We’re eating crow.  As noted when we started on the subject of “firsts,” claims can be unreliable since “firsts” are usually awarded in retrospect and memories can be unreliable.  Information can also be missing.  And we just came across information that restores the title of “first white child born in Jacksonville” to Cornelius Jasper Armstrong! 

When Robert and Minerva Armstrong arrived in Jacksonville in October of 1852, Robert built a “pole cabin” on the site of what is now known as the “Judge Hanna House” at 285 South 1^st Street.  That’s where Cornelius Jasper Armstrong was born on February 24, 1853.  It was later that spring that the Armstrongs traded the pole cabin and a hack to a Mr. Rogers for the donation land claim about 4 miles north of town that the Armstrong family occupied for the next 37 years.

So Cornelius Jasper was indeed born in Jacksonville! 

In January 1853, Col. John England Ross and Elizabeth Hopwood were married—the second wedding in Jackson County and the first in Jacksonville.  Naturally, all the town folk were invited.  Elizabeth had a special wedding dress made for the ceremony, but Ross had nothing but his buckskins.  The ladies of Jacksonville fretted over this lack of proper wedding attire. 

Jane McCully offered Ross a white shirt that belonged to her husband, but Dr. McCully’s smaller stature meant the fit was strained at best.  When the nervous bridegroom joined a jumping contest with some of the men attending the ceremony, Ross’s exuberance split the shirt down the back.  Jane quickly poked holes down each side of the split, laced it together with string, and the wedding proceeded as planned.

With no church and no place large enough to accommodate everyone, Ross and Elizabeth were married on the corner of Main and Oregon next to the town pump, even though it was early January.  The Methodist preacher, Reverend Gilbert, presided.  The groom was 35; the bride, 18.

The occasion was obvious cause for a jubilee.  A progressive supper went house to house, ending with a spectacular wedding cake improvised from duck eggs, brown sugar, and bear suet.  A grand ball, probably at one of the local saloons, capped the evening. 

Catholic Academy School #2

St. Mary’s School holds a prominent role in Southern Oregon today, but it traces its beginning to 1865 Jacksonville when Rev. Francis Xavier Blanchet, priest of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, asked the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary to open a school in town.  Blanchet collected money and used it to purchase the block bounded by North 5th and 6th and East D and E streets. He spent $642.50 for the property with its two buildings and $1,400 for a piano, leaving less than $100 for furniture.

When Sister Mary of the Seven Dolores, Sister Mary Febronia, and Sister Mary Zotique arrived from their convent in Montreal, they found their new home had a piano, six chairs, and a table. They spent their first night on the floor on mattresses loaned by neighbors.

The Sisters opened St. Mary’s Academy in the original portion of what is still known as the Catholic Academy building at the corner of 5th and D. They divided the 16-foot by 58-foot one-story structure into five rooms which were used as chapel, parlor, community room, refectory, and classrooms. The house on the adjoining lot became a dormitory for boarders. The school opened on September 11, 1865, with one boarding student; by the end of the school year there were 12 boarders and 33 day students.

The Sisters gained community support when a smallpox epidemic struck in August 1868. For two months, two of the Sisters visited the homes of the “plague-stricken” day and night, tending to their needs.  When the number of cases subsided in April, convalescing patients were taken to the local hospital. The exhausted nuns found consolation in having baptized a number of patients. They also earned the respect of local residents.

Abraham Fisher House

As you stroll up East Main Street to the Britt Festival grounds, at 230 South 1st Street—the corner of 1st and Main—you pass the Abraham Fisher House with its large sequoias and monkey puzzle tree.  Fisher constructed the central portion of the house around 1860, although the lot was not deeded to him until 1866.  Fisher had arrived in Jacksonville around 1853.  Joined by his brother Newman, the mercantile firm of A. Fisher and Brother was one of the earliest advertisers in Jacksonville’s first newspaper, the “Table Rock Sentinel.” 

The Fisher brothers were certainly successful. By 1860, the brothers had constructed a warehouse near Fisher’s residence and 2 years later established a “branch store” in Josephine County. With $3,000 in real estate and $13,000 in personal property, Abraham Fisher was the third heaviest taxpayer in Jackson County in 1870. 

Fisher relocated to San Francisco in 1878 although he retained interests in other local enterprises along with ownership of various pieces of property. His 3-year-old son is buried in the Jewish section of Jacksonville’s Pioneer Cemetery.

Historic Jacksonville shares tidbits from Jacksonville history every Tuesday on our Facebook page. Like us at Historic Jacksonville (historicjville) and enjoy our tales and stories of the people and places that made Jacksonville the major hub of southern Oregon in the late 1800s.  And visit the Southern Oregon Historical Society Library and Archives for access to the historical images included in our posts.

Jacksonville’s Warren Lodge No. 10 of the Ancient Free & Accepted Masons, founded in 1855, was the first Masonic order south of Salem to construct a meeting hall.  The original 1858 lodge building stood on the block now occupied by new City Hall (the historic County Courthouse).  The current Masonic temple at the corner of California and Oregon streets was constructed between 1874 and 1877 by brick mason George Holt.  Carpenter and builder David Linn added a “neat and substantial balcony.”  When it was completed in 1877, it was described as “one of the finest buildings in Southern Oregon.”  It remains the oldest temple structure in Oregon in continuous use as a Masonic meeting hall.

Following a visit to Jacksonville in 1877, J.W. Bird, editor of the “Yreka Union,” wrote, “There are several fine brick buildings, especially the one recently erected by the Masonic fraternity at a cost of $12,000. It is two-story, and besides a very fine lodge room has a large club room also in the second story. The first floor is readily rented for business purposes.”

At the time of construction, the Worshipful Master presiding over the Warren Lodge was Thomas Reames.  Reames is credited with the concept of including retail space on the first floor of the Lodge which enabled the Lodge to operate from income received from the rentals. In the 1880s, a “City Brewery,” “Saloon,” and “Bakery” occupied the ground floor.  In the early 1890s, the post office and a cigar store were located on the first floor and later a “furniture warehouse.” Today the ground level is home to La Boheme, the Jacksonville Barber Shop, and Jefferson Farm Kitchen.

June 2, 2015

Dr. John Robinson, the most popular doctor in Jacksonville in the late 1800s and at one time a partner in the Kahler Drug Store, built this elegant Queen Anne style home on North Oregon Street in the 1890s, near the Jeremiah Nunan estate. Both houses were built from the same architectural catalog, “The Cottage Souvenir” published by George F. Barber. The Robinson home burned to the ground in the 1930s.

March 31, 2015

Frank TouVelle, who built Jacksonville, Oregon’s “Orchard Boom” Craftsman house at 455 N. Oregon Street, was elected Jackson County Judge from 1913 through 1916. During his tenure, he successfully campaigned for improvement of County roads. Later, as State Highway Commissioner, he was directly responsible for the construction of Highway 99 that followed the earlier routes of Indian trail, Toll Road, and Pacific Highway over the Siskiyous. Read more about Oregon’s Main Street in the April 2015 issue of The Jacksonville Review!

November 25, 2014

South Stage Cellars, at 125 South 3rd Street in Jacksonville, has had many incarnations. Built around 1865 by Irish immigrant P.J. Ryan as his residence, it subsequently housed hotels, a restaurant, a doctor’s office, a butcher shop, an ice cream parlor, and a saloon. 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.