History Snoopin': A Tenderfoot Remembers

A tenderfoot remembers

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by Bill Miller for the Mail Tribune

Monday, April 13th 2020

A hundred years ago, just about everyone knew that the county seat was going to move from Jacksonville to Medford, and not everyone was happy about it.

Chandler B. Watson, better known as C.B., had come to Southern Oregon in 1871, nearly 50 years earlier than his conversation. He said the courthouse move was heart rendering, just as sad as if a member of the family had been taken away.

 

Chandler B. Watson

“Old Jacksonville, as I first saw it, comes before me now,” he said, “a moving picture of animation and energy. I am living again in retrospect, in the presence of that picture, such a one as will never again be seen except to memory.”

Arriving when he was barely into his 20s, C.B. had been an active resident. In those 50 years he had been Jackson County district attorney, Ashland city attorney, editor of the Oregon Sentinel newspaper, a local historian, and so much more. He had abandoned his Illinois home and fell in love with Oregon.

 

California St., Jacksonville, Oregon

“For one who had recently arrived as a tenderfoot,” he said, “a new world was opened and his young blood was made to tingle as he tried to come into correspondence with his environment. To such a one there are memories not to be obliterated, and sentimental preferences he would not suppress.”

C.B. understood that moving the county seat was in the public’s interest, “in the interest of the great majority,” he said. Jacksonville’s population had been falling for years. His only worry was whether the old, brick courthouse would remain standing.

“If you take away the courthouse, some suitable monument of lasting character should be erected at the old site.”

He remembered when Jackson County ran all the way from Goose Lake in today’s Lake County, through Klamath and Jackson counties, and up to the Josephine County line.

He admired the resident’s sense of duty and how they responded to a summons or subpoena “with less complaint than they do today.”

Those were days when a visit to the county seat might require days and nights of travel and camping. “A cheerful and uncomplaining attitude was maintained,” he said. “All were neighbors, though separated by forests and mountains of great extent.”

The county courthouse in 1871 was a simple wooden structure standing where the brick courthouse still stands. “The jail was little more than a dugout banked with dirt,” he said.

He was also amused that Medford would be the new county seat, remembering, “50 years ago jackrabbits and coyotes held high carnival and sole possession where Medford now stands. At that time there were not more than two farm houses within what is now the corporate limits of the present metropolis.”

There were vast open spaces and only a few tiny villages. Phoenix was second in population to Jacksonville, and miles of desert separated Central Point from Eagle Point, where the foundation of a flour mill was being laid.

“There were no thoughts of railroads,” C.B. said, and the passing of the overland stagecoach was the chief daily event.

“Roads were little more than trails. Kerosene lamps and tallow candles furnished the only light at night and special messengers on horseback performed the duties now obtained from telegraph and telephone.”

They were all fond memories for C.B. as he entered his 70th year, but he never was a prisoner of the past.

“The world is moving with accelerated speed,” he said, “and we are bound to keep pace with it. Changes are constantly required in the interest of the great majority, and we are bound to bow when demands are made.”

 

Courthouse, Jackson County, Oregon

The county seat moved to Medford in 1927, three years before C.B. died. He would be happy to know, the brick courthouse still stands.

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

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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.

Marriage in the 1850s

“First” Jackson County marriages?

By BILL MILLER

For the Mail Tribune

No History Snoop with a semblance of sanity will ever say that someone or something is the first to do something or be something without certified, ironclad, definitive proof. Instead, we prevaricate—hedge our bets, so to speak—beat around the bush.

Now, if I said that John Ingleman and Elizabeth Winkel [later Engleman] were the first couple to marry in Jackson County, my nose might not reach Pinocchio proportions; however, it probably should. You see, John and Elizabeth, in fact, were actually the first officially “recorded” marriage in Jackson County, and that ceremony was on January 17, 1854.

OK, here’s the problem. The Oregon Territorial Legislature formed Jackson County on January 12, 1852, and it wasn’t the county we know today. Jackson County’s western boundary

extended all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

Even though the population in that large area was small, it seems very likely that during those two years at least a few other couples would have gotten married. See how we “hedged” that one?

Interestingly, when they married, neither of the first two couples whose marriages were recorded here actually lived in today’s Jackson County.

