Fifty Years in Oregon was written by Theodore T.
Geer, a grandson of Joseph Carey Geer and a shirttail ancestor of
ours.
I have put much of the book on
this website. I started because several
chapters describe the early roots of our family history in Oregon. I
kept going because
I found many of the chapters from this perspective on the early
settlers and the history of Oregon to be quite
interesting.
In the spring of 1861, my father sold his
place in Silverton to Ai Coolidge, who owned it and made it his home until his
death, less than one year ago; it is still owned by his daughter. This was a
great event in my life, at the time, one full of joyful anticipations but
tinged, withal, with a pang of sorrow — a small sorrow it must have been, but I
was a small boy, and it was as difficult to bear as if it had been a larger
disappointment to be borne by a full-grown man.
This change of residence cruelly severed the
ties I had formed with the children of Silverton, among whom was a pretty little
miss of eleven summers, with rosy cheeks, curly brown hair and killing eyes.
This little creature had completely won my heart, and in the midst of it all I
was about to be ruthlessly transplanted to what seemed to me a land of exile! It
was at the very time of the firing on Fort Sumter and the different States were
not only “dissevered, discordant and belligerent,” but the land was being
“drenched in fraternal blood.” I can remember how men were troubled and excited,
but I could not understand that there was any cause for sorrow, when, so far as
I knew, none of them had recently been separated, as I was about to be, from the
only object on earth that could give any interest to life.
We were to start about ten o’clock, and as it
was not far to the schoolhouse, I stole away, picked one of the prettiest wild
rosebuds that I could find, and intercepted the little beauty — who shyly
confessed herself a little disturbed at the turn of affairs — and with
immeasurable sorrow, tempted by my joy in meeting her, gave her the rosebud and
tearfully hurried away. I had just reached the tender age of ten years, and had
no doubt I was undergoing extreme anguish; but so great were my recuperative
powers that within three weeks my bereavement was forgotten and I was again
basking in sunshine and roses. The last I heard of my youthful charmer she was
living on a sheep ranch in Idaho, the mother of eleven children, and was doing
as well, perhaps better, than if my father had remained in Silverton.
In 1854, W. K. Smith, a druggist and today a
well-known capitalist of Portland, had the only store in his line of business in
Salem. He had then been there one year and was making so much money that an
opposition company was formed, of which the late General C. A. Reed was the
leading member. They erected a two-story frame building on the east side of
Commercial Street and at the north end of the bridge which crosses South Mill
Creek, or “Battle Creek.” Within one year, however, the new firm sold its stock
to W. K. Smith, building and all. Smith’s store had been located one block west
of this point, where, indeed, all the first buildings erected in that part of
Salem were located. As the town grew toward Commercial Street, he concluded to
move his storeroom around on a lot he owned immediately opposite where the
Willamette (now the Marion) Hotel has been for the last thirty-five years. By
the time he had reached the west side of Commercial Street, however, the men in
charge had broken every available rope in Marion County. Smith made a trip to
Portland after a chain, but not finding one sufficiently strong, he bought the
lot on which he had met defeat and rested from his labors permanently. He was
selling goods en route, however, and after buying out the opposition,
transferred the stock to his own store.
This two–story house which was built for Reed
is standing today, and is still occupied, being among the oldest in Salem. It
was into this house — the upper story — that we moved upon reaching Salem, the
first floor being occupied by B. M. DuRelle, owner of the steam sawmill in
Salem, which was entirely washed away in the following December. The first night
in Salem, I staid with my Grandfather Eoff in the old Bennett House, as he was a
member of the jury and was spending the week there.
Although I had been born near Salem and had
reached the age of ten years, I had never been there; the trip to Portland had
been such a concession to my ambition that I had not had the courage to mention
my longings to see the State capital. But here we were, and to remain
permanently. My heart was satisfied, and the boundless opportunities for
sightseeing occupied all my waking hours, which at this time were about eighteen
out of the twenty-four. The next Sunday, my sister and I were sent to the
Methodist Sunday school. My mother was a member of the Christian Church, but the
Methodists had the largest school and it was convenient. I had never before been
to Sunday school, since Silverton had not yet reached the stage of development
which demanded such an institution.
