Huckleberry Finn Country, early 1900s

Huckleberry Finn Country, early 1900s

The Lane County Historical SocietyEthan Newman, President, 2161 University Street, Eugene, OR 97403Alta Nelson, Membership Secretary, P0 Box 11532, Eugene, OR 97440

Lane County Historian, Vol. 38, Number 3, Fall 1993

Ken Metzler, Editor, 2051 East 26th Avenue, Eugene, OR 97403(Phone 343-4-496)

Janet Burg and Dorothy Corkery, Assistant EditorsLois Barton, Contributing Editor

ContentsFootnotes to history 65

At last!we know what happened to the ancient hay in CalYoung's barn. Also a strange and ironic saga about footballat the University of Oregon. And a new offer on an old book.

The true adventures of Huckleberry Finn. 70Benjamin Franklin Finn spent some time with Mark Twain,and darned ifthe author didn't write up some oftheir exploitsin a bookso the story goes. By Leroy B. Inman.

Rendezvous: Why did our ancestors leave Missouri?. .78She crossed the plains in '70-1970 that is. But were herreasons for coming west different from those of the pioneers?By Dorothy Corkery.

The mom and pop manufacturing company 84One family's story of how to cope in times of economic crisisstart yourown manufacturing firm. By William H. Gardner.

Book Review: Eating your way across the plains 87

CoverLane County's McKenzie River country looked like this in theheyday of Benjamin Franklin 'Huckleberry" Finn. But washe really the prototype ofMark Twain's Huck Finn? Seepage70. Photo courtesy of Willamette National Forest.

ISSN 0458-7227

Footnotes to historyA collection of vignettes, curiosities, and miscellany about Lane

County history. Now at last we know what happened to theancient hay in Cal Young's barn. And we have a fair idea of

what it's like to live in a "storybook castle" as a child.

The lost hay, chapter 2

Last issue we reportedon the ancient hay inCal Young's barn. Youmay recall that one ofour readers, JaniceBarclay of Monroe, sentus a clipping about how the agricul-tural experts from Oregon State Uni-versity became excited to fmd hay 86years old still stored in the barn at CalYoung's farm in Eugene in 1961. But,we wondered, whatever became of thehay? Where is it today, some 32 yearslater? Our two leading experts onLane County history, Ethan Newmanand Hallie Huntington, confessed thatthey didn't know. Newman suggestedjokingly that perhaps a cow ate it andbenefited greatly from the old-stylenutrition.

Fortunately for the culmination ofhistorical documentation, we receiveda call from Helen Wolf, of Eugene, whowith her family lived on the Cal Youngfarm from about 1937 to 1941.

Helen Wolf recalls that the barncontaining the hay, along with anumber of other historical artifacts,including an old clock from downtown

Eugene, burned down one fateful day,destroying all the contents.

Sad story. But at least weknow the answer to the questionposed last time.

What Helen Wolf couldn't re-member, however, was the dateof the fire. Nor could the newsfiles ofTheRegister-Guard pro-

vide assistance. Again, more researchis needed.

The call of nature

Bloomington, Indiana. It was halftimeof the 1964 football game between theUniversity of Oregon Ducks and theIndiana University Hoosiers. Oregoncenter Dave Tobey had to go to thebathroombad. Because his coach,Len Casanova, was long-winded thatday, Tobey never got the chance toreach the john. As it turned out, hisdiscomfort paid rich dividends forCasanova and his team.

"We stepped into the locker room athalftime, down 21-7,"recallsCasanova,now the 87-year-old Oregon coachemeritus. "My assistant, JohnRobinson [later successful coach of theLos Angeles Rams], started telling me

Fall 1993 65

Oregon coach Len Casanova and player Dave Tobey (as shownin Vikings professional team uniform). (Photos courtesy of

University of Oregon Department of Athletics.)

about all the changes we had to make."Changes!' I said. 'The only change

we have to make is to start playingfootball!"'

Casanova marched into the areawhere the players had gathered for hishalftime talk.

"As I was about to start, I was mad,"said Casanova. "Our center, DaveTobey, started to head for the bath-room. I yelled at him, 'Sit there andwait 'til I finish talking!' He sat down,and I talked right up until the time wewere due on the field to start the secondhalf."

Tobey struggled out with his team-mates. He had little choice. Oregonhad to kick off to start the second half,

and Tobey was the kickoff specialist.To the surprise of everyonein

cluding the Hoosiers and his ownteammatesTobey kicked an onsidekick that the Ducks recovered. It setupa touchdown, and Oregon went on toscore all 22 points of the second half toupset the Hoosiers, 29-2 1.

Casanova was described as a geniusfor calling the play that dramaticallyturned the game around.

Later Casanova admitted the truth."I didn't call an on side kick. I had

talked so long in the locker room thatTobey never got a chance to relievehimself. He told me later that when hegot on the field, he had to go so badly hecouldn't swing his leg to boom the kick-

66 Lane County Historian

off. His foot grazed the football justhard enough for it to travel the re-quired distance where we were able torecover it.

"As a coach who got criticized overthe years for things I did do, it was goodto be praised for something I didn'tdo."George Beres

Adventures in unsettledcountry west of Nebraska

Helen Dodds was 10 when her parentsdecided to move to Oregon from theeast coast. It was 1924, and the traintrip from Philadelphia to a tiny com-munity in Oregon called Eugene tookabout two weeks, counting a stopoverin Nebraska to say good-bye to rela-tives. They knew not what adventuresawaited them in the vast unknownregion west of Nebraska.

"We said our good-byes as ifwe weregoing to wild, unsettled territorywhich I thought we were," said HelenDodds, recalling the trip in a letter tous in 1993.

She explained:"Afourth grade schoolproject in Philadelphia described viv-idly for me the untamed country wewould find on arrival in Oregon. I wasexpecting log cabins, no inside plumb-ing, colorful plumed Indians forneighbors, no electricity or telephonesor paved streets. Lots of wild animals,rivers and trees, and the Pacific Ocean."

What a blow to learn the truth. Itwas enough to break a 10-year-old'sheart.

"To my utter disappointment, IfoundPortland to be just another big city,much like the ones I had left behind.And Oregon as civilized as Nebraska. Idid not see an Indian for years."

But Helen and her family adjustedto Eugene and life went on.

Helen Dodds grew up in Eugene andnow, as Helen Dodds Cross, lives inBend. Her letter of recollections camein response to a notice of the dedicationceremony at the Shelton-McMurpheyHouse, 303 Willamette Street in Eu-gene. This grand, historic mansionstill adorns the south slope of SkinnerButte. The dedication, held duringNational Historic Preservation Weeklast May, marked the transfer of thehouse from Lane County to the City ofEugene.

