.
Six years later there were 125 students attending classes, and one had
graduated. The Quakers were now confronted with the problem of providing
further education for their children, and, since the nearest Quaker
college was in Iowa, they decided to start their own.
Pacific College opened its doors on September 9, 1891, with Dr. Thomas
Newlin as president. There were six other instructors. The college’s aim
was that of “offering to young men and women the benefits of a liberal
Christian education.” Two juniors, four sophomores, and seven deficient
in preparatory work were enrolled in the college; and 136, in the
academy.
Pacific’s first graduates were Clarence J. Edwards, son of Jessee
Edwards, in whose wheatfield the academy had been built; and Amon C.
Stanbrough, an early superintendent of Newberg schools.
In 1949-50, final action was taken to change the name of Pacific College
to George Fox. It was felt that the increasing confusion of Pacific
College with Pacific University at Forest Grove and the use of Pacific
in the names of other schools on the Pacific coast made such a change
imperative.
There are few colleges that send a larger proportion of their graduates
into the so-called sacrificial fields, as teachers, preachers, or
missionaries. George Fox, the fifth oldest Quaker college in the United
States, emphasizes constantly the ideal of service rather than
selfishness, and of character as well as scholarship.
Belleque House
_Helen E. Austin_
[Illustration: (uncaptioned)]
George W. Eberhard, at the age of 22, arrived at San Francisco by way of
Panama from the State of Michigan. He remained in California for five
years and came to Oregon by boat in 1859. The following year he bought
320 acres of the Pierre Belleque farm above Champoeg. At that time only
60 acres were cleared. He paid $1,500 for this land which had been
farmed by the Belleque family over 25 years. Because of technical
regulations in the Land Grant laws, no clear title had been issued, and
it was 28 years before Mr. Eberhard was able to secure his official
title.
This farm belongs to the very earliest period of Oregon history, having
been the location of one of the first fur-trading posts in the entire
Northwest Country. It was established by members of the Astor expedition
in 1812, and when the Hudson’s Bay Company came to this Western Empire a
decade later, they took charge and maintained it as a supply depot and
relay farm for brigades going to the Umpqua and country to the south.
It is in the big bend of the Willamette River in Marion County, located
two miles west of Champoeg on the river road to Newberg. Highway 219 to
the new bridge is the west boundary of the original farm. A historical
marker has been erected near the bridge.
Pierre Belleque, who came with the Northwest Fur Company from Canada,
settled here in 1831 to develop a farm and home and raise a family,
along with other retired fur company men. His neighbor to the west was
Etienne Lucier. Here they became prominent in the early history and
development of the Northwest Country, long before the wagon trains began
to roll over the Oregon trail.
It was the house of Belleque which had been the chief trader’s house,
built in the French style, having lapped siding; and dressed lumber was
used for finishing. The house had been lined with flowered glazed
chintz, a piece of which is still preserved. An outstanding feature was
the glass in French-style windows, while the usual log cabins with
parchment windows and rough lumber comprised the homes of his neighbors.
Mr. Eberhard, a bachelor, was living here when the flood of 1861
destroyed so many homes and towns along the Willamette. He saved it from
going down to destruction in the swirling waters and anchored it on a
higher bench of land. Here he brought his bride, Louisa J. Jones in
1865. Soon he began hewing the timbers and building their new home,
moving into it in 1869. They used the handmade mantel from the chief
trader’s house, and many of the doors and windows. To them were born six
children—five boys and a girl, Barbara, who married Henry J. Austin, one
of the early merchants of Newberg. They had two children—Louise Austin
of the Friendsview Manor in Newberg and George Kenneth, who with his
wife still lives in this house in its park-like setting of stately old
black walnut and hickory trees. This grandson was among the first to
develop an extensive irrigation project. Today he operates a modern
dairy.
Although the house has been remodeled, much of the original handwork can
be seen. The broadaxe used to fashion the beams still stands by the
fireplace. The original hand-dressed flooring remains in one room nailed
with handwrought iron nails. One of the original shingles, hand-split
and gently tapered with plane or draw-knife, is preserved.
The family has collected shards of china, pottery, old pipe stems and
bowls, and various relics from the site of the old trading post, which
portion of the farm was sold many years ago.
To this farm belongs the honor of having reared enterprising citizens
from the time Pierre Belleque was appointed as one of the first
constables—before the formation of our provisional government—to the
present day, when the son of Mr. and Mrs. G. K. Austin aided in the
designing of portions of our modern-day missiles.
