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From the fields of England to the land of Oregon, the Dawson family history is a fascinating look at one family's rich and very detailed history as immigrants to a new world. The first lot tells of Matthew Thorp Dawson and his wife Elizabeth Buxton Dawson settlement from England to Olney, Oregon and later to Roseburg. Fed up with the ancient land owning system of England, Matthew traveled by boat and landed in Boston in the spring of 1887. He later traveled by train to Oregon and became a U.S. citizen that fall. Shortly after his citizenship was approved, Matthew homesteaded 160 acres at Olney, Oregon. On that property, he built a log cabin, chinked with moss and mud. In 1888 his fiancé made it across the Atlantic and the young couple were married in Astoria, and soon after Matthew began to acquire land including 160 Acres at Tillamook Head. Matthew worked for various farmers around Astoria and Warrenton area, and was listed as a teamster in the 1900 census. Between 1889 and 1908 the couple welcomed nine children, all of whom lived to adulthood. In 1902 the family bought a 2,000-acre ranch from the National Bank of Roseburg. The family made their 250+ mile journey to southern end of the state on horseback and covered wagon and train.
In January of 1925 Matthew bought the 60 acre Ophir Mine from George and Marietta Kohlhagen located in the Steamboat Mining District. In 1932 and 1934 Matthew and Elizabeth signed a lease to Fred and Doris Hoffman to allow them to mine. This lots contains approximately 1 cubic foot of documentation from the the family's association with the Ophir Mine.
This is a large lot consisting of family photographs, jewelry, an Eduard Reichert violin with bow and original case c. 1900, serial number #382 with signature. There are several items from England including celebratory pieces from Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee. 1910 No. 3a Folding Pocket Kodak with original manual, c.1880 bibles, several items from the family home in Roseburg including pots and pans, dishes, quilts, sewing material, dishes, some silverware, property maps and a 1950s-sewing machine, aerial photographs of property, 30+ years of postal history from c.1890-1975, plus much more! This lot contains approximately 21 cubic feet. This lot is just one of three fabulous large lots perfect for any museum or historical archives. The consignor has also painstaking recounted an even more detailed family history available digitally online. Additional photos are also available online. More information and photographs are available upon request. The family also has retained some of the original furniture that is available should someone wish.
DAWSON FAMILY HISTORY as told by the consignor
My parents are Zita and Frank Dawson. When I say Mother or Grandmommie I 'am referring to Zita Dawson and when I say Dad or Granddaddy I 'am referring to Frank Dawson.
When I say Grandma, Grandpa, Grandma Buxton Dawson or Grandpa Dawson I 'am referring to my grandparents (my Dad, Frank Dawson’s, parents) Matthew Thorp and Elizabeth Buxton Dawson who lived “Up Home”,-up the canyon on Dawson Road about 3 miles from Douglas Avenue which started at Deer Creek. Douglas Avenue is about 3 miles from downtown Roseburg. In 1936 Matthew Thorp and Elizabeth Buxton Dawson bought the Howe Place from Mr. & Mrs. Riddle. It was on Douglas Avenue across from Dawson Road, Roseburg, Oregon.
John B. Smith is my Grandmother Mable Smith Vinson’s father and my Mother, Zita Vinson Dawson’s Grandfather so is my Great Grandfather.
Aunt Mabel Smith Vinson (now Chapman) is my Mother, Zita Vinson Dawson’s mother (my Grandmother but she did not want to be called that).
When I say aunt or uncle it will be Dad’s sisters and brothers.
Matthew Thorp Dawson was born October 30, 1865 at Bridge End Farm. “The Hamlet”, Woodlands, Alport Farm, Derbyshire, England to Benjamin Dawson (1836-1921), died at Staley Bridge) and Mary Thorp Dawson (1839-1874). Benjamin Dawson later married Jane Sturgers. Benjamin's Grandparents were Mathew Dawson (1800-1886) and Grace Waterhouse Dawson (1815-?). Mathew and Grace were married April 17, 1834. They had 11 children and Benjamin was their third child. I believe all were buried at Hope, England.
Grandpa Dawson was 5’-11" tall and he looked small next to his uncles and aunts---Alfred, Ezra,
Mary, etc. Some of the Dawson's, men and women, were 7’ tall. They were mixed with the
Viking (Norsemen-Scandinavian) sometime back in history, maybe when they were raiding England or when they were controlling it. Also the red hair (Aunt Emily for one) came from the Vikings.
1830 – 1886, it was England’s rules to plow land. The Lords were granted “Land Grants” if they’d keep a certain number of tenants on their land ready to be called up immediately to fight for the king if necessary. Grandpa Dawson’s grandfather Matthew Dawson (1800-1886) or one of his brothers plowed some land that the Lord did not want plowed and the Lord made him leave (evidently he was a tenant). They believed it ruined the land to plow it. Believe Grandpa Dawson worked for a moneyed person or lord on a farm and he was a serf.
Many of the Dawson’s are buried at Hope Church, St Pauls, Staley Bridge, and Macelsfield Cemetery, Glossop and I imagine at Buxton (a town named after my Grandma Buxton’s family) also. In England you never go to a funeral unless you are invited and then you go and have tea (includes food) with them.
Grandpa Dawson met Elizabeth Buxton at his sisters, Elizabeth, and Elizabeth Buxton’s cousin, Walter Needham’s wedding. The wedding could have been at The Woodlands Church just out of Glossop. Hamal Slack born 18 ? and Matthew Dawson born 1800 hauled slate for this church and helped roof and build it. They were my Great, Great Grandparents.
Elizabeth Buxton was born July 11, 1863 at Whitfield Barn Farm, Glossop, Derbyshire, England to Bennett Buxton (died May 1906) and Hannah Slack Buxton (Jan 22, 1837 –September 9, 1915). Both died at their home -Whitfield Barn Farm, Glossop, England. Hannah Slack
Buxton’s parents were Hamal Slack & Elizabeth Green Slack. I have offered you Elizabeth Buxton’s Bible her parents gave her March 31, 1886, (picture)
Believe Grandpa Dawson was already planning on coming to America before he met Elizabeth Buxton. They evidently dated and became engaged before he left England.
Grandpa Dawson left England April 1887 when he was 22 years old. He was living at Staley Bridge. He came steerage and smuggled a stock dog aboard ship all the way. Had such a hard time keeping it hidden. He was bringing him to his Uncle Alfred at Warrenton, Oregon. He landed at Boston. Definitely not Ellis Island (I’ve tried to check their records and have found zero). He took the train across Canada to? Vancouver and a launch called The Fanchion (owned by Mr. Graham of Astoria) to Astoria, Oregon. Forget how long it took for the trip (believe 3-4 months).
Grandpa Dawson came to Warrenton because his Uncle Alfred and Aunt Hannah Pointon
Dawson and their family were living there. Grandpa Dawson stayed with them for a while. Alfred Dawson’s had come to America a few years before because they were disgusted with the way the Land Lords were treating them and raising the rent.
Grandpa Dawson applied for and got his citizenship September 24, 1887.
1887 Grandpa Dawson homesteaded 160 acres at Olney, Oregon (up the Columbia River a little ways from Astoria and Warrenton, S1/2 of SE1/4 of Sec 8, W1/2 of NE1/4 of Sec 17, Twn 7). It was mainly spruce timber. He built a log cabin, chinked with moss and mud on this property. The cabin was gone in 1958 when his son Frank (my Dad) hunted for it. They sold some of the spruce, hemlock, fir, cedar, etc. June 22, 1917. They sold the spruce to make airplanes for WWI and commercial airplanes for $10,000. Don’t know when Olney was sold or for how much but they still had it in 1976. Maybe sold for a park.
Grandpa Dawson worked for various farmers around Astoria and Warrenton area. He drove team and worked in the hay for Judge Flavell of Astoria. 1887-88 he worked for Mr. Abercombie falling trees in the woods for $2 a day. They put spring boards up 3’ high to cut the big trees down. He said it was very hard work. 1887-88 was the coldest winter Oregon had had. Grandpa used to go chop the ice from the water trough so the animals could have a drink. The Columbia River was frozen solid this winter----the only time old timers remember it being frozen solid. He worked for Cpt. Flavell of Astoria (later a judge) driving his team. This team was always running away but not as often with Grandpa as with others. Cpt. Flavell had been shipwrecked and he was the only survivor. He would never talk about this. These taken from Grandpa Dawson's diary. You may have it—maybe didn’t get picture taken.
The 1900 census lists Matthew Thorp Dawson’s occupation as a teamster.
His finance Elizabeth Buxton, her parents, Bennett (Nov. 11, 1837 - May 1906) and Hannah
Slack Buxton Jan. 22, 1837 – September 1915, both Whitfield Barn Farm, Glossop, England and Grandpa’s Uncle Ezra and Aunt Polly (Priestly) arrived at Warrenton May 22, 1888. I believe they landed at Boston. May 16, 1888 and came across Canada via rail. (Have also checked Ellis Island and can’t find where they entered there). Relatives of Matthew and Grace Waterhouse Dawson (Matthew Thorp Dawson’s grandparents) came on the same ship.
May 23, 1888 Elizabeth Buxton and Matthew Thorp Dawson were married in Astoria, Oregon by a Presbyterian minister at the home of Mr. J. G. Ross. (have marriage license and photo). Her parents, Bennett and Hannah Buxton and M.T. Dawson's 2 aunts and 2 uncles were present.
Matthew Thorp Dawson timbersteaded 160 Acres at Tillamook Head - NE 4, Sect 7, Township
5. The certificate wasn’t issued and signed until 7-5-1893. I saw this piece of timberland with Aunts Emily and Hannah about 1976. Gorgeous view of the ocean and would love to have a home here but for the 100+ mile winds. Before logged----1936 bank appraisal was $57,000 and the state offered $80,000 but Grandpa Dawson refused it.
1889 - 1897 Grandma and Grandpa Dawson bought various lots at Warrenton, Oregon from Mr.
OHara (OHara’s Addition), at Seaside, Oregon from Mr. Bradbury and at Ocean Grove, Oregon. 1905 they bought more lots at Warrenton.
1889 prices from Grandpa’s book---October 13 Bought sack of sugar (probably 100-pound) $5.75, Nov 8 sold 1 cabbage (probably a huge one) 15 cents, November 15, bought 10-pound nails 55 cents, December 7 bought 2-pound rope, 30 cents and Dec 26 bought overalls, 50 cents.
All the prices I have listed I took out of Olney, Roseburg and Steamboat books that my family kept before I donated them to the various museums.
1891 it was raining hard along with heavy winds and it blew a big spruce down on their Olney cabin. It pinned Grandma Buxton Dawson to the bed with the heavy limbs on her legs. Grandpa had to cut the tree in two to get her out. It gave her a bad ulcerated leg. They used to cook alum and put on the sores. Grandpa Dawson had just picked Aunt Emily (their second child) up out of the cradle he had made for the babies when the spruce tree hit it and broke it.
1896 Great Grandma Hannah Slack Buxton and Great Grandpa Bennett Buxton came to visit their daughter Elizabeth Buxton Dawson, Matthew Thorp Dawson and their children at Olney. I believe they stayed 6 months.
