Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 3/Recollections of Grandma Brown

by Jane Kinney Smith

RECOLLECTIONS OF GRANDMA BROWN.

By Jane Kinney Smith, of Astoria.

The following are personal recollections in regard to one of the most worthy and beneficent of all the pioneers of Oregon, Mrs. Tabitha Brown, whose school at Forest Grove formed the nucleus of the academy founded later by Rev. Harvey Clark, and Dr. G. H.Atkinson, and was extended still later by Dr. S. H. Marsh into a college with an outlook and endowment warranting the name university.

It is expected later to present a paper touching more fully upon the entire life of Mrs. Brown, which will be prepared by Mrs. Mary Strong Kinney of Astoria, Mrs. Kinney being a great granddaughter of Mrs. Brown. The recollections of Mrs. Smith, however, who was an inmate in Mrs. Brown's schoolhouse, are of unusual interest, and in accordance with the views of all writers on history, we should fail as collectors of historical facts unless we placed on record where possible all that may be obtained of the pioneer characters. Mrs. Smith is a daughter of Robert Crouch Kinney, who was well known all over Oregon in the early day as a pioneer farmer and fruit grower in Yamhill County; and later as the pioneer export manufacturer of flour from Salem. Jane Kinney was but ten years old when coming to Oregon, with her father's family, but remembers many details of the journey across the plains, one of the most exciting occasions being in the Umatilla country when two young Indians rode alongside a daughter of Samuel Kinney, Robert's brother, and lifted her from the saddle as if to kidnap the girl; but were suddenly brought to time by a blow from the butt end of the father's oxwhip. This chastisement of the saucy young braves nearly precipitated a general quarrel, but it was finally settled.

The Barlow road had recently been opened and it was by this that these immigrants came into the Willamette Valley, and they soon found unoccupied land of excellent quality and sufficient for donation claims for both Robert and Samuel. This was at the head of Wapato Lake, and at the foot of Chehalem Mountain, then one of the best range countries in the world.

Robert Kinney was from Muscatine, in Iowa, and had been engaged in business, and besides being a foremost man in enterprise, was one of the most considerate of fathers. One of his first cares was to find educational advantages for his large family of girls and boys. In 1848 there were no public schools yet established in Oregon, and the country was much agitated over the Cayuse war, just closed, and the gold mines just discovered in California. Nevertheless Oregon had a number of mission schools. The Catholic school at St. Paul, and the Methodist mission school at Salem, and a school well attended on Clatsop Plains, were of the number; but Mr. Kinney was glad to learn that there was another still nearer home, at what was then called West Tualatin, but thirteen miles from Chehalem Mountain. Finding that this bore an excellent reputation, and that charges were extremely moderate, he decided to take his daughter to Mother Brown's boarding school. Of such an institution Jane, although but a girl of eleven, had rather an exalted opinion and was prepared for something quite remarkable.

It was some time in May or June of 1848 that her father brought her down from the farm, and she was greatly impressed with the beauty of the place, soon named Forest Grove. The location is striking, and in the early days, before there had been brought about the changes incident to settlement, it possessed a romantic charm that is now lacking. The slightly elevated site, which is divided by a small run, or swale, was ornamented with an exceptionally handsome grove of oak trees, amid which rose an occasional group of firs, the whole area being open and clean and well grassed. It was a natural park, and while bearing on the first glance the impress of nature only, had also that simulation to man's most artistic planning that startles one with the thought that surely some one must have made it. Through the vistas of oak trees appeared to the north and east broad level prairies, or plains, edged with evergreen forests, and the horizon, at a long distance, was delineated underneath by the line of the Blue Mountain ranges, surmounted by the snow peaks. A fine appreciation of natural beauty is very distinctly marked in all the early pioneers and their children, and is very different from the vulgar raptures of the real estate dealer, who "writes up" our lovely scenery from the purely speculative point of view. The deterioration is to be regretted.

