The original 1-story, wood-frame farmhouse portion of the home located at 380 North 4th was built around 1866 for Addison Helms, probably soon after his marriage to Ann Ross. Helms had acquired the northern half of the entire block from James Clugage, the original donation land claim owner of most of the Jacksonville townsite. Although Helms was a resident of Jacksonville for over 30 years, little is known about him. He and his wife had no children. He was twice elected Marshall of Jacksonville but does not appear to have been employed at any single occupation for an extended period of time. He is listed in the 1860 census as a “trader”; the 1870 census as a “horse jockey”; and the 1880 census as “unemployed.” At the time of his death in 1886, the Oregon Sentinel wrote: “A fortune passed through his hands since he came to Jacksonville but with unselfish generosity that was the ruling characteristic of his life, his only appreciation of fortune’s golden favors was measured by his unstinted liberality to all.”

We knew that the Von Helms family, the original owners of Jacksonville’s 1860 Table Rock Billiard Saloon and the lovely 1878 Italianate style home at the corner of South Oregon and Pine streets, suffered several family tragedies.  Three daughters died in epidemics.  Another was murdered, but we’ve only recently come across more details.  Not that we would gossip, but….

It seems that daughter Anna had married Frederick B. Martin, a salesman for the Pacific Biscuit Company.  He was their Portland representative; she ran a fashionable Portland boarding house, the Ella, at the corner of Ella and Washington streets.  Anna’s older sister Emma helped run the boarding house. 

Reportedly, the Martins’ marriage was “stormy.”  When Martin was “discharged” from the biscuit company in 1906, he abandoned Anna and left for California.  When he returned to Portland at the end of the year, Anna refused to live with him or reconcile.  Martin blamed his sister-in-law Emma for interfering.

On January 6, 1907, Martin went to the Ella and gained admission to his wife’s apartments.  There he shot both Anna and Emma then went to the basement where he killed himself.  Anna was wounded; Emma died.  What transpired before the shooting is unknown since Anna was in hysterics.

Anna eventually remarried.  Both Anna and Emma are buried in the Helms family plot in the Odd Fellows section of Jacksonville’s Pioneer Cemetery.

Memorial Day has Historic Jacksonville, Inc. thinking about others who have sacrificed their lives for the public good.  Did you know that August Singler was the first Oregon sheriff and the first (and to date only) Jackson County sheriff to be killed in the line of duty? 

Shortly after being elected sheriff in November 1912, Singler, his wife Rose, and their brood of 8 had moved into the sheriff’s quarters at the corner of East 6th and D streets in Jacksonville behind the 1883 Jackson County courthouse. Prior to Singler’s election, he had gained a reputation as a dedicated constable who did his duty no matter what.  He had introduced the art of fingerprinting to Jackson County and had been the first lawman in the area to use bloodhounds. His exploits were often reported in the local newspapers. 

On April 22, 1913, Singler was serving a warrant on a man name Lester Jones who was hiding out in a rural cabin about a mile south of Jacksonville.  Jones had been accused of theft a year earlier but had escaped after disarming the town marshal who tried to arrest him.  When Singler opened the cabin door, Jones shot the sheriff in the chest.  A second bullet smashed Singler’s right hand.  Although right-handed and mortally wounded, Singler switched hands and shot Jones six times, killing him.  Surgeons tried to save Singler, but the shot proved fatal.  Singler died the next morning.  He was 36 years old.

On April 25, Medford stopped all commerce for Singler’s funeral.  The procession from the church to the IOOF/Eastwood Cemetery was over 12 blocks long.

Singler may be gone, but he has not been forgotten.  In 1993, Medford dedicated the August D. Singler Memorial Plaza between the Jackson County Justice Building and the county jail.  One hundred years after Singler’s death, U.S. Rep. Greg Walden recognized Singler’s service and sacrifice with an entry in the “Congressional Record.”

Did you know that Ben Johnson Mountain in the Applegate is named for a Black pioneer?  Historically, Southern Oregon has had only a small population of Black residents so it’s remarkable that a local mountain landmark is named for a Black man!  In fact, when Ben Johnson lived near Ruch in the 1860s, the state’s “exclusion laws” made it technically illegal for a Black to reside in Oregon.

Johnson had been born into slavery in Alabama in 1834. In 1853, he had crossed the plains with an ox team, making his way to Uniontown, Oregon as a freed slave. Uniontown, founded by Theodoric Cameron, was at the mouth of the Little Applegate River during Southern Oregon’s 1800s mining era.  Johnson worked for Cameron but by 1868-69 he was also prospecting and had built his own blacksmith shop at the base of the mountain that now bears his name. Johnson was known as a skilled blacksmith and accommodated miners by sharpening their tools. He could read and write and was respected by the community.

It appears that part of the West’s attraction for Johnson was another freed slave, Amanda Gardner.  She had also come west in 1853 with a Deckard family who had settled in the Albany area.  Although freed, Amanda had cared for her former mistress until her death. By 1870 Johnson had married Amanda and moved to Albany where he continued his blacksmith trade.  

