OREGON FOLKLORE - WORK PROJECT ADMINISTRATION
Title: Oregon in the Early '70s (1870s)

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OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES

Name of worker Sara B. Wrenn
Name and address of informant: J. R. Irving Boone's Ferry Road, Route l,
Oswego, Oregon
Date and time of interview: April 11, 1939, afternoon.
Place of interview: Home, at above address
Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.: Shabby living room of shabby
old two-story house, built in the 70's. The room was high-ceilinged, heated by
an airtight stove, the pipe of which entered a closed fireplace. The mantel,
of white fluted lines, had once been beautiful. The room, as well as the rest
of the house, was lighted by kerosene lamps; old-fashioned hanging lamps with
flower-painted, thin China shades, hung from the ceiling by chains. At one end
of the room was a bay-window, where a sewing machine stood. At the other end
was a windowless recess, in which there was a sleeping cot and chair.
Adjoining was a dining-room, the furniture of which bore evidence of more
prosperous days. An interesting item here was a large, framed photograph of a
huge, cupolaed mansion typical of the early 70's.

The garden about the house was apparently begun with much ambition for the
future. Once a large farm, with an orchard at the back and fields wandering
over the farther hills, the entrance is through old brick pillars, with an
avenue of tall lombardy poplars, planted in 1875, leading beyond the house
and up to where the mansion was to have been. A hedge surrounds the garden,
within which, among flowers and shrubbery, are several old colored
porcelain plant containers. Many old outbuildings -- a huge barn, cow
sheds, wood sheds, etc.-- yet remain; same of them falling into ruins, and
all of them, including the house, badly in need of paint.

1. Robert Irving, father; Mary Hargraves Irving, mother. Both English.
Father came to America from England in 1858, returning later for mother.
2. Colne, Lancaster, England, in 1860.
3. Family: Wife, Frances [Rohne?] Irving. Children, Mrs. Mary Patton,
daughter " Rose Lane " " Carol Knutson " Roland Irving, son
4. England. Victoria B.C., two or three years. Oregon, since 1875 -- 64
years.
5. Public schools only.
6. [soapmaking?], occupation. No accomplishments
7. Chief interest, stock and farming
8. Member Protestant church.
9. Small wiry man, with blue eyes, white hair and smooth face.
10. A man who, while seemingly born to poverty in England, where he began
work at seven years of age, had reason to expect that he might live in the
status of a country gentleman, when a young man: as his father would appear
to have been something of a promoter, who hob-mobbed with Portland's early
promoters.

Text: Yes, we've lived 'ore all these years, an' now the old 'ouse is about
ready to fall on us; while down where you live on the lake, land is sellin'
at all kinds of prices for just a lot. Oswego Lake, huh! We all 'ays called
it Sucker Lake. When the young uns went down there to swim years ago the
roads was a foot deep in dust. In winter they was mud.

Do I know anything about the old White 'Ouse, down on the river? Why damn
it, o' course I do. I know all them fellers that went out there. Everybody
that 'ad a fast horse -- and all the bloods 'ad fast horses in them
days--drove out the old Macadam Road along the river to the White 'Ouse. It
'ad wide porches, out over the river, and a body could get most anything to
drink. They used to say that was where a man took another man's wife. Then
if he found out some way his wife wus there with mebbe the husband of the
woman with 'im, 'e'd drive around the 'alf-mile racetrack an' go back to
town, as good as you please. That's what they said, an' that you could hev
just about anything you wanted at the White 'Ouse, besides fine food and
champagne. But damn it, the White 'Ouse was a purty good sort of a place. I
never saw anything wrong with it, and I see plenty of men there with their
wives, too.

Joe Leonard