History of Union County
Chapter 1
Annals, 1861-1868
The Grande Ronde valley is one of the most beautiful spots in the United States, and perhaps deserves rank among the most sublime scenic poems of the world. From the earliest visits of white men until the present it has invariably drawn forth plaudits from the lips of those who aesthetic natures have been at all developed. John C. Fremont, the eminent explorer, pays a tribute in his journal, not alone to its beauty, but to the undeveloped agricultural resources he saw in it, hazarding the prophecy that it might “in time for a superb county.” Two years later the immigration of 1845 beheld it with delight. Bancroft tells us that the some of them expressed a wish to remain in it permanently, but its distance from any base of supplies and the fact that settlers in the valley would be at the mercy of savages rendered its settlement at that time entirely out of the question. It is probably true that all later emigrations were moved by the beauty, of the scene to the formation and expressing of like desires, and were deterred from permanently locating in this gem of the Blue mountains by like causes. General J.H. Stevens states that when he came through the valley in 1853, his party was met by the celebrated chief of the Nez Perces, Lawyer, by who Dr. Ballard, a member of the expedition who later served as governor of Idaho, was offered five hundred ponies on condition that he should remain in the valley, build a mill and break the Indian’s cayuse horses to work in harness. Dr. Ballard was in favor of accepting the terms, but the majority were against him, being unwilling to trust themselves to the mercy of the savages. The doctor was therefore compelled to give up this project. It was well that he did so, for the people would doubtless have been driven out or killed during the era of Indian Wars, which dawned soon after. Even if they escaped destruction at the hands of the savages, the interdict of General Wool, by which the whole of eastern Oregon and Washington was remanded to barbarism, would have effectually put an end to their stay and prevented their settlements from proving permanent.
In 1860 an agency was established among the Umatilla Indians. G.W. Abbott, the agent appointed, was a stanch Democrat, as were all the other officers, and as soon as they became aware that Abraham Lincoln was elected, they resigned forthwith. Benjamin Brown, one of Union county’s best known and most esteemed pioneers, was making him at the agency at this time, having returned to the west in the fall of 1860 from a trip to Michigan after his wife. He was engaged in freighting from The Dalles to Walla Walla and the agency, while Mrs. Brown busied herself cooking for the government officals on the reservation. The summary action of Mr. Abbott and his emplyees made it necessary for Mr. Brown, as well as for those who had been agency officers, to look around for something else to do. A number of them determined that they would seek out a suitable location, take land, and engage in farming. The questing was where to find what they wanted.
In a memorandum written at the time Mr. Brown says: “There were no lands in what is now Umatilla county worth taking. All the creek bottoms had been taken, so we sent a committee to look at Grande Ronde valley.
The failure of Mr. Brown and others to rightly estimate the value of the Umatilla land was more natural at the time than it might now appear. While to the present generation it seems indeed strange that a county capable of yielding 5.000.000 bushels of wheat in a single season should be passed by as worthless, it must be remembered that in the early sixties the rain fall was much smaller than at present, and it is probable that no crops could have been raised in the Umatilla valley at that time without irrigation. It is one of the unexplained phenomena of the west that the rainfall has invariably increased as the country has become settled. Many attempts have been made to account for this singular fact, one of the most plausible being that artificial disturbances of atmospheric conditions and the presence of many tons of steel and iron are responsible for the increase of precipitation. The discharge of heavy artillery almost invariably produces a shower, as was many times observed during the Civil war. Why then should not the whistles of the locomotives, the factories and the steamboats, the electrical disturbances caused by the network of telegraph and telephone wires, and the numerous other artificial generators of atmospheric and electric waves exert a similar influence?
But it is fitting that we leave the solution of this problem in science to the meteorologists and pursue the fortunes of our little band of homeseekers. The committee appointed to “spy out” the Grande Ronde valley consisting of Ben brown, William McCauley, Jake Reeth, William Marks and Job Fisher. Without looking over the entire valley they picked on the place afterwards known as Brown’s Fort, taking several claims. The considerations which determined their choice of location were proximity to water and timber and convenience in building a stockade, for it was assumed that the Indians were liable to give trouble. “We returned in a few days,” says Mr. Brown, “and reported favorably. About a dozen boys agreed to settle in the valley. Five or six of us came on to build a block house and other fortifications, and when we reached the site the committee had chose, we found Stephen Coffin and three or four other men camped where now stands the old town of Lagrande. It was here I first met the Honorable D. Chaplin. He had accompanied Mr. Coffin, who came with a load of provisions intending to trade with the Indians and emigrants as men frequently did in those days. As the emigration was very light that year he sold few goods, and he had determined to return to the valley with his surplus. When, however, he saw that we were intending to start a settlement, he and the men who were with him took claims on what became the site of the old town of Lagrande. There was also in the valley an emigrant family by the name of Leasy, who had crossed the plains and who purposed proceeding westward with Mr. Coffin. They likewise decided to remain in Grand Ronde. Coffin organized a joint stock company among the settlers for the purpose of building a saw mill, most of the men subscribing to the enterprise with the understanding that their stock should be paid for in work, as they had no money. The mill company built on what later became Mr. Chaplin’s homestead, the first cabin erected in the valley.
