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WPA Interview: Crawford, James Vawter -- Coon, Mary F. (Cowgill) Crawford
INTERVIEW with James Vawter Crawford and his mother, Mary F. Cowgill (Crawford) Coon. (Shedd, Oregon)
(Since these two persons were interviewed together and both answered the questions promiscuously-first one and then the other-this material has not been written as a direct quotation as from either but instead as a third person narrative. This matter covers the history and family life of Dr. Philemon Vawter Crawford. Both were pioneers in Linn County, near the town of Crawfordsville, coming from the east in the year 1851.)
Philemon Vawter Crawford was born September 24, 1814, near Madison, Indiana. On the 28th day of March, 1851, he with his family consisting of his wife and five children, the youngest four years of age and the oldest fourteen, left Madison, Indiana and started for Oregon. Besides the above he was accompanied by his cousin, Cyrus Vawter. Both these men settled on the upper Calapooia River at a point near the present town of Crawfordsville. Old letters in Mr. Crawford'' hand show that he was well pleased with this country from the first. In his new home Mr. Crawford took up a Donation Land Claim in Section 22, about three miles eastward from Brownsville. Later, being a machinist and millwright, he purchased certain lands and waterpower rights from Mr. Robert Glass where the town of Crawfordsville now stands. Here he erected, first a sawmill and later a carding mill, for the preparation of rolls for spinning.
Mr. Crawford was married, as previously stated, before leaving the east.
The children born to that marriage were:
All of the above were born in the east and all who survived came with their father and mother to Oregon in 1851. Besides these, the following were born in Oregon-
Children of the last mentioned marriage were-
Have failed to mention previously that the wife of Philemon Vawter Crawford was Letitia Smith.
The youngest son of P. V. Crawford and Letitia Smith was the husband and father, respectively of my two informants, was a carpenter by trade. He also was a farmer and stock raiser and took up a 160 acre homestead in Lane County, 25 miles northeast of Eugene, Oregon.
When P. V. Crawford purchased land of Robert Glass and established his saw-mill and carding mill where he was virtually founding a village. The power for his mills was furnished from a ditch running from Brush Creek and discharging into the Calapooia River. A store was soon opened by some of the Glass family, a blacksmith shop helped the growth of the place and at one time there was a shoe manufactory and an establishment devoted to the forging of butcher and bowie knives. These knives were of the best of steel and won a wide reputation. The buckaroos from eastern Oregon would buy them and sharpen them to such a keen edge that they could shave with them.
The town that finally grew up around the mill and store was named Crawfordsville after the Crawford family. A post office was opened and Jasper V. Crawford was appointed the first postmaster.
Philamon Vawter Crawford finally went into partnership with Richard C. Finley, the pioneer mill builder who established the old flouring mill a short distance below Crawfordsville in 1858. Together Crawford and Finley promoted the building of a new mill on the Calapooia River a mile or so east of Shedd. That mill they named the "Boston Mill", and a town called "New Boston" sprung up around it. The exact date of the building of the Boston Mill, we do not know, but it was sometime in the late 1850's. It was burned down in 1862 but was rebuilt almost immediately. It is still standing and in use, now owned by the Thompson Brothers. The town of "New Boston" ceased to exist soon after the coming of the railroad and the establishment of Shedd Station.
(From family records kept by this family was obtained the following is a copy of Mr. P.V. Crawfords own account of his life)
Life Sketch of Philamen V. Crawford, Written by Himself in 1882."
James Crawford was my grandfather on my father's side. He was born in 1759 on, or near James River, Virginia, and at the age of sixteen years volunteered in what was known as the Virginia Line and served three years in the Revolutionary War. He afterwards, date unknown to me, married Rebecca Anderson and they reared eight children, three sons and five daughters.
My father, James Maxwell Crawford, was the third son, and was born March 3, 1790, in Jared Co. Kentucky, where my grandfather had removed, among the first settlers of that region, and where they had many bloody encounters with the savages, my grandfather having a full share in the troubles.
My grandfather again moved from Jared County, Kentucky to Jefferson County, Indiana, in March 1811, when my father was 21 years of age, and settled within three miles of where the city of Madison now stands.
My grandfather, Philemon Vawter (Maternal) was also born in Virginia, and served in the Revolutionary War. He was an orphan boy, married his cousin Anna Vawter, and emigrated from Kentucky in early times and bore a full share of Indian troubles. They reared ten children. (Note: here says only nine) - five boys and five girls, my mother being the second daughter. They moved from Kentucky to Jefferson County, Indiana, in the year 1810, and settled where a portion of the City of Madison now stands. My father and mother were married early in the year 1812, and reared ten children-eight girls and two boys, the oldest a girl, next to myself. I was born September 24, 1814.
