They Settled in Applegate Country - by Olga Wedemeyer Johnson

Thank you Martha Metcalf for the following book review:

This is a very informative book on the Applegate area covering Murphy, Applegate, Williams, Wilderville, and the general vicinity, including Jacksonville & Grants Pass.

The author divides the subject matter into eight sections to tell the stories of the pioneer families that settled the area along the Applegate River and its fertile valley. The book has some excellent photographs to augment the stories. Ms. Johnson has listed 945 family names in the index to help those interested in an early settler’s business, marriage, children, or profession.

Some of the subjects covered are: miners and mining, Indians, Chinamen, doctoring, post offices, religion and the circuit riders, farmimg, timber and logging, education and others.

Olga Johnson wrote the Williams and Murphy news columns for the Daily Courier for years and has good knowledge of her subject. The local families brought in their stories and statistics for her.

Great aid for people doing genealogical research in Josephine County.

This book plus many others are available at the Josephine County Historical Society.  Please come browse the great selection we have in our bookshop, or email us at josephine@historicalsociety.us.

An Afternoon In February

A walk at Riverside Park on "An Afternoon In February" brought to mind the poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  It is part of the Belfry Of Bruges And Other Poems collection.  

The day is ending,
The night is descending;
The marsh is frozen,
The river dead.

Through clouds like ashes
The red sun flashes
On village windows
That glimmer red.

The snow recommences;
The buried fences
Mark no longer
The road o'er the plain;

While through the meadows,
Like fearful shadows,
Slowly passes
A funeral train.

The bell is pealing,
And every feeling
Within me responds
To the dismal knell;

Shadows are trailing,
My heart is bewailing
And tolling within
Like a funeral bell.

Longfellow, the most popular American poet of his time is probably better remembered for Paul Revere's Ride.  I'm not a huge fan of poetry, but I do enjoy Longfellow's poems.  They flow so beautifully, and I find them easy to understand.

Longfellow spent part of his career as a professor at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine and later at Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

In 1854, he retired from teaching, and spent the rest of his life in Cambridge in what was a former headquarters of George Washington.  (The above photo was taken in 1868 by Julia Margaret Cameron.)

As February nears its' end, like many, I can't wait for Spring!

Including this almond tree which is loaded with buds.

A February afternoon in Southern Oregon is a far cry from the climate experienced by Longfellow in Maine and Massachusetts. 

Did George Washington really chop down that cherry tree?

Mason Locke Weems, more widely known as Parson Weems, was a book agent and author.  He is the source of the famous tale of George Washington chopping down a cherry tree as a boy:  "I cannot tell a lie, I did it with my little hatchet."  This story is included in Parson Weems most famous book The Life of Washington.  

Weems was a great admirer of President Washington, and probably used the "cherry tree story" as a parable for the young people of the early 1800's.

Weems was an ordained minister in the Protestant Episcopal Church and worked as a minister in Maryland.  His poor financial condition forced him to find a second source of income, so became a traveling book agent and author.

The Life of Washington was published in 1800. Other famous works written by Parson Weems include Life of Benjamin Franklin, with Essays and Life of William Penn.

Weems also owned and operated a bookstore in Dumfries, Virginia.  The book store is still there today, and houses the Weems-Botts Museum.  It is reportedly haunted - but that's another story.

Happy Birthday President George Washington, you're still looked upon with great admiration today.  

If you like to celebrate Washington's Birthday with a piece of cherry pie, don't forget to applaud Parson Weems!

John Dennys - The Secrets of Angling

It is well-known that the best places to fish are on our own "Wild and Scenic" Rogue River, the Illinois River or Lake Selmac.

If you not able to get to one of these fabulous fishing spots today, why not read a poem dedicated to fishing.

It is believed that the poet and fisherman John Dennys wrote the first fishing poem.  It was entitled "The Secrets of Angling," and was first published in 1613.

The first few lines go like this:


Of angling and the art thereof I sing
What kind of tools it doth behove to have
And with what pleasing bayt a man may bring
The fish to bite within the watry wave.
A work of thanks to such as in a thing
Of harmless pleasure have regard to save
Their dearest soules from sinne and may intend
Of pretious time some part thereon to spend.

Google has a digitized version of Dennys' work.  You can even save it as a PDF to read at your leisure.

The Secrets of Angling - John Dennys 

Jack London - On the Subject of Water

Many people consider Jack London to be one of our finest authors, and he used many of his own life experiences in his novels.

Jack London was a regular guest at our own Wolf Creek Inn. 

He finished his novel "Valley of the Moon," while staying with his wife in this tiny room.  It may look terribly cramped by today's standards, but I'm sure Jack London must have found it very comfortable compared to some of his earlier accommodations.

In the summer of 1894, when London was just 18,  he was hobo who was arrested for vagrancy in Niagra Falls, New York.  He ended up spending 30 days in the Erie County Penitentiary.

He used this background  when he wrote his novel "The Road."  The following excerpt from his writings was published in Cosmopolitan, August 1907:

"There was one good thing, I must say, about the water:  It was hot.  In the morning it was called 'coffee,' at noon it was dignified as 'soup,' and at night it masqueraded as 'tea.'  But it was the same old water all the time.  The prisoners called it 'water bewitched.'  In the morning it was black water, the color being due to boiling it with burnt bread crusts.  At noon it was served minus the color, with salt, and a drop of grease added.  At night it was served with a purplish-auburn hue that defied all speculation; it was darn poor tea, but it was dandy hot water."

I read "The Call of the Wild" and "White Fang" years ago, but now I think I'd like to read "The Road" and "Valley of the Moon."

Happiness Is.... by Victor Hugo

In honor of Valentine's Day I thought this quote by Victor Hugo, the great French poet, novelist, playright, artist, and representative of the Romantic Movement in France is fitting.

He said, "The supreme happiness of life is the conviction of being loved for yourself, or, more correctly, being loved in spite of yourself."