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The Lost Frontier Stories of Charles Applegate of Yoncalla
The only authority for calling Charles Applegate an author is Bancroft's History of Oregon. In volume two there is this reference:
Charles Applegate wrote and published some tales of western life, which he carefully concealed from those who might recognize them.
To write factual accounts, and adventures if they were true, seemed to have been respectable enough, and romances could be openly acknowledged by women like Mrs. Bailey and Mrs. Duniway, but when a robust pioneer turned to fiction his inclination was to keep it dark. Moss was reticent about Prairie Flower until it made a stir in the world; Adams published "Breakspear" anonymously; Ogden did not reveal his authorship of Traits of American Indian Life and Character; and Charles Applegate had the most sustained and successful secretiveness of all.
As has been mentioned, his descendants remember nothing about his writings. Miss Eva Applegate, one of his twin granddaughters at Hot Lake, Oregon, in helping to locate the stories, said:
My sister and I are at a loss which way to turn, as we have never read these writings of our grandfather and know nothing of them.
Dr. Joseph Schafer, who has written extensively on the Applegates, likewise has no knowledge of Charles Applegate as an author:
I have never heard that Charles had literary proclivities, although I see no reason why the blacksmith of the family should not have written quite as well as the carpenter (Lindsay) who had written some things. It may be that Charles Applegate gave H. H. Bancroft a manuscript of his recollections. In that case it will be at Berkeley.
The assessment rolls of 1844 show that he was one of the substantial taxpayers of the territory, though somewhat below Lindsay and much below Jesse. His big house about two miles from Yoncalla is still the loveliest dwelling in northern Douglas County. This, in the old days, was the
