WPA Interviews

French, Lillian (McCoy)

Interviews Vol. II

INTERVIEW, Leslie Haskin, 5 June 1940

Interview with Mrs. Lillian (McCoy) French, widow of F. M. French, Albany, Oregon. This interview concerns the history of the McCoy and Maley families of Oakville, Linn County, Oregon. Besides her personal narrative Mrs. French furnished the interviewer with some printed material and directed him to other sources of information.

My name is Lillian French. I am the daughter of William McCoy a pioneer of the year 1845. I was born at my father's claim near Oakville, near the Muddy Creek and the Willamette River in the year 1859. My father was John McCoy. He was born in Tyler County, West Virginia, 18 July 1814. From there he emigrated with his parents to Greene County, Ohio where he spent about 11 years. After that they removed to Warren County, Illinois. His education was rather limited but he was an intelligent man and by no means illiterate.

It was in 1831 that father moved to Illinois. He was then 17 years old.

Then the Black Hawk War broke out in 1832. Father enlisted in the company of which Abraham Lincoln was the Captain. He served through that war and on his return he was appointed a Major in the militia.

Father was a carpenter as well as a farmer. After the Black Hawk War he returned to Ohio for a time and engaged in carpentering. While there he married my mother.

Mother's name was Sarah Junkin. She was the daughter of James Junkin and was born in Ohio. They were married in Nov. 1835. Before her marriage my mother was a schoolteacher, beginning to teach at the age of 15 years. She is reputed to have been the prettiest girl in the county.

My father and mother and their 3 small sons started for Oregon in the spring of 1845. With them on the trip were Dr. Washington B. Maley who was father's cousin and Dr. Maley's wife who was my father's sister. (Dr. Maley and his wife were full cousins.) The Maleys also had a family of 3 small children. They reached The Dalles in the fall. At the place Mrs. Maley gave birth to a child. As the route down the Columbia was considered to difficult for the mother and child my father built a boat at The Dalles. They then sent all the women and children down the river in charge of an expert Indian boatman while Dr. Maley and my father drove the stock down the river. In bringing the ? and cattle down the river they were forced to cut trail and build roads. Great logs which littered the way were passed by piling brush beside the obstruction and driving over them. The family finally reached Linntown on Dec. 1845.

As soon as possible the women and children of the two families were established in a cabin belonging to Dr. John McLaughlin at Tualatin Plains.

After that father and Dr. Maley proceeded to present Linn County where they selected their claims on the site of present Oakville. Dr. Maley then returned while father remained and erected a cabin on the Maley claim, but none for himself. He then returned to Tualatin where he spent the winter.

While spending the first winter in lower valley father built a grist mill at Linntown which was washed out by the great flood of 1861/62. That was also the winter when Champoeg was washed away.

In the spring of 1846 father again met Dr. Maley and assisted him and his family in moving to Linn County. The Maleys then moved into the ready prepared cabin while father built another cabin and began plowing land for a crop of wheat.

Dr. Maley was a practicing physician and spent much of his time at his profession, often being away from home for days at a time. He was not a strong man and he died of Tuberculosis in 1853.

The Indians were very numerous about the Muddy and Willamette shores in those days. There was much stealing and considerable meddling. Those first settlers paid an ox for the privilege of using Indian lands. Father always tried to be friendly with them and made a practice of killing deer for their camp, sometimes keeping them in meat throughout the winter. He was an expert marksman. At one time when there was trouble one of the boys shot an Indian but did not hit him. Later that Indian said, "Good thing McCoy did not shoot or I be dead."

All of my brothers and sisters were born in the old McCoy claim Cabin, but I was born in the "new" frame house which was built in 1858. That house is still standing although it does not now look much like its first appearance.

All of the porches have been torn off and it is a wreck. At first it was a fine Colonial dwelling.

At one time the Indians stole a calf belonging to Mr. Maley. He went to look for it and found the Indians skinning it. He took it away from them. An Indian fell and broke his arm and then came to the doctor for treatment. Father and Dr. Maley would flog the Indians when they became too troublesome. One man would do the flogging while the other stood on guard with a loaded gun.

My mother was a nurse during pioneer days. She would go all over the country caring for the sick. My father being a carpenter was employed for all sorts of building work. Among other tasks he had that of making all of the coffins for the dead.

My father was elected Probate Judge of Linn County, at the first Territorial Election held in 1848. At that time the whole county business was administered by a county court composed of three Probate Judges. Of these three, father was one, the other two were Alexander Kirk and J. A. Dunlap. Father held that office from 1849 when he took office to 1852. The first meeting of the County Court was at the Spalding schoolhouse on the Calapooia river just above present Brownsville. After father's term expired, S. D. Haley was elected Probate Judge and the board of three judges was changed and became known as County Commissioners, with J. M. Brower, Abraham Miller, and J. H. Bratton in office.

