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•easion no.
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WPA L. C. PROJECT uNni Form -3
e received
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ilignment no.
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.04e4a-e.,..L Collection (or Type)
Title
Place of origin.
Project worker --fer2-4-va.
Project editor
Remarks
:Form A
‘y Circumstances of Interview
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Name of worker Sara B. Wrenn
Federal Writers' Project
Works Progress Administration
Address 505 Elks Building& Portland, Oregon
Subject
Pionegr Life of Tabitha By -own
Date February 6, 1939.
Name and address of informnnt Mrs. H. A. Lewis
Date and time of interview
#8 N. E. 97th Ave., Portland, Oregon.
February 3, 1939 1:30 to 3:30 P. N.
Place of interview Above address. home of informant.
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 room, house, surroundings, etc.
Large, comfortably but plainly furnished living room, of the ordinary
colorless type. House, two-story, six -room, of the early nineties architecture;
in fair condition. A garden of the usual variety, enclosed by a fence, surrounds
the house, which is situated on a corner. A nursery of considerable acreage adjoins
the business and property of Mr. Lewis. The place is more than eleven blocks
from the end of the carline on East Glisan, with sidewalks, terminating after two
blocks. The cross street, 97th Ave., is unimproved, being a succession of big chuck-
holes, now full of muddy water and resembling portions of the old immigrant trail
across the Cascade Mountains. To avoid these holes, the worker made her zigzaging
way until she finally staggered through the gate.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the proper heading
and the number to mhioh the material refers).
AN13868
Form B Federal Writerst Project
Personal History of Informant Works Progress Administration
OREGON FOLORE STUDIES
Name of worker
Address
Sara B. Wrens
505 is Building., Portland. Ore4pn
Subject Pioneer Life of Tabitha Brown.
Date February 6,, 1939.
Name and address of informant Mrs. H. A. Lewis,
8 N. E. 97th Ave., Portland, Oregon.
Informection 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 80 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. Forest Grove, Oregon, July 18, 1863.
3. Alvin Clark Brown, father; Sarah Ann Ross, mother; two sons, Clayton and Dee.
4. Forest Grove, 1863-1889; Portland, Oregon, 1889 to date.
5. Public schools; Pacific University, Forest Grove Ore.
6. Teacher, public schools; bookkeeper; housewife. No special accomplishments.
7. No special skills. Interested in Oregon history, flowers and nature.
8. No church affiliation as to denomination. Has always taken part in
community Sunday school and social and welfare work. Member of Parent
Teachers' Association, Daughters American Revolution, Sons and Daughters
of Oregon Pioneers, XPU (Ex -students Pacific University), Oregon Grange.
9. Intelligent appearing woman. Medium sized, with gray hair, hazel eyes
and ordinary style of dress just one of a thousand women of American
lineage. Her ancestors came to America in the 17th century.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the proper heading
and the number to which the material refers).
Form C
Text of Interview (Unedited)
Name of worker
Address
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Federal Writers' Project
Works Progress Administration
Sara B. Wrenn
Date February 6, 1939.
505 Elks Building, Portland, Oregon.
Subject
Pioneer Life of Tabitha Brown
Name and address of informant Mrs. H. A. Lewis,
Text:
8 N. E. 97th Ave., Portland, Oregon.
My grandmother, as you already know, was Tabitha Brown, who
with
her little orphan school, started what is now the Pacific University at Forest
Grove. I don't believe I know of any incidents that have not already been told
and written many times concerning her crossing the plains with her fatherless
children and her heroic efforts after reaching here. Her journal is preserved
among the treasures of the Pacific University, where it has been availabl) to
many students of Oregon history. Being a descendent of thrifty New Englanders,
when she found the obstruction in her riding glove finger was a picayune, or cent
piece, you may imagine haw happy she was at the discovery, on one of the dark days
shortly after arrival. With the picayune clutched tightly in her hand she went
at once to the trading post, where she exchanged it for three need] s. Then she
traded some old clothes and they must have been mighty old, threadbare and
ragged clothes for her to have parted with them at all to the Indians for buck-
skin, after which she made gloves and made gloves and made gloves. She used
to say afterward that she had "made gloves for 1 the ladies and gentlemen of
Oregon."