The house was finished in 1888 andserved as the Dodds' first home beforemoving to their permanent residenceon Friendly Street. Mrs. McMurphey-"a charming, sophisticated lady"wasleaving for a year and had leased thelower floor to the Dodds family.

"It reminded me of a storybookcastle," recalls Helen Dodds Cross. "Mycastle was nestled among the trees,halfway up the slope ofSkinner's Butte.

- Sweepinglawns and beautiful plantsand trees surrounded the home. -There was a little building on one sideof the house that had been used as astudio or playhouse. On the other sidea short distance away was a tenniscourt with grass growing in cracks inthe cement. Beyond the court was abigold barn with a hayloft. The barn wasoff limits to us because, it was said,hoboes from passing trains sometimesclimbed up the bill and slept in the loft.

"The upper floor was leased to asmall family of adults and to two singlemen. Mrs. McMurphey stored most ofher gorgeous antique furniture, andalthough we children were not allowedto touch any that remained, I remem-

Fall 1993 67

ber a clock that was left on the mantel.It had two small side-by-side drawerswithin my reach. To my astonishment,the drawers contained her cherishedchildren's baby teethP'

The Walling historyof Lane County

The map on the opposite page showsLane County as it was viewed a littlemore than a century ago. It is from thebooklllustrated History ofLane CountyOregon published in 1884 by A. G.Walling. As you can see, much of thecounty remained unknown tomapmakers so that even so prominenta landmark as Waldo Lake (in easternLane County north of Diamond Peak),was shrouded in the mystery territorymarked "unsurveyed mountainous."

Yet the book, generously illustratedwith sketches, remained a primarysource of information about the life ofearly Lane County as well as Oregon.Walling, a Portland publisher, under-took to develop localized histories forseveral Oregon counties. Each countyedition contained a common history ofOregon beginningwith "intense gloom"enshrouding the Pacific coast in the16th Century and concluding with In-dian wars. Then came the specificdetails of the county's history andprogress, together with lists of resi-dents and biographies of many of themore prominent settlers. In the LaneCounty edition, that included suchhistorical figures as Elijah Bristow ofPleasant Hill, the county's first settler(1845) and Eugene F. Skinner, the firstsettler in whatbecame Eugene (1846).

Over the years the book, long out ofprint but available in libraries, has

remained a prime source of informa-tion about local history and the ances-tors who made it. For example, itcontains fresh accounts of the greatWillamette River flood of 1881, thenthe most recent in history. There werealso contemporary accounts of EugeneCity's import-export business broughtby the new railroad. (In 1883 EugeneCity exports totaled 7.3 million pounds,and imports were 4.3 million pounds.In citing such figures, the text marvelsat the efficiencies ofthe new technology:"These figures will show those whomourn the days of the pristine ox-teamthat several years would have beenrequired to effect in carriage what isnow accomplished in one.")

It was an uncritical view of thecounty, to be sure. The Eugene CityFlouring Mill is the chief manufactur-ing enterprise in the community, and"is a credit not only to the city, but tothe county and state." Horses raised inLane County are among the best due tothe fortuitous combination of soil, cli-mate, and good blood. Many farmspreads are depicted in elegantsketches, and nothing in the sketcheswould justifr use ofthe term, "Skinner'sMudhole" to describe Eugene City.

The bookisback in print. HigginsonBook Company of Salem, Massachu-setts, has reprinted it and offers it forsale to members of the Lane CountyHistorical Society at a 10% discount.

To order, contact Don Smith, trea-surer (phone 34-4-6334). Price withdiscount is $44.55 plus $4 postage ifyou want the book mailed directly toyou. If you're willing to wait until bulkorders accumulate you can avoid pay-ing the postage and await delivery atone of the society's quarterly meetings.


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Lane County lSSOs, when cartographers were not quite sure what was in thoseblank areas marked tlnsurveyed." Front the newly reprinted book, illustrated

History of Lane County Oregon byA. G. Walling, originally published in 1884 andnow available in reprint from the Lane County Historical Society (details on page 68).

CROOK

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From the book, Early Days on the McKenzie, by Leroy B. Inman, 3d ed., 1993.Adapted and condensed by permission of the author.

enjamin Franklin Finn, oneof the first settlers on theupper McKenzie River, wasa dramatic figure in Oregonhistory. He came west in

1871 and made his name primarily asa teller of tall tales. He claimed to bethe original Huckleberry Finn immor-talized by Mark Twain (SamuelClemens).

Historyhardly bears this out. .. .butthen again....

Of Irish and German ancestry, B. F."Huck" Finn brought his family westby wagon train from Ohio via Michi-gan, stopping off in Missouri where hisfamilyjoined other pioneers preparingfor the four-month trip to Oregon. Wedo not know how long they lived inMissouri, but a daughter, Ida, wasborn there in 1869.

Finnsix feet tall, Civil War navyveteran, wounded when shot in the leg

The true adventures ofHuck Finn, biggest damnedliar on the McKenzie River

Benjamin Franklin "Huckleberry" Finn claimed to be the prototypefor Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. Now a family member

undertakes to discover the truth and set the record a bit straighter.

By Leroy B. Inman

with a poison arrowwas 39 when hearrived in Oregon. One of his greatestfeats, so he claimed, was rolling amammoth rock out of the way with hisspan of mules when he went up theMcKenzie. The rock still bears hisname, Finn Rock.

Born in Elyria, Lorain County, Ohio,March 4, 1832 (as near as we candetermine), Finn was 87 when he diedFebruary 11, 1919.

Finn's claim to be the immortalHuckleberry Finn is best told in hisown words, quoted in a newspaperarticle in 1915. He would have been 83at the time.

In this news interview Finn claimed(contrary to historical records) to havebeen raised on a farm in Missouri nearthe home of Samuel Clemens. Finnsaid he was "first mate on the Missis-sippi River boat Shotwell and thatClemens was one of the pilots for the


Benjamin Franklin "Huck" Finn.

boat." Later Finn, Clemens, and TomSawyer bought the river boat GrayEagle, he said.

"I was 26 years old at that time,"Finn was quoted as saying. That wouldmake the year 1858. "I got the nameHuckleberry Finn on the Gray Eagle ina little racket [fight] that happened...

You see, I was first mate, and ifanything didn't go right, I was the'huckleberry.' That was what we calledthe man who gets in between a fight..

