Document text
Form A
ircumstances of Interview
Name of worker
Address
Subject
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Federal Writers' Project
Works Progress Administration
Sara B. Wrenn Date January 138 1939
606 Elks Building, Portland, Oregon (Project Office).
Project reminiseenees.
iillOWNLVECAMIMMINNING ,MIIIIIMMAIM1111111.
Name and address of informant Mr. Ernest P. Elliott.
Date and time of interview January 10, 1939-- Afternoon 1:30 to 2050.
Place of interview Hems of informant, 426 Division St., Oregon City, Oregon.
Name and address of person, if any, who put you in touch with informant Hie son,
Guy Elliott, a neighbor of the interviewer.
Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you
Description of room, house, surroundings, etc. Comfortable, fairly modern two-
story house, the living room of which well well furnished and cosy, with a quite
handsomely appointed dining roam opening off from it. The house, situated in a
first-class neighborhood, is surrounded by the usual small and shrubby -filled yard,
with steps leading up from the sidewalk.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the proper heading
and the number to which the material refers).
Form B Federal Writers' Project
Personal History of Informant Works Progress Administration
OREGON FOLIIARE STUDIES
Name of worker
Address
Subject
Sara B. Wrenn
806 Elks Building, Portland, Oregon.
Pioneer reminisoenees and incidents.
Date January 13, 1939
Name and address of informant Mr. Ernest P. Elliott,
426 Division Street, Oregon City, Oregon,
Information obtained should supply the following facts:
1. Ancestry 6. 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
1. Bcotch*Rnglish.
2. Portland, Oregon, July 6, 1859.
3. Father, F. N. Elliott. Mother, Abell& Cutting Elliott.
4. Always lived in Oregon, moiit of the time in the vicinity of Oregon City.
5. Public schools three months of country school for several years.
6. Logging and lumbering, and for a number of years in real estate business.
7. Interested generally in public and civic affairs. Chief pleasure, hunting
and fishing, and being out in the woods.
8. NO church affiliations. MWmber Woodmen of the World. Used to be member of
Benevolent and Proteotive Order of Elks.
9. Small, dark complexioned, with dark eyes, and of neat appearance. Apparently
well-informed on general matters.
(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 eara B. Wrenn Date January 13, 1939
Address
808 Elks Building, Portland, Oregon.
Subject Pioneer **minim:mums and inoidents.
Name and address of informant Mr. Smoot P. Elliott.
426 Division Street, Oregon City, Oregon.
Text:
My grandfather Cutting came to Oregon, in 1846 or '47, first locating
on the Claokamas River, near what is now Park Plaee. With the discovery of gola
in California he got the gold fever, of course, and as soon as he could get
ready, started for California, followinz the road that ran east of here over
the hills. It was a mighty poor road, and as he wound slowly along he oeme out
on what was a little valley with a stream running through, and plenty of wood;
yet not the heavy timber that covered most of the land thereabout. Here grandad
slowed down his oxen. Said hes 'This is the place dreamed about. This looks
like heaven to me, Here I'm going to stay. I'm not going to California.' He
was only about seventeen miles from Oregon City, but had been plodding along for
two or three days, so it seemed a lot farther. Grandmother waa disappointed. She
wanted to go to California. Her little old trunk was at the rear of the wagon.
Back she went and climbed up and sat on her trunk. 'No,' sex she, "I'm not going
to stay here, Pm going on to Californy," and she pulled her shawl about her and
humped her shoulders, as determined -like as you please. It looked like a separation
in the family right there, but grtndad asserted his authority. I guess he thought
it was a poor place to divide the wagon and oxen and household goods, let alone the
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the heading given
above).
Form C Cont'd 2.
one boy they then had. He got rough. *Get off that trunk and get down," he roared.
Grandmother was mad, but she got down. So there they settled, on their 640 acre
donation land claim. They called it Meadoebrook. The creek has always been known
as Milk Creek. It's out in the Volans country. He built there one of the first,
if not the first, grist mills in the country, with burrs that came around The Horn.
The building was 60 feet wide and a hundred feet long. The boards were all split
from loge. One board he painted 'white and the next one red, so it was always known
as the Striped Mill. It was run by an old-fashioned flutter wheel and mill race.
Everything about the mill except the burrs, even the cogs, was made of mood. He
paid his millwright eight to ten dollars a day, and ground all the meY from ten to
fifteen barrels of flour a day. They had to carry the wheat in, and flour out, over
narrow muddy trails, and it was tough going.
The Indians were all around of course. One of the first things grandad
did was to clear and fence the tract, some four or five mares, for garden truck.
It was a split rail fence, and enolosing so small a tract, naturally didn't extend
very far in any one direction, but it ems, at that, too much fence for the Indians,
or they thought it would be. The chief, old Chief Quacicity of the Mblallas, and
some of his friends remonstrated. They did a little more. Every time grandad and
Uncle Charlie, who was helping him, got their fence up a rail or two, the Indians
would throw it down, pow.mowing all the time. °Tended didn't say anything he
didn't vent to get in a fuss with them. Every time the Indians threw the rails
down he and Uncle Charlie would, without a word, pick them up and put them back in
place. Of course, he understood every word they said, and so did Uncle Charlie,
who could talk jargon like any Indian. Finally Uncle Charlie told them his father
didn't know what they talking about, and neither did he. They stared at him
in astonishment. He could talk but he couldn't understand their language. With a
Form C Cont'd 3.
disgusted Nughs" old Chief Quacioity stalked off, his nonplussed breves following
behind. I osn remember old Chief Quacicity. He was a big Indian, and he always wore
ornaments in his nose. I used to play with the Indian boys when I was a little lad.
All the /Wallas seem to be cone. Old Indian Henry was the last one, and he died
eight or nine years ago. The squaws used to take on WU when any of them died.
They'd wail all day and all night after a death, trying to drive may the evil
spirit, and when the Indians buried their dead they put everything the dead Indian
owned in the grave with him.
The first place the immigrants stopped at after crossing the Cascade
Mountains and coming down the dreaded and awful Laurel Hill (Barlow Road) where
trees with big knots in them were used as brakes to hold the vegans and oxen busk
from destruction, 1113,6 the old Fester farm, out on Fester Road. Philip Foster was
one of the very earliest settlers in the Willamette Valley. The very next stopping
place of the immigrants was grandfather's place.
Form D
Extra Comment
Name of worker
Address
Subject
Federal Writers' Project
Works Progress Administration
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Sara B. Wrenn ,Date January Da 1939
606 Elks Building, Portland, Oregon
,Pioneer reminiscences.
Name and address of informant mrs_mramplip, Elliott.
426 Division Street, Oregon City.
Comment:
The interviewer hoped to secure something in the way of folklore of early
logging and lumbering days from Mk. Elliott,' but he seemed to think there was nothing
to tell, other than that "the men were a tough lot."
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the heading given
above).