USA > Oregon > Douglas County > History of southern Oregon, comprising Jackson, Josephine, Douglas, Curry and Coos counties, comp. from the most authentic sources > Part 64
USA > Oregon > Jackson County > History of southern Oregon, comprising Jackson, Josephine, Douglas, Curry and Coos counties, comp. from the most authentic sources > Part 64
USA > Oregon > Josephine County > History of southern Oregon, comprising Jackson, Josephine, Douglas, Curry and Coos counties, comp. from the most authentic sources > Part 64
USA > Oregon > Coos County > History of southern Oregon, comprising Jackson, Josephine, Douglas, Curry and Coos counties, comp. from the most authentic sources > Part 64
USA > Oregon > Curry County > History of southern Oregon, comprising Jackson, Josephine, Douglas, Curry and Coos counties, comp. from the most authentic sources > Part 64
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CHAPTER LVI.
NORTHERN SECTION OF THE COUNTY.
Applegate Creek-Williams' Creek-Murphy's Creek-Slate Creek-Galice Creek-A Quartz Excitement Origin of Names-Romance of Grave Creek-Lucky Queen and Other Mines-The Oregon and Cali- fornia Railroad-Tunnels-Reminiscences-Hungry Hill-In Memorium.
Crossing the water-shed to the north of Illinois valley, the traveler comes to the Applegate river or creek, a considerable stream, which, as before said, rises in Jackson county and flows northwest into Rogue river, near the center of Josephine county. It is a noted stream, made so by the mining operations which have been carried on upon its banks since the earliest years. Its valley is not very extensive, but quite a number of farms have been cultivated there, and the soil is found to be very productive, and particularly favorable to the growth of fruit trees. The Redlands nursery, the most extensive establishment of the kind in the whole region, is a fine example of the capacity of the soil for plant and tree growing. This is located on the Applegate, at the mouth of Oscar creek, a small tributary. Some 6,000 young trees, principally apple, pear, plum and peach trees, have been set out by A. H. Carson, the owner, and are thriving luxuriantly.
Applegate creek receives several affluents in Josephine county, the principal ones being Williams', Murphy's and Slate creeks, all of which rise in the divide between Applegate and Illinois rivers, and flow north or northeast into the former stream. The first of these is a stream of some celebrity, both as a mining aud an agricultural region. Williams' creek was named for Captain Robert Williams, the noted Indian fighter, who skirmished with the natives on this creek in 1853. Previously, a detach- ment of another company, under B. B. Griffin, fought the same enemy, losing two men. The placers of Williams' creek remained untouched until 1859, when nearly every other deposit in the county had been worked, and most of them exhausted. In that year the town of Williamsburg, situated upon the creek in the midst of the newly discovered placers, was founded, and grew rapidly. Several families resided there, and at one time a dozen trading posts were in operation. About 300 miners were working in the immediate neighborhood, some of whom made twenty dollars per day each. A school house was erected, a tri-weekly stage made trips to Jacksonville, and the place had become a worthy successor of Browntown and Sailor Diggings, in the matter of liveliness and importance. C. W. Savage kept a hotel and lodging house, and Duncan put up a saw mill two miles below town and did a large business in the manufacture and sale of lumber. J. T. Layton, still a resident of the vicinity, and for many years a very prominent miner, devised a plan for bringing water to the dig- gings, and in company with Maury, Davis and O'Neil, completed nine miles of ditch, which first delivered a stream of water in Williamsburg on August 11, 1859. Thus
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JOSEPHINE COUNTY.
within a few months the camp had become an important one and prosperity abounded. In due time the mines were exhausted, and the busy workers sought other fields. Williamsburg became an abandoned mining camp, a type of the thousands of other deserted villages of the same sort. But the creek still retains some importance by reason of the deep gravel deposits found there, which require hydraulic apparatus to work them. Mr. Layton has remained on the spot and conducted some heavy opera- tions, frequently with success. A generation of farmers have occupied and cultivated the fertile valley of Williams' creek, where their farms have the advantages of excel- lent soil, as good as any in Southern Oregon, and there is a sufficiency of water. They have organized themselves into an association called Washington Grange, which dates its beginning from 1875, and possess a hall and a store, valued in all at $5,000. W. W. Fiddler had the honor of being the first master of this Grange, a gentleman of literary ability, and who, while residing here, wrote an interesting account of the remarkable cave on Williams' creek, which is one of the wonders of this region and a rival in some degree to the famous Mammoth and Luray caves of the Eastern states. It is limestone and contains a complex series of rooms and passages adorned with bean- tiful stalactites and stalagmites, produced by the continually dripping of water which holds lime in solution and deposits it when exposed to the air.