“About the middle of October, 1861, Mr. Coffin and the men who were with him left the valley, promising to send machinery for the saw mill in the spring. This enterprise never materialized, though Mr. Coffin built a mill on his own account during the summer of 1862 at what afterward became known as Oro Dell.
“When in November, 1861, we were bringing in supplies and my family, we learned certain facts which gave direction to all our plans and put a brighter coloring upon the future of our settlement. We met in the Blue mountains a party of prospectors who had struck gold in paying quantities in Griffin’s Gulch, near the spot on which the town of Auburn afterward stood. Their spokesman, who I think was Dave Littlefield, gave us great encouragement, telling us we were striking it rich.”
Mr. Brown states that the names of those who made the first settlement in Grande Ronde valley, besides himself and wife, were S.M. Black, William McCauley, E.C. Crane, William Chaffin, R. Alexander, Richard and William Marks and Job Fisher. Mr. Leasy, he says, took a claim later.
When it was learned that gold had been found, Brown and Black and Chaffin determined to change their location, so they took the land the Coffin party had staked out. None of this party ever returned to the valley, except its leader and M.D. Chaplin, the latter of whom passed through the next summer enroute to Auburn and returned in the fall. He took Black’s claim, a part of which was land Chaplin had staked out the previous autumn. Black had gone to Portland for goods wherewith to start a store.
“During the winter of 1861-2,” says Mr. Brown, “I commenced to build the first individual house in the valley, all the other buildings being company houses, located where now stands what was once Union county’s courthouse. I erected a double log house, paying twelve and a half cents a foot for what lumber entered into its construction.” It will therefore be seen that to Mrs. Frances Brown belongs the honor, not along of having been the first lady settler in the valley, but the matron of its first home.
Mr. Brown’s dairy(sic) gives us quite a complete history of events in this little colony during the first winter. The season was unusually severe one in Oregon and Washington, cattle perishing by the thousands in many parts. Though the cold in the Grande Ronde was not especially severe, the winter was of long duration, with much snow and rain. One of the miners who wintered in Baker county found by actual measurement that fourteen feet of snow fell in Griffin’s Gulch, and it is probable that the snow fell in Grande Ronde valley was not very much less.
The only money in the colony was such as could be derived from the sale of agency warrants. These were hard to dispose of at sixty-five cents on the dollar and once, Mr. Brown remarks in his diary, that if they do not succeed in cashing their warrants they will have to abandon the valley. They finally found sale for them in Walla Walla in goods and provisions.
Not even in pioneer days, when common hardships and common dangers should have bound the members of families together in strongest bonds of affection, was domestic infelicity unknown. In November, 1861, Mr. Brown was called upon to preside at a peculiar trial. A woman brought charges against her husband of bad treatment, extending the full period of her married life, and of failure to provide, etc. Just what relief she expected the court to grant is not clear, for it is certain that it had no jurisdiction in divorce proceedings. However, the court did not refuse to take cognizance of the matter and no plea to the jurisdiction seems to have been entered. The summons issued to the defendant reads as follows:
Supreme Court of Grande Ronde
November 22, 1861
To ------ ----------,
You are hereby commanded to appear forthwith before the court of Judge Brown to answer the complaint of ----- -------, your wife, for maltreatment and failure to provide the common necessries of life, and in default of appearance at said court, you will be punished as the law may direct.
By order of the court,
R.D. Alexander, Clerk
The defendant appeared and, through his attorneys, entered a vigorous defense. Indeed the case was ably contested on both sides, though with splendid disregard of the principals of the law of pleading. The next day Judge Brown rendered a decision which divorce courts of later days would do well in many instances to follow as a precedent. He told the defendant to go back and live with his wife, provide for her and the family and like a man and get along with her the best way he could.
Several debates were held in which most of the residents of the valley took a lively part. Other amusements were also indulged in as appears from the following notation in the diary under the date of December 24th:
“Mr. Abbott and Mr. Copenhaver (referring to cattlemen who had a short time before attempted to take a band of cattle over to Salmon river and had been driven back by the Indians) brought over some ducks and chickens this evening as we were going to get up a company dinner. We had dancing and singing to-night and finished with an Indian war dance.”
The next notation in the diary records reads thus: “December 25th, Christmas-Pretty cold. The two men from Powder river, along with the mill hands, came over. We mustered about thirty in all to dinner, and there were five men on the other side of the river that did not come, so that the number of inhabitants of this valley amounted to thirty-five whites and one half breed. We had a good substantial dinner. Everybody well satisfied. Had a ball to-night which lasted until three o’clock in the morning.”
Speaking of the New Year’s dance, the diary says: “At early candle light the ball commenced. My family and I came home at twelve o’clock, and later the ball broke up on account of the fiddler’s giving out or it would have been going yet.”
