Roseburg, Oregon

“ A depth of ten feet at low water has been obtained in the channel, and a greater depth will yet be reached. To secure this result the people have largely contributed, both in money and labor.
Railroad connection with Roseburg is now promised, and lands all along the line, where formerly a single nearly impassable mud road gave outlet to the interior, are being rapidly taken up. In a few years this valley will be known as one of the choicest of many choice sections of Southern Oregon. There are now about twenty settlements in the whole Coos Bay region. ”

“ Having now obtained full control, and being more ardent than prudent in his pursuit of business and pleasure alike, Holladay pushed his two roads forward rapidly, the Oregon and California being completed to Albany in 1871, to Eugene in 1872, and to Roseburg in 1873. The Oregon Central was opened to Cornelius in 1871, and to St Joe in 1872. These roads, although still merely local, had a great influence in developing the country, inducing immigration, and promoting the export of wheat from Willamette direct to the markets of Europe. ”

“ It operated with that name until March, 1894, when the spelling was changed to Roseburg. During that time people of the community generally used the form Roseburg and not Roseburgh.
ROSEDALE, Marion County. Rosedale, which is about six miles south of Salem, has borne its descriptive name for many years. It is at the point where the old highway from Salem to Albany crosses Battle Creek and its pleasing little dale. There are plenty of wild roses in the vicinity. Rosedale post office was established April 20, 1892, by change of name from Dencer, with James M. Lawrence first postmaster. ”

“ Among the early students attending at the old building were many names later and even now familiar on this coast. It is to be regretted that the complete enrollment of the first year cannot be given. Here are some of them: Dr. Geo. B. Kuykendall, now of Pomeroy, Wn. Rev. John Wesley Kuykendall, who died many years ago in California. '! 3 1 Hon. Geo. W. Riddle, former County Judge of Douglas 6 R. A. BOOTH County and Receiver of Public Moneys at the Roseburg Land Office. Helen Flint and C. S. Grubbe, later becoming assistants. Geo. W. Grubbe, pioneer merchant of Wilbur. ”

“ Indians re- sent encroachment and massacre of settlers follows, 322-4; military leaders who participate later attain fame, 324; fire^ destroys town and timber, 325; engineers recommend harbor for INDEX improvement, 326; the career of Wil- liam Tichenor, 327-9; the roll of honor, 329. Holladay, Ben, is entrusted with the East Side Company, 253 -9; his meth- ods, 272; gets the West Side Com- pany, 273; gets control of the East Side Company and reorganizes it as the Oregon and California, secures loan and completes road as far as Roseburg, 274-83. ”

“ However raw and crude the Oregon City of 1846 must needs have been, with its one-story false-front frame business buildings, its hip-booted men in winter mud and summer dust, with rather ready firearms for settlement of differences, its sprinkling of calicoed women in their little wooden cabins, their horizon narrowed by thick primeval forests,—the first editor of the Spectator was imbued with the optimism of the pioneer. The air was bracing, forest and snow peak and rushing river gave an inspiring setting, the new soil was productive. ”

“ Roseburg, originally Deer Creek, the present county-seat of Douglas, and named after its founder, Aaron Rose, has a population of two thousand five hundred. It is the gem of the Umpqua Yalley, resting upon the river Umpqua, where it is a fine large stream bounded by beautiful park-like oak openings. Nothing could be finer than the sweep of the river as i from the south, the railroad on one side, and teeming gardens and attractive houses on the other. A handsome bridge spans it in the centre of the town. Roseburg, like Drain, is to have a railroad to the sea. ”

“ Of the general condition of the country south of the Columbia at the period of the division, something may be here said, as I shall not again refer to it in a particular manner. The population, before the addition of the large immigration of 1852, was about twenty thousand, most of whom were scattered over the Willamette Valley upon farms. The rage for laying out towns, which was at its height from 1850 to 1853, had a tendency to retard the growth of any one of them. [7] Oregon City, the oldest in the territory, had not much over one thousand inhabitants. ”

“ In 1841-42 the H. B. Company on the east of the Rocky Mountains contributed largely to increase the British subjects in this country, by encouraging and affording means of trans- port to such of the inhabitants of their settlement at Red River who might wish to emigrate to the Red River. About 150 families were induced by this means to settle on the Cow- litz River, and on the plains in the neighborhood of Nesqually, in Puget's Sound ; and horses, cattle, etc., given to encourage their labor. ”

“ The country will be settled, and that speedily from some quarter, and it depends very much upon the action of congress what that population shall be, and what shall be the fate of the Indian tribes in that territory. It may be thought that Oregon is of little importance, but rely upon it, there is the germ of a great state. We are resolved to do what we can to benefit the country, but we are constrained to throw ourselves upon you for protection. ”

“ Eighteen hundred and forty finds Oregon with her little population all active and busy, laboring and toiling to provide the necessaries of life—food and raiment. And if a man did not wear the finest of broadcloth, his intelligence and good conduct secured him a cordial welcome to every house or shanty in the country among the American or French settlers and missions. This was an innovation upon Hudson’s Bay Company customs, and a violation of aristocratic rules sought to be enforced by foreign influences and sustained by the missionaries then in the country. ”

“ Mr Watson of King's Valley, Benton Co., drove some short-horn stock to Oregon. The above notes are taken from Geer's Blooded Cattle, MS., a valuble contribution on the origin of stock in the Willamette Valley. See also his address before the pioneer association for 1879, on the immigration of 1847; see also Salem Or. Statesman, June 20, 1879.
John E. Ross was born in Madison Co., Ohio, Feb. 15, 1818. Emigrated with his parents to Ind. when 10 years of age, and to Ill. when 16 years old. At the age of 29 he started for Or., and was capt. of his train of forty wagons. ”

