WPA Interviews

Wells, Winifred Viola (Cutler)

INTERVIEW, with Mrs. Winifred Viola (Cutler) Wells at her farm home 2.5 miles northwest of Halsey.

My father came from Stonington, Connecticut where he was born in 1829. His name was Benjamin Fanning Cutler. (OC #855) His father was Joseph Cutler and his mother was Hannah Euphrasia (Elliot) Cutler. She was born at Stonington, Connecticut but had lived at various places, especially at Hartford, for her father was a mechanic and moved around a great deal. Her father's name was George Elliot. Her mother's name was Hannah (Peters) Elliot. My father's mother's name was Jane (Robinson) Cutler. My father had an uncle, John Cutler, and a brother, Joseph Cutler, named after his father, but none of these ever came to the Pacific Coast. In fact, I never in my life saw one of my father's relatives. He was the only one who came to the west.

My father first came to the west as a sailor on board ship in 1849. He left his boat at San Francisco and went to the gold fields. He had been a sailor for over twenty years but was beginning to grow tired of the sea. After working in the gold mines for a time father became very sick. What his sickness was I do not know but probably typhoid. In those days it was considered best to leave California and go to Oregon if much weakened by sickness. Anyway, father's friends decided that if he was ever to recover he must be dispatched to Oregon at once. He was too weak to sit alone so they tied him on the back of a mule and sent him north with a train that was driving Spanish cattle to Oregon. That was in 1851. They came up the Sacramento River and then over the Siskiyous to Oregon. That was a hard trip for such a sick man but the cure proved to be effective and he was soon well.

In 1851 father took up a Donation Land Claim on the Marys River near Corvallis but soon relinquished it. He then began a sawmill business having a partner whose name I have forgotten. This was believed to be the first steam sawmill in Corvallis. After a short time he moved his sawmill to Peoria, in Linn County and was there for a number of years. He then removed his mill to a site on a steep butte somewhere between Harrisburg and Eugene. I cannot tell the exact location. It was not far from the Summerville claim. He used oxen to haul his logs to the mill and I have heard him tell many tales about that steep butte and accidents which there befell his ox teams. At that time a Mrs. Pell, a sister of Eliza Brandon of Halsey, was his housekeeper.

In the fall of 1865 father again moved and built a mill on Courtney Creek about eight miles above Brownsville. He ran that mill for ten years himself and later owned it but leased it to other operators.

In 1871 my father and mother were married. Father had returned East on a visit. They were married August 8, 1871. On the return trip to Oregon they were a month on the way, stopping to visit at Niagara Falls and at San Francisco. The trip was made by railroad but from San Francisco to Oregon they took a boat since the railroad was not yet completed. From Portland they again took the railroad and came down the valley to Halsey where the road ended. They got off at Halsey in the midst of a great wheat field. My father had only three children, all of us girls. They are:

Winifred Viola Cutler. (The informant) born Aug. 12, 1875.

Ora Jan Cutler. Born Dec. 31, 1876.

Mable Ruth Cutler. Born Nov. 25, 1878.

All of us are still living. I was the oldest and was a schoolteacher. I taught at Brush Creek, near Crawfordsville and at the Warren District east of Brownsville. I also taught five years at Brownsville, one summer term near Toledo, Lincoln County, one year at Grants Pass and one year at Silverton. My own schooling was mostly at Crawfordsville and at the Drain Normal School. At Crawfordsville my first teacher was George Finley, son of the pioneer miller and who is now in charge of the U. S. land office at Roseburg. My second teacher was Herman Robe, son of the pioneer Presbyterian Preacher, Robert Robe. I also went to school to Miss Lillian Glass and to Wyckliff (?) Swan, brother of L. L. Swan the Albany attorney. Another teacher at Crawfordsville was Ione Arthurs.

I married Samuel Snyder, a Methodist minister, in 1906. We had three children as follows:

Mable Snyder, now Mrs. Roy Hedlund of Union Point. She was born Oct. 25, 1908.

Earl Snyder. He lives on the Snyder place between Brownsville and Crawfordsville. He was born Oct. 5, 1910.

James Snyder. Born June 27, 1912. He died from an accidental fall from an apple tree only last fall.

My first husband died in 1923. I married W. L. Wells, my present husband, in 1932.

My sister, Ora Jan Cutler married Elmer Pearl and lives near my father's old sawmill site on Courtney Creek. She attended school at Crawfordsville.

My sister Mable Ruth Cutler married a man named Darellieus. He was a sawmill man on the Mohawk but lived only about two years after their marriage. My sister was educated at Crawfordsville public school, at a business college in Portland and at a nurse's school at Los Angeles. She is now a nurse at the Infirmary at Corvallis State College where she has been for fifteen years.

My father's mill at Courtney Creek was a two-saw circular sawmill. I do not know what type his earlier mills were but I think that he never ran the primitive sash mill. He was well acquainted with engines and machinery and for a time he worked at steam boating on the Sacramento River. When he was in the mines he became sick, as already stated. There was much typhoid and "mountain fever" at the mines as well as some scurvy. There was also another form of sickness there from which some even died. That was poisoning from coming into contact with poison oak in the diggings. It was a terrible scourge among the miners.

