The Oregon Legend of “Little Phil” Sheridan

 

The Oregon legend of “Little Phil” Sheridan

By BILL MILLER

For the Mail Tribune

Long before the Civil War split ranks between north and south, the Oregon frontier was the proving ground for future leaders.

Isolated and lonely at Fort Vancouver, U. S. Grant fought against the bottle, wishing he was home with his beloved wife, Julia.

Ft./ Vancouver, Oregon Territory

With him was Captain Rufus Ingalls. Ingalls had supervised the construction of the fort and with Grant had opened a side business, growing 100 acres of potatoes.

George McClellan, Joe Hooker, and Philip Kearny were just a few of the future Yankee generals who would share time in Oregon with their Confederate counterparts, George Picket, John Walker, and John Bell Hood.

Of all the men who served here, perhaps no one stood taller than “Little Phil” Sheridan—that’s how early Oregonians remembered him.

 

West Point Cadet Philip Henry Sheridan

Phil was short even for his day. He claimed to be 5 feet 5 inches, but, then again, Phil was always claiming something. He told some he was born in Albany, New York; others that it was Ohio, and, shortly before he died, he told the Sheridan Monument Association that he first saw light of day on the seas between Ireland and America.

Little Phil didn’t like his nickname and, even though he was a scrawny 115 pounds, he was also a tenacious fighter. A rough scuffle during his third year at West Point got him a one-year suspension and delayed his commission as a 2^nd Lieutenant.

Phil graduated in 1853, 34th in a class of 52. He headed west to Texas and, a few years later, it was on to the Grand Ronde Indian Reservation in Yamhill County. Here he would watch over Southern Oregon Indians brought to the reservation after the Rogue River Wars.

 

Lt. Philip Henry Sheridan

In his memoir, Phil remembered entering Oregon with Lt. Williamson’s railroad survey party, trekking northward through the Klamath Basin. This was the closest that Phil would come to the Rogue Valley for nearly 20 years.

His memoir continued with stories of Indian battles and his official duties on the reservation. But it was his description of the American Indians on the reservation that added fuel to his Oregon legend.

“Many of them were handsome in feature below the forehead, having fine eyes, aquiline noses, and good mouths,” he said.

Although whispered rumors and written exposés of his illicit affair with an Indian girl have never been confirmed, the contemporary Jacksonville newspaper had no doubt at all.

They glibly wrote of “Sheridan’s Widow,” and how she had captured the heart of “the youthful, impressionable, and susceptible Lieutenant. … It was a case of love at first sight.”

The newspaper claimed the couple married in a ceremony sanctioned by the tribe, yet denied by the whites. Within the year, “their union was blessed by a beauteous daughter.”

 

General Philip Henry Sheridan

As he left for the Civil War, the newspaper mockingly compared Sheridan to a Greek warrior who was forced to choose between love and duty, “leaving his bride and their fat little child behind.”

The day he left for war and immortality, he puffed himself up as large as possible and, with a finger that marked every word, he yelled. “When you see me again boys, I’ll be wearing the shoulder strap of a General!”

His circle of cronies nodded in agreement. Little Phil might be short, but he never lacked confidence and no one doubted he could do whatever he said he would.

When Sheridan and his wife finally did pass through Jacksonville on a stage in 1875, the newspaper was politely cautious. They never mentioned the Indian “widow” and only reported that he stayed overnight and stopped in Ashland to have lunch with an old friend.

That was it. He was gone for good—but Little Phil had left Oregon a genuine legend.

Writer Bill Miller is the author of “History Snoopin’,”a collection of his previous history columns and stories. Reach him at newsmiller@live.com or WilliamMMiller.com.

Hargadine, a family Cemetery in Ashland, Oregon

Hargadine, a family cemetery

BY  Bill Miller for the Mail Tribune February 04, 2019

There was a light snow in the mountains and occasional rain below. Early December temperatures were surprisingly mild; almost an early breath of spring.

None of that would last.

Under a light overcast, Robert and Martha Hargadine were burying their youngest daughter, Katie,

Katie Hargadine, first burial in Hargadine Cemetery

-Ashland, Oregon

the first of their seven children to die. Barely 16 months old, Katie died Dec. 8, 1867. Because she was the first to be buried here, the subsequent cemetery would always be known as the Hargadine Cemetery.

The owner of the only store in Ashland Mills, a town of fewer than 20 families, Robert Hargadine was one of the first settlers in Southern Oregon. In 1852, he claimed 160 acres in what would become Ashland’s Railroad Addition.

Just months before Katie died, Robert had joined with others to form a company that set up the Ashland Woolen Mills. To supply it, Robert began purchasing sheep, and especially Angora goats. The goats’ long white hair brought him a dollar a pound in San Francisco.

Born in Delaware in 1829, Robert came west across the Isthmus of Panama to California in 1850. For nearly two years, his dreams of striking it rich in the northern gold fields were futile. He gave up and

Robert B. Hargadine and wife Martha Washington Kilgore

came to Oregon, where he became the largest stock and wool raiser in the county, and one of the largest property owners.

In 1856, he married Martha Washington Kilgore, who had crossed the Plains with her family two years earlier.

In December 1876, Robert traveled to Oakland, California, seeking medical treatment for a lingering ailment that some thought had been caused by a severe case of sunstroke. There, in January 1877, at age 47, he died of a probable heart attack. Because there was not yet a railroad in town, “the body of this gentleman arrived at Ashland by private conveyance.” He was the first of his family to be buried with daughter Katie. Martha joined her husband in 1905.

Landowner James Haworth deeded nearly one and a half acres of his property to Robert Hargadine and Allen Farnham for use as a family cemetery.

Farnham and his wife, Sarah, were owners of the Eagle Mills flour mill and lived just north of Ashland. Their 5-month-old son, Cuyler, died Dec. 21, 1867, just 13 days after Katie Hargadine had passed, and Cuyler was the second burial in the Hargadine Cemetery.

Allen Farnham was born in Maine in 1822, where he must have met Sarah Billings, who was also born in Maine in 1833. Allen left in 1850 for a very successful gold search on the Scotts River in Northern California, while Sarah completed her studies at the Charlestown Female Seminary in Massachusetts. They were married in 1858 and came to the Ashland area in 1864.

Ironically, Allen Farnham was also the first of his family to be buried with his child in the Hargadine Cemetery. His 1876 death came just five months before Robert Hargadine’s passing. After he died, Sarah continued to run the Farnham flour business until her death in 1888.

Hargadine Cemetery, Ashland, Oregon

Over the years, maintaining the Hargadine Cemetery has been a problem. The Hargadine Cemetery Association struggled up to 1968, when the association relinquished control and transferred title to the city of Ashland. It wasn’t until 1989 that the state Legislature approved the transfer.

Now, with the help of dedicated volunteers, the final resting place of many Ashland pioneers is now secure under the cooling branches of the tall oaks, sturdy madrone, and Ponderosa pine.

Writer Bill Miller is the author of “History Snoopin’,” a collection of his previous history columns and stories. Reach him at newsmiller@live.com or WilliamMMiller.com.