Johnson’s history, and that of the mountain that bears his name, had been lost for over 100 years.  Dedicated research by Jan Wright, Southern Oregon Historical Society Archivist, uncovered Ben Johnson’s story. Today you can hike Ben Johnson Mountain, a 4,500 foot peak in the Rogue River National Forest portion of the Siskiyous, about 10 miles southwest of Jacksonville.  A trail head that can be reached from the Applegate’s Cantrall-Buckley Park leads to a steep 1.1-mile trail with aerial views of the Rogue Valley and eye-catching cityscapes.

We would like to thank Jan Wright, Southern Oregon Historical Society Archivist, for the research that uncovered Ben Johnson’s history. 

Did you know that Oregon had the nation’s first female governor? And it was 3 ½ years before Oregon women gained the right to vote? The woman was Carrie (aka Carolyn/Caralyn) B. Shelton. She was acting governor of Oregon for one weekend – 9 a.m. Saturday, February 27, through 10 a.m. Monday, March 1, 1909. It seems that the outgoing governor, George Earle Chamberlain, had been elected to the Senate and had to leave for Washington, D.C., before his term was over if he was to make it to D.C. in time to be sworn in with the rest of the freshman class of senators. Arriving late would make him the last man on the roster in terms of seniority. The incoming governor, Frank W. Benson, had gotten sick and couldn’t assume office early. So Chamberlain left his 32-year-old secretary in charge. For a weekend, Shelton, a woman who couldn’t legally cast a ballot, possessed the power to issue pardons, veto bills and sign executive orders. And in another wrinkle to the story, in 1926 Shelton married Chamberlain, her longtime boss and mentor, making them the first and only pair of former governors in U.S. history to wed.

You may be aware that Cornelius Beekman, Jacksonville’s wealthiest and most prominent pioneer, was a philanthropist, but did you know that his daughter Carrie followed in his footsteps?  March is Women’s History Month so Historic Jacksonville, Inc. is sharing the stories of local women, many of them previously untold. 

You may have heard how Cornelius gave money to build schools and churches.  Carrie initially did things on a more personal level, even after she moved to Portland in 1931.  For example, she financially cared for those who worked for the Beekman family until her death in 1959; she funded a “heating plant,” “pew cushions,” “well repair,” and periodically the minister’s salary at Jacksonville’s historic Presbyterian Church.  

But Carrie Beekman is also the one who preserved the family history.  While her brother Ben saw that the 1863 Beekman Bank remained intact as a museum during his lifetime, it was Carrie who deeded the Bank and all its contents to the Oregon Historical Society following Ben’s death, along with $10,000 in Ben’s memory.  It was Carrie who donated the Jacksonville Reservoir to the City of Jacksonville and the property between the Presbyterian Church and the manse to the Church.  It was Carrie who set aside the bulk of her estate for the University of Oregon to establish the Beekman Professorship of Pacific and Northwest and History in honor of her father and brother.  It was the first endowed chair at the University.  And it was Carrie who deeded the Beekman House and its contents to the University of Oregon upon her own passing. 

For three years before Cornelius Beekman opened the gold dust office that preceded the bank we know today, he was an express rider for Cram & Rogers, carrying mail, parcels, newspapers, and gold over the Siskiyous between Yreka and Jacksonville.  We’ve thought for years that Cornelius Beekman moved to Jacksonville in 1853 when he became an express rider between those 2 towns, but it seems he may have remained based in Yreka.  When Cram & Rogers went belly up in 1856, he purchased his former employer’s Jacksonville horses and stable and opened Beekman’s Express. That appears to be when he moved to Jacksonville.

Why are we having this change of “heart,” or in this case “history”?  Because more contemporary accounts have become available, and we have access to more facts.  1853 Yreka newspapers show Beekman advertising his carpentry and building skills in conjunction with a partner named Goldsmith.  Beekman had trained as a carpenter before coming West and periodically fell back on his trade as an income source.  We also have access to Jacksonville’s Pioneer Census records and Beekman’s name does not appear until 1856.

Is this sufficient “evidence” to “prove” that Beekman did not move to Jacksonville until 1856?  No, but it certainly raises “reasonable doubt” and causes us to rethink our timeline.  It may change the details, but it does not change either the bank’s footnote in history or the role Beekman played in turning a gold rush town into the hub of Southern Oregon.

The 1863 C.C. Beekman Bank was Jacksonville’s original Wells Fargo agency and the oldest financial institution in the Pacific Northwest.  But surely there were financial institutions before 1863!  What gives? 

Cornelius C. Beekman came to Jacksonville in 1853 as an express rider for Cram, Rogers & Co., transporting goods and gold between Jacksonville and Yreka, and riding the 67 miles over the Siskiyous 2 to 3 times a week. When the company failed in 1856, he bought their stables and corral for $100 and established Beekman’s Express. He also bought a safe to house gold dust between trips, and that made him a “financial institution.”

Beekman continued riding the Jacksonville-Yreka route 2 or 3 times a week until 1863 when he became the Wells Fargo agent, a relationship he maintained until 1905.  U.S. government parcel post did not exist until World War I.  If you had anything other than mail to ship, it went by an express service.  Beekman’s Express had been one of many small point-to-point express companies.  Wells Fargo was one of the “big boys,” and as a Wells Fargo agent Beekman had an assured income for the duration of the relationship. 