Some miles below the mouth of Williams' creek, the stream called Murphy's creek, flows into the Applegate. This is a small water-course named for Barney Murphy, who, in 1852, took the first land claim ever held in the vicinity. His location was near the mouth of the creek. Upon the stream are a grist mill and saw mill, driven by water-power ; and near the mouth is the postoffice and way-station named Murphy, kept now by James Wimer. This station is upon the stage road leading from Jack- sonville to Josephine, which follows along the south side of the Applegate. Murphy's creek, and its vicinity contain many small tracts of land suitable for the homes of industrions and persevering settlers, who would easily find a market for their surplus produce. This remark applies to the Applegate valley in general.
The third and last of the three streams, Slate creek, receives its name from the character of its rocky bed. It rises in the southwest, toward the head of Deer Creek, and flowing with a rapid current, pours its waters into the Applegate, two and a-half miles above the mouth of that stream. Its discharge is sufficient for the propulsion of very heavy machinery, for which purpose it may likely come in use. It abounds in trout, the woods along its borders contain game, and the comparatively limited amount of tillable land near by is of good quality. Besides, there are deposits of auriferous gravel which have been worked somewhat, and may yet prove of value. Bybee, Hawkett & Company's claim is one of the best. The village or hamlet called Wilderville, situated near the mouth of the creek, is the only location of any note. Here, at one time, was the Junction house, so-called from being at the union of two roads, the Crescent City and the Rogue river and Applegate highways. In 1857, this hotel was kept by Oliver J. Evans. The name Wilderville is derived from Joseph L. Wilder, who laid out a town, hoping that it would become the county seat, which its exact central location seems to fit it for, but the people, in 1880, voted against removing it from Kerbyville. Wilderville now contains a postoffice and a store of general merchandise, established in 1879, by Chapin and Niekell, but now owned by Vance and Birdsey. Near by is
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SOUTHERN OREGON.
Slate creek station opposite Wilderville, which was formerly the stopping place for the stage from Jackson to Kerbyville. J. Knight, in 1879, fitted up the place as an inn.
Galice creek received its name from Louis Galice, a French miner who worked upon the stream in 1852, having been one of the first to prospect it. The stream has been a very important one on account of the mineral wealth contained in its banks, which were successfully worked for many years, and are not yet entirely exhausted. A good many miners came in the early years, for Galice creek was one of the earliest diggings after Josephine and Canyon creeks, and some time in those years Galliceburg was built up. This was not a camp exactly, nor a village, but was the spot where population was densest and was accepted as a centre, and given a name. At this place a trading post was established by Wills, and McCully had a hotel. There were saloons and the other concomitants of mining camps. The usual history of placer mining localities was enacted at Galice creek and the story is easily told. There were rich strikes, big pay, deep or shallow gravel which paid from the grass-roots down, a sloping bed rock, plenty or scarcity of water and a considerable output of gold. Then, having reached sometime in the fifties the climax of prosperity, the inevitable decline began and population and production fell off, the white miners left, to be replaced by Chinese, and Galice ceased to be of importance. During the Indian wars some incidents of an interesting nature occurred on or near the creek, the principal one being the memorable " siege of Galice creek " in the fall of 1855, by the savages, immediately after their raid through the northern part of Josephine county. This is sufficiently described in the history of the Indian wars. Another incident was the hanging of Chief Taylor, also previously adverted to. We see by the public prints that in 1858 the miners of Galice began to make claim to a high moral standpoint, and while freely confessing the previous deserved reputation of the Galice boys as drinkers of whisky, they pro- claimed an entire change in that respect. The shrewd critic discerns herein a symptom of the decay of the diggings, as only rich placers are able to support a population given to intoxication and merriment, and morals always flourish in proportion as the placers decline. A temperance society is less expensive than a saloon.