Another notation of considerable interest, as it speaks of the first wedding in the valley, reads as follows: “January 8-Had a wedding. Came off this evening. Mr. W. Marks took Frances Caroline Leasy for better or worse. We had quite a time dancing. I suppose this is the first wedding that ever took place here.” The ceremony was performed by S.M. Black, who had been a justice of the peace. He was uncertain as to whether his jurisdiction was or was not bounded by territorial limits, and if it was he knew it did not legally extend to the Grande Ronde valley. However, he remembered an old territorial statute by which persons living in regions remote from those legally empowered to perform marriage ceremonies might be lawfully joined in wedlock by signing an agreement, so, to make sure that the knot was tied to stay tied, he had the parties sign such an instrument.
Early in February, Abbott & Company made a second attempt to cross the mountains with cattle into the Salmon river country, but were repulsed after the loss of several head. On the 8th of that month Brownlee came in from Powder river and tried to organize a company to go out and fight the Indians. The citizens were opposed to the expedition at the time, however, so the scheme failed.
Under the date of March 25th, Mr. Brown writes: “Had a meeting to see if we could not make a boat to cross the river. Everybody agreed to go to work on it. Brownlee and Gregory came in, which broke up our meeting in a hurry. They had an awful time and came near going under in the Grande Ronde river. They made a raft to cross on, and it went to pieces, so they lost all they had with them,-guns, blankets, and other articles. They were three days without eating and looked bad.”
On April 6th Mr. Brown plowed the first sod ever turned in Grande Ronde valley. This he accomplished with a plow, brought in the fall before, hauled by oxen.
In addition to the nine men and one woman who permanently settled on claims within the confines of Grande Ronde valley during the fall of 1861, there was probably another white person there who contemplated permanent settlement. He did not precede the agency people, however. All that is known about his early experience in Grande Ronde is what was developed in a dispute about a land claim at a later date. Fred Nodine, a prominent citizen and pioneer of Union county, relates the circumstances together with reminiscences of his own first entrance into Grande Ronde valley as follows:
“I came to the Grande Ronde valley June 11, 1862. I had been over to Walla Walla to secure some supplies which I intended t take back with me to Auburn, and encamped on Catherine creek, above the present town of Union. At the base of Emigrant hill, where the old town of Lagrande stands. I had stayed with Ben Brown, and at that time there was a small settlement there. There was no road up to this (Union) end of the valley, and as yet I supposed it had not been penetrated, in which supposition I found afterwards I was mistaken.
“Thus far I had not seen an Indian, and so took precautions that night, but after picketing my saddle horse and two pack animals I rolled up in my blankets and went to sleep. What was my surprise the next morning on awakening to find two rifle barrels peering into my face, back of which there were two dusky, ugly looking Nez Perce Indians. Well, I thought my last moments had come, but bracing up my courage, I said ‘Good morning,’ in a very friendly way and waited results. The redskins dropped their guns and extended their hands to me, which you may imagine I grasped very cordially. Then they wanted to know who I was, and asked a few questions from which I gleaned that they were the horse thieves who had stolen about eight head of horses from the mines just previous to my departure from Auburn. I assured them that I was not looking for them and told them my business. Then I prepared to move away, but they invited me to breakfast, and taking me to their camp a little further down the creek treated me to as fine a breakfast of game, fish, etc., as I have ever eaten. Two squaws, some papooses and the stolen stock were there. Then I made signs that I must leave them, but they persisted in a very friendly way on my staying, and it was a week before they left me, going into the Wallowa country.
“I wandered on down the creek, and almost before I knew it stumbled onto a small cabin, literally buried in the tall grass which grew up on all sides higher than my head in many places. The cabin was built of puncheons, split out and laid on each other, making an ‘A’ shaped building perhaps six feet long. Back of this cabin I found a small piece of ground, cleared and spaded up and in radishes and turnips. From all appearances I judged it was the work of a white man, and as he had evidently deserted his claim, nothing suited me better than to stay right there awhile. This place was about a mile west of Union and on the creek, of course.
“So I stayed and harvested the vegetables and prepared to make my home there, as I knew it would not be long before this valley would be settled, and as it was on the natural route of miners on their way to the Idaho mines, I thought that later there would be a good home market. One night I turned out my horses as usual, but when I came to look for them the next morning they were missing, and I soon perceived where they had gone. The Indians had visited me. Looking around I discovered their trail and immediately set out on foot to follow them. I tracked them into the Wallowa valley, and then suddenly coming on to a band of probably five or six Indians and several thousand head of horses, I considered it best to give up the chase.