Only one other large express company that originated in the 1850s remains in service today—American Express.  Ironically, Henry Wells and William G. Fargo were 2 of the 3 individuals who merged their New York express companies in 1850 to create American Express.  Wells and Fargo created Wells Fargo in 1852 when the other company directors refused to extend American Express service to California, and Wells Fargo became the main express company on the West Coast, later expanding into the rest of the country and Europe.

Dr. Will Jackson was a popular Jacksonville dentist from the late 1860s to the late 1880s. Actually, he was probably the only Jacksonville dentist during that period. Although he pulled teeth and supplied “nice natural looking teeth…for those wanting,” he is also believed to have been the first dentist in the Valley to use fillings as an alternative to extraction.

A colleague remembered him as “quite a large man, with black hair…who wore that determined look that made the small boy in need of his services feel that he was not to be trifled with.” Jackson’s house at 235 E. California Street was his second home at that location, constructed in 1873 after a fire took out most of the block. It’s now home to the Miners Bazaar. Jackson’s dentist office was “12 feet east” where Quady North’s tasting room now stands. The entire corner of California and 5th streets was originally the site of the corral and stables of Cram & Rogers, the company that brought C.C. Beekman to Jacksonville, but from 1857 on, that corner housed a succession of doctors’ offices.

Have you ever noticed the 2-story Carpenter Gothic style farmhouse at 3995 South Stage Road just past Dancin Vineyards?  In the late 1800s, this was home to Emil DeRoboam and his family.  DeRoboam was the nephew of U.S. Hotel proprietress Madame Jeanne DeRoboam Holt and prominent in his own right.

After immigrating to the United States in 1871 with his widowed father, Jean St. Luc DeRoboam, Emil became a wagon and carriage maker.  The Democratic Times newspaper at various times declared him to be “an excellent mechanic” and “an excellent wheelwright.”   After his father married rich Prussian widow Henrietta Schmidling in 1873, Emil courted and married her daughter Rosa 2 years later.  The couple had 4 children. 

In the mid-1880s Emil purchased the 642 acre “Bellinger land claim” for “general farming and stock raising…directing his efforts toward making his farm a pleasant home and paying property.”  He succeeded in the latter, obtaining the contract for the “county hospital” in 1884 and the contract for “the county poor” in 1886.  For 20 years, DeRoboam was superintendent of the Jackson County poor farm, caring for the county’s wards on his farm.

DeRoboam was described as “a progressive man” and “prominent in political undertakings.”  He was one of the chief promoters of rural free delivery, the delivery of mail directly to farm families. He was active in the Republican Party from shortly after his arrival in the U.S. until his death. He was also associated with several fraternal organizations—he “passed all the chairs” in the International Order of Odd Fellows; he was a charter member of the Jacksonville Lodge of the Improved Order of Red Men; and he was a member of the Ancient Order of United Workmen.

The title of “first white child born in Jacksonville” has been a subject of debate for over 150 years given there are multiple claimants.  The issue is clouded since “firsts” are usually awarded in retrospect and memories can be unreliable.  Also most individuals reporting on the subject credited any event happening in southern Oregon to Jacksonville because that was the closest town, the name known to them, and subsequently the County Seat. 

August 11, 1852, the earliest known birth date, belongs to Bruce Evans.  In 1903 he applied for a passport and listed his birthplace as Jacksonville.  There is a 2-year-old Bruce Evans listed in the 1854 Jackson County Territorial Census.  However, the only Evans family on record at that time lived near what is now Rogue River.  Beginning in 1851, Davis “Coyote” Evans operated a ferry on what became known as Evans Creek, a tributary of the Rogue.

A second claimant is Cornelius Jasper Armstrong, born February 24, 1853, to Robert and Minerva Armstrong.  When the Armstrong family arrived in 1852, Robert and Minerva settled on a farm 4 miles north of Jacksonville at the base of the western hills.  They did not move into Jacksonville until 1890.

A third claimant is James Clugage McCully, born August 27, 1853, to Jane and John McCully and named after James Clugage, one of Jacksonville’s “town fathers.”  We do know the McCully’s lived in town, initially in a log cabin on the property at the corner of California and South 5th streets where the McCully House now stands.

In the 1850s, babies were born at home.  So while Bruce Evans may lay claim to the title “first white child born in Jackson County,” we’ll give the title of “first white child born in Jacksonville” to James Clugage McCully.

When we think of early Jacksonville photographers, we automatically think of Peter Britt.  However, Britt was not the only local photographer.  In 1876-7 and again in 1883, Frank G. Abell, who, according to Jacksonville’s “Oregon Sentinel,” was “acknowledged to be the finest photographic artist in Portland,” was resident in Jacksonville.  In 1877, in partnership with J.O. Welsh, he “put up a building on the corner of California Street, opposite Wells, Fargo & Co.’s express office.” 
Abell was in many respects an itinerant photographer, living and working at various times in San Francisco, Stockton, Grass Valley, Red Bluff, Yreka, Ashland, Roseburg, Eugene, Corvallis, Portland, Tacoma, and of course Jacksonville.  He specialized in “outdoor work”—”residences, businesses, horses, cattle, etc.”—and children’s photos, using “an instantaneous dry plate process” for the latter.