We stayed on the river until 1860..'Charley' Clemens went to Denver

and stopped there to write books,and he didn't do much of anythingelse, I guess. Tom went to St.Paul and lived there until he died.I guess he has been dead 12 years."

Finn claimed to be Clemens'traveling companion from Mis-souri to Denver around 1860. InDenver, he said, Clemens wrotehis stories about HuckleberryFinn, based on Finn's life.

Two years later, June24, 1917,another article appeared, this timein the Seattle Times. The articlesays he was 93, but that should be85becausehe was only 87 when hedied, if our facts are correct. Theinterview was reprinted in theSpringfield News July 24, 1970.

Ask dad! He knows. He'll tellyou that this photograph of B. F.Finn of Eugene, Oregon, is "just ex-actly" like the picture of Huckle-

berry Finn's father as conceived by theillustrator of Mark Twain's masterpieceprinted when dad was a boy. But "Ben"Finn doesn't claim to be Huck's ren-egade father. He says he is Huckleberryhimself, the one original, dyed in thewool, Injun-hunting partner of TomSawyer.

"Huck" spent last week with hisyounger brother, E. A. Finn at 313Thirty-Second Avenue. Mark Twain'sfamous character is no longer theknobby-fisted, indomitable "Huck" ofthe days of long ago when he and Tom

The author is a descendant oftwo famous pioneer McKenzie count ry families, theFinns and the Belknaps. He lives in retirement in Roseburg, Oregon, after a longeditorial career on Oregon newspapers, including the Eugene Daily News,Springfield News, and Roseburg News-Review. He is the great grandson of thelegendary B. F. "Huck" Finn.

Fall 1993 71

and "the rest of theboys" sought ad-venture and foundit. He is now 93years old, with thesame long willowywhite whiskersdrapinghis chin andneck as did the fa-

therm Mark Twain's description. Heisbent and withered with age.

Ashe satin aremimscentmoodat the home of his brother yes-terday morning, just before hisdeparture, "Huckleberry" re-called a trip across the plains toDenver with Mark Twain whenhe was 25 years old.

"I had just aboutmasteredmytrade as a bricklayer," saidHuck. "Twain, of course, waswriting some. When we got inDenver we were both broke andwe rented a house on the out-skirts of town. The moneywasn't coming in very fast, andin order that we might make itappear we were not so bad offfinancially, Clemens and Iwouldgo about the neighborhood atnight and collect alot oftin canswith the labels on. We wouldscatter those cans about ourback door so the people wouldthink we were eating oysters,peas, and other things that ourpalates had lost acquaintancewith.

"Finally Clemens got work on a Den-ver newspaper but he did not makemuch money," continued Huck. "I wasdoing some bricklaying."

Finn declares it was during the timehe and Twain lived together in Denver

that the famous author started to writethe "Huckleberry Finn" stories. "Ofcourse he added some fiction for hisstories," reflected Huck. "He exagger-ated things somewhat but he picturedthe lives of Tom [Sawyer] and myselfpretty well."...

If such were true, I cannot but mar-vel at the versatility of"Huck" Finn to

The fictional Huckleberiy Finn, as conceivedby artist E. W. Kemble for Twain's original

1884 publication. See a resemblance?

be in so many places at the same time.I think that he had told the story somany times over the years that he hadgrown to believe it. At least he was notabout to change his story in old age.

Justwhat Benjamin Finn was doingin Seattle in 1917 at age 85 can only be


conjectured. Apparently he traveledthere alone, either by train or stage.He said his destination wasBellingham. His son, Pete, was work-ing in logging in that area at that time,and he had his brother, Erastus, inSeattle.

A most convincing story of HuckFinn's life on the Mississippi is told instill another newspaper interview. Thenews account was found in a scrapbookat the Oregon Historical Society Li-brary in Portland under the date lineEugene, Oregon, March 27, 1915. Nei-ther the name of the paper nor thewriter was identified. The headlineread, "Huckleberry Finn, 90, RecallsLife On The McKenzie."

It said he "crossed the Plains andRockies to the McKenzie, arrived brokeand looked for a place to winter." He"lived by the rifle and sold hides inEugene and came out money ahead."He "erected the largest turpentine fac-tory in the state" and sold rosin andturpentine of his own preparation. Heran a hotel and catered to fishermen.

The story repeats Finn's claims ofgrowing up on a Missouri farm, work-ingon the Mississippi, being the "huck-leberry who got between two fighters."It reported that he lost a couple offingers in a fight.

He said, "I was first mate underCaptain Hull on the steamer Shotwell,the fastest boat on the Mississippi. Itsfastest time was four days, seven hoursfrom New Orleans to St. Louis."

Later, he said, he and Clemens foundthe boat GrayEagle downstream in badcondition, but they "fitted her out" andtwo years later they challenged CaptainHull to a race which, of course, theywon, including a bet for $5,000.

He was 26 then, he said, making theyear 1858. He said they stayed on theriver until 1860, but hostilities betweenthe states were brewing, sotheyheadednorth. They got as far as Cairo, insouthern Illinois, when their ship wasseized. He said the boat cost them$9,000, but the government paid them$12,000. Clemens went to Denver andTom (Sawyer) went to St. Paul, he said."I don't know where he [Clemens] gotthose stories about Tom and I."

The account continues in great de-tail. During the war he served on theMississippi River, first on the gunboatCarondalette, which was disabled inthe Battle of Memphis. Then he servedon the Great Western as signal quar-termaster, going home to his family inKalamazoo, Michigan, then Missouri,then crossing westward. They "cameup the Platte [River] to Salt Lake, thento Boise City and over the Barlow Trailto Brownsville. We came here in 1870and reached Eugene with six children,a wife, two mules, two horses, and$14.10."

Huck Finn said they arrived brokeand came up the McKenzie looking fora place to winter. "But I had my oldneedle gunthe same gun with whichthe Germans licked the French. I wasfirst on the McKenzie. Old Regis Pepiotcame the next spring with pack horses."

(Contrary to Huck's claim, it is gen-erally conceded that the Pepiots andFayette Thomsons were already there,at what became Vida, when Finn ar-rived.)

Finn continued:"! hunted all winterand killed deer and hauled the hides tothe Valley. I gave all my money to mywife, and at the end of winter she had$350 so we could live on the McKenzie.

Fall 1993 73

That was 45 yearsago. . . . my wifedied there and Filbe there when! die."In addition to theturpentine busi-ness he worked inEugene in the sum-mer"I built a

third of the houses in Eugene.""It's a pretty life to look back on," he

reminisced, recalling his days on theMississippi.

