Oregon Historical Law Guide

Contents

Legal Ages at a Glance

General Principles

English law brought in by way of Iowa

Settlers in the Oregon country set up their own government in 1843, before any nation ruled them. They needed law, so they borrowed it. Their Organic Laws adopted the statutes of Iowa Territory, together with the common law of England and the rules of equity¹. Common law is law made by judges over centuries and handed down in court decisions, rather than written by a legislature. Equity is the companion body of rules a court used to reach a fair result where the common law offered no remedy.

Congress made Oregon a territory in 1848. Oregon became a state on 14 February 1859. English common law ran underneath every year from 1843 through 1950.

For most of those years each spouse owned property separately. The old English rules governed, and statutes cut them back a piece at a time. Community property — the rule that what either spouse acquires during a marriage belongs to both in equal shares — reached Oregon late and briefly. A couple could choose it from 1943 by filing a certificate of election with the Secretary of State². From 5 July 1947 it applied to every married couple in the state, until it was repealed effective 11 April 1949³.

Seven dates that changed the records

Each of these marks a change you will see in the paperwork:

• 1850 — the federal Donation Land Claim Act gave a married woman 320 acres in her own name.
• 1859 — the Constitution gave a married woman property of her own.
• 1878 — the first married women's property act.
• 1910 — poll and head taxes were banned.
• 1921 — women became eligible for jury service.
• 1935 — majority was made 21 for both sexes.
• 1947 — community property applied to every married couple, until 1949.

Nearly everything a genealogist wants was county business. The county court handled probate — wills, estates, and guardianships. The county clerk recorded deeds and mortgages⁴ and issued marriage licenses. For most families, one courthouse holds the land, the marriage, and the estate.

Legal Age of Adulthood

Twenty-one for a man and eighteen for a woman

A man became an adult at 21. A woman became an adult at 18. From that birthday each could control their own affairs and business, with all the rights and all the liabilities of an adult⁵.

Those two ages were fixed by an act of 11 October 1864, and they held for seventy years. Before that act a woman came of age at 21, the same as a man. The Provisional and territorial governments passed no majority statute at all, so the common law the Organic Laws had brought in governed, and it made 21 the age for both sexes⁶. The early age for women is therefore an Oregon innovation of 1864, and it lasted just over seventy years. The ages were made the same, 21 for both, in 1935⁷.

A woman of 18 could sell her land, sign a contract, and be sued in her own name, where a man of that age could not. The legislature confirmed that women's deeds and contracts made between 18 and 21 in earlier years were good⁸.

Marriage made a woman an adult

A woman became an adult the day she married, whatever her age⁹. A girl who married lawfully at 15 was legally grown from that day, and this rule stayed in force after 1935, when majority became 21 for both sexes.

What a minor could do with property

A minor could own property of any kind. Selling it permanently was the difficulty. Under the common law a contract or deed made by a minor was voidable — it held until the minor chose to undo it, and the minor had to do that within a reasonable time after coming of age¹⁰.

A minor's land was therefore sold by a guardian under a court order. A child's land sale leaves a county court file rather than a simple deed, and that file names the parents and the other children.

Marriage

Who could marry

Marriage was a civil contract, and it could be entered into by males of 18 and females of 15 who were otherwise free to marry. The territorial legislature set those two ages in the act relating to marriage and divorce that was in force by 1854¹¹, the state re-enacted them word for word in 1862¹², and they did not change again before 1950. So a bride of 15 and a groom of 18 were of full marrying age through 1950.

An underage marriage still counted. It could be undone in court, but only at the suit of the young person who had been too young — nobody else could attack it¹³. In practice an ancestor's underage marriage was good.

Parental consent

A parent or guardian had to give written consent before the clerk issued a license whenever the woman was under 18 or the man under 21¹⁴. Consent could be skipped where either party had no parent or guardian living in Oregon and the woman had lived six months in the county where she applied.

The consent paper stays in the license file with the county clerk. It names a parent, states the relationship, and is often the only document that ties a bride to her father.

Where the license came from changed in 1925. Until then it was issued by the clerk of the county in which the woman lived, so an early license is filed in the bride's county; from 1925 any county clerk could issue one, and the clerk took the addresses of both parties¹⁵. By the end of the period the clerk also took a sworn application and held the license three days, unless the probate judge allowed it sooner¹⁵.

How a marriage was made

An Oregon marriage came from a ceremony, and living together did not make one. The usual form was a declaration before an authorized person: the couple declared they took each other as husband and wife, in front of the minister, priest, or judge performing the marriage and in front of at least two witnesses¹⁶. Simply living as husband and wife created nothing, however long it went on¹⁷, and the courts said so again in the twentieth century¹⁸.

Two other forms counted, and both leave records worth knowing about. A marriage celebrated inside a religious body in that body's own customary form was valid without any minister or judge, so long as the person presiding filed a certificate for record in the ordinary way. The territorial act named the Quakers; the state carried the rule forward in general terms, and it stood throughout the period¹⁹. And in the territorial years only, a couple living far from anyone authorized to marry them could marry by written contract, duly attested and recorded with the county recorder within sixty days²⁰. That route disappeared when the state code was adopted in 1862.

For all but those two exceptions the records Oregon keeps are licenses, applications, and returns, all filed with the county clerk. Counties began keeping them soon after they were organized, some as early as 1849, and statewide registration of marriages began in 1906. So for a frontier couple in the 1850s, look for a recorded contract in the deed or miscellaneous records rather than a marriage return, and for a Quaker or similar family, look for the congregation's own certificate filed with the county.

The person who performed the marriage had to return a certificate to the county clerk within a month, on penalty of a fine²¹. When a return is missing, the officiant is the reason, since the duty was his and not the couple's. A marriage still held if it turned out the officiant had no authority, so long as the couple believed in good faith they were married²².

Marriages that were forbidden

A marriage was forbidden if either party already had a husband or wife living, or if the two were closer kin than first cousins²³. Such a marriage could be treated as no marriage in any case where it came up²⁴.

From 1913 a doctor's certificate came before the license. The county clerk could issue none until the applicants filed a physician's certificate; a physician who certified falsely lost his own license to practice, and the county physician examined the poor without charge²⁵.

The voters enlarged that requirement at the general election of 8 November 1938, and a referred measure took effect as soon as it was approved. Both parties now filed sworn certificates from an Oregon physician, made within the ten days before filing, showing each of them free of venereal disease and of the other conditions the act listed, with a blood test for syphilis behind them. An applicant refused a license had ninety days to appeal to the circuit court²⁵.

The health papers are a separate file from the license. The act made the medical records confidential, filed apart from the marriage license application and closed to public inspection²⁵. A marriage license file from late 1938 onward will therefore show that a certificate was filed without showing what it said.

Race restrictions

A racial bar entered the marriage statute with the state code. The territorial act had forbidden only bigamous marriages and marriages between close kin; from 1862 a marriage was forbidden as well between a white person and a person of one quarter or more Black ancestry²⁶.

An act of 24 October 1866, in force from 18 January 1867, widened the bar and made breaking it a crime. No white person could marry anyone with one quarter or more Black, Chinese, or Native Hawaiian ancestry, or more than one half Native American ancestry, and any such marriage was void²⁷. Both parties could be jailed for three months to a year²⁸. So could the clerk who issued the license or the person who performed the ceremony, who also faced a fine²⁹. The bar was repealed in 1951³⁰.

This changes where a couple appears rather than whether they existed. A couple caught by the bar could not get an Oregon license, so no marriage return was created for them. Look instead in census, church, and probate records, and in the marriage records of other states.

Slavery and exclusion

Slavery was never lawfully established here. The Constitution banned slavery and involuntary servitude³¹, and before statehood the Provisional Government's act of 26 June 1844 had done the same³². People were still held in servitude here in the 1840s and 1850s. No marriage record exists for them, and the family has to be rebuilt from census, probate, and court files.

An act of the first territorial legislature, passed on 26 September 1849, made it unlawful for a Black or mixed-race person to come into or live in Oregon, while excusing those already living here and their children³³. It was repealed in 1854. A family kept out in those years left no Oregon record of any kind.

Property Ownership

Which men could own land

Any free man could own land, and could sell it himself at 21³⁴.

Under the Provisional Government a settler who built and improved a place could claim 640 acres, one claim at a time³⁵.

The Donation Land Claim Act of 1850 replaced that system. It granted 320 acres to a single settler above the age of 18 who was a citizen or had declared an intention to become one, and who lived on and farmed the land four years. The grant ran to every white settler or occupant of the public lands, and Congress extended it in the same sentence to settlers of mixed Native and white parentage, so mixed-race Native settlers could and did claim³⁶. Settlers arriving after 1 December 1850 got half as much, 160 acres, and had to be 21³⁷. Later amendments carried the claim period to 1 December 1855, when the act expired, and gave a dead settler's claim to his widow and heirs³⁸.

A donation land claim file commonly gives the claimant's year and place of birth, the date and place of the marriage, the wife's given name, the date of arrival in Oregon, proof of citizenship, and the names of neighbors who swore to the claim.

Citizenship was a condition of the federal grant alone. Under Oregon law any foreigner could buy, hold, sell, and leave land by will exactly as a citizen could, and it passed to his heirs the same way³⁹.

Women and land ownership

A single woman or a widow could buy, own, sell, mortgage, sue, and be sued exactly as a man could, and from 18 rather than 21. In law she was a feme sole, "woman alone."

A married woman was a feme covert, "covered woman," under coverture — the old rule that a wife's legal identity merged into her husband's. Her position changed in stages, and each stage leaves different paperwork.

A wife's own half of a donation claim

A married couple claiming under the Donation Land Claim Act took 640 acres, and half of it, 320 acres, was granted to the wife in her own right⁴⁰. A wife's name appears on the survey and on the patent — the document by which the United States passed title — for her own half, and the claim file states the marriage in order to prove the double grant.

A separate estate from 1859

A married woman's property, whether she brought it to the marriage or received it afterward by gift or inheritance, could not be taken for her husband's debts⁴¹.

That rule created a record. The county clerk kept a register of married women's separate personal property, in which a wife could file a list of her goods with a sworn statement that they were hers before marriage or came to her by gift or inheritance from someone other than her husband. Registering made them hers; leaving them unregistered made them look like his⁴². A register entry names the wife, her property, and often the relative who gave it to her.

A deserted wife could act alone

A wife whose husband had abandoned her without support and had been out of the state a year could deal with her own property as if unmarried — contracting, selling, conveying, and suing in her own name. She first established the abandonment on petition and proof before the county court, and the power ran from that decree until he returned⁴³. The petition fixes both the marriage and the date he left.