I well remember that David Rutledge was the
Methodist pastor at that time and Thomas H. Crawford, yet living and until
recently the secretary of the Board of Regents for the Oregon Agricultural
College, was the superintendent. The latter led in the singing, which I thought
was as near perfection as could be expected this side of the New Jerusalem, of
which I had heard some accounts more or less satisfactory even then. There was a
sort of drill in the singing of the principal song, and though it is exactly
fifty years this month since that practice, so impressed was I with the splendor
of the surroundings and the novelty of the delightful experience, that I have
never forgotten the words of the first verse, which were:
Jesus shall reign where’er the sun
Does his successive journeys run;
His kingdom spread from shore to shore,
Till moons shall wax and wane no more.
It was great. We went home, after becoming
members of the children’s class, with a lesson of ten verses, which we were to
commit to memory for recital on the next Sunday. Before night of that same day,
we had them all down “pat,” and recited them at home at least twenty-five times
every day during the ensuing week. The first of these verses was: “Search the
Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which
testify of me.” The lesson was somewhere in St. John, I remember, but have
forgetten the chapter. (It would, perhaps, be a good exercise for the reader to
look it up.)
That summer, as already observed, I attended
the Central School and my father built a home on Commercial Street nearly
opposite where the Willamette Hotel now stands. In the fall, he bought the
apples, on the trees, in the orchard belonging to George H. Jones, one of the
pioneer settlers in Salem, and, by the way, it was one of the first orchards
planted in the State. Associated with him in this enterprise was Samuell
Headrick., soon afterward elected sheriff of Marion County, and a son of a
well-known pioneer family on Howell’s prairie. They gathered the apples, packed
them and shipped them to the San Francisco market. They made some money out of
the undertaking, but my clearest impression of it all was that perhaps no more
disagreeable work can be devised than gathering apples on such wet, foggy
mornings in November as are sometimes known in the Willamette valley — especially if you are a ten-year-old boy, compelled to engage in it, and with
other “stunts” in view, as I had, offering a far more attractive outlook.
Some time in the early spring of 1862, my
father went to the mines in British Columbia, drifting from there into eastern
Oregon and Idaho, and my mother, with my brother and sister, went to California
to live. She and my father never saw each other afterward, though they both
lived to be seventy-five years of age. It is not a subject to be discussed here,
save as it is necessary to refer to it in explanation of the conditions by which
I was often confronted. It is sufficient to say that one was no more to blame
than the other and that there was nothing which could not have been removed by
the exercise of a little diplomacy — but they were far apart, and no serious
attempt at reconciliation was made. It was a great misfortune for them both and
it fell heavily on me, as I was but eleven years of age at the time and, with
neither home nor parents within a thousand miles, was thrown entirely on my own
resources.
I lived with my Grandfather Eoff on his farm,
seven miles east of Salem, from the spring of 1862 until September of the
following year, when my father returned to the Willamette valley and made
arrangements, as I have already said, for me to enter the Willamette University.
I had then not seen him for more than eighteen months, nor had I seen my mother
for a year. Indeed, I did not see her again until the summer of 1885,
twenty-three years later, when she made a visit to my home in the Waldo Hills,
though we maintained a correspondence during all that time.
Like a great majority of miners, my father had
not succeeded very well and consequently could not afford to pay for my board;
as a result I was to do “chores” and render assistance in various ways to offset
my “keep.” By dint of much maneuvering I managed to remain in school until the
spring of 1865, eighteen months, when I was compelled to abandon further efforts
in that direction and to go to work for a living — at fourteen years of age.
I began my school experience in September,
1863, by boarding at the home of Sam Headrick, just mentioned, a very close
friend of my father. It was a very agreeable place to stay, but he made a change
in his housekeeping affairs in the spring of 1864, having been elected sheriff
of Marion County, and I was thrown upon my own resources. By the assistance of
Daniel Jones, another Silverton friend, I found a place in a restaurant
conducted on Commercial Street by a man named Chase. Mr. Jones, who had a tailor
shop, allowed me to sleep on and under two pairs of blankets under the counter
of his shop, but I had no sooner become settled in my new position — and my
blankets — than Chase failed in business and his establishment was closed.
Upon this sudden change in affairs, I thought
I had reached the end of my rope in my effort to continue in school, and was
seriously considering the necessity of returning to the country and working for
my grandfather when “Walt” Smith, a merchant who had a few years before worked
for my uncle Ralph Geer on his farm in the Hills, offered me a place in his home
until I could find another. By this time, I was attending school in Professor L.
J. Powell’s department, and to him I told my troubles, adding that I feared I
would have to abandon altogether my struggle for an education. To this he
seriously objected, saying that I could come to his home and work for my board
until I could secure a permanent place. This I did, remaining until the middle
of the winter of 1864, when his wife became ill and I was compelled to move
again.