“About July 1st, tom Ledgerwood and Dan Waldo came to the upper part of the valley with one of the first bands of stock ever brought into the county and located on the creek between Union and the depot. In the fall John Parton and Dick Robinson came in from the Willamette valley with between five and six hundred head of cattle, but they did not locate ranches. Meanwhile quite a number o settlers came into the valley and settled at the Cove, Summerville, Lagrande and along the edge of the valley. The creeks and Grande Ronde River were lined with willows and other underbrush and cottonwoods. The upper end of the valley, between Hot lake and the Cove was a vast lake covered with tules and known as Tule lake. The whole valley was covered with a dense, luxuriant growth of rye and bunch grass, sometimes as high as a man’s head, and always so thick and tall it was impossible for a man to see more than a few feet in front of him. Stock could not be seen at all, but had to be tracked around through the vast ocean of grass in the valley. Only one who has seen it can fully appreciate its luxuriance and beauty.
“In the fall of 1862 I had left the cabin which I had found and located a claim, a part of which afterwards formed a part of the town site of Union and is now known as West Union. One day a man named Conrad Miller came to the valley, driving an ox team. Coming to this end he stopped at that cabin and prepared to unload. Meanwhile Coffin, Clark & Hinkley had taken up the claim and were in possession of it. Of course, they denied Miller the privilege of squatting upon their land, claiming that it had been deserted. Now comes the strange part of the story. Miller claimed the land was his by right of previous occupation, and told a story so plausible that the other parties had to admit that it might be true. Of course in those days there were no courts in this part of the country, and Union county was a portion of Wasco county with the county seat at The Dalles. A great many disputes were settled by arbitration, or sometimes by citizens’ courts, mostly by arbitration in minor matters, however. As I was the only party in this particular neighborhood that was not interested in the affair, they called on me to settle the dispute for them.
“I held court at the disputed cabin beneath a balm tree and heard the testimony of both parties. Miller said that in the fall of 1861 he had entered the valley alone and had come up to the creek at this, the upper end of the valley. Here he had picked out the claim which he believed suited him best and built on it the little cabin which they had found. He had stayed here that winter undisturbed by the redskins, who never wintered in the Grande Ronde valley, and in the spring had planted a small garden of turnips, radishes, and other vegetables. Late that spring he had gone out of the valley, with the intention of returning to his home near Vancouver and bringing in some stock, seeds, implements and fruit trees. He had left Vancouver with his outfit as soon as possible, and all had gone well until he reached the John Day river, when he found that it was impossible to cross that and the numerous other streams between it and the Grande Ronde. So he healed in the trees and did not attempt to proceed further until fall. Now he had come to settle. The other parties’ story was simple-they had found the land unoccupied and the cabin deserted and had taken it.
“I considered the testimony and finally decided that inasmuch as Miller’s story tallied with my first discoveries, especially as to the garden and some smaller details, which left no doubt in my mind as to its truthfulness, and considering the fact that there was still thousands of acres of just as desirable land yet untaken, Miller was entitled to the property. There were no further words. My decision was accepted as final, as was the decision of all arbitrators when reasonable, and Miller took possession. This was probably one of the first trials or courts held in that county. A man named Busick, who settled farther up Catherine creek, was also present at this court.
“Miller healed in his trees again and started the first nursery in the county, or country for that matter. The trees were mostly apple, a few being pears. He sold them for one dollar a tree, and several of the settlers bought them during the next few years. Thus Miller is entitled to the credit of planting the first fruit trees and raising the first fruit.” T.A. Wood, of Portland, also brought in trees in the fall of 1862.
We have thus far traced the establishment of the first two communities of Union county, that of the agency company, which gave inception to the present city of Lagrande, and that of Miller, Nodine, Coffin, Clark, Hinkley and others on Catherine creek, out of which the city of Union has grown. The Powder river, Salmon river, and Canyon creek mining excitement caused a constant stream of miners and adventurers to pass through Grande Ronde valley during the spring and summer of 1862, giving promise of an excellent market for whatever could be raised in the way of agricultural produce. As a result, not a few people settled here, forming a ring of settlements close to the base of the mountains. Their object in this was that they might be contiguous to the timber and the means of irrigation.
The people of Grande Ronde valley were especially fortunate in one respect during the early days; they had but little trouble of any kind with the Indians. The lands they were occupying were not held by any band of aborigines as a home, but were considered as neutral ground and visited annually during the summer months by hunting and fishing parties of the various tribes. That settlers were not annoyed by thievish and murderous redskins, as were the miners of the Powder river and John Day valleys, is no doubt due to the pacific character of the Umatilla and Nez Perce tribes, the former of which lived in the Umatilla valley on the north and the latter in Idaho and the Wallowa valley on the east. Later, when the grass became less abundant, some complaint was made that when the Indians visited the valley by permission of the government on hunting and fishing excursions, they brought vast herds of ponies with them, which sometimes trespassed on what the settlers conceived to be their rights.
But the only difficulty of any note during the earliest days which we have been able to learn about transpired in the summer of 1862. A small band of Umatillas were camped on Willow creek, near the eastern border of the county, where Summerville now is. Its members assumed a very unfriendly attitude toward the whites. One day they became especially insolent, erecting near their camp tall poles painted in war colors. Their “medicine man,” under who direction it had been done, announced that the white men could have the land as far as the poles and no father. This was to be the dividing line between the races. Word was quickly sent to Colonel Currey, at Walla Walla, who immediately proceeded to the scene with the company of soldiers, coming upon the Indian camp near where Elgin now is. When he attempted to arrest the “medicine man” the Indians drew their guns on the officer and the men who accompanied him into the wigwam. Several shots were exchanged, as a result of which four Indians were killed. Their comrades were compelled to return at once to the reservation.
