WPA Interviews

Bowman, Susan (Farrier)

July 1940

INTERVIEW

Interview with Mrs. Susan (Farrier) Bowman of Brownsville, Oregon. Mrs. Bowman gave information on the pioneer Farrier, Brooks, Allphin and Sears Families.

My name is Susan Bowman. My maiden name before I married was Susan Farrier. I was born at Fern Ridge, in Marion County, M3, 1857.

Perhaps I had better begin this interview by telling of my father's people and their coming to Oregon. Grandfather was David Farrier and he came by ox team in 1945. He first settled at French Prairie but did not survive long after reaching Oregon. My grandmother was Phoebe (Written "Pheby" on her monument in the Allphin Cemetery) Farrier.

When my grandparents came to Oregon they were accompanied by a family of seven children. Their names were-

Ambrose Farrier.

George Farrier. (He is the father of Edd. Farrier of Brownsville).

Marion Farrier.

David Farrier.

William Farrier (Father of the informant.) He was born September 7, 1831.

Elizabeth Farrier.

Ann Farrier.

Jemima Farrier.

After my grandfather died my grandmother married again. Her second husband's name was William Allphin. He was the Captain of the emigrant train which settled in northwestern Linn county in 1847. He was also a member of the Territorial Legislature of 1851. He was born in 1798 and he died on October 7, 1876. You see I know much more about my step-grandfather than I do about my own grandfather for I was raised on his claim. William Allphin, like my grandmother, had been previously married. Her first name was Zilah ------(?) and she was born in 1806 and died Feb. 8, 1848, just a few months after arriving in Oregon. My grandmother was born in 1815 and died March 13, 1875. William Allphin and his two wives are buried together in the "Allphin Cemetery" on the old Allphin Claim about four miles south of Jefferson.

My father, William Farrier, was born on Sept. 7, 1831 in Ohio. He came to Oregon with his parents and they first settled in Marion County. Their home was north of the Santiam River near the present town of Sublimity, Marion County. (Six miles due east of Sublimity.) "My father was only about thirteen years old when he came to Oregon but I have always thought that he was quite a capable mechanic at that time for soon after he reached Oregon he made a churn for a neighbor. It was a wooden churn with fir staves and hazel hoops and all the tools which he had to use were a froe and a pocket knife yet it was a very neat and durable piece of work. I still have that old churn which is now somewhere near ninety-three years old yet the staves are still tight and the hoops wound for all the years it has seen. This churn was made by my father for a family named Zumwalt. (Note-Probably Henry A. Zumwalt who had a donation land claim about three miles from the Farrier Home. L. Haskin) The Zumwalt family were moving to the Port Orford region in southern Oregon and the wooden churn was carried to their new home packed on the back of a mule.

Years, later, when I was living at Medford, I heard from this family and went to see them and given the old churn which my father had made. I still keep it as a family heirloom. (Note-The churn was seen by this writer. It is an extremely neat piece of work and still in perfect condition. The hoops, especially, formed from shaved hazel withes and with an ingenious "locking" joint are especially clever. L.H.) "My mother was Ann Elizabeth Brooks. Her father was William Brooks. Her mother was Ann Brooks. The Brooks family first settled in Marion County in the Fern Ridge neighborhood a few miles east of Sublimity in 1853. Their claim was not far from that of the Farriers, my father's people.

Grandfather Brooks came to Oregon with horses, blooded stock, which he continued to breed after he had reached Oregon. My mother, though only a young girl, drove a four-horse team the most of the way across the plains. Mother was born in 1836. Her mother died just a few hours after she was born.

My father, William Farrier, and my mother, Ann Elizabeth Brooks were married in Marion County in 1854. Mother was then about eighteen years old, father about twenty-three. They first lived on a claim which my father had taken near Sublimity. About the year 1860 they sold out there and moved to Linn County. They first settled here on a farm which father bough and which was situated about six miles northeast of Harrisburg. Later they again moved to the village of Harrisburg on the Willamette river where father engaged in the furniture business.

In the early 1860's Harrisburg was not a very big town but it was a lively one. All of the business houses were grouped along the edge of the river.