In 1883, Abell leased Peter Britt’s photograph gallery.  The “Democratic Times” declared that Abell had “a reputation second to no artist on the coast” and that citizens could have their photographs taken in “the highest style of the art.”

Abell’s work was respected by his peers.  Over the years he won numerous first place awards for entries to the Oregon Mechanic’s Fair, was vice president of the Oregon delegation to the National Convention of Photographers in 1880, and was elected president of the Photographers Association of the Pacific Northwest in 1909.  Abell died in 1910 in Tacoma, Washington, and is buried in Portland.

The wood frame 1880s farmhouse at 820 North 5th Street that currently houses Pioneer Financial Planning was originally built for Peter N. Fick (known as “Nicholas”) and his wife Henrietta Richtor. Both were born in Germany, meeting and marrying in Jacksonville in 1875. Nicholas first worked as a butcher with John Orth before acquiring land in the “east end of town.” By 1910 he was raising grains and livestock on some 150 acres that extended to Shafer Lane and had constructed a large family home on the current site of Wine Country Inn.

Nicholas died in 1913. Henrietta outlived him by 29 years and by 1922 had reduced the family’s active holdings to 40 acres, renting out the remainder. The Fick’s younger son, Peter J. Fick born in 1883, apparently managed the property, operating a small-scale dairy. Peter J. also served on the Jacksonville City Council for 14 years and captained the town’s Volunteer Fire Department. Over the years, most of the original Fick holdings were divided and sold by the family’s heirs, however, Peter J. and his wife Zola retained ownership of the existing 820 North 5th Street parcel until their deaths.

The Nicholas Fick farmhouse was demolished in the late 1880s, but the office of the Wine Country Inn is supposedly a replica. The Peter and Zola Fick house remains the only original property associated with the Fick family farm.

The Classical Revival style home at the corner of Fir and South Oregon in Jacksonville is known as the Colvig House. Since Historic Jacksonville, Inc. recently had a Colvig family descendent ask about it, we thought we would share a little of its history. The house was probably built in the late 1870s for George Schumpf, the town barber. Schumpf, a native of Alsace, Germany, was the town barber for most of his life, also providing “bathing rooms and bathtubs” in his California Street shop. In 1887, Schumpf sold the house to William and Addie Colvig following his first wife’s death.

William Colvig, a lawyer, served three terms as Jackson County District Attorney. After this latter appointment, he finally got around to taking the bar exam. Colvig was an authority on Shakespeare and spoke fluent Chinook, the language of the local Indian tribe. He was also a soldier and was among the party of soldiers that first mapped Crater Lake.

The house is also known as the “Bozo the Clown House.” Vance “Pinto” Colvig, the youngest of the Colvig children, was the original creator of Bozo the Clown. Pinto worked as an animator for Walt Disney and supplied many Disney cartoon voices, including those of ‘Goofy,’ ‘Pluto’ and two of the seven dwarfs. He also wrote the song, “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf.”

Jacksonville’s Calvary Church at 520 North 5th Street was originally the site of George “Bum” Neuber’s home. Bum kept a petting zoo for children in his back yard. However, he was known more for being a “sporting man.” He owned a downtown saloon and card parlor, owned the Jacksonville Gold Bricks baseball team, speculated in copper mining, and was a founding member of the Gold Ray Rod and Gun Club. As noted in last week’s trivia, he was also a prankster. By the late 1880s, that newfangled invention, the bicycle, had become a popular mode of transportation and exercise.

According to an April 1897 Medford Mail, when a party of cyclists stopped to rest in Jacksonville one Sunday afternoon, Neuber and a pal “borrowed” a couple of the “wheels”, presumably to take a spin around the block. Apparently Neuber wasn’t good at navigating turns. Although he fell at least once, tearing his pants and scraping his knee, he didn’t stop until he reached Medford…just in time to take the train back to Jacksonville.

All of those 1852 gold miners had to eat, and, according to A.G. Walling, Jacksonville’s first butcher shop had opened within the year.  Described as “one of the finest” (although we can’t imagine there was that much competition), it was owned by Henry Blecher, a native of Prussia.  Born in 1822, he had immigrated to the U.S. in 1848.  Undoubtedly, like many others, he followed the promise of riches to the West Coast.  By the beginning of 1854, he was carrying “a heavy stock.”  That undoubtedly included venison, chicken, pork, rabbit, beef, and probably sausage—common staples of the time. 

The shop appears to have been located on South Oregon between California and Main streets, probably where the Orth building now stands.  In fact, he may have joined or sold out to John Orth in the butcher business.  We do know that he regularly provisioned the Jackson County jail, and in December 1875, he delivered 70,000 pounds of beef at $4.49 per hundred pounds to the Indian agent at Yainax, Oregon.  He was regularly listed as one of Jackson County’s heaviest taxpayers. 