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the heading given
above).
Mrs. H. A. Lewis Form C 2.
When grandmother started her little school at Forest Grove, it was first
for orphan children, and in addition to teaching them the alphabet and the three
Rs reading, 'riting and trithmetic she taught them how to keep house and saw.
Wait a minute see, here is the old iron with which she taught them haw to iron
their clothes. (The iron was of the old-fashioned sadiron type, with an iron handle
and all in one piece, the iron now corroded and pitted with small holes). Once,
when the strawberries were ripe the strawberries were so big in those days, much
larger then now; my husband thinks it was because of the land having been burned
over so often and the rich soil resulting from the ashes. Well anyway, grand-
mother was sending her little brood out to pick strawberries for dinner.
By this time, however, she had other pupils than orphans. Others were sending
their children, paying for their education and board with vegetables and grain
and such provender, when they hadn't the money. One little girl, whose parents
were paying real money in her behalf, decided on this day that she didn't have
to pick strawberries. She was heard to say, "My pa pays for me, I'm not going
to pick her old berries", and didn't. But that night at the supPer table one
place was lacking a saucer of luscious, red wild strawberries. One little girl
sat with nothing to eat, while all the rest of the little boys and girls gobbled
down strawberries and cream for they had cream by this time whether they
were rich or poor. There was no more trouble of that kind. Grandmother knew
how to deal with class distinction.
Mother, who 'came to Oregon in 1847, and whose people settled in Portland,
was one of grandmother's early pupils, because there was no school in Portland at
the time. Her romance with my father must have begun rather early. This little
song book, called The School Singer, or Young Choir's Companion," was one of the
books she took out to Forest Grove with her. They all took just such books as they
might have. Another textbook she had was Webster's speller. My mother was a
Mrs. H. A. Lewis
Form C 3.
Congregationalist. But we used to go to other churches and meetings. I remem-
ber they used to hold camp meetings regularly at what was known as MSS Chapel,
near Crescent Grove cemetery, near what is now Tigard. I can still hear the sonorous
voice of one revivalist, who solemnly intoned over and over again: "If the Son
shall make you free, you shall be free indeed." They used to hold these camp meet-
ings for days at a time, sometimes for two or three weeks. They had one big build-
ing or shelter, where they slept; the men at one end and the women at the other.
Who slept in the middle, between them? Well, as I recall, it was the leader of
the meetings and his wife. a Mr. and Mrs. William Kelly. Mr. Kelly slept next to
the mdn and Mrs. Kelly next to the women.
To go back to Grandma Tabitha Brown, it may interest you to know that
for a short period, while she and grandfather, who was a clergyman, -were waiting for
the completion of their parsonage, they lived in the home of George Washington at
Mount Vernon. That WAS in the year 1815, and I remember hearing her tell about it,
and the little "cat -door" with hinges, that was in the door leading to Martha
Washington's room. I suppose it was her bedroom. It always interested me so as
a child, picturing the cat going in and out through its little hinged door.
Of all the lovely things that have been said and written of Grandmother
Brawn, the loveliest to me, is the tribute written by Mrs. Elizabeth Wilson, one
of the early teachers sent out to Oregon by the New England Board of Education,
and whose first work here was with grandmother, wherein she says: "Her heart WAS
as tender and kind as her spirit was energetic."