Full control from 1878

The old disabilities were dismantled by statute until a married woman could manage, sell, and leave by will any property she owned, on the same terms as her husband⁴⁴. Laws that put a burden on a wife but not on a husband were repealed⁴⁵.

Three limits lasted to the end, and all three come from her husband's curtesy — his right to use her land for the rest of his life after her death. Her own deed passed the interest she owned, but only a deed she and her husband signed together passed the land free of that right, so a buyer wanted both names⁴⁶. Her will could not cut off his curtesy, any more than his will could cut off her dower, the matching right she held in his land⁴⁷. And the two of them could not agree between themselves to give up dower and curtesy in each other's land; that took a deed to a buyer⁴⁸.

A married woman signed and acknowledged a deed — confirming it before an official authorized to take acknowledgments — exactly as an unmarried person did⁴⁹. An Oregon deed carries her ordinary acknowledgment and nothing more.

Community property from 1943 to 1949

Under the 1943 law a couple opted in by filing a certificate of election with the Secretary of State⁵⁰. The election is a state record rather than a county one, so it leaves a filing no courthouse search will turn up.

Undoing the election left a wider trail. A husband and wife revoked by filing a signed instrument with the Secretary of State, who indexed it and sent a certificate to the recording officer of every county, who filed and indexed it in turn⁵¹. The instrument names both spouses, their county and post-office address, and the date of the original election, and it restored the title to what it had been on the day that election was filed. So a revocation is searchable in any county, while the election behind it sits only with the Secretary of State.

The 1947 law needed no election. Everything either spouse acquired during the marriage after 5 July 1947 belonged to both in equal undivided shares, both had to join in any deed or mortgage of community real estate, and dower and curtesy did not attach to it⁵². The law was repealed effective 11 April 1949.

Read a deed from those two years carefully: both signatures may reflect the community rule rather than a dower release. A couple could also turn community property back into separate property by written agreement, acknowledged like a deed and recorded in the deed records of every county where the land lay⁵³.

When a wife had to sign her husband's deed

Through 1950 a wife living in Oregon had to sign her husband's deed, and dower is the reason. Oregon used the old English form of dower, which reached over every piece of land the husband had owned at any time during the marriage, whether or not he still held it at his death. A buyer therefore had to get the wife's signature, or he bought land the widow could later claim.

The territorial act gave the widow the use of one-third for life⁵⁴. An act of 1917 raised it to one-half⁵⁵.

A wife gave up her dower by signing her husband's deed, or by signing a separate deed to the same buyer, and she did not have to mention dower for it to work⁵⁶. Dower could also be barred before the marriage by a jointure — land or income settled on the wife, with her written assent, to stand in place of dower — or afterward by her accepting a money provision given instead of it⁵⁷. A jointure agreement is a recorded instrument and it names both families. Her own signature was what released dower, whatever the husband's deed recited⁵⁸.

So in Oregon deed books two signatures are normal for a married man living with his wife in the state. Never read a wife's signature as proof she was 21: before 1935 a woman came of age at 18, and marriage made her an adult at any age.

A wife living outside Oregon was treated differently, and the difference is large enough to change how a deed should be read. From the territorial period onward, a woman residing out of the state took dower only in the land her husband owned at his death, and the same rule reached a nonresident husband's curtesy⁵⁹. Her husband could therefore sell his other land on his own signature. The United States Supreme Court upheld the rule in 1922 and said its purpose was to clear titles of absent and probably unknown wives⁶⁰.

This matters in a state families migrated to. A single name on the seller's line is not proof a man was unmarried or widowed — his wife may still have been living in the state they came from. Where a deed shows one signature and a later census shows a wife, the deed becomes evidence of when she arrived.

Where a husband or wife had been found of unsound mind, the other could go to court to clear the land for sale⁶¹. That proceeding is a county court file, and it establishes both the marriage and the incapacity.

A husband had a matching right in his wife's land, called curtesy. It arose on the wife's death whether or not a child had been born of the marriage⁶². The 1917 legislation gave him one-half, matching dower⁶³. So a husband holding a life interest in his wife's land is no evidence the couple had children.

Both dower and curtesy were abolished for deaths from 1 July 1970⁶⁴.

Which children could own land

A child could own land at any age, by inheritance, gift, or purchase. Selling it was the problem, and Oregon solved it through the county court: the court licensed the sale, the guardian swore an oath and gave a bond, notice was given, and the guardian signed the deed⁶⁵. Own at any age; sell freely at 21 — or, before 1935, at 18 for a woman.

Witnessing a deed

A witness of any age could serve, so long as they understood an oath and could say what they saw. A deed was made ready for recording by one of two routes: the seller acknowledged it before an official, or a witness who had signed it swore that he knew the seller⁶⁶. Witnesses appear on Oregon deeds as the second route. Competency was the test rather than age, and in practice the two names at the bottom of a deed are adult neighbors or relatives worth collecting.

Race restrictions on land

Three rules limited ownership by race, and each has an end date that tells you when to stop expecting it.

For free Black and mixed-race people, the Constitution of 1857 barred anyone not already living here from coming to Oregon, holding real estate, making contracts, or suing⁶⁷. The Fourteenth Amendment overtook it and it was never systematically enforced against landowning, but it stayed in the text until voters repealed it on 2 November 1926⁶⁸. Black Oregonians did buy and hold land in this period, so search the deed books regardless.

For Chinese people, the Constitution said no Chinese person not already here could ever hold real estate or a mining claim⁶⁹. It was repealed on 5 November 1946⁷⁰.

For immigrants barred from becoming citizens, in practice Japanese immigrants, the Alien Land Law of 1923 let land be held only so far as a treaty between the United States and the immigrant's own country allowed, and allowed no lease of any kind; land taken in breach passed to the state⁷¹. Where land was taken in another person's name but paid for by such an immigrant, the law presumed an attempt to evade it⁷¹. A supplement of 1945 barred such an immigrant from living on or working land held in the name of a citizen family member⁷². The Oregon Supreme Court struck down both laws in 1949, and the legislature repealed them the same year⁷³. Land farmed by such a family in those years is often in the name of an American-born child or a company.

That session created two more records. Anyone holding land as trustee for such an immigrant filed a sworn report every year with the Secretary of State and with the county clerk of each county where the land lay⁷⁴, and each county assessor made a yearly list of every Chinese and Japanese person who owned, leased, or operated real property in the county⁷⁵.

Title to Native land passed by the treaties of the 1850s and was handled by the federal government afterward, so those records are federal rather than county.

Inheritance

Two systems at once

When someone died without a will — intestate — Oregon split the estate two ways, and the two halves worked differently:

• Land passed straight to the heirs at the moment of death, under the statute of descents.
• Everything else — money, animals, furniture, debts owed to the dead person — was gathered by an administrator, the person the court appointed to settle an estate left without a will, used first to pay debts, and only then divided.

Who inherited the land

Where a person died without a will, the land passed in this order under the statute as it stood through the nineteenth century⁷⁶:

The rule for parents changed before the end of the period. Under the code in force in the 1940s, a person who left no lineal descendants and no spouse passed the land to the father and mother in equal portions, and to whichever of them survived if only one was living⁷⁷.

Sons and daughters shared equally, and older and younger shared equally, from the very beginning.

A widow with children took dower, the use of part of the land for her lifetime, while the children owned it. She took the land itself where no children or grandchildren survived. This is the most common source of confusion in Oregon estate files: the widow is living on the farm, but the deed and the tax roll show the children as owners.

Measuring out the widow's dower

Dower had to be measured out before it was a particular field. Before statehood the probate court assigned it⁷⁸; afterward the county court did. The court sent commissioners onto the land to set out the widow's share and report back⁷⁹. Where the property could not be divided, such as a mill or a town lot, she was given a share of the rent instead⁸⁰. The commissioners' report sits in the county court's probate file and describes the family's land.

Many widows never generated one. A widow could simply go on living on the land with her children, or take a third of the income, for as long as the heirs did not object, without having dower measured out at all⁸¹. So an absent dower record does not mean she had no claim. She could also stay in the house rent-free for a year after her husband's death⁸².

Who inherited the money and goods

After the widow's allowance and the debts were paid, what was left was divided⁸³:

The husband's advantage was evened out over time, and by the last decades of this period the rule read the same for a widow and a widower⁸⁴.

Gifts made during life counted against a child's share. Property given to a child by the parent during the parent's lifetime was added back into the estate for the division and set against that child's portion, and a child already given more than a full share kept it but took nothing further⁸⁵. A child who appears to be shortchanged in a distribution was probably paid earlier, and the earlier gift may survive as a deed.

What the widow got straight away

A widow was allowed her clothing and ornaments and enough property to support herself and her minor children. She got this whether her husband left a will or not, and even if she rejected what his will gave her⁸⁶. The court also set aside for her the property protected from creditors, including the home⁸⁷. Where the estate was small enough, the whole of it was handed over and the administration closed⁸⁸.

Each of these is a separate order in the county court's probate file, and each usually names the widow and every minor child.

The widow's choice

Where a husband's will left his wife something, she had to choose between it and her dower, and she could not have both unless the will clearly said so⁸⁹. If she did nothing for a year after his death, she was treated as having accepted what the will gave her⁹⁰.

Her choice, or her silence, sits in the probate file. Where a widow claims dower against a will, expect a fuller file and a family quarrel in it.

Guardians and the age of fourteen

A child's inheritance was managed by a guardian appointed by the county court⁹¹. Relatives came first, nearest first⁹².

The choice passed to the child at fourteen. A child under 14 had a guardian named by the court; a child above that age nominated their own, subject to the judge's approval⁹³. A child living more than ten miles from the courthouse could make the choice before a justice of the peace⁹⁴. A guardianship record in which the child picks the guardian is evidence the child had turned 14, which brackets a birth year.

The guardian gave a bond, listed the property, accounted to the court, and at the end handed everything over⁹⁵. Guardianship ran to 21⁹⁶. Until 1935 it ended sooner for a girl, at 18, or on her marriage, which by itself discharged her guardian⁹⁷. The final settlement dates the minor's coming of age and so approximates a birth year, and for a woman it often gives her married surname, because she receipts for her money under her new name.

A guardian was appointed because a child had property, not because a child was orphaned. A living father, or after his death a widowed mother, kept custody of the child even when someone else managed the money⁹⁸. So a guardianship with a stranger's name on it and a living parent is normal, and usually means the child inherited from the other side of the family.

A father could name a guardian in his will, and so could a mother if the father was dead and had named none, or if she had been given custody⁹⁹. In 1880 the rights of the two parents were made equal, and a widowed mother came into the same control of her children and their property that a father would have had¹⁰⁰.

