History of Oregon Literature/Chapter 33

by Alfred Powers

CHAPTER 33

Descriptive Prose Writers

The present area of Oregon is 95,607 square miles, considerably more than 1,000 square miles being water surface. The state ranks ninth in size in the union. The state has 300 miles of coast line, exclusive of indentations. The width east and west is about 350 miles, the length north and south averaging approximately 275 miles.

The Oregon Blue Book.

Oregon with its fascinating diversity of physical characteristics, the wide range of experience afforded to its people and its lingering individualities of cul ture, has provided an extensive field for descriptive writers, whose larger quantity of composition has been printed in newspapers, magazines and pamphlets rather than in books. Since experience and observation are usually mixed to form a combined subjective and objective interpretation of a local environment, this becomes a significant type of regional expression j and has in addition a folk, aspect because so many write it. Instead of a complete bibliography of Oregon books of description, which are themselves in small proportion to the total amount otherwise printed, a representative group of writers in this field will be listed to show the richness and variety of their subject matter.

Some of the special bibliographies, particularly in outdoor fields, indicate the large amount of description and exposition that have been written on Oregon subjects. Bibliography of Oregon Geology, published by the University of Oregon in 1926, gives a total of 1001 items ranging in importance from short magazine articles to books. Bibliography of the Cascade Mountains, printed as early as 1905 in Mazama, contains 159 references, exclusive of those to Mount Rainier, and mentions articles in 18 outside magazines.

Although only a few individual books are considered here, description, if the best of it were dug out of the old newspapers and magazines, would form the bulkiest portion of Oregon literature, exceeding even the history and going greatly beyond the fiction and poetry. One woman put her homesteading experiences in a book which the Chicago publishers remember 30 years later as having been popular. A visiting poet spent seven weeks on the Willamette in a flat bottomed boat and made the adventure into a charming volume. In many interesting ways the material has been used, but the quantity is so great and so varied that there still remain all sorts of delightful unwritten books.

George E. Cole. Early Oregon, Spokane, 1905.

This first appeared as a series of articles in the Sunday Oregonian in 1901.

Sam J. Cotton. Stories of Nehalem, Chicago, 1915.

Jeremiah Curtin. Myths of the Modocs, Boston, 1912.

Allen H. Eaton. The Oregon System: The Story of Direct Legislation in Oregon, Chicago, 1912.

Allen H. Eaton was born in Union County in 1878 and was graduated from the University of Oregon in 1902. For many years he ran a book and art store in Eugene. Beginning in 1906, he served several terms in the Oregon legislature. For a while previous to the War he was an instructor of art in the University of Oregon. He was a pioneer on the Pacific Coast in advancing the public appreciation of art, and in recent years he has been carrying on this work, in New York.

George Estes. The Rawhide Railroad, Canby, Oregon, 1916; The Old Cedar School, Portland, 1922; The Wayfaring Man, Portland, 1922; The Stagecoach, Cedarwood, Oregon, 1925.

The following note about George Estes is from Old Oregon, the alumni magazine of the University of Oregon, where he was graduated, with an LL.B. degree, in 1915:

"Writing about Oregon's early days and legal work in Portland occupy the time of George Estes. Already accepted as an Oregon author by critics because of some half dozen books, Mr. Estes has as many more in process of preparation or completed and ready for the printer. Naturalist as well as historian and teller of tales is Mr. Estes. One of his forthcoming books will have to do with Oregon forest folk, a story amongst animals. A deal of it is taken from Hudson's Bay Company records.

"The Rawhide Railroad, 1916, and The Stagecoach, 1925, have received perhaps the most publicity, the one for its review by Emerson Hough in the Saturday Evening Post. From that a friendship arose between the two men lasting until the death of Mr. Hough.

"Mr. Estes' information for both books came at first hand. He was at one time chief spokesman for the railroad trainmen and workers in a successful strike of the Pacific Coast region. Data for The Stagecoach came from his observations at his boyhood home where his father maintained a depot for the early horse stagecoaches, and from family records. Mr. Estes' books are printed privately."

William Lovell Finley. American Birds, New York, 1907; Little Bird Blue, Boston, 1915; Wild Animal Pets, New York, 1928.

