OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES - Works Project Administration
Subject: James E. Twadell, autobiography

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Name of worker Manly M. Banister Date May 15, 1939

Name and address of informant Mr. James E. Twadell; 337 SE 79th Ave, Portland

Date and time of interview: May 12. morning and early afternoon

Name and address of person, if any, who put you in touch with informant:
Howard Corning; Elks Building

Description of room, house, surroundings; etc.: The house is situated on the
west side of 79th Avenue, with a hedge between sidewalk and large yard. It
is an old house, though neat, surrounded with outhouses for chickens, wood,
tools, etc. There is considerable garden space, many flowers, trees, etc.

1. Father was John Twadell, Scotch-Irish and Welsh. Born near Terre Haute,
Indiana. Mother was Adeline Griswol, of French blood, born and raised in
France.
2. Born near Princeton, in Mercer County, Missouri, March 15, 1853.
3. Was married in 1878 in Linn County to Marie Hare, full-blooded English.
Have one son born in 1879. Now past sixty.
4. Came to Grande Ronde Valley Sept. 19, 1865. In 1871 moved to Umatilla
County in the Walla Walla Valley. Lived there five years and moved to Linn
County, near Lebanon. Stayed there until 1903, then moved to Portland and
has been here since.
5. Very little. Got about "one-third the way through the arithmentic."
6. Worked with pack train in eastern Oregon. Did labor in the valley, and
then farmed.
7. Has no special skills or interests.
8. No community or religious activities.
9. Tall, gnarled, blind in one eye. Has a large, handle-bar mustache. Talks
plainly and clearly and recollects very well.

Text of Interview (Unedited):

I'm not a pioneer, but I come to this country in pretty early days, all
right. I landed in the Grande Ronde Valley the nineteenth of September,
1865. I crossed the plains with my parents with an ox-team, starting from
Missouri, on May 3rd, 1865, the year the Civil War closed. I stayed there
until 1871 when I moved with my parents to Umatilla county. I was twelve
years old then, and I went to work ox a pack train that ran from Umatilla
Landing to Boise, Idaho, and worked for the freighter for two years. They
charged twenty-five cents a pound for packing freight. It was high, all
right, but everyone had money in them days. Wages was ten dollars a day for
a man with a team and five dollars a day for a single hand. The mixes were
going full blast at the time and gold dust was plentiful. There warn't no
real money to be seen, hardly...just gold.

My job with the train was to ride the bell pony and help the cook with his
chores when we camped. The bell pony was a pony that walked along ahead of
the train of pack mules. The usual custom was for a boy to ride the bell
pony, and that's how come I had the job. There was a little bell like a
sheep bell tied to the pony's neck, and the mules followed the sound of
that bell wherever it went. There were regular camping places along the route
and we tried to make one of them each night, but sometimes we just camped
wherever night overtook us. Pendleton and La Grande were the only towns in a
stretch of four hundred miles there, so there wasn't much staying in town for
us.

Well, I finally left there in the fall of '76 and went to the Willamette
Valley and settled near Lebanon in Linn County. I worked at everything
there...just common labor, but the last six years I put in farming until I
come to Portland in 1903.

I used to sing a great deal when I was younger but darn me if I can
remember anything about the songs except the names of them. It was just
after the War, and I remember there was a lot of war songs we used to sing.
There was "The Last Charge at Fredericksburg", "The Battle of Shiloh," and
"Marching Through Georgia". One local song I remember which everybody used
to sing was called "McAfee's Confession." McAfee murdered a man and was
hung for it, but while he was waiting in jail at Portland he wrote this
song. (Ed. This statement is subject to further inquiry.)

As for dances, they had different kinds of waltzes and polkas. The Rye
Waltz was an awfully fine dance. Then there was the Military
Schottische---my wife and I took a good many prizes doing that one. Then
the Polka Schottische, the Glide Polka, the Heel and Toe Polka, the Old
Square Schottische which was a three-step. We had fiddles and drums for
music, usually.

I remember one dance in Waterloo when there was 96 couples on the floor at
one time. That was 24 sets. I called for a good many dances then, but I
can't remember a single call now. In the thirty-five years I've been in
Portland, I've called at only one dance and that was shortly after I come
here.