There was one main street and little else. The riverboats tied up there to unload freight from Oregon City and Portland and the lower Columbia and to load with local products, principally wheat but also many other things. Hogs were shipped by boat from Harrisburg in immense numbers. On hog shipping days, I can remember, the streets would be lined for blocks with hogs waiting to unload.

Speaking of hogs, there was a big flour mill situated a mile or so south of Harrisburg in the early days. Hiram Smith owned and operated the mill.

To use the feed which he earned by custom grinding-the toll for grinding stock feed and the roughage from grinding flour such as bran, shorts and middlings, he kept a very large number of hogs to feed. Several families who worked at the mill lives close around and this fathering of mill, hogs and people finally became known as "Hogum". There was never any real town there but at one time there was a mock election held to select a mayor and council. This has led some people to believe that it was an actual city.

The hogs kept at Hogum were not always confined but were allowed to run at large. They became a great nuisance in the village of Harrisburg and even after the town was incorporated they still roamed the streets. I remember that at one time after the act of incorporation the Harrisburg Council employed my brother Frank Farrier to stand guard in the road and turn back the hogs from "Hogem" so that they would not enter the corporate limits.

Before Harrisburg was so named it was called Thurston. The Cemetery at Alford station was also called Thurston Cemetery. That is the cemetery about three miles north of town on the Pacific Highway. A rival to Thurston was the village of Lancaster, just across the river in Lane County. Lancaster is now only a name.

Of the early merchants in Harrisburg there were Hiram Smith, the same man who ran the mill. He had a partner named Brassfield. One store was run by Sam Levi, a Jew. E.D. Moore was also in business here, bot in a store and with an interest in the mill. Sam May first clerked in a store and later became interested as a proprietor in the firm of May & Senders. As I have stated, my father ran a furniture store. My mother ran a milliners shop. Later, Jas. Crawford was the village photographer. He was in that business at Albany for many years, also.

My father was drowned in the Willamette River on May 13, 1872. He and two other men, Joseph Perman and Jim Riley were engaged in viewing a road for the County Court. The river was very high as the snow was going out of the mountains, therefore the ferry was not running and they assayed to cross in a rowboat. It was overturned and all three men were drowned. (Note-From other informants the writer learns that Jim Riley escaped, but this is not certain.) Father and Mr. Perman were great friends. They were buried in the Alford Cemetery, Perman's grave lying just at the foot of father's.

After father's death his business was sold to Henry Reams who had just arrived from the East. Reams ran the business for many years. (See Jessie (Reams) Nixon interview already sent in. L.H.) (Note-Other informants state that Farrier and his friend Perman were partners in the Harrisburg Ferry business for a number of years. L.H.) "My parents children, my brother and sisters, were-

Francis Marion Farrier. Born September 27, 1856.

Clara Bell Farrier. Born 1860. Her married name is Drisco and she lives in Portland.

Fred William Farrier. Born after father was drowned in 1872.

Susan Farrier (The informant). Born March 3, 1857. I first married A. Z. Sears. He died and I later married my present husband, J. H. Bowman. I have never had any children.

In speaking of the Farrier-Allphin family I might say that William Allphin 's son, Marion Allphin, married Ella A. McClain in 1858. They went to the Umatilla country and there ran a hostelry for emigrants. In the year 1862 there was a high water followed by extreme cold and deep snow. Marion Allphin started for The Dalles for supplies and was frozen to death. Later his widow married my uncle, George Farrier. This pioneer woman is still living at Albany. She was born in 1843, came to Oregon in 1847, was first married when only fifteen years of age yet is still hale and hearty.

(Mrs. Bowman then showed the writer a number of pioneer relics. Besides the churn already mentioned there was a butter-bowl brought across the plains by her first husband's family in 1853, a coffee grinder which was used to grind all the coffee for the train of the Sears family and a pottery bowl made at, or near Scio, Oregon, about the year 1862.)

Copyright © 2000 Patricia Dunn. All rights reserved. This transcription may not be reproduced in any media without the express written permission by the author. Permission has been given by the Transcriber to publish on the LGS web site.