Children born outside marriage

Where a child born outside marriage died without a will and left no husband, wife, or children, the property went to the mother¹⁰¹. The inheritance ran the other way as well: such a child was the heir of its mother. It was her heir only, though, and could not take through her from her relatives — so a child born outside marriage inherited from the mother but not from the mother's parents, brothers, or sisters¹⁰². That limit lasted until 1957.

Oregon's rule for the father is one sentence, and it needed no petition, no acknowledgment, and no court: if the parents married after the child was born, the child was legitimate for every purpose¹⁰³. A single marriage record can therefore turn a child born years earlier into a full heir. Where an estate is divided among children and one was born before the parents' marriage, the marriage record is the document that explains it.

Where the parents did not marry, the father could be named in a bastardy case and ordered to support the child until it turned 14¹⁰⁴. The file names the mother, the child, and the man, and it is often the only record that names the father at all.

Wills, executors, and witnesses

To make a will of land and goods the testator — the person making the will — had to be 21. A will of goods alone took only 18. The 1853 act let anyone of 21 leave all their property, real and personal, saving the widow her dower¹⁰⁵, and anyone over 18 leave their goods and chattels¹⁰⁶. The two ages lasted into the 1920s. An act of 1941 left a single age of 21 for real and personal property alike, and provided that a will could not cut off the survivor's dower or curtesy¹⁰⁷. A married woman could leave her own land by will, subject to her husband's curtesy¹⁰⁸.

Every will had to be written, signed by the testator or by someone else at his direction and in front of him, and witnessed by two competent people who signed in his presence¹⁰⁹. Oregon also allowed a spoken will within narrow limits and required the words to be written down within thirty days¹¹⁰.

A will witness could be any age, but a witness who was left something lost it. A gift to a person who witnessed the will was void as to that witness, and the witness was then allowed to prove the will¹¹¹. If the witness would have inherited had there been no will, he kept that much¹¹²; and if enough other witnesses had signed, the gift was good after all¹¹³. A name that appears both as a witness and as someone the will tried to give something to tells you the drafter thought that person close to the family.

An executor or executrix had to be 21¹¹⁴. Age was not the only bar. The state code also shut out non-residents, judicial officers other than justices of the peace, people of unsound mind, anyone convicted of a felony or of a misdemeanor involving moral turpitude, and married women, so a widow who remarried before the estate closed could lose the appointment. The bar on married women went when the legislature swept away the civil disabilities of wives in 1880¹¹⁵.

Where everyone named in a will was under age or otherwise disqualified, the court granted letters of administration with the will annexed — its written authority to act — to whoever would have administered the estate had there been no will, usually the widow or the next of kin¹¹⁴. Where a will names a son as executor but the letters name someone else, the son's age at his father's death is often the reason.

Taxation

What was taxed

Four taxes on individuals leave usable records. The property tax fell on everything not specifically exempt¹¹⁶. The poll tax was a flat charge on a person rather than on property. The road tax could be worked off with labor on the roads¹¹⁷. And in the twentieth century Oregon added an inheritance tax and an income tax.

The poll tax matters most, because it lists men who owned nothing, so for those years the tax roll works as a substitute census. Rolls were made by the county assessor and collected by the sheriff.

Who was a poll and at what age

A poll tax of one dollar was charged on every male living in the state between the ages of twenty-one and fifty, and went to county purposes¹¹⁸. The state levy carried a dollar poll tax on the same men¹¹⁹. It was collected when the assessor came around, and if a man did not pay, the sheriff sold his goods¹²⁰.

A separate poll tax of five dollars was laid in 1862 on every Black, Chinese, Native Hawaiian, and mixed-race person living in the state. The act fixed no age and no sex, so it reached women and children whom the general poll tax never touched. Anyone who could not pay was arrested by the sheriff and put to work on the public roads, one day for every half-dollar owed¹²¹. It was payable to the county treasurer between January and March, and it stood on its own: nothing in either act excused a man from the other, so a man of color between 21 and 50 owed this tax and the dollar poll tax as well. Because the five-dollar tax was charged by race rather than on property, its rolls name people of color who appear nowhere else in the county's tax papers.

Who was exempt

Firemen were let off. The poll tax passed over any active or exempt fireman who had belonged to a company for the year before the assessment¹¹⁸, and firemen were excused from jury duty and the road tax as well¹²²; seven years' service made a man an exempt fireman¹²³.

So a man vanishing from a poll list in his twenties or thirties often joined a fire company, and a man vanishing later usually turned fifty. Neither means he left the county or died.

Twentieth-century taxes

Oregon adopted an inheritance tax in 1903, graded by how closely the heir was related and how much they got¹²⁴. It produced a tax return in the probate file, and that return commonly lists every beneficiary with their relationship to the person who died, which makes it one of the most useful pages in the file.

An income tax was adopted in 1923¹²⁵, collected for one year, and repealed by the voters in 1924. The continuous income tax dates from 1929, approved by the voters in 1930, so anything earlier covers a single year.

The end of the poll tax

The voters banned poll taxes outright. From 8 November 1910 no poll or head tax could be levied or collected in Oregon¹²⁶. A man's disappearance from a poll list after 1910 reflects the ban rather than a life event, and poll lists stop being a source for the last four decades of this period.

Courts

Jury service

A juror had to be a man over 21, a citizen of the United States, of sound mind, resident in the county for the year before he was called, and free of any conviction for a felony or for a crime involving dishonesty¹²⁷.

Age, sex, citizenship, residence, and character were the whole test. The same test applied to a talesman — a bystander pulled in off the street to fill out a short jury — as to the regular panel.

Exemptions explain most absences from a jury list: judges and other officials, lawyers, ministers and priests, teachers, doctors, enrolled soldiers, firemen, ferrymen, and millers¹²⁸. A man could also be excused for ill health or a death or sickness in his family¹²⁹.

Women and people of color on juries

Women became eligible in 1921, when the legislature rewrote the jury chapter and took out the word "male"¹³⁰.

For people of color the gate was citizenship rather than property or voting. Because a juror had to be a United States citizen, Black men became eligible when the Fourteenth Amendment made them citizens. Chinese immigrants could not naturalize and so never qualified, though their American-born children were citizens, and Native Americans generally became citizens in 1924.

Age of criminal responsibility

The common law fixed the age of criminal responsibility for most of this period¹³¹:

• Under 7 — a child could not commit a crime at all.
• 7 to 14 — a child was presumed unable to, and the State had to prove the child knew right from wrong.
• 14 and over — full responsibility, tried and punished as an adult.

From 1885 a convicted child could be spared prison. Where a minor under 16 was found guilty of a misdemeanor or a felony and the court saw reasonable ground to believe the child might be reformed, it suspended final judgment and could place the child in the custody of a non-sectarian charitable corporation, which undertook to provide a home and instruction; a child who proved incorrigible came back before the court for judgment¹³². A suspended judgment leaves a criminal case file that stops short of a sentence, and the child's next few years are documented by the institution rather than by the court.

The State Reform School gave the courts somewhere else to send a child. From 1891 a boy or girl between 8 and 16, convicted of a crime that would have sent an adult to jail or the penitentiary, could be committed to the school instead of being sentenced, and a prosecution could be halted at any stage and the youth committed¹³³. Either route closes the criminal file early and moves the child into the institution's records.

Oregon created the juvenile court in 1905. The act applied to children under 16, and it reached only judicial districts holding 100,000 people or more, which in 1905 meant Multnomah County; the circuit judges of such a district designated one of their number to hear the cases at a special session closed to everyone outside the act¹³⁴. A case began when any reputable resident of the county filed a sworn petition with the clerk saying a child appeared to be dependent or delinquent, and the findings went into a book kept for the purpose and called the Juvenile Record, which is what gave the court its name¹³⁵. The legislature extended the scheme to the whole state in 1919¹³⁶.

From 1905 a child's case leaves a juvenile file rather than a criminal one, and juvenile files are closed, so a child in trouble after that date may leave no record a researcher can reach.

Witnesses

A witness of any age could testify, so long as they understood an oath and could relate the facts. Competency turned on understanding. A person of sound mind was competent, and a child under ten was heard where the judge found the child able to take in what he saw and to tell it truthfully¹³⁷. A child of eight who satisfied the judge was heard.

The Constitution barred disqualifying a witness or juror for religious opinion¹³⁸. Women could testify throughout, and a married woman could sue and defend in her own name to protect her own property¹³⁹. Husband and wife could testify for and against each other, subject to the rule protecting what they said to each other privately.

People of color as witnesses

Before statehood the territorial code barred from testifying any Black, mixed-race, or Native American person, or anyone of one half or more Native American ancestry, in a case to which a white person was a party¹⁴⁰. The rule sat alongside the unsound-mind and child-under-ten grounds, and it was still law on the eve of statehood¹⁴¹. From the state code of 1862 the grounds of incompetency were unsound mind and childhood alone¹⁴².

So a person of color could testify on the same terms as anyone else for the whole statehood period, and the bar belongs only to the territorial decades. Where an ancestor of color had a claim against a white neighbor before 1862, the dispute was settled outside court or appears only in the white party's papers.

Sources & Where to Verify

Constitutions

• Oregon. Constitution of Oregon (1857, effective 1859). Art. I, § 6 (religious opinion); art. I, § 34 (slavery); art. I, § 35 (rights of certain persons, repealed 1926); art. II, § 6 (suffrage, repealed 1927); art. IX, § 1a (poll or head tax, adopted 1910); art. XV, § 5 (property of married women); art. XV, § 8 (Chinese landholding, repealed 1946). Each section is printed with its amendment history. Oregon State Legislature. https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/lawsstatutes/orcons.html (accessed 29 July 2026).
• Oregon. The Constitution of Oregon: Framed by the Constitutional Convention Which Met at Salem, on Monday, August 17, 1857. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/esrp1164804132 (accessed 29 July 2026).