In 1897 Elizabeth Buxton Dawson Timbersteaded lots 3,4,6,& 11, Sec 7, Twnship 5, NR 10, NE1/4 AND Sec 13, Twnship 4 (it was timber) at Onion Peak by Cullaby Lake and near
Nehalem, south of Warrenton, 155.90 acres. Maybe sold in 1914 to pay of The Roseburg Ranch—“Up Home” and don’t know how much it sold for. Grandpa said it was the best property he ever had. Homestead maybe not dated and issued until after 1897.
In 1899 prices from Grandpa’s book---Jan. 3, 45-pound rolled oats $1.50, 100-pound flour 85 cents (lasted one month), May 10-pound coffee beans 50 cents, June 25 oil coat $1.75, July 10 overalls .60, August 7 broom .35, 49-pound crackers $3.50 (They were bulk in a big barrel and the same way when I was a child), October 8 1000-pound wheat $12.00, 1075-pound oats $15.05, 1015-pound barley $12.70, Oct 22 rubber boots $5.50, socks .25. Sold 20 doz. eggs for
$4.80 and 3 cords of wood for $14.75. Also sold milk while at Olney
Children born at Warrenton (however I believe the first 4 or 5 at least were born actually in the log cabin Grandpa Built at Olney). Know Dad was born at Warrenton as in the 1990’s he described the lots Kerry and I found at Warrenton. Dad drew a picture showing the school (said only been there 20 – 30 years) the ? slough that ran in back of their home, now berry brambles, an apple tree by the house and a vacant lot next to the house that the Dawson's owned. Only 2 vacant lots when Kerry and I saw it in 1970 –‘80’s. Little old school the older Dawson kids went to in Warrenton was on Oliver Street. It was gone 1970-1980. June 1995 Millie Bosshart told me the old Bosshart house was on Oliver Street. The Bossharts were lifelong friends of the Dawson's.
These are the Dawson children---the first 4 or 5 were born at Olney, Oregon in the log cabin Grandpa built:
Mary Hannah, born 7/27/1889, Olney, Oregon, died 10/19/1980, Roseburg, Oregon,
Millicent Emily, born 5/11/1891, Olney, Oregon, died 11/13/1978 Roseburg, Oregon,
Mabel, born 7/1/1892, Olney, Oregon, died 4/16/1979, England,
Gladys, born 4/27/1894, Olney, Oregon, died 7/9/1979 Ashland, Oregon,
Benjamin, born 2/29/1896, Warrenton, Oregon, died 5/17/75 Ashland, Oregon,
Harriet, born 11/12/1898, Warrenton, Oregon, died 2/9/1978 Ashland, Oregon, Frank, born 3/4/1901, Warrenton, Oregon, died 8/28/1993, Fresno, California.
Grandpa Dawson was working at Quincy, Oregon which is up the Columbia River from Astoria, Oregon and he bought 2 horses, Paddy Bird and Prince. Grandpa said Paddy Bird was a good work horse but he had a mean disposition. Once he picked Grandpa up and shook him!!!!! They also ran away with him quite often.
April 1901 Aunt Millie (Grandma Elizabeth Buxton Dawson’s sister and Granddaddy’s aunt) and Uncle Frank Buxton (Grandma Elizabeth Buxton Dawson’s brother and Dad’s uncle) left Liverpool, England on the Dominion and Mississippi Steamboat lines owned by Liverpool, England for America (Boston), specifically Warrenton, Oregon. Aunt Millie for a 6 month or so visit and Uncle Frank Buxton permanently. Believe Grandma and Grandpa Dawson and all the kids were living in the house on the lots Kerry and I saw in Warrenton, Oregon (the house was gone and they were vacant lots which were eventually sold. May 3, 1901 Grandpa had a stallion, “Tom” licensed for stud fees.
October 1901 Great Aunt Millie Buxton took Aunt Mabel (Dad’s 9 year old sister) for a visit with her when she returned to Glossop, England. She had been visiting for 6 months. Grandma Buxton Dawson was to go to England for a visit and bring her home in 1902 but it never happened.
Aunt Mable was raised by her Grandparents, Bennett and Hannah Slack Buxton. She grew up there in a lap of luxury and missed out on all the hard work at Roseburg, Oregon. Married Bernard Eastman and had 3 daughters Phyllis, Evelyn, and Margaret.
Grandpa Dawson always wore a grey three piece suit and tie to church, town, etc.
In 1901 prices --- Apr 26, 10-pound beans .50,. Sold 2-pound butter .90. 1902 prices Believe living at Warrenton instead of at Olney. Mar. 29, Curry comb & brush $1.10, shoes $3.00, pants & jumper (denim jacket) $1.00, gumboots and protector $6.25.
The prices I have listed came out of Grandpa’s books before I donated them to Clatsop Museum
January 6. 1902 Matthew Thorp Dawson and his brother-in-law Frank Buxton bought 40 A of timber, ½ NE of NE 4, Sec. 26, Twn 7, Clatsop Co. by Cullaby Lake. Still had 1966.
February 1902 Grandpa and Grandma bought the Roseburg ranch, 2,237 acres from the lst
National Bank of Roseburg—A. E. Ozouf and Mr. Kolburn. This is the ranch we call “Up Home”. They bought it sight unseen!!!!!!!! They paid a down payment of $2,000, and $4,711 in a note, dated July 1, 1902 at 6% interest (all to be repaid in gold coin). Maybe renewed May 8.
November 2, 1902 they left Warrenton for Roseburg. Grandpa (Mathew Thorp Dawson) and the two oldest children Aunt Hannah and Aunt Emily came by horseback and covered wagon ( a Studebaker or Moline) pulled by Jack and Paddy Bird. They drove with the dogs 60 head of cattle and some other livestock. It was 300+ miles and it took 3 weeks. Grandma (Elizabeth Buxton Dawson) and the other children, Gladys, Benjamin, Harriet (Blondie) and Frank (Granddaddy) who was 1 ¾ years old. Uncle Frank Buxton rode in the boxcar with the other horses, Tom and Starr, livestock and chickens. Also on the train they brought the hay wagon, furniture household goods and their clothing etc.
Imagine finally getting to their new home and expecting to fix their beds and get a good night's sleep-----and finding a very small dirty house filled with chicken manure that a bachelor and the chickens had been living in!!!!!! Anyway they had to sleep in the wagons and on the ground until they could clean the filthy house out. Also they had to continue doing all their cooking outside - over a camp fire. A sturdy and self reliant family all their lives. Dad drew a picture for me. Small low house in front with one big room, a fireplace, a pantry that the separator was in and 2 bedrooms. The house was always catching on fire from the kitchen wood stove. They kept tubs of water to always put it out. You stepped up 2 steps and were in the top section which looked like an addition and the kids slept here in the beginning—later the boys slept in the yard in a tent. Uncles Bill and George were born here and the 9 kids were raised in this tiny old house. Didn’t get the new one built until all the kids were raised and gone. However, Aunts Hannah, Emily and Gladys and Uncle George never left home. Don’t think Grandpa would let them leave and poor Uncle George was not cut out to be a rancher and he hated it---was a born mechanic and could build anything with metal.
Imagine it was extremely difficult for Grandma’s parents to see her living in a place like this after how and where she was raised. Neither one of them lived to see the new big house they built in 1922.
Grandpa asked Mr. Kolbern who sold the ranch to them why there were animal carcasses/bones scattered all over the ranch—lots of them. He said they let the dead wagon dump the carcasses out there. They soon learned that he was lying when their stock started dying. The larkspur was poisoning them. They lost a lot but saved a lot too by treating them with kerosene, cream and oil. Another surprise the bank did not tell them was they had allotted 160 acres right in the middle of the ranch to the school. Grandpa had a hard time getting the deed to it.
By the time the Dawson’s got there in 1902, the Umpqua Indians had mostly gone up to Glide area. Dad always said in the big field along Dawson Road, the Indians had their camp on DeMonte Creek because there were lots of chippings and they found lots and lots of arrowheads and skinning knives there.
The house was about 3 miles up the canyon from Douglas Avenue, the main road coming out from downtown Roseburg, Oregon, and another 3 miles into town.
1903. Looks like only paid $282.66 a year (interest?). Interest paid to 6/1/1914 and still owed $4,500. Maybe paid off when sold Onion Peak.
The bank had repossessed this farm from Mr. DeMonte, a black man that was raising thoroughbred race horses and registered pigs and he went broke. Everybody robbed him before and when he lost it. Pearce’s and Tom Hatfield bought his registered colts for $3 each and everyone paid him the same nothing prices. He was also a barber in town. This was during the Cleveland administration. The creek that runs to the side of the house and through the ranch is named after him and the road going up the canyon to the house “Up Home” was named Dawson Road in the ? 1940’s ?
I saw a deed dated May 8, 1903 from the 1st National Bank of Roseburg, A. E. and Isabell Ozouf containing 2,237 acres and Grandma and Grandpa Dawson signed another note almost a year after the first one. Maybe they had to renew the old one.
June 19, 1903 they were living “Up Home” in the old house and renting pasture to neighbors for their cattle and horses. Must have killed all the larkspur (I remember seeing none as a child in the late ‘30’s). 0ne notation said 3 head of cattle pastured for $4.75 so guess this was for a month. Also were feeding and boarding peoples’ horses. 1903 notation they were stabling 16 horses. And renting pasture to cattle The Dawson brand was “51”.
The brand was put on the goats and sheep with barn paint and the big “51” carved out of a big oak limb (it was about 6” high).The barn paint they made was long lasting. It was made of iron oxide, lime, linseed oil and skim milk. Also could make it with red clay, linseed oil and skim milk. If need more color, could add beet or berry juice. The 19th century farmers found they could make cheap, long lasting barn paint this way.
Uncle Frank Buxton (Grandma Buxton Dawson’s) brother had put some money into the purchase of the ranch so he had 200 acres the other side of the hills—to the south by Parrott Creek in what they called Hungry Hollow. Had a trail going from above the folk's house, over a couple hills and along the main ridge, across Dawson land to Uncle Frank’s, - 4 - 5 miles.
1902 Uncle Frank Buxton was at Roseburg. 1903-1905 Uncle Frank Buxton went back to Olney and worked at the Kamms Dairy Farm milking cows, raising a garden, making butter and doing other farm work. He received $35 a month and I presume a bunkhouse to live in. or maybe room and board. However from his 1903 book that he had so many delicious recipes in for meat dishes, salads, cakes, pies, cookies, candy, biscuits, yeast rolls, including Parker House rolls!!! I’d saying he was batching. No wonder as a child, I always thought he was such a great cook!!! The most intriguing---champagne like drink he made from parsnips!!!!and yeast (made from hops). I’ve made his baked beans and they’re excellent. Also he had notebooks he had written for health remedies, stock and chicken doctoring, how to make fireplace cement, cement, paste, glue, flypaper and a million different things!!!! I donated them to Douglas Country Museum at Roseburg, Oregon. 1914 he was working at Bay City. 1914 letter from England said Hannah was taking lessons on his violin!!! This Hannah a little girl---cousin of Mable and all the Dawson kids.
From one of Great Uncle Frank Buxton’s 1903 notebooks: Fireproof for Chimney and Fireplaces
Mix 2 parts of sifted fresh wood ashes
I part of air slaked lime
Sufficient boiled linseed oil to make a paste (It hardens quickly to solidarity of stone).