Much ofthe information in the abovenews account is true. But portions areopen to question.

Huck Finn was my great grandfa-ther. I remember him at age 85 as atottering old man with a long whitebeard and white hair sitting in a chairby the window and staring into space.He always had to have his "JamaicaGinger," which Ilearned later was whathe called whiskey. He was incensed ifit did not arrive on the stage thatbrought the mail.

As a small child! was afraid of him.Once when I ran ahead of familymembers on our return from the or-chard, I apparently startled him as Icame in the door because he jumped upand shouted at me. I was a rambunc-tious kid and probably annoyed him inhis old age because he never looked atme with any kindness or favor. Oncehe gave my sister a well-polished or-ange. I was not quite eight years old atthe time of his death at Rainbow Feb-ruary 11, 1919 from "arteriosclerosisand general senility."

When it comes to great-grandpaFinn, it is hard to separate myth fromreality. Here are the facts as I andseveral family members have at-

tempted to assemble them. Some dis-crepancies appear in family records ascompared with other information.

His Civil War pension record citeshis birth as March 4, 1832 though somerecords suggest that he was born in1823. The 1832 date is confirmed onhis grave marker in the GreenwoodCemetery in Leaburg. His death cer-tificate shows his father was born inIreland, and his mother, last nameSnider, was born in Germany. Abrother, Erastus Finn, was quoted by anewspaper as saying the family con-tained six children, two girls and fourboys. "When Dad died the boys were allbound over, but Huck didn't stay. Heran away. He hired out on the boatsrunning up and down the MississippiRiver and the Ohio and the Missouri."And there was little doubt in Erastus'mind that his brother was the proto-type of Twain's "Huck" character.

B. F. Finn was married to Mary AnnHalter, born in Elyria in 1833. Theyhad seven children, the oldest born in1853/54, the youngest in 1869.

If Huck Finn cavorted with SamClemens in the early days, it wouldhave had to be some time after thebirth of their second child, Ella Jane, in1855 and before the third child, MaryAda, in 1861.

An examination of records may en-lighten us. The Encyclopedia Anzeri-cana says:

In April 1857, while enroute from Cin-cinnati to New Orleans, Clemens ap-prenticed himself to Horace Bixby as ariver pilot. He was licensed two yearslater and continued in that lucrativeprofession until the Civil War closed theriver.. .. In July, 1861 after serving


briefly in a volunteer company, whichdisbanded before being sworn into theConfederate army, Clemens went westwith his brother, Orion, who had beenappointed Territorial Secretary of Ne-vada. In August, 1862, Clemens joinedthe staff of the Virginia City, Nevada,Enterprise....

The true "Huckleberry" Finn wasthe son of the town drunk in Hannibal,Missouri, according to author JamesPlaysted Wood in his Spunkwater,Spunkwater: A Life of Mark Twain(1968):

Huckleberry Finn was no compositebut one. He appears in both Tom

Finn Rock on the McKenzie Highway (shown ca. 1910) honors the legendaryB. F. Finn. He claimed that he moved the rock to this location while

building the roadway. (Photo courtesy of Willanzette National Forest.)

Fall 1993 75

Sau!yer and in TheAdventures ofHuckleberry Finnjust as he was when Mark Twain knewhim when they were boys. His realname was Tom Blankenship. Son ofthetown drunkard, clad in rags, living ashe could, Tom or "Huck" was the envy ofMark Twain and all the rest of his gang.Huck came and went as he pleased withnone to answer to, none to forbid him tosmoke or indulge in any of the otherdelights they all found precious. It wasTom Blankenship who had the raccoonskin which the boys sold over and overto a storekeeper, who was slow to sus-pect their trickery.

It is not our purpose here to deburk awonderful yarn that provided so muchamusement in days gone by, but ratherto set the records a bit straighter forhistorical documentation. While it wasnot uncommon for husbands and fa-thers in those days to leave their fami-lies for long periods, we have no infor-mation that this was the case withBenjamin. Asfor"Huck"growingup inMissouri, that, too, is open to question.

But here the mystery thickens.Benjamin Franklin "Huck" Finn is

not listed in the July 15, 1860 censusfor Elyria Township, Lorain County,Ohio. That census shows his wife,Mary Ann, age 27, and two children,

"Maybe I could tell the truth if Icould thinkwhat the hell itwas "-A quotatwn attributed to Benjamin Franklin "Huckle-berry" Finn by James Drury of McKenzie Bridge whosays he was about four years old when he heard Finnutter those words at the age of 86.

Charles, 6, and EllaJane, 4, aslivinginthe household of her mother, RosannaHalter.

Where was "Huck" Finn? It wasduring these years he claimed he wason the Mississippi with SamuelClemens. As a newspaper writer JohnCraig wrote in 1970(Spri ngfield News)"Although he was known as 'the big-gestliaron the McKenzie River,"Huck'presented a good case for having beenthe prototype of author Mark Twain'smasterpiece, 'Huckleberry Finn.' Onlythe very self-confident or a history ex-pert could dismiss Finn's claim with-out further investigation."

Huck's brother Erastus was quotedin the Seattle newspaper interview of1917 that "After a while the war brokeout and Huck joined the army. That'swhere he and 'Hank' [the author'snickname, he said] Clemens got ac-quainted. Hank was in the quarter-master's department and Huck helpedhim. I suppose they were two of a kindand got together on the story part."

From this account, it appears thatErastus may have been as much aliarpardon, a teller of tall talesashis more famous brother. Clemens didserve in the Civil Warfor two weeksin 1862 with a volunteer group which


then disbanded.Huck Finn also served in the Civil

War, but did not enlist until 1864,according to his pension papers. Hewas discharged June 13, 1865 afterserving in the Navy as acting quarter-master on the USS Great Western. Sothe chances that he and Clemens metduring the war are remote.

Nevertheless, Erastus declared hisbrother's claim was true. "I was inmany of those pranks myseIf," he as-serted. "You see, I traveled with Huckpart of the time after I ran away frommy foster father."

Huck Finn said in his Seattle Timesinterview that he ran away from homeat age 12 after his father died. Thiswould have been in 1844, and Erastussaid Huck worked on river boats. Wedo not question this. He probably wasa husky kid and there were no childlabor laws then.

While the part about his living as achild in Missouri seems far fetched,there is the remote possibility that

Huck's wife, Mary Ann (Halter).