Meanwhile the work of subduing the wilderness was going on apace. Homes were springing up in various parts. The bosom of mother earth was being lacerated with the spade and the plow. The day of the nomadic and shiftless Indian was fast passing into the night that was to be eternal and the day of the energetic, all-subduing Anglo-Saxon was dawning clear and bright.
Most of the settlers came into the valley provided with sufficient means to support them until their first harvest, but opportunities for winning a maintenance were not lacking, at least not after the opening of the spring of 1862. Those who wished to engage in packing, or to work for others in blazing out new trails and the like, could always find demand for their services. Mr. Nodine tells us how he found the materials for a lucrative business in the tall rye and bunch grass which grew all around him in great abundance. Notwithstanding the worlds of wild grass, hay was scarce and commanded a high price. Miners and packers going over the mountains into Idaho found no feed for their pack animals when they reached the snow line. It was a hard trip on horses and mules to push over the ranges with heavy packs and with nothing to eat. Mr. Nodine conceived the idea of curing the wild grass, baling it into bundles of convenient size, preparing it to be packed to the points where most needed on the mountain heights. Out of old dry goods boxes he constructed a primitive hand baler, shaped like a box. Pressure was secured by throwing his own weight and that of his assistant, when he was fortunate enough to have one, upon the end of a lever sixteen feet long, the fulcrum being another box smaller than the first resting upon the hay to be pressed. The bales having been tied with buckskin were swung between two pack horses and thus transported to the places where needed. For the hay Mr. Nodine received payment at the rate of one hundred dollars per ton.
During the summer of 1862 Mr. Nodine went over to Walla Walla and purchased a hundred head of cattle, also a number of horses. These he brought with him to his home, becoming one of the founders of the stock industry in Union county, and he has devoted his attention to cattle almost uninterruptedly since.
An important incidental result of the trip was the construction of a trail connecting Walla Walla with the Powder river valley. In relating the incident to the writer, Mr. Nodine said:
“When I was on this trip to Walla Wall in July, 1862, there was with me a man known to history as ‘Three-fingered Smith,’ whom everybody knew in those days. Now, at this time, there was considerable rivalry between The Dalles and Walla Walla over the trade of the Idaho mines and those on the Powder river. There was a pretty fair trail and road through from The Dalles, but none to Walla Walla from either of these sections except, perhaps, old Indian trails. This would not do at all. When I arrived in Walla Walla, among the first men I met was D.S. Baker. Smith was a merchant there at that time, and of course interested in this trade with the miners. When the merchants learned where I was from, they wanted to know the prospects of getting a road or a trail through to the Powder river mines. I learned that they were already constructing a good trail to the Grande Ronde valley, which was nearly completed. Finally they asked Smith and I what we would make a crossing at the Grande Ronde river and blaze out a trail to the old emigrant road in the Powder river valley for. By the way, this trail from Walla Wall to Philips creek, near where Elgin now stands, was over the route known as the Linkton road in after years. We consulted, and I told Baker we could not do it for less than two hundred dollars. That settled it. They paid us the cash at once, we agreeing to do the work within two weeks and lead their pack trains across once. Smith and I returned to the valley, and our first work was to build a crossing over the Grande Ronde, which we finished in a short time. Then we cut a great load of willows, and binding them in a bunch made them fast to a mule, by means of a Dutch, or wooden collar. This was our equipment. We worked in this fashion: I went ahead, and sighting certain landmarks, led the mule forward, keeping in as straight a line as possible and avoiding hills and streams where they could be avoided. Smith followed in the trail made by the willows, and occasionally pulled one out and stuck it in the ground. We headed straight toward what afterward became known as Pyle’s canyon, following up the canyon as far as was possible without getting into the brush, and then struck right over the mountains and down into Powder river valley to the road.
“Two weeks later we were at the head of the trail, as per promise, and there were waiting for us ten pack trains of from twenty to thirty animals to a train. When we had led this party over the trail we had mapped out, you may believe that a first-class trail was made. A portion of it can be seen even to the present day, as it was used for many years. This trail was the beginning of the diverting of travel to the upper end of the valley from the Ladd canyon near Lagrande. A year or two later a road was built, or rather marked out, up the western side of the valley and James Pyle, assisted by the voluntary aid of the settlers at this end of the valley, built a grade through the canyon that bears his name. Pyle applied for and obtained a charter from the state to operate a toll road, and his road was maintained as such until 1869 or 1870, when the county purchased it. After the construction of the road through this canyon, making this route much easier, travel was almost entirely diverted to this road, and of course Union received the benefit of the change.”
