As Told by
Mary Dunn
First School
In 1856 the upper valley settlers met
at
the home of Giles Wells for the purpose of making plans for building a
school house. They elected Enoch Walker, Isaac Hill, J.C. Tolman, and
H.
F. Barron as directors and Mr Dunn was elected clerk. They built a
school
house on our place about a half a mile north of our house. This
building
was used for church and all other community gatherings. The first
church
services were conducted by Rev. M. A. Williams in 1857. He came from
Yreka
and stayed at father's house. Father went round and told all the
neighbors
that there would be preaching services at the school house the next
Sunday.
When they day arrived, father's horses had strayed away, so father
hitched
up a yoke of oxen to a big lumber wagon and took the preacher, his own
family and as many of the neighbors as he could pick up. He was late,
so
he came down the road in a trot, and that was going some in those days.
There was a good congregation; people came from all around as far as
Myers'
place over in Valley View, across Bear creek. There was no other church
nearer than a Methodist church in Jacksonville.
There were some good singers; John McCall,
Albert Rockfellow, a Mr Smith and wife, my father, Rev. Williams and
others.
Mr. A.V. Gillette played the flute and led the singing. Later other
ministers
came and preached there regularly. My sister Lou and I were the first
to
join the Presbyterian church and were baptised by Father Williams.
There was soon quite a settlement near the
school house. Wells built a saw mill and blacksmith shop near the
bridge
on the Tolman place, and several families settled near the mill. Tolman
built a tannery on his place. A bachelor by the name of Osborne built a
shoe and harness repair shop on our place which he named Bridge Port.
He
named the Tolman place Salmonville, as in those days the creek was full
of fish, and the dam at the mill made them more numerous there. He
named
the school after some college in Vermont which I have forgotten. He was
quite a character and sometimes composed poetry about the neighbors and
their peculiarities. This was a real source of amusement and
entertainmment
for us in the days before the movies came to town.
I sent for a Sunday school quarterly and
tried to teach my children the lessons. Mrs. Tolman came and wanted her
children to learn too; so I asked Mrs. John Taylor, who had several
children,
if she wanted to help me. We all went to the school house and had ten
children
to start a Sunday School. A Congregational minister who was sick and
staying
at our house sent word to his church, and they sent a box of six Bibles
and several singing books. I wrote to Mr. Huffman in Jacksonville, and
he sent us a box of Sunday reading books. It was not long until we had
quite a school, and I kept it going till we moved to Jacksonville
in1872.
As the country was settled and business
developed, we lived the life of any American family with the varied
interests
of home, church and school. My grandmother Hill, who came out to Oregon
in 1849, came and stayed with us for a while. She was very fond of my
oldest
daughter, Elizabeth. In 1856 she wanted to return to Tennessee to see
her
mother. Uncle George Hill took her to San Francisco and put her on a
boat
for Panama. She crossed the isthmus on a mule. One day she lagged so
far
behind the rest of the pack train, they thought she must be lost. In
the
evening, howe er, she came trotting in to camp. She then went by boat
to
New York and across the country to Athens, Missouri, where he daughter,
Elizabeth Duty, lived. Her mother died that winter, so she was not
permitted
to see her again.
I have a letter from a school friend in
Tennessee that I prize very much. I do not think it sounds as the
seventeen
year old girls talk today.
Sweetwater, Feb. 18, 1854.
Dear Friend Mary:
It is with no small degree of pleasure that I hail the present laconic moment and embrace the opportunity of answering your very kind and much welcomed letter of September the 15th, which brought the joyful intelligence of your good health. --Mary, I have just returned from your grandfather's. They are in their usual good health. They all look so lonesome, and they say they feel so. -- Mary, I am often made to feel humble when I go to the old school house and get to thinking of the joyous hours we have spent together there. Ah, what a heart joy is would be to meet you all again, but that would be a sweet pleasure that I never expect to enjoy. I have often studied about you all and wished that I could recall the happy hours that we have spent on the old play ground, but time once past can never be recalled. Accept the most ardent love of your absent friend.
We are well and have enjoyed good health. There is almost no sickness in this country. It is the pleasantest climate I ever lived in, but I will not say more about our pleasant country for fear you fall in love with it and move here before it is made a slave state. Cicero received a letter from Martha Fine, and Mary received two from her cousin Nancy and one from her brother since her death. They are all the letters we have since we came here. The miners from here have been doing well since the Indians have been removed. They are mining from here to the mouth of the Rogue river and on almost every stream that empites into it.
