WPA Interviews

Historical Records Survey, Oregon - Benton County by Mark Phinney

Interview with Thomas Judson Risley and Mrs. Risley, July 3, 1938.

Mr. Risley was interviewed on his farm in North Albany Community, where he was busy cutting his winter supply of wood. Mr. Risley was not really one of the first settlers, but his story throws important light on the educational conditions in the back districts a generation and more were intelligent, alert, and trustworthy.

I was born in Iowa in 1865. In 1875 my father, John Matthis Risley, came by railroad to San Francisco. The railroad from San Francisco to Portland was still unfinished through the Siskou Mountains and we came north to Portland by water. Father bought 200 acres here in North Albany from the donation land claim of John Quincy Thornton. The Rainwater family lived on their claim just south of us. As you see, the place is somewhat hilly. When we came these hills were covered with a growth of young fir, but I understand that when the first settlers came there were only occasional old growth fir trees. The firs grow very fast here and I have myself cut off the trees on this hill twice for cordwood.

Father was a jack-of-all-trades in Iowa, blacksmith, shoemaker carpenter, but he gave his attention strictly to farming here. Albany was then a town of two or three thousand. There were many warehouses to take care of the large wheat crops raised on the plains of Linn County. There was a flourmill, a planing mill, and thirteen saloons and breweries. The saloons were so distributed that when a farmer was waiting in line for a chance to unload his grain at one of the warehouses there was always a saloon handy where he could refresh himself.

We were only a mile from town in an air line, but we had to travel three miles to get there by such roads as there were.

Father was married twice. His children by his first wife were: Mary (Webster) who now lives at an advanced age in Philomath; Isaac, who died in the service of his country in the war between the States; and Jesse Alonzo. Father's second wife, my mother, was Malinda Isreal. She was not a Jewess, as the name might indicate. Her children were Frank, Victorine, myself, Will, John, Arthur, Anna, Bertha, and Paul. Will lives in the Alsea Valley.

After attending the Oak Grove School for several years I had two years at Oregon Agriculture College, 1887 and 1888. During this time the school was moved from the old location at Fifth and Madison Streets to the Administration Building on the present campus. It was at this time that agricultural work had its real beginning in the instruction of the College. All students in Agriculture were required to work so many hours a week as a part of their class work. If we worked longer we were paid at the rate of 20 cents an hour. I helped to dig the first ditch ever dug to drain the campus, and I helped on the Administration Building. The country boys had an advantage over the town boys in this work, for they had more experience. I remember Ed Wilson, who is now head of the bank in Corvallis, was in school when I was there. He could not drive a nail straight or saw a board to the line. All he could do was work with a shovel in the ditch, and he did not know how to do that without making it twice as hard as it should be.

In the spring of my second year at O. A. C. a friend suggested that we take the examination for teacher's certificates so as to relieve our financial worries. I got a certificate and a school and never got back to college. I taught for twenty-five years in the country schools, sandwiching in two years at the Normal School at Monmouth. Prince Campbell, who was later president of State University, was at the head of the Normal School when I was there.

My first school was the Big Elk School at Harlan in what is now Lincoln County. There had been difficulty in keeping teachers there and the pupils had not been making the progress that they should. There was some of the southern element and there some minor neighborhood feuds. The school board at that time was George Lillard, Bill Mulkey, and a man named Mulvaney. I went in and secured the promise of the school and then went in again in time to begin on the appointed day. Provision had just been made that teachers were to have written contracts. When I met the board on the morning of the first day, the clerk asked if I wanted a contract. I said yes. The contract was made and signed and then I said, "Gentlemen, this contract provides for a three-month term of school, and I expect to abide by the contract. The only way you can get rid of me before the three months are up is to pay me the whole sum of the contract." They had not thought of that, and were inclined to protest, but the pupils had come and it was time to begin school.

I rang the bell, and when the pupils came in the board still remained. They were going to see how I went about the work. I had no experience in teaching, of course, but I had a good bit of practice in debate and public speaking in the old Athenian Literary Society and I gave the pupils a get-acquainted talk and set about organizing the school.

Mr. Mulvaney thought something had been omitted and said, "What are your rules." It had evidently been the custom for the teacher to publish a code of laws on beginning the term, naming offenses and providing penalties for violations. It turned to the blackboard and wrote the one bit of Latin I remembered, "Lex non scriptus est", and went on with my work. "I can't read that. What does it mean?" said Mulvaney. I explained that it was Latin and meant "My law is not written." I said, "If I made law and a penalty to fit some of these older pupils the first one to violate that Law might be one of the little ones. If the law were written I would have to give the little one a punishment suited only to a big boy or girl."

