Salem, Oregon

“ The population is only sixteen thousand, but still enough to give it second rank among Oregon cities. The general appearance of the town, its shops and stores, which we especially observed while making a few purchases, would give the impression of a much larger place. Salem, like The Dalles, was founded by Methodist missionaries as early as 1840. This was only seventeen years later than the founding of the last Spanish mission in California and we could not help thinking how this beautiful Arcadian valley would have appealed to the Franciscan padres. ”

“ Immediately north of the city at Chemawa is the Salem (non-reservation) government school for Indians, with an excellently equipped hospital. Water power is derived (in part, by an 18 m. canal) from the Santiam, an affluent of the Willamette river. The city is a market for the produce of the Willamette Valley. The settlement here, gathering about the Methodist mission and school, began to grow in the decade 1840-1850. Salem was chartered as a city in 1853, and in 1860 was made the capital of the state. It grew rapidly after 1900, and its territory was increased in 1903. ”

“ Now, my friends, you can realize my feelings in the second city I had visited in Oregon.
Salem is beautifully situated on the Willamette river, about fifty miles south of Portland, and is one of the state capitals that succeeded in getting all the principal state public buildings located there. I visited the insane asylum, where, at that time, eleven hundred and eighty-five persons were being cared for, with every possible comfort. They have beautiful grounds, magnificent buildings, with large bakery and butcher shop combined. A little to the right is the orphans home. ”

“ Driving anywhere about Salem is delightful. The roads are naturally good, except in the rainy season. In summer the town-people enjoy excursions to the mountains, for trout-fishing, strawberrying, and the like amusements. It is by no means uncommon for parties to camp out for one or two weeks, either in the mountains or over on the sea-coast. The summer climate being generally rainless, there is no risk in this nomadic sort of life; and people find themselves the better for this intimacy with Nature. ”

“ But, if we find out that our first statement wasn't a mistake and that we have been misinformed and it was suspenders he was wearing instead of galluses as now represented, somebody had better look out. We are sharper than a serpent's tooth when we get riled up—and when we are fussed up we are worse than any woman that ever was scorned.
August 2, 1927.
Well, well, Salem is such a healthy town. And why shouldn't it be with a chap named Kaster running an oil station out on Twelfth Street? That Kaster oil station should be a fine place for sick cars. ”

“ Jason Lee would have graced any position of honor and responsibility to which the American people might have called him, and would have risen equal to any emergency. The splendid institution of learning here in Salem, with its long, honorable, and highly useful career, is a fitting monument to the man. ”

“ The business-houses are handsome and commodious, and the public edifices are numerous and costly. The city has about twelve thousand inhabitants.
Salem is the county-seat of Marion County, as well as the capital of the State. By the constitution of Oregon the State buildings are all located at the capital. The county court-house, which occupies a square, was erected at a cost of one hundred and twenty thousand dollars. The State-house, not yet entirely finished, has cost so far seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. ”

“ The following reminiscences of Horace Holden, of Salem, Oregon, in regard to his adventures in the Pacific Ocean, among the cannibals of Polynesia, are of great interest and also possess great value.
For one thing they are told by a man now in his ninety-first year, and relate to a period about seventy years past. Again they illustrate how Oregon became the beneficiary of almost all the early enterprises in the Pacific Ocean, either one way or another, and gained her citizens from the most adventurous and enterprising of all classes of men, both by land and sea. ”

“ The gradual settlement of the choice farming lands by which it is surrounded, and the opening up of the mineral deposits known to exist in the Cascade Mountains to the east, would alone give a sure, if gradual, rise to property in Salem. Its population is order-loving, social, and industrious ”

“ Croisan Ridge and Croisan Gulch lie not far from the east bank of the Willamette River just southwest of Salem. These features were named for a prominent Marion County pioneer family. The first member of this family to live in Oregon was born in Batavia in 1812 of Huguenot parents. He emigrated to the United States in 1839 and came to Oregon over the Applegate route in 1846. After various pioneer experiences, including a trip to California, he settled on a donation land claim southwest of Salem in March, 1850. See editorial page, Oregon Journal, December 18 and 19, 1925. ”

“ A tall, commanding-looking man, with long and silky hair and whiskers, as black as jet, a clear blue eye, ijrominent nose, tine shoulders, magnificent physique and easy carriage — he walks along the streets of Salem as erect as an arrow, this good-natured, generous, mirthful man of fifty-seven summers. He was born in Clay covmty, Missouri, in 1825. He received the education awarded by the common schools of Clay county. ”

“ The Salem people have two of these camp-grounds, adjoining each other, over the river in Polk County, on the banks of the Rickreal, near its junction with the Wallamet. Here, in a fine grove of firs, we have seen the order and devotion, the sociality and recreation, of a basket-meeting. Between the hours of service the people disperse themselves in all directions, to lunch, and to talk over church affairs—perhaps the prospect of a crop; for this is the season of rest for the agricultural population—between "seed-time and harvest." ”

“ It was incorporated January 29, 1858, and has a population of about 5,000. The Willamette university, the state-house, county court-house, penitentiary, churches, and other public and private buildings, situated within large squares bordered by avenues of unusual width and surrounded by trees, make an im pression upon the observer favorable to the founders, who builded better than they knew. Salem has also a fine water-power, and mills and factories, and is in every sense the second city in the state. ”

“ The native name of the site at Salem—Chemekata—was interpreted by Rev. David Leslie as having the same significance as the term Salem—i. e., rest, or peace. The site was chosen in 1840 for the erection of mills on Mill Creek. The trustees of Oregon Institute laid out the town, which grew slowly until in 1851 it became the territorial capital. By the terms of the state constitution the capital was located by popular vote, which resulted in favor of Salem. Its population in 1900 was 4,258.—Ed. ”