This genealogy is given from memory but I believe it correct so far as it goes.
My grandfather Crawford and family belonged to the Presbyterian Church, but removed their creed under the Reformation of Barton W. Stone, my father being the only one who did not unite with the Christian Church. Being of an excitable temperament he finally drifted into the Methodist Church.
My grandfather Vawter was a Baptist preacher, and his family were all members of that order except my mother and two of her brothers, who adopted the Reformation under B.W. Stone. The two brothers, Richard and Beverly, became Christian preachers.
When I advanced far enough in my early education to read, the Bible was my common school book, and in the New Testament I got my first lessons in Christianity, and those early lessons and impressions have shaped my course through life.
Having a desire to see more of the world than I had seen, and becoming favorably impressed with the description of Oregon, I sold out my little estate in Indiana in the winter of 1850-51, and left Madison on the 28th day of March, 1851, for Oregon. Myself and family, and several other families with whom we traveled came by water from Madison to St. Joseph, Missouri, where we fitted up teams and started overland for the far west on the 1st day of May, 1851.
My family at that time consisted of myself, wife, and five children-the oldest 14, the youngest, 4 years of age. We made the long and tiresome journey of 2,200 miles with ox team in just 152 days. When we arrived in Oregon we found the Willamette Valley more than we looked for, and all we could desire, and we are yet, after 29 years residence here, satisfied that there is no more favorable spot on earth."
(Here intervenes a long treatise on steam power, electricity, slavery, tyranny, evils of capital, the Civil War, temperance, etc.)
(The following data concerning the history of the Crawford family and of the town of Crawfordsville has been obtained. It was written by Everett Earl Stannard, Linn County writer, and was published in the Albany Sunday Democrat for January 20, 1922.)
I have found that the pioneer history of each and every Linn County town is interesting. Sometimes a mere hamlet has a wealth of story. Each village possesses annals, unwritten but fascinating. The town builders and early settlers are gone now, but in the hearts and minds of the children and children's children are memories and reminiscences. Crawfordsville, on the Calapooia River, is a case in point. Although they have never published, I find that the sons and daughters of the pioneers of that section have a fond remembrance of early days. From them I have obtained many a pen picture of the foremost men and women of the pioneer times.
Crawfordsville was the home of the Linn County milling industry. R.C. Finley, mill builder. At a very early date and I.O.G.T. Hall was built there. W.R. Bishop, pioneer Linn County educator and preacher, lived there for a number of years, taught school and preached there. And the Linn County Pioneer Association had its birth in Crawfordsville. It was largely the result of agitation on the part of Mr. Robert Glass.
Crawfordsville, as one might guess, was named in honor of a Mr. Crawford.
The town stands on land once owned by Mr. P. V. Crawford. It was owned previous to Mr. Crawford's purchase by Timothy A. Riggs and Mr. Robert Glass. A daughter of Mr. Crawford, Mrs. Louisa Crawford Lewis, of Mable, Oregon, gives me the following brief history of the town of Crawfordsville.
I think that it was in the year of 1860 that my father bought ten acres of land from Timothy Riggs who took mile down the river (??). That may be called the beginning of the town.
It was named by W. R. Bishop. He was our old friend and schoolteacher. I had two brothers Elvin J. and Jasper V. Crawford living there at the time the town was named. Mr. Bishop gave the place a name one day when he was at our house taking dinner.
My brother J. V. Crawford was the first postmaster. The office was kept in Mr. Heisler's store at the intersection of the Calapooia and the Brush Creek roads, and that was called the McCaw lane, as the first place after crossing Brush Creek was Mr. McCaw's place. The Heisler store was there previous to the town site.
On the south side of the County road, Mr. Robert Glass sold town lots. He and my father, Mr. Philemon V. Crawford, made out the deeds in such a way that is ever intoxicating liquor was sold on the land it would revert to the original owners. Both were strong temperance men and in this early day they saw to it that Crawforsville should be a temperance town.
Before the founding of the village there was a good strong I.O.G.T. lodge and they had a building on Mr. Glass' place, almost if not exactly where the I.O.O.F. hall was later erected. The first building was destroyed by fire.
I think Tom Shanks had the first blacksmith shop. It was near Heisler's store.
My brother did not keep the post office long, but removed to Waitsburg, Washington Territory, and Father kept it until he went to Waitsburg in 1870 or 1871, I think. Robert Glass had it many years after that.
My husband, T.A. Lewis, had the first shoe shop. The year that we were married, 1877, the shoe shop was erected.
I have a fond remembrance of some of the pioneer preachers who used to preach at the schoolhouse in School District No. 3, where I got the most of my schooling.