We’re not sure who his suppliers were, but Blecher did own 1283 acres of land on Poorman’s Creek, 3 miles south of Jacksonville on the road to Sterling.  We don’t know if he farmed or ranched the property, but 90 acres housed a dwelling, barn, and orchard.  A fair amount of the acreage appears to have been forested since in 1891 he was hauling wood for the Rogue River Valley Railway between Jacksonville and Medford.  Blecher passed away in 1900 at the age of 77.  His property was inherited by his half brother and sister and by 1902 the Jacksonville Lumber Company had established a sawmill on the “old Blecher place.”

A few hard facts and a lot of “probablies and maybes.”  Keep in mind there was no newspaper in Jacksonville until 1854 and earlier accounts rely on personal diaries, hearsay published in Portland or Yreka papers, and memoirs from much later years.  Such are the basis of much of our early history….

The Ish family plot is the most photographed plot in Jacksonville’s Pioneer Cemetery. Sarah’s husband, Jacob Ish, son of a Virginia plantation owner, had come west in 1861 to escape the Civil War.  He purchased 320 acres about three miles from Jacksonville and started a ranch, now the site of Ish Ranch Estates off West McAndrews.  When opportunity arose, Ish added to his holdings.  He eventually became one of the largest landowners in Jackson County with over 5,000 acres, including the site of the Medford Airport.  His fields were some of the most productive in the Valley, and his ranch became known for its “broad fertile acres, sturdy stock and immaculately maintained buildings.”  Ish’s holdings supplied government troops at Fort Klamath and stage stations from Grants Pass to San Francisco.

Sarah was actually Jacob’s 2nd wife.  He had originally married her sister Ellen.  In 1877, when Ellen was dying of cancer, Sarah had left Virginia and sailed around the horn to care for her, arriving 2 weeks too late.  Sarah stayed on to care for Jacob and Ellen’s daughter, Sophia, and her niece, Phenie.  A year later, Jacob and Sarah were married.

The marriage lasted 3 years.  In 1881, Jacob Ish died from bronchitis, leaving his wife Sarah one of the wealthiest women in the county.  A “woman of strong character and rare business ability,” Sarah managed the Ish ranch for the next 25 years until her death in 1906.

Stone mason J.C. Whipp came to Jacksonville from Portland in 1883 to build the foundation for Jackson County’s historic courthouse, including laying its cornerstone. He later became noted for his marble cemetery headstones, but he also built culverts and bridges. In 1887, he turned the Methodist Episcopal Church 180 degrees to face the new North 5th Street thoroughfare, and in 1893 he created a stone mantelpiece that won a blue ribbon at the Chicago World’s Fair.

James Cronemiller was born in 1863 a year before his father, blacksmith David Cronemiler, moved the family to Jacksonville. James initially followed in his father footsteps, working in the family smithy at the northeast corner of California and 3rd streets. An ambitious young man, James soon went out on his own.

In partnership with George Love, he operated Cronemiller & Love from at least 1896 to 1899, offering dry goods and groceries. It was one of the many businesses that occupied the 1872 Orth Building on South Oregon Street. In this historic photo, you can see John Orth on the far left, James Cronemiller (3rd man from the left), and George Love (2nd man from the right). More on James next week as he becomes a notable public servant.

In the winter of 1855, seasoned English traveler James Mason Hutchings spent time in Jacksonville, then a major hub in the vast Oregon Territory. He recorded the following in his diary: “The population is about 700 — 22 families — and over 200 families in the Rogue River Valley. There are 53 marriageable (women) within a circuit of 12 miles of Jacksonville — nine within Jacksonville”—and “there seems a number of long-faced religionists.”

He listed 10 stores, three boarding houses, one bowling alley, one saloon, four physicians, one tin shop, one meat market, one livery stable, one church and one schoolhouse. He also noted that apples grown in the Willamette Valley were being sold in Jacksonville for 90 cents a pound.

When merchant and civic leader John Bilger died in the 1877 cholera epidemic, he was one of the wealthiest men in Jacksonville. His monument in Jacksonville’s Pioneer Cemetery cost $1200—a princely sum at the time. A similar monument today would cost about $25,000. Bilger was a member of both the Masons and the Odd Fellows, and the Italian marble obelisk that marks his grave bears both the Masonic ruler and compass and the Odd Fellows linked circles. The hand pointing upward anticipates Bilger’s heavenly reward.

In the spring of 1878, John Hockenjos purchased the 100’ x 100’ northeast corner property fronting 5th Street between D and E streets in Jacksonville. By fall, the Oregon Sentinel announced Hockenjos’s intention to build “a number of new residences on the vacant lot back of the Methodist Episcopal Church, which he will offer for rent.” Hockenjos, a native of Baden, Germany, was a carpenter by training.

He had arrived in Jacksonville by the late 1860s and for roughly 25 years was one of the town’s most active builders. He is reported to have made repairs to the early wood frame Jackson County Courthouse and the County Clerk’s office, to have built the Sexton’s Toolhouse in Jacksonville’s Pioneer Cemetery, to have erected the Methodist Episcopal parsonage, and to have constructed and rented homes throughout town. Although Hockenjos built the house at 345 North 5th Street as a rental, the family also occupied it for some period of time. Hockenjos died in 1894, but his wife Eva retained ownership of this house until 1915.