In the wagon train in which my mother came to Oregon a woman joker caused
trouble that might have ended in a tragedy. One day an Indian brave of the Nez
Perce tribe visited them when in camp. It was up in the Nez Perce country, and,
fortunately, as matters turned out, he came alone. This woman, who could talk a
Mrs. H. A. Lewis Form C 4.
little jargon, just a few words, gathered some of the girls about her and told
the Indian they were all hers, and wouldn't he like to have one. He indicated
he mould, and picked out my mother. Then the =Mans either because she thought
the joke would be funnier, or possibly becoming a little frightened, said; "Oh
that one is specially fine; she is very white. I want a hundred spotted ponies
for her." The Indian grunted and rode off, and it was hoped that ended the inci-
dent, for when the men of the party learned of the matter they were greatly con-
cerned. And they had need to be, for next morning, bright and early, here came
the Indian, driving in sixty spotted ponies, all that he could collect, and for
which"he demanded his young white squaw. They said my step -grandfather, Isreal
Mitchell, was white as a sheet, when he, with several of the men, finally placated
the Indian; aid until they got out of that section of the country, the camp guards
were kept double what they had before been. They fully expected him to return
with reinforcements to demand his bride.
My step -grandfather was a very peaceab3e man. He didn't come to the
Oregon couLtry so much to better his condition, but rather with the idea of
helping Dr. Whitman in his missionary efforts. When they reached the Walla Walla
country they encamped at the Whitman Mission, and grandmother took advantage of
the opportunity to do some laundry. Among the things she washed were a pair of
stockings. Meantime an Indian, with his blanket wrapped around him, had stalk-
ed, unannounced, into her little domain. Suddenly grandmother missed her stock-
ings. She looked all about, but they were not to be found. Then she turned on
her unwelcome visitor, demanding to know if he had them. He was a Mission
Indian and could talk some English. He grunted no, he didn't have them, and
shook his blankets, but without revealing his hands, to prove his denial. But
grandmother was not convinced, and that night she announced to grandfather that
Mrs. H. A. Lewis
Form C 5.
"We are not going to stay here among these thieving Indians. We are going on to
the Willamette Valley." And on to the Willamette Valley they went. It was only
a short time later that the Whitman massacre occurred. Grandmother always felt
she awed a good deal to a pair of stockings.
Another story of the Indians my mother's family told, was about the
stealing of their horse, Prince. That WAS in the Walla Walla country too.
The Indians stole Prince, and the next day they brought him back, the chief
demanding one shirt. The one shirt was given him. The next day or night Prince
Was stolen again, and again brought back, and another shirt demanded. This WAS
repeated until grandmother was compelled to make a shirt out of an old dress.
skirt. This time two shirts were demanded, one big one and one little one, for
the chief's son. By that time the wagon train was getting out of the tribe's
territory, I suppose, for they left Prince to go on his way unmolested further.
Form D Federal Writers' Project
Extra Caament Works Progress Administration
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Name of worker Sara B. Wrenn ,Date February 6, 1939
Address 505 Elks Building, Portland, Oregon.
Subject Pioneer Life of Tabitha Brown
,Name and address of informant Mrs. H. A. Lewis
8 N. E. 97th Ave., Portland, Oregon
Comment:
It was hoped that this interview would result in considerable personal detail
concerning Mrs. Lewis's grandmother, Tabitha Brown, but apparently all she
had is that which the records of Pacific University reveal.
(Use as -many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the heading given
above).
Mrs. H. A. Levis Form D 2.
EXCERPTS FROM THE EARLY OREGON REMINISCENCES OF MRS. E. M. WILSON
In 1851, the year of our first residence in Oregon, the Indians were
roaming at will. I was very much interested in them and never afraid. Had
I been as observant then as I afterward became, I would never have been so
fearless in giving food or clothing. I would insist that the men should carry
the burden. The squaw would not comprehend, but I would refuse to hand over
the gift until I had some sort of an acquiescence to my plan. But I had no
reason to think it was lasting, and suppose the customary burden -bearer took
up her load as soon as my back was turned.
Once, some ten or fifteen fine-looking fellows (Indians) gadded into
my father's study. Seating themselves on the floor, they stared about in their
dignified way, till my father dropped his plate of teeth into his hand, to remove
a blackberry seed that annoyed him. One frightened look and then a scramble for
the door. Never waiting to rise to their feet, they shot out as if impelled by the
Evil One, as they verily believed. No inducement would bring them back. The power
to drop one's teeth into the hand and put them back again where they belonged was
too "big medicine" for them. I do not doubt my father's life would have been
safe with this power, had he otherwise been in danger.