First came Rev. Robert Robe, who was there oftener than any other. As a child I often used to go to the schoolhouse to hear Rev. Jas. Worth, of Brownsville and Rev. Philip Starr, and W. R. Bishop. I remember that Uncle Joab Powell preached in the schoolhouse once. Carpus Sperry of Brownsville preached at Crawfordsville several times during my childhood.
Everyone turned out to church in those days, for we had no place else to go. The Good Templars were more fortunate. Once in a while we had a Union Sunday School, but that was never a continuous affair.
I recall most of the pioneers at Crawfordsville, although a few of the very earliest had moved elsewhere when we proved into that vicinity. They were as follows: Robert Glass and family, T. A. Riggs and family, John Johnson and family, Richard Finley and family, (one of his daughters married my oldest brother, Henry Crawford, and his oldest daughter married Cyrus Vawter, my father's cousin.), George Colbert and family, William Robinette and family. (one of his daughters married my father's second cousin, William Vawter, who crossed the plains with my father from Madison, Ind.), Miles Carey and family, Joe Seely and family, William McCaw and family, Thomas Woodfin and family, Asa Hull had lived there and in the eighties he returned to Crawfordsville.
Father was born in the year 1814 near Madison, Ind. He came down the Ohio River on a steamboat in the year 1851, bought oxen and made the trip across the plains. In the same train with my father was Noah Shanks. They were life-long friends.
My father departed this life on February 1, 1902(?), in Eugene. My mother died June 13, 1896. They were laid to rest in the Crawfordsville Cemetery.
(Crawfordsville Union Cemetery Association. A plat of the cemetery shows the position of their graves but there is no marker in the cemetery. Leslie L. Haskin, Field worker.)
I do not think there remains one of the original pioneers around Crawfordsville at the present time, and up on a donation land claim (??) in the fall of 1847. This claim adjoined that of R.C. Finley, the mill builder. My father bought the 10 acres for a place to move his carding machine and some wood working machinery that he had been operating at the Finley mill, one (?) many of their children are now gone.
Two of my brothers who are still alive (1922) crossed the plains. They are Henry P. Crawford of Sweetwater, Idaho, and Elvin J. Crawford of Ocean Park, California. My brother Henry's wife also came across the plains.
One of the first sawmills, if not the first one, in the upper Calapooia Valley, was the King & McDowell mill. The site was about halfway between the present McKercher Grist mill and Crawfordsville. When we first went to the community it had what we called a "sash saw". This was an upright saw, and it did not saw the lumber entirely to the end of the log.
Mrs. Louisa Crawford Lewis was born about six miles above the present town of Crawfordsville on the Calapooia River. She says, "My husband, Timothy A.
Lewis, was also a native Oregonian, and was born on a farm only two or three miles from where I was born. He was the son of Stewart Lewis, a pioneer of the year 1845, and his mother was a sister of Timothy and Thomas Riggs. We were married at Crawfordsville in 1877. Green B. Riggs, a cousin of my husband, performed the marriage ceremony. He was a Baptist preacher and pioneer of Polk County.
Mr. Timothy Riggs, according to the best authority, came to Oregon in 1846. He started from Missouri with a big company of emigrants in April of that year. The family consisted of his father, mother, brother, Thomas Riggs and two sisters. Mr. Riggs' father died when the party arrived at the Missouri River, and he was there given burial.
This emigration crossed the Cascades without trouble and came into the valley by way of the Barlow Pass. On the thirtieth of September they arrived at Foster's place in Clackamas County, and the end of the trail. Here the party disbanded and the two Riggs brothers found employment with a Dr. Welch at Oregon City.
They raised one crop for Dr. Welch and then came on into the Calapooia Valley, and in the fall of 1847 took up a donation land claim where Crawfordsville was eventually to be built.
Robert Glass and his brother, William, came to Linn County from California mining districts in the year 1850. He crossed the plains the year before and made a good deal of money in the mines. When Robert Glass took his donation land claim in the Crawfordsville country, his brother, William, took up land just a little east of Brownsville.
Mr. Glass was married in 1853 to Miss Jane Gray. She was a daughter of a pioneer, John Gray, who had settled in the Twin Buttes country. (A few miles to the southwest of Brownsville. - L. Haskin, field worker.) Rev. Wilson Blain, of Union Point, conducted the ceremony. Four sons and one daughter were born to this union. It was in the year 1875 that Mr. Glass opened up the first Crawfordsville store. In a short time he took Charles Bishop, a son of W. R> Bishop, into partnership with him. Mr. Glass sold out in 1879 and retired to the farm. He died in the year 1903.
(I thought it appropriate to append to the above quite complete Crawford and Crawfordsville history an entry from the old Brownsville "Cooley and Washburn" Store ledger showing to some extent the business of the Crawford Carding Mill. Leslie L. Haskin, Field worker)
P. V. Crawford
Dr.