The quartz excitement of 1860 was felt in Galice creek to some extent, and a vein was found three miles above Witt and Arrington's store, on the right hand fork of the stream. Sims, Martin, Cassiday and Dinsmore possessed the best claim. In 1874 another excitement, local, but of more intensity than the first, broke out on Galice creek, in the month of December. The occasion of it was the discovery of the Mam- moth and Yank ledges, which are about 200 feet thick and extend across the bed of the Rogue river a short distance below the mouth of Galice creek. In less than a month 200 claims were taken on these immense veins, extending many miles along their axes. The excitement was kept up by the assayers' reports that gave in some cases several hundred dollars per ton. Gold was said to be visible in all the quartz taken out, and capital was earnestly besought to join with labor in utilizing the supposed enormous wealth of the great vein. The roads were lined with teams and individuals making their way to the new bonanza, and a great many miners and speculators from all parts of Oregon and California arrived at Galice in the middle of the rainy season. A wagon road to the nearly inaccessible camp was proposed, and meanwhile Captain Pressley boated several tons of provisions down from the vicinity of Vannoy's ferry.
--
WALLING - LITH, PORTLAND, OR.
RESIDENCE OF REV .. W. A . WILLIS, DEER CREEK VALLEY, DOUGLAS, CO.
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JOSEPHINE COUNTY.
Saunders built a hotel, a good-sized building, and the firm of Gupton and Buck put up another. Some Ashland people incorporated a mining company with a capital of $1,800,000, to operate in mines, and two mills were proposed by other " capitalists," one to have forty stamps, the other fifty. Quartzville, a new town at the mines, was surveyed into lots which sold for fifty dollars apiece; and Yankville, otherwise called Lumberville, was a mile above and also held forth indueements to new comers. The lumber used in the building eame mainly from the mouth of Jump-off-Joe, being floated down the river on scows, but a saw mill was soon afterwards built near the mines, which obviated the difficulty. Right here the history of the celebrated quartz excitement on Galice creek ends. There is no portion of the story which relates to the decline of these mines, for the process was too sudden to have a story. Every one got away as quickly as possible and left no indications of their stay, excepting an empty hotel and the sign " for sale " on the corner lots of the town of Quartzville, or Galice City.
Three years later the Sugar Pine quartz ledge in Galice creek was discovered and worked by the Green brothers. At the time it was the only quartz mine in successful working in Oregon. There were two arastras, and the rock yielded from thirty to eighty dollars per ton, it was said. The firm still possess the mine, which is confidently stated to be a good property and a mine of permanent valne.
A very large amount of hydraulic mining has been done on Galice creek, where extensive gravel beds exist. As early as 1858 the firm of Young and Company pro- posed to employ a hydraulic stream below Rich gulch. Nearly twenty years after quite an impetus was given to mining in general by the operations of the so-called English company, which purchased 500 acres of gold-bearing gravel and set about bringing water by means of a ditch several miles long. In the spring of 1876 the association began piping with great success, taking out $20,000, it was reported, for the season's work. They ran four giants at one time. Opposite their claim was that of D. (. Courtney, called the "Old Titus" diggings. This had a ditch seven miles long, built in 1878. At the Taylor diggings Bybee had a hydraulic apparatus. The Centennial company and the Blue Gravel company also worked extensively in the same way, and some of these claims are still being mined upon.
North of Rogue river the Oregon trail crosses two very celebrated streams, Jump- off-Joe and Grave creeks, names familiar to the inhabitants of all Oregon. These streams, with their tributaries, rise in the northwestern part of Jackson county, How westward into Josephine county and find their way into the Rogue river in that part of its course in which it runs northerly. These noted watercourses are of no great vol- ume, in fact, are insignificant brooks, excepting in the floods of winter. Into JJump- off-Joe flows Louse creek, and into (frave creek runs Wolf creek and Coyote ereck. How these streams obtained their peculiar names has long been a much-asked question. More has been written on the subject than upon aught else belonging to their history. Louse creek, Wolf creek and Coyote creek require no explanation. Their cognomens are doubtless derived from the prevalence of those different species of wild animals upon their banks. As to Jump-off-Joe, report has it that some individual, known as Joe, was compelled to leap into the stream to escape danger. But these reports cannot be traced to any authentic source. Probably the stories of Joe MeLaughlin, Joseph Lane and the other Joes were invented to account for the name, and were not its real
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SOUTHERN OREGON.
origin. It seems by far the most probable conclusion that the name arises from some Indian word, of whose sound " Jump-off-Joe " is an imitation. The present name is said to have been applied as early as 1837, which is highly possible.