One cold, rainy night, in December, in Albany, the first winter of our
Oregon life, I was struck with the terrible misery of two Indians houseless,
Mrs. H. A. Lewis
Form D 3.
soaked with rain their moccasins fairly water-logged. It was nine o'clock at
night. One of them was shaking with ague, or the chill of pneumonia. His lungs
were so congested, the rain so severe, he could only catch his breath in gasps,
'woke siah memaloose'. I thought ....he WAS about to die. The other had a
violent toothache. I took them into the little house where I taught school,
built up a red-hot fire in the stove, and brot blankets from home, food too,
though both were too sick to eat. Then I took the laudanum bottle to father
and asked him to show me an average adult dose. But in giving it, remembering
father's homeopathic proclivities, I thot it better to double the dose. I want-
ed to insure one night of complete forgetfulness. But with my own bedtime came
compunctions and fear. What if they, unused to white man's concoctions, should
be unusually sensitive. Now I was sure I did not want to commit murder. What
if I should find two dead Indians in my schoolroom in the morning. With fear
and trembling I went over in the early morning but a still earlier hour had
sent them on their way. The following year two fine looking Indians accosted me.
I did not remember them, but they identified themselves as my hospital patients
of the year before, and repeatedly declared, iskookum medicine'.
In Sept., 1851, I was riding horseback through the unsettled count-
ies of Polk and Yamhill, on my way from Albany to Forest Grove, where I was
teaching. Somewhere in the northern part of Yamhill County, we saw the cabin
of a new settler. A fence, newly built, enclosed a small piece, broken up for a
garden. A man was ploughing at a little distance in the open. The sun was
gone; the world lay in twilight; only this little cabin, the result of a few
days' work, to make the scene look otherwise than it had looked for a thousand
years. It might be many miles to the next house, so, uninviting as the pros-
Mrs. H. A. Lewis Form D 4.
pect was, we thot better to beg shelter for the night and supper, to risking
the possibility of not finding any at all. My escort rode to the man who
was still with his plow, and I dismounted at the cabin, where two little
children, perhaps two mad four years of age, more looking at me thru the rude
fence. 'Please tell your mother to come out'. They did not speak, only looked
at me. I tried again. 'Tell mammy to come.' I then went in, and taking the
oldest by the hand, I said, 'Take me where mammy is,' and the little thing
led me around the corner of the house to the other side of the enclosure, and
stopped by a new -made grave.
In February, 1855, I WAS going on the steamer Canemah to Oregon City.
WAS married then but a short time, and very able to enter sympathetically
into the emotions of a young married couple married that morning that
came on board, the bride not much over sixteen. They were going to the Cas-
cades, he to work in a sawmill, she to cook for the man. She was dressed as
she thot proper for a bride, but not at all suitably for a boat ride on a cold,
rainy day. I got into talk with her. She said it was her first time on a
steamboat. I advised her to go behind a portier and change into something
to)
warmer...I became much interested in the young couple, and it was with a
sense of personal bereavement that I heard the following fall of the young
husband's being killed by the Indians, in the sawmill; having first witnessed
the butchering of his wife.
In the fall of 1855 my mother and brother took up a claim, two and
one-fourth sections on the south edge of the French Prairie. To make the
necessary proofs they had to go to Oregon City. My husband was very unwilling
Mrs. H. A. Lewis Form D 5.
to leave us alone at night, but no time could be lost. Mr. Wilson wrote to my
brother, who was assessing Marion County, asking him to come if possible. He
also took me into the yard and gave me a lesson is self-defense. So, when the
Salem stage wagon came along, they started, going over the Champoeg road
mother and Joseph, my husband, leaving myself and my two younger sisters alone.
The whole eastern part
The long summer
leaving Mary reading.
house is surrounded by
of the State WAS then in a state of outbreak.
day came to a close. My younger sister and I retired,
Presently I WAS awakened by her gasping voice, 'The
drunken Indiansl It seemed true, but I recalled that
a log cabin, with but one well -barred door, no window that could be entered; a
wide, low chimney, to be sure, but that could be easily defended by fire. Their
voices were drunken, but a great comfort came to us when we recognized Frenchmen.