Codes and Compilations

• Bellinger, Charles B., and William W. Cotton, comps. and annots. The Codes and Statutes of Oregon, Showing All Laws of a General Nature, Including the Session Laws of 1901. 2 vols. San Francisco: Bancroft-Whitney Company, 1902. Cited above in short form as Bellinger & Cotton. Title and imprint from the list of Oregon statute volumes printed in the Oregon Historical Quarterly, vol. 3 (1902).
• The Code of Civil Procedure, and Other General Statutes of Oregon, Enacted by the Legislative Assembly, at the Session Commencing September 8, A.D., 1862. Code commissioners M. P. Deady, A. C. Gibbs, and J. K. Kelly. Salem: Asahel Bush, State Printer, 1863. Cited above in short form as Code of 1862. The first code of the new state. It prints the acts of the 1862 session under a running head of General Laws of Oregon, separately paginated to 286, and it is the volume that made witness qualifications race-neutral. The acts cited above from it, by page: the marriage act of 27 September 1862 at 85–89; the act of 15 October 1862 taxing people of color at 76–77; and the revenue act of 17 October 1862, carrying the general poll tax, at 89. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/esrp807097971 (accessed 29 July 2026).
• Deady, Matthew P., and Lafayette Lane, comps. and annots. The Organic and Other General Laws of Oregon, Together with the National Constitution, and Other Public Acts and Statutes, 1843–1872. Salem: E. Semple, State Printer, 1874. Cited above in short form as Deady & Lane (1874). The compilation that gathers the Provisional, territorial, and early state law in one numbered series, and the series whose section numbers Hill's Codes prints in brackets beside its own — which is how a section here is matched to it, and why sections of this compilation are cited above by number rather than by page. It follows Deady's earlier Organic and Other General Laws of Oregon … 1845–1864 (Portland: Henry L. Pittock, State Printer, 1866). Digital images of the 1874 volume. HathiTrust, from the copy at the University of Michigan. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.35112104797594 (accessed 11 August 2026). Its predecessor, Deady's Organic and Other General Laws of Oregon … 1845–1864 (Portland: Henry L. Pittock, State Printer, 1866), is not in open view and is held in the Making of Modern Law: Primary Sources collection and in major law libraries.
• Hill, William Lair, comp. and annot. The Codes and General Laws of Oregon. 2d ed. 2 vols. San Francisco: Bancroft-Whitney, 1892. The essential volume for this period, printing the Deady-era text with the source act noted in the margin. Vol. 1 covers the constitutions, civil procedure, evidence (§ 711, competency of witnesses), the criminal code, juries (§§ 947–951), and intermarriage (§§ 1927–1929); vol. 2 covers taxation (§§ 2729–2836), domestic relations, marriage (§§ 2852–2874), guardians (§§ 2879–2911), majority (§§ 2951–2953), dower and curtesy (§§ 2954–2983), married women's property (§§ 2992–3001), conveyances (§§ 3002–3047), wills (§§ 3066–3097), descent and distribution (§§ 3098–3112), and guardians' sales (§§ 3113–3134). The addenda at the end of volume 2 print the acts of 1889 to 1891, including the state reform school act of 20 February 1891, whose §§ 11–14 are at 2:1956–57. Digital images. Internet Archive. Vol. 1, https://archive.org/details/codesandgeneral00hillgoog; vol. 2, https://archive.org/details/codesandgeneral01hillgoog (accessed 29 July 2026).
• Lord, William Paine, and Richard Ward Montague, comps. and annots. Lord's Oregon Laws: Showing All the Laws of a General Nature in Force in the State of Oregon, Including the Sessions of 1909, and the Laws and Constitutional Amendments Adopted at the General Election of 1910. 3 vols. Salem: W. S. Duniway, State Printer, 1910. Cited above in short form as Lord's, for the section numbers carried in the ORS derivation tables below and in the annotated codes that reprint them. Title and imprint from the catalog record of the Biddle Law Library, University of Pennsylvania.
• Oregon Code Annotated. 5 vols. 1930. Compiled under the supervision of the Supreme Court of Oregon, Chief Justice Oliver P. Coshow. The compilation in force from 1930 until the 1940 Compiled Laws, cited above in short form as Oregon Code (1930). Its sections above are taken from the ORS derivation tables below and from the state Board of Health compilation of 1947, which reprints them. Compiler, date, and volume count from Oregon Secretary of State, State Archives, "Legislative Research at the Oregon State Archives," which lists each compilation with its compiler, date, and number of volumes (https://sos.oregon.gov/archives/Pages/records/legislative-research.aspx : accessed 10 August 2026).
• Oregon Compiled Laws Annotated. 1940. Compiled, annotated, and indexed by the publisher's editorial staff under the supervision of the Supreme Court of Oregon, Bryan Goodenough, code commissioner. The compilation in force in the last decade covered here, cited above in short form as OCLA (1940). Its sections above are taken from the works that reprint them — the ORS derivation tables, the Women's Bureau report, and the state Board of Health compilation, all below. Compiler, supervision, and date from Oregon Secretary of State, State Archives, "Legislative Research at the Oregon State Archives," which lists each compilation with its compiler, date, and number of volumes (https://sos.oregon.gov/archives/Pages/records/legislative-research.aspx : accessed 10 August 2026).
• Olson, Conrad Patrick, comp. and annot. Oregon Laws: Showing All the Laws of a General Nature in Force in the State of Oregon, Including the Special Session of 1920. 2 vols. San Francisco: Bancroft-Whitney, 1920. The compilation between Lord's and the Oregon Code, cited above in short form as Oregon Laws, which is why the session-law series is cited throughout as General Laws of Oregon. Its sections above are taken from the ORS derivation tables below and from the works that reprint them. Compiler and volume count from Oregon Secretary of State, State Archives, "Legislative Research at the Oregon State Archives," which lists each compilation with its compiler, date, and number of volumes (https://sos.oregon.gov/archives/Pages/records/legislative-research.aspx : accessed 10 August 2026); title and publisher from the HathiTrust catalog record.
• Oregon Laws Relating to Public Health. Oregon State Board of Health, 1947. Prints each section with the chain of acts and compilations behind it, which is the authority above for the 1913 origin of the marriage medical certificate. The title page names no place of publication. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/29220590R.nlm.nih.gov (accessed 5 August 2026).
• Oregon Revised Statutes, 1953 Edition: Prior Legislative History. The official derivation table, running each ORS section back through Oregon Compiled Laws Annotated, the Oregon Code, Oregon Laws, Lord's Oregon Laws, Bellinger and Cotton, Hill's, and the Deady compilations to the original act. Every compilation chain in the Citations below was checked against it. Oregon State Legislature. https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/Pages/ORSArchive.aspx (accessed 29 July 2026).
• Oregon Revised Statutes (current). Each section printed with its amendment history. Chapter 108 preserves the recitals for the community property laws of 1943 and 1947, including their effective and repeal dates. Oregon State Legislature. https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/Pages/ORS.aspx; ch. 108, https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/ors/ors108.html (accessed 29 July 2026).

Session Laws and Territorial Statutes

• Laws of a General and Local Nature Passed by the Legislative Committee and Legislative Assembly, at Their Various Sessions, from 1843 to 1849. Salem: Asahel Bush, Territorial Printer, 1853. The Provisional Government's acts, including the Organic Laws, the land claim act of 1844, and the act of 26 June 1844 on slavery with its amendatory act of 19 December 1844. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/esrp769262291 (accessed 29 July 2026).
• Laws of the State of Oregon [running head: General Laws of Oregon, 1923]. Salem: State Printing Department, 1923. Compiled by Sam A. Kozer, Secretary of State; the acts of the thirty-second regular session, 8 January to 22 February 1923, together with the measures adopted by the people on 7 November 1922. Ch. 54 (assessors' lists), ch. 98 (the Alien Land Law), and ch. 279 (the income tax) read in full. Digital images. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=ZsRNAQAAIAAJ (accessed 29 July 2026). Imprint from the title page; the publisher field in the Google Books record differs.
• Oregon. General Laws of Oregon [Oregon Laws; Session Laws of Oregon]. Salem: State Printing Department, by session, compiled by the Secretary of State. The imprint is taken from the title page of the 1923 volume, which is the volume read here in full; the state printer and the exact series title vary from session to session, so acts of other years are cited by year, chapter, and page. The individual acts cited above, by year and locator: the act of 24 October 1866 (intermarriage); the married women's property acts, 1878, pp. 92–94; 1880, pp. 6–7 (parental rights); 1885, p. 124 (suspension of judgment against a minor under sixteen); 1903, p. 49 (inheritance tax); 1905, ch. 80, pp. 147–48 (the juvenile court); 1911, ch. 214, pp. 342–43 (marriage licenses and solemnization); 1925, ch. 82, p. 110 (marriage licenses, issuing county); 1917, ch. 331 (dower and curtesy); 1919, ch. 405 (juvenile court); 1921, ch. 273 (women on juries); 1935, ch. 80 (majority); 1941, ch. 136 (single age for wills); 1943, ch. 440 and 1947, ch. 525 (community property); 1945, ch. 436 (supplement to the Alien Land Law); 1951, ch. 455 (repeal of the marriage bar); 1957, ch. 411 (inheritance by children born outside marriage); and 1969, ch. 591 (dower and curtesy abolished). Nineteenth-century acts are cited by page rather than by chapter. The volumes are not digitized in open view; HeinOnline's Session Laws Library holds Oregon complete from 1843.
• Oregon. Oregon Revised Statutes. Salem: Legislative Counsel Committee, by edition. Chapter 108, husband and wife, in the 1975 replacement part, carries the community property sections and the Legislative Counsel's certificate that each is a correct copy of the enrolled section. Digital images. Oregon State Archives, ORS Archives. https://archives.oregonlegislature.gov/ORS_Archives/1975-Chapter-108.pdf (accessed 30 July 2026).
• Oregon. Secretary of State. Official Voters' Pamphlet for the Regular General Election, November 8, 1938. Salem: Earl Snell, Secretary of State, 1938. Pamphlet 3, for Benton, Clatsop, Coos, Curry, Douglas, Jackson, Josephine, Lincoln, Marion, Polk, Washington, and Yamhill counties. Prints the full text of each measure, with its ballot title and the arguments filed for and against. Digital images. State Library of Oregon Digital Collections. https://digitalcollections.library.oregon.gov/nodes/view/24863 (accessed 30 July 2026).
• Statutes of a General Nature Passed by the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Oregon, at the Second Session, Begun and Held at Oregon City, December 2, 1850. Oregon City: Asahel Bush, Territorial Printer, 1851. Contains "An act to prevent negroes and mulattoes from coming to, or residing in Oregon," p. 181. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/esrp1237184086 (accessed 29 July 2026).
• The Statutes of Oregon, Enacted and Continued in Force by the Legislative Assembly, at the Session Commencing 5th December, 1853. Oregon: Asahel Bush, Public Printer, 1854. Contains ch. IV, "Of Evidence," title I, § 6 (competency of witnesses), p. 111; and "An act relating to marriage and divorce," ch. I, "Of Marriage," pp. 492–94, which fixes the marrying ages at 18 and 15, the consent ages at 21 and 18, and the two exceptions to the ordinary ceremony — the recorded contract where the parties lived remote from an officiant (§ 16) and marriages among the Friends or Quakers (§ 18). Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/esrp769262314 (accessed 29 July 2026).
• The Statutes of Oregon, Enacted, and Continued in Force, by the Legislative Assembly, at the Fifth and Sixth Regular Sessions Thereof. Oregon: Asahel Bush, Public Printer, 1855. Contains "An act relating to estates in dower, by courtesy and general provisions concerning real estates," and the witness-competency section as it stood on the eve of statehood. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/esrp651950088 (accessed 29 July 2026).
• United States. Act of 27 September 1850, ch. 76, 9 Stat. 496 — the Donation Land Claim Act, §§ 4–5. Printed in United States Statutes at Large, vol. 9 (31st Congress). Digital images. Library of Congress. https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/llsl//llsl-c31/llsl-c31.pdf. The amending acts are Act of 14 February 1853, ch. 69, 10 Stat. 158, and Act of 17 July 1854, ch. 84, 10 Stat. 305, in volume 10; digital images, Library of Congress, https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/llsl//llsl-c32/llsl-c32.pdf (32nd Congress) and https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/llsl//llsl-c33/llsl-c33.pdf (33rd Congress) (accessed 29 July 2026).