John and Elizabeth Ingleman were residents of Sunny Valley, near Leland, in today’s Josephine County. Our second couple, James Vannoy and Martha Dimick, lived along the Rogue River, also in today’s Josephine County. One of these marriages stood the test of time, the other met early tragedy.

Before she died in 1898, John and Elizabeth Ingleman had eight children in 44 years together. John had served 8 years in the Navy and was navigator on the USS Ohio during the Mexican War. He came to the Northern California gold fields in 1850. Although they married inland, John seemed always to be drawn back to the sea. The couple spent a few years in Crescent City before finally settling north of Port Orford. Once widowed, John never remarried and passed away in 1913.

James Vannoy had already married long before he settled in Southern Oregon. His first marriage, to Clarissa Miller, was in his home state of Delaware in 1844. He and Clarissa are believed to have had two children before James left them in 1851. He settled along the Rogue River, one of the earliest residents of Josephine County. On February 12, 1854, he married Margaret Dimick, a

marriage that would end with her death, perhaps in childbirth, almost exactly two years later. The couple already had a son. Margaret was previously married to Thomas Dimick, but he had died on the Oregon Trail in 1852, after drinking contaminated water. She brought her son from that marriage into her marriage with James.

James then married Margaret’s sister-in-law, Eleanor Dimick. She was Thomas Dimick’s sister. Apparently, Eleanor had lived with, or married a man, known only as Peters. With him, she had a son who also became part of the Vannoy household. Adding the two children he hadn’t fathered and his son from his marriage to Margaret, James and Eleanor added three children of their own to the family. They were married 22 years before James died. Eleanor, who never remarried, passed on 21 years later, in 1902.

Now that you’re totally confused, let’s bring in one of those “believe it or not” moments.

James Vannoy’s first wife, Clarissa, the one he left in Delaware, remarried; and not only did

she, her husband, and children make it to Oregon decades later—of all places—they settled in Josephine County.

Well, any History Snoop’ worth his curiosity knows there’s a story there. Did wife number three ever meet wife two, and if so, what did they talk about? Sadly, there’s rarely an answer to those sorts of questions. Not even enough to hedge a bet or beat around a bush. Boy.—I hate when that happens.

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.

A forgotten pioneer

BY  Bill Miller for the Mail Tribune November 26, 2018

One thing every History Snooper quickly learns is if you leave town too soon, history has a tendency to forget you. Even if you marry into a well-known and early arriving pioneer family, what you did and who you were fades like the sun wrapped in a summer haze of smoke.

Dr. Jesse Robinson is one of those men. On April 27, 1854, he married Lavinia Jane Constant, daughter of Isaac and Lucinda Constant. Jesse and Lavinia’s marriage was one of the earliest recorded in Jackson County. Her family settled here in 1852.

Jesse seems to have spent very little time as a doctor and was apparently more interested in politics, mining and investments.

His Robinson House was an early wooden hotel that stood in Jacksonville, right where the U.S. Hotel stands today. It was the site of that January 1854 convention of delegates from Southern Oregon and Northern California who were seeking to form a new state. Jesse was one of the 10 delegates from Jackson County.

Jacksonville, Oregon - 1880s

His business interests included a gristmill that ground wheat and other grains into flour; a packing company, bringing supplies into Jacksonville; and a sawmill. He was also a partner with William Bybee and others in mining claims throughout Southern Oregon and Northern California.

The youngest child of Jesse and Abiah Robinson, Jesse was born Aug. 28, 1825, in New York. He began medical school in Woodstock, Vermont, when he was just 18. He graduated three years later and then moved to Iowa, where he practiced medicine until leaving for California gold in 1849.

He worked as a miner and did a considerable amount of prospecting in Northern California. With the organization of Shasta County, Jesse was elected the county’s first clerk. Soon, he bought a ranch in Scott Valley and began raising cattle. In 1853, he moved to Southern Oregon, married Lavinia, and, three years later, bought Alonzo Skinner’s land claim. The claim was conveniently located right next to his father-in-law’s claim, on the east side of Bear Creek, near today’s Central Point.