Finn was with Twain on the Missis-sippi riverboat. And there is the re-mote possibility that Clemens did namehis all-important character after Ben-jamin Franklin "Huck" Finn. There iseven the possibility he did go to Denverwith Twain, but if he did, it was onlybriefly. Clemens did not write hisbooks in Denver if he ever did stop offthere. His books came much later, longafter he went to Nevada.

In our opening paragraph we de-scribed Finn as "dramatic." We werethinking not of the melodramatic, butrather of the lighter side. Finn trulywas an actor. Everything he did wasan act, as evidenced by his ability toentertain guests or strangers at hishotel, keeping them spellbound while,with a perfectly straight face, spinningyarn after yarn which had little, if any,basis in fact.

What can we conclude about HuckFinn as prototype for Twain's charac-ter? One member of the family claimedto have documentary proof of the legiti-macy of Huck Finn's claim, but thosedocuments have notyet surfaced. Whathas surfaced is a set of charming sto-ries, and it is for these stories that hedeserves a place in history. The storiesnot only served to entertain guests athis hotel but have survived to this day.He once told his hotel guestsin whatmay be his most famous storythathe'd had great success as a hunter,having killed no fewer than 16 deerthat very day. A stranger spoke up,"Do you know who I am, Mr. Finn?""Can't say as I do," Huck replied. "rmthe game warden," said the stranger."Well, well, mister," replied Hucksmoothly, "Fm Huck Finn, the biggestdamned liar on the McKenzie River!"

Fall 1993 77

L

Rendezvous: Why did ourancestors leave Missouri?

Our reporter knows why left Missouri. But that was longafter the last wagon train had plied the Oregon Trail, and travel

had become easier. Yet she wonderscould her reasons foremigrating to Oregon be similar to those of the trail pioneers?

By Dorothy Corkery

ast September I drove toJasper Park to attend theRendezvous, the reunion ofdescendants of the OregonTrail pioneers sponsoiedby

the Lane County Historical Society inrecognition of the 150th anniversary ofthe opening of the Oregon Trail. Some700 persons showed up for the festivi-ties, many of them members of pioneerfamilies dating back to the Oregon Trailera that began in 1843.

I mingled with these people as muchas time would allow. I did so because Ifelt a great kinship with them. True, Iwas not a third- or fourth-generationdescendant ofthe wagon train pioneers.No, I was a first-generation immigrantmyself, having crossed the plainswestward in 1975 in the relative com-fort of a '72 Pontiac.

I had some specific reasons forleaving my home in Missouri and ven-turing westward. Friends and familyin Missouri still ask why I left for Or-egon and when I might be coming back.When I try to explain it to themwhat

I originally expected Oregon to be like,what I found in Oregon, and why Imight or might not return to the Mid-westmy thoughts often turn to theoriginal pioneers.

Could they have left Missouri for thesame reasons as I?

So that is why I attended the Ren-dezvous that cool September day in1993to pose the question, "Why doyou think your ancestors left Missouri?"I also sought answers through historyclasses and reading, and I found par-ticularly valuable the 1993 book,Women's Voices from the Oregon Trail,by Susan G. Butruille (TamarackBooks, Boise, Idaho).

Apparently 'Why did they leaveMissouri?" was an appropriate inquiry.Several ofthe Rendezvous participantsresponded along the lines of "What aninteresting question!" and others ad-mitted that they, too, had often won-dered the same thing when studyingthe documents left by their OregonTrail ancestors. Many left comfortablehomes in the Midwest to head for a


The Spencer Butte Long Rifles at the Rendezvous. Photo: Dorothy Corkery.

land they knew little about on a trekthat could involve disease or death orat least a great deal of discomfort.

The question seemed particularlypertinent to women, as shown by thediary excerpts and the comments ofthe celebrants at the Rendezvous.

Enola Nelson, whose ancestorssettled in the Junction City area, toldme that she believed most women hadlittle to say about making the trip.They simply went along with theirhusbands' decisions to move. Hergrandmother was 20 when she mar-

ned a 38-year-old man who turnedright around and told her they weremoving to Oregon.

Hard to imagine a man putting hiswife through that in the blink of aneye? So why did he and thousands ofothers make that choice? Was it wan-derlust? One pioneer woman's diary,quoted by Susan Butruille in Women'sVoices, put it like this:

Thispastwintertherehas beenastrangefever raging here (it is the Oregon fever)it seems to be contagious and it is rag-

The author, a Eugene resident,grew up in the St. Louis area and crossed the plainsby auto in 1975, first to California and then north to Oregon. A student of localhistory, she is assistant editor of the Historian.

Fall 1993 79

ing terribly, not hi ng seems to stop it butto tear up and take a six months tripacross the plains with ox teams to thePacific Ocean.Keturah (Kit) Penton Belknap, 1847

When in 1975 I announced my ownplans to move west, the reaction offriends and family was mixed. Myfriends said I was adventurous; myrelatives predicted that I would nevergo through with it.

I was a fourth-generation descen-dant of German immigrants who cameto America and settled in St. CharlesCounty, Missouri. Moving made me ananomaly, the break in the chain. All ofmy family and 99 per cent of my an-cestors had lived or did live within a 20-mile radius of the area of originalsettlement. Up until the moment! left,some family members, particularly my80-year-old grandmother, expected meto come to my senses and decide to stay.

Similar thoughts must surely havecrossed the minds of some of the pio-neers a century and a half ago. Thesepioneers would have had yet anotherworrythat they might not survivethe rigors of the trail to make it to theirdestinations. Moving was a tough call.

Many pioneer women left a record ofhow it felt to leave family and friends.Keturah Belknap kept a meticulousdiary of her preparations for the trip toOregon from Iowa.

Before leaving with her husband togo to Oregon, she visited her parents inOhio for a month. While there, shedidn't even tell them of her plans tocross the plains. Perhaps it was morethan she could handle, as she wascaring for a sick child at the time. Shementions that it was hard not to break

down. Then she writes of having to gothrough more anguish back in Iowa asshe says good-bye to friends.

"We have had our farewell meetingso I won't go [to the regular Sundaymeeting]" she wrote; "don't think I couldstand it. . . Dr. Walker calls at thewagon to see me and gives me somegood advice and gives me the partinghand for neither of us could speak theword 'Farewell.'"

Choosing what to bring along wasanother tough decision. I found that tobetruewhen Ihadtopackan apartmentinto a small trailer and the back seat ofa car.

