Category Archives: General Pacific Northwest History

SISTERS OF ST. MARY OF OREGON – MAGIC FROM JORDAN

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Photograph from "These Valiant Women" book showing Jordan, Oregon in the late 1880s.
Photograph from “These Valiant Women” book showing Jordan, Oregon in the late 1880s.

In a recent post, I took a look at some of the present monastic institutions operating in the State of Oregon. Driving on the busy Farmington Road – Oregon Highway 10 – takes you past the looming structure of the motherhouse for the congregation of the Sisters of St. Mary of Oregon. Like other Catholic stories here in Oregon, theirs begins in Germany – or at the time, Switzerland and the Hapsburg-dominated Duchy of Baden, both a long way from their eventual home in the rural Marion County hamlet of Jordan.

Sequoias line the entry road on the west side of the large grass field – the lawn brings memories of a Tualatin Valley losing more and more of its agricultural heritage every year. The Order today boasts on its ground’s schools ranging from preschool through high school, a care home for the elderly along with a memory care center. Everything has a beginning. The story underlying the Sisters is both unique and fascinating.

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EWING YOUNG – WHISKEY, CATTLE EQUAL A NEW STATE

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Oregon White Oak marks the grave of Ewing Young in the Chehalem Valley.
Oregon White Oak marks the grave of Ewing Young in the Chehalem Valley.

Ewing Young lived a life of adventure. A major figure in the fur trade in the Far Southwest both as a trapper, but mainly as a leader. He migrated to the Oregon Country in 1834, where Young amassed a land claim of some 50 square miles. In his life, he figured big, but it was his early death at the age of 41 in the winter of 1841 for which he is best remembered. Dying without known heirs, local settlers came together to figure out how to settle his estate. That process is considered a germinal moment in the eventual founding of a local government in the divided Oregon.

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MONASTIC SPIRIT IN OREGON – CATHOLIC RIGOR IN THE BEAVER STATE

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Bell tower rises above the monastery chapel atop Mount Angel.
Bell tower rises above the monastery chapel atop Mount Angel.

Catholicism came to the Oregon Country as shown in an earlier post, in 1838 in response to the presence of Methodist missionaries who arrived four years prior and to a plea from local Hudson’s Bay Company employees allowed by the company to retire in Oregon with their Native American wives. The idea of monastic establishments – and here I will focus on Catholic monasteries – eventually followed though that was not well into the second half of the 19th century.

A quick aside, while most of the monastic communities are covered, there are the odd one or two missed – the small monastery just east of Eugene for several of the Discalced Carmelite Nuns. Also, one setting covered – the Grotto in northeast Portland – does include a monastery for men of the Servite Order, though since the order is a mendicant order – one who serves among the world as opposed to contemplative orders which try to isolate themselves – I am not sure of how much time those men housed here stay at home as opposed to using it more of a base to range out from.

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CRANBERRIES – A LITTLE MAGIC FROM THE LEFT COAST

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Immature berries ripen under the summer skies on the Long Beach Peninsula.
Immature berries ripen under the summer skies on the Long Beach Peninsula.

Cranberries have slowly pushed onto the food and drink stage beyond the Thanksgiving dinner table. The little edible berries probably will not replace other berry cousins like blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, huckleberries or even currants anytime soon as mouthwatering magic anytime soon. That said, the cranberry industry has helped pushed the tart treats beyond the side helpings next to the late November turkey dinners, where the little berries gain much of their fame from.

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YAMHILL LOCKS – ALWAYS A LITTLE LATE TO THE GAME

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The walls of the Yamhill Locks remain; the dam is gone while the river still flows.
The walls of the Yamhill Locks remain; the dam is gone while the river still flows.

Three federally funded lock systems developed in Oregon with only the one at Willamette Falls remaining in some sort of functional capacity today. Cascade Canal and Lock -1878-1896 – submerged by Bonneville Dam; Dalles-Celilo Canal – 1905-1915 – lies under water from The Dalles Lock and Dam since 1956. Yamhill Locks closed in 1954. Gates and dam removed leaving the lock walls in place. The move to build the lock took over forty years. By the time of completion, time moved on, and the lock served little purpose for most of its fifty some year lifespan. 