We received your letter and you cannot imagine what pleasure it afforded us to hear from you. I imagine I could see you and your little ones running around small children, and now they are parents. I have a good hope we shall met where parting shall be no more. There are many changes in the country. In fact, there is scarcely anything remaining as when you left. All the timber between Lowden and your old place has been cut by the soldiers. We are groaning very much under the weight of our taxes; indeed it seems almost impossible to bear up under them. We are now under Negro rule, and I think you can sympathize with us, but I trust in God the time is short. Everything seems dark for the future-- I have no hope of ever seeing you or your children yet you and they shall have my best wishes and prayers.
My dear cousin:
I must write and tell you about a trip to Ashland. It was great. And
the grub. Nothing but two-legged birds and cake all the time. Gained
several
pounds in good foul flesh. --We promised we would spent Thanksgiving in
Ashland, so that is how we happened to go on that trip.
I had never been away from home before and was rather
afraid of the cars, but after a few hours I got accustomed to the
motion,
and as it was dark and I couldn't see how fast we were going I finally
went to sleep.
We travled all night (trains do that out here all the
time). I think it is dangerous, but the trains don't seem to care
whether
it is or not. The car we were on was a rooming house car, and the
chamber
maid was a nigger. There wasn't any real partitions between the beds,
just
some cloth hung up for make-believe. I was ashamed to go to bed and
stayed
up until everybody else had gone and was snoring. Bunks is what they
call
beds on a rooming house car.
The next morning I was the first one up and when I went
to dress, bless you if that blooming black nigger hadn't cleaned my
shores
off and set them alongside of my bunk. Why that chambermaid was the
kindest
fellow to us you ever heard of. Well, that day was an ever changing
panorama
of rugged mountains and good fishing creeks and then spread out before
us the beautiful Rogue river with is little burgs and interesting
towns.
Fainlly about two p.m. we landed at Ashland and saw Pat and Lyle
awaiting
us. Well, we were received all right, and the reception did not let up
until our departure. Just one grand receive. Well, we began on chicken
at Pat's, and I saw then it was a case of eat, eat, eat. By the way I
forgot
to tell you that I had a few other cousins out there, and they are all
O.K., A1, 22-karat fine, it sort of runs in the tribe, and three of the
finest aunts a feller ever had. One of them was away visiting, and I
didn't
see her, but she's a dear just the same, and I was sorry I did not get
to see her.
Next morning we awoke to look on one of the prettiest
landscapes that we have ever seen. Before us spread a peaceful valley,
guarded by snow-tipped peaks, and behind were wooded hills through
which,
winding its way among many fashioned rocks its clear water, dancing and
dashing hither and thither, a pretty creek humming on toward its tomb,
the river.
But we had not time to get over sentimental that morning,
for there were things adoing. It was Thanksgiving. Everyone looked
happy,
although I knew some were working hard to make others thankful they
were
alive.
We went to Van's for dinner. Oh! I forgot you were not
acquainted with Van. Well, you ought to be. It makes a fellow feel good
and better to know them. Van married a sister of Pat's. One of a
sensative
turn could find Van's home without directions, for the harmony there
pervades
its interior, filters through to the outside, and you can feel it glow
the minute you reach its threshold. There we met--well I cannot tell
you
all we met, there were so many, but they had the something that draws
you
near, you know.
Well now, about that dinner, I do not know how many
turkeys
there were executed for the occasion, but they certainly were not a
few.
And they were cooked just as good as fat turkeys should be. The table
was
crowded with other good things just as well prepared as Mr. Turkey, and
dainty cards at each place represented a love stroke for each one of
the
words it expressed. From away up somewhere festoons fell, whose
garlands
grasped the table's either corners, and amid the laughing of the happy
hearts and witty words of witty people we ate and ate and ate. All
things
have an ending except eternity, so it was an impossibility to continue,
after our stomachs were chuck-a-block (that's a steamboat term
signifying
"not another pound of freight can be stored away.), and we were forced
reluctantly to discontinue. Then a chatter, a happy all-souled chatter
of many voices. Dr. W.'s a good talker and can express himself on all
occasions,
so he made appropriate remarks about the assembly. They, of course,
drifted
in the direction of dear, kind-faced Aunt Mary, who sat pposite to me
and
was the direct cause of nearly all the assembled crowd. As she sat
there
she must have been proud that she could look upon those happy faces and
count so many that owed their existence to her motherhood. May she live
many years to enjoy the pleasures that her large and interesting family
are sure to bring her. The never-ceasing ticking of old time made us
reluctantly
withdraw from the warmth of the Van household and we adjourned to Pat's
for a good old-fashioned chat vefore retiring.
