WPA Interviews

Swank, James William

INTERVIEW, with James William Swank, 604 Ellsworth St., Albany, Oregon. Mar 20, 1940.

My name is J. W. Swank. The J. W. stands for James William and I was named for both of my grandfathers.

I was born in Ohio on March 3d, 1849. I was three years old when my parents started for Oregon in the year 1852. We started from Noble County, Ohio and first went to St. Joe, Missouri. There the train was outfitted. Most of the members of the train bought oxen at St. Joe. There were but few horses in the train. Oxen stood the long trip better than horses and they could work without extra feed and the cattle had to forage for themselves most of the way.

The name of the Post Office in our old home state of Ohio was "Olive Green". I do not know whether there is any such place now remaining.

Our family at the time of our start consisted of my father and mother, one sister younger than I, and yours truly. The younger sister died at Oregon City soon after we arrived in Oregon.

My father was Philip Swank. He was born in Ohio on April 1, 1827. My mother's name was Sarah Swank. She was born in 1828. Her maiden name was Foster.

There was a great deal of cholera among the emigrants on that year. Many of the people died but no one in our family contracted the disease. We were very fortunate in that respect. The suffering among the sick, traveling over rough roads and dry, torrid heat, was terrible.

The first winter in Oregon was spent at Oregon City. The next fall, 1853, father took up a claim in Washington County. We stayed there until the autumn of 1858 and proved up on the claim. Then father sold out and we moved to Linn County. He settled then in the country between Albany and Lebanon and about 1 mile west of the present Tallman community. There he bought a quarter of Section 36 which was school land. From that time on he lived there until he died.

Our early neighbors in the Tallman neighborhood were, on the south, a man named Bentley; on the west John Miller; on the east William Clymer; on the north Beverly Gilmore. Dr. George Crawford lived a mile or two further south. He was one of Linn County's very early dentists. All of his dental tools he made himself. He pulled teeth with a sort of turnkey affair. One of his sons later was the first Ford dealer in this section of the country. (W. W. Crawford). Another son, Jim, was a well-known photographer in Albany for many years, beginning back in the days of Daguerreotype. The McKnight family were also prominent south of us. One of the McKnight boys was accidentally killed at the summit of the Cascades on the South Santiam Road at an early day. A memorial was erected at the spot where he died and this gave the name of "Tombstone Prairie" to that place. He is buried at Sand Ridge cemetery, not at Tombstone Prairie as so many believe.

My grandfather's name was William Swank. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1798. He died in 1865 at the age of 67 years. His home was at Sand Ridge, in Linn County, just west of Peterson's Butte. Grandmother's name was Barbara Swank. Her maiden name was Peckenpaugh. My grandfather and grandmother Swank did not come to Oregon until 1853, a year after we came. They settled on Sand Ridge on 1857.

I should say that on our own trip to Oregon we had considerable trouble on account of a shortage of food. For a long time the train had nothing to eat but meat-hard dry buffalo meat, though sometimes we had fresh meat for a time. There were stations here and there along the route where supplies could be purchased at a price-if a person had money.

Perhaps I should say here that what I am telling is partly from memory but probably mostly from what I heard my parents tell afterwards. The truth is that I, myself, do not positively know how much I remember of that trip. It seems as though I remember quite a little but perhaps a good deal of it is from hearing my parents speak of it so often.

I first went to school in Washington County, Oregon. After we came to Linn County I went to school at what was then known as the "Bentley School". It is now called Tallman School. (Note: J. E. Bentley had a Donation land claim at this point in Sections 1 & 2.) The schoolhouse was merely a small log cabin. There have been two other schoolhouses built there since that first one of logs. At Bentley School my first teacher was Julia Elkins; the next was a man named Donnley. My teacher, my last year of school at Bentley was Matthew Marks, an uncle of Willard Marks Albany attorney. Later I went to school at Sand Ridge school. One of my teachers there was Alfred Wheeler. He later got to be a big sheep raiser. His nickname when he was in the sheep business was "Coyoter Wheeler". In the winter of 1867 and 1868 I went to school at the Santiam Academy in Lebanon.

Among the teachers in the Tallman region, though he didn't teach the school there, was a man named Balch. He was the father of Fred Balch, the author of "The Bridge of the Gods". Balch lived on a place just next to the present Tallman School. He bought there and commenced to farm but he knew absolutely nothing about farming. Just to illustrate the kind of a farmer he was, he bought a mare which was about to have a colt. Soon after the colt came Balch killed it. The neighbors asked why he had killed the colt and he said, "It was no good. It couldn't get its head to the ground." (Note: No young colt can get its head to the ground without kneeling or spraddling its legs widely).