The derivation of the name Grave creek carries with it a romance of no ordinary cast. In 1846 the Applegates, as has been said, piloted the immigrants of that year to Oregon by the newly explored southern route. Among these people was a family named Crowley, who had a daughter, Martha Leland Crowley, who was taken ill and died at the crossing of the stream called now Grave creek. She was buried there, under the shadow of a pine tree, and in order that the Indians should not exhume her remains for the sake of her garments, all traces of the burial were obliterated, and cat- tle were corralled upon the spot. Her coffin was made from a wagon box, as is instanced by several persons who were personally more or less conversant with the affair, among whom are Theodore Prater, now in Lower California, and Mrs. Rachel Challinor, of Glendale, both of whom helped bury the deceased. The remains of the unfortunate girl, it would appear, were dug up by the Indians, though this fact has been disputed. Several persons contend that they have seen the grave before and after it was violated and therefore refuse to admit the possibility of a mistake in identity. Of these is Colonel Nesmith, who first set eyes upon the place of interment in 1848, and found that it had been opened and that the bones were scattered about the pit. These, says the colonel, were replaced, and the grave again partly filled with earth. According to the same authority, certain Indians who were killed a few days after the close of the war of 1853 were also thrown into the grave, so that Miss Crowley's remains rest, perhaps, with those of the savages who desecrated her last abode. Mrs. Crowley, mother of the young lady, is now in Polk county, where she married Mr. Fulkerson, her first hus- band having died. There is a great deal of evidence to substantiate the truth of the above account, with the exception of the exhumation of the body, which, after all, ix scarcely material to the subject of how Grave creek got its name. There would ordi- marily have been no doubt on the subject had it not been that the history of Josephine county deals with another young lady, the Miss Josephine Rawlins, or Rollins, from whom the county's name is derived, as previously related, and the two females, though not by any means contemporaries, have become confounded together in some measure, as such accounts inevitably will, when only preserved through people's recollections. Thus from the death and burial of Miss Crowley, Grave creek obtained its name. In after years a famous place of entertainment for travelers was opened here by Bates, who afterwards sold to two men, James Twogood and Harkness, who remained until the latter's death by Indians in the spring of 1856. Twogood is said to be now living in Boise, Idaho. They named this place, previously called the Bates' tavern, the Grave creek house ; and when, in 1854, the legislature changed the name to Leland creek, in honor of the girl we have been speaking of, the firm of Harkness and Twogood called their place Leland creek house. By the name of Leland the post office at the creek is known, but the ancient name of Grave creek seems ineradicable, and is interwoven with many scraps of the country's history.
In mining the northern part of Josephine county has had something of a record. In the upper part of Grave creek valley a great deal of gravel has been found contain- ing gold, and the deposits have been worked with ordinary success. Hydraulic appa-
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JOSEPHINE COUNTY.
ratus has been instituted in quite a number of instances, and several ditches of consid- erable length and capacity have been constructed for the purpose of supplying the pipes. On Wolf and Coyote ereeks, a similar experience has been had. On the latter stream, and in Jackson county, is the Coyote Creek Mining Company's claim, better known as the Kelly-Ruble location, which is now regarded as the richest mining ground in the county, and is the subject of an important lawsuit.
Besides containing large amounts of gravel of a rich sort, this portion of Josephine county abounds with ledges of quartz, many of which have been prospected, with good results. The Esther or Browning mine, on Grave creek, and the Lucky Queen mine, on Jump-off-Joe, have attracted the most notice. The latter is situated two and a-half miles east of the stage road and very near the county line. It was the property of a joint-stock association of men, mostly residents of Southern Oregon. The works on and in the mine are believed to be the most extensive in the state, the aggregate length of shafts and tunnels being nearly 1,000 feet. The ore is very complex, con- taining various base metals, besides silver and gold, and assays, in places, very high. A ten-stamp mill was built in 1875, and included various experimental devices for extraeting the gold. For several years, work progressed at the Lucky Queen, but suspended finally in 1879.