Yet still there was no quieting our fears till they moved on. Shortly after what
seemed to be a round of parting drinks, we heard the delightful sound of their
moving away. We were so weakened by fright that we had not left our post of
lookout, when Mary, in a voice of utter despair said, 'One of them is jumping
his horse over the fence!' At that instant he began to sing. No song or anthem
will ever carry up from my heart a fuller burden of devout gratitude than the
words we heard:
'Oh, I almost wish
That I were a fish,
To be caught by
My sweet Kitty Clyde.'
tly brother, Frank, had found the note in Salem and rode out to the ranch, keeping
well behind the other party, wham he had seen were unusually merry and boisterous.
Mrs. Y. A. Lewis Form D 6.
Once in awhile, at White Salmon, we all went up the mountainside, to
where, on a small plateau, were a number of tepees, the occupants of Mhich
were going thru the ceremonial of the Snohollo excitement or belief. I under-
stood it imperfectly. As far as I did it seemed very similar to the Messiah
craze, in the Dakotas, a few years ago. I soon wearied of what, to me, seemed
utterly meaningless, and went into a tepee, where sat an old, smoke -dried crone.
She was glad to see me. Seemed to have some burden on her heart that I must
hear. After much repekition on her part, and much bewilderment on mine, I
gathered that, in spite of appearances, she was not like them the crowd
outside, that she was like me, 'my sister.' I did not know at what she was
aiming till I heard the name 'Jason Lee' repeated over and over again. Then
she asked me to listen, and with her teeth tightly closed, she sent thru them
some vocal sounds which at last I caught to be two or three lines of Green-
ville. I began to sing, 'Come ye sinners, poor and needy.' She accompanied
me with what sounded like singing on a comb. She enjoyed it and so did I.
Her story I translate to be this. At one time she had been to the Salem school,
or under the teaching of Jason Lee; that she had glimpses of a higherlife than
savagery had given her; that in the following years she had held on to the little
she had, stoutly refusing to countenance by her presence the Snohollo incantations
going on outside. The wigwam smoke and the wild life had wyllnigh obliterated
the little she knew, but to the name of 'Jason Lee' she held as to a watchward.
Most truly she seemed to be one feeling for God's hand in the darkness. I
believe she was then lifted up and strengthened. This was the only time I ever
chanced, knowingly, to meet anyone who had been brot under that early missionary
influence.
Mrs. T. A. Lewis
Form D 7.
One spring, my husband bein- gone on his first circuit to hold court, I
WAS taken ill, and to make it more convenient for those who cared for me, my bed
was brot down into the living room. I was alone there, quite ill, when the door
was opened, and a big Indian walked in and said that he would bring his ictas
to me, that I must take care of them while he was away on some journey. Another
Siwash had stolen his klutchman (cloochiman his woman) and he was going after
them to recover either wife or ponies. But he could not leave his possessions
in his wigwam or they would be stolen. I was quite helpless; only children in
the house. There were many things I would rather house than the belongings of
an Indian. I asked him how long he would leave them; 'three suns.' 'Very well,'
I told him, 'but not one minute longer than three suns.' Could I have had my
choice they would not have shared my room three minutes, but he WAS faithful to
his word and kept his appointment to the minute.
In 1885, one June afternoon, I heard peculiar noises on the sidewalk,
in the shade of my house, and found them to be the result of an extraordinary
sewing club that was squatted there, working hard. They explained that the
boat that day was to bring the students of their reservation, who had been away
at the Forest Grove Indian School. They had come to meet them, but had not had
time to completely finish dLl the preparations they were making. As needles
and thimbles were put to work, sleeves finished and set in, buttons put on and
buttonholes worked, the change from old to new clothes was made under our high
sidewalk, and when the boat whistled a neatly dressed score of more of re/tives
went down to meet the students.