I was at the first Fourth of July Celebration ever held in the Grande Ronde
Valley. That was at Uniontown in 1867, located in the south end of the valley,
near the canyon which cuts through the mountain there going to Baker. I saw
all this stuff, mind you, but you probably won't believe me, because they
never have nothing like it nowadays. They had the celebration in a beautiful
grove, where they had erected three tables each three feet wide and a hundred
yards long. The stuff was cooked by every one in the valley and brought there,
and every one came and ate at no charge, whether he had contributed or not.
And when the plates were empty, they were all refilled until everyone had
enough. Underneath the tables ever so often was a big candy bucket set, a sort
of tub like affair full of candy. And then they had a big parade. Music was
furnished by tenor and bass drums and bugles. There were quite a few
ex-soldiers there...maybe a company of about a hundred in the parade. Of
course, it was shortly after the war, and not so many had come then as there
were later.

The only pants men wore in them days was overalls just like they wear now,
only they were white instead of blue and cost $2.50 a pair. And the
menfolks all wore boots--you hardly saw a pair of shoes in them days at
all.

I lived up there eleven years all told and saw six killings. Four men shot
and two hung--the last two for killing a man and civil law took care of
them. Of course there were lots more killings, but none that I saw with my
own eyes. I recall there was a man name of Reed killed another man in a
butcher shop. I was standing in the doorway at the time. He got away and
killed another man later in Linn County when I was there. They caught him
that time and hung him.

Then there was a fellow named Martin that killed a Dutchman. The Dutchman
had been working for Martin and Martin owed him some wages. Well, the
Dutchman asked for his money, and Martin said he didn't have it, and got
nasty with the Dutchman and said something or other--I don't know what--and
the Dutchman slapped him. That angered the old man and he drew himself up
straight and told the Dutchman, "I'll kill you before the sun sets tonight."
Then he turned around and walked away. He got on his horse and rode to
Uniontown and there he began to liquor up.

Now there was a little store down at Hendershott's Point a little ways
away, and the folks sent me down with same eggs to get coffee. While I was
at the store, a pack train came in and camped down by the creek where it
bends around the point. Of course, the sight of a pack train was a great
sight to me as it was to all the folks who had just come from the east. We
had never seen nothing like it before.

This Dutchman was there at the store, and he took my arm and said, "Come
on, kid, let's go down and see the pack train."

So we went down there and I sat down on a box or a chunk of wood or
something, and the Dutchman he squatted alongside and began to talk with
one of the packers. I don't know what we were talking about...just passing
the time of day, or talking about the pack train or something. Then the
Dutchman looked up and saw old Martin coming down the trail. You could see
he was drunk the way he staggered along over the rough ground.

"There comes my boss now," said the Dutchman. "He made me mad this morning
and I slapped his face; then he threatened to kill me before sunset
tonight. "The Dutchman kind of laughed, because evidently he wasn't afraid
of the old man and didn't think he would carry out his threat.

The old man come on down and walked up to the Dutchman squatting there. The
Dutchman didn't stand up, and Martin sort of swayed as he stood there,
looking down at him, and there was a mean look on the old man's face, and
his eyes was bloodshot with the whiskey he had drunk. "Know what I told you
this morning?" he said.

"Yes, I do," said the Dutchman, and grinned up at him.

The old man didn't say another word but drew his gun then and there shot
him before he could move. The ball struck the Dutchman just below the left
collar bone and come out above the right hip. Martin was sent to the
penitentiary for life.

Then there was another man, who lived in the cove where I did, shot and
killed his brother-in-law over a bottle of whiskey. Cawhorn was the name of
the man that was killed, but I didn't see any of the doings.

The living of the people then was mainly vegetables and beef. There was no
fruit raised there. We had lots of beef and plenty of pork. Bacon was $1 a
pound. Flour was $10 a hundred. Butter was $1 a pound. Eggs $1 a dozen.
Potatoes $3 a bushel. There was some barter went on, mostly everything was
paid for in gold dust. The packers and freighters carried their gold scales
with them, but ordinary folks, farmers and such like, didn't need to, on
account of the folks at the store had scales, and that's where the farmers
mostly got rid of their stuff. Fifty pounds of flour in the gold mines near
Boise was worth $50.

A man working in the mines those days got paid an ounce of gold per day for
his labor. That was sixteen dollars. But that was just in the mines---I've
already told you what the wages were in the valley for hired hands. In the
valley it cost the farmers ten cents a bushel to get their wheat threshed
and seven cents for a bushel of oats. The farmers got $3 a bushel for their
wheat but I don't know what oats brought.

Extra Comment:
Mr. Twadell is quite willing to talk at any time. He takes pleasure in
reminiscing, and he feels sure that later he will think of much more
because this interview has set his mind to working on things he had let be
forgotten. In this worker's opinion, it will pay to interview him again at
some time shortly in the future, allowing a reasonable interval for him to
summon his recollections.