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Accession no.
"$1713 °L. UNIT
Form -3 0
W137iy OPceeseeez.e Collection (or Type)
1/
Date received
Consignment no.
Shipped from
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Title...
Place of origin/Y/740021eL44, Date. AO 0,11
Project worker...44-Agro.....441.....le/a44-410q--•
Project editor
Remarks
Form A Federal Writers' Project
Circumstances of Interview Works Progress Administration
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Name of worker Wrenn, Sara B. Date December 30, 1938
Address 505 Elk, Portlend. Oregon
Subject Pioneer Life and Customs
Name and address of informant
Cy B. Woodworth
Date and time of interview December ZG, 1938 10:00 12:CO a.m.
Place of interview 501 Elks Bldg., Portland, Oregon
Name and address of person, if any, who put you in touch with informant
Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you
Description of rpoza, house, Surroundings, etc. Small office room, unoccupied
for the time, and used because quiet.
(Use as many s4dMorti; phmeto es nAmmary, each bearing the proper heading
and the siwisb'sit to w444 $h, 40404.1 WOO,
W13914
Form B
Federal Writers' Project
Personal History of Informant Works Progress Administration
Name of worker
Address
Subject
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Wrenn, Sara B.
505 Elks Hmilding, Portland, Oregon
Pioneer Life and Customs.
Date December 30, 1938.
Name and address of informant Cyrus B. Woodworth
Information obtained should supply the following facts:
1. Ancestry 6. Occupations and accomplishments with dates
2. Plaoe,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
1. English.
2. Fifth and Burnside Sts., Portland, Oregon; Jan. 25, 1861. (Goodwin House).
3. Cyrus Mbodsworth, father; Sarah Buckingham Woodworth, mother.
4. Portland, 1861-1885; 188,5-1889, Salem, Oregon; 1889-1905, Dayton, Wash.;
1905-1939 Portland, Oregon.
5. Public schools, Portland; Willamette University (not graduate), Salem, Oregon.
6. Telegraphy, 1875-1876; Banking, 1876-1928. No accomplishments.
7. Interested in early Oregon history and the "Outdoors" in all its phases.
8. Mason for many years. Interested in all community activities. No present
church affiliations. Baptized by Bishop Scott, first Episcopal Bishop in
Oregon, in Trinity Episcopal Church, Second and Oak Sts., Portland, Ore.
9. Aman of pleasing personality, of long experience in meeting the public.
Well educated, somewhat travelled and of retentive memory.
(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
Wrenn. Sara B.
Address 505 Elks Building., Portlan4. Oregon.
Subject Pioneer Life and Customs.
Date December i0. 108.
Name and address of informant Cyrus B. Woodworth
Texts
I guess I know about as many people in Oregon as anybodyvI've lived
here long enough, heaven knows. We used to have some good times back in those
days of the horse and buggy, as they call 'em now. That reminds me, I guess I
engineered the first automobile race in the Northwest. It was up in Dayton,
Washington and that section was of the Old Oregon country, so I'll tell about
it. There was to be a Fourth of July celebration, and it struck me a race between
those new-fangled machines would attract a lot of attention. It did too. We had
it on the town raoe-track, a half -mile track, and the, automobiles were of the Olds
manufacture, one of the first models, high and ornate, with brass trimmings. I
don't remember anything about the cylinders. Maybe there weren't any. Anyway my
wife and I got in one with the owner, who was to drive, and the owner of the other
machine filled his up and off we went, while the excited spectators and they
came from all over the country yelled, "Whip her upt "Whove her along"
"Take the whip to her r.... and anything they could think of to make us go faster.
Such a thing as "Step on itr or any other motor phraseology was then unknown. We
responded as best we could, going.. faster and faster at what seemed a terrific rate,
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the heading given
above).
Form C Cont'd 2.
until we completed the second lap. The passengers were scared half to death. It
developed when we finished, almost as a tie, that we had achieved the unbelievable
speed of 18 miles an houri (if I remember, those machines cost $1500.00). When,
a few years later, Barney Olds drove his "Red Devil" Cadillac on the old Irvington
race track here in Portland, the spectators gasped and shivered at his sixty miles
an hour, which is no great shucks today. For that race of ours at Dayton, the
women were all dolled up in yards and yards of veils. I think they had on long
dusters too.
We used to have a lot of laughs in my early banking days. There was a
camraderie at that time between officials and clerks, that don't sttem to exist
now. I was first in the bank at Ladd Bush at Salem, and Salem sure was lively
for some of us. I remember when the county court house was built. The architect
was a young fellow named Boothby, I think he is still alive and living in Salem.
He was pretty gay. When the goddess of justice that was to surmount the building
was waiting to be hoisted to the top, some of the boys got hold of it one night,
dressed it up in calico with a big rag baby in its arms, and pinned a notice on it to
the effect that Boothby had been stepping out with the goddess of justice.
Salem about that time had two mythological characters that everybody knew
about. I don't know what gave rise to them, just somebody's lively imagination, I
guess, and the idea grow and spread until it VVA common property. Betsy Bolivar
was the name of the evil genius, and Billy Patterson, the good. No matter what
happened to anybody that was bad, Betsy Bolivar did it. Ask a little kid haw its
apron got dirty or its stockings got torn and ten to one the answer would be a whining
"Betsy Bolivar did it, the mean old thing." In the same way any good fortune was
attributed to Billy Patterson. Be was much beloved. One day the word got out that
Form c Cont'd 3.
somebody had struck Billy Patterson and there VAS a great hue and cry as to who
did it. Finally we were told the miscreant had been caught. Fourth of July came
along shor-tly after. There VIA a big celebration, including a parade. Just ahead
of the plug-ugly section man and boys dressed in fantastic and outlandish dis-
guises came a dray, drawn by two black horses. On the dray was a big cage and
in the cage was a dummy of a man, all loaded down with chains and balls. The band
was playing a dirge. At Fifth and State streets there was a gallows, and there
they took Billy Patterson's assailant out and hung him.
