JOTTINGS OF PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF A PIONEER OF 1850: By GEORGE E. COLE 

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CHAPTER II.

On Christmas day "Doc" Richardson, who lived outside of the district, about
twelve miles from the schoolhouse, gave a Thurston Christmas dinner, in honor
of Samuel R. Thurston, the first delegate to Congress from Oregon, who was
then in Washington, and whom he wished to honor for having secured the passage
of the donation act, which not only allowed the settler a section of land but
also to take it in such form as he laid out his claim, so that it was compact.
But it was not required to be in legal subdivisions, as the land was
unsurveyed, or to conform to the cardinal points of the compass.

The Richardson relatives as far as Yamhill county (Clayton Richardson, a
younger brother, and his wife and children) came, and as far as the head of
the Long Tom in the other direction. Mart Brown, whose wife, it will be
remembered, was a daughter of one of the Richardsons, and their collateral
relatives, and other friends were in attendance at the Christmas dinner.

The dinner was given outdoors, for: the day was pleasant. The men all sat down
to dinner first, and the women (the wives and daughters) waited upon them
until all had eaten before they sat down and were served.

After the dinner was over, dancing commenced in the double cabin, the
furniture having been removed. Two sets, one in each cabin, were able to form;
and, as my fame had preceded me on my trip down through the valley, I was put
in requisition at once to call off the cotillions, which were formed, one in
each room, on the puncheon floor.

Old "Doc" provided himself with two cases of whiskey, which he had packed from
Brownsville, a distance of twenty odd miles.

This was not a dress occasion as the term is usually known or usually applied,
but some of the dresses were unique indeed. The girls and their mothers were
neat and clean and, I must say, not only healthy but pretty. Old "Doc," who
reminded me of an old feudal, baron, of course had charge of the whole
ceremony, and he was dressed in buckskin trousers, moccasins and a blue
flannel shirt. His long white hair was in great abundance. He had waded the
streams in his buckskin trousers, and they had shrunk to such an extent that
they reached half way to his knees, his bare legs showing from there on down
to the moccasins. He wore no stockings. When the positions were taken ready
for the dance, Old "Doc" came around with a bucket of water on one arm, in
which there was a gourd, and a battle of whiskey in his hand, and after taking
a drink from the bottle and water from the gourd he passed around to all the
dancers, buys and girls indiscriminately, and when all had been served he sang
out to me, "All ready, go ahead."

After several hours  dancing, the whiskey having given out apparently, he lay
down in the corner of the cabin near the fire, putting his legs over an
improvised bench, which was made by halving a small sapling, in which holes
had been bored and four legs inserted, which was the usual bench used in the
cabins in those days, his feet near the fire, and was soon snoring. But the
dance went on. After a while he woke up, and, bidding me let the dance go on
without me for a while, took me to a large fir tree some distance from the
cabin, and, pointing to an elevation in the mountains of the Coast Range, he
asked, "Do you see that p int in the mountains? Now fifteen steps from here I
hid a bottle." Stepping off that distance in the wet grass, he felt around
with his feet, but was unable to find it. He went back to the tree again, and
said, pointing to another elevation, "I reckon I made a mistake. I reckon it
was that p int." He repeated his former performance, with the same result,
which greatly surprised him. He was equal to the emergency, however, and said,
"I ll roll for it," which he did and found the prize. Taking it to a tree, he
knocked off the neck of the bottle as squarely as if cut with a diamond. I
said to him, "Why didn't you put that bottle at the foot of the tree?" He
answered, "I m too old for that; the boys would have found it long ago, and
you and I would have gone dry."

Everybody present was given an opportunity, and nearly everybody, young and
old, took part in the dance. I well recollect one person who was there, quite
a young man. He was teaching the neighborhood school. He had arrived there
about the time I did. He was younger than I, though not much, and he is now
living in an adjoining county, known as Judge N. T. Caton, whose acquaintance
I have kept up ever since. I have frequently been taken for him, and he
informs me he has frequently been called by my name. We had a joke that
whenever one of us was thus designated the person making the mistake was given
a dollar, but afterwards concluded we could not keep it up, as the dollars on
both sides ran out.

I lived principally with Uncle Nick Ownby. His family consisted of his wife,
who was a comely woman, a Kentuckian, somewhat along in years, like her
husband, but the two people were patterns of what married people should do to
assist each other, particularly in a frontier settlement. He assisted her in
various ways, and she did not only the house work but frequently went out into
the garden and dug potatoes, onions and turnips and got out a head of cabbage
for dinner, which in the winter season was served in the evening after return
from school. What struck me as very peculiar was that the winter was so mild
that, although it rained some, but not much until the 20th of March, they were
able to get their vegetables fresh from the garden as they cooked them every
day.
When school closed, I assisted them in running out their land claims, as a
surveyor general had been appointed, who would soon commence surveying the
land, sectionizing it, and it was necessary for them to show their lines so
that they could make their applications for the lands they wished to obtain.

