Document text
Accession no.
'4,0„
picoitert ...24.,:e04.4e.- UNIT
Form -3
Date received
471.
Consignment no.
z
Shipped from
14/244. qi/c-U
Label
Amount
Collection (or Type)
Title
Place of origin."07.27A-7.14re
Project worker g....
Project editor
Remarks
Date l'224A.F
Form A Federal Writers' Project
Circumstances of Interview Works Progress Administration
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Name of worker Sara B. Wrenn Date December 7, 1938
Address
505 Elks Bldg,. Portland. Oregon
Subject Dencig in the 1880's.
Columbia River Salmon Fishin.
Name and address of informant Charles L. DeLashmutt
Route 1, ()omega, Oregon
Date and time of interview December 7, 1938
Place of interview home of informant.
Name and address of person, if any, who put you in touch with informant No one.
Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you None.
Description of room, house, surroundings, etc. Small three -roam house in enclosed
area of about 100 x 100 feet, with considerable shrubbery about and outhouses in
the rear. Small room, furnished in meagre manner-- linoleum on floor, heating
stove and a couple of chairs. Informant, a widower, lives 'alone.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the proper heading
and the number to which the material refers).
w 13910
Form 13
Personal History of Informant
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Name of worker Sara B. Wrenn
Address
Federal Writers' Project
Works Fl -ogress Administration
505 Elks Building, Portland, Oregon.
Subject Dancing in the 1880's.
Date December 7, 1938
Columbia River Salmon Fishing.
Name and address of informant Charles L. DeLashmutt
Route 1, Oswego, 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
Communty and religious activities
Description of informant
Other points gained in interview
1. French and Irish.
2. Portland, Oregon, June 7, 1870.
3. Father, Russell T. DeLashmutt, from Missouri; born in France in 1820.
Mother, Elizabeth Love DeLashmutt, from Virginia.
4. Portland, Oregon, 1870-1872; Oswego, 1872-1915; Altoona, Wash., 1915-1918;
1918 to present time, Oswego, Oregon.
5. Common school.
6. Chiefly salmon fishing in Columbia river until 1918. Since 1918, for number
of years a ranger in forest service.
7. Musician pianist, and landscape gardener.
8. No religious affiliations. Brought up in Methodist church.
9. Tall, somewhat angular; intelligent.
10. Judged to be a man who has seen considerable of the seamy, adventurous side of
life, with a capacity for enjoyment of whatever came his way. His house not
particularly neat and no evidence of reading natter. Two dogs claimed a good
deal of attention.
(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 Sara B. Wrenn Date December 7, 1938
Address 505 Elks Bldg., Portland, Oregon.
Subject Dancing in the 1880's. Columbia River Salmon Fishing.
Name and address of informant Charles L. DeLashmutt
Route 1, Oswego, Oregon.
Text:
I am the only one living of eleven children, of which I VAA the youngest.
I buried my only remaining brother last week. There were three of us boys of near
the same age that played for the dances when I was young. One brother played the
first violin, another the second and I played the piano. They danced mostly square
dances in those days, though a good many round dances were popular too. Probably
the mazurka was liked the best. We played for dances all over the country. Whole
families in wagons and hacks and big crowds sometimes in hayracks would come, and
they would dance all night.
I have a lot of the old music. I'll dig it out and send you. I have a
book of Tony Pastor's old songs. You can have that too.
No, I can't remember there were ever any fights of oonsequence. Once in
a while a fellow would get mad at another about his girl or something, and maybe
they mould scrap a little, but things generally went off pretty peaceably. They
did their scrapping out of doors.
It was down on the Lower Columbia in the salmon fishing days that there
was real trouble. That was in the early eighties. Among the fishermen were all
sorts of nationalities French, Italian, Russian and Indian halfbreeds. The
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the heading given
above).
Form C Cont'd.
-2-
Italians were the worst. They always had a knife hid somewhere. The Russians
were slaw, easy-going fellows. One of the things that made it bad was the
whiskey scows, big flat boats, loaded with whiskey that would anchor thirty feet
from lowtide mark of the river and sell to the fishermen. That was on the north
side, the Washington bank, but of course the fishermen from both shores got it.
They had a license to sell, for which they paid $25.00 a year, so it was all
regular and everything, as long as they kept outside that thirty foot line. It
was called the Columbia Barbary Coast, and I guess we had about as much Barbary
Coast there as the old time Barbary Coast of San Francisco.