Court Cases

• Bond v. Turner. 33 Or. 551 (1898).
• Bristow v. Jennings. 105 Or. 1 (1922).
• Burton v. Jackson. 9 Or. 276 (1881).
• Chance v. Weston. 96 Or. 390 (1920).
• Cunningham v. Friendly. 70 Or. 222 (1914).
• Elliot v. Teal. 6 Saw. 249 (C.C.D. Or. 1880).
• Ferry v. Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway Co. 258 U.S. 314 (1922). Upholding the nonresident limitation on dower. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/258/314 (accessed 29 July 2026).
• Holmes v. Holmes. 1 Saw. 99 (D. Or. 1870).
• Huard v. McTeigh. 113 Or. 279 (1925).
• Iltz v. Krieger. 104 Or. 59 (1922).
• Mullart v. State Land Board. 222 Or. 463 (1960). https://law.justia.com/cases/oregon/supreme-court/1960/222-or-463-3.html (accessed 29 July 2026).
• Namba v. McCourt. 185 Or. 579, 204 P.2d 569 (1949).
• Rieger v. Harrington. 102 Or. 603 (1922).
• Smith v. Hyett. 281 P. 826 (1929).
• Thornburn v. Doscher. 32 F. 810 (C.C.D. Or. 1887).
• Turney v. Stone. 107 Or. 612 (1923).
• Walters v. Waggener. 104 Or. 682 (1922).

Secondary and Reference Works

• Ballotpedia. "Oregon Measure Nos. 306–307, Require Medical Examinations for Marriage Licenses Measure (1938)." Ballot title and certified returns for the referred bill approved 8 November 1938; and the companion entry for the measure to the same effect rejected in June 1921. https://ballotpedia.org/Oregon_Measure_Nos._306-307,_Require_Medical_Examinations_for_Marriage_Licenses_Measure_(1938) (accessed 29 July 2026).
• CourtListener. Free Law Project. Oregon appellate opinions searchable in full text. https://www.courtlistener.com/?court=or (accessed 29 July 2026).
• FamilySearch Research Wiki. "Oregon Land and Property," "Oregon Probate Records," and "Oregon Vital Records." What an Oregon probate packet contains, the division between county and circuit courts, county marriage recording from about 1849, and statewide registration of marriages in 1906. https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Oregon_Probate_Records (accessed 29 July 2026).
• Genealogical Forum of Portland. Genealogical Material in Oregon Donation Land Claims. 5 vols. Portland: Genealogical Forum of Portland, 1957–1975. The published abstracts of the claim files, indexed by name and by location; the authority for what a claim file contains.
• Masur, Kate. Until Justice Be Done: America's First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction. New York: W. W. Norton, 2021. On Oregon's territorial bar against Black testimony and its removal.
• The Oregon Encyclopedia. Oregon Historical Society. Entries on the Donation Land Act, the Black exclusion laws, and the Provisional Government. https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org (accessed 29 July 2026).
• Oregon Judicial Department. Juvenile Delinquency Bench Book, ch. 1. The history of the juvenile court, first established in 1905. https://www.courts.oregon.gov/programs/jcip/Documents/Juvenile.Delinquency.Bench.Book.5.15.25.pdf (accessed 29 July 2026).
• Oregon Secretary of State. State Archives. "Legislative Research at the Oregon State Archives." Lists each Oregon compilation from the Deady codes to the Oregon Revised Statutes with its compiler, date, and number of volumes; the authority for those details above. https://sos.oregon.gov/archives/Pages/records/legislative-research.aspx (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Oregon Secretary of State. State Archives: the Oregon Historical County Records Guide and the archives' genealogy pages, which inventory county probate, land, and tax records and describe what each series holds. The authority for the record statements above. https://sos.oregon.gov/archives/Pages/records/genealogy.aspx (accessed 29 July 2026).
• Robben, Janine. "Juvenile Court Grows Up: A Look Back at Oregon's First 100 Years of Children and the Courts." Oregon State Bar Bulletin (June 2005). Dates the first Oregon juvenile court to 1905. https://www.osbar.org/publications/bulletin/05jun/juvenile.html (accessed 29 July 2026).
• United States Department of Labor, Women's Bureau. The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: Report for Oregon. Bulletin of the Women's Bureau, No. 157-36 (Revised). Washington: Government Printing Office, 1949. Law stated as of 1 January 1948. A digest of Oregon law on majority, minors' contracts, married women's property, dower, curtesy, wills, intestacy, guardianship, marriage, and jury service, with citations to the 1940 Compiled Laws Annotated. Digital images. FRASER, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/women/b0157-36-rev_dolwb_1949.pdf (accessed 29 July 2026).

