Among the basic documents reproduced
here is
Undaunted Pioneers
in which Isaac's middle daughter, Mary,
tells of
the
crossing and the settling in and around Ashland, Oregon.
In the Sept.
14, 1950 issue of the Southern
Oregon News
Review there was an article taken from her writings.
More detail if
not more accuracy is found in The
History of
the Sweetwater Valley by William B. Lenoir. This pdf
[0.9 M Bytes]
copy of pages 147-151 is provided courtesy of Glen Fine.
Thanks To
the
Southern Oregon Historical Society and the author Nan
Hannon, I now
have permission to scan and post pdf files of a two part
article of
which the
first
half appeared in the Table
Rock
Sentinel in August 1985. CAUTION:
These files are quite large to keep the photo quality
high. The Hill
Family of Ashland [10.6 M Bytes] is based largely
on Undaunted Pioneers,
but enhanced
from other sources. Part 2 appeared in the
September/October,
1985 issue. It is presented in
Hill
Family Part 2 [14.1 M Bytes]To keep focus the first
page of this
pdf file is from the August cover instead of the
photograph of Phantom
Ship in Crater Lake which is on the later cover.
But the site also tells the story of others whose lives intersect the Hill Family's. For example James Howard Russell married Mary's younger sister Ann Haseltine Hill. The record begins with the retelling of the story of The Young James H.Russell as told by his son James Buchanan Russell . Another perspective is provided by the Resolution on the Death of James H.Russell published by the Southern Oregon Pioneer Association. The widow subscribed to "Portrait and Biographical Record of Western Oregon." This entitled her to contribute to "Original Sketches of many well known Citizens of the Past and Present," and to receive a copy of the weighty tome which was published by the Chapman Publishing Co. in Chicago in 1904. The Biography of James H. Russell is her contribution but it is more about her than him. Ann's sister Mary Dunn put in an article about herself. An obituary on James H. Russell appeared in "Valley Record" at Ashland, Or. Thursday Oct 3, 1895.
Ann H. Hill Russell also wrote some
memories in
several sittings. In 1922 she wrote an essay about The Hill Cemetery which
was published at
Southern Oregon College in 1960 by Arthur S. Taylor.
About 1924 she wrote The Hill
Family in 1852 and
1853 . In
1926 Ann wrote
to her youngest
daughter about How I
Felt on Leaving my
Tennessee Home. Another effort about 1930 was untitled
but started
out Into the Rouge River
Valley I came . An
interview with her was published in a local paper. I
have a copy
of it that notes the date 9 July 1922, but does not state
the name of
the
paper. The headline refers to"The
Journal."
Martha Hill was the third daughter who came west with Isaac and Elizabeth. She married Almon V. Gillette in 1855 and wrote her "Overland to Oregon," with the by line: Martha Hill Gillette. The book is being scanned in batches of 10 pages to keep the file size manageable. The first three are Page 17-25 [3.5 MB], Page 26-35[4 MB] and Page 36-45.
If you download one or both of these, you may need to download the FREE Adobe Reader which can be downloaded from:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html
Many of the documents reproduced here assume a knowledge of the geography of the area. To improve the understanding of this material I have appealed to real expert. Kay Atwood is not only a meticulous historian, but a talented artist who has included excellent maps in the Mill Creek Journal which deserves to be referenced by anyone who has an interest in the history of southern Oregon. She has very kindly given me permission to scan the map she drew showing the Upper Bear Creek Valley in 1855.
An important document in family history is a letter from Peter Lee Fine to his sister Elizabeth and her husband Isaac Hill.
There also is a mimeographed letter from Ann H. dated April 7,1929. My copy is hand addressed to "Bobby Russell ," That would be Ashley Robert Russell, who was killed by a German sniper in Normandy a few days after D-Day. A much more recent, but undated letter from Ann's grandson [and my step-father] Ashley Howard Russell [the older brother of my birth mother, Mildred Russell Phelps] to the curator of the Southern Oregon Historical Society Museum in Jacksonville fills in some background.
The Isaac Hill Cemetery was also
called
the
Hill-Dunn Cemetery, it was proposed for the National
Register of
Historic Places under
the heading "Historic
Cemeteries of Ashland Oregon
-and Environs 1851-1925."
Links:
Some other
places on the WWW that speak to my heritage deserve notice
here:
http://www.highonadventure.com/Hoa05dec/LanceDec05/Klamath%20Junction.htm
Klamath Junction is the name of a place developed where
the Hill
and Russell Donation Land Claims were the first European
settlements.
http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/or/jackson/history/russell-j.txt Is another rendering of the Resolution on the Death of James H. Russell
You are our
visitor since 2002-- thanks for stopping by!
Last updated by William P. Russell on 9 Nov 2011Saturday, 08-Sep-2018 09:40:23 MDT