Although Jacksonville’s City Administrative Offices are now housed in New City Hall (Jackson County’s historic 1883 Courthouse), for almost 40 years they were “temporarily” housed at 110 E. Main Street in what was once one of several elaborate “Queen Anne” style homes built in Jacksonville during the late 1800s.   The Queen Anne structures represented a movement away from earlier modest architectural styles to houses celebrating financial success. 

In 1883, John Miller had purchased the entire block, consisting at the time of 2 wood frame buildings and a dense thicket of trees, later referred to as an “orchard.”  However, it was almost 10 years later that the Queen Anne home was constructed at the corner of 3rd and E. Main using house plans published in one of architect George F. Barber’s pattern books. 

“Gunsmith” Miller, born in Bavaria, was one of Jacksonville’s many German-speaking settlers, arriving in Oregon in 1860.  Miller was probably the town’s most successful gunsmith.  For at least 20 years his Hunters’ Emporium on California Street specialized in guns, and later hardware and cutlery.  Given that the house was built around the time of Miller’s death, it may have been constructed by his son, John F. Miller, rather than “Gunsmith” Miller.  John F. continued to operate his father’s hardware store well into the 20th Century and also served as Jacksonville Postmaster from 1898 to 1913.  The Miller family occupied the home into the 1930s.

In early 1944, a fire destroyed the top floors of the house.  The owner at the time, Harold Lind, remodeled the surviving first floor into the current L-shaped structure.

You may be familiar with Ross Lane where it connects Old Stage and Hanley roads and then zigs and zags around Fry Family Farms and Channel 10 until it crosses Rossanley as far as Main Street.  Most likely these were the borders of Col. John Ross’ donation land claim.  Ross was an Indian fighter, treasure seeker, and entrepreneur.  He and Elizabeth Hopwood were also the first couple to be married in Jacksonville—complete with a town pump ceremony, bear grease wedding cake, and a pre-wedding jumping contest for the groom.  But that’s another story—one that you can read about in our Jacksonville Review’s Pioneer Profiles series at http://jacksonvillereview.com/colonel-john-england-ross-indian-fighter-part-3-carolyn-kingsnorth/

Ross led troops through all the Rogue and Modoc Indian Wars, eventually being named a Brigadier General of the Oregon Milita before assuming the role of “solid citizen.”  He also represented Jackson County in the Territorial Council in 1855-56, served as a member of the State House in 1860, and was elected a member of the State Senate in 1866. When the Oregon & California Railroad Company was formed, Ross was elected a director.  Ross served another term as state senator during which he chaired the military committee. In 1882, he retired to his farm on Ross Lane, having served the Oregon Territory and State for almost 50 years.

Now for the History Mystery. With all of Ross Lane’s meanderings, we have no idea where Ross’ farm and elaborate farmhouse were located other than this etching describing it as 3 miles NE of Jacksonville—which could put it anywhere within the landholdings indicated above.  We would be surprised if the house still existed, but….  We would welcome any knowledge you have to share!

The vernacular farmhouse at 675 E. California Street was built in 1878 for prominent local physician, Dr. Martin Vrooman. Born in New York in 1818, Vrooman apparently did have formal medical training since an Oregon Sentinel article described him as a “regular graduate” and not one of the “guessing school of physicians.” But like many others, Vrooman heard the call of gold and headed west. In 1850 he was mining in California on the Middle Fork of the American River.

He apparently alternated between mining and medicine, pursuing one or both in California and the Nevada Territory. Vrooman settled on medicine, arriving in Jacksonville in the early 1870s where he opened a practice. At some point he married divorcee Christina Strang—one source says early 1870s; a marriage certificate in the SOHS archives gives the date as 1878, around the same time his house was constructed. (The latter date would have been cause for scandal since their son Francis was born in 1876!) By 1881 Vrooman had added a drug store, the Jacksonville Dispensary.

But when the Oregon and California Railroad bypassed Jacksonville in 1883, Vrooman moved his practice and his drugstore to the new town of Medford and sold his Jacksonville home. Unfortunately, his son Francis died that same year, 1884, 1 day short of his 8th birthday. Vrooman himself died 7 months later in 1885 from “bronchial consumption,” i.e., tuberculosis.

Not only did Mary Ann Harris Chambers hold off an Indian attack that cost the lives of her first husband and son, she took in her daughter and 4 young grandchildren after her son-in-law died from tuberculosis in 1867. To accommodate 3 generations, she razed her old home and constructed what we know as the Harris Chambers house on Jacksonville’s North 3rd Street. When her daughter and a granddaughter died in a smallpox epidemic in 1869, she raised her 3 surviving grandchildren.

Following her second husband’s death 6 months later, she moved with all the grandchildren to his farm, located 1 ½ miles outside of Jacksonville next to the J. Herbert Stone Forest Service tree farm on what we now call Hanley Road. Mary Ann Harris Chambers picked up the pieces and went on with her life. After all, that’s what she had learned to do—she was a survivor.