We were lazy the next morning, and after breakfast Don
piloted me up beautiful Ashland creek to the falls. It was a most
healthful
and invigorating trip, and I enjoyed it highly. It took me back to
times
long past when I was there with both feet, in voyish vigor and
expectation.
After dinner George was there with a two-seated rig and his dandy span
Queen and King, to take us out to the old Hill farm where Pat's
grandparents
and mine first settled when they came to the wild and woolly west. We
arrived
at the old place, and as I looked over its broad fields and beautiful
hills
I thought of him who in my boyhood was a lot with me, was ever my
trusted
friend, who encouraged me and helped me when life's problems were
puzzling
and difficult and who, when I stood beside him one drear morning at
four,
trying to feel a pulse not there, looked smilingly in my face and
asked,
"Is it still there?" and then closing his eyes never to see again said,
"Let me rest," and rested the long rest. His eyes had seen the
same
scene, and in his boyishness he had leaped the same stream that we
stood
beside that day and had drink of the same spring with its soda scent
fromwhich
we drean that day.
But there was not enough time to think of all the
things the day suggested, for time was pressing; so after a last look
at
a memory dear scene we started home, stiping at the site of the old
farm
house to take of the crystal ancient edgted water a parting gulp.
We also stopped at George's farm where Pat the original took Mary, a
young
wife in the long ago, to love, protect, help and keep, which family
history
says he did as well as man could do. It was there all the
children
were born and spent their childhood, and I could see through the drawn
clouds of the past a girl in all her glee, romping and riding over
fields
and hills.
Another pleasant ride and we were at Otto's and
Bird's to eat. They are cousins too and O.K. I had been told that
I would like them immensely, and you can just put up your last dollar
that
I was given the right tip. Bird is simply charming, and their
interesting
family of tots tells one at once their home is builded with care, and
that
the old sory of love and confidence has been told and retained within
its
walls. We had quails, and they were simply immense, and so was
everything
else. Then around the fireplace other cousins began to appear,
and
we had a gay evening.
The next day we all rounded up at dear Aunt
Mary's.
Fine as the dinner was, far better was it in her home, to hear her tell
of the long agos and see the old fashined pictures of those we all
love.
I would like to say more about my visit here, for many pleasant and
sombre
thoughts were filling my brain that day, and I know that being in her
home
has stamped an impression on me that will ever influence me to live
better.
The next day was Sunday, and of course we attended
church. We listened to the best sermon I have ever heard in five
years, then across the street to where another of the Three dear Girls
whom I have had the honor to call Aunt. Aunt Has, the dear, had
worked
and worked I know as had cousins Nellie and Mable, to make us
happy.
And happy we were. 'Tis a most pleasant home, theirs, the walls
hold
many beautiful scenes, the artistic work of cousins, and happy indeed
is
my dear aunt and proud of the pictures her girls produce. But
they
come by their artistic turn naturally, for Aunt can whittle stone
herself
to any design she likes, and I am told that experts say she has no
superior.
We passed a most pleasant time there and enjoyed every minute.
Then
we called to say farewell to Ottie and her family and went up the heill
to get a last view of the charming scene spread as a beautiful picture
before us.
Wending back, we went to feed at the home of cousin
Charlie and Lizzie. And feed we did. I can taste that stuf
we had the had the banana in the middle yet. And that pink
filling
with cake between it will still be in my dreams when years have changed
my locks to silver. We spent the evening most pleasantly, and
Charlie
and I discovered that we dont know one from the other when we were
babies.
We may be mixed now.
The next morning good-bye to Don, the maid, the
monk, God bless them all, was said before they left for school.
Pat
went to the depot with us. Those good-byes I hope are omitted in
heaver, for I don't like them a little bit. It's not th e words
but
the dumb lump in the windpipe that's so disagreeable. The train
pulled
out, and soon the last of pretty Ashland had faded from view, and we
sat
down and voted we had the finest time of our lives, excepting our
wedding
day.
Affectionately your cousin, C---
The last of these large reunions was
held in Ashland in June 1923 (when some seventy gathered to commemorate
the seventieth anniversary of our coming to the valley.) My
sister,
Mrs. Ann Hasatine Hill Russell, and myself wore gowns made in the style
of long ago, and Has wore a silk shawl she had worn on her wedding
day.
We had a dinner together in Pioneer Hall, which had been transformed
into
a bower of beauty. There were so many expressions of kind
thoughts
and well wishes from friends and flowers sent by the Chamber of
Commerce
and the Civic Club that I cannot take the time to tell of them
all.
Twenty years had passed since we had met in such a gathering, and we
missed
most of all our sister Lou, who had gone on before June 5, 1920.