Later Great Uncle Frank Buxton built huge chicken houses and a house for himself on stilts on his 200 acres. He raised chickens (sold to Mr. Bendretti, Haight Ashbury Market, Del Monte Market and Charlie's Market of San Francisco and to Portland, Oregon also). He sold capons to expensive San Francisco French restaurants. They were shipped in refrigerated train cars. Grandma and Grandpa Dawson sold their turkeys, ducks and chickens to the same places.
Great Uncle Frank Buxton made the very best candy—caramels, fudge and others. Also made the most delicious biscuits every time we walked over to see him---had big slices of cheddar in the center.
The two children born at Roseburg they were:
William was born 6/10/1904, at Roseburg, Oregon 5/14/1958, Salem, Oregon George was born 10/31/1908, Roseburg, Oregon 5/19/1972 Canyonville, Oregon
January 8, 1906 a contract between School District -4 and M.T. Dawson saying he was the lowest bidder and will furnish 125 tier 20” body oak at $2.25 tier, 25 tier of 20” fir at $1.90 a tier to be delivered and ricked in the basement of Lane School, Roseburg. 75 tier 24” body oak at $2.25 a tier and 25 tier of 24” fir at $2 a tier delivered and ricked to the Roseburg High School on or before October 1, 1906—Price $547.50. They also sold wood to the courthouse and lots of individuals (repeats for all the years they sold wood). Even though only 7 years old Dad had to cut and haul wood over the steep Douglas Hill, deliver and rick it at the school and peoples’ houses. So many of the places he delivered to were up such steep hills that they were dangerous for a man to be doing it, let alone a 7 year old boy by himself. Dad always said Grandpa was a “Gentleman Farmer” because he mostly just rode around and made the kids do most of the hard work of a man. You saw the contract Nov. 2015.
July 5, 1906 a letter to Grandma Elizabeth Buxton Dawson from her sister, Ruth Buxton, saying their father Bennett Buxton had passed away.
All nine of the Dawson Children went to the Smick School. Letter 1960’s from Dad said the school records said he started in 1907 and was 7 years old (born in 1901 he had to be 6). They
walked approximately 5 miles each way in that awful black mud that pulled your shoes off when it was wet. The school was up Deer Creek a couple miles and they first had to walk down to the main road 3 miles. Dad said he always ditched his shoes the minute he left the house and picked them up on the way home. Dad couldn’t go to school often as had to do a man’s work – from 7 years on he cut wood and hauled those big heavy loads of wood over the hills and some of them very steep with the big work horses, unload it and stack it where the people wanted it - at even so young an age! Dad was still going to the Smick School in 1912. He graduated from the eighth grade and we have his diploma. Some of the older ones took the State of Oregon exam and got their diplomas. Uncle George was the only to get to go to high school.
About 1907 they built a barn, bored and pegged and hand hewn, opposite the lower field (that the Indians camped in) along the Dawson Road. Dad said he was only 5-8 years but he still had to fall peel and cut trees and do a lot of the building.
They built 3 big old barns on the ranch that were hand hewn, bored and pegged and over 100 years old. Know the folks built all of them. The last one was built late 1930- early40’s.
1907 – August 25 or 26, 1993 Dad told me a he still remembers getting his 22 rifle when he was about 6 years old.
1907 sold 653-pound mutton at $0.07 per pound, skins $0.40 and $0.50 each. 764-pound wool at
$0.215 from 188 sheep, average 4-pounds per sheep. 1908 –sold cream $0.066 - $0.075 a pound, 5,922-pound vetch seed at $0.04 a pound, pine & fir cut wood at $2 a tier, oak $2.55 a tier. 1909 sold 262-pound mohair at $0.295 approximately 2.5-pounds per goat. 1917 sold 1,532-pounds of wool at $0.65-pound and 1,572-pounds mohair at $0.61 a pound. Sold prunes at $12 a ton and potatoes at $0.85 per 100-pound sack.
Prices 1907- 1909---sold mutton, $0.07 a pound, bought 3 cows, (3 – 2 year olds and 2 calves for
$100), bought 52 goats (20 weathers at $3.50 ($70), 31 nannies at 3.50 ($108) and a billie for $20. Bought 17 and 1/2 bushel of wheat at $.04 a pound ($7.00). Selling wood—soft wood at $2.25 a tier and hard wood at $2.50 a tier.
Dad is having to help build fence and he is only 7 years old. Had top cut the trees to make the posts and stretch wire around the ranch, approximately 15 miles of fence. Repairing this fence was an ongoing job. Of course when I say Dad is having to do a lot of work it is everyone of the kids and they all worked up home their entire life like slaves. Of course this is why they got ahead and were so successful. They did real labor work (girls also) real long days every day but Sunday. Except to go to church most of them never left the ranches in all the years until they owned Steamboat and had to go down there to work. Grandpa and Aunt Hannah went to town and did the shopping. When they got cars, Aunt Hannah was the only girl who learned to drive.
Prices 1907- 1909---sold mutton, $0.07 a pound, bought 3 cows, (3 – 2 year olds and 2 calves for
$100), bought 52 goats (20 weathers at $3.50 ($70), 31 nannies at 3.50 ($108) and a billie for $20. Bought 17 and 1/2 bushel of wheat at $.04 a pound ($7.00). Selling wood—soft wood at $2.25 a tier and hard wood at $2.50 a tier.
November 1909 Uncle Frank Buxton selling turkeys to Central Meat Market, Astoria, Oregon.
1908 and 1910 Dawson's had a lot of workers cutting wood and threshing grain. Threshers used to travel around with their big threshers pulled by 20+ horses and hire out to thresh peoples’ fields because they could not afford to buy their own thresher. It was a huge job to feed all these men.
1910 Grandpa (Mathew Thorp Dawson) rode his mule from Roseburg to Jackson County, Oregon (90+ miles one way) to buy cattle, sheep and horses. He drove them home with the help of his excellent dogs. August 25-26, 1993, Dad still remembered this.
1910 looks like Dawson's worked on a bridge and the only one I know is the county bridge where Dawson Road crosses Deer Creek. Had 21 hours sawing down trees, hauling and peeling stringers and lumber and bolting them down.
1911----August 25-26, 1993 Granddaddy still remembered going to the circus in Roseburg when he was about 10 years old. He saw Buffalo Bill trick riding and shooting balls out of the air. Was so impressed with Buffalo Bill he couldn’t remember if Annie Oakley was there or not when I asked him.
1911 ---1992 Dad still remembers when they got their first car. Bought a 1910-1911 Studebaker, dry cell battery in the back. It was used. Dad said he was about ten years old. Grandpa used to decorate it with flowers (They had lots of roses in their yard) and drive it in all the parades in Roseburg (picture of one time when he was ready to go to the parade).
1911 they paid people $1.50 a day to haul manure, plow, thresh and saw and split wood. Re their record books always had a lot of men working for them. Sold mutton (weighed 6l to 72 pounds) at $0.07 to $0.08 a pound and sold the skins for $0.40 to $0.50 each. They were selling wood for $2.75 a tier.
December 31, 1912 Grandpa Dawson mailed postcard in Portland to Grandma Dawson (Mrs. M.
T. Dawson) at Roseburg, Douglas County, Oregon. Saying “leaves (so presume he meant the Greyhound bus or could be a boat) for Astoria, raining, look out for box of clams. Saturday will send if I can get them T 32 ½-pound MTD.
Jan 1, 1913 Grandpa Matthew Dawson sent Grandma Elizabeth Buxton Dawson a letter. He was in Portland waiting to catch the bus to Astoria, Oregon. He hoped to send them some clams.
In 1913, sold 27 dozen eggs locally at $0.25 dozen. February 27 price down to $0.17 a dozen and March 29 at $0.12 for half a dozen. Usually sold 15-33 dozen at a time locally and selling 75 dozen a month. I remember them selling them to Maddox Grocery in Roseburg in the 1930’s. They also sold them to Portland at $4.45 a case (? 12 dozen?).
1913 Notation—rent for lots from Seaside, Chinaman, $3 a year!!!!! 1914 $6 a year.
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About this same time 1915-1916 Dad helped build the big sheep and goat barn below the road and the big harvested field--- near DeMonte Creek. They always found a lot of arrowheads here along the creek. Dad said from the signs the Umpqua Indians had a camp here. In the attic “Up Home” they had two gigantic (10 gal.) jars of Indian arrowheads, hunting knives, etc. and someone stole them
August 16, 17, & 18, 1916 they threshed 697 bushels of wheat and 165 bushels of vetch.
Dad told me August 25, 1993 he bought his first rifle in 1916 at 15 years and killed his first deer at age 15. At this same age he held the Oregon record for shearing 80 sheep a day with the hand shears. Later after they got the gas shearing machine he could shear 125 goats a day.
Dad saw a white deer on the ranch. It’s the only one he saw in his life so they are really rare because he saw thousands of deer and never another albino.
Between 1910 – 1929, they were selling lots of wood from Up Home, Roseburg, Oregon. The ranch was covered with oak trees. Also maple and others plus wild rosebushes which were terrible for the goats and sheep as they got tangled up in its thorns Also lots of poison oak.
6/30/1914 paid Mr. Ozouf in full for note dated 5-8-1903. July 11, 1914 a Satisfaction Mortgage was recorded in Douglas County (see PDF file). Believe they sold the Onion Peak, 160 acres timbersteaded about 1914 and maybe this is what paid it off when they were having such a hard time making their payments because the only income they had was what they could sell.
Probably all the Dawson girls had “calling cards”. We have Aunt Hannah’s---M. H. Dawson, Marry Hannah was her real name.
December 11, 1916 Letter to “Mother” (Elizabeth Buxton Dawson) from Harriet Dawson (Aunt Blondie) to say she was in Porterville, California. She had run away from home the spring or summer of 1916 and Grandpa had disinherited her.
1915 Grandpa Dawson has a registered angora buck named” Umpqua Lad”.
In 1917 sold the spruce timber from homesteaded Olney to make airplanes for WW1 and commercial airplanes for $10,000. Contract with Sorenson Logging Co., dated June 22, 1917. 1970 via tax papers they still own Olney. Have donated tax and other pertinent papers to the museum at Astoria.
In 1917 Uncle Ben joined the Navy, World War 1.
1917 After being absent to work on the ranch more days than he was able to attend school, Dad got his 8th grade diploma from the Smick School. He had to work all the time on the ranch so that was the end of his formal education but he read constantly and really educated and taught himself many things, including how to build buildings so he could get a job anyplace.
October 19, 1917 Bought 100 goats at $4.35 each and kids at $70. 1918 Mohair 232-pound at $0.455. 1924, 356-pound mohair at $0.55. Kid's hair sold for $0.71.
1917 wages at Bull Run. Oregon was $3.00 a day for mill work and Uncle Frank Buxton was paid $45 -50 a week as a dairyman at Woodcock Ranch at Bull Run (6-22—10-20, 1917)
They had a tame pet deer up home. Have a picture of it in the yard. Probably got when a baby because the mother was dead.
1917 on Dad is working part time around Roseburg, Garden Valley and Dillard, Oregon in the prunes and other fruit. 1920 Dad used to row across the Umpqua River morn and night to work laying sections of railroad track from Roseburg to Wilbur, Oregon. 1917-1919 Dad’s working at home and also at Roseburg and nearby places in fruit-packing houses and especially prunes to earn a little money for the family. One or two of the girls were also working in the fruit to earn family money.