Mrs. H. A. Lewis Form D 8.
Among the remarkable Indians of early days was one called 'Lawyer.'
His son, also called Lawyer, took charge of the horses of Lewis and Clark on
their expedition to the Pacific in 1804-6. Here is an individual a special
development, leading an advance guard; small perhaps, but easily distinguished
from the rank and file...his generations following may be ready to carry onward
a few steps farther, the banner of progress this was the case with the famous
Indian, Lawyer, a Nez Perce.
Allwile claim Oregon as a home are indebted to this truly noble red man for
the powers he possessed and exercised toward promoting unity. In June, 1877, in
the old Congregational Church on Third Street, I saw Archie Lawyer, his son,
en route to Portland to receive ordination as a Presbyterian minister. He was
accompanied by two others, and a more dignified, gentlemanly, intelligent class
of students, it WAS never my privilege to see. This WAS the year of the death
of his father at about the age of eighty. Lawyer WAS one of the first pupils
of H. G. Spaulding in 1837, who came to the West with Dr. Whitman. He
learned to read well, and to the end of his life showed the bearing of an
intelligent and cultivated gentleman.
Another example of industry was found in the person of an Indian woman,
known as Jennie Mitchell. She was once the wife of the last chief of the Nehalems.
In 1860, the chief being dead, she came to her own land, the Clatsop country,
and there married Michael Martineau, with whom she lived until his death. Indian
women age rapidly in appearance. Her age, is, of course, unknown. She remembers,
as a child, hearing the bombardment of the Indian village at the mouth of the
Columbia, by Dr. McLaughlin, in 1829. What with smoke and disorder she seamed
Mrs. H. A. Lewis Form D 9.
extremely old. She did not talk English. I was made to observe what I had
seen before, the peculiar devotion of the Indian woman who marries a white man.
He may not be a very noble specimen of his race, but, such as he is, the native
wamansubmiteto returns for everything the utmost devotion. From the first
light of dawn to the last glimmer, she wrought constantly over her baskets and
rush mats. The last of her race all of her kindred dead childless. Haw
good it was that she could weave mats:
In the year 1869 we spent some time at the Indian Agency of Fort Simcoe.
Agent Wilbur was a wonderfully gifted man, fitted as few are for Füs work. From
camping with the Indians in the forest, showing them haw to fell the trees, to
make and load the skids, which supplied the sawmill, and the lumber to construct
the various buildings on the Reserve; to acting on police force; he was infinitely
resourceful, lightning quick in thought and action. I asked him once where he
learned haw so quickly to plant that giant fist of his just where it was most
needed. He said he was once a deputy sheriff in N. Y. I cannot compare Mr.
Wilbur to distinguished leaders of men I have read of in history. He was a
man of affairs, often called from his remote sphere of action to confer with
those at the head of Indian affairs at Washington, where his counsel was regarded
with rare reverence. The first time we visited the Reservation WAS after a
terrible bereavement, the loss by drowning of my son, Alfred. The Indians all
knew of it and I an reminded of that touch of nature that makes kinship of copper
color and white, in remembering that one of them went to a house that was near
and brot thence a rocking chair, which he placed for me. I am sure it indicated
sympathy, tho no doubt they wera proud of the unusual possession of so elegant
an article of furniture, and not unwilling it should be used by the strange
visitors... We visited a farm house with Mr. Wilbur the pride of his heart.
Mrs. H. A. Lewis Form D 10.
He said the amount of.work done by that family was surprising, and it was
a decent farm house, floored, with glass windows, some chairs, table, etc.
The pride of the house, however, was the quantity of crochet work. Everything
to which a crochet edge could be fastened, had it. It was not quite so smoked
and grimy as it would have been had they been living on the ground floor of the
original tepee. The beds were veritable constructions, with quilts, pillows,
pillow cases, trimmed deep with their own work, and a great improvement over the
huddle of skins and horse blankets that mak their usual bed. But ',hope by this
time they spend a little less time on washing the floor, and a little more on
thd bed linen.