The next day we met in Lithia Park with the Pioneer Association,
Mr. Fred Wagner was toastmeaster and welcomed Has and me with the poem
of Joaquin Miller's "Mothers of Men." My neice, Mrs Merrick gave
a tribute to her mother (sister Lou) in the following verse.
We find God's message everywhereJune thirtieth was the last day of the reunion, and we closed with a final gathering in the Civic Club House. For a time happy groups chatted merrily, then Hugh Gillette, as master of ceremonies, presented a program given by members of the family. After music and readings had been beautifully given, Mable Russell's pictures of Oregon scenes were shown in color on the screen. At the close "Sunset on Mount Shasta" was shown, and Mrs Speer sang "The End of a Perfect Day" as it is rarely sung. Then the quartette sang "God Be with You Till We Meet Again."
To do good unto others;
But the crowning glory that he gave,
Was giving us our mothers.
"I am here giving to you a subject that is very
near
to my heart, the events in the pioneer life of my grandmother, Martha
Hill
Gillette, a woman whose spirit and su preme faith carried her through
her
eighty-six years, for from the thrill of adventuring into the primative
country to the everyday happenings of life, her living was the same
cheerful,
serene and the good Samaritan always.
"We speak of pioneer women with reverence and
wonder,
only half realizing the courage and dauntless spirit that gave to us
this
wonderful land of Oregon. All honor to the wonderful women who
gave
up home and friends to travel to an unknown land. Hardship that we can
not conceive awaited them -- and the Hill family became one of Southern
Oregon's pioneer families. Soon Martha Hill became Martha
Gillette
and settled in Ashland to live and see it grow to a prosperous town.
"Her love of God and her generosity to all made
her a beloved woman. She was never too bsy or too tired to lend a
helping hand. Her love of nature and of the hearens was at all
times
her joy and solace.\
Prohibition and woman's sufferage stood foremost
in her political life, and she lived to see both made laws. She
was
one of the founders of the First Presbyterian Church here, and an
ardent
worker and devout Christian. On of the women's organizations of
the
church is dedicated to her, "The Martha Gillete Chapter of the
Westminster
Guild."
To such a life tribute is paid, not in words, but
in the hum of growing cities and the influence of loyalty and
unselfishness
upon the lives of those who knew her,\
A friend quoted this to her memory:
Live all thy life,It is not only the sister that is gone on that I would have you know, for Mrs Ann Hasatine Russell has lived a life filled to the full with deeds of usefulness and courage, She is the mother of eleven children, all but one of whom are still living. Her husband was a marble cutter, and she watched him chisel out his designs. One day she took a piece of marble, a chisel and a mallet into the house, drew a flower, put the marble on a kitched chair, and kneeling down by it, began to carve it. Mr. Russell, hearing her, watched her awhile and said, "I declare that beats anything I ever saw." So she began a life as a marble cutter, and while she worked for the joy of it, success came; and later on when Mr. Russell became badly crippled in the mines, her marble trade became a real financial help She continued the marble business after her husband's death, doing all the lettering, carving, designing, only hiring the bases cut She has on her table in the entrance hall a carved white ribbon bow with the motto "For God and Home and Every Land." She says it is a testimonial of the policies of her home. She carved a beautifuyl emblem of white ribbon and placed it in the W.C.T.U. booth at the Jackson County Fair. It was soicited for the women's building at the World's Fair in Chicago, and after that it was taken to the Temperance Temple and is now in the memorial room at Rest Cottage, Evanston. She says, "I aim to please my customers and glorify God and hold the temperance banner high." She is now in Ashland in her home, and you have only to know her a short while to recognize a strong character that has lived a strenous life of earnest endeavor. Her life has beenb crowded with service to the community and to her family, and they delight to do her honor. Her ninty-one years have been well lived.
Seem what thou are,
Nor from simplicity depart,
And peace shall come upon thy heart,
Live all thy life.---Hazel McConnell Nims
An honor that has come to me of
which
I feel I am rightfully proud is that of being crowned "Mother Queen" of
the Oregon pioneers, June 23, 1927. J.D. Lee, Portland, pioneer
of
1864 placed the crown and congratulated me. My daughter, Mrs Ella
D. Rice; my grandaughter Mrs. Wm. G. Smith; and my
great-grand-daughter,
Janet Smith completed the circle of four generations there.
I am happy as I live over my
ninty-three
years in retrospect, surrounded by my family and a host of
friends.
My grandfather Fine would never say "good-bye," but "I wish you
well."
So may I close my story with these words, "I wish you well."
Last updated by William P. Russell onSaturday, 08-Sep-2018 09:40:26 MDT