Arriving shortly before noon, Jane and her father were invited first of all to dine. The house was a log cabin, underneath some fine oaks, and was at no great distance from another of the same pattern, occupied by Rev. H. H. Spaldiug. These were afterwards connected, Grandma Brown's school requiring additional room. Mrs. Smith remembers the meal as a substantial boiled dinner of beef and vegetables, and very abundant. Meat was furnished regularly to the school by one of the patrons, a pioneer named Black, whose three boys were in attendance. Large bands of cattle were already owned by the settlers. Grandma Brown also had a fine kitchen garden as time went on, and provided early vegetables. The girl was also impressed with the neatness and tastefulness of the table. There was a white cloth; and the sugar bowls, salt cellars and spoonholders, which were made of cardboard, were neatly covered with fancy calico. Mrs. Smith also tells how she remembered the time of the year. It was when wild strawberries were ripe, and in the afternoon the girls were given some cups and told that they might gather berries. They did so, the wild fruit growing in great abundance and of luscious flavor; all except the new girl. She, thinking this was a boarding school, did not know why she should pick strawberries. But at supper she found she was the only one who had none to eat.

Mrs. Brown, however, at once made her at home, and indeed made her a companion, sharing with her her own room. Mrs. Brown was known as Grandma to all the pupils. She was even then an elderly woman, past sixty years of age. In person she was small and slight, not weighing over 108 pounds. She also walked with a cane, one of her limbs being weakened from paralysis. Above a delicate face, with blue eyes, there was gray hair; yet in manner and expression she was always young, and made herself a companion rather than a disciplinarian. She often told Mrs. Smith of her trip across the Plains. She was from the East, and of a cultivated family, who were in good circumstances. She had married an Episcopal minister, who died early, leaving her a family of two boys and one girl. With these she went at an early day to Missouri, and there opened a school, making of it a success both educationally and financially. However, she decided to come to Oregon, partly, perhaps, on account of an uncle of her husband's, a Captain Brown, who was very old, but believed a trip to Oregon would prolong his life. The trip was made in 1846, and the latter part of the way by the Applegate route, by the Umpqua Valley into the Willamette. This proved very severe, and Mrs. Brown was compelled to come alone over the Cascades with the old captain, whom she expected might die of exhaustion at any moment. For several nights she camped alone in the mountains, or "worse than alone," as she said, not daring to sleep, but to watch by the fire to keep the wild animals away and take care of her charge.

Once arrived at Salem she was entirely destitute, not having even a cent left; but one day, placing her hand in an old glove, she felt a coin. It proved to be a picayune. The glove suggested an idea. With the picayune she bought three buckskin needles, and with a dress bought deerskins of the Indians and made men's gloves. Selling these she invested the proceeds in more materials, and was soon doing a good business making and selling these articles. Becoming acquainted she was invited by some of the missionary families to their homes. She paid a visit first to W. W. Raymond's, in the spring of 1847, on Clatsop Plains, and afterwards to Rev. Harvey Clark's, at West Tualatin or Forest Grove. One day, riding with Mr. Clark and noticing the fine situation where the Pacific University campus now is, she said that this was the place for a school. Mr. Clark readily fell in with the idea, but feared that there would be no one to conduct the necessary boarding department. Mrs. Brown offered to do this herself, and opened a home for pupils of all ages, herself acting as teacher until others were found.

Mr. Clark, who had come to Oregon as an independent missionary, and was one of the most benevolent and generous of men, both in sentiment and action, had already with his wife, conducted a school on the East Tualatin Plain, in the neighborhood of the settlement of the old American Rocky-mountain men, Meek, Wilkins, Ebbarts, and Walker. He now owned the present site of Forest Grove, and being assured that Mrs. Brown would and could successfully carry out the plan of an educational institution, gladly welcomed this as the opportunity. It is noteworthy that this plan was in line with a suggestion of Doctor Whitman's, that as the United States Government would undoubtedly confirm the act of the Provisional Government of Oregon, granting a square mile of land to each family, there was a great opportunity open for Christian familes to form colonies and acquire contiguous claims, and donate sufficient of their lands to establish schools. It is not improbable that Mr. Clark, as well as Mr. A. T. Smith, who were intimate friends of Whitman, and Rev. Elkanah Walker, who was an associate, were fully acquainted with this plan for schools. At all events this was the plan followed at Forest Grove; and Tualatin Academy, afterwards united with Pacific University, received its first endowment in land from the donation claims of the settlers there. Mr. Clark gave one half his donation land claim.