1917 a horse fell on Grandpa and he’s crippled the rest of his life. Used a crutch or crutches.
September 1918, Uncle Frank Buxton registered for the draft, WW I, Clatsop County, Oregon
They were raising a lot of turkeys a few years after they moved to Roseburg. November 1919 they shipped ll00-pound of turkeys to Mr. Bendetti of Haight Ashbury Market, San Francisco in the railroad’s refrigerated cars--$.33-43-pound. 1920 – 1940,s they were paid $.50 ½ a pound. They had to build boxes to hold the turkey and chickens; I remember them filling the refrigeration cars with turkey to Mr. Bendetti. They also sold pullets and these were about 5 month old. They also shipped capon chickens to the most expensive French Restaurant in San Francisco.
1919, August 26, 1993 Dad told me he helped build the new barn above the house. Tore down the old one and must also have torn the silo down as I never remember seeing one and Dad told me there was a silo there by the barn. Three of the barns were bored, pegged, and hand hewn. All together they had built 4 barns and a shearing barn on the ranch plus a lot of small buildings.
1920 and before they are selling hogs. They also make all their sausage (even links) and smoke ham and bacon. Selling ducks and geese at 25 cents a pound. October 7, 1920 bought 58pounds of vetch seed, 7 cents a pound--$40.88.
March 3, 1920 Grandpa Dawson got Oregon State license number 72242 for a 29.4 horsepower, Motor number 6A570 Studebaker car for $28.00. Believe I have both of these registration slips.
1920’s they are selling eggs 40-cents a dozen, butter $0.45 -pound, and milk $0.14 a quart to individuals on a weekly basis—eggs l dozen a week and milk 1-2 quarts a day. Continued at the Howe Place 1936 - 1940’s—maybe even ‘50’s and more.
September 1920 — Dad working at Dillard. Sent a postcard to his mother and all. Maybe this is when he was working for the Co-Op putting the electric line poles in. Each camp, complete with a cook, would cut the brush and dig holes for the tall poles (imagine they also had to cut them) set them and string the wire for a certain number of miles and when done they would have to pack their gear and walk beyond the other groups and set up their camp and do this new section. Started at Oakland, Oregon (N. of Roseburg about 16 miles) and Dad worked as far south as Tiller, Oregon (30 some miles).
1920, 34 goats died eating toadstools.
1920 -- Mr. John Atterbury, a Roseburg carpenter, helped build the shearing barn “Up Home”. Took the roof from the horse stables at the Douglas County Fairgrounds on Douglas Avenue off in sections and reassembled it on the shearing barn. They bought it from the county when they were building new ones away from the center of Roseburg.
1920 census Dad was living “Up Home” at Roseburg. The only ones gone from home are Uncle Ben and Aunt Blondie (Harriett).
1921 Dad probably hauled the 175 tier of wood they sold in 1921 and 186 tier in 1922. A cord is 8’ long, 4’ high and 4’ wide. A face cord is 4’ high, 8’ long and 2’ wide. Also about this time Dad was repairing the fence of the ranch during a violent lightning/thunder storm.
July 18, 1922, Believe new---1922 Dodge, Motor -pound 794352, light Weight 2500, Fee Paid $14.00 for Oregon State License -pound 119056, M.T. Dawson, Rt. 1, Roseburg, Oregon. Believe it was the old Dodge in the shop “Up Home”.
1922 they built the big house called “Up Home” to the side of the “old house” (it was later the garden plot). Dad was old enough in March – 21 years to leave home but he wouldn’t go and leave them with all the work of building their home. There was Dad, Aunts Hannah, Emily & Gladys and Uncles George & Bill. Don’t believe Grandma Dawson was capable of doing much and Dad always said Grandpa wasn’t much to help. It was a four story home, took them 3
months to build and cost $2,000. Dad fell the big fir trees, hand-hewed them into the big timbers that supported the floor above the basement, hauled them to the location and put them in place. You could see them above you in the basement and they were 2’ across. There was no cedar on the ranch so they had to buy the shingles. Douglas County Fairgrounds grandstand was being torn down at this time and they hauled this lumber home and used it in the house. Their home had the first (or about first) carbide lights (picture) in Roseburg, Oregon. They had a gas tank out back –don’t know exactly what kind. Also they probably had one of the first private gas pumps. It was by their garage and was filled by a gas truck.
They piped their running water from the well above the brooder house---maybe a mile away. Pretty green dell under the maple trees and always so nice and cool there. This house had a full basement, I helped put wood in one of the windows and there was a dumb waiter that carried the wood upstairs to the kitchen area. It had a separate laundry section with a chute down from the two floors above. I always wanted to go down that but when I mentioned it everyone got real mad so I never did. Also there was a section that had floor to ceiling shelves with doors for all the canning—they used to can many 1000 ½ gallon jars a year and lots of jellies and jams. Also in the basement there was a butchering section with a butcher’s block where they cut all the meats—fowl, mutton, hogs, cows. They made their own delicious sausage using the animal intestines for casings and made their own hams and bacon (a separate section was for hanging these). Don’t remember where they were cured (smoked). In crocks they preserved whole eggs (don’t know how but guess similar to China’s 100 year old eggs only they used them yearly). Also in big crocks they made their sauerkraut. Outside they made all their own soap cooking it in huge black cast iron kettles (believe Dana has one) over a fire. They saved their oak ashes (occasionally poured water over them to leach them) and this became the lye to which they added lard, suet, grease, etc (even if rancid it was okay). Stirred with a big homemade wood paddle and tested some way for doneness. Poured into large bread/ biscuit pans, to cool and set, then cut into bars. Presto soap!!!! Left some in bars for hand soap and grated the rest to do the laundry. On both sides of the basement under the front and back porches were storage places.
One was for the big oak barrels that held the vinegar. We drank cider before it turned to vinegar. They had a big apple orchard and an oak wood cider press.
The main floor ---all the walls were white or off-white—entering from the front door was the parlor that was cleaned weekly (as the entire house was) and this room was only used for company. A door went to Grandma and Grandpa’s bedroom and an archway went to the living room with an excellent fireplace built by John Atterbury (the only help they had when they built this lovely home). There was a 10’ arch into the huge kitchen with a big dining table (seat 2030), built in dish cupboard to the ceiling and lots of cupboards around the sink. To the right of the sink was a 5’X8’ pantry with shelves and a cooling closet for milk, butter and homemade cheese. Had a large wood burning range and next to it was the bathroom with one of the early claw foot bath tubs, sink and toilet in their large bathroom. And beside it was the door to the back porch, and Grandma & Grandpa’s bedroom door. On the last wall were bins for flour, sugar, whole wheat, rice, and beans with a counter over them, Also there was a large gun and shell cabinet plus a medicine and spice cabinet above the counter. Next to this was the stairs to upstairs and 4 bedrooms—Aunt Hannah and Aunt Emily had the multicolored (used all the rooms’ colors). They made all their calcimine paint, colored it and put it over the slats they had nailed to the walls. Aunt Gladys’ room was the yellow.
The 3rd bedroom, blue, was Uncle George’s wit h the mammoth chest you have Kerry that went around The Horn. The fourth bedroom, pink, was the guest room and had the Heirloom Bedspread on the bed and only used for company
Sometime in the 1920 - 30’s the above yellow bedroom had become the incubator room with up to three incubators going at a time for turkey, chicken and duck eggs. A child’s paradise for me. We candled the eggs nightly with kerosene lamps and rolled them and it was so exciting (maybe in June) when they started hatching!!!!! Such tiny bits of fluff and adorable. From there they were put in big boxes with a water jar and we fed them homemade cottage cheese we had made. Also a couple days later we mixed mash with it and still later we chopped up chard and spinach (they raised in their big garden) real fine and mixed cottage cheese with it. By then they were outside in pens. They grew so rapidly and no wonder with such pure food and fed so many times a day. At 5 months they were sold as pullets to mainly San Francisco, California.
So finally, Dad can leave but not really do what he wants to do because Aunt Blondie has been writing often and begging him to come help her. October 11, 1922 Dad headed for California to help Aunt Blondie.
October 1922 Dad wrote he had arrived and had ridden a horse 45 miles to Stanwood (no longer on a map). Said he turned left before he got to Donner Lake. Don’t know what doing but was paid $5-6 a day. The end of 1922 or early 1923 Dad was at Knights Landing (northeast of Woodland, northwest of Sacramento) building a school and other buildings for Miller & Lux. They were a big outfit/ranch in Calif.
In 1923 Dad bought his Chevy touring car with a cone clutch in Visalia, Calif.
Sometime after he bought his Chevy in 1923 he was helping build the two dams --- one was the big Oroville Dam and the other one the Susanville Dam. They were dynamiting a mountain to get rock to build the dams. Had to work in tunnels to set the dynamite. They put a “T” on the end and had to get out fast. Dad said it was a wonder they didn’t blow themselves up. They blew the entire mountain up. We have a picture of his 1923 car when he drove it to see Lake Tahoe.
Also in 1923 or 1924 Dad was building houses in Visalia and when he finished one of them Aunt
Blondie, Uncle Dave and he moved into it. Dad checked and the houses were still there in the 1980’s.
1923 they built the brooder house “Up Home” just before you got to the house (where the gate was). It was used for plucking the down from the geese that their pillows and mattresses were made from and for killing the chickens and turkeys, plucking them and getting them ready to be shipped via refrigerated rail cars to San Francisco, California and sometimes to Portland, Oregon.
1924 Dad got a letter from his parents insisting he come home and buy the part of Steamboat property that Uncle Ben didn’t want. Dad did not want to go back to Oregon or be a rancher but he always did what his folks wanted him to do.
October 13, 1924, Matthew Thorp and Elizabeth Buxton Dawson bought Steamboat (280, 160 and 25 acres) from George and Marietta Kohlhagen of Roseburg, (they had bought from George Culy June 1908) for $8,000 including $2,353 for sheep (Dad got most of the sheep because the Culy Ranch that Uncle Ben got had lots of sheep). They signed a note for $8,000 to be paid in gold coin. His parents kept writing and insisting he come home as Uncle Ben had found the Steamboat Ranch he wanted but only wanted the good farm land (bottom half) and they said Dad had to come and take the upper half.
Dad paid the 2nd half of the Steamboat taxes November 1924. They each paid $6,300. Dad’s upper part only had an 1861 (date carved in a post) barn on it that needed a lot of repairs and a new roof. The barn was hand hewn, bored and pegged.
George C. Culy homesteaded 160 acres in Jackson County on the Carberry Creek (not called Steamboat yet).September 15, 1891, and of the Independence of the United States the one hundred and sixteen, signed by the President of the United States, Benjamin Harrison. Homestead Certificate number 2395, application 4261, recorded Volume E, Page 445.
This was Uncle Ben’s place with a 3 story white house, lots of buildings and good farmable land. Dad’s lower 40 acres were part of this homestead and was good farmland.
Dad said his upper 280 acres was the old Jake Shearer Place and Mother said it was the old Rose Place. Maybe both families had lived there at one time. This land had one extremely rocky field. The rest of the acreage was hilly, brushy, and mountainous.