Champoeg Farm House
_Henry Zorn_
[Illustration: (uncaptioned)]
The house on Champoeg Farm was built between 1867-70, by John Hoefer and
Casper Zorn. It is a combination of southern and western design, a
two-story frame building, consisting of fourteen rooms. The structure
has a brick pillar foundation and the pillars are covered with zinc
sheeting, to protect the sills from moisture. The fir lumber used in the
building was produced on the farm and wrought-iron square nails were
used in the construction. In the front part of the house the lumber was
planed, tongue and groove, by hand.
This building was enlarged in the 1880’s to its present size. In 1896, a
bell tower, on the roof at the rear of the house, was added. The bell
was to call the farm hands from the field at the noon hour. In the same
year, the windmill tower was built.
The house was completely furnished; carpeting with large floral designs,
heavy drapes, and such furniture as was in use at that period, along
with many pioneer articles.
The house is in the center of the Robert Newell Donation Land Claim,
surrounded by about 950 acres of fertile farm and timber land. The name
Champoeg Farm was registered June 9, 1913, in the Marion County Clerk’s
office, Salem, Oregon. The reason for naming the farm was to give it an
identity. The largest Indian village in the Willamette Valley was
located here. The French Prairie was known as Champoeg Country. Champoeg
District, which extended from the Willamette River to the summit of the
Rocky Mountains, was named by the Provisional Government. The first
flour mill of 1835, and all succeeding mills were known as the Champoeg
mills. The establishment of the first American government on the Pacific
Coast occurred here. The townsite of Champoeg was situated on the
northwest section of the farm.
There were a number of individuals who had a part in the development of
the farm by ownership or otherwise, who made history by their courage
and determination and who became useful members of a new state. I am
mentioning the names of the most prominent: Robert Newell, Donald
Manson, William Bailey, Thomas McKay, William Cannon, John Ball, William
Johnson, George Laroque, John Hoefer and Casper Zorn. Personally I have
owned the farm over fifty-two years.
John Hoefer sailed from Europe to New Orleans; the voyage took six weeks
before arriving. For two years he worked as a cabinet maker and then he
came by wagon train to California and thence to Oregon by steamer,
coming to the Champoeg district in 1852. After arrival, he worked as a
cabinet maker and carpenter, building houses for the settlers.
John Zorn, his two sons, and daughter came from Europe to New York and
then to Baraboo, Wisconsin; and after a time, decided the Pacific
Northwest was the place to establish their home. They went down the
Mississippi River by boat to New Orleans, then by steamer to Panama,
across the Isthmus, and then by steamer to California, and from there by
steamer to the Oregon country, settling in the Champoeg district in
1854.
John Hoefer married Anne, the daughter of John Zorn. Casper Zorn, the
older of the two sons, became a partner of John Hoefer. Adam, being a
boy, chored around until he became old enough to go on his own.
Hoefer and Zorn ran the old tavern, where the Hudson’s Bay Company
quarters had been. They also had a bowling alley, at the townsite of
Champoeg. All their property was lost during the flood of 1861.
On February 3, 1862, Hoefer and Zorn bought the flour and gristmill,
which had been damaged by recent flood, repaired it, and operated it for
fourteen and one-half years. Then on February 24, 1866, they purchased
146 acres from Robert Newell, and the Champoeg Farm house was built on
the present site.
The Old Mission Hospital
_Robert Moulton Gatke_
[Illustration: (uncaptioned)]
In the late fall of 1834, under heavy rains, Jason Lee and his few
co-laborers built the log cabin which was to house the Oregon Indian
Mission of the Methodist Church. The crudely built cabin of
twenty-by-thirty feet was on the banks of the Willamette River, about
ten miles below the present city of Salem. As the mission became an
Indian orphanage and school, and its mission workers and their families
increased in numbers, the log cabin received additions; and a small
colony of cabins serving as homes, utility buildings, and work shops
grew. These buildings were swept away by the flood of 1861, almost
twenty years after the mission activities had been transferred to the
present site of Salem.
Only one building of the old mission structures survived the flood. This
was the first frame structure, built in 1838, to house the mission
doctor, Elijah White; and later added to, so it could serve as the
mission hospital. The site selected for the first frame structure was on
higher ground, about a mile east of the mission log buildings on the
river bank. The location today is on the Wheatland Ferry Road, about ten
miles from Salem, on what is now (1963) known as the Mission Blueberry
Farm. Oregon’s oldest frame house is privately owned and occupied, as it
has been during most of its century and a quarter of history. When the
Old Hospital was first known to the writer, about 1920, it was called
the Beers’ house because of its long ownership by the Alanson Beers
family. This mission family had originally acquired it from the Oregon
Mission, when it closed its Indian Mission in 1844. At the time I first
visited the house it was unoccupied and showed considerable neglect. In
the years since, it has passed through a succession of owners, most of
whom have appreciated its historic significance and kept it in fine
repair.