Fishermen made pretty good money in those days. That was when Hume was
going strong. He used to pay a flat rate of 50 cents each for salmon. Later he
paid 15 and 16 cents a pound. Sometimes we got as many as 50 and more salmon a
night. Generally we fished at night, but if the water was muddy we fished during
daylight. We used gill nets. In the beginning only big meshed nets were used
eight to ten inch mesh, just to get the big fellows of fifty, sixty and seventy-five
pounds. Later the mesh got smaller. What they called the diver -and -cork line, that
was dragged along the bottom. The fishing season or seasons, for they jumped from
spring to autumn, so many months in each season, were longer then than they are now.
There were times when my brother and I made as high as $70.00 a night. We used to
make our awn nets. Now they cost as much as 41500.00.
It was when one fishing boat mould cork another that trouble began. There
were always two to a boat. They would have their net laid out all ready for the in-
coming fish when another boat would slip its net just below. They called that cork-
ing.
That is haw Coffee Pot Island got its name. My brother Billy, who fished
from 1876 until 1900, and his boat puller had their not all in place when another
boat corked them. Billy and the other boat boss began to chew the rag, of course.
Form C Cont'd.
Sometimes in a fracas of that sort one or the other would jump in his opponent's
boat and they mould fight it out if they didn't get drowned. This time Billy
said: 'Come on, we'll land here and settle this matter.' Here' was a little
sandy island where the fishermen would land during the night to make their coffee
over little fires. They had no facilities for coffee -making on their boats, as
now. So they landed, and already a lot of little fires were going with pots of
coffee boiling. Billy and his man fought with their fists, and Billy was getting
the worst of it, till he managed to grab one of those boiling coffee pots and
lammed his man across the head with it. They didn't go by any rules in fighting
them days. In the boats they would fight with a salmon club or gaff, that they
used to knock the salmon in the head with.
Those were the days, too, for the sailor boarding houses, when amen
would be shanghaied put on a boat, drugged or drunk, and wake up to find him-
self bound for China and no way points. There was one man I knew that had his awn
son shanghaied and taken to Europe. Thought it mould be a lesson to him, since he
was no good anyway.
Astoria was headquarters for sailor boarding house men Old Lady Grant
and her two boys, Mace and Pete, and there was Larry Sullivan. I guess they're
all dead now. Once I was in Astoria with a fellow just arrived from Minnesota,
Lew his name was, and he thought himself a tough guy, We went in the
old Louvre, down on the water front. This Lew, after a drink, began to chew the
rag with the bartender who happened to be Nace Grant. I didn't want any trouble,
so I got this Lew out and we went up the street, but on the way back, as we passed
the saloon Lew says: 'I'm going in and paste that bartender.' There was nothing
I could do but go with him. Naze, who was pretty good sized, was just coming off
his shift of work. He was rolling up his apron, when Law faced him with some
insulting remark. Naze didn't say a word. He just tossed his apron behind the bar
Form C Cont'd.
-4-
and shot out his fist, and down vent Lew on the floor, landing on his face and
knees. Then Nace kicked him, turning him over, and was just going to let him
have his boot again when I spoke up. Nace asked, 'Is he as bad as he says. Has
he got a gun?' I told him no, and he let Lew get up. Lew said 'I guess you're the
best man. Everybody step up and have a drink on me.' And that was that. Place
Grant was chief of police in Astoria some years later, and he helped the brother
of this man Lew to make a little money during one regatta. The brother was blind,
and brace let him have a peddling concession during the time of the regatta, without
charging him a cent.
In the early 901 e we began to have labor trouble. In 1890 some soabs
were killed by Union men, and in 1896 some Union men were killed by scabs. It
MAA nothing very uncommon to find amen a floater in the river, who had
came to a violent end. No great effort was made toward identification or get-
ting the killer.
Form D
Extra Comment Works Progress Administration
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Name of worker Sara B. Wrenn
Address 505 BlIcs Building. Portland, Oregon.
Subject Dancing ip the 1880's. Columbia River aaiman—Eishing*
Name and address of informant Charles L. DeLashmutt
Route 1, Oswego, Oregon.
Federal Writers' Project
,Date December 7. 1938
Comment:
No doubt there are more stories of the eighties that could be
obtained from Mr. DeLashmutt, many of them probably of a character not
too common. He is more than milling to tell of incidents, and what he
tells is undoubtedly authentic, since his dates tie up with history.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the heading given
above).