Rogue River courier. (Grants Pass, Or.) 1886-1927, 1910-11-18
"REMINISCENCES OF
The DAYS OF 1851
BY j. H. Twogood.

When my brother, o. b., and
crossed the plain in 1851 there was
no settlement west OF the Missouri
river until we got to the great Col
umbia river, where DR.. Whitman
and family had started a mission to
/ try to civiliZe the treacherous red
man, as early as 1896. We had a
rough trip over the Cascades, ar
riving at Oregon City August 20,
1851, and losing everything we had
trying to help others. At this time
Oregon City was the commercial CEN
ter from whence all goods went
south to the willamette andUmp-
qua valleys. Losing my tools, |
could get no work and times were
dull and money scarce. There was
no Portland then, only on paper.
There was nothing doing anywhere
in the northwest.
We heard Of real gold mines at
Yreka and in southern Oregon. Sam
Hadley and / had a slight attack of
the yellow fever. We rigged up a
tent and with two pack and two sad
die horses started south to the new
Eldorado Travelling up the valley
we found II very sparsely settled.
Many sections Of good land could be
taken up by immigrants, lived on
five years and 1t was a donation from
our dear old Uncle Sam. In the val
ley we came to Eugene SINNERS
place, where he had taken up a sec
tion OF land. He had a log house
and barn and part Of his yard was
fenced, where he raised garden
truck. Today Eugene is big city
with an opera house.
We then travelled south over the
Calapooia mountains, up the creek
to the north Umpqua. Here we fer
ried to Winchester, which was then
the county seat of Douglas county,
town OF one log house. The coun-
ty reached from the Siskiyou noun
tains on the south to Calapooia on
the north, 800 miles, and from the
Pacific ocean on the west to the
Rocky mountains on the east, enough
territory to form 10 or 20 states like
New "Jarsey." Five miles farther
south we found Deer creek, likewise
Aaron Rose and family, who were
our travelling companions when we
crossed the plains. Rose had located
half section donation claim, which
today is the present site of the town
of Roseburg, the county seat of
Douglas county, but the same terri
tory is now carved up into a dozen
counties.
Travelling on up south Umpqua
river 2S miles we came to the mouth |
of the big canyon, over horrible
road of 12 miles on the old immi-
grant trail. I do not see how II was
possible for people to so over those
roads with wagons. In 1852 | saw |
man start over that road through |
the canyon with two yoke Of oxen
and good wagon and at the end |
of two days he got through with |
only the front wheels Here we
found Mr., and Mrs. Joseph Knott, |
who crossed the plains in 1850 from
Ottumwa, Iowa, and had located
ranch, built a log tavern, and called
II Canyonvllle. They had three
grown children, Levi Jack and Lib
by, whom Vince Davis called sis"
She married Bob Ladd, a wealthy
banker OF Portland. The rest OF
them all crossed the great divide
years ago and / am the only one left,
After getting through the canyon
we travelled down Cow creek seven
miles, then crossed over the noun
tains and on to Grave creek, where
we found beautiful little valley
with q gigantic oak tree and grave
right beside the road Glover grew
to the height of six inches and II was
an ideal camping ground, Did we
camp there should say not, No
one would dare to camp there on
account Of Indians. II was consider
ed the most dangerous point on the
road. on south seven miles we
crossed Jump-Off-Joe and Louise
creeks and came TO the Rogue river.
Here we found Ben Halstead had es-
tablished the first ferry on the trail
between Oregon and California We
crossed here and went down seven
miles and found James n Vannoy,
Jim Tuft 4 Co. had taken up a splen-
did ranch and put In a ferry Both
were as good men In principle as ever
lived and both are now dead From
here we travelled up the Applegate