On the 20th of March, Judge Irving, who lived in Missouri, but who had come in
to see the country the year before, John Ownby, the oldest boy, Isaac Auxier,
and myself, loading up three or four packs, started for the mines in northern
California. It had rained but little during the winter. So pleasant in fact
was the weather that the plowing and the seeding had been done in February.
But we had scarcely started on our journey when it commenced to rain, and
rained continually until we reached Deer creek, where Roseburg now stands.
Having been poisoned with poison oak, so that I was completely blind, the
others advised me to return, which I did, they going on their journey after
Deer creek had sufficiently fallen so they could ford it. I soon recovered
from the poison and was able to commence rail hauling from the timber for
building a fence and also to put me up a little cabin.

In the whole country everybody was looking forward to the return of their
delegate, Samuel R. Thurston, who left New York on steamer by way of Panama
immediately after adjournment of Congress. The steamer from San Francisco to
Portland in April was expected to bring him, instead of which it brought the
news of his death, which occurred aboard steamer after leaving Panama. His
body was buried at Acapulco, a seaport on the western coast of Mexico, and
subsequently removed to Oregon. General Lane, who was the first governor,
having been appointed by James K. Polk, had been superseded by the Whig
administration in the appointment of John P. Gaines. Turning his office over
to his successor, Lane went to California to mine for gold, but returned to
Oregon before the news of Thurston s death was received, and we had a talk
about the propriety of his running against Thurston. This was at Marysville. I
told him how they all felt toward Thurston, and he assured me that under such
circumstances he would not run. But after reaching Oregon City, and the
steamer arriving bringing the news of Thurston s death, he concluded at once
to make the race.

There was no party organization, but of course he was known to be a Democrat
and ran as such, but without nomination by any convention. Some were opposed
to him because his interests were in Oregon City, the former capital, and,
feeling that he would, if elected, use his influence t Washington to effect a
relocation of the capital there instead of Salem, they brought out Dr. Wilson,
a resident and the proprietor of Salem, to un against Lane. He was also a
Democrat. At that time Whigs were very scarce in Oregon, and of course there
was no such thing as a Republican party.

Lane had made a tour of the country, speaking, among other places, at
Marysville. But learning after leaving Marysville that there was considerable
opposition to him on account of the location question, the same act that
located the capital at Salem having also located the university at Marysville
and the penitentiary at Portland, he returned to Marysville on Sunday before
election day, in June, and on the morning of the election made a speech to the
people of Benton county, they all having come in, word having been received by
them, to hear him. At that time voters could vote at any precinct in the
county. There were four of them besides Marysville, but no polls were open in
any one of them.

After Lane s speech, A. L. Humphrey, who lived in Lane county and was a joint
councilman for Lane and Benton counties, and J. C. Avery, who lived at
Marysville and was running for the legislature, and had been a member of the
previous legislature, were called upon to speak, which they did.

In my neighborhood there lived a family of Kentuckians, who had emigrated to
southwestern Missouri, and in 1850 had again emigrated to Oregon, the father,
daughter and five sons, all six feet and more in height, all unmarried except
the oldest son, Ike, who lived in the neighborhood. This family, Bailey by
name, were looking for a location out more on the border, intending to remain
in my neighborhood until spring, and in the spring look up a location farther
to the southward. Very few of the people could read or write, so it was one of
my duties to do the reading and to a great extent the correspondence of the
neighborhood.

Congressmen from Kentucky and Missouri sent their speeches to their old
neighbors and supporters living then in Oregon, and whenever a speech was
received I was called upon and informed that by the next Sunday they would
expect me at their places to read it for them, and I accommodated them with
pleasure. Sitting around on the fence about the cabin would be a group of
fifteen or twenty men and sometimes half that number of women, if the day was
pleasant, while the speech was read. Of course I was not at all backward in
making as much display of my ability as possible, as, being the teacher, I was
expected to accomplish the speech with honor to myself and the district.

Ike Bailey was a very remarkable man. Long and gaunt, with a chew of tobacco
in his mouth, he would comment from time to time upon the speech; and so
enthused did he become at the end of a speech of a Kentuckian by the name of
Jones, whom he knew when a boy, that he declared that, although Jones 'was a
"peart" man, the teacher had read the speech better than Jones could speak it,
and said that the teacher would surely go to Congress. On the election day to
which reference has been made, partly perhaps through the influence of Bailey,
and partly through the friendship and support of "Doc" Richardson, I was
called upon to get upon the platform, which was a farm wagon, and run for
representative to the legislature, two members of which were to be elected. It
was conceded that J. C. Avery, the present representative, would be reelected.
Immediately after this was over they took me on their shoulders and carried me
into the log school house, and polls were declared open. In an hour and a half
141 votes of the county were in, and it being announced that there were three
who were not to be present because they could not leave their homes, the polls
were declared closed, and after counting the votes, it was found that Avery
and myself were elected.