1869
Apr. Transferred from Ledger 1 14.00
"Sundries 29.45
"1 pr Spectacles pr. Lady .50
May 28 To 14 lbs rope pr
Jasper 2.s 3.50
June 7 Sundries 9.02
July 1 31 lbs rope 7.75
" 2 4 lbs coffee 1.00
" 15 2 box glass 10.00
*** *** ***
1870
Feb 4 3 1/2 yds print 1/s .44
Apr 2 Sundries 8.15
" 23 Finishing boards for
*** Heisler .25
*** *** ***
*** *** ***
July 12 Paid H. Young for
balling wool 2.00
Aug 10 Paid H. Young for
balling wool 1.50
Aug 10 Sundries 7.58
Aug 23 1 pr. Womans shoes self 1.75
Aug 29 8 hat self 2.50
Sept 3 $138.69
Cr.
1869
May 28 By Cash of Jasper $15.00
June 7 By Cash 10.00
July 2 By lady Cash 10.00
***
1870
June 10 For carding by F. Kizer 2.00
" " For carding by N. Kizer 1.30
July 2 Nickles Carding 2.12
" 12 By carding wool 3.75
" 23 Mrs. Dinwiddie
on wool 1.25
" 27 By carding for
Michael 4.80
" " By carding for Harper 1.85
" 30 Cash of Warmouth for
carding 1.20
" "Cash of W. Drinkard
for carding 1.30
" "Cash of Job Simons
for carding 2.25
Aug. 4 Cash of P. Belts
for carding .75
Aug. 4 For carding and for
Batting, J.L. Smith 1.05
" 6 Of J. Keeney for carding 3.00
" 9 By Wool carding 1.00
" "By carding for P. Belts .65
" 29 By cash of Averill for balling wool 2.00
Aug 10 Paid H. Young for balling wool .50
Aug 10 Sundries 7.58
Aug 23 1 pr. Womans shoes self 1.75
Aug 29 8 hat self 2.50
carding 1.00
Sept 3 Transferred to ---------
p. 520 $138.69
(From the informants first mentioned was received the following data concerning Cyrus Vawter, a cousin of P. V. Crawford and who came to Oregon on the same date and by the same train.)-
Cyrus Vawter was a cousin of grandfather P.V. Crawford and came to Oregon with him and on the same date. He settled near Crawfordsville. Apparently he did not take up any land claim. His family history, in part, is as follows-
His grandparents names were Philemon and Anne Vawter. His father's name was Beverly Vawter who was born September 28, 1780. He was married March 15, 1812 to Elizabeth Crawford, who was born March 29, 1792 on Jared County, Kentucky. Elizabeth Crawford was the sister of James Crawford who married Lucy Vawter, a sister of Beverly. Beverly Vawter came from Kentucky to Jefferson County Indiana in 1811. He was a well-known Christian Church Minister. He died April 1, 1872 and Elizabeth Vawter, his wife died on January 29, 1866. Children born to them were named-Pascal, Lucinda, Rebecca, Melinda, Philemon, James, Richard, Cyrus, Samuel and John.
The Cyrus Vawter mentioned above came to Oregon together with P.V. Crawford and family in 1851. He was born at Madison, Indiana, September 28, 1830. He was married in Linn County, Oregon to Sarah A. Finley, a daughter of Richard Chism Finley, the mill builder of Crawfordsville. She was born in Platt County, Missouri on May 18, 1840 and came west with her father in the same train with the Kirks, Blakleys, Browns, and Keeneys who made the first important settlement in the vicinity of Brownsville. Her mother, Polly Ann Kirk Finley was a daughter of Alexander Kirk who established the first ferry on the Calapooia at Brownsville. Her sister, Mrs. Eliza Finley Brandon is still living at Halsey, Ore.
Cyrus Vawter secured employment as a miller at the R.C. Finley flour mill a short distance below Crawfordsville, and has been stated, married Finley's daughter. The old house which formerly stood directly across the Calapooia from the Finley mill was first occupied by this young couple immediately after their marriage.
Later Cyrus Vawter and his wife located at the old town of Boston, a mile or so east of Shedd, and Vawter became part owner in this mill (Built sometime in the 1850's). His partners in this venture were his father-in-law Richard C. Finley, and his cousin, P.V.Crawford.
Children of Cyrus Vawter and Sarah Finley Vawter were:
Cyrus Vawter died on February 11, 1864. He is buried at the old Finley Cemetery a short distance west of Crawfordsville. After his death his widow married a man named Ribelin and resided at Halsey, Oregon until a comparatively recent date.
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.
| Owner of original | Transcribed by Patricia Dunn |
| Linked to | WPA Interviews for Linn County Oregon; Mary F. COWGILL Crawford Coon; James Vawter Crawford |
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