Luckily, at this point Mr. Jones, to whom I
went with all my disappointments, said he felt certain he could find me a good
home with George Beale, who kept a saloon on the corner where the Willamette
Hotel now stands, as he had heard him say he wished he could get a boy to do the
chores around the house, being away much of the time.
This proved an ideal place to live. There was
little to do and there were no children. But, alack and alas! I had been there
but a couple of months when he was arrested on a charge of murder, found guilty,
and paid the penalty on the gallows.
Balked again in my pursuit of knowledge, I
decided I would call it a bad job all around and go to work. And why not? The
fates seemed against me at every turn. Every time I found a place to stay, the
man of the house either failed in business, changed his vocation, moved away or
was hanged; so I hied myself to the country, rolled up my sleeves and worked a
full year for my board and clothes at the home of my cousin Cal Geer in the
Waldo Hills. At the end of the year, I agreed to work four months for another
cousin, L. B. Geer, for a four-year-old mare valued at one hundred dollars.
When this contract was fulfilled in the fall
of 1866, my father had concluded to get married again and to locate in the Cove,
a most attractive place on the east side of the Grand Ronde valley, which was
then beginning to be settled. Having decided to enter the nursery business, he
wrote to me of his plans, matrimonial and otherwise, and requested me to make
arrangements to live with him. He wanted me to secure a large quantity of apple
and pear seeds, as well as roots for grafting. After having employed a month at
this task, just before Christmas, 1866, I bade farewell to boyhood scenes and
friends and, with an enormous trunk full of fruit seeds and roots, left for my
new home in a new country in eastern Oregon.
It will be well to devote a page or two to
that trip from Salem to Grand Ronde Valley in 1866 as affording a lesson to
those who are too prone to conclude that “the old times” are the best times, and
that the condition of mankind is now less conducive to comfort than formerly.
Let us see how it is by contrast.
I left Salem one morning before daylight on a
steamboat for Portland, and it required all day and until after dark to reach
that city. The only other way to make the journey was by stage, which required
fully as much time and cost more. The next morning I started for The Dalles by
boat and did not reach that place until dark. The third day, long before
daylight, I boarded a portage railroad that ran to Celilo, some fifteen miles up
the river, at which place we arrived while it was yet dark. Here we boarded a
waiting steamboat and traveled all day to reach the Umatilla Landing and there
we remained all night. The fourth day, starting long before it was light, we
reached by stage what was called the Twelve Mile House before breakfast. It was
bitterly cold and, by the time we reached the station, my feet were nearly
frozen.. My good Aunt Mary Geer had given me several extra pairs of new socks
which she herself had knit, insisting that when I began my stage journey in
“that dreadfully cold country,” I should put on two pairs of them. This I did
that morning at the Landing, and it was all I could do to pull my boots on over
them. Of course, the result of this was that the cold was doubled in its effect
and, by the time, we had traveled half the distance to the station I was in
danger of having frozen feet. The driver declared it impossible to take off my
boots in that sort of a storm, so I endured my misery until we arrived at the
inn. Here, it was not long until I had stripped my feet to one pair of socks,
and my first lesson in dressing for cold weather was learned.
We crossed the Umatilla River where the city
of Pendleton now stands, but there was nothing there then but a stage station
and a toll-bridge. At sundown, we reached Warm Springs, since known as Bingham
Springs (I believe it is the same place). The next morning, we passed over the
Blue Mountains, through Summerville, and soon after noon reached Hendershott’s
Point, my destination, December 23.
As will be seen, this trip occupied nearly
five days and parts of two nights and was attended with much discomfort, besides
costing fully three times as much as the fare now charged in a luxurious Pullman
coach. One can leave Salem, in these “degenerate” days, in the afternoon and
arrive at La Grande within twelve hours from Portland!
“Do the world move?” It do — and in the
right direction. Though at times, it is conceded, the progress is somewhat slow,
it is getting there all the time!
Next Chapter -
The Civil War sparked many disagreements among the boys of Salem as they formed
their own militia, armed with wooden muskets.
If you are interested in finding this book, Fifty
Years in Oregon, it can
often be located at Powell's Books in Portland
which is one of the largest used book stores in the United States or, through the
Alibris service
which catalogs used books from stores across the country. For more information on the Geer Family, visit the Geer Family website. Other resources
and references include:
