Document text
Accession no.
W 9632
Date received
10/10/40
Consignment no.
1
Shipped from
Wash. Office
Label
Amount
A-0
C'tt.J'4r7 1. C./
WPA L. C. PROJECT fritaret UNIT
Form -3
___YOUlfirJL. Collection (or Type)
Title.iirfflefal...fll.lklars..2getadm
Informant: Beniaqin Ntekiimm
tBeg'sm3: My fati-hcr,c .c. bee.kwiA,a-enie w
Place of origin Poitlanci....Oritgan.. Date241.3439---
Project worker Manly M. Bagnieter
Project editor
Remarks
Form A
Federal Writers' Project
Circumstances of Interview Works Progress Administration
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Name of worker Manly U. Banister
Address
Subject
2071 SW Park_Amenue
Folklore
Date July 11, 1939
Name and address of informant Benjamin B. Beekman
601 Platt Building (Office) Lives at Portland Hotel.
Date and time of interview July 110 1939 A.M.
.Place of interview Beekman's office.
Name and address of person, if any, who put you in touch with informant
Mr. Sherriff, Elks Building
Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you None
Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.
A typical lawyer's office, in a nice building.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the proper heading
and the number to which the material refers).
W9632
Form B Federal Writers' Project
Personal History of Informant Works Pi -ogress Administration
OREGON FOLIURE STUDIES
Name of worker
Address
'drily M. Banister
2071 SW Park Avenue
Date July 11, 1939
Subject
Folklore
Name and address of informant Beniamin B. Bepkman
601 Platt Buildinz
Information obtained should supply the following facts:
1. Ancestry fie Occupations and accomplishments with dates
2. Place and date of birth 7. Special skills and interests
3. Family 8. Community and religious activities
4. Places lived in, with dates 9. Description of informant
5. Education, with dates 10. Other points gained in interview
Benjamin Beekman is the son of C. C. Beekman, Wells -Fargo agent
and banker of early historio days of Jacksonville, Oregon. Left the com-
munity when he was seventeen to go to school; studied law at Yale, and returned
from thence to Portland. He has lived in the same roam in the Portland Hotel,
using the same key, for the past forty years.
Be is a tall, spare man with grayed hair and mustache. Wars pince-nez
glasses. He is seventy-six years old. Offers annual prizes through Oregon
Historical Society to students between ages of fifteen and eighteen an subjects
of Oregon history. Be thinks the younger generation ought to know more than it
does about Oregon history.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the proper heading
and the number to which the material refers).
Form C Federal Writers/ Project
Text of Interview (Unedited) Works Progress Administration
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Name of worker Manly M. Banister Date July 11, 1939
Address 2071 SW Park Avenue
Subject Folklore
Name and address of informant Benjamin B. Beekman
801 Platt Building
Text:
My father, C. C. Beekman, came west in 1850, landing in San Francisco.
His father had
plenty of work
villa in 1852,
been a contractor and he had taught his boys the trade. Be found
in San Francisco and went to work at once.
He came to Jackson
mining for a while nearby. He made quite a bit of money and sold
out and commenced buying gold, which was the start of his banking business.
Later, when the Wells -Fargo express company put in its appearance,
he was appointed agent. The stage stopped at his door where all goods and
passengers had to be loaded, so he worked under an advantage so far as robbers
were concerned. No one knew when he was going to make a shipment of gold.
Another thing to his advantage was that he never shipped gold in the iron -bound
express box. When bandits held up the stage, it was customary for them to ask
for the registered mail and the express box. My father would take an ordinary
candle box, put in fifteen hundred or three thousand dollars' worth of gold,
and fill up the remaining space with paper, straw, or excelsior, so that the
weight of the loaded box was about equal to what it would be if it were loaded
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the heading given
above).
Benjamin B. Beekman Form C page 2
candles. This he would ship, confident in the knowledge that no highwayman
would rummage around among the baggage, looking for gold in an old tallow box.
The only time there was any danger of a hold-up was along in 1910
when the Pinkerton agenoy, under whose protection he had placed his bank, un-
earthed a plot in Portland to rob the bank. Officers stayed around across
the street for several days with pistols and rifles, waiting for the would-be hold-ups
to arrive, but they must have got wind the bank was being watched, for none of them
ever came.
If you go into a newspaper office or pick up the usual history book,
you will find that the usual reason for the railroad's passing through Medford
instead of through Jacksonville is that the citizens of Jacksonville failed to
gather in a bonus required by the railroad; but this is not true at all. The
railroad made twe surveys, one passing through the present site of Medford
(which was not in existence then), and another that passed within two and a half
miles of Jacksonville. Medford is five miles distant. The present route is the
longer, while the other ran along the base of the foothills. It all depended
on Ashland. If the closer survey were adhered to, the line would wind up into
the hills above Ashland; otherwise, on the flats below. It so happened that
Ashland was placed in a strategic position to be a division point of the railroad,
and this determined the survey as the one in present use. The other mould net
have permitted the building of roundhouses, workshops, and necessary appurte-
nances of a railroad division. Considering these things, the citizens of
Jacksonville saw it was useless to raise the money required, for the difference
in a distance of two -and -a -half miles from town to the railroad, and the present
distance of five miles was not enough to get fractious about. Either would have
spelled doom to the town of Jacksonville, either by creating a new town (viz.
Medford), or by moving the business district of the old, two -and -a -half miles to
the railroad. This is the real reason why the railroad now runs through Medford
instead of through Jacksonville.