Of still greater importance than gravel or quartz mines, the railroad next claims the reader's attention. The progress of the Oregon & California line through the Cow creek and Grave ereek country was marked by some of the most difficult of engineer- ing works, of which the most considerable are the nine tunnels found between the South Umpqua and Jump-off-Joe. The length of these are officially given as follows, begin- ning with the most northerly: Tunnel, number one, forty-six miles south of Roseburg, 258 feet; two, 382 feet ; three, 442 feet : four, 323 feet ; five, 340 feet; six, 514 feet ; seven, 109 feet ; eight (known as Cow creek tunnel, between Cow and Wolf creeks), 2,805 feet ; nine (Grave ereek tunnel), 2,112 feet. The altitudes of several places on the road are as follows: Roseburg, 485 feet; Glendale, 1,440; Cow creek tunnel, 1,619; Grave creek tunnel, 1,549; the Rogue river crossing, 1,169. Within Jose- phine county there are thirty and one-half miles of road, upon which are several quite long and lofty trestles and bridges. The Brimstone trestle required over half a mil- lion feet of lumber in its construction, and the Grave creek bridge is 120 feet high. its central span is 120 feet long and the bridge, with its approaches, is 124 feet in length. The cuts are on a scale commensurate with the tunnels and trestles, and many of them are in such extremely soft ground that the difficulty of maintaining the road is immensely increased by reason of the land-slides which are prone to take place.
From the foregoing, it will easily be seen that northern Josephine is not by any means deficient in interest. Almost the first events of which the student of Southern Oregon history has knowledge, were enacted on the old California and Oregon trail, and many a scene of romance and danger has since been viewed there. In the early Indian wars, that locality was the scene of the terrible murders committed by the revolting savages, and many of the victims of their famous raid were settlers in the Josephine county of a little later date. Here, too, occurred the active operations which took place in the following war of retribution against the natives. The Grave Creek House was the headquarters of a contingent of the volunteer army. In the Grave
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SOUTHERN OREGON.
creek hills, some miles west of the railroad line, there took place the first, and perhaps the most important battle of that war. This was Hungry Hill, for a description of which action the reader is referred to previous pages of this book. The locality of this fight will ever remain a classical spot, made interesting by the death of many brave and worthy men. This memorable field of strife is now almost unknown, save to the few present survivors of the volunteers, who occasionally visit it. Rank under- brush and grasses have usurped the place where blood was shed, and only those familiar with the ground can point out even the last resting place of the dead who fell there. Several persons, among them General Ross and J. W. Sutton (deceased in 1879), both participants in the battle, have given utterance to a desire that the brave men who fell there should be honored with some kind of a memorial-a simple mon- ument, at least, whereby their graves might be known. Enlarging upon this idea, Mr. Sutton proposed a monument to the fallen of the Indian wars, to be erected by the public-a measure so just and patriotic as to excite surprise that it has not been carried out. To build such a monument should be the immediate work of the public- spirited people of Southern Oregon. Of a visit to the battle-field of Hungry Hill Mr. Sutton wrote, in a style worthy of Irving :
" Some summers since, while passing the little cemetery, I halted for the purpose of visiting the grave of my old comrade. I stood beside the little row of graves that I found blended into one, the mounds now hardly distinguishable; no board or stone at head or foot is found ; no one can tell these graves apart. In unity they met a common foe; in unity they fell; in unity they lay beneath the sod, awaiting the judgment day. In vain I sought to determine the grave of my old friend ; it was lost, lost amid its comrade graves. After a short search among the weeds and grass that covered the graves, I found a. fragment of a half-decayed board, on which I could trace the inscription which my own hand had carved full twenty years before- ' JONATHAN PEDIGO; KILLED BY INDIANS AT THE BATTLE OF HUNGRY HILL, Oc- TOBER 31, 1855.'"
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