Fred Balch was born in Lebanon but was raised and went to school at Bentley School District. (Now Tallman). His mother's maiden name was Snyder. She was an orphan who earned her way to Oregon by working for the family of a Dr. Henry of Brownsville. She was married a number of times. First to a man named Gallagher whose family lived at Sand Ridge; next to a man named to Helm, and finally to Balch. She had at least one child by her marriage to Gallagher. A memorial to her son, Fred Balch, the author, had been erected at Tallman school (moved in later years to the park beside the Lebanon Public Library).

The Gallagher family lived at the foot of Peterson's Butte. (Note: Two men, O. C. Gallagher and Elmore Gallagher took up Donation Land Claims side by side near the southern point of Peterson's Butte. - Leslie L. Haskin). They left here 60 or 70 years ago.

Among other early settlers in our neighborhood there were several by the name of "Frum". All of the older members of that family are now gone except "Kim" Frum. His real name is Archimides Frum. He is now a very old and feeble man in a hospital at Lebanon, yet he is considerably younger than I. (Note: Interview with this man has already been sent in. L. H.) I can remember when he was only a tiny tad, perhaps two to four years old. One day his people were discussing politics loudly and he spoke up and said, "I yoted for Yincon." (I voted for Lincoln.)

There was little church activity in our home neighborhood when I was small. My grandfather was a Baptist. My father was nothing. My mother was an Evangelical. Our people only went to church at local schoolhouses. Joab Powell often came to preach there and also another Baptist preacher named Silas Williams.

I cannot tell you the history of the Peterson plum in Linn County. I suppose the name was in some way connected with the Peterson family from whom Peterson Butte was named. I know that even when I was small the Peterson plums were well known locally and were spread by sprouts to almost all the claims of the neighborhood. Large amounts of the plums were dried in autumn to be freighted to the Southern Oregon mines. My own family got their start of Peterson plum sprouts from the Wishard claim a little northwest of Peterson's Butte. (A. L. Wishard claim.)

There used to be a pottery in the home neighborhood and about four or five miles north of Lebanon. "Potter" Ramsay ran it at a very early date, perhaps 1860 to 1861. I do not know what the potter's first name was. I never in all my life heard him called anything except "-----pot Ramsay". (A vulgar nickname based on the fact that the potter made chamber vessels.) There is still one of the Ramsay family living here in Albany. He is a son of Tom Ramsay who was a nephew of the potter. I do not know whether he would know anything about the old pottery.

Potter" Ramsay had a wheel which he worked with a treadle. I have often seen him at his work. When we first came here my father split rails for Ramsay to fence his farm. When I was old enough to help with the rail splitting I would go with father. We would pass close by the pottery and I often watched him work. He used no mould for his work but just put a mess of mud on his wheel and worked it out by hand. He got his clay near by; had a big brick furnace where he baked his vessels. The pottery when it was first burned looked red like red drainage tile. He glazed it but I do not know how it was done.

My father's family consisted of the following children:

James William Swank (The informant). I was the oldest of the family.

John M. Swank. (Dead)

Joseph H. Swank (Dead)

J. R. Swank (Dead)

Jesse P. Swank. Living near Tallman in this county.

Ida Swank. (Dead) Married P. Kester.

Emily Swank. Her married name was Cooper. (Dead)

Julia Swank. (Dead) Married Joe Watson.

Joseph H. Swank. Lives in the country between Tangent and Lebanon.

I have been married twice. I first married Ann Parker. My second wife was Clara McMeekin. She has been dead for about three years.

I have three children, they are:

Ethel Swank. Her husband is Harry Wilkins.

Grace Swank. She married Victor Yates.

Gertrude Swank. She married Ray Gleason. The last two were by the second wife.

I have been a farmer for the most of my life. I have also been a thresher man for a great many years. In the early days we used to raise wheat. No crops are grown here now like those. It was not at all uncommon to thresh from 2,500 to 3,000 bushels in a day with our old machines.

Speaking of wheat-The wild ducks and geese used to be a great nuisance on the winter wheat fields. They would come on the wheat fields after dark at night and almost ruin a field at night. Often men would be hired simply to watch the ducks off from the wheat fields. The sand hill cranes also did a great deal of damage; not to the growing wheat but by picking up the seed before it was sprouted. They would light on the freshly sowed fields, put in by broadcasting by hand, and pick up a large part of the grain.

(Mr. Swank is remarkably active for a man of 91 years. He is very interested in pioneer narrative but his interview was not as extensive as it might have been since he had a mistaken idea that his own life had been commonplace and lacking in interest. L.H.)

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.