Document text
W/r9frei
Date reeeived
/01,../.ydp
Consignment no.
Shipped from Place of Date_ e0
Label Crig-e. Project worker Gag-ossetees-,./-_e
Amount Project editor
f(522,4,1).
9/° Remarks
‘1,2)1Yi
wrA L. C. PROJECT
Form -3
42Q.#61(0-47--,
UNIT
Collection (or Type)
Form A
Federal Writers' Project
Circumstances of Interview Works Progress Administration
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Name of worker Andrew C. Sherbert Date April 28, 1938
Address Rt. 1, Box 992, Portland, Oregon.
Subject Pioneer and Gold Mining Lore.
Legend of B
Name and address of informant W. H. (Captain) Hembree
Date and time of interview April 25, 1938
Place of interview Vssant lot on Council Crest.
Name and address of person, if any, who put you in touch with informant
State Editor, Writers' Project.
Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you none
Description of room, house, surroundings, etc. Out-of-doors.
Interviewee 111146 ()leering a lot upon ethical a house was to be built.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the proper heading
and the number to which the material refers).
W13903
Form B
Personal History of Informant
OREGON FOLKLDRE STUDIES
Name of worker A. C. Sherbert Date April 28, 1938
Address Project Office.
Subject Legend of Blue Bucket lane.
Federal Writers' Project
Works Progress Administration
Name and address of informant 1. H. (Captain) Hembree
Working in gold mine near Estacada. Oregon.
Information obtained should supply
1. Ancestry 6.
2. Place and date of birth 7.
3. Family 8.
4. Places lived in, with dates 9.
5. Education, with dates 10.
the following facts:
Occupations and accomplishments with dates
Special skills and interests
Comnunty and religious activities
Description of informant
Other points gained in interview
1. Father, Houston Hembree, Mother, Amanda Bowman.
2. Monmouth, Oregon, place of birth. Born, October 7, 1864.
3. Unknown.
4. Monmouth, Oregon, until 1877. Roved over states of Oregon and Washington
for an indefinite period. Went to sea. Spent considerable time in Portland.
5. Unobtainable.
6. Shingle -maker sailor prospector fireman. (No dates available).
7. Gold mining. (Understands various methods used in recovering gold).
8. None.
9. Short, stocky, extremely rugged and with the appearance of great physical
capabilities for one his age.
10. Typical prospector. Carries samples of ore and magnifying lens in pocket of
his mackinaw. Hopes to hit it rich next time out.
(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 A. C. Sherbert
Address Project office.
Subject Legend of Blue Bucket Mine.
Name and address of informant W. H. (Captain) Hembree.
Working in gold mine near Estacada, Oregon.
Date April 28, 1938
Text:
I was born in Monmouth, Polk County, Oregon, October 7, 1864, and
was christened William Harry Hembree. My father's name MAS Houston Hembree.
He was named for the illustrious Sam Houston and was born in Texas, though
his family later moved to Missouri. My mother's name was AmAnda Bowman and
she was born in Iowa, coming to Oregon in 1848. My father left Missouri for
Oregon in one of the first emigrant trains of the great migration of the 1840's
arriving in the Willamette Valley sometime in 1843. The train that my father
came to Oregon with is said to have been the first *wheels" ever to make the
entire journey from the east to The Dales.
The wagon train of which my father and his kinfolks were members
was more fortunate than the parties which followed the old Oregon Trail in
the years immediately after. The Indians did not trouble the earlier emi-
grants, were friendly in fact, according to accounts given me by ray father.
It was not until the later emigrants came through that the Indians began to
attack travelers in 1844, 1845, and thereafter. Father's train arrived
at The Dallas with exactly the same number of members as it had when it left
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the heading given
above).
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Missouri. There had been, however, a death and a birth en route, both occurring
simultaneously at a place now called Liberty Rock Idaho. The one who died was
a second cousin of mine, whose name I have forgotten. The child that was born,
was my aunt, Nancy Hembree.