The 1889 – 1912 log cabin schoolhouse was just below our 1861 barn. Mr. Wagoner lived in it after it was no longer used for school. When I start sorting pictures I can send you a snap of this school. Also, the old cemetery was on the top end of our ranch. Close to where the CCC camp was later.
First Dad had to cut trees down, make shingles to repair the roof of the barn. Then he had to build some attached sheds so the sheep could get in out of the snow and cold weather where he could feed them and they could have their lambs here or when he got them to spring feed in the mountains.
Dad also built chicken house, an outhouse and shop big enough to hold his Chevy touring car. In his shop he had to buy all the equipment to forge as he made his own nails, knives, mowing machine blades, horse shoes and everything else that was needed on a ranch. Dad told me a man that shoes horses is called a farrier. However Dad shoed his own horses.
Dad bought cattle, horses, chickens, turkey, pigs etc. and all the farm equipment to run a farm.
May 24, 1924 Mother bought her 116 Kodak camera in Medford, Oregon for $5. Dana has this. Believe quite a few years before this the folks bought their Kodak for $20. This is the one we are offering you. The folks at Roseburg developed their own pictures.
1925 Dad built a nice house with two bedrooms, living room, kitchen, big front porch and a breezeway back porch to the woodshed. Dad even had piped water into the kitchen. There was fresh water below the hill from the house but don’t know how he got it up the hill. Didn’t really have engines then and I never heard on running. He had to buy stoves and completely furnish his home.
Dad’s brand was the Lazy 10 and he branded the animals on the right hip. The right ear he put a hole in with a punch and the left ear he cropped (cut the end off). Believe his brand is still registered in Oregon.
He had to try to rid his fields of rocks, (one solid rock so never got it done— later the CCC boys played golf on it). Also had to cut trees to get wood to fill his woodshed.
Each Spring Dad had to drive his cattle up Sturgis Creek and Steves Peak area to Greyback Mountain for summer pasture. Of course he had a good dog. Their calves were born here. This was government land. He had to ride up and check them quite often during the summer. Before the snows came he had to ride up and get them. I remember one time he got caught in a snow storm but over the years imagine it was more than once. I don’t know how many miles it was but know it was a long hard ride because I remember Dad talking about it. They wintered the cattle in the field near the house and fed them hay out of the barns.
Dad had to shear his sheep in the Spring and then hire a sheepherder (usually a Basque) (maybe I have a picture off one). with dogs to watch them – coyote, eagles, bear and mountain lions were bad. They herded the sheep to below Grayback Mountain in the spring. Their lambs were born here. In the fall they brought the sheep down quite a while before the cattle and drove them over the hill to the Applegate Valley where they ate stubble in Offenbacher’s field for which Dad had to pay. When this was all cropped off they drove them over almost due north to the brushy hills between Gold Hill and Central Point where they ate brush (mainly Manzanita). Before the snow came they had to bring the sheep home to the sheep barn.
Steamboat is at the headwaters of Steve’s Fork, Sturgis and Carberry Creeks and Applegate River. It is in S.W. Oregon in the Rogue River National Forest, almost to the Calif. Line.
Steamboat (but not called Steamboat yet) was discovered by the white men of the Rogue Valley after the Rogue Indian Massacre of so many Rogue Valley people. The only ones they didn’t hurt was the Savage family because they had always treated them nicely and fairly. The white men chased the Rogue Indians up the Rogue River area and in through Jacksonville and over the mountains to the valley. I was always told this but Mr. Culy said in 1850 the Indians massacred white miners in Yreka and the soldiers chasing them turned a howitzer on their winter camp, only to find the shells would hit the ground, bounce across Carberry Creek and explode. He said the ammunition was wet because the pack mules had fallen in the Applegate River near what is now known as Mule Hill. Dad said his lower 40 acres (part of the Culy Homestead) along Carberry Creek was the Indian summer camp ground. He always found a lot of arrowheads, hunting knives, etc. there.
There was a lot of gold mining going on in this area. This strike was to be the big Bonanza. It was not and when this happens it is called steamboating. Thus the area got the name Steamboat.
Dad always wore a suit and tie to town, dances etc. 1924 he bought a tie from The Toggery in
Medford, Oregon. We still have it. They are no longer in business
Dad rode his horse to where Squaw Creek empties into the Applegate River to get mail. Mother and her Grandpa John B. Smith lived straight across the Applegate River from that area. Great
Grandpa Smith bought this property when he and Mother moved from Medford. I imagine he moved to this area because he loved to pan for gold. Mother and her horse forded the Applegate River to get to their mail box. Mother and Dad met at the mail boxes, probably late 1924 or early 1925 and started dating—shows in Medford, Chinese dinners in Medford and rides in his touring car. Mother loved horses and to ride so they probably did some riding even though Dad didn’t like it.
1925, January 10th Grandpa Dawson bought from George and Marietta Kohlhagen the 60 acre Ophir Mine in the Steamboat Mining District, being the northwest quarter of the northwest quarter and the north half of the southwest quarter of the northwest quarter of section 27, township 40, south of range 4 west of the Willamette Meridian –Steamboat (flows sw) Creek and Carberry Creek. Don’t know what paid for it or when and what sold it for.
9-20-1925 Frank Dawson has gone to sheep camp. Probably to bring them home before cold weather. Going to cut 3rd crop of hay soon. Mother did a lot of canning in quart jars in her copper broiler. It held 15 quarts at a time. That day she canned 38 quarts of pears and prunes and ? quarts of venison. We have the copper broiler if you want it.
1925 Roseburg sold 69 geese 752-pounds at $0.22, ducks, gobblers weigh 20-pound dressed and turkeys to Kohlhagen. 1920’s mainly selling to Haight Ashbury Street Market, Mr. A. Benedette at 1589 Haight Street, San Francisco.
Mother’s grandparents were John B. Smith, 1851 -1932 and Melissa Youngman Smith 1858-
1902 from Bellow Falls, Vermont. They moved to Colorado. Mother’s parents were Earic
Vinson 1877 – 1930’s and Mabel Smith Vinson 4-15-1888 – Colorado and passed 11-14-73 in Calif. Mother, Zita Leota Vinson Dawson was born 6-3-08 in Pueblo, Colo. and passed 2-19-94 in Calif.
1915 Mabel Smith Vinson took the train to San Francisco to work.
Grandpa John B. Smith, after he retired as brakeman and conductor from the Atchison, Topeka, Santa Fe Railroad, took mother and her sister to Medford, Oregon approximately 1919. He used to stop there on the train and decided he wanted to live there. I believe he had a house on 2nd street and put the kids in school in Medford.
Mabel Smith Vinson came approximately 1921-1922 and opened the first kindergarten, “Tiny Tot School”, amidst city and state obstacles at their home, 624 W. 4th Street, Medford, Oregon. Mother read to the children, worked with them with clay, etc. Grandpa Smith also helped in the school. Mabel Vinson had 15 – 20 full time students and it was a huge success. (have two tiny pictures of the children). Eventually she was welcomed into the School District of Medford. I have been told this was also the first kindergarten in Oregon.
1924 Grandpa John B. Smith bought his ranch on the Applegate River across from where Squaw Creek merges into the Applegate River and the mail boxes. Believe he bought this place
because he loved to pan for gold. Mother had her horse Jesse (mother of Tony). Tony is Mothers colt in the large oil painting. (picture) It shows the trees along the road and our hay wagon Dad built.
Mother, Zita Leota Vinson and Dad, Frank Leonard Dawson were married in Ashland, Oregon, March 14, 1926. Mabel Vinson Conway (Mother’s mother) and Jerome J. Conway were the witnesses. Aunt Mabel was working in Medford, Oregon as a nurse.
The Steamboat people gave them a big chivaree. We have three of the cups from their punch bowl. (pic)
Mother always received her weekly horse magazines—Thoroughbred Record and Tennessee Walking Horse. She was an avid horsewoman and even used a Honda.
She also received two movie magazine subscriptions. I believe her Grandpa Smith gave her all these subscriptions.
We still Have Mother and Dad’s iron bed they had at Steamboat and my other son has their dresser. Believe Mother brought both of them from Grandpa Smiths. He may be brought them from Pueblo because he not only had free train passes for his family but could bring a lot on the train when he moved. Mother brought many of her Grandparents things with her when she married Dad. This is the reason there are so many real antiques at Steamboat. I also have shuttle and other fancy work Mother’s Grandmother did plus her brass pie crimper and so many other things. Mother had a William Jennings Bryan’s cane. He was the 1896 boy orator from Nebraska. For years, he was called the “Peerless Leader of the Democratic Party. He was the unsuccessful candidate for president 3 times. Also, have a sword with some writing on it and its sheath. (didn’t get pictures but am offering them to you)
1926 Mother and Dad bought a new Maytag, square tub, gasoline motor washing machine. What a life saver this must have been for Mother. We used it continuously for the next 25 years. Late 80’s or early 90’s we donated this to the Fresno Museum.
March 13, 1926 Roseburg bought a Maytag like ours for $180 from the Maytag Shop in Roseburg.
1926 Roseburg has registered goats—buck and nannies and a ram (sheep) at Roseburg.
Dad and Mother’s wool -- most sold to George Kohlhagen. 1926, 1,540-pounds sold to JF
Barker for $585.20. Both lived in Roseburg, Oregon so they had to pay the freight to their’
1927 1,869-pounds at $0.345 for $644.80, plus 132-pounds tags. 1928, 2,090-pounds at $0.42 = $877.80, 189-pounds at $0.51 = $96.39. 1929 1,295-pounds at $0.38 = $550.56 plus 176pounds. Believe after this is when Dad tried to get all the sheep people to not sell their wool to make the price go back up. Of course they wouldn’t. Dad, Grandpa and Uncle Ben stored there
wool in the wool barn at Roseburg until the price came up. In 1909 wool was selling for 65cents.
1927 Roseburg sold corn for $1.85 a 100-pound’s!!
1927 Christmas card to the folks at Roseburg from Mother from San Francisco. She and Vivian were at Aunt Mabel’s (her mother) for a visit.—
Eventually Mother and Dad also raised rabbits (white ones with pink eyes- Dad named his favorite doe Clara Bow (his favorite movie star). (Mother’s favorite star was Greta Garbo.) They also raised turkeys. Dad told me August 25, 1993 one very bad winter the turkeys wouldn’t come out of the trees to eat because of all the snow. They were starving themselves to death so he had to kill them and we had a lot of turkey to eat. Don’t believe they raised them after that.
Dad and Mother both worked extremely hard trying to eke out a living in Steamboat and never could. Dad even had to go to Klamath Falls yearly to pick potatoes. Remember he always brought Mother a beautiful dress when he came home.
Dad tanned his own hides for straps, cinches. etc. and he and Mother made his leather gloves, shirts and chaps.
I remember Mother and Dad sitting at the kitchen table at the end of each year figuring their interest and sending a check to Grandpa Dawson.