With the arrival of the first reinforcement of mission workers,
including the first physician, Dr. White, in 1837, and others in 1838,
the living conditions in the old mission quarters were impossibly
crowded. In a book published in 1848, based on Dr. Elijah White’s source
materials, the writer says: “There was some difficulty in accommodating
the new comers, but they were obliged to enter the house with the old
inmates, already numerous.... (This) made Mrs. White anxious to remove
to their own house, which they did in a few days although it was not fit
condition for inhabitants. There was no chimney in it, and but roof
enough to cover a bed; a few loose boards for a floor, and one side
entirely unenclosed.”
The house was completed as soon as possible. But as there was no
suitable stone at hand for the hearth, it was made of clay and ashes
“which after drying, became measurably though not perfectly hardened.
But one of Mrs. White’s greatest domestic privations was that she could
never wash her hearth.”
When the mission carpenters, under W. H. Willson, finished the house,
and Mrs. White was settled, she made it a home which won praise from the
wife of the Fort Vancouver chaplain, the Rev. Herbert Beaver, when she
and her husband visited the Whites. “They were much pleased with
everything around them, especially the indoor arrangements. ‘Why, Mrs.
White,’ said Mrs. Beaver ‘how nice this is; it looks as though a white
woman’s hands had been here. This is the first white woman’s house I
have been in since my arrival in this country.’”
Many visitors besides the Beavers stayed at the White home, including
Dr. Marcus Whitman, from the American Board Missions; Dr. McLoughlin,
and visiting missionaries from the Hawaiian Islands. From the size of
the retinue which accompanied Dr. and Mrs. McLoughlin, and the
description of their camping equipment, it must have been that they
camped near the house while they visited, as the party could never have
been housed under its roof.
We have a description of the Mission Hospital, as it was some years
after Dr. White’s occupancy, from Lt. Charles Wilkes, a United States
government exploring agent, who visited the Willamette Valley in June
1841. “We rode on to the log houses which the Messrs. Lee built when
they first settled here. In the neighborhood are the wheelwright’s and
blacksmith’s, together with their workshops, belonging to the mission,
and about a mile to the east, the hospital, built by Dr. White, who was
formerly attached to the mission.”
The History of Wheatland Ferry
_Mrs. Ross Rogers_
[Illustration: (uncaptioned)]
Wheatland Ferry crossed the Willamette River at a very historical
pioneer spot. Jason Lee chose the location for the first Methodist
Mission of the valley, a short distance south of the village of
Wheatland on the east side of the river. There were no roads, so
traveling was by water or horse-back, and the first river crossings were
in Indian canoes, with often a horse swimming behind.
In 1837, David Leslie came to help at the Mission, bringing his wife and
three daughters. They lived in a log cabin on the west side of the river
and crossed to the Mission. By 1840 two more daughters were born. They
were the first white children born in Yamhill County. In 1843, Daniel
Matheny crossed the plains and took up a donation land claim reaching
the river at Wheatland. His family operated a ferry across the river for
many years, beginning in flat bottom skiffs, and later with a flat boat
for wagons.
Here is a story of pioneer days. Matheny’s oldest son was told by his
mother that he was too big to go to Camp Meeting without shoes, so he
would have to stay home. This was a sad situation as Camp Meeting was
the social event of the year. An Indian woman came to the river and
signaled for him to come over to take her across. When he reached her he
saw her moccasins and began to bargain for them. At first she shook her
head, and he began to empty his pockets. At last she consented and he
ran home waving his moccasins.
The land around Wheatland was settled rapidly in the 1840’s, and as
wheat was the main export, a warehouse and boat landing were built a
quarter of a mile south of the ferry by Miles Hendrick. Wheat was raised
on both sides of the river. There is no high ground on the east side of
the Willamette river for buildings or boat landings. The first warehouse
was built a mile south of Wheatland on a bluff near the west bank of the
Willamette river. It went out in the 1890 flood. The other one was built
about a quarter of a mile north of Wheatland. After harvest the ferry
was busy bringing wheat from across the river to the warehouse to be
shipped on river boats.