“ I have shown how, step by step, without the aid, of congress, a hundred Americans established a government in Oregon, and while professing allegiance to the United States, were in fact independent. But congress was not indifferent to the movement; and whatever opinion in their isolation the colonists may have held, the archives of the national legislature contain the proofs of a watchful care over the United States claim to the Oregon Territory, and a determination not to relinquish it to any foreign power ”

“ It is from these four states, whose areas are so largely taken up and whose land values are high, that the extreme West is seeking by reason of its cheap lands and equable climate, to draw its new population. East of the Mississippi River the percentage ranges in New England from 32.9 in Maine to 80.8 in Vermont. Along the Atlantic coast the average is from 59 per cent in New Jersey to 85 per cent in Delaware. Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois have already been shown in comparison with Iowa. Kentucky has 85.9, Tennessee 76.1, Wisconsin 57, and Michigan 47.8. ”

“ At Forest Grove, reside some of the earliest settlers of the valley—persons who have seen their children, born in Oregon, grow up to manhood's estate, and have sent them back to "the States" to learn something of an older civilization than that of the mountains and plains of Washington County. There is always a great charm in hearing the annals of a State from the lips of its founders. Many walking cyclopedias of Oregon history belong to the population of the Tualatin Plains, and to their influence is due much of the good order and good morals of the community. ”

“ The whole community were again aroused to the necessity of finding a remedy for an evil so distressing and calamitous. Two road companies were chartered by the Legislature, and a large amount raised by subscription, to encourage individual enterprise; and the year 1846 is not more an epoch to be remembered in the history of Oregon, for the quiet settlement of its boundary, than for the arrival of emigrants from the United States with their wagons, at both ends of the Willamette valley. ”

“ This
now
the second wheat shipping station in the United States, still has the marks of the trail within the city limits. It is safe to conclude, however, that few of its citizens have
city,
the slightest conception as to the historic connection of those old deep-worn furrows.
have never been able to determine just how American What American party could have its name. at the falls is not clear, as they seem to have acquired perished that name before the advent of the Americans, unless these falls have been confused with those at Caldron Linn. ”

“ Many new buildings had been erected and the population had increased amazingly. A reckless element of citizenship dominated. Gamblers and desperate characters from the various mining camps came to winter there. A large dance house was running full blast. A "restricted district," inhabited by a mottled nationality, flourished, and the town was indeed run upon a wide-open basis.
During this sojourn in Walla Walla, he came to know many of the characters who afterward, in Montana and other parts of the Northwest, became notorious. ”

“ Absorption in the pursuit of material interests, shifting of population, thin distribution over a wide area, independence from the restraining influences of the older communities, are influences to be met and overcome in the evolution of religious and moral life. A church membership for Oregon considerable below the average of that for the United States, and a crime rate a little above, are indications of a condition that should render the serious mind thoughtful and alert to seek for every stimulus to a development at least equal if not greater than that of the industrial and political life. ”

“ The result of these efforts was to fill up the eastern portion of Oregon and Washington with an active population in a few years, and to materially increase the wealth of the state, both by addition to its producing capacity, and by a consequent rise in the value of lands in every part of it. The travel over the Northern Pacific, chiefly immigration, was large from the moment of its extension to the Rocky Mountains, and was in 1885 still on the increase. ”

“ In 1877 the men and women who settled the Rogue River and other southern valleys, and whose isolation, Mining adventures, and Indian wars gave them a history of their own, hardly identical with but no less interesting than that of the settlers of the Willamette Valley, met at the picturesque village of Ashland and founded the Pioneer Society of Southern Oregon on the 13th of September of that year, about 800 persons being present. Its first officers were L. C. Duncan president, William Hoffman secretary, N. S. Hayden treasurer. ”

“ All agree in representing him as of commanding presence, partly the effect of a tall, well-formed person, somewhat inclined to stoutness, flowing white hair, and a benevolent expression of countenance. He seems to have become gray early in life, for he was only thirty-nine when he came to Oregon. To this fine personal appearance he added courtly manners, and great affability in conversation. With the air of one monarch-born, he was fitted to govern men both by awe and love. Such was the autocrat of the Columbia when he first became known to American traders, missionaries, and settlers. ”

“ Early in the spring of 1843, or as soon as the grass began to grow, promptly, without preconcert, but as if by appointment, emigrants from every part of Missouri and the neighboring states were on the roads to the usual rendezvous in the vicinity of Independence. Their wagons were drawn by two or three or five yokes of oxen; on the covers were the words "For Oregon," and their immense herds of cattle filled the highways. Many of them had been neighbors at home, and often families of brothers, with their wives and little ones, constituted a colony. ”

“ Fremont, has been placed upon every town in both California, and where — ? let me ask has our banner ever been planted, that the march of civilization did not speedily follow. That the country on the other side of the Rocky mountains and the great valley of the Mississippi will ere long be connected by rail-road is not the wandering of a chimerical brain, but will as certainly be accomplished as we remain a free and united republic. ”

“ To the men and women of this age the account of the Hunt party and others will not appear as fairy stories, but rather as a hideous phrensy of a diseased or intoxicated imagination. But few people can comprehend it, and not a few may disbelieve it altogether. But only by such dangers, trials and privations of those fearless, self-sacrificing heroes was Oregon saved to the United States. There is now no more West ; there is no more wilderness ; there is no more privation, danger or heroism. The palace car glides swiftly from the Missouri to the great Pacific ocean ”