Citations

1. Organic Laws of Oregon (1843, as revised 1845), art. III, § 1, printed in Laws of a General and Local Nature Passed by the Legislative Committee and Legislative Assembly, at Their Various Sessions, from 1843 to 1849 (Salem: Asahel Bush, Territorial Printer, 1853); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp769262291 : accessed 29 July 2026) ↩
2. Oregon Community Property Law of 1943, General Laws of Oregon, 1943, ch. 440; the election and its revocation survive at ORS 108.510 (accessed 29 July 2026) ↩
3. General Laws of Oregon, 1947, ch. 525, in force from 5 July 1947 and repealed effective 11 April 1949. The chapter and both dates are fixed by the enacted text of the repealing legislation rather than by an editor's note: ORS 108.530 runs to community property acquired "between July 5, 1947, and April 11, 1949," and ORS 108.540 and 108.550 each name "chapter 525, Oregon Laws 1947." Oregon Revised Statutes, 1975 replacement part, ch. 108, at 997–98, carrying the certificate of the Legislative Counsel under ORS 173.170 that each section is a correct copy of the enrolled section; digital images, Oregon State Archives, ORS Archives (https://archives.oregonlegislature.gov/ORS_Archives/1975-Chapter-108.pdf : accessed 30 July 2026). The act is cited from that enacted text and from the digest of it in the Women's Bureau report for Oregon (1949), item 10, full reference at citation 7, rather than from the session volume ↩
4. Hill, The Codes and General Laws of Oregon, 2d ed., 2 vols. (San Francisco: Bancroft-Whitney, 1892), § 3024; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/codesandgeneral01hillgoog : accessed 29 July 2026) ↩
5. Hill's Codes (1892), § 2951, male persons of 21 and females of 18 deemed to have arrived at majority, the marginal note giving the originating act as that of 11 October 1864; digital images of volume 2, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/codesandgeneral01hillgoog : accessed 29 July 2026). This note gives each compilation in the chain its full reference; every later citation uses the short form set out here. Deady and Lane, comps., The Organic and Other General Laws of Oregon, Together with the National Constitution, and Other Public Acts and Statutes, 1843–1872 (Salem: E. Semple, State Printer, 1874), 564, §§ 75–77, from the act of 11 October 1864 — § 75 fixing majority at twenty-one for males and eighteen for females, § 76 validating past contracts by females between eighteen and twenty-one, and § 77 making marriage equivalent to majority for a female; digital images, HathiTrust (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.35112104797594 : accessed 11 August 2026); hereafter Deady & Lane (1874). Its section numbers are the ones Hill's Codes prints in brackets beside its own, which is how each section here is matched to it. Bellinger and Cotton, The Codes and Statutes of Oregon, Showing All Laws of a General Nature, Including the Session Laws of 1901, 2 vols. (San Francisco: Bancroft-Whitney Company, 1902), § 5330; hereafter Bellinger & Cotton. Lord and Montague, comps., Lord's Oregon Laws, 3 vols. (Salem: W. S. Duniway, State Printer, 1910), § 7097; hereafter Lord's. Olson, comp., Oregon Laws, 2 vols. (San Francisco: Bancroft-Whitney, 1920), § 9780. Oregon Code Annotated (1930), § 33-501; hereafter Oregon Code (1930). Oregon Compiled Laws Annotated (1940), § 63-501; hereafter OCLA (1940). Now ORS 109.510. Compilation chains throughout are taken from the official ORS 1953 derivation table; the compilers, volume counts, and dates of the 1920, 1930, and 1940 compilations are as given by the Oregon State Archives in its guide to legislative research, and the Bellinger and Cotton title and imprint from the list of Oregon statute volumes in the Oregon Historical Quarterly, vol. 3 (1902). Session laws are cited throughout as General Laws of Oregon, by year and chapter, to keep them distinct from the Oregon Laws compilation; the series title varies from session to session, and the Source List records the variants ↩
6. The common law, received by Organic Laws of Oregon (1843, as revised 1845), art. III, § 1; see citation 1. Neither The Statutes of Oregon (1854) nor the volume for the fifth and sixth sessions (1855) contains any provision fixing an age of majority, and both treat 21 as the line: the Code of Civil Procedure of 1854, ch. II, § 6, directs that a married woman who is "an infant under twenty-one years of age" shall sue or defend by her next friend, and § 10 of the same chapter allows an action for her own seduction to "an unmarried female over twenty-one years of age." The rule making a woman an adult at 18 first appears in the act of 11 October 1864, the act named in the margin of Hill's Codes (1892), § 2951 ↩
7. General Laws of Oregon, 1935, ch. 80, § 1; OCLA (1940), § 63-501. OCLA sections throughout are cited as reproduced in the ORS 1953 derivation tables and in U.S. Department of Labor, Women's Bureau, The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: Report for Oregon, Bulletin of the Women's Bureau No. 157-36 (Revised) (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1949), law stated as of 1 January 1948; digital images, FRASER, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/women/b0157-36-rev_dolwb_1949.pdf : accessed 29 July 2026); rather than from the bound volumes ↩
8. Hill's Codes (1892), § 2952 ↩
9. Hill's Codes (1892), § 2953; carried from the act of 11 October 1864, Deady & Lane (1874), 564, § 77, through Bellinger & Cotton, § 5332, Lord's, § 7099, the acts of 1915, ch. 31, and 1919, ch. 47, Oregon Laws, § 9782, and the Oregon Code (1930), § 33-502, to OCLA (1940), § 63-502, now ORS 109.520 ↩
10. the common law, received by Organic Laws of Oregon, art. III, § 1; Oregon's codes set no contrary rule ↩
11. "An act relating to marriage and divorce," ch. I, "Of Marriage," §§ 2 and 5, in The Statutes of Oregon, Enacted and Continued in Force by the Legislative Assembly, at the Session Commencing 5th December, 1853 (Oregon: Asahel Bush, Public Printer, 1854), 492–93 — every male of 18 and every female of 15 capable in law of contracting marriage, and the consent of a parent or guardian required where the male was under 21 or the female under 18; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp769262314 : accessed 10 August 2026). The same two ages and the same consent rule were re-enacted in 1862 and ran unchanged to the end of the period; see citations for the state act below ↩
12. Hill's Codes (1892), § 2852; carried from "An act to regulate marriages," approved 27 September 1862, § 1, Deady, Gibbs, and Kelly, comps., The Code of Civil Procedure, and Other General Statutes of Oregon, Enacted by the Legislative Assembly, at the Session Commencing September 8, A.D., 1862 (Salem: Asahel Bush, State Printer, 1863), 85; hereafter Code of 1862; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp807097971 : accessed 30 July 2026). Carried through Bellinger & Cotton, § 5216, Lord's, § 7016, Oregon Laws, § 9720, and the Oregon Code (1930), § 33-101, to OCLA (1940), § 63-101, now ORS 106.010 ↩
13. Hill's Codes (1892), § 2854 ↩
14. Hill's Codes (1892), § 2864; carried from the act of 27 September 1862, § 13, Code of 1862, 87–88, through Bellinger & Cotton, § 5228, Lord's, § 7028, Oregon Laws, § 9732, and the Oregon Code (1930), § 33-113, to OCLA (1940), § 63-113, now ORS 106.060 ↩
15. OCLA (1940), § 63-112; carried from the act of 27 September 1862, § 12, Code of 1862, 87, through Hill's Codes (1892), § 2863, Bellinger & Cotton, § 5227, Lord's, § 7027, the act of 1911, ch. 214, § 3, Oregon Laws, § 9731, the act of 1925, ch. 82, the Oregon Code (1930), § 33-112, and the act of 1933, ch. 57, § 1. General Laws of Oregon, 1911, ch. 214 (H. B. 389, filed 23 February 1911), pp. 342–43, has been read: its three sections amend Lord's, §§ 7019, 7024, and 7027, and § 3 requires the license to be had from the clerk of the county in which the female resides and directs the clerk to take the address of the male and of the affiant. General Laws of Oregon, 1925, ch. 82 (H. B. 125, approved and filed 20 February 1925), p. 110, has also been read: a single section rewriting Oregon Laws, § 9731, headed "License to Marry, by Whom Issued," which drops the requirement that the license come from the clerk of the woman's county and directs the clerk to take the addresses of both parties. Neither the 1911 act nor the 1925 act carries a waiting period, and of the acts in this chain only that of 1933, ch. 57, § 1, falls between the act of 1925 and the 1940 compilation. The rule itself stood at the end of the period: the Women's Bureau report for Oregon (1949), item 18, gives the three-day wait and the probate judge's power to order a license issued at once, on OCLA (1940), § 63-112 ↩ ↩
16. Hill's Codes (1892), §§ 2855, 2856 ↩
17. Holmes v. Holmes, 1 Saw. 99 (D. Or. 1870), printed in the annotation to Hill's Codes (1892), § 2852 ↩
18. Huard v. McTeigh, 113 Or. 279, 296 (1925) ↩
19. "An act relating to marriage and divorce," ch. I, § 18, Statutes of Oregon (1854), 494, validating marriages solemnized among the people called Friends or Quakers in the form practiced in their meetings. The state act generalized the rule: "An act to regulate marriages," approved 27 September 1862, § 11, Code of 1862, 87, makes valid all marriages free of legal impediment solemnized before or in any religious organization or congregation according to its established ritual or customary form, the person presiding to make and file a certificate for record as in ordinary cases; carried forward as Hill's Codes (1892), § 2862 ↩
20. "An act relating to marriage and divorce," ch. I, § 16, Statutes of Oregon (1854), 494 — marriages contracted with the consent of the parties, where their residence is remote from any person authorized to solemnize marriage, valid if no legal impediment exists, the contract to be made in writing, duly attested, and recorded in the office of the recorder of deeds of the proper county within sixty days. The provision has no counterpart in the act of 1862 and does not appear in Hill's Codes (1892) ↩
21. Hill's Codes (1892), §§ 2858, 2860 ↩
22. Hill's Codes (1892), § 2861 ↩
23. Hill's Codes (1892), § 2853, subsecs. 1–2; carried from the act of 27 September 1862, § 2, Code of 1862, 85–86, through the act of 1893, p. 41, § 1, Bellinger & Cotton, § 5217, Lord's, § 7017, Oregon Laws, § 9721, and the Oregon Code (1930), § 33-102, to OCLA (1940), § 63-102, now ORS 106.020 ↩
24. OCLA (1940), §§ 9-902, 9-904, 63-102 ↩
25. The requirement dates from Laws of 1913, ch. 187, §§ 1–4, p. 350, as the derivations printed under the sections show: Oregon Laws Relating to Public Health (Oregon State Board of Health, 1947), §§ 63-118 to 63-121, pp. 147–48, which give for § 63-118 the chain “L. 1913, ch. 187, Sec. 1; O. L. Sec. 9737; O. C. 1930, Sec. 33-118; L. 1937, ch. 434, Sec. 1; Am. L. 1947, ch. 116”; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/29220590R.nlm.nih.gov : accessed 5 August 2026). The title page gives no place of publication. Section 63-119 carries the revocation of a physician's own license for a false certificate and § 63-121 the free examination of the indigent, both from the act of 1913. The enlargement is General Laws of Oregon, 1937, ch. 434 (Senate Bill 279, thirty-ninth legislative assembly), amending §§ 33-118 and 33-120 of the Oregon Code 1930 and, by its § 3, submitting itself to the people; filed with the Secretary of State 12 March 1937 and approved as Measure Nos. 306–307 on 8 November 1938, 277,099 to 66,484. Its § 1 sets the ten-day limit on the certificates, the physician's Oregon residence and licensure, the laboratory and smear tests, the confidentiality and separate filing of the health records, the State Board of Eugenics blanks and sworn questionnaires, the committee of three on the mental-condition grounds, and the ninety-day appeal; § 2 caps the physician's fee at $5 a person. Its full text, with the ballot title, is printed in Official Voters' Pamphlet for the Regular General Election, November 8, 1938 (Salem: Earl Snell, Secretary of State, 1938), 12–13; the committee's argument at 14–15 gives the chapter as 234, which the official text of the measure at 12 contradicts. Certified returns from Ballotpedia (https://ballotpedia.org/Oregon_Measure_Nos._306-307,_Require_Medical_Examinations_for_Marriage_Licenses_Measure_(1938) : accessed 29 July 2026). A measure referred to the people took effect on approval under Or. Const. of 1857, art. IV, § 1, as amended 1902, under which any measure referred to the people takes effect and becomes law when approved by a majority of the votes cast on it, and not otherwise; the present rule delaying effect for thirty days entered art. IV, § 1, with the revision adopted 28 May 1968. The requirement as it stood at the end of the period is OCLA (1940), § 63-118 (1944–1947 Pocket Part). A bill to the same effect referred in 1921 was rejected by the voters ↩ ↩ ↩