What! didn't have to experience onmy trip west was having to toss out anyof my belongings because they wereweighing down the car. Pioneer menand women left a trail of "excess" bag-gage that started out as somethingthey couldn't live without.

At the Rendezvous, Bill and EllenLilja dramatized this very situationmost touchingly duringtheir 45-minutepresentation, "Reflections of a PioneerWoman." The Liljas live in Albany andhave gained wide notice for their his-torical dramas that display elementaltruths about the nature of pioneer life.In their skit at the Rendezvous, awoman tells of hiding a treasured piepan by sitting on it throughout theentire trip. At one point her husbandsees it and tells his wife that he hadknown about it all along. The two ofthem break into laughter and hug eachother tightly, realizing in that momentthe comforts they have sacrificed andthe hardships they have endured.

At least that woman got to sit downand ride for most of the trip. Manywomen weren't so lucky.


"Two thousand miles and I walkednearly all the way," says one of EllenLilja's pioneer women.

In another diary, a woman recalls, "Ifroze or chilled my feet so that I cannotwear a shoe so! have to go 'round in thecold water barefooted."

The men suffered both physicallyand mentally, too. One I read aboutwas quite the sentimentalist. His namewas Smith and he had been told that awooden rolling pin of his was "uselessand must be abandoned." Eleven-year-old Lucy Ann Henderson Deady wroteabout that day in 1846.

I shall never forget how that big manstood there with tears streaming downhis face as he said, "Do I have to throwthis away? It was my mother's. I re-member she always used to roll out herbiscuits, and they were awful good bis-cuits."

I have my aunt's rolling pin in a drawerin my kitchen. It's all one piece of woodunlike the newer one that sits beside it.I can almost smell her apple turnoversand cherry pies when I pull that oldrolling pin out and look at it. I seldomuse it, but I know I could never bear tothrow it out.

Unlike many of the women whomade thetripattheurgingofahusband,I made the decision to come to Oregonon my own. I had lived in Ashland,Oregon, for two years and longed toreturn to those rich, woodsy smells ona summer day, and for that dry, com-fortable breeze beneath a shade tree.Climate was a factor in my move.

Also, I saw the move as a neededchange, an escape from a failed mar-riage, a chance to try something new. I

saw it as an adventure too, completewith risks, since I understood that Iwas moving to a place where! would bewithout a support network of friendsand family.

A passage from Miriam ThompsonTuller's diary quoted in Women'sVoices shows that she had similarfeelings about her trip. In 1845, as sheand her husband set out on the trektoward the Willamette Valley, shewrote of her "strong spirit of adventureand desire to see what was new andstrange." The passage indicates thatMiriam had reconciled herself to thejourney and even looked forward to achange of scenery.

Miriam also mentions her husband'spatriotism, which gives another reasonwhy some men came west. In additionto the lure of free land, the thinkingwas that if more families populated theOregon Country it would increase theUnited States' chances of acquiringofficial rights to the land held jointlywith Great Britain.

At the Rendezvous, Marie DarneilleLeonard told me about her ancestor, aDenning, who was also an independentspirit, but in another sense. She camealong the Oregon Trail with her motherand father and left behind a husbandin Indiana. He refused to follow hiswife and divorced her instead.

Most female pioneer descendants Ispoke with confirmed that it was gen-erally the husband who made the de-cision to move west. A wife may haveexpressed reluctance, but she usuallycame through as the dutiful wife.

Marguerite Overholser's grandfa-ther, Albert Lewis, married a womanback east who didn't foil ow the patternof the reluctant but obedient wife. She

Fall 1993 81

refused to come to Oregon with herhusband and he divorced her and latermarried Marguerite's grandmother,Annie, a cousin to Meriwether Lewis.

When I asked Marguerite why shethought her ancestors came to Oregon,she said that moving seemed to besomething they had in their blood. Notonly were they related to the explorer,but her father's family was descendedfrom Hanna Boone, Daniel Boone'syounger sister. Marguerite told meabout her ancestors.

"They seemed to have just keptmoving west. They started out inMassachusetts and went to Vermontand then to New York and onto Illinois.From there they came west on theOregon Trail. I think it was just thething they chose to do."

Another Rendezvous participant,Kathy Richardson Vosburg, said thather ancestors were constantly movingfor a while also. They may have eventraveled some with Daniel Boone.

"They had gone from Maryland toKentucky to Tennessee to Missouri.They seemed tobe frontiersmen. I thinkthey just kept moving. It seemed to bea part of the way they livedbut I don'tknow why."

The ancestors of BenjaminRichardson came across in 1846 withthree other families, the Hintons,Browns, and Hinmans. They eventuallysettled down to farming in the FernRidge area.

Sylvia Richardson told me that shesuspects that the cold, harsh wintersand hot, humid summers had some-thing to do with her ancestors' movingfrom Missouri. I could understandthatI hate driving on ice and snow,and it annoys me to find my car rusting

from the salted roads Midwesternersmust drive in the winter. And thesummersthe Missouri heat and hu-midity are nearly unbearable.

Sylvia also told me thatan ancestor'sdiary records that a child was born onthe Oregon Trail and named NancyMissouri Richardson. The wagon trainhad to stop for 24 hours because Mrs.Richardson was having the baby. Weboth wondered, was the delay seen asan inconvenience, a loss of precioustime? Perhaps, but we'll never know.

At the end of the Rendezvous, Iwished that I had been able to talk tomore people. The turnout, at 700, wasalmost double the expectations. Timeran out quickly. Also, the wind pickedup and the sun kept ducking behindthe clouds, so people seemed to scatterall at once.

It had been easy to find the familygroups to talk to. Surnames on signsmarked the picnic tables. Many of thenames were familiar: Belknap, Love,Hinton, Stewart, Warner.

None of the signs read Delger,Wilmes, Bloebaum, or Witheim. Thosewere my ancestors and you might findthem at a gathering back in Missouri,not here at the end of the trail theychose not to take.

As I satatapicnictabletotalktoonelast person, Marie Darneille, the menand women in her family group packedaway the remnants of their gathering.I lifted my notepad so that someonecould take home the tablecloth. Oneafter another, Marie's relatives saidgood-bye. As he was leaving, one mantold me that they use any old excuse toget together, so they'd be seeing eachother again soon.

I packed up my own bag and walked


to my car. I was a little sad the day wasover, and a little lonely for my ownfamily.

The conclusions I reached will notstartle anybody. It is clear from thedescendants' comments and from theobservations of historians that thereasons the pioneers left for Oregonare probably related to one or more ofthe following:

The climate is milder in Oregon thanin Missouri. Yes, of course, no quarrelwith that.