William L. Finley is a naturalist who has worked effectively for a quarter of century for the preservation of wild life in Oregon—building up public attitudes, promoting protective legislation and getting the Federal reservations set aside. He was born in California on August 9, 1876, and came to Oregon at the age of eleven. He was graduated from the University of California in 1903. He was a writer on the staff of the Review of Reviews Company from 1904 to 1905. The next year he began lecturing for the National Association of Audubon Societies, a service he continued for 19 years. He was Oregon state game warden from 1911 to 1915; state biologist from 1915 to 1920; and member of the state game commission from 1925 to 1927. He is a member of the editorial board of Outdoor America and has been on the editorial staff of Nature Magazine since 1923. In addition to his books, he has written numerous popular and scientific articles on bird and animal life, is the author of two bulletins on Oregon birds, and is the producer of well-known motion picture films on nature subjects. In 1891 he was married to Irene Barnhart of California, who collaborated with him in writing Little Bird Blue and Wild Animal Pets. Their home is at Jennings Lodge, between Portland and Oregon City.

Charles Wellington Furlong. Let 'er Buck, New York,

1921.

This book was issued during prosperous times in the wheat country and various merchants of Pendleton separately subscribed for enough copies to make a fair edition for some books.

It was published by George Palmer Putnam, who ran the Bend Bulletin for a while and was twice mayor of Bend, and was secretary to the governor of Oregon from 1914 to 1917, and wrote In the Oregon Country, and later married Amelia Earhart. In the intro- duction to Let 'er Buck he has described the author as follows:

"Charles Wellington Furlong is an ideal author for such an epic of the out-of-doors. He knows. He has lived the life of which he writes. . . . What an adventuresome, varied life our author has led! Explorer, painter, writer, university professor, lecturer, soldier, publicist! He has painted in Paris and been a Professor at Cornell. He has written half a dozen successful books and countless magazine articles. . . He has lectured on art in Boston and fought desert thieves in the Sahara. He has ridden with the wild tribesmen of Morocco and cow-punched with the Vaqueros of the Venezuelan llanos. . . . And naturally he loves the ways of the Old West, so gloriously repictured, in action and spirit, each year at the Pendleton Round-Up—and loves the Round-Up itself, whose story as here recorded becomes a lasting chapter in the history of the well-won West."

J. Frank Hanley. A Day in the Siskiyous: An Oregon Extravaganza, Indianapolis, 1916.

Leslie L. Haskin. Wild Flowers of the Pacific Coast, Portland, 1934.

Leslie L. Haskin is a photographer and botanist of Brownsville. With his wife, Lilian G. Haskin, he tramped over much territory to get the numerous flower pictures and flower descriptions in the 400 pages of his book. In their field collaboration, Mrs. Haskin "has patiently carried heavy floral loads for me up many a steep trail— never down, she insists—her husband being the only person ingenious enough to leave camp in the morning and return in the evening, having gone up hill the whole day, both coming and going!"

Jeff W. Hayes. Tales of the Sierras, Portland, 1905; Looking Backward at Portland—"Devoted to the Old Timer of the Early 80's, with Humorous and Interesting Stories and Historical Data"—Portland, 1911; Portland, Oregon,

A. D. 1999, and Other Sketches—also published under the title Paradise on Earth—Portland, 1913; Autographs and Memoirs of the Telegraph, Adrian, Michigan, 1916; Pleiades Club: Life on Planet Mars, Portland, 1917.

Jeff W. Hayes was a blind telegrapher who took up literature after he lost his sight. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, on March 30, 1858, he began the study of telegraphy at the age of 14, after at- tending a Catholic academy. He came to Virginia City in 1877 as operator for the Western Union. Later he became one-third owner of a profitable mine, but afterwards lost his money through stock speculation in San Francisco. He then managed the military tele- graph in Arizona during the Apache War in 1881, coming to Port- land the following year and remaining as a telegrapher until 1894, when he lost his sight. After spending $30,000 in search of a cure, he became reconciled to his blindness and "was forced to admit the one defeat of his life." After learning the typewriter he was for several months a press operator for the Cleveland Plaindealer. He returned to Oregon to seek a similar position but was unable to find it. In 1901 he established in Portland the Hasty Messenger and Express Company, which had about 30 miles of private wire in the city. When his first book, Tales of the Sierras, was published in 1905, John W Mackay took an interest in its success, having copies "sent to every cable station and office in the world." He later became edi- tor of the American Telegrapher, established for a while in Los Angeles and moved in 1914 to Portland. After his blindness he was married and became the father of two children, was successful in his business enterprises and wrote five books.