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HUDSON’S BAY COMPANY – HBC – DISAPPEARS IN THE OREGON MISTS

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Kristi Cameron, of Metis ancestry, presents George Simpson in his canoe - Gathering Hall Exhibit of the Ontario Legislative Hall, Toronto.
Kristi Cameron, of Metis ancestry, presents George Simpson in his canoe – Gathering Hall Exhibit of the Ontario Legislative Hall, Toronto.

One of the cool things a king – or queen – in an absolute monarchy can do is to give away land. So popular, democracies have tried similar editions of their own. One of the largest giveaways happened in British North America where King Charles II gave away lands within the drainage system of Hudson’s Bay. That included lands within the James Bay drainage since James is simply a bay off the main Hudson’s. He gave them to a group headed by his cousin Prince Rupert in 1670. The HBC many exclaimed as an “empire within an empire.” 

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CHAMPOEG – MYTHOLOGY LIVES STRONG WITH A SELF-GOVERNMENT PREMIERE

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The 1901 memorial stone with the 1918 Pioneer Memorial Building behind at Champoeg State Park.
The 1901 memorial stone with the 1918 Pioneer Memorial Building behind at Champoeg State Park.

Mythology – a popular belief or assumption that has grown up around someone or something; one of the definitions of the word.  Synonyms include “legend”, “tradition”, “lore”, “legend”, “knowledge”, “wisdom”, “folktale” and “anecdote” among other words. These words go a long way in describing the events at Champoeg, Oregon on 2 May 1843 and how those events lie remembered in our minds today.

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THE GREAT REINFORCEMENT – AMERICAN PUSH TO GAIN THE OREGON TERRITORY

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The Lausanne which carried members of the Great Reinforcement to the Oregon Country.
The Lausanne which carried members of the Great Reinforcement to the Oregon Country.

With a non-Native American population numbering in the low hundreds in the 1830s, the long-simmering struggle for control over the vast Oregon Country began its inexorable swing towards the United States.  Methodist missionaries doubled down on their numbers at their Willamette Mission sited a few miles north from today’s city of Salem along the Willamette River.  The Great Reinforcement brought fifty-one men, women and children from New York City all the way to the Hudson’s Bay Company fort at Vancouver. 

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SECRET AGENTS TO THE OREGON TERRITORY – TOO LATE IN THE GREAT GAME

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Canoe voyageurs passing a waterfall - painting by Frances Ann Hopkins 1869.
Canoe voyageurs passing a waterfall – painting by Frances Ann Hopkins 1869.

The United States and United Kingdom came to an agreement in 1818 in which they would share sovereign rule over the Oregon Country.  Oregon’s borders came into reasonable shape in the next couple of years with an agreement between Russia and the US followed by one between Russia and England demarcating the northern border to be at the point of 54°40’ latitude.

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DE MOFRAS AND SAINT-AMANT SEEK THE MAGIC OF FRANCE – FRENCH OREGON?

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Head of a Native American chief from the coast of the Oregon Territory - 1844 Duflot de Mofras - David Rumsey Map Collection.
Head of a Native American chief from the coast of the Oregon Territory – 1844 Duflot de Mofras – David Rumsey Map Collection.

It was France’s sale of its vast holdings of Louisiana to the United States in 1803 that eventually led to the European settlement of Oregon.  Maybe not surprisingly, in the decades after selling what amounts to almost a third of today’s lower 48 States, there might have been a little bit of seller’s remorse on the part of France.  While, by the 1830 – 1850s, the watershed of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers represented a net loss for France’s diminishing Overseas Empire, Frenchmen still found themselves coveting regions also coveted by the upstart North American republic. Here are two visits from Frenchmen, De Mofras and Saint-Amant to Oregon a decade apart giving intriguing perspectives on the Oregon that might have been French.

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