Minerva Plymale Armstrong and her husband Robert traveled with her parents and siblings from Illinois to Oregon in 1852 along the Oregon Trail. They settled on a farm 4 miles north of Jacksonville at the base of the western hills overlooking the beautiful valley to the east of Old Stage Road. One of their 11 children, Cornelius Jasper Armstrong, born February 24, 1853, is a contender for the title of “first child born in Jacksonville.”

In 1890 the Armstrongs moved to town, purchasing the small “saltbox” style home at 375 E. California Street, historically known as the G.W. Cool house after the individual who constructed it around 1858. Cool had received his Doctor of Dental Surgery degree from the Baltimore College of Dentistry. He came to the West Coast in 1850, practicing first in British Columbia and then in Washington before settling in Oregon.

The house was both residence and dental office. However, his practice appears to have been lackluster since a mechanic’s lien for construction costs was attached against the property. By 1861 Cool had moved on to Portland. The next decade saw him in San Francisco where he did experience success and was one of the first members of the California State Dental Association.

Someone recently asked us about the building at 125 South 3rd Street in Jacksonville that now houses South Stage Cellars.  It’s sometimes known as the B.F. Dowell Law Office but that’s a misnomer—Dowell’s office was next door.  The building was originally P.J. Ryan’s “Dwelling House.”  

A 23-year-old Ryan, a native of Ireland, had arrived in Jacksonville no later than 1853.  That same year he purchased the Palmetto Bowling Saloon, marking the dawning of a career as one of the town’s earliest and longest-term commercial property investors.  His specialty became “fire proof” brick buildings.  He had acquired title to this lot by 1865 and probably constructed the current building that same year. 

There is no indication that Ryan actually “dwelled” here, but the term may refer to the use of the building as a hotel.  It appears to have been such from 1868 to 1871, and again from 1873 to 1883.  In other years it was a doctor’s office, a butcher shop, and an ice cream parlor.   In the 1960s it became the home of Robertson Collins, the individual credited with preventing Highway 238 from taking out 11 of Jacksonville’s historical homes and the leader of the organization that established the city’s National Historic Landmark status.

The building at 125 South 3rd Street in Jacksonville that now houses South Stage Cellars is sometimes known as the B.F. Dowell Law Office but that’s a misnomer—Dowell’s office was next door.  The building was originally P.J. Ryan’s “Dwelling House.”  

A 23-year-old Patrick Ryan, a native of Ireland, had arrived in Jacksonville no later than 1853.  That same year he purchased the Palmetto Bowling Saloon, marking the dawning of a career as one of the town’s earliest and longest-term commercial property investors.  His specialty became “fire proof” brick buildings.  He had acquired title to this lot by 1865 and probably constructed the current building that same year. 

There is no indication that Ryan actually “dwelled” here, but the term may refer to the use of the building as a hotel.  It appears to have been such from 1868 to 1871, and again from 1873 to 1883.  In other years it was a doctor’s office, a butcher shop, and an ice cream parlor.   In the 1960s it became the home of Robertson Collins, the individual credited with preventing Highway 238 from taking out 11 of Jacksonville’s historical homes and the leader of the organization that established the city’s National Historic Landmark status.

Have you ever wondered about the stone foundation in the lower Britt Gardens? It’s a 1976 reconstruction of the footprint of Peter Britt’s home that burned in 1960. As pioneer photographer Peter Britt’s enterprises expanded over the years, his Jacksonville home on Britt hill became a reflection of his growing prosperity. By 1854, the dugout log cabin that served as both living quarters and daguerreotype studio seemed crude and confining. He cleared ground for a new one-story studio and residence which he constructed in front of the old cabin. This small studio remained the core of Britt’s home as numerous additions were made over the years. Its original Classic Revival style was transformed into one of the first Cottage Gothic dwellings in Southern Oregon complete

Do you remember when 1-Hour Photo Service became popular?  Jacksonville’s famed pioneer photographer, Peter Britt, offered the service in the mid-1800s—100 years before it became trendy again!  And it seems that Britt’s exotic gardens were not only a regional horticultural and tourist attraction, they were also part of his 1-hour service.  Historic Jacksonville, Inc. came across the following notice in a June 17, 1865, “Oregon Sentinel” newspaper: 
 

“PHOTOGRAPHY—Those who wish to see the art of photography in all its branches and in its greatest perfection would do well to visit the rooms of Peter Britt at his residence. No one can spend an hour better than to go there, get his picture, and see the pictures and flowers.”
 

It seems Britt’s gardens were as much a business decision as anything. Apparently, Britt was able to develop, print, and mount his photos in about an hour.  Customers choosing to wait for their finished images could explore Britt’s gardens and gallery, making the time lapse entertaining instead of boring! 

Did you know that Sarah Ish was one of the richest women in the Rogue Valley? 

The Ish family plot is the most photographed plot in Jacksonville’s Pioneer Cemetery. Sarah’s husband, Jacob Ish, son of a Virginia plantation owner, had come west in 1861 to escape the Civil War.  He purchased 320 acres about three miles from Jacksonville and started a ranch, now the site of Ish Ranch Estates off West McAndrews.  When opportunity arose, Ish added to his holdings.  He eventually became one of the largest landowners in Jackson County with over 5,000 acres, including the site of the Medford Airport.  His fields were some of the most productive in the Valley, and his ranch became known for its “broad fertile acres, sturdy stock and immaculately maintained buildings.”  Ish’s holdings supplied government troops at Fort Klamath and stage stations from Grants Pass to San Francisco.