Paul Hosmer. Now We're Loggin', Portland, 1930.

Paul Hosmer lives at Bend, where he is publicity man for a large lumber mill. The essays in his book first appeared in the Four L Lumber News of Portland, and the Deschutes Pine Echoes, which he edited at Bend. Stewart H. Holbrook says of him: "Mr. Hosmer is no academic gentleman writing in an amused and detached prose about strange freaks known as lumberjacks. Hardly. He knows his timber and the men who cut it'"

G. W. Kennedy. The Pioneer Camp fire, Portland, 1914.

"With the Emigrants on the Plains, With the Settlers in Log Cabin Homes, With the Hunters and Miners, With the Preachers on the Trails, at Campmeetings and in Log Cabins."

The Reverend G. W. Kennedy was a pioneer Methodist circuit rider who "rode over all the Eastern Oregon country in the early days." He crossed the plains to Oregon in 1853. He was a student at Pacific University at the same time Harvey W. Scott was there.

In 1868 he taught a district school near Marquam. While out deer hunting on a Saturday he and a companion found deer tracks all about a bubbling fountain. They stooped down to drink and thus discovered Wilhoit Springs. In his old age he retired to a ranch home west of Hood River.

Herbert Sheldon Lampman. Northwest Nature Trails, Portland, 1933.

Herbert Sheldon Lampman is the son of Ben Hur Lampman. He was born in North Dakota on March 18, 1907, and at the age of five came to Southern Oregon, where his father ran the Gold Hill News. Four years later he moved to Portland, receiving his educa- tion in the elementary schools, in Washington High School and in Hill Military Academy. He has been a reporter for the Portland News and the Spokane Press, and is now on the news staff of the Oregonian. He was a second lieutenant in the army during the War. Stanton C. Lapham. The Enchanted Lake, Portland, 1931.

Agnette Midgarden Lohn. The Voice of the Big Firs— a story of the Hood River Valley—Fosston, Minnesota, 1918.

William Rogers Lord. A First Book Upon the Birds of Oregon and Washington, Portland, 1901. The first edition was published by the author. Later editions in 1902 and 1913 were published by the J. K. Gill Company. William D. Lyman. The Columbia River: Its History, Its Myths, Its Scenery, Its Commerce. New York, 1909. Wallis Nash. Oregon, There and Back in 1877, London, 1878; Two Years in Oregon, New York, 1882. Mae Celeste Post. Loitering in Oregon, Portland, 1914. Will E. Purdy. Sixteen Years in Oregon, Portland, 1912. S. A. D. Puter and Horace Stevens. Looters of the Public Domain, Portland, 1908.

From the introduction by Horace Stevens: "From the dismal re- cesses of a prison cell, S. A. D. Puter, the acknowledged leader of the Oregon land-fraud ring, who was pardoned by the President, December 31, 1907, after serving 17 months of a two-years' sentence in the Multnomah County jail for conspiracy to defraud the gov- ernment of its public lands, has sent forth through these p series of narratives that is reasonably certain to stimulate deliberate thought and give expression to intelligent opinion in every quarter penetrated by the recitals."

G. Harvey Ralphson. Boy Scouts in a Motorboat; or, Adventures on the Columbia River, Chicago, 1912. Thomas H. Rogers. Nehalem, a Story of the Pacific, A. D. 1700, McMinnville, 1898} Beeswax and Gold, Portland, 1925.

For many years Thomas H. Rogers was a druggist in McMinnville. He was born on a donation claim near that town on May 31, 1862. He attended McMinnville College and later went to Alaska in a gold rush. For three years he did newspaper work in Portland. Dallas Lore Sharp. Where Rolls the Oregon, Boston, 1914.

"It was not to write a book that I visited the Northwest. One need not go so far from Massachusetts to do that. ... I spent the summer of 1912 in Oregon, studying the wild life of the State, the fish and game, and particularly the work of the Game Warden in its educational aspects. 1 took no pencil with me for fear I might write my eyes out. And Nature hates an interviewer anyway. So this volume is not a series of notes, but a group of impressions, deep, indelible impressions of the vast outdoors of Oregon. 'Vast' is the right word for Oregon, vast and varied,—the most alluring land to the naturalist within the compass of our coasts."