During the months of August, September and October, 1863, Grande Ronde valley was surveyed by David Thompson and his party of assistants. This was a very important step in the development of the valley, as it obviated the risk always attendant upon holding lands by squatter’s titles, and had a marked effect in stimulating settlement.
In the fall of this year E.S. McComas, in his capacity as a deputy assessor of Baker county, made out the assessment rolls for this part of the country. To his valuable work, “Blazing the Trail for the Star of Empire,” a manuscript, we are indebted for the following summary of the settlements and towns. It says:
“Joseph Lane, Jr., son of General Joseph Lane, ex-governor, was keeping a little trading station about one miles south of the present Union county court house. Fred Nodine, George Wright and Sons, George Ames, Peter Coffin, Seth Bennington, Alexander Le Boev, and the French settlement up Catherine creek constituted at that time about all there was of Union, now the county seat of Union county. Hon. James Hendershott, the pioneer legislator, lived at Hendrshott’s Point, where he and wife, Harriett Hendershott, were building the home that in after years became a welcome way-station to the weary traveler. Down in Indian valley were Uncle Jake Long, the Weavers, E.B. Morelock and Ben Phillips. At Summerville, J.H., Henry and L.B. Rinehart, two of whom have left an honorable impress on the laws of the state by service in legislation.
“A few settlers in the Iowa settlement, the Wades, Stanleys, Lanmans, mcLeans, hunter, and across the Grande Ronde River a few settlers, Charles Goodnough, Proebstel brothers, Nessley, R.J. Rogers, J.L. Caviness and the inhabitants of a few clustering houses in the old town of Lagrande.”
Although the country was settling up with considerable rapidity, its population probably did not exceed five hundred people when the new county of Union was organized by act of the legislature, passed October 14, 1864. Prior to that time Grande Ronde, Wallowa and contiguous valleys were all included in Baker County, but by this new bill a new political division was organized with Lagrande for its temporary seat of government. By the creating act the boundaries of Union countywere defined as follows:
“Commencing at a point where the 46th parallel of latitude crosses the Blue mountain; thence east along said line to its intersection with Snake river; thence up the middle of the channel of said river, to the mouth of Powder river; thence up the middle channel of said river to the mouth of the north fork of the same; thence up the main channel of said North Powder river to its source; thence west to a point intersecting the east boundary line of Umatilla county; thence northerly along said line to the place of beginning.”
In Union county, as in other sections of the country during the closing months of the Civil war, there was much feeling and a marked division of sentiment concerning the conduct of the war as well as the issues at stake. The settlers throughout the valley were from all sections of the country. There were daily clashes between Unionists and those in sympathy with the southern confederacy. Many former members of Price’s disbanded army were scattered about the country, and these men were an ever present source of trouble. They were recklessly outspoken in their abuse of the north and of the “black abolitionists” who had freed the negroes. Unionists caught under favorable circumstances, with no means of defense, were sometimes abused.
As a rule members of each faction went about their daily walks with guns or revolvers either on their persons or within easy reach. While there was no real organization, there finally came to be a general understating among Union men. Concerted action became one of the possibilities, and a hall in Lagrande, then called the arsenal, became their rendezvous when and alarm call was sent out by those tacitly recognized as sentinels, who watched the daily movements of their friends, “the enemy” of the other faction.
In November, 1864, after the second triumph of Abraham Lincoln in the national election, sentiment reached fever heat and the passions of men were all but uncontrollable. The southern sympathizers lost no opportunity to flaunt the flag of their sentiments in the faces of the supporters of Lincoln. They overleaped the bounds of reason in their efforts to besmirch the name of Lincoln and exalt that of Jefferson Davis. The Union men were not silent, neither were they by any means inactive; but being governed somewhat more than their adversaries by reason and a desire for peace, theirs was more in the nature of defense campaign.
This turmoil of sentiment and passion culminated in an attempt on the part of the southern sympathizers to burn Lincoln in effigy. Late one afternoon in the latter part of November, word was sent into the country immediately contiguous to Lagrande, calling together the Union men for the purpose of preventing the success of this attempt. Mr. Roel Rogers, now living just north of the city limits, was one to whom this summons came. There were with him a company of twenty-five men engaged in threshing the grain crop. Calling these men together he asked the Union men to step to the right, and those who were not to step to the left. Seventeen men answered the invitation to step to the right. These mounted the fourteen horses at hand, and under Mr. Rogers’ leadership went at headlong speed into Lagrande. The effigy burners were already there in force. The poles were erected, the effigy was swung in place, and they only awaited the coming of darkness to apply the match. The Unionists assembled at the arsenal and found they numbered sixty men all well armed. They were opposed by about the same number who were equally well armed. It was known that the Unionists would seek to prevent the application of the match to the effigy, and armed men were stationed under wagons, behind trees, rocks and sheds to protect the one who would finally undertake to accomplish this perilous feat.