My father was an earnest worker in the temperance cause and delivered the first temperance speech in Linn County. As County Judge he worked to keep the saloons out of the county, and succeeded during his term of office. Acting as judge he performed many marriage ceremonies, among these the first couple ever wedded in Linn County. The bridegroom in that case was Wallace Cushman who resided near present Orleans. (Note: Mrs. French here claims the first wedding for her father. Most authorities differ in this matter. She could give no exact date for this wedding. L.H.)

Dr. Washington Maley, my uncle, was the first state senator from Linn county, serving from 1849 to 1851.

In 1852, when the greatest inflow of settlers came to Oregon, father had raised a crop of over 2000 bushels of wheat. There was such need among the new comers, and such a demand for wheat and flour that father sold it and gave away every bushel that he raised so that he had to buy seed for himself the next spring.

Father and Dr. Maley, with the aid of Rev. T. S. Kendal, organized the first "Associate Church" in Linn County. This was in 1850. Father and Washington Maley were elected elders. (July, 1850) It was called "The Congregation of the Willamette." That church is still an active organization. It is now commonly the Oakville Church. The first meetings of the church were held in the Maley Schoolhouse which was situated about the center of the present Oakville Cemetery. The grave of Dr. Thomas Kendall there is supposed to mark the exact spot of the pulpit. Later, in 1852, the Willamette Congregation joined with the Union Point Church of "Associate Reformed Presbyterians to create the United Presbyterian Church in Oregon. The first United Presbyterian Church in the world.

Father was very active in establishing pioneer roads in this county. He was one of the viewers for the first county road between Albany and Peoria.

My father and mother were the parents of 10 children. The first three were born in the East before coming to Oregon. The rest were born in Oregon. Their names were:

George McCoy. Born in Illinois in 1837.

James B. McCoy. Born in Illinois in 1842. James Barton McCoy was his full name.

John Fredrick McCoy. Born in Illinois in 1843.

Andrew Rodger McCoy. Born in Oregon in 1847.

William Henry McCoy. Born in Oregon 1850.

Joseph Irvine McCoy. Born in Oregon in 1855.

Ellis McCoy. Born in Oregon in 1852. Never married.

Lillian McCoy. Born in Oregon. 1859. The informant now Mrs. F. M. French of Albany.

Andrew R. McCoy was the first white child born in Linn County. (Note: This claim is disputed even by the Maley family who declare that Irene Maley, also was born in 1847, was the first to be born. Both, however, agree that these two children were born very close together but no exact date could be obtained for either, other than the above.) "The first school was in a cabin of the Maley claim, but it was soon burned down. I never went to school at that first cabin although my older brothers did. The next school was built 1/2 of a mile further south near where the present schoolhouse stands. My first teacher there was Dr. S. G. Irvine, pastor of the church there. He was a well-educated and cultured man of great ability. My next teacher was Washington Coon who settled a little south of Oakville, on the Peoria Road, in 1850. I left Oakville in 1881 when I was married. That was 58 years ago. I remember especially that there was a great flood on the Willamette in that year-the greatest since 1861. I have lived in Albany since that date.

The first settlers following the McCoys and Maleys came a year later.

Among them were Joseph Hamilton and his wife. Mrs. Hamilton taught one of the very first schools in the Maley Cabin. Mr. Hamilton was a member of the State Legislature in 1878. South of Oakville were Owen Bear, the Tethrows, and Smiths who came from Peoria, Illinois, and named the town of Peoria, Oregon. "Gunger" Wilson, a gunsmith was among our earliest neighbors.

Prominent in the Oakville church at a very early date was Washington Coon, A. M. Acheson, and Francis B. Stockton, who married the widow of Washington Maley, Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Crawford, James Martin, David Currie.

My grandfather James Junkin, came to Oregon in 1852. He settled west of Oakville. He was born in 1779 and died 1869.

Captain John Smith and the Couey family, both prominent in this region also came in 1851. Rev. James P. Millar of Albany who came in 1851, often preached at the Oakville Church.

My father's full name was John Maley McCoy. He died on Apr. 24, 1889. My mother, Sarah Junkin McCoy died 10 Feb 1883.

(Note: Mrs. French, the informant in this interview is a very young looking and active woman, but showing her age of 81 years. She is of a very positive and excitable disposition with very definite ideas as to her family history, some of which, however, are not fully tenable as proven by actual records. She contends that her family settled in Linn County permanently in 1845 although her father's tombstone and other available records state positively that they did not come until the autumn of 1846. This same fact also stated in the biography of Mr. McCoy published in "Illustrated Atlas Map of Marion and Linn County, year 1878. The facts given in the above-mentioned biographical sketch were presumably given by John McCoy himself.

Mrs. French rails at certain claims of the Smeed and Hackleman families of Albany as to date of their settlement at that place and declares that Smeed and Hackleman spent the winter of 1846 loafing and smoking at Salem and never settled in Albany until 1847. She states positively that her father built the first cabin in Linn County, disregarding conflicting facts. Although a very interesting informant, this writer does not advise too much dependence upon her factual history. 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.