While the school was not intended as a charity the terms were so reasonable that any could attend, being but a dollar per week, including board and tuition. As was natural in the case of immigrants just crossing the Plains, there were men with families of children, left alone by the death of the mother. Some of these were placed in school at Mother Brown's. During her first term at the school Mrs. Smith recalls the following as in attendance: Eliza Spalding, who with her parents had recently come from the scenes of the Whitman massacre, and could tell stories only too heartrending of that sad affair; Mary Ann Butts and several younger children of the same family; a Miss Kimsay, usually so styled, though but a girl of twelve; the three boys of William Black; Emeline Stuart, later Mrs. Lee Laughlin, the banker of McMinnville, and Mrs. Brown's two granddaughters, Teresa and Caroline, the former becoming Mrs. Zachary, and the latter Mrs. Robert Porter. These two granddaughters assisted in the housework, although Mrs. Brown herself conducted all household affairs personally.

Mrs. Brown was exceedingly quiet and cheerful in her ways and Mrs. Smith can not recollect a single case of insubordination or discipline, so orderly arid intelligent was "Grandma's" management. All the various household affairs were punctually ordered, meals being on time, and retiring and getting up in the morning promptly observed. At dusk Mrs. Brown would call the children in from their play, and arranging themselves at their seats they repeated together an evening prayer. In the morning, especially Sundays, she would waken her household by singing, and as her voice was still sweet and strong, and her singing good, this made the children feel cheerful all the week. This lady was also something of a mechanic, and contrived many little conveniences, one being a clay-made oven, which was the admiration of the neighborhood; having been constructed by simply a wooden framework, of proper size, over which was placed a sufficiency of well-mixed clay, after which the woodwork was burned out, and other fuel added until the clay was hardened into something like brick.

All the holidays were properly observed, and Mrs. Brown took as much interest as the children in seeing that suitable dresses were provided for the girls. The matter of cloth for gay clothes was not an easy one to arrange. The dress goods in the territory were still mostly obtained from the Hudson Bay stores, and their trade was still mostly calculated for native taste, the white women often found it difficult to get what they wanted. Mrs. Smith well remembers how her new dress was spoiled for her. It was the custom of the company's clerks to lay out a large bolt of print goods, for instance, and sell only from this until it was disposed of. The only available calico for the girl's new school dress was from a piece with a strikingly large figure; but great was her disgust to find on entering the schoolroom that her teacher, a young man, had a school coat made from the same bolt of calico, with the impressively large figure, though he came from Clatsop and she from Yamhill. This was joke enough to last the girls all the term. Mother Brown, however, circumvented the restriction of the company so far as to watch her chance and buy a whole bolt of cloth at a time, getting in that way, for one picnic occasion, enough muslin to dress the whole band of young girls in white. Who can reckon the world of happiness that these simple acts of kindliness brought to the little girls, some of them "mitherless bairns' and all of them feeling keenly the privations of a new and little improved territory? Or who can tell the good that such simple devices brought to the young community, made up of so many heterogeneous elements, and with the tendency always to sink toward the level of the surrounding barbarity? It was by such ways and acts that a refined society was established, possessing in many ways a charm that our later and more differentiated culture has lost.

The teachers of that early school were persons of high education, and much varied experience, although not having the specialized culture of the present day. These were Lewis Thompson, the pioneer Presbyterian missionary of the present boundaries of Oregon; Rev. Mr. Spalding, and Mr. Wm. Geiger. Miss Mary Johnson, of Oregon City, was also employed at one time. Mr. Geiger was the singing teacher. He was general master of ceremonies on all occasions; training the children once for a Fourth of July temperance picnic held on the North Plain. This was a day of great remembrance to the pupils; and the songs then learned, "Flowers, Wildwood Flowers," and "The Temperance Banner,' still are as fresh in Mrs. Smith's mind as on that day nearly fifty years ago.

This is intended as but an introduction to a fuller sketch of Mrs. Brown. Mrs. Kinney, her great grand- daughter, has agreed to furnish many more of the par- ticulars of her work, and to gather as nearly as possible her letters still in the family possession. It is hoped that these may be presented to the readers of the QUAR- TERLY at no distant date. Mrs. Brown's home grew and flourished, so that her house had to be enlarged, and so careful was she about useless expenditures that her own private funds became quite a comfortable competence, for those days, enabling her to donate, or bequeath, actual cash, or property, for further educational work.

H. S. LYMAN.

I have read the above and find it very satisfactory and correct.

JANE K. SMITH.
ASTORIA, November 25, 1901.