Dallas Lore Sharp, in addition to being a naturalist, was for many years professor of English in Boston University. He studied theology and was pastor of a New England church before he became a teacher.

James N. Stacy—"Uncle Jim". Sage of Waha: The Mountain Gem Humorist on Land and on Sea, Portland, 1902.

"Of all the books, for fun and rhyme, Since Adam swung his garden gate, There's no book that's up to time With Waha's book—it's up to date."

"This little book consists chiefly of incidents occurring in my own experience during a somewhat venturesome life, spent in the Pacific Coast states, beginning in the Nineties. Many of these stories have been told to friends of my acquaintance, and some have appeared in print. I have been assured that they have afforded a great d eal of

amusement to those who have listened to them, and I have been induced to publish them, in the hope that they may amuse others. Should this little book please you, I shall be pleased. Yours truly,

UNCLE JIM.

William Gladstone Steel. The Mountains of Oregon. Portland, 1890.

Born in Ohio in 1854, William G. Steel picked up as a boy an old newspaper that happened to contain an article on Crater Lake, which took such forcible and sustained hold on his imagination that he could not get it out of his mind. He came to Oregon in 1872, at the age of 18, and first visited the lake in 1885. He launched the first boat Iooo feet down its precipitous walls and had charge of the first soundings that showed a maximum depth of 2008 feet. He did much to have it set aside as Crater Lake National Park, of which he was later superintendent. The first article in The Mountains of Oregon is entitled “Illumination of Mount Hood”, which many years later served as the basis for the fiction story, “The Fourth of the Far Fifteen” in the book Marooned in Crater Lake. For a while, beginning in 1906, William G. Steel edited and published a little magazine called Steel Points.

Louise G. Stephens. Letters from an Oregon Ranch, Chicago, 1905.

First published in the Oregonian. Called From an Oregon Ranch in another edition printed in 1916.

Charles H. Sternberg. Life of a Fossil Hunter, New York, 1909.

Sixty pages of this book describe the expedition to the Oregon desert in 1877.

Frances Staver Twining. Bird Watching in the West, Portland, 1933.

Mrs. Frances Staver Twining was born in Wisconsin in 1873 and was graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1899. “Ten years later she was married to C. W. Twining, a banker, and as- sumed the mothering of his eight children. When the children were grown and away to homes of their own, she turned to writing.” The Twinings moved from Wisconsin to Oregon in 1913 and live in the country, at Glenmorrie, a few miles south of Portland. Chandler Bruer Watson. Prehistoric Siskiyou Island and Marble Halls of Oregon, Ashland, 1909.

Marguerite Wilkinson. The Dingbat of Arcady, New York, 1922.

Mrs. Marguerite Wilkinson was a 39-year-old poet and writer, who spent a winter in Oregon, “where, in one of the schools or col- leges, her husband had been teaching. In the spring, with text books closed, this couple, who seem to know every line of nature's lore, went to Albany and there in the shadow of a sawmill on the river's bank . . . the ‘Dingbat of Arcady', flat-bottomed and slow, came into being.” The trip down the Willamette from Albany consumed seven weeks. She was already the author of two books before she wrote this one out of her Oregon experiences, and has since written several others.

Harry Young. Hard Knocks—“A Life Story of the Vanishing West”—Portland, 1915.

The life described by him was spent in such romantic places as Dodge City, Fort Laramie, Cheyenne, Custer City, and Deadwood, and in association with such celebrities as Wild Bill; Kirt Gordon, the buffalo hunter; Calamity Jane; California Joe, the Black Hills guide; and Jim Duncan, the great wagonmaster. He came to Port- land in 1878 and secured a job as riding steward for the firm that had the contract to board the white men at work building the Northern Pacific Railroad—about 30 camps and about 6,000 men. Re- turning to Portland, he was in the baggage and transfer business for six years and was a traveling passenger agent for the Oregon Railroad & Navigation Company for five years. In 1898 he joined the Alaska gold rush. After his return he lived for a while in Seattle, then came to Portland, where he wrote and published his book and brought the first buffalo to the city, the ancestors of the ones in the park now. There were two of these animals, for which he paid $1000 apiece. He sold both of them to the park bureau for $750.