Sarah was actually Jacob’s 2nd wife.  He had originally married her sister Ellen.  In 1877, when Ellen was dying of cancer, Sarah had left Virginia and sailed around the horn to care for her, arriving 2 weeks too late.  Sarah stayed on to care for Jacob and Ellen’s daughter, Sophia, and her niece, Phenie.  A year later, Jacob and Sarah were married.

The marriage lasted 3 years.  In 1881, Jacob Ish died from bronchitis, leaving his wife Sarah one of the wealthiest women in the county.  A “woman of strong character and rare business ability,” Sarah managed the Ish ranch for the next 25 years until her death in 1906.

Thomas Fletcher Royal, who raised the money for and oversaw the completion of Jacksonville’s St. Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church in 1854, preached for over 50 years becoming one of the most widely known and longest serving pioneer clergyman in the Pacific Northwest. The Jacksonville circuit was his first Oregon assignment. In addition to filling multiple pulpits, he was also heavily involved in education.

He played a major role in the development of Jackson County’s early school system and served as the first superintendent of Jackson County School District #1. After leaving Jacksonville in the early 1860s, he served as Principal of Douglas County’s Umpqua Academy, Principal of the Portland Academy and Female Seminary, teacher and clerk for the Siletz Indian reservation, and Superintendent of the Klamath Indian Mission and Boarding School.

When he returned to pastoral duties, he served numerous churches. Even after “retiring”, he continued preaching, ministering to the convicts of the Salem Penitentiary and the inmates of the Salem Insane Asylum.

In the block next to the Interpretive Center in Jacksonville’s Pioneer Cemetery there is a marker shaped like an open book, a Victorian symbol for immortality. It reads William Green T’Vault, 1809-1869. T’Vault was a brilliant writer and journalist.

He published the first newspaper in the Pacific Northwest, The Oregon Spectator¸ and the first newspaper in Southern Oregon, the Table Rock Sentinel. T’Vault was also a lawyer and a politician, at different times serving as provisional legislator, state legislator, Speaker of the House, and District Attorney.

He co-authored with Joseph Lane the laws that governed the Territory until Oregon became a state in 1859. He was the last victim of the 1869 smallpox epidemic, a disease so feared that not a single mourner attended his burial.

It’s perfect weather for hiking one of the Jacksonville Woodlands most popular trails—the Sarah Zigler Trail along Jackson Creek.  But who was Sarah Zigler and why does she have a trail as a namesake? 

Well, the first part is easy.  Sarah Plymale Zigler was the daughter of Gabriel Plymale, one of the “first comers” to the new mining camp.  He died from typhoid fever 3 weeks after his arrival in October 1852 and has the distinction of being the first person to be buried in Jacksonville.  In 1854, a 15-year-old Sarah married Louis Zigler, miner, blacksmith, proprietor of the Adams Hotel, and at one time the County Sheriff. 

Now for the second part.  In 1878, Peter Britt sold Sarah 8 acres of his property for $1.  Although no one really knows why, it could be because Britt and Louis Zigler had been partners in mining that 200-foot wide and 3/8 of a mile long stretch of land along Jackson Creek.  At the height of their mine’s production, Zigler and Britt were taking out about $1280 in gold per day.

Sarah’s granddaughter donated the property to the Jacksonville Woodlands Association, and you can now explore it via the 0.7-mile Zigler trail that begins in the lower Britt Gardens.  If you hike the Trail within the next few weeks, you can experience riches of a different kind—a wealth of spring wildflowers including Wake Robin, Bleeding Heart, and the rare Gentner’s Fritillaria, found only in this region!

We knew that the Von Helms family, the original owners of Jacksonville’s 1860 Table Rock Billiard Saloon and the lovely 1878 Italianate style home at the corner of South Oregon and Pine streets, suffered several family tragedies.  Three daughters died in epidemics.  Another was murdered, but we’ve only recently come across more details.  Not that we would gossip, but….

It seems that daughter Anna had married Frederick B. Martin, a salesman for the Pacific Biscuit Company.  He was their Portland representative; she ran a fashionable Portland boarding house, the Ella, at the corner of Ella and Washington streets.  Anna’s older sister Emma helped run the boarding house. 

Reportedly, the Martins’ marriage was “stormy.”  When Martin was “discharged” from the biscuit company in 1906, he abandoned Anna and left for California.  When he returned to Portland at the end of the year, Anna refused to live with him or reconcile.  Martin blamed his sister-in-law Emma for interfering.

On January 6, 1907, Martin went to the Ella and gained admission to his wife’s apartments.  There he shot both Anna and Emma then went to the basement where he killed himself.  Anna was wounded; Emma died.  What transpired before the shooting is unknown since Anna was in hysterics.

Anna eventually remarried.  Both Anna and Emma are buried in the Helms family plot in the Odd Fellows section of Jacksonville’s Pioneer Cemetery.