I remember the ferry in the late 1890’s. It was a thrill to cross the
river on it; but as the charge was twenty-five cents one way and forty
cents round trip, we didn’t cross often. As children, my cousin and I
used to go down and ride across free when the ferry man was taking a
wagon. He never refused us and no child drowned from the ferry at that
early day.
After the Matheny family moved away, the ferry was owned by John Isham,
Bill Isham, Dick Wood, and Lane Davidson. While Davidson ran it, a new
ferry boat was built. In the early 1930’s, Clyde Lafollette bought the
ferry and built a cabin on the ferry so that his son, Clarence, could
sleep there and be ready to take late travelers across. There were
current boards on the ferry that made the river current help push it
across. If the current wasn’t strong enough, the operator had to help
with his own strength. Later Mr. Lafollette put a gasoline engine on the
ferry to help while the river was low in the summer time.
In 1937, the communities on each side of the river, backed by Clyde
Lafollette, began pressing for a free ferry supported by the two
counties it connected. Yamhill and Marion counties took over the ferry
that year, hiring two men to run it and keeping it open from six a.m.
until five p.m. They installed a new gasoline ferry and, of course,
ferry travel increased.
Tom Bowden, who is still working on the ferry, began operating the
gasoline ferry in 1940. Other helpers have been Roy Lafollette, George
Frauendeiner, Frank Hersha, and Frank’s son, Erwin Hersha is the second
operator at the present time. There have been two drownings near the
ferry on the Wheatland side; Jackie Worthington in 1941 and Sonny
Lindsey in 1947. Both were in their early teens and could swim a little.
In 1947, a new electric ferry was built that could handle six cars at a
crossing, and in the summer time it was often kept busy. In 1959, the
present ferry was purchased. It is an all-steel electric one and handles
six large cars.
The Wheatland Ferry is one of the few remaining on the Willamette River.
In crossing it, you get a wonderful view both up and down the
Willamette. If you enjoy the romance of a ferry, do come and cross the
Beautiful Willamette on the Wheatland Ferry.
George Kirby Gay
_Lenna J. Wilson_
[Illustration: Oregon Historical Society]
George Kirby Gay was born in Gloucestershire, England, in 1796. Gay went
to sea at a very early age as a messboy on a voyage to the South Sea
Islands and other foreign ports. He left London on the whaler “Kitty.”
Landing in New York, he made his way westward to Missouri, where he
joined the Pacific Fur Company as camp-tender. Soon he started the
overland trek through the wilderness, arriving at Astoria in 1812. The
following year, Gay left Astoria and for years sailed the seas to all
parts of the world.
After his seafaring life, he left ship at Monterey, California, and
joined a trapping expedition, soon starting overland to reach the
Willamette Valley and the Columbia River, knowing, however, white men
might be found. He was a survivor of the Rogue River Massacre, finally
arriving at Wyeth’s Trading Post on Sauvies Island in August, 1835.
The following year, Gay was one of twenty to make the attempt to stock
the country with cattle. A goodly number of Spanish cattle were brought
through and the Colony benefited by this first business venture. While
driving the herd through the Siskiyou Mountains, the company was
ambushed. Gay received a fearful wound from an Indian’s arrow. The
Spanish cattle brought from California, enabled Gay to build herds that
roamed Yamhill and Polk Counties.
Now, being settled somewhat, he thought of a home in the heart of the
green Willamette wilderness. He busied himself with the making of brick
from the local clay. Clay dug from a nearby pit was “tramped
bare-footed,” molded, and burned into brick on the place. With these
first Oregon-made red brick, the first brick house west of the “Rockies”
was constructed. As a site for the brick house, Gay selected an elevated
location, affording a view in all directions. A two-story home with
14-foot walls, built of brick three courses thick was built. At each end
of this home was an inside fireplace two feet deep. Hand-dressed
woodwork and particularly the woodwork around the fireplaces,
handcarved, bore mute evidence of the taste and patience of the one who
dreamed of a mansion on a hill. The south wall was designated in Oregon
records as a point in the southern boundary of Yamhill County. Here was
the scene of unbounded hospitality.
Gay entertained officers of the U. S. Navy and all officers of the
British men-of-war, who were visiting in the Columbia. This home was a
resort for any and all travelers and immigrants who sought its shelter.