Second, the pioneers wanted a feel-ing of independenceof starting a newlife in a distant land. Some may havewanted to sever family ties or at leastlessen the family influences and per-haps the family social expectations,such as marrying within the commu-nity or taking over afamilybusiness orfarm. Some early settlers may wellhave balked at that notion, acting onan attitude that exists to this day amongthe more rebellious or independentfolks. I may well be an exception to thisideaI love my family, and long for thegrand, old-fashioned family reunions Iused to attend. True, I came to Oregonto start a new life and to leave thebaggage of earlier mistakes. But I feela little isolated in Oregon, even whileacknowledging that the climate is lesssevere. (For the record, however, Iprefer Missouri's balmy summer eve-nings, the kind that continue warm farinto the night, in contrast to Oregon'sfrigid evenings.)

The third point is a sense of adven-

ture; folks just want to know what'saround the next bend. Me, too.

And finally there was the lure offreeland offered by the government, andalso the patriotic notion that we couldwrest the Oregon Country from theBritishboth thoughts applicable thenbut not now. As a footnote, however, Ido detect in Oregon a fair amount ofpatriotism of another sortthe feelingthat from an environmental point ofview, Oregon can be saved, can bewrested from pollution and assortedenvironmental disasters evident inother areas of the country.

Witnessing the happy family re-unions at the Rendezvous, I realizedthat Oregon is home to these descen-dants of the pioneers. Here they wereborn, here they will remain for themost part. For more recent immigrantslike myself, home is somewhere else,Missouri, for example. And home willalways be a part of our lives. It is notunthinkable that I could swallow mypride, learn to drive on ice and to dodgesummer cloudbursts and tornadoes,and return to Missouri or some otherMidwestern community.

Just a passingfeeling. I knew I'd getover it by the time I drove off. It hap-pens that way sometimes when I walkpast a park and see a big family,grandparents and babies, and hearthem laughing and enjoying eachother's company.

Those are the times when I knowthat not all that's a part of me will evercome here from Missouri.

Fall 1993 83

The mom and popmanufacturing company

No gleaming buildings or high smokestacks were visible, but, as ahome-kitchen operation, it saw the family through the depression.

By William IL Gardner

om and Dad called it theGardner Manufactur-ing Company. Operat-ing from kitchens andwork rooms in our

homes, first in Springfield and thenEugene, the company bottled extractsand food colorings from 1932 to 1938,selling door-to-door (or mostly farm-to-farm) for the firstyear and then becom-ing almost exclusively wholesale.

They made vanilla in clear or coloredvarieties, and they produced almond,lemon, maple, and black walnut fla-vorings.

The brand names included BobbyBrand (named for my older brother),Kitchen Queen, and Tru-Val-U. Theretailer got the same product regard-less of the labelonly the price wasdifferent.

My father and mother, Ernest andGertrude, carried on the entire opera-tion (with occasional help from Boband me) through the depths of the1930s depression. It couldn't exist to-day under all the stringent govern-

ment regulations. At the time, theoperation was monitored by the StateDepartment of Agriculture, but I sel-dom remember an inspector comingaround.

My father founded the company in1930 in Sidney, Ohio. Atthebeginningof the depression, Dad lost his job asshipping clerk for a cigar manufactur-ing firm in Lima, Ohio. With no workin Limahe moved the family to Sidney.Working door to door, he sold necktiesand drinking fountains that attachedtofaucets. The incomebarely supportedthe family.

Then one day in Specialty Salesmanmagazine he noticed an ad from anIndianapolis company offering concen-trated extractsjust add water, bottle,and sell at fabulous profit. For twoyears he sold these products door-to-door and farm-to-farm, rather like theWatkins man. Now he was making alivable income, buthe realized that thereal money was being made by thesupplier.

In 1932 we moved to Oregonto

Lane County Historian

Chief executives of the Gardner Mfg. Co.Ernestand Gertrude Gardner, June 1938.

greener pastures, we hoped, but Dadwas still selling door-to-door. One dayhe went to the Department of Agricul-ture in Salem and pulled off what hecalled 'The Big Bluff"

With a bottle of vanilla made fromthe concentrate in hand, he asked oneof their chemists why it lacked theflavor and aroma he desired. The

chemistmade several suggestions thatDad faithfully recorded in his note-book. Before the visit was over, Dadhad all the information he needed tocreate his own extract concentrate. Andwith that information, his profit perbottle more than tripled. He could thensell a housewife a bottle of vanilla for50 cents with his total cost of produc-

The author is a history teacher who retired fmm Hillsboro Union High School in1982. He's still looking bra leftover bottle ofGardner extracts. Write or call himP0 Box 271, Forest Grove, OR 97116(503) 357-9239if you have one.

Fall 1993

tion being 7 centsthe bottle costing 4cents and the contents 3 cents.

Shortly after this visit to Salem,Dad went wholesale. He much pre-ferred selling to grocers, bakers, andchefs in dozens and grosses rather thanhousewives in ones. Bottles that re-tailed for 49 cents he sold for 25 cents.Dad always had an answer for themerchant who thought his prices high.He would hand him a card inscribedANYONE CAN MAKE IT WORSEAND SELL IT FOR LESS. He traveledwestern Oregon on a two-month sched-ule and covered eastern Oregon twice ayear. He never sold in Portland, pre-ferring to deal with small-town inde-pendent merchants. Safeway and otherchain stores were too much competi-tion.

With the depression going full blast,a grocer often wanted the extracts buthad no cash to pay for them. So Dadwould barter, usually selling the ex-tracts at wholesale prices and in returntaking groceries at retail. Dad ex-plained that this would double thegrocer's profit. You can imagine thestuff he would bring home from a trip.I enjoyed emptying the carVelveetacheese, Wheaties, Fels Naptha laun-dry soap, rolled oats. Best of all, therewould always be a supply of candy.

During the summer, Dad would oc-casionally take me along on his salestrips. Two! especially remember. Onetook us through Oakridge where thepublic toilet fascinated me. It was agiant outhouse built over a stream. Itwas flushed every few minutes by acounter-weighted barrel filled by di-verted stream water. When sufficientwater was in the barrel, it fell forward,emptied, and returned to its upright

position. The other trip was overnightto Salem. We stayed at the Argo Hoteland ate in the dining room. That reallyimpressed a 7-year-old boy.