Though there had been gold stampedes, land grants from the government,
and all sorts of empire building activities in Oregon after my father arrived
from the east, he had not yet struck it rich when I squalled onto the scene 10
years later. When I am asked to recall incidents of my early life and to des-
cribe the games we played in my childhood, I can truthfully answer that there was
no childhood, in the sense meant. There were no games. All that I remember about
my childhood is "work", work, and work. Work, long before the sun came up. Work,
long after the sun had set. When I was eight years old I was doing real labor
labor that today mould draw a man's wages. Union working hours? Sit down strikes?
Such things were not dreamed of then.
My father and older brothers used to make shingles every day in the
week except Sunday. They made them by hand, riving them out of cedar bolts with a
tool called a nfrow." If you've never seen one, a fraw is a steel, wedge-shaped
cleaver -like blade with a sharp edge, with a handle set at right angles from one
end of the blade. You hit the fraw with a mallet, driving through the shingle
bolt, cleaving the bolt with the grain of the wood. Only the best, the very best
straight -grained cedar was used for these shingles. The manufactured shingles of
today have a useful life of about ten years or so, but I'm willing to wager that
some of the shingles my family made if there was any possible way of identify-
ing them are still giving service somewhere in Oregon. They were made to be
practically everlasting.
At the tender age of eight years, I worked right along with the rest
of the men of the family. Being the youngest, my job was to keep the shavings
all raked up into piles, and to bundle the shingles as fast as my father and
brothers made them. That was no easy job for a youngster so small, for they
contrived to fashion a surprisingly large number of shingles each day and the
piles of shavings grew prodigiously large as the day wore on. No sooner would
I arrange and tie one bundle of shingles that it seemed another was ready to
tie. We used to work well on into the evening. That's when the piles of
shavings were put to use. I would set fire to the shaving piles, one after
another as each burned out, and we worked by the light of these pungent fires.
It was not at all unusual for us to work 14 or 16 hours from the time we start-
ed in the morning until we gave up and called it a day. I MMA always a pretty
tired youngster when I had tied off the last bundle and was mighty glad when
mg father mould say, "Alright boys, let's put out the fire."
I worked along with the family, riving shingles until I TIVA 12 or
13 years old when I began to work out for others. Boys in those days seemed
to mature earlier than they do now. As soon as a lad had a sign of fuzz on
his cheek he was considered a man and was expected to fill any place that a
man could. I was no exception. At 15 I was riding the range, and at 17 had
been pretty much all over the great plains of central and eastern Oregon.
As I said before, we worked every day but Sunday, and except for
chores, Sunday really was a day of rest, and a very welcome one. The day
was really a quiet and holy day in those times. My family was not what one
would consider over much pious or religious, for those times, but it seemed
that every family embraced some sort of faith. God did not seam so far away
as he does today. He seemed mighty close to us. We seemed to see evidence
of His works all around us and were mightily awed by His power. I noticed
that folks in general don't have that sort of religkusconsciousness in them
of late years.
Our home was typical of a pioneer Oregon family. Mother made home-
spun. I can see her at the spinning wheel, treading out the yarn that was to
go into the things that we would be wearing a few months later. Today, women
of the age she was then, use the same toe my mother used on the treadle, to
step on the accelerator as they drive to a department store for machine -made
cloth and ready-made garments. Our work clothes, shirts and pants, were usually
made of home -tanned buckskin. This stuff wore like iron, and though it was not
very beautiful to look at, was extremely serviceable. When a man and I mean
by that, any male person over 16 or thereabouts WAS able to accumulate the
required number of dollars, one of his most important investments would be in
a Sunday -go -to -meeting outfit made by eastern tailors, and consisting of a
swallow -tail coat, a fancy, light-colored vest, and a striped pair of pants.
He would top this elegant attire with a high, beaver hat. He was then ready
for and considered properly dressed to be acceptable in the most digni-
fied and formal gathering, or social function.
After a good deal of wandering about, mostly within Oregon's
boundaries, I came to Portland and got a job on Portland's "Paid" fire depart-
ment. The fire department personnel at that time comprised both paid and
volunteer firemen. I stayed with the department for about three years, making
an excellent record as a fireman, and then went to sea as a sailor. I liked the
seafaring life very much and my travels took me to many foreign ports where I
saw a great deal to interest a young man of my active and curious disposition.
