THE JACKSONVILLE MUSEUM QUILTERS recently completed a quilt for the Oregon Cow Belles. After it has been displayed in the Rogue Valley and in Portland, the quilt, shown above in a photograph by Natalie Brown, will hang permanently in the State Capitol at Salem. The quilt was created as a fund raiser for the Beef Raisers of Ore­ gon. Block spaces were auctioned to state beef producers and those who bought squares could select the subject for their blocks: brands, logos or scenes. Evelyn. Williams of the Lamplighter Gallery in Jacksonville sketched the designs. Dora Scheidecker,MuseumQuilter, appliqued and embroidered the blocks. Members of the Quilters com­ pleted the 99" x 111" quilt. The process from the original designs to the last stitch required almost a year. Localshowingsofthequilt willbeNov.8, from lO:OOa.m. to 6:00p.m. at the Medford Center Mall, and January 17-25, 1987, at the Jackson­ ville Museum Quilters Block Show in the U.S. Hotel ballroom. /} _(0 O'lfle·i The winsome little girl on the cover was photographed by Peter Britt. She is dressed in her very best dress with a big sash, her very best hat with pleats and ostrich feathers and her new shiney shoes with silver buckles. Unfortunately we do not know her name. Her picture is filed away in a large box labeled "Unidentified Children." IHE SOUTHERN OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY OFFICERS OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES Donald D. Mclaughlin ............................................ President Coordinator of Exhibits .................................... Jime Matoush Isabel Sickels ............................................ 1st Vice President Curator of Interpretation ................................... Dawna Curler James M. Ragland ................................... 2nd Vice President Coordinator of Photographic Services ............. Natalie Brown Laurel Prairie-Kuntz ................................................ Secretary Curator of Preservation and Maintenance .......... Byron Ferrell William R. Bagley ................................................... Treasurer Coordinator of Chappeii-Swedenburg House Leslie Egger-Gould Financial Manager ......................................... Maureen Smith STAFF Librarian/Archivist ........................................ Paul Richardson Acting Exec uti•.•:.. Director .......................... Samuel J. Wegner Membership/Administrative Assistant .................... Susan Cox Children's Museum Coordinator .................... Stacey Williams Newsletter Editor .......................................... Raymond Lewis Curator of Collections ......................................... Marc Pence Oral Historian ................................................ Marjorie Edens Gift Shop Manager ..................................... Sharon Lumsden Coordinator of Volunteers ............................... Marge Herman 2 THE TABLE ROCK SENTINEL The Colver House, which was built to serve as fortification against enemy attack, looks peaceful and serene in the sunshine of a summer afternoon in 1939. Unel Sam C~E 1r .6 ch~d eJ~eJeJt TRAVELER GOING SOUTH on the old tories. Pacific Highway will pass through Samuel Colver, Jr., the first member I~Phoenix, Oregon, and there, at the of the family who is linked to the edge of town, on the west side of pioneer Colvers and the house, was born the road, he will see a large, two-story on September 10, 1815, near Irwin, Union white house, set off by four tall columns. County, Ohio. He was of the sixth Above the door is a Southern Oregon His­ generation in descent from Puritan torical marker identifying the old house Edward Colver, who came to this country as the Colver House and giving its date with Governor Winthrop in 1635. Edward as 1855. The pioneer family who lived Colver was a member of the Massachusetts there and the house have interesting his- Bay Colony and he served in the Colonial *Source Material: Wars. For this service he was given a Marjorie Neil Helms, Early Days in Phoenix, grant of 600 acres. Oregon. This family Colver line descended to SOHS archives -- Colver family biographical file Samuel Colver, the southern Oregon pioneer Marjorie O'Harra, Southern Oregon, Short Trips into History who built the house. His parents were Dorothy and Jack Sutton, Indian Wars of the Nathaniel and Ruth. Nathaniel Colver had Rogue River been a member of the Provincial Congress Stephen Dow Beckham, Requiem for a People from Albany County, New York, and had Jack Sutton, The Mythical State of Jefferson served as an ensign during the NOVEMBER 1986 3 l3NllN3S )[)0~ 319Vl 3Hl Revolutionary War. almost any subject: temperance, anti­ slavery, womens' suffrage and the Oregon OUNG SAM ATTENDED SCHOOL in Ohio. swamp-land laws, to name just a few. In his early teens, along with his Soon after the lecture tour ended, brother Hiram, he was enrolled in Sam met pretty Huldah Callander, and Plymouth College, Indiana. He found the they were married in November, 1845. school's