It was evidently decided by the arsenal force that some attempt should be made to reason with their opponents and induce them to change their plans. It was suggested that a committee should be sent out to seek a conference. It was realized that there was great danger in attempting to search on the streets for the leaders, but Mr. Rogers volunteered to go and John Schwisher and David Kelly quickly volunteered to accompany him. The committee sallied forth, and those remaining prepared for their defense should any attack be made upon them. They were unmolested, and had not much difficulty in locating the leaders. The burning of the effigy was discussed. It was argued by the Union men that it would not settle any of the great questions of the war while it would be an insult to the president of the United States. It would array neighbor against neighbor and friend against friend; it would create new enmities and intensify old ones. The Union men were determined and would stop for nothing should they persist in their attempt. It would necessarily result in many deaths and could not possibly accomplish any good.
There was a war of words that almost precipitated an armed encounter. For a time the leaders declared their intention of carrying out their plans at all hazards. Eventually one of the men, Mat Rice, was led to see the foolhardiness of the undertaking. He could not readily move his followers, but his ire being finally aroused, he placed himself in full view before the surging effigy and declared in no unmistakable tone that he would himself shoot any man who dared attempt to apply the match. Shortly afterward it was hauled down and carried away, saving the fair name of Lagrande from the stain of such a dastardly act.
Even before the people of Grand Ronde and adjacent valleys were granted the dignity and the blessings of a separate political organization, a rivalry had sprung up between the two chief towns of the valley, Lagrande and Union, and the new prize to be gained by one or the other of them served as fuel to the flames of self interest and jealousy. It was provided by the bill creating Union county that Lagrande should be the temporary seat of government, but that the permanent location of the same should be determined by vote of the people at the next general election. Both contestants realized that a bitter fight would ensue and both began making preparations to meet the issue.
Meanwhile the two towns and the surrounding country continued to develop with great rapidity. The farmers were reaping an abundant reward for their labor. The soil proved fertile beyond all expectation, yielding sixty bushels of spring wheat per acre and from one hundred to one hundred and twenty-five of barley and oats. Potatoes and vegetables of all kinds did proportionately well. The valley and surrounding hills furnished an abundance of grass for hundreds of head of cattle and horses, and everything that could be produced in the way of live stock or agricultural produce commanded a ready market, mines, packers, stage owners and other migratory classes of men furnishing the farmer a market at his very door. Prices also were excellent.
Almost the entire circulating medium at this time consisted of gold dust and nearly every person doing business was provided with a blower to clean and a gold scales to weigh the sums changing hands in the course of trade. As an illustrating of the volume of business being transacted at the time, Jasper Stevens told the writer of one man who for a short time made high wages transporting to water in a wheelbarrow the sweepings from business houses in old Lagrande and there washing out the gold dust that had been accidentally lost in the handling.
“Greenbacks,” Mr. McComas informs us, “were in circulation in a limited way, but were not popular, and although they were legal tender for all debts, woe to the man who attempted to pass them for more than the Daily Oregonian’s latest quotation, which, before the resumption act ranged anywhere between forty five cents and ninety cents on the dollar.”
In 1863 or 1864 a small saw mill was established on Catherine creek about six miles about Union. For several years this mill busied itself in turning out lumber for the supply of the local demand, and there is a mill on its site at the present time. The first flouring mill in the valley, with the exception of the one at Lagrande, built by J.R. Wilkinson, was built and equipped at Union in 1865, the authors of this enterprise being Dr. D.S. Baker and a man named Reynolds, both citizens of Walla Walla. Mr. Nodine describes it as a very good mill, of perhaps fifty barrels capacity, and states that it had an important effect on the grain growing industry of the valley. All the flour it could manufacture commanded a ready sale among the miners. This mill was in operation a great part of each year until 1884, when it burned down.
Prior to 1868 Union county was without a newspaper of any kind, though several unsuccessful attempts had been made to start one. On April 18th, of that year, however, two papers made their appearance, practically simultaneously-The Blue Mountain Times, whose political complexion was forcibly expressed in its motto, “The Union, Right or Wrong,” and the Mountain Sentinel, Democratic in politics and inclined to sympathize with the southern people in the sad plight in which war left them. Both papers show evidence that the bitter feeling engendered by civil strife had hardly begun to die out at that time.