When the Civil War erupted, Jesse joined as first lieutenant in the Baker Guards, the first Union regiment formed in Southern Oregon. Oregon Gov. Addison Gibbs appointed Jesse as quartermaster of the First Regiment of Cavalry, Oregon Volunteers. The unit patrolled much of the Northwest, including along the Columbia and Snake rivers. Jesse was at Fort Boise and signed the treaty between the U.S. government and the Shoshone tribe of American Indians.

Jesse sold his property and his Jacksonville home in October 1868, but held on to his mining interests. He took his wife and five children to Oakland, California, where another child was born. The town’s residents elected him Oakland Township Assessor, a position he held for six years. Retiring in 1887 to Vacaville, California, north of San Francisco, he grew fruit on his 160 acres of orchards.

There were regular visits back to Oregon for reunions with Lavinia’s family, and a time when Jesse could tour some of his mine properties, but the Robinson family remained in California.

Jesse died of heart trouble in 1899 at age 73 and Lavinia passed in 1931 at age 97.

Maybe they’ve been forgotten; however, there’s an adage that says something like, “you’re never really dead until the last person says your name.”
That’s the sort of thing we do here. Saying names and telling forgotten stories.

Pioneers From Everywhere

Pioneers come from everywhere

When I say “pioneers,” what picture comes to mind? The Oregon Trail? Covered wagons on a dusty plain? Maybe it’s an old and equally dusty western movie? Well — what about Illinois?

Say what?

 

Maybe you’re like me and learned your earliest history in an Oregon schoolhouse. That’s where Lewis and Clark were the heroes, Sacagawea was a queen, and we were told to be very proud of our ancestor pioneers — pioneers who braved it all to settle in the West.

 

Chief Blackhawk

Imagine my surprise, while visiting along the Mississippi River a couple of summers ago, to hear a museum docent at the Black Hawk State Historic Site in Illinois say, “When our pioneer settlers arrived here in the 1820s … .” But, of course! How could I be so blind? They had pioneers, too.

At the museum, I learned more about the Black Hawk War than I ever had. I also saw the death mask of Chief Black Hawk, the Sauk leader, who led the fight against white settlers who were taking tribal land and forcing Black Hawk’s people west across the Mississippi.

Returning home, I discovered one person resting in the Jacksonville Cemetery who had been a volunteer soldier in that war, and eventually he came to Oregon.

Chief Blackhawk

Daniel Newcomb was born in Kentucky in 1804 and, as a young man, moved to what would become Decatur, Illinois. At the outbreak of the Black Hawk War in 1832, Daniel volunteered as a mounted ranger with Captain William Warnick’s company. Warnick was friends with Abraham Lincoln, who was a captain of another volunteer company. Neither company ever fought with the Indians.

In 1846, Daniel again volunteered to fight, this time in the Mexican War. He was elected captain of a company in the 4th Illinois Regiment of volunteers. The regiment’s commander was Col. Edward Baker, also a close friend of Lincoln who, in 1860, would become one of Oregon’s senators. Baker successfully led his regiments against the Mexican Army, first at the coastal city of Veracruz and then at Cerro Gordo. It was the first direct clash between Mexican General Santa Ana and the American forces.

In 1852, Daniel left Illinois for Oregon, leading a wagon train over the Applegate Trail. His granddaughter said Indians attacked the caravan and Daniel negotiated a truce, believing “he was crossing their territory and should pay his way with cattle instead of fighting.” That gesture didn’t stop Daniel from fighting in the 1855 Rogue River Indian War. He had moved from the Corvallis area to Southern Oregon in 1853.

With Oregon statehood approaching in 1859, Daniel was part of the delegation from Southern Oregon to the Constitutional Convention. There he voted for slavery for Oregon. He had to strongly deny rumors at home that he actually favored a Free State. Oregon voters refused slavery, but banned free blacks from living in the state.

 

Daniel Newcomb - Jacksonville, Oregon Cemetery

In quick succession, Daniel was appointed State Brigadier General and also Indian agent at the Siletz Reservation, but with the election of Abraham Lincoln, Daniel, a Democrat, lost both positions. He returned to private life with his large family, living near Williams.

After losing his wife at the end of 1863, his health began to decline. In March 1867, pioneer Daniel Newcomb died.