strict orthodox requirements Huldah's parents had died when she was distasteful and he was often in conflict small and a family named Baldwin had with his teachers. Early in life he be­ taken her in. They did not know her gan composing verse, and many of his exact birthday, but she was born near original poems were aimed at some common Middleburg, Madison County, Ohio, in frailty in human nature. He frequently January of 1823. She descended from pointed his finger at his acquaintances upright, industrious English stock. who possessed the fault. His verse often Her father, Samuel Callander, had been got him into considerable trouble at the a fifer in the War of 1812. Her great college and one of his poems, which was grandfather, Eliezer Callander, served a caustic bit of poetry, was directed at in the Revolutionary War as a captain a member of the faculty. The budding in the Virginia navy. A great uncle, poet was reprimanded publicly for his John Callander, was a captain of defiance and was given the choice of artillery at the Battle of Bunker Hill. making a public apology or of leaving the halls of learning. He chose the lat­ AM BROUGHT HIS BRIDE HOME, and they ter, thus terminating his scholastic lived with his parents for four career. years at the Colver homestead in At 20, Sam Colver lit out for Texas Ohio. Their son Lewellyn (called Louie, and joined the Texan army under the ban­ or Lew, as he grew up) was born in Union ner of Sam Houston. He served as a Texas County, Ohio, March 28, 1847. Ranger until after the battle of San When word reached the Colvers in 1849 Jacinto, which established Texan inde­ of the California gold strikes and the pendence. This adventure was followed by donation land grants in Oregon, wander­ a period in which he served on the fron­ lust again hit Samuel. He decided to tier as an Indian trader and a scout. take his family to Oregon, and, late in Once he was forced to make a solitary 1849, they moved to St. Joseph, Missouri, journey across extensive territory which preparatory to crossing the plains the was occupied by hostile tribes. He following spring. On February 7, 1850, traveled on foot at night. The cactus while they were waiting at the immigrant­ and thorny shrubs tore his clothing into train rendezvous in Independence, Hulda shreds, and he had to clothe himself with gave birth to a daughter, Isabel. The untanned skins of animals that he had baby was probably born in a covered shot. He ate the unsalted flesh of these wagon. When she was about two months animals for days before he finally old, Sam, Hulda, the baby and three-year­ reached a se.ttlement. old Louie started the trek west on the Eventually he gave up this adventurous heavily traveled Oregon Trail. In the life and returned home to Ohio. He didn't same wagon train were Hiram and Maria stay there long. Somewhere along the way Colver with their children. in his travels he became interested in The journey was relatively uneventful the recently discovered science of Mes­ and there is little on record of their merism. It wasn't long before he teamed trip until the Colvers reached Portland up with an old gentleman by the name of and the Willamette Valley. Sam and Hiram Buchanon who claimed to be a mindreader. left their families with relatives on The pair set out on a lecture tour in Silver Creek in the Waldo Hills east of which they did tricks of hypnotism and Salem. Although they returned for mindreading. History fails to record how visits from time to time, the two broth­ successful the enterprise turned out to ers roamed all over that part of the be, but, during their travels, Sam Colver state. Early newspapers report Sam discovered that he enjoyed lecturing the helped take the first census, and Hiram public. For the remainder of his life, practiced law that fall and winter. Sam he would lecture at the drop of a hat on also prospected and took out a mining NOVEMBER 1986 5 l3NilN3S >DO~ 319Vl 3Hl 9 claim near the Willamette River at the well's mill. Apparently they were able spot where Eugene is now located. to cool matters because Cardwell wrote In the spring of 1851 both brothers that there was no further trouble with headed south to the Rogue River Valley the natives for several months. Soon and took out donation land claims along after this incident, Skinner resigned Bear Creek. Sam's 640 acres were as Indian Agent to go into politics. located where the town of Phoenix would The Superintendent for Indian Affairs in one day be established. Hiram's claim the Oregon Territory, Joel Palmer, ap­ lay to the south of Sam's claim. In pointed Sam Colver to replace Skinner. June of that year the Indians in the Sam moved to the headquarters at Port Rogue Valley were troublesome, and Orford on the coast, leaving his farm Major Phillip Kearney was called to in the care of a hired man. Sam Colver southern Oregon. His troops engaged at that time was running 100 head of the Indians at Willow Springs near cattle that he had brought up from present-day Central Point.