But I hadn't quite forgotten the thrill and excitement that went with fighting
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fires, so I returned to Portland, and because I had left a good service record
behind me when I quit the department previously, I was immediately placed on
the roster and became once more a fireman. Another few years as a fireman,
when the sea beckoned, and I returned to walk the caulked planks of a ship's
deck. A couple of years at sea and I again found myself yearning for the
prancing fire -horse and clanging gong. Back to the fire department, where I
served during Mayor Simon's administration, quitting finally and never again
returning, because of disgust with political wrangling going on within the
department's ranks. I then worked on river boats in various capacities, where
I earned the courtesy title of Captain. I have no papers, however.
In between other activities, even as a young man I was interested
in gold mining. I have prospected in the past 50 years in almost every section
of Oregon where gold had been, or appeared that it might be, found. I have
panned every river and creek in the state where I thought there was a remote
possibility of making worthwhile findings. In recent years I have operated
small mines with more or less success. I min at present beginning the oper-
ation of a mine in Clackamas County, near the Marion County line. The sample
essay looks good, and in spite of many former disappointments in similar enter-
prises, I have every hope that this one will turn out prosperously. However, if it
doesn't, I shall promptly find another likely -looking hole -in -the -ground, and with
a true prospector's unquenchable optimism, my hopes will doubtless rise again.
Perhaps the most widely publicized Oregon gold mine, if there ever
MMA such a mine, is the famous "Blue Bucket." I have been erroneously credit-
ed with knowing a great deal about this mysterious, lost mine. As a matter
of fact, in common with many other persons, I have been tremendously interested
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in the historic "Blue Bucket"; have gathered a considerable amount of data
concerning it; and have journeyed to the region where it was supposed to
have been located. I might even go so far as to say that I am satisfied in
my own mind that I have been to within a few furlongs of the actual spot
where it was. However, until the elusive "Blue Bucket" is actually and in-
disputably rediscovered, one man's story is as good as another's. Here's
mine:
The Blue Bucket mine got its name from the fact that a wagon train
which is supposed to have stumbled onto the rich gold deposit, was made up
of a string of wagons the bodies of which were painted blue. In those days
wagons had no hub nuts to hold a wheel in place on the axle. !heels were
held on the axle by what was called a linch pin, which was merely a pin, or
bolt, that slipped through a hole in the axle outside the hub of the wheel.
Between the hub and pin was a washer which rubbed on the hub. To prevent wear,
it was necessary to constantly daub the axle, at the point of friction, with
tar, which the immigrants carried in buckets that hung on a hook at the rear
of the wagon. The tar buckets of this particular wagon train were also paint-
ed blue. The train made a "dry camp" (no water in sight) one night on a meadow
in a valley between two ridges of hills. Needing water for their horses, members
of the train set out an foot, each in a different direction, to attempt to
locate a small creek or pond nearby. Bach carried one of the blue tar buckets,
in which to carry water if any were found. One member came upon am -et, cozy
spot, where it appeared water was near the surface of the ground. Be dug down,
using the bucket as a spade, and upon raising the bucket found it filled with
wet dirt containing nuggets of gold. And that was haw the Blue Bucket mine was
discovered.
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I was privileged once to see a diary said to have been kept by a man
whose name, I believe, was Marren. The man was a member of the "Blue Bucket"
train. In the diary he kept a day by day log of the train's progress. By a
series of calculations, based upon the mileages and directions given in the
diary, I was able to reach a position which must have been in the vicinity of
the fabulous mine. To further convince me that I actually did find the mine's
exact location, in my search I one day stumbled onto a weathered portion of a
wagon box, with unmistakable traces of blue paint still visible on its bleached
boards. That the wagon box was of the wagon -train era, was evidenced by the
fact that it was built like a scow, or flat boat, and was caulked with rags,
fragments of which were still intact. Emigrant wagons were constructed in such
manner to permit them to ford streams handily -without damaging their contents.
Well, there's my story of the "Blue Bucket" mine. Many think the
mine never existed. I think it did, however, I realize that my story would
carry far more conviction were I able to exhibit a few buckets of gold taken
from it --regardless the color of the buckets.