Evennowl can rememberthe aromaas! came into the house on a day whenthe folks were cooking up a batch ofextract. A five-gallon kettle would beon the stove. By the end of the day 50gallons or more of extract would becooling in gallon jugs. The bottlingprocess was done exciusivelybyMother(usually while Dad was off on a trip).Mom would siphon the liquid into thevarious-sized bottles a dozen or so at atime without wasting a drop. She hadtremendous coordination. Next thebottles were capped (prior to 1935 weused corks), labeled, and boxed, readyfor sale.

The labels were printed by ElmerMaxie,job printer and publisher of theSpringfield News. Dad purchasedbottles from Acme Bottle and JunkCompany in Portland.

In 1938 Dad sold the business toDon Barley of Eugene for $300 cash.The business was worth more, andDad wanted to sell it for more, but hecouldn't find a buyer with more money.Still looking for greener pastures, hemoved to Mrian, Michigan, and con-tinued the extract business there untilWorld War II put an end to his supplysources. In l945thefolksandlreturnedto Oregon. Dad finished his workingdays at Springfield Plywood Company.I graduated from the University ofOregon and taught at Springfield, Ma-dras, and Hillsboro. For 20 years Ihave searched Oregon for a bottle ofextracts and/or food colors manufac-tured by the Gardner ManufacturingCompany, but with no success.


1,HtJ.Wlilppk

What started out as "merely" a selection of trail recipes emerged asa vivid picture ofpioneer life, thanks to enthusiastic contributors.

e have yet to try morethan a couple of therecipes in The OregonTrail Cookbook, byLeslieJ. Whipple

(Maverick Distributors, Bend,1992, $14.95). You may there-fore consider it unwise to rush tojudgment on the value of the bookto the typical food-minded con-sumer.

But you don't have to try allthe recipes to realize that there isfood here for the imagination aswell as the palate. It is a mirrorof pioneer life at mealtime. Thereis no shortening for your cookies?No problem because here's arecipe that calls for bear grease.And consider a wilted salad withdandelions. Take a little baconfat, bits ofbacon, salt, andvinegarand pour them heated over theyoung dandelion greens and youhave a sumptuous Oregon Trailfare.

And imaginebaked squirrel,buffalo gravy, bison jerky. Ingenuitywas needed for eggless, butterless,milkless cake but anything's possiblewhen the need is greatest. Rose gera-nium leaves give a unique flavor to

Book Review

Eating your wayacross the plains

cakes when vanilla or other seasoningsare not available. And one way to pepup those flavorless cakes is to addwhiskey, rum, or wine.

Whether or not you use bear greasefor your cookiesit's worth a tryisnot the important aspect of this paper-back volume that runs 170 oversizedpages. The book is more than a collec-

Fall 1993 87

tion of pioneer recipes. It's a documentof Oregon history.

This historical aspect began inno-cently enough. Author Leslie Whippleplaced notices in newspapers aroundthe country asking for recipes used bythe Oregon Trail pioneers.

"I was unprepared for the response,"she confesses. "Descendants of pioneerfamilies were eagerto share theirfamilylegends, memories, and cherishedrecipes. The touching stories of hardwork and reward, survival, and cel-ebration made it clear that the contri-butions were of significant historicalinterest and should be reproduced witha minimum of changes."

And so you find charming storiesinterspersed with the recipes for oxtailsoup with carrots, onions, and turnips.

Glenn B. Allen relates one such story.It tells of his father, Albert, youngest ofseven children born to William PowellAllen and his wife, Nancy AnnMatheney, both of whom crossed onthe Oregon Trail, she in 1843, he in1847. The young couple settled northof what is now Oakridge.

Young Albert accompanied some ofhis older brothers on a horseback tripto Eugene, where he had never beenbefore.

"Arriving at the big city," the storygoes, "the boys tied their horses at a logfence around the city square near somegovernment buildings. Then Albertsaw a strange structure on the far sideof the square. He plodded across invery deep mud to investigate withboyish interest. He touched thebuilding. What the heck! Where didthey ever find rocks with nice square

sides, piled one on top of the other, twofloors high?

"By this time the brothers had comearound and explained that this build-ing was man-made of clay soil baked toa hard consistency.

"In later years, Dad entertained uswith the story ofhis discovery of a brickbuilding. There were so many new andstrange things out in the world, awayfrom the farm."

Another contributor, Mrs. RobertCartwright, provides a recipe for pre-paring 100 pounds of meat for the six-month trail journey to Oregon.

8 pounds of salt4 and a half gallons of water10 pounds of brown sugar1 pound of saltpeter4 tablespoons of baking soda

"To prepare the meat for pickling, let itlay in salt overnight or about 24 hours,which draws out all the blood. Place inkeg or jar and pour the above picklingover the meat to prepare thepickling, put water in a boiler with thesalt, sugar and saltpeter and let boilstirring often to keep the ingredientsfrom burning to bottom ofboiler. Afterit is boiling put soda in and skim allscum from the liquid. Let stand over-night or thoroughly cool before using."

It is a recipe that most of us are notlikely to use, which is part of the charmofthis book. The more exotic the recipe,the more you realize the hardships andproblems of everyday mealtime prepa-ration. As such, it belongs on the shelfboth for the useful and for the exoticrecipes.Ken and Betty Metzler


Board Members of the Lane County Historical Society

Term Expires 1994Orlando HollisHallie HuntingtonHugh SimpsonA. J. GiustinaKen Metzler

Term Expires 1995John McWadeEthan NewmanMarty WestBob CoxJanice PattisonJohn Pennington

Where to find additional copiesof the Lane County Historian

Additional copies of the LaneCounty Historian are available forpurchase ($2.00 per copy) at thefollowing locations:

The Lane County HistoricalMuseum, 740 West 13th Avenue,Eugene.

The Bookmark, 856 Olive Street,Eugene.

University of Oregon Bookstore,895 East 13th Avenue, Eugene.

The Bookmine, 702 E. Main Street, Cottage Grove.

Or you can order by mail ($2 each, postage paid) directly from theHistorical Society at the address below. Membership in the LaneCounty Historical Society is $10 per year. Send your payment to theSociety, P.O. Box 11532, Eugene, OR 97440.

Term Expires 1996Alfaretta SporesLucille McKenzieGilbert M. HulinDonald T. SmithAlta P. Nelson

Lane C

ounty Historical Society

PU B

ox 11532E

ugene, OR

97440

rwarding &

Return Postage G

uaranteA

ddress Correction R

equested

Where to find additional

copies of the Lane C

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istorian....see inside backcover.

Non-P

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rganizationU

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Huckleberry Finn Country, early 1900s

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