They took notice of things in Salem a little touchy maybe. One of
the society girls was getting married. She wasn't very popular and she asked.
just a certain few and the rest got even. The night of the wedding when the
carriages and cabs of her guests were parked around the home some of her un-
invited acquaintances took off wheels of the different vehicles and mixed them
all up. They even tossed in a few dray wheels for good measure. They were months
in getting that mess straightened out, and there sure was a lot of mad people.
Another time some of the good citizens took upon themselves to mete out
punishment. A good-for-nothing scalawag had been living with and off a woman.
He was warned several times to either mend his ways or clear out, to all of which
he paid no attention. Then he was arrested and put in jail. One day a delegation,
after so it was reported having intimated to the town marshal something of
their plan with the suggestion that he be out of town, and receiving his reply,
"Bore's the key, áo don't bust the door," called quietly at the jail that night,
and escorted the pris oner to a quiet spot out of town. They had managed to get
a pot of tar, but they had no feathers, so they used sawdust. They covered him
with tar and then rolled him in the sawdust. Later on in the night he got to the
house of his lady friend and she appealed for help in ridding him of his messy
Form C Cont'd 4.
covering. They said it took her several days to get rid of the stuff and the
kerosene used nearly burned his skin off.
After I came to Portland I was associated with the old bank of Ladd
Tilton, until it closed its doors in the.20's. In fact I was there for some-
time afterward, helping to clean up odds and ends. It was while so occupied
I noticed a worn little book among a lot of discarded papers, and on investigating
discovered it to be the original minutes of the meeting of the Presbyterian Mis-
sion on Clatsop Plains.. I think the journal was turned over to the archives of
the Presbyterian Church, here in Portland.
Portland wasn't so big in the 80's, nor so busy. The bops always had
time to speak to the office boy and some that weren't office boys. There AVA a
little wharf rat known as Johnny Mooney. He had only one leg and he lived down
on the river bank. He was about twelve years old and he had a bank account.
Usually he had a balance of a dollar and on this he would draw all the way from
ten to 25 cents. Once when he was drawing out this last amount Mr. Ladd, seeing
hiO, said: "Aren't you getting pretty extravagant, Johnny, taking out 25 cents."
"Yes, sir," answered Johnny, "I guess I am, but a feller has to have some money
Saturday night." Johnny was always supplied with change, and haw he got it was
explained one day, when the crew of one of the warehouses along the river dis-
covered he had a skiff that he propelled in under the floor, where he had bored
a hole in which he had inserted a piece of plumber's pipe. This made it easy for
Johnny to get a load of wheat, which he sold to the wholesale poultry houses. All
was grist if not drift that came down the river to Johnny, and it didn't always
have to come. There were saw logs from booms and it was even reported that Johnny
acquired pig -iron from the smelter out Oswego way.
Talking about the Oswego smelter; during a freshet of the early 80's
when everything from chicken coops to barns was floating down the Willamette,
Form C Cont'd 5.
the word went around that all the pig iron from the Oswego mines was going down
the river, but nobody got very busy about it.
I've always been interested in Oregon history, and, of course, I re-
member and knew a good many of Oregon's early history -makers. I remember Judge
Thornton, the delegate who was sent to Washington in behalf of Oregon at the
time Joe Meek went. Thornton was a little near-sighted. He always liked to get
something for nothing. It the time the Kinneys of Salem tried out the new method
of processing flour, which they called the patent method, Thornton brought suit
against them on the basis that they couldn't use the word "patent," He lost his
suit, and the Kinneys, as a sort of satirical "thank you", sent him ten barrels
of the new patent process flour. Thornton kept the flour, too. His hands shook
as he grew older, and he always signed his name with the aid of a writing machine,
a sort of a steadying contraption. He mould start out with big flourishing letters
and end up with little teeny ones.
It's funny haw places get their names. One day in the late 70's there
was an excursion ofyourng people coming down the Willamette. The banks of the river
at that time were practically virgin forest, with little groves here and there,
and a stream coming in. The young folks got to picking out places for themselves.
One of them would say, "I'm going to have that spot for my house"; another mould
shout "That's my future home over thereat and so on, till they came to an Island,
when one of the girls jumped up and said, "That island's mine. I always did want
an island." At that, a young man called out, *Well if you want that island, you'll
have to take me along with it, for I already own that island." "I'll take you",
the girl replied, and they shook hands on it then and there. Afterwards they
were married. The island was what is known as Ross Island today. The young man
was Sherry Ross, and the girl's name was Deardorff.
Form D
Extra Comment Works Progress Administration
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Name of worker Wrenn, Sara B. ,Date Noember 30, 1938.
Federal Writers' Project
Address 505 Elks Building. Ftrtland. Oregon.
Subject Pioneer Life and Customs.
Name and address of informant Cyrus B. Woodworth.
Comment:
Mr. Woodworth, whose knowledge of Oregon and Oregonians may be con-
sidered reliable and authentic, is full to the brim with pioneer stories of
practically every nature. Since he does some writing on his own account, some
of his information he doesn't care to impart. In this connection it might be
well to retain the story of Ross Island for the archives only, as it is Mr.
Woodworth's plan to send it for publication at an early date. He was enthusiastic
over giving the information herein written, and promised to send the worker
documentary material.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the heading given
above).