184
DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN OREGON.
1853 in the region south of Winchester,[1] notably the town of Roseburg, founded by Aaron Rose,[2] who purchased the claim from its locators for a horse, and a poor one at that. A flouring mill was put in operation in the northern part of Umpqua Valley, and another erected during the summer of 1851 at Winchester.[3] A saw-mill soon followed in the Rogue River Valley,[4] many of which improvements were traceable, more or less directly, to the impetus given to settlement by the Umpqua Company.
In passing back and forth to California, the Oregon miners had not failed to observe that the same soil and geological structure characterized the valleys north of the supposed[5] northern boundary of California that
- ↑ The first house in Rogue River Valley was built at the ferry on Rogue River established by Joel Perkins. The place was first known as Perkins' Ferry, then Long's Ferry, and lastly as Vannoy's. The next settlement was at the mouth of Evans creek, a tributary of Rogue River, so called from a trader named Davis Evans, a somewhat bad character, who located there. The third was the claim of one Bills, also of doubtful repute. Then came the farm of N. C. Dean at Willow Springs, five miles north of Jacksonville, and near it the claim of A. A. Skinner, who built a house in the autumn of 1851. South of Skinner's, on the road to Yreka, was the place of Stone and Points on Wagner creek, and beyond, toward the head of the valley, those of Dunn, Smith, Russell, Barren, and a few others. Duncan's Settlement, MS., 5–6. The author of this work, L. J. C. Duncan, was born in Tennessee in 1818. He came to California in 1849, and worked in the Mariposa mines until the autumn of 1850, when, becoming ill, he came to Oregon for a change of climate and more settled society. In the autumn of 1851 he determined to try mining in the Shasta Valley, and also to secure a land claim in the Rogue River Valley. This he did, locating on Bear or Stuart creek, 12 miles south-east of Jacksonville, where he resided from 1851 to 1858, during which time he mined on Jackson's creek. He shared in the Indian wars which troubled the settlements for a number of years, finally establishing himself in Jacksonville in the practice of the law, and being elected to the office of judge.
- ↑ Deady's Hist. Or., MS., 72–3.
- ↑ Or. Spectator, Feb. 10, 1852.
- ↑ J. A. Cardwell was born in Tennessee in 1827, emigrated from Iowa to Oregon in 1850, spent the first winter in the service of Quartermaster Ingalls at Fort Vancouver, and started in the spring for California with 26 others to engage in mining. After a skirmish with the Rogue River Indians and various other adventures they reached the mines at Yreka, where they worked until the dry season forced a suspension of operations, when Cardwell, with E. Emery, J. Emery, and David Hurley, went to the present site of Ashland in the Rogue River Valley, and taking up a claim erected the first saw-mill in that region early in 1852. I have derived much valuable information from Mr Cardwell concerning southern Oregon history, which is contained in a manuscript entitled Emigrant Company, in Mr Cardwell's own hand, of the incidents of the immigration of 1850, the settlement of the Rogue River Valley, and the Indian wars which followed.
- ↑ As late as 1854 the boundary was still in doubt. 'Intelligence has just