“ Albany was laid out as a town-site in 1848 by two brothers, Thomas and Walter Monteith. All that has been said of Salem, as a well-located town, applies equally to Albany. It is hardly less beautiful, none the less industrious, thriving, or intelligent; and is the third town in importance in Oregon. With a population of twenty hundred, it has four churches; a college building; the best court-house, out of Portland, in the State; a fine public-school building; two flouring-mills; two lumber-mills, and good, substantial brick stores in proportion. Every trade and industry is well represented ”

“ It would be a most happy result if every merchant, farmer, miner, and professional man in Oregon and Washington would determine in his own mind to have at least one suit of clothes made from Salem cloth, and every bed to be covered by at least one pair of Salem blankets. This would be affording a practical proof of our pride in seeing established in our midst these factories, which must eventuate in the profit of individuals. It is much to be regretted that the immense and illimitable mill power at Oregon City is not now turned to good account. ”

“ But there is not one tenth part as much farming land, or plough land here as there is in Illinois, perhaps, for as I have said before, so I say now, the country is divided up by low ranges of mountains, or high hills, so far as I have seen, though I am told that up about Salem there is a plenty of good level prairies, and still better up on the Chehaly and also on the Tualatin Plains. The country is new even to the old settlers, for there has not been one half of it explored yet by the whites. ”

“ J. Henry Brown, the old Salem historian, gathered material with fatigueless energy. His nephew, Burt Brown Barker vice-president of the University of Oregon, has a stack of manuscript and pamph lets about two feet thick that he left on the Indian wars of Oregon and Washington. He was born in Illinois on August 4, 183 1, and came to Oregon as a boy of 16, arriving in the fall of 1847. His grandfather opened the first store in Salem. He himself became by profession a printer and during his spare time a historian. "He re moved to Portland about 1880. ”

“ We understand that the remains of the Review and W. L. Democrat are to be conveyed to Salem, where they will be united with the Arena. The combined debris will then be interred, Messrs. Noltner, Bellinger and Hicks performing the obsequies. The citizens of Salem may be considerably annoyed by the concern before it reaches its final resting place, but we hope they will bear their affliction with Christian fortitude.
In his autobiography [5] Thompson tells picturesquely of the difficulties of publishing a southern-sympathizing paper in Eugene in early Civil war times. ”

“ In 1880 he purchased the "Home Farm," of which he still retained sixty acres, and his late residence was the first house built in Salem. He owned the old Mission mill, house and grounds, a portion of which house was built in the early forties.
"His first marriage was in San Francisco, in 1851, to Ellen P. Lyon, of Boston, daughter of Captain Lyon, a pioneer of the Pacific Coast. From this union two children were born, Reuben P., Jr., and Whitney L. Boise. ”

“ Taking into account the length of the valley of the Santiam, and the opposite branch of the river DeChutes, but a small part of this distance can be timber.
When we take into consideration the excellence of the mills at Salem, its literary Institution, the cheapness and abundance of provisions in its vicinity, and its central position in regard to the rest of the Territory, its advantages to the emigrant as the terminus of the road from the United States, must be obvious. ”

“ Oregon City, Salem, Corvallis, and Eugene. We have already learned that the capital was located at Oregon City and then at Salem; and now we are about to see how it happened that Corvallis and Eugene, each in its turn, came nearly being chosen as the permanent capital. January 13, 1855, a bill was passed by the legislature removing the seat of territorial government from Salem to Corvallis, [5] and the university from Corvallis to Jacksonville. Since work had already been commenced on the public buildings at Salem, opposition to the change was very strong. ”

“ About this time the supreme court met at Oregon City, Judges Nelson and Strong deciding to adopt the governor's view of the seat-of-government question, while Pratt, siding with the main body of the legislature, repaired to Salem as the proper place to hold the annual session of the United States court. Thus a majority of the legislature convened at Salem as the seat of government, and a majority of the supreme court at Oregon City as the proper capital; and the division was likely to prove a serious bar to the legality of the proceedings of one or the other. ”

“ Leaving Salem, a journey of twenty-four hours passes us through Corvallis and Eugene City; and through an exceedingly beautiful and rich agricultural country on to Oakland, where the celebrated "Baker Mills" are established, producing, it is said, the finest flour in Oregon. The disasters of the flood were too visible at each and every point, sweeping away bridges and ferries, and destroying property to the extent of thousands of dollars. ”

“ LETTERS OF REV. WILLIAM M. ROBERTS 239
very few and far between are all the people have received at our hand. In 8 months I have only paid them one visit since the anual meeting the place is included in the Yamhill circuit, and we hope to furnish the people with stated pastoral labour.
The Salem circuit receives its name from the town of Salem which just rising into notice at the Oregon Institute. It is 50 miles above this city on the east bank or the Walamet river the situation is beautiful and many suppose it will be- come quite a city in a very few years. ”

“ After the Bancroft series was completed in 1890, she returned to Oregon, living in Salem and Portland. The best years of her life had been given to those 39 volumes that sold up and down the Pacific Coast at from $175 to $390 a set, and she came back to Oregon at the age of 64, so little the recipient of the Bancroft liberality that we get the following recollection of her by Fred Lockley:
When I lived in Salem, I became acquainted with Frances Fuller Victor. ”

“ The churches in the county evince a missionary spirit and would aid liberally in the support of a man in Salem, if they could have his services but one Saturday and Sabbath each month.
The people generally are as much a church going people as is common for new countries. The influence in the churches is generally good in the country and the members have a fair proportion of talents and wealth. ”