26. Hill's Codes (1892), § 2853, subsec. 3 ↩
27. Hill's Codes (1892), § 1927, from the act of 24 October 1866, § 1, effective 18 January 1867; digital images of volume 1, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/codesandgeneral00hillgoog : accessed 29 July 2026). The section is numbered 689 in Deady & Lane (1874), the number Hill's Codes prints beside its own. The act of 1866 created the bar; nothing of the kind stood in the marriage act of 1862, which forbade only marriage between a white person and a person of one quarter or more Black ancestry ↩
28. Hill's Codes (1892), § 1928; Deady & Lane (1874), § 690 ↩
29. Hill's Codes (1892), § 1929; Deady & Lane (1874), § 691 ↩
30. General Laws of Oregon, 1951, ch. 455, § 1, striking the race clause from the section on prohibited marriages; and see the chain at citation 23 ↩
31. Or. Const. of 1857, art. I, § 34 ↩
32. act of 19 December 1844, amendatory of the act of 26 June 1844 "in regard to Slavery and for other purposes," §§ 1–2, repealing §§ 6–7 of the earlier act; Laws of a General and Local Nature (1853) ↩
33. "An act to prevent negroes and mulattoes from coming to, or residing in Oregon," § 1, in Statutes of a General Nature Passed by the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Oregon, at the Second Session (Oregon City: Asahel Bush, Territorial Printer, 1851), p. 181; §§ 6–7 gave a judge or justice power to remove anyone staying in breach; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp1237184086 : accessed 29 July 2026). The act was passed on 26 September 1849, as the line printed after its § 8 records, and repealed in 1854; although the volume's title page names the second session, it prints the statutes of a general nature then in force, and so carries this act of the first territorial legislature ↩
34. Hill's Codes (1892), § 3002 ↩
35. act in relation to land claims, Provisional Government, 1844, §§ 1–3; Laws of a General and Local Nature (1853) ↩
36. act of 27 September 1850, ch. 76, 9 Stat. 496, § 4, granting one half section to a single settler "above the age of eighteen years"; digital images, Library of Congress (https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/llsl//llsl-c31/llsl-c31.pdf : accessed 29 July 2026) ↩
37. act of 27 September 1850, ch. 76, 9 Stat. 496, § 5 — 160 acres to a single man and 320 to a married couple, for settlers above 21 arriving between 1 December 1850 and 1 December 1853 ↩
38. Act of 14 February 1853, ch. 69, 10 Stat. 158, amending the Donation Land Claim Act (extension to 1 December 1855; widows and heirs; purchase at $1.25 an acre after two years' residence); and the Act of 17 July 1854, ch. 84, 10 Stat. 305, amending both the 1850 act and the act of February 1853 (residence reduced to one year); digital images, Library of Congress (https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/llsl//llsl-c32/llsl-c32.pdf and https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/llsl//llsl-c33/llsl-c33.pdf : accessed 29 July 2026) ↩
39. Hill's Codes (1892), § 2988 ↩
40. act of 27 September 1850, ch. 76, 9 Stat. 496, § 4 — a married claimant took one section, "one half to himself and the other half to his wife, to be held by her in her own right," the surveyor-general to designate each part and enter it on the records of his office ↩
41. Or. Const. of 1857, art. XV, § 5 ↩
42. Hill's Codes (1892), §§ 2999–3001 ↩
43. OCLA (1940), § 63-201, on the wife's petition and proof of abandonment before the county court, the powers running from the decree until the husband's return ↩
44. OCLA (1940), § 63-204; carried from General Laws of Oregon, 1878, p. 92, § 1, through Hill's Codes (1892), § 2992, the act of 1893, p. 170, § 1, Bellinger & Cotton, § 5244, Lord's, § 7044, Oregon Laws, § 9753, and the Oregon Code (1930), § 33-211, now ORS 108.050. The companion sections are General Laws of Oregon, 1878, p. 92, § 2, and p. 93, §§ 3, 5, 8, and 14 ↩
45. OCLA (1940), § 63-202; carried from General Laws of Oregon, 1880, p. 6, § 1, through Hill's Codes (1892), § 2998, Bellinger & Cotton, § 5256, Lord's, § 7050, Oregon Laws, § 9759, and the Oregon Code (1930), § 33-215, now ORS 108.010 ↩
46. Hill's Codes (1892), § 3003, under which a husband and wife may by their joint deed convey the wife's real estate in like manner as she might by her separate deed if unmarried, the wife not bound by the covenants in it; OCLA (1940), § 70-102, the same section. That she could dispose of the interest she owned but could not by her sole deed convey a fee simple divested of her husband's life estate is stated in the Women's Bureau report for Oregon (1949), item 5, on OCLA (1940), § 63-204; and see Elliot v. Teal, 6 Saw. 249 (C.C.D. Or. 1880) ↩
47. OCLA (1940), § 18-101; and see Bond v. Turner, 33 Or. 551 (1898) ↩
48. Chance v. Weston, 96 Or. 390, 401 (1920), on OCLA (1940), § 63-205 ↩
49. OCLA (1940), § 70-117 ↩
50. General Laws of Oregon, 1943, ch. 440; ORS 108.510, preserving the form of revocation and directing it to the Secretary of State ↩
51. ORS 108.510, carrying forward the revocation despite the repeal of ch. 440: subsec. (1) prescribes the form, subsec. (2) the $15 fee, the filing and indexing by the Secretary of State, the certificate transmitted to the recording officer of each county, and that officer's own filing and indexing, subsec. (3) public notice, and subsec. (4) the restoration of title to its status on the date the certificate of election was filed. Oregon Revised Statutes, 1975 replacement part, ch. 108, at 997 ↩
52. Women's Bureau report (1949), 9–10, item 10, digesting General Laws of Oregon, 1947, p. 910 ↩
53. ORS 108.530, and see ORS 108.540 for property remaining community at a spouse's death after 11 April 1951 ↩
54. "An act relating to estates in dower, by courtesy and general provisions concerning real estates," ch. I, title I, § 1, in The Statutes of Oregon, Enacted, and Continued in Force, by the Legislative Assembly, at the Fifth and Sixth Regular Sessions Thereof (Oregon: Asahel Bush, Public Printer, 1855) — at 405, the widow entitled to the use for her life of one third of all the lands her husband held by an estate of inheritance at any time during the marriage, unless lawfully barred; § 7 covers dower in lands the husband had already sold; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp651950088 : accessed 29 July 2026). Carried through Hill's Codes (1892), § 2954, the act of 1893, p. 194, § 1, Bellinger & Cotton, § 5515, and Lord's, § 7286 ↩
55. General Laws of Oregon, 1917, ch. 331, § 1, enlarging the widow's dower from one-third to one-half, as recited in Walters v. Waggener, 104 Or. 682, 686 (1922), Iltz v. Krieger, 104 Or. 59 (1922), and Bristow v. Jennings, 105 Or. 1 (1922); re-enacted by General Laws of Oregon, 1919, ch. 351, § 1; OCLA (1940), § 17-101 ↩
56. Hill's Codes (1892), § 2966; OCLA (1940), § 17-108 ↩
57. Statutes of Oregon (1855), the same title, §§ 14–16 (jointure settled before marriage with her assent, how the assent is evidenced, and a pecuniary provision in lieu of dower); Hill's Codes (1892), §§ 2967–2970; OCLA (1940), §§ 17-109 to 17-111 ↩
58. Burton v. Jackson, 9 Or. 276 (1881) ↩
59. Statutes of Oregon (1855), "An act relating to estates in dower, by courtesy and general provisions concerning real estates," ch. I, title I, § 21 — a woman residing out of the territory endowed of the lands "of which her husband died seised"; carried through Lord's, § 7306, to OCLA (1940), §§ 17-116, 17-401, which apply the rule to a nonresident husband's curtesy as well; Rieger v. Harrington, 102 Or. 603, 612, 614 (1922) ↩
60. Ferry v. Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway Co., 258 U.S. 314, 318–21 (1922), quoting Lord's, § 7306, and Thornburn v. Doscher, 32 F. 810 (C.C.D. Or. 1887); digital images, Justia (https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/258/314 : accessed 29 July 2026). The Court dated the rule to about 1857 and named its purpose as assuring titles against absent wives; and see Cunningham v. Friendly, 70 Or. 222 (1914) ↩
61. OCLA (1940), §§ 17-501 to 17-508; carried from General Laws of Oregon, 1913, ch. 270, §§ 1–2, through Oregon Laws, §§ 10084–10085, and the Oregon Code (1930), §§ 10-401, 10-402 ↩
62. Hill's Codes (1892), § 2983, the husband taking a life estate "although such husband and wife may not have had issue born alive"; carried from the territorial dower and curtesy act, title II, § 30, Statutes of Oregon (1855), 409; Deady & Lane (1874), § 30, through Bellinger & Cotton, § 5544, the act of 1907, ch. 87, and Lord's, § 7315 ↩
63. OCLA (1940), § 17-401. Curtesy was enlarged to one-half by General Laws of Oregon, 1917, ch. 331, § 2 — the same act that enlarged dower in § 1 and amended the will statute in § 3 — and re-enacted by General Laws of Oregon, 1919, ch. 351, § 2. Chapter 331 is the chapter recited in Iltz v. Krieger and in Smith v. Hyett, 281 P. 826 (1929), which allowed a husband curtesy in one-half, and it is the chapter given in the ORS 1953 derivation table ↩
64. General Laws of Oregon, 1969, ch. 591, § 78; ORS 112.685 ↩
65. Hill's Codes (1892), §§ 3113–3134 ↩
66. Hill's Codes (1892), §§ 3002, 3018 ↩
67. Or. Const. of 1857, art. I, § 35 ↩
68. repeal proposed by H.J.R. 8, 1925, adopted by the people 2 November 1926 ↩
69. Or. Const. of 1857, art. XV, § 8 ↩
70. repeal proposed by S.J.R. 14, 1945, adopted by the people 5 November 1946 ↩
71. General Laws of Oregon, 1923 (Salem: State Printing Department, 1923), ch. 98 (H. B. 34), §§ 1–3 (aliens eligible to citizenship hold as citizens do; all other aliens, and companies a majority of whose members or stock they hold, only as an existing treaty allows, "and not otherwise"), § 7 (escheat, and the district attorney's suit in the circuit court), § 8 (leaseholds and lesser interests), and § 9 (presumptions of intent to evade, including property taken in the name of another and paid for by such an alien); § 4 barred such an alien from guardianship of the property concerned, and § 10 punished conspiracy to transfer. Approved and filed 16 February 1923; digital images, Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=ZsRNAQAAIAAJ : accessed 29 July 2026). The imprint above is taken from the volume's own title page; the publisher field in the Google Books record differs from it ↩ ↩
72. General Laws of Oregon, 1945, ch. 436, from Senate Bill 274, described in Namba v. McCourt, 185 Or. 579, 204 P.2d 569 (1949), as containing provisions ancillary to the Alien Land Law ↩
73. Namba v. McCourt, striking down the Alien Land Law, which the opinion locates at OCLA (1940) §§ 61-101 to 61-112, with ancillary provisions added by General Laws of Oregon, 1945, ch. 436. The original act is General Laws of Oregon, 1923, ch. 98 (citation 71); the legislature repealed the alien land laws later in 1949 ↩