My father's twenty years at sea took him into many strange places. In all he sailed seven times around the world. A large part of the time was in the whaling business. One adventure while whaling very nearly cost him his life. He and three other men were sent out after a whale, which had been harpooned. It proved not to be dead and suddenly lashed out with its flukes. The blow struck the boat full in its center, broke it in two and threw the men high into the air. One of the men had both of his legs broken and father was picked up for dead. For four days he lay apparently dead and his shroud was made and already on him. However, the man whose legs had been broken protested against his burial as his body seemed to retain some natural heat. This man said, "Dead men didn't stay warm." Father at length recovered consciousness. His first words were, "What's the matter here?" Those nearby answered, "Matter enough. Lay still." That was father's last voyage. After that he felt he had enough of the sea. He had worked up to the position of First Mate and with another voyage might have become Captain.

When Father was a sailor he visited the Sandwich Islands and a chief there gave the men of the crew a feast. During the feed the chief in his speech said, "My-ti-cow-cow-eel-so." The sailors answered, "Oh, no!" He said "Yes". Again they said "no." So the chief took them out behind his house to prove his point by exhibiting a number of fresh dogskins. His words had meant, "Dog meat is very, very good." After that they did not enjoy the feast quite so much.

On father's trip to California from New York in 1849 they had a bad voyage. They were eleven months and twenty days on the way. The ship was dismasted three times on the trip. They ran out of fuel and were forced to drift with wind and tide for days. Then they would put into some cove and lay in a supply of wood for fuel. Much of the wood was poor and rotten and was full of scorpions. These scorpions scattered all through the ship and turned up at the most undesirable places such as in shoes and beds. In the middle of the night some sailor would wake up and cry out, "I found another" and they knew he meant a scorpion. They had a hard time freeing the ship of the pests. Also, during that trip most of the men were taken sick with yellow fever but my father was fortunate enough to escape. They finally got a small supply of coal but even that was scarcely sufficient for they used their last shovel full just as they crossed the bar at San Francisco Bay.

My father died at the age of 94 years. He was a Presbyterian by church affiliation and a Mason. He was a large, tall man and never turned very gray and at the age of 90 years he could still read his newspaper without glasses.

The Travels of an Old Sea Chest

Written by Mabel Snyder, 8th grade pupil, Oak Grove School.

Published in the Sunday Democrat, Albany, Oregon January 22, 1922

In the City of New York in the year 1832, a very nice wooden chest was made. It was about three feet long, two feet wide, twenty inches deep and had a tray in it. This was bought by Benjamin Cutler, a young man of 17 who had chosen to follow the sea. This he did for about 20 years, during which time he and his chest made several trips around the globe, visiting many ports in foreign lands, and spending a good portion of the time helping to harpoon whales.

On one such occasion in the North Seas, while out in a boat after a harpooned whale, the whale by a flop of the fluke broke the boat in two, sending the three occupants many feet high. Some of the sailors from the ship rowed out and got the three men. After spending twenty years at sailor life he decided to quit the sea and spend the remainder of his life on land. Accordingly he returned to his home in New England.

About this time occurred the gold excitement in California. Again the owner and the old sea chest embarked, this time for a trip from New York around The Horn to San Francisco. During this trip they were three times dismasted. At times they were out of fuel and drifted with the wind and tide for days, often running into ports to gather up roots, branches or bark or to load coal if available. Sometimes scorpions were brought on board the ship with the fuel.

At another time nearly the whole crew were stricken with yellow fever, but after eleven months and twenty days they steamed through the Golden Gate into San Francisco Bay.

Here the owner and his chest remained until the fall of 1851 at which time he was taken seriously ill, and it was decided the only way to save his life was to take him to Oregon. So, strapped to a mule he was brought over the Siskiyou Mountains and to Corvallis, while the old chest was sent around by water from San Francisco to Portland. From there it was brought overland by ox team to the destination at Corvallis.

With tools from the old chest in 1852 the owner and a partner constructed the first steam sawmill in Corvallis.

Next the owner and the chest moved to Peoria (Linn County) where they built another mill. Later on they built a third mill on a Butte near Eugene. From there he and the chest moved, in 1865, to Courtney Creek, near Brownsville, where a large mill was put up. Here they remained until 1903 when the owner and the chest moved to the Mohawk in Lane County to a homestead. After proving up on the homestead they came to my home to reside.

When we moved from our farm to Lebanon the aged owner and his chest accompanied us. Upon our departure to Montana in 1917, my grandfather said; `Put your tools in the chest and take it with you; I have no further use for it and you need it.' So once more the old chest started on a 1200-mile journey over mountains and plains.

While we were in Montana in the year 1919 the owner of the chest died in Brownsville at the age of 94 years."

June 18, 2001

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.