About two weeks after school started there was a rap on the door and when I opened it there stood Mulvaney. My heart missed a beat, for I thought he had come to tell me I would have to quit. Instead he said, "I was opposed to hiring you, but I want to tell you my girls have learned more in two weeks than in any three months term before. I am back of you from now on." I was hired to teach three months and taught six.

My salary was one hundred dollars for three months, and eight dollars per month additional for board. It was customary for the teacher to board around, but in that district the houses were so far apart that it was not practicable. I boarded with Uncle Joe and Aunt Betty Harlan, who lived near the schoolhouse.

The schoolhouse was built of cedar and the only sawed lumber was in the floor which was made of unplained fencing boards. The studding and siding were split of cedar and the roof was of split shakes. The inside was not finished. The pupils could spell well but knew very little of arithmetic or grammar. Apparently they had had not competent instruction. They were quick to learn when they had a chance. Some of the boys and girls were eighteen years old and did not know the multiplication table. I helped them, not by telling them they were dumb, but by showing them how to study.

While teaching in some of the neighboring districts I was a director in the home district. I never received more than about $60 per month. After I quit teaching I was on the board which paid a teacher in our school $120 per month. I taught term after term in all the districts about here, and finally quit teaching to make way for younger teachers and to take better care of the farm, which had been badly neglected.

Early in my teaching career I had married Margaret Loretta Hayden, who came of a pioneer family in the Alsea Valley. We are now living a half-retired life here on the farm.

(Said Mrs. Risley.) My name was Margaret Loretta Hayden. My father Thomas Cofer Harden, came to the Alsea Valley in Benton County in 1854. He had arrived in Oregon in the fall of 1853, but spent the first winter in Linn County. Our donation land claim was on the North Fork of the Alsea River about two miles above the present village of Alsea.

My mother's maiden name was Mary Ann Hayden, but she was not related to father before her marriage. We were among the first settlers in the valley and mother was the third white woman there. I think the Rycrafts and the Ellises were there before us.

My father's children were Thomas Benton, Jerusha Ann (Howell), Elizabeth Cora (Mason), Mary Plains (Ryder), Martha Jane (Slate), Jasper, Alice (Ryder), Marion, Alvena (Benton), myself, and Fannie Florence (Sebrell). Mary and Alice married brothers. Mary was born on the plains in Nebraska not so long after we started west.

Father had not planned to come west until the train drove up to our place. He was poor and not getting on well and he decided to come with his friends. The oxen were caught up, (one yoke was unbroken), the wagon packed with what they had to have, and we were ready to start in a few hours. I have here a child's chair which was the only article of furniture which mother brought. She left it behind when she started, and after the train had been gone a day her brothers thought how badly she would need it in her condition and overtook the train on horseback, bringing the chair. There was no trouble with the Indians on the way across the plains and not a death in the party. The first day father's wagon was overturned in a stream and mother's feather bed was soaked.

There was no road into the Alsea Valley in 1854 and everything had to be taken in by trail. There was never any Indian trouble, but there was one scare and the settlers all gathered at one house and prepared to take the women and children out to a place of safety. Once when mother was alone with the children the Indians had a camp just across the river. In a drunken quarrel their chief was killed. Mother could hear the shouts and screams and expected any minute they would cross the river and attack the cabin. Father was out of the valley at the time working.

We lived first in a log house with a puncheon floor. There was no mill for years in the valley and it was not possible to haul lumber over the ridge.

I went to school part of the time at the schoolhouse where the present school is, and part of the time at a schoolhouse on a knoll by father's farm. My last and favorite teacher was Madge Dunn. Others were Nelse Wheeler, Lydia David of Philomath, and my brother-in-law, Will Ryder.

T. J. Connor, United Brethren minister, used to preach at Alsea. Mother joined the United Brethren Church and was baptized in the Alsea River by a United Brethren preacher, Alexander Bennett. I have a Bible that was given mother by another preacher, Basil Longworth. The Bible was printed in 1847. The United Brethren never had a church building at Alsea.

The Presbyterians built a church in the "eighties" if I remember rightly. They did not last long. Then the Baptists built a church and had an organization for a time. Their building was later sold to the Nazarenes. The Methodists also have a building there, but the division makes for weakness of church work.

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.