It was not our good fortune to find a copy of the initial number of the Sentinel, and Number I of the Times which came into our hands was in such a poor state of preservation that we could glean but little from its pages, but the second issue of the latter paper informs us among other things: that Meacham Brothers are still engaged in business on the Blue Mountains and keeping the hotel known as Lee’s Encampment, also offering their highway, known as the Umatilla and Powder River road, on terms before advertised, to travelers and freighters; that James C. Dow, attorney at law, Lagrande, pays particular attention to the land office business; that Mallory & Coggan keep dry goods, groceries, clothing, boots and shoes, wines, liquors, etc.; that Samuel Stoltz invites the attention of the public to his boot and shoe manufactory; that M.B. Mallory wishes a meeting of the Salamander fire company; that J.C. McWhirter has just removed his harness shop to the former City Bakery building; that D. Steinheiser will sell his entire stock of clothing, boots, shoes and dry and staple goods, tobaccos, pipes, cigars, and groceries at cost, as he intends to retire from business; that J.R. Wilkinson, wholesale and retail dealer in dry goods, groceries and provisions, etc., desires a share of the public patronage; that the Banner Flour depot will exchange flour for grain of all kinds, allowing seventy-five cents a bushel for No. 1 clean wheat and asking $6 per barrel for XXX flour unsacked or $6.50 sacked; that T. M. Wood will open photograph rooms at Union, Baker City, Auburn and other places; that James McDonald keeps a blacksmith shop on the south side of C street neat the livery stable of J.C. McComas; that J.W. Dickey has bought the wagon shop formerly owned by D.C. McKircher, and wishes patronage; that George Coggan wishes men desiring livery rigs or board for horses to call at the Sign of the Horse, north side of C street; that Foster & Weathers have at their butcher shop meat of every variety, including game, and that D. P. Patterson deals in drugs, confectionary, stationery, etc. The religious announcements made through its columns are as follows: Rev. J.G. Deardorff will preach at the M.E. church the first Sunday in each month; Rev. J.f. Roberts, of the Protestant Episcopal church, on the third Sunday; and Rev. O. Osborne, of the United Brethren church, on the fourth; Sunday school every Sunday afternoon at two o’clock.
In the second number of the Sentinel, dated April 25, 1868, is a general review of the topography of and the general conditions obtaining in the Grande Ronde valley. We are told that country roads cross the valley in all directions, but the main highways are toll roads. One, called the Meacham road, comes over the Blue mountains and follows the Grande Ronde river for some distance, until it emerges into the valley at Oro Dell. Thence it goes to Lagrande and directly east across the valley to Union and out at the south end via Pyle’s canyon or the old Emigrant road of Ladd’s hill. Another called the Thomas & Ruckle road extends over the Blue mountains from the headwaters of the Umatilla river, entering the valley on the west side near the north end and leading thence through town of Summerville and across the valley to the opposite side; thence up the east side past the mouth Forest Cove, through Union and into the Powder river valley by the same outlets as the Meacham road.
The paper speaks of the wonderful changes that have been wrought in the appearance of the valley since its first settlement. “The waste prairie,” it states “has changed to fenced and cultivated farms, and in all directions the handiwork of intelligence and industry is visible. Comfortable houses and outhouses have been built, and orchards planted, while from the poor immigrant has sprung the well to do farmer.” We are also informed that Lagrande, the county seat, has about six hundred inhabitants, its complement of stores and shops, two printing presses, etc.; that Union, a considerable town, fifteen miles from Lagrande, on Catherine creek, transacts not a little business as a natural result of the fact that nearly all the roads through the valley center there. It is stated that this place has a post office and express office, two hotels, several stores, and all the necessary shops, etc., to make up a town. “Summerville,” says the paper, “is a small town in the north end of the valley. It boasts a store, postoffice, hotel and blacksmith shop. Oro Dell is situated on both sides of the Grande Ronde river, at the mouth of the canyon, and also boasts its hotel, postoffice, and shops.
“We have reserved the mills of our valley for special mention. There are five flouring and three saw mills. The flouring mill at Lagrande is the only one run by stream. It is owned by J.R. Wilkinson. The flouring and saw mill at Oro Dell is a combined affair, and is run by the Grande Ronde river. A beautiful and romantic spot is the Oro Dell mill site. A flouring mill on Catherine creek is under the supervision of Mr. Wright, and another flouring mill, owned by S.G. French & Company, is on a tributary of Catherine creek. In Forest Cove, about two miles from the valley proper, is a saw mill, the power for which is furnished by a little mountain stream. At Summerville is a flouring mill owned by the Rinehart Brothers, run by a tributary of the Grande Ronde, and up in the foothills, on a very romantic little mountain stream, is the sawmill of Boyce & Trimble. These mills all make the best of flour or lumber, or both, and have worked a wonderful change in our home affairs. Instead of importing all of our flour from the Willamette valley we now nearly supply the Boise and Owyhee counties and in all probability will in another year begin to repay the above mentioned valley in its own kind. Two large shrub and fruit trees nurseries are well matured, one owned by Gangloff, at Oro Dell, and one by Geer, in Forest Cove. Soon we shall be independent of ‘Webfoot’ for fruit.”
From the issue of the Sentinel of September 26, 1868, we quote a portion of the wholesale price lists of commodities as follows: Flour, self-rising, per barrel, $9 and $10; flour, super plain, per barrel, $5 and $6.50; bacon and hams, per pound, twenty-five and twenty-six cents; shoulders, per pound, sixteen cents; lard, in bulk, fifteen cents; in cans, twenty cents; beans, nine to eleven cents; sugar, seventeen cents; coffee, twenty-seven and twenty eight cents; valley butter, twenty-five and thirty cents; eggs, thirty seven and one half cents; coal oil, per gallon, $1.25; wheat, per bushel, fifty to seventy-five cents; barley and oats, one cent per pound.