74. General Laws of Oregon, 1923, ch. 98, § 5(b), the annual verified report, with § 5(c) making a violation a misdemeanor ↩
75. General Laws of Oregon, 1923, ch. 54 (H. B. 120), a single section requiring each county assessor to list annually all Chinese and Japanese who own, lease or operate real property in the county; approved and filed 13 February 1923 ↩
76. Hill's Codes (1892), § 3098; carried from the act of 24 October 1864, ch. X, "Of the Descent of Real Property," § 1, Deady & Lane (1874), 547, and the act of 1889, p. 72, through Bellinger & Cotton, § 5577, the act of 1905, ch. 184, Lord's, § 7348, and the act of 1913, ch. 39, to OCLA (1940), § 16-101 ↩
77. OCLA (1940), § 16-101, subsecs. 2–3; and see the chain at citation 76 ↩
78. Statutes of Oregon (1855), the same title, §§ 8–10, assignment of dower by the probate court on warrant to three commissioners ↩
79. Hill's Codes (1892), §§ 2961–2963 ↩
80. Hill's Codes (1892), § 2964 ↩
81. Hill's Codes (1892), § 2965 ↩
82. Hill's Codes (1892), § 2976; OCLA (1940), § 17-118 ↩
83. Hill's Codes (1892), § 3099, subsecs. 3–5, from the act of 24 October 1864; OCLA (1940), § 16-102 ↩
84. OCLA (1940), § 16-102, subsecs. 1, 2, 4 ↩
85. Hill's Codes (1892), §§ 3104, 3105 ↩
86. Hill's Codes (1892), § 3099, subsec. 1; OCLA (1940), §§ 19-601, 19-603 ↩
87. OCLA (1940), §§ 6-1301 to 6-1304, 19-602 ↩
88. OCLA (1940), § 19-604 ↩
89. Hill's Codes (1892), § 2971; carried from the territorial act of 1854, the territorial dower act, § 18, "Election between devise and dower," Deady & Lane (1874), 584, through Bellinger & Cotton, § 5532, Lord's, § 7303, Oregon Laws, § 10070, and the Oregon Code (1930), § 10-318, to OCLA (1940), § 17-113, now ORS 113.030 ↩
90. Hill's Codes (1892), § 2972; OCLA (1940), § 17-114 ↩
91. Hill's Codes (1892), § 2880 ↩
92. Hill's Codes (1892), § 2879; OCLA (1940), § 22-309 ↩
93. Hill's Codes (1892), § 2881 ↩
94. Hill's Codes (1892), § 2882 ↩
95. Hill's Codes (1892), § 2884 ↩
96. Hill's Codes (1892), § 2883 ↩
97. Hill's Codes (1892), § 2901 ↩
98. Hill's Codes (1892), § 2883, proviso ↩
99. Hill's Codes (1892), § 2885; OCLA (1940), § 22-106 ↩
100. Hill's Codes (1892), § 2878, from General Laws of Oregon, 1880, p. 7, § 2; carried through Bellinger & Cotton, § 5257, Lord's, § 7057, and the Oregon Code (1930) to OCLA (1940), § 63-304, now ORS 109.030 ↩
101. Hill's Codes (1892), § 3102; OCLA (1940), § 16-202 ↩
102. OCLA (1940), § 16-201, construed in Mullart v. State Land Board, 222 Or. 463, 469 (1960) — an illegitimate child was the heir of its mother only and could not inherit from the mother's kindred; repealed by Oregon Laws 1957, ch. 411, and replaced by ORS 109.060; digital images, Justia (https://law.justia.com/cases/oregon/supreme-court/1960/222-or-463-3.html : accessed 29 July 2026) ↩
103. Hill's Codes (1892), § 3102 ↩
104. OCLA (1940), §§ 28-905, 28-906 ↩
105. Hill's Codes (1892), § 3066; carried from "An act relating to wills," § 1, in The Statutes of Oregon, Enacted, and Continued in Force, by the Legislative Assembly, at the Fifth and Sixth Regular Sessions Thereof (Oregon: Asahel Bush, Public Printer, 1855), 384, hereafter Statutes of Oregon (1855); Deady & Lane (1874), § 1; through Bellinger & Cotton, § 5545, Lord's, § 7316, the acts of 1917, ch. 331, § 3, and 1919, ch. 351, § 3, Oregon Laws, § 10092, the act of 1921, ch. 27, § 1, and the Oregon Code (1930), § 10-501, to OCLA (1940), § 18-101, and the act of 1941, ch. 136, § 1, now ORS 114.020 ↩
106. Hill's Codes (1892), § 3067; carried from "An act relating to wills," § 2, Statutes of Oregon (1855), 384 — every person over the age of eighteen years, of sound mind, may by last will dispose of his goods and chattels ↩
107. General Laws of Oregon, 1941, ch. 136, § 1, amending OCLA (1940), § 18-101, as printed in the 1943 Cumulative Pocket Part and digested in the Women's Bureau report for Oregon at item 14. The two-age split was still in force in the 1920s: Turney v. Stone, 107 Or. 612 (1923), quotes both Oregon Laws, § 10092 (age 21, real and personal), and § 10093 (age 18, goods and chattels). The separate age-18 provision was dropped in the recodification and appears nowhere in the ORS 1953 derivation tables ↩
108. Hill's Codes (1892), § 3068; OCLA (1940), § 18-102 ↩
109. Hill's Codes (1892), § 3069; carried from the territorial act of 1853, "An act relating to wills," § 4, Statutes of Oregon (1855), 384–85; Deady & Lane (1874), § 4, through Bellinger & Cotton, § 5548, Lord's, § 7319, Oregon Laws, § 10095, and the Oregon Code (1930), § 10-503, to OCLA (1940), § 18-201, now ORS 114.030 ↩
110. Hill's Codes (1892), §§ 3080, 3081 ↩
111. Hill's Codes (1892), § 3085 ↩
112. Hill's Codes (1892), § 3086 ↩
113. Hill's Codes (1892), § 3087 ↩
114. OCLA (1940), § 19-216, minors not qualified to act as executors or administrators; and see citation 5 on majority. The rule and the appointment that follows from it run back to Deady & Lane (1874), Code of Civil Procedure, §§ 1052, 1076 — § 1052 directing that where all the persons named in the will decline or are disqualified, letters of administration with the will annexed issue to the person to whom administration would have been granted had there been no will, whom §§ 1053–1055 name as the widow or next of kin ↩ ↩
115. Deady & Lane (1874), Code of Civil Procedure, § 1076, disqualifying non-residents of the state, minors, judicial officers other than justices of the peace, persons of unsound mind or convicted of a felony or of a misdemeanor involving moral turpitude, and married women. The disability of married women fell with General Laws of Oregon, 1880, p. 6, § 1, repealing all laws imposing civil disabilities on a wife that were not imposed on a husband; see citation 45. By the end of the period the disqualification reached only minors and the other classes: OCLA (1940), § 19-216 ↩
116. Hill's Codes (1892), § 2729 ↩
117. Hill's Codes (1892), § 2836 ↩
118. Hill's Codes (1892), § 2733, a poll tax of one dollar on every male inhabitant between twenty-one and fifty, excepting any active or exempt fireman who had been a member of a company for the year preceding the assessment ↩ ↩
119. Hill's Codes (1892), § 2787 ↩
120. Hill's Codes (1892), § 2835 ↩
121. "An act to provide for taxing negroes, Chinamen, kanakas and mulattoes," approved 15 October 1862, §§ 1–4, approved 15 October 1862, Code of 1862, 76–77, a five-dollar annual poll tax, with § 4 requiring a day's labor on the public highways for every half-dollar unpaid. The two charges were distinct. Section 2 makes the five-dollar tax payable to the county treasurer between the first day of January and the first day of March for the use of the county, and the treasurer's receipt protects the payer only from being charged that tax again in another county, while the general poll tax of one dollar was part of the state levy laid by the act to increase the revenue of the state, § 1, approved 17 October 1862, in the same volume at 89, on every male person over twenty-one and under fifty; neither act excused a man from the other, and see citations 118 and 117 ↩
122. Hill's Codes (1892), § 949, from the act of 20 February 1885 ↩
123. Hill's Codes (1892), § 950 ↩
124. General Laws of Oregon, 1903, p. 49, § 1; amended by the acts of 1905, ch. 178, 1919, ch. 392, 1925, chs. 3 and 338, 1931, ch. 332, 1933, ch. 26, and 1939, ch. 148; carried through Lord's, § 1191, Oregon Laws, § 1191, and the Oregon Code (1930), § 10-601, to OCLA (1940), § 20-101, now ORS 118.010 ↩
125. General Laws of Oregon, 1923, ch. 279 (H. B. 350), the income tax act, taxing the net income of individuals, partnerships, and resident and nonresident corporations, and commuting the general property tax on certain personal property ↩
126. Or. Const. art. IX, § 1a, created through initiative petition filed 23 June 1910 and adopted by the people 8 November 1910 ↩
127. Hill's Codes (1892), § 947; carried from the act of 1862, Deady & Lane (1874), § 918, and the act of 1882, p. 61, through Bellinger & Cotton, § 965, Lord's, § 990, Oregon Laws, § 990, the act of 1921, ch. 273, § 5, and the Oregon Code (1930), § 30-107, to OCLA (1940), § 14-107, now ORS 10.030 ↩
128. Hill's Codes (1892), § 948 ↩
129. Hill's Codes (1892), § 951 ↩
130. General Laws of Oregon, 1921, ch. 273, §§ 1, 5, 6, rewriting the jury chapter; OCLA (1940), §§ 14-101, 14-107, 14-108; and see the chain at citation 127 ↩
131. the common law, received by Organic Laws of Oregon, art. III, § 1; the crimes and criminal-procedure titles of Hill's Codes (1892) fix no age of capacity, leaving the common-law rule in force ↩
132. Hill's Codes (1892), §§ 1414, 1415, ch. XXI, "Of judgment when infants are charged with crime" — suspension of final judgment against a minor under sixteen, commitment to a non-sectarian charitable corporation, and compensation of the institution receiving the child. The margin of § 1414 gives the originating act as that of 25 February 1885, § 1, p. 124 ↩
133. "An act to provide for the further establishment, advancement, and development of the state reform school," approved 20 February 1891, §§ 11–12, printed in the addenda to Hill's Codes (1892), 2:1956. Section 24 of the act repeals so much of "An act to establish a reform school for juvenile offenders and erect necessary buildings therefor," approved 18 February 1889, as conflicted with it; § 1 locates the school in Marion County and states its purpose as the confinement, discipline, education, employment, and reformation of juvenile offenders ↩
134. General Laws of Oregon, 1905, ch. 80 (S. B. 73), pp. 147–48, §§ 1–3: § 1 limits the act to children under sixteen and defines the dependent and the delinquent child; § 2 gives the circuit courts of the districts to which the act applies original jurisdiction, with a jury of six on the demand of any interested person or on the judge's own motion; § 3 provides for the designation of the judge, the special session, the Juvenile Record, and the name "Juvenile Court." Because the act reached only districts of 100,000 or more inhabitants it never entered the ORS derivation chain; the first case was heard 10 June 1905 before Judge Arthur Frazer ↩
135. General Laws of Oregon, 1905, ch. 80, §§ 4–5, the petition verified by affidavit on information and belief, and the citation requiring the person having custody to appear with the child on not less than twenty-four hours' notice ↩
136. the statewide scheme, General Laws of Oregon, 1919, ch. 405, §§ 1–9; carried through Oregon Laws, §§ 9801–9841, the Oregon Code (1930), §§ 33-619 to 33-723, and OCLA (1940), §§ 93-602 to 126-335 ↩
137. Hill's Codes (1892), § 711; Deady & Lane (1874), Code of Civil Procedure, § 701, from the act of 11 October 1862 ↩
138. Or. Const. of 1857, art. I, § 6 ↩
139. Hill's Codes (1892), Code of Civil Procedure, § 31; OCLA (1940), § 63-202, the section cited at citation 45: one section both repeals the laws imposing civil disabilities on a wife and gives her the same right the husband has to appeal in her own name alone, as the Women's Bureau report for Oregon (1949) quotes it at item 11 ↩
140. The Statutes of Oregon, Enacted and Continued in Force by the Legislative Assembly, at the Session Commencing 5th December, 1853 (Oregon: Asahel Bush, Public Printer, 1854), ch. IV, "Of Evidence," title I, "Of the Competency of Witnesses," § 6, subsec. 3, p. 111; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp769262314 : accessed 29 July 2026) ↩
141. Statutes of Oregon (1855), the same title, § 5, subsec. 3 ↩
142. Deady & Lane (1874), Code of Civil Procedure, § 701, retaining only the unsound-mind and child-under-ten grounds; and see Kate Masur, Until Justice Be Done (New York: W. W. Norton, 2021), on Oregon making its witness qualifications race-neutral ↩

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