He had many servants. During the 1840’s, this house resounded to
discussions about Oregon’s provisional government. Meetings were called
in March for the purpose of devising means of protection for the herds
and to protect the lives of the settlers. At the March 6, 1843 meeting,
Gay was chosen one of a committee of 12 to take into consideration the
propriety of taking measures for the civil and military protection of
the colony. It was this meeting which promoted the epochal meeting at
Champoeg of May 2, 1843.
For 40 years, Gay was esteemed by companions as a rollicking good
fellow, whose temperament and adventures were becoming to the sailor,
fur trapper, valiant Indian fighter, and frontiersman of the early 19th
century. He was not a man to be trifled or fooled with, but a useful
member in his community—in short, he undertook any and all irregular
sort of business, and few things with him were impossible—all had much
confidence in him. A handsome, athletic man of powerful physique, he was
kind and gentle in his behavior and always good-natured. He was a fine
horseman and an expert with the lasso.
For years he was the wealthiest man in the Willamette Valley, outside of
the Hudson’s Bay Company. Like many of the old, generous, and hospitable
pioneers, he died poor—in his own home—a remarkable career man. The
career of the intrepid George Kirby Gay ended, October 7, 1882.
The Amity Church
_Dr. James Matthew Alley_
[Illustration: (uncaptioned)]
The Amity Church of Christ was born in a pioneer log cabin about two
miles north of present-day Amity in March of 1846. This makes it the
oldest Christian Church of the Disciples of Christ, west of the Rocky
Mountains.
Elder Amos Harvey, a pioneer of 1845, was the organizer of this
congregation of thirteen charter members. In a letter to an Eastern
religious journal, he tells of the humble beginning of this congregation
in these simple words: “We met, as the disciples anciently did, upon the
first day of the week, to break the loaf, to implore the assistance of
the Heavenly Father, and to encourage each other in the heavenly way.”
Amos Harvey was born of Pennsylvania Quaker stock. The Revolutionary
Battle of Brandywine was fought on his kinsman’s land. When a young man,
he married Miss Jane Ramage, a member of the Christian Church, and after
their marriage he became a member of the same church. He was the
organizer of Bethel College in Polk County, chartered in 1856. He had
one of the first fruit nurseries in the Oregon Territory and was one of
the first officers of the state horticulture society. He was one of the
founders of the Republican party in the state.
The second minister of the Amity Church of Christ was Glen O. Burnett, a
pioneer of 1846. Soon after his arrival in the Amity area, we find him
busy preaching, baptizing, marrying, and burying the citizens of this
area. He performed his first marriage, shortly after his arrival in
1846, in the cabin of Joseph Watt, another pioneer of the Amity
community. Elder Burnett was a hard-working circuit rider. He was a
close friend of Amos Harvey, and the two of them kept the Amity church
alive in its infancy. A great amount of credit goes to the laymen of the
Amity church of this period. They were the real leaders of the
community, and they in turn supported Harvey and Burnett with all that
they had to offer in a material way, which was very little. But what
they lacked in material help they made up in their faithfulness to this
pioneer church.
The congregation met in the homes of the members until 1849, when a log
school house was built in the north end of present-day Amity. A young
schoolmaster by the name of Ahio S. Watt named it Amity. And we find
that Elder Glen O. Burnett “delivered the principal address when the
first school in Amity was opened in the spring of 1849.” The California
gold rush took some of the members to the goldfields for a few years.
The Indian and Civil wars retarded the progress of the little church. It
was not until 1869 or 1870 that it had its first building.
The ground for this building was given by Enos Williams, who also gave
the village square in front of the church to the children of Amity in
perpetuity. The building was erected by a pioneer carpenter, Charles
Burch. This building served the congregation until 1912, when the
present church building was erected seventy-five feet west of the
original structure. The old building was moved to another part of town
and is still used for church purposes by another religious communion.
Enos Williams, William Buffum, and Robert Lancefield were charter
members of this church. They were leaders in the community, school, and
church life of this period. These laymen did not confine their good work
to the Amity area alone. When circuit riders Harvey and Burnett founded
Bethel College in Polk County, they sent their children to its high
school department and college classes, or supported it with financial
help. The pioneer Amity Church of Christ is not a story about a wooden
building as much as it is a story of great men, both its ministers and
its laymen—men who were willing to sacrifice for their faith.
The church at one time was in grave financial difficulty. There was a
possibility of losing its building. A member, Heber Martin, then past
seventy years of age, went to the bank and offered to mortgage his farm
to save the church building from a mortgage foreclosure. Happily, this
man’s faith aroused the community and the property was saved.
Bethel College
_Dr. James Matthew Alley_
[Illustration: Oregon Historical Society]