Also to survive and pay Grandma and Grandpa off Dad was making his moonshine (which folks at Roseburg and Uncle Bens criticized them for). Dad’s Moonshine recipe---50-pound corn or 50-pound rye grain (sometimes mixed the corn and rye for a batch), wet and left in a pile for 2-3 days to sprout, add 50-pound sugar and 100-pound water. Mixed all of above together in 4 barrels. Put lanterns around them to keep warm for 4 days to ferment. Poured liquid only off each barrel and cooked one at a time in cooker (big copper vat Dana has) for 2 hours. Boiling with lid on and as soon as starts steaming it starts coming out copper tubing. Cooling it—steam runs through copper tubing into one barrel cut in half. Tubing around in it to cool and change steam back to liquid. Barrel had a hose running to it from spring to continually change water to keep it cool. Copper tubing went from cooling half barrel to gallon jug. Cooling changed it from steam back to liquid and it is now pure white whiskey or white lightning. Dumped ten of these into 10 gallon barrels to color the whiskey. Toasted oak chips in wood fire oven at the house to color it. Left chips in the barrels for one month and now it is colored and aged and ready to sell. Poured back to gallon jugs and sold for $10 a gallon, cost approximately $2 and a lot of back breaking work to make. Each batch made 20 Gallons. He usually made 80-90 proof. If hadn’t added so much water he could have made 150 proof. I remember all this was under the back porch or in the woodshed. The house and woodshed were connected with a wide, covered porch.
March 5, 1928 Grandpa and Grandma Dawson sold 5.7 acres of Mother and Dad’s land to Mr.
G.R. Shanklin for $250 for his mining operation. He built a stamp mill, rock crusher, and cabins for his crew to live in. Also had to buy dump trucks. Dad said he just walked off and left it all because it was costing him more than the gold he was getting from it. This land was across from our house—(across the field, ditch and road). Have a snapshot of stamp mill. I can remember dump trucks bringing their rocks in and the noise the mill made crushing the rocks and the other trucks going under the chute and being filled with the crushed ore.
Bill Powers lived in the little house next to our house in the mid ‘20’s. Don’t know if he paid rent or the folks let him live free. His brother rode with the Dalton Gang and he delivered food etc. to their hideout before coming to Steamboat. We have a photo of him that he gave the folks. (2015 sent all to you).
Gypsies used to come in and camp on our land. They got the crawfish from the creek and used to give me some to eat and I loved them.
November 30, 1929 Haight Street Cash Market just received Frank Buxton’s shipment and paid him—capons 87-pound at $0.45 per pound 9.15, pullets 79-pound at $0.40 - $31.60. less expenses $3.74 = $67.01.
December 10, 1929 I, Evelyn Mary Dawson decided to make my entrance during a snow storm.
There’s no road over the mountain to Applegate/Grants Pass, Oregon so had to go to Jacksonville, Oregon. Got about 8 miles from home—just beyond where the Copper store would eventually be, and I wouldn’t wait any longer. Dad delivered me at Haars house at 6 am. Imagine he had delivered more babies, albeit not human, than the doctor. A Jacksonville doctor came later and signed my birth certificate.
July 1930 hay harvested at Dawson’s Up Home—55 loads of hay and 7 loads of vetch.
1930’s Roseburg selling turkeys, pullets ,chickens, and capons to the Del Monte Fruit Market at 1519 Haight St. San Francisco and to Charlies Fish & Poultry Market, 1543 same street. 1934 income from selling turkeys and chickens and bond interest was $2,600. No wool money in this.
August 26, 1930 Grandpa Smith (Mother’s grandfather) went back to Pueblo, Colorado because he wanted to be buried next to his wife, Melissa Youngman Smith when he passed on. Aunt Mabel took him back on the train. We have a picture of him in Dad’s touring car when he left.
January 9, 1931 Dawson's at Roseburg got a check for their turkey—37 cents a pound and capons 34-cents and 40-cents a pound.
January 29, 1931 Grandma Elizabeth Buxton Dawson passed away Up Home. Dad kept the letters she had written him 1925 – 1931 when he was in Steamboat. You may have two of them. Mother and Dad let me stay “Up Home” with Grandpa and all because they were devastated and the folks asked them if they would leave me. Thus, the beginning of my yearly visits “Up Home”.
There were lots of dances held in Steamboat at our home and others. They especially liked to come to ours because we had so much food as could not sell anything as people had no money during the depression and most had come there from LAX, San Diego and other cities and tried to scratch out an existence panning for gold. Dad said they barely made enough to buy their salt and beans. Some lived in a cabin by our house, I believe free and they also built cabins around on our land free. The newer residents were mainly from San Diego and Los Angeles because they were starving there because of the depression.
For the dances, Mother always made venison sandwiches from venison meat she had canned in quart wide mouth jars. She ground it up and mixed mayonnaise & pickles (she made both) and onions Dad raised. Yummy and still my favorite sandwich if I could ever get some venison. Mother played the piano, that her Grandpa Smith bought for her and Kerry has now. Bob Watkins played his fiddle and someone played his banjo. They danced all night until Dad had to go feed his stock and milk his cows. We kids always got to dance around too and of course never heard of a baby sitter so we went to all the dances and when we got tired, we laid down somewhere and went to sleep.
About only place, I can remember going to their house for the dances is the Watkins house (maybe only one also big enough). It was across the Applegate River and about opposite of where Copper Store and post office were eventually built.
I can also remember Dad always read the San Francisco Examiner funnies to me in the mornings (Vivian, my sister was at boarding school). Aunt Mabel (Mother's mother) sent them to us for years and years.
All during the snow of winter (and Steamboat had a lot because it was in the mountains) Mother made really great ice cream nightly. Mother and Dad would have a bunch of friends over for ice cream too.
I remember Mother always had a quilting frame up in the living room all the time and some of the beautiful tiny pieced quilts I remember she made were: Flower Garden, Lone Star, Wedding Ring, Drunkards Trail, and started the 1920’s Tie Quilt. See pictures of 2 of them)
In 1932 The Oregon/California line was moved north. The community down by Squaw Creek was known as Watkins. Now it’s called Copper and there is a store and post office. I remember
27
when Mr. and Mrs. Crow showed us their house (attached to their store/post office) and I was so amazed when they pulled a rope in the ceiling and a flight of stairs came down!!!! We lived approximate 8 miles from the store.
1932 and 1934 Mother and Dad signed a lease to Fred and Doris Hoffman to allow them to mine the Ophir Mine. They paid the folks 12.5% of the gold and other minerals they recovered. From this it looks like the Ophir was on our property.
September 19, 1933 letter to Mother from her Mother (Aunt Mabel of San Francisco) addressed to Copper, Oregon, our new post office.
January 1, 1934, a document is signed to build the Carberry Road from just above Mother and Dad’s ranch. It goes over the mountain and ends at the Jackson-Josephine County Line where it joins the Thompson Creek Road to Applegate, Provolt and Grants Pass. This is a real blessing to us.
Flora Hollman and her husband built a log cabin across Carberry Creek from our house on the folks land free. I got to help chink it----gathered moss and mud and stuffed it in the cracks of the logs. Such a big help at 4 years!!
When I was about four years old Dad built another big hay barn down by the lower 40 A. field. I can remember using???? the draw knife to peel the bark from the logs and going with Dad when he cut the trees down. Dad used the frow to make shingles. He cut the poles into exact 16” pieces and the frow would cut into shingles. Dad did not like the looks of shakes. What a fantastic Dad he was to always have me tagging after him when I was so young and much trouble. I got hung up by my left hand one time on barbed wire at this barn and still have the scar. It was from this barn that Nancy, my pony, ran away with me back up to the upper barn over that steep, windy, canyon road and Dad couldn’t catch me. I was bareback. I can remember going in by the barn and she kept going up the field by the house and under the trees by the irrigation ditch trying to scrape me off. I was only about 4 years old. I managed to stay on her even though I was bareback. I bet I was a handful to keep track of and safe. Also about this same age, I fell out of the top of a tree by our house, lit on a rock and still have the scar above my let left eye.
1933-34 Uncle Frank Buxton’s chickens were laying 4-12 dozen eggs a week. The cold months they mainly rest. 1934 he paid $3.98 for a size 40 buckskin coat, socks – $0.15, shoes $2.98, overalls $1.10 and undershirt $0.49.
February 16, 1935 Grandpa deeded Steamboat, 245.7 acres to Dad, (Maybe Mother and Dad had just finished paying for it???)
I can remember the big dredges dredging for gold on Carberry Creek that ran behind our home.
1922 and 1935 Roseburg address was Route 1 Box 30 and postage was 3 cents. When postage was 4 cents their Box No. was 205.
August 29, 1935, Grandpa Dawson took the train cross country to New York City to sail on The Bremen, a German ship, to Bremen, Germany. Then he took the train to England to visit his daughter, Mable and other relatives. 9-16-35 he sent a letter to his kids at Roseburg. It was written on the train and he described the land and animals he was seeing.
September 17, 1935, Grandpa Dawson wrote another letter to his kids. Four men came to his hotel room and accused him of giving someone counterfeit money. The men took him to the police station and after some calls to Roseburg—I presume the police, bank, etc., they let him go!!!!!!!!!
He arrived in South Hampton September 23, 1935. He stayed 6 months and didn’t like it any more. He said they don’t even speak English any more. Passport says height 5’-10 1/2”, eyes – blue, hair – grey.
December 1935 Christmas card to Folks at Roseburg from Frank, Zita and family. It had been mailed at Johnny Pernoll’s Applegate store.
1936 Grandpa Dawson sailed home on the German “Bremen” and arrived in New York February 10, 1936. He sent a card to his children “Up Home”, Roseburg, February 11, 1936 from New York.
1936 Roseburg had a registered cow, Lucile, sire-Mike, Dam – Lady Panama, owner and breeder M.T. Dawson. Sales---pigs $15 each, bull $35, lambs $0.085, steers $0.055, cows $0.045 per pound.
August 31, 1936 Aunt Mabel (Mother’s Mother---my Grandmother) came to visit on the train from San Francisco or probably on her way home from Boston where she went quite often to study Christian Science. She was one of the most noted Practitioners in San Francisco and many doctors called her to help with cases they had given up on.
1936 Grandpa Dawson and Aunt Hannah bought the Howe Place from CH and Nellie Ridley, 127.77 acres. Blocks 4, 5, 9, and 10 in the Third Brookside Addition. It was a dairy and had electric milking machines. They separated the milk at the milk house beside the house and sold cream to Willits Creamery at Douglas and Jackson Streets. Later sold milk to the Umpqua Dairy downtown Roseburg and still later sold cream to Cy’s on Douglas Avenue about half a mile from
the house. Dawson phone was (503)-672-4593. Also at this time they put a big wall phone Up Home and strung the wire between the two houses so they could easily keep in touch.
August 31, 1936 Dad and Mother sold Steamboat to Grandpa Dawson for the same $6,300 that he had paid for it----and after he had added all the buildings, animals, farm equipment, fences and built up the land! From Dad’s book the animals included in the sale were 3 bulls, 280 cattle, 49 ewes, 45 lambs, 4 horses, including my Nancy, rabbits, chickens, and pigs. Also the hay, wool, and all his farm machinery. November 7, 1936 Grandpa Dawson sold 19 of Dad’s lambs to Kohlagen at 7-cents, $121.10. Also sold 8 of Dad’s steers, November or December 1936.
This is the end of Steamboat for my immediate family except Mother and Dad constantly went in to help them from 1945 on.
Now Uncle George and various aunts live at Steamboat off and on. Also sometimes, they hired someone to take care of the ranch and animals and then they only had to check on it occasionally.
November & December 1936 Roseburg Dawson's were killing, dressing and packing over 1,000 turkeys and putting them on the trains to San Francisco, California and Portland, Oregon markets. They did this every year from the 1920’s through the 1950’s and maybe some 1960’s.
July 1937 they were offered $20,000 for the Ophir Mine from a mining company in Oroville, Calif. but they didn’t take it.
Dad and Mother gave Grandpa the Holman contract for mining rights that they’d given him on Yankee Bar for several years and it was still in force. Paid the folks 12.5% of the gold and other minerals they recovered. For some reason, Grandpa didn’t honor this contract, Holman’s had to stop working this mine and a lawsuit was filed….Don’t know how it turned out.
This is the end of our immediate family in Steamboat and believe you’re only interested in Roseburg and Steamboat history. We went to Roseburg many times a year and if could every Christmas—only family member that did.
I went every summer to Grandpa Dawson’s from the age of 2 and it was a child’s paradise with all the baby animals to play with – kittens, puppies, lambs, kids (angora goats), pigs, calves, geese, ducks, etc. and what fun it was to ride Tiger all the time. He was Grandpa’s white mule. Drove the old Dodge and cat from the age of 8. 1931-1944 gone all summer to Roseburg. What great parents after we were big enough to be of some help they still let us go “Up Home” for the entire summer!! The only two grandkids that did this.
1940 November & December Matthew Dawson sent shipments of turkeys on the train to Haight St. Cash Market, 1589 Haight Street, San Francisco.
1940 Mr. Wright and Mr. Prunk got $1,300 from 30-pound of ore from their mine in Steamboat that they bought from Mr. Wagoner.
November& December getting turkeys ready and will ship to the San Francisco markets.
1942 March taxes the folks at Roseburg paid----Roseburg $290.84, Tillamook $3.00, Astoria
$268.65 Steamboat $41.17 and personal $27.77 (probably our Steamboat place they now own)
November 1942 Jackson Co. both Steamboat places plus Dunn place $340.29, Astoria $351.63, Roseburg $254.60 for a total of $1,754.85. So if figure 1888-1978 is 90 years times $2,000 is $180,000 paid in taxes!!!!!!!
1942 I stayed at Roseburg and went to the big high school building in town in the 7th grade. I made lots of friends—Ramona, Gayle, Harlan Carter, etc. Was on the girl's basketball team. I had 3 day measles while there---only childhood disease I ever had. Had lots of fun but I still got so terribly homesick that I went home at Christmas break to finish 7th grade at Provolt, Oregon.
October 20, 1943 Mother wrote postcard to M.T.Dawson—the folks “up home” mailed in Grants Pass, Oregon saying she & Aunt Blondie arrived home (that would be Provolt) so guess they had just returned from visiting and helping the folks at Roseburg.
1945 Dad helping the folks at Roseburg and in Steamboat with haying, checking the cattle and sheep. I can remember lots of times shocking hay all night so Dad could go help hay at Roseburg.
Jan 5-7, 1946 Uncle Frank Buxton, age 68, passed away at the Howe Place. He was Grandma Buxton Dawson’s brother and Granddaddy’s uncle that he was named after. Also he was the one that gave me my cook book in 1939 that I still use and he wrote poems about us and our doings.
1946 Dad went to Steamboat to help his family move the cattle over the mountains to Steamboat as they had only got them as far as the Kubli place on Thompson Creek. He also did the irrigating, and helped with the haying and cutting down trees for winter wood and all the usual hard work.
Roseburg, December 1946----they received a check from the state of Oregon for $2576.83 for property they took for the highway. I believe this was for the Diamond Lake Highway that runs
in back of the big field at the Howe Place and below the hillside field so they still owned land on both side of the new highway----to Diamond and Crater Lakes,
The folks at Roseburg had 100’s of letters and cards from Dad, Mother and me and a few from Vivian. Thus, I can tract about every month of every year for a long time.
December 14, 1947 I sent card/note to folks at Roseburg saying Dad still helping at Steamboat but we hoped to be there for Christmas. We went to Grandpa’s almost every year for Christmas.
1948 Dad re-shingled the Howe Place and two barns for the folks, worked in the hay and took care of cattle and sheep for the folks.
November 1948 Aunt Blondie & Uncle Dave and Aunt Gladys (with Uncle George in and out) living at Steamboat. Running 100+ head of cattle there. Dec 16 Uncle George killed a cougar.
November 1949 Calif. prices for cattle—corn syrup 1.5cents a pound, cotton cake in large amounts $48 a ton or $52 a ton if only buy one ton (Roseburg the price is $60 and $65 a ton) hay $22 a ton, Hauling cattle to California $266.90 for 46 medium size or 31 large size.
December 9, 1949 Dad cruised Tillamook Head for Grandpa Dawson because they had two prospective buyers via correspondence at Roseburg. They had a constant string of buyers for Olney, Tillamook Head, Onion Peak, 40 A by Cullaby Lake and all of their lots from 19001970’s.
1949 a real cold winter and had a hard time finding all the cattle on Greyback.
December 1950 Mother and Dad went to Roseburg and Steamboat to help them. Worked in Steamboat and Roseburg a lot and real hard work.
Aunt Blondie and Uncle Dave are living on the Steamboat ranch (our old place in a makeshift house.
I believe it must have been about 1950 that a disgruntled person that lived in our house and worked the land for the folks burned the house that Dad built down with all the furnishings the folks supplied the worker with or maybe they took them before they burned the house.
1950’s they are still raising turkeys at Roseburg. Do not remember if they raised any in the 1960’s or not. It is getting too difficult for them.
1951 – 1953 Dad was into Steamboat all the time working so hard to help the folks–hauling hay, picking up rock, digging post holes and building fence, cleaning the ditches and irrigating, cutting wood, building cattle chutes and driving cattle to Greyback and Sulton Gulch and loading cattle and trucking them to Roxie Ann, Ashland. All the jobs he hated so much and was even taking care of Uncle Ben’s ranch as he was now living at Ashland. Dad was certainly the good son but never got credit for the way he was the only one who was always helping them.
Will no longer list the years separately that Mother and Dad helped the folks at Roseburg and Steamboat but it was continually 1958, 1968, and 1970-78.
In 1952 Uncle George bought a D7 caterpillar for $12,500.
November 1952 Dad was out riding for cattle up on Greyback, Steamboat. Seems a little late but guess Uncle George hadn’t gone after them yet so Dad road up to Greyback and got them. Mother was also in there helping Aunt Blondie and Uncle Dave. Went in to see them as often as I could.
December 5, 1952 I also have a note that Mother and Dad were both working at Roseburg..
August 1953 Dad went to help them and they are almost finished with their haying.
October 3, 1953 Dad got message Grandpa Dawson had a stroke so he drove straight to
Roseburg and stayed with Grandpa in the in the hospital until Grandpa passed away the night of October 4, 1953.
I believe it is since Mother and Dad owned Steamboat that the government charges grazing fees. 1958 grazing fees $117.60 and 1959 $148.80 Dawson’s had to pay to the government because they took their cattle to Sturgis/Greyback area for summer
May 1958 Dad is helping the folks at Roseburg and is in a picture at Roseburg with everyone after Uncle Bill’s funeral.
Dad haying at Roseburg and other work to help them.
June 1960 Mother just returned home from helping and visiting at Roseburg.
Uncle George bought a sawmill --he was going to run a sawmill—for $3,000. It was outside in the big corral at the front of the barn at the Howe place and just rusting away. Uncle George never used it Aunts Emily and Hannah sold it to J.P.Babcock for $700 in the 1970’s.
Slab bacon for .85 a -pound
1964 Roseburg sold 39 steers for $7,213.
1966 Roseburg sold a bull at auction, 1,110-pound at $20.50, this $227.55, Mar. 1966 sold at auction 35 head for $6957.
California price--½ beef hanging, 52-cents a pound. Roseburg gets nothing like that!
1968, Dad doing the haying and other and other work at Roseburg for the folks.
Between 1968 1969 & 1970 Uncle George logging Steamboat. Douglas, white & Shasta fir, sugar & ponderosa pine, and incense cedar. Bill Head logged for him and said he’d never work for him again as he was too wasteful. He left ½ of the fallen timber on the ground to rot!!!!! After logged sold it for $109,000, 1972? to Sakradas, Stones and Fields of Provolt area with no animals.
December 1969 A. Hannah wrote a letter to Aunt Blondie saying Uncle George’s diabetes worse and he lost four toes in November and in a lot of pain.
June 1, 1970 – 1971 Dad doing haying and all again at Roseburg. Dad was never paid for all the years of work he and Mother did at Roseburg and Steamboat after they sold Steamboat. He never would have accepted anything if it had been offered because he said this was family and they needed help. However, he had to stop sometimes and get paying jobs to pay his bills and feed his family.
Dad cruised this piece of property several times for Grandpa. The cruise said there was 6 million board feet here. Lots of different logging books and papers (donated these to Astoria Museum). Uncle George logged this 1966 - 68 and maybe longer. Uncle George sold the timber to a Japanese man named Mr. Fujii. Mr. Fujii took the timber out a few miles in the ocean where he had a sawmill set up and then brought the finished lumber back to the USA and sold it back to USA for huge profits. Mr. Fujii also did not pay Uncle George for all the timber. Don’t know how many dollars he was gypped but from the logging papers I’ve seen I know it was in the 100 thousands. Also Uncle George had bought huge amounts of equipment—DC 10’s Nov 12, 1963 he bought a Diesel tractor with carco winch, power control, cable tip dozer and canopy used for $6,650, logging trucks, and all the equipment you need for such a big undertaking. When he’d had enough, he just walked away and left all that equipment to rust. There was also a sawmill and and another DC10 out in the weather at Howe Place. Found a note Aunt Emily wrote--September 22, 1972-- they had just sold the sawmill for $700. She wrote that Uncle George had paid $3,000 for it and never used it. Also Dad went to Tillamook after 1972 to see if he could salvage any of the equipment, but he could not. Some parts and items stolen and the rest rusting.
They’ve been offered $100,000 but Dad said it was not enough as it’s approximately 680 acres.
Dad helped Aunt Hannah and Aunt Emily sell Tillamook Head for $119,000 mid to late 1970’s.
May 1972 Dad at McLain’s, Oakridge, Oregon and had to go to Roseburg to help the folks because Uncle George died May 19, 1972 at the Canyonville Hospital
Fall 1972 Kerry flew me to Roseburg. Dad had been working like a slave getting all Uncle George’s wild cattle rounded up and sold. Dad said cattle prices were way down and they’d fall more. In addition, he had to ride for the horses and sheep and sell them. A tree limb had gone through his leg and he was sick with exhaustion having to do all this alone.
Feb – Apr, 1973’ 1974 Dad still helping at Roseburg and did almost continuously through 1978.
January 1974 the aunts wrote that they had terrible flooding in Roseburg and southern Oregon.
1974 Dad helped his sisters sell all of the back part of “Up Home” ranch to Boise Cascade and they logged it. They kept 700 acres. The rest of the “Up Home” ranch Dad helped them sell a few years later to VIPs Restaurants.
August 27, 1974 Aunts Emily, Hannah and Gladys bought Uncle Frank’s 220 Acers from his estate. Appraised at $2,460.00 but they paid $40,150.00 for it. Wonder why they did not pay only the appraised value but guess it is with so many relatives in England and America this would give everyone more money.
1974 Aunt Emily had as addition put on the Howe house.
July 12 -26, 1974 rented a travel van and took Aunt Emily and Aunt Hannah back for a visit to Warrenton, Oregon to visit their friends Annie Tetlow and Millie Bosshart and to see where they were born at Olney and to see Warrenton where they also had lived. They had not been back since 1902 when they left in a covered wagon for Roseburg. Also took them on a ferry across the Columbia River to Cathlamet, Oregon to see Florence Chadwick (a relative). We stopped various places to visit relatives or friends.
1975 March, Aunt Emily wrote to Mother and asked if she would come take care of her and Aunt Hannah, so Mother just locked her apartment door and left immediately to help them. I drove her to Roseburg
1976 Dad and Mother both working at Roseburg and I went up many times to see them.
September 1976 Aunt Hannah and Aunt Emily flew to Glossop, England to visit their sister Mable and to meet many of their relatives. A fantastic experience for them!
1977 I made 5 trips to Roseburg to visit. Aug 1977 Kerry flew me to Roseburg, visited for a couple days and then came back to pick me up in a two weeks. Mother is still taking care of Aunts Emily and Hannah. Dad is also there working. Kerry took a good picture of him. August 26, as we started for home, Kerry flew over the “Up Home” ranch and took a bunch of pictures for them at Roseburg and us. Probably flew over Uncle Franks too. Also, one picture of Howe Place.
Aunt Emily wrote to Dad and asked him to come back as they needed his help. I made 3 trips to visit them.
Aunt Emily passed November 13, 1978.
Feb. 27, 1979 picture and article in Roseburg paper about Aunt Hannah’s 90th birthday.
Still calling Roseburg regularly. Only Aunt Hannah now.
Sept – October 1980 cleaning the Howe place up and having an auction, donating a lot to museum, even a truck load (machinery, tools, etc.) Donated all of Grandma Dawson’s clothes to the Douglas County Museum in Roseburg. Also Uncle George’s baby clothes.
Renting the Howe Place as the Dr. says Aunt Hannah will never be able to come home. Aunt Hannah passed October 19, 1980. The Howe place sold in 1994----so the end of the Roseburg era!!!!
So once again, I hope Dad’s life will belong to him and he can play and enjoy life with no responsibilities. Seems to be the same in all families no matter how many members only one is always there to help.
What a truly great family I have had!!!!
State: Oregon City: Date: 1887-1950 FHWAC#: 41870
Auction Location:
3555 Airway Drive Suite 309, Reno, Nevada, 89511, United States
Previewing Details:
Preview will be at our Auction Location, 3555 Airway Drive Suite 309 Reno, NV 89511
On Thursday, December 8, 10:00 am to 5:00pm at HWAC or by appointment.
Please call 775-851-1859
Nevada State Sales Tax
Taxes:
| Tax | Rate | Desc. |
| NSST |
7.75% |
Nevada Sales Tax |
Buyer's Premiums:
| From (Incl.) | To (Excl.) | Premium |
| 0.00 |
Infinite |
24% |
Additional Fees:
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December 2016 Auction
Absentee Bidding will end Thursday, Dec. 8, 2016.
Internet bids accepted any time
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1. The placing of a bid shall constitute the bidder’s acceptance of these terms of sale.
2. BUYER’S PREMIUM & INSURANCE: There will be a 21% Buyer’s Premium added to the sale (hammer) price of each lot, which includes a 1% fee for insurance that covers your purchase during transit. This is our base premium for transactions paid with cash, checks, money orders or wire transfers. All other forms of payment are not subject to the 3% discount and the Buyer’s Premium will be calculated at 24%. In order to expedite billing and convenience of payment, all initial invoicing will be calculated at 24%. Please call our office if paying by cash, check or money order and we will gladly recalculate the premium prior to payment.
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BE ADVISED: Auction participation through the live Internet bidding site is not 100% foolproof. The technology for this process is always changing, and the operation of it and the corresponding Internet connectivity issues are far beyond our control. Some folks have attempted to use the live Internet bidding process as their primary method of bidding, and have been quite successful. Others have failed completely. Depending upon your computer, server, host, and other factors, Internet signals may be delayed, such that bids may not be received in time. We cannot be held responsible for these delays, or for the lack of placed bids in a timely manner, or any other factors leading to unaccepted bids that are far beyond our control. Bidders should always have a backup plan for lots they highly desire. Live participation is best, followed by phone participation. We will not reopen lots for missed bids.
12. RESERVES: Most of the lots in this auction are unreserved. Gold is generally reserved at or near spot, though it could be slightly below spot.
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From: To: Increment:
$1 $95 $5
$100 $190 $10
$200 $475 $25
$500 $1,450 $50
$1,500 $2,950 $100
$3,000 $9,750 $250
$1,000 $30,000 $500
$30,000 Up $1,000
14. BID REDUCTION: All winning absentee bids will be reduced, if necessary, to the next bidding increment up from the last competing bid, as long as the minimum bid requirement has been met. For example, if you submit an absentee bid of $1000 and the next highest competing bid is $250, then you will win the lot for $275.
15. BID INFORMATION: Collectors often ask in advance the price level of a particular lot. We will give out the current competitive high absentee bid until we close the day before the live auction. You may also view absentee bids online at www.holabirdamericana.com. While we try to update the absentee bids as often as necessary, bids received close to the bidding deadline might not be reflected online, and we disclaim any responsibility for any bids made in reliance upon inaccuracies on our website, which may be beyond our control. We do not own any of the live Internet bidding platforms, and thus many aspects of the Internet technology are out of our control.
16. BID CANCELLATION: If you wish to cancel or change a bid after you have submitted your bids to us due to an error, you MUST PHONE us to advise us of this. Bid cancellations through mail, email, or faxes are not advisable. Errors are easy to make. Please call us if you have any questions on this.
17. All stock certificates, checks, warrants, and other financial documents sold herein are sold as antiquities, and have no financial, securities, or public trading value whatsoever.
18. We reserve the right to reject any bid we feel is not made in good faith.
19. INVOICING: Shipping charges will be added to all invoices. Invoices are mailed or emailed within two business days after the close of all portions of the sale. Within 15 calendar days of receipt of invoice, payment is due in full to Holabird’s Western Americana Collections, 3555 Airway Dr., #308, Reno, NV 89511. LATE FEES MAY BE ADDED IF PAYMENT ARRANGEMENTS ARE NOT MADE WITHIN THOSE 15 DAYS. Sales tax will be added to all sales picked-up after the auction or shipped to Nevada addresses, according to Nevada State law, unless a resale certificate is provided.
20. PAYMENT: We accept Visa, Master Card, American Express, Discover, Money Order/Cashier’s Check, Personal Check or PayPal. Customers wishing to pay by check or money order MUST contact our office for an invoice total before sending payment. All returned checks are subject to a $25 fee. Cash received in amounts greater than $10,000 is subject to the filing of IRS form 8300, as required by law.
21. NON-PAYMENT: HWAC reserves the right to cancel any invoice not paid in full within 15 days. A cancelled invoice does not relieve the bidder from their obligation to pay seller fees and buyer’s premiums compensating HWAC for its services in conducting the auction. Interest shall run on all outstanding balances at the highest rate permitted by law. HWAC shall have a lien against the merchandise purchased by the bidder, and any other of bidder’s property then held by HWAC or its affiliates, to secure payment of the invoice, and with respect thereto HWAC shall have all the rights of a secured creditor under the Nevada Commercial Code, including but not limited to the right of sale. HWAC may sell the lot(s) securing the invoice to any underbidders in the auction that the lot(s) appeared, or at subsequent private or public sale, or relist the lot(s) in a future auction conducted by HWAC. A defaulting bidder agrees to pay for the reasonable costs of resale (including a 10% seller’s commission, if consigned to an auction conducted by HWAC). The defaulting bidder is liable to pay any difference between his or her total original invoice for the lot(s), plus any applicable interest, and the net proceeds for the lot(s) if sold at private sale or the subsequent hammer price of the lot(s) less the 10% seller’s commissions, if sold at an HWAC auction. If HWAC refers any invoice to an attorney for collection, the bidder agrees to pay attorney’s fees, court costs, and other collection costs incurred by HWAC. Any bidder who fails to follow the terms of payment will be reported to iCollector and may be barred from participating in future Holabird’s Western Americana auctions.
22. CONDITION: We strongly recommend that you attend the live preview to see lots in their entirety. Conditions are not always noted, and large lots may not be itemized due to catalog restraints. For questions, detailed information, or additional images of any lot please contact our office at 775-851-1859. Bidders are responsible for understanding the condition of items. Conditions noted are subjective, and may differ in the opinion of different people or collectors.
23. RETURN POLICY: All items are guaranteed to be authentic unless otherwise noted. If authenticity is challenged, please call our office for assistance. You may return any piece that was significantly inaccurately described by calling our office within 15 days of receipt of item(s) and notifying us of the error and reason for return. We do not refund postage or insurance. We have attempted to describe the items and their condition accurately. If no condition is given, assume average. Please call us if you require a more specific condition report. Any items that are returned must be returned in the exact, unaltered condition. NGC certified tokens that are returned must be original, unaltered NGC holders. Any tokens removed from the original NGC/NCS certification holders or items returned in an altered condition are deemed not returnable under any circumstances. When we receive your bids we will assume you have read the description in the catalog, viewed the image of the item, have contacted us regarding any questions you may have on any lot and/or have previewed the lot in person. Therefore, returns are only accepted if prior approval is given by Holabird’s Western Americana Collections.
24. This sale is being held under the laws of the State of Nevada, without reference to choice of law rules.
25. HWAC shall not be held responsible for any problem due to the bidders failure to follow the rules, terms and conditions of this sale, or any failure to bid due to the loss of the online auction process provided by any of the online auction networks; or missed bids, changed bids or cancelled due the bidders failure to follow the proper bidding procedure outlined herein.
26. By placing a bid or otherwise participating in the auction, Bidder accepts these Terms and Conditions, and specifically agrees to the dispute resolution provided herein.
27. HWAC shall not be responsible for consequential damages, incidental damages, compensatory damages, or any other damages arising or claimed to be arising from the auction on any lot. Bidder’s sole remedy for any proven act or omission shall be rescission of sale and refund of the amount paid by Bidder.
28. Any claim, dispute, or controversy in connection with, relating to and/or arising out of the Auction, participation in the Auction, award of lots, damages of claims to lots, descriptions, condition reports, provenance, estimates, return and warranty rights, any interpretation of these Terms and Conditions, any alleged verbal modification of these Terms and Conditions and/or any purported settlement shall be exclusively heard by, and the parties consent to exclusive in personal jurisdiction of, the Superior Court of Washoe County, Nevada. THE PARTIES EXPRESSLY WAIVE ANY RIGHT TO TRIAL BY JURY. Any claim must be brought within one (1) year of the auction from which the claim arose or the claim is waived. In every case, the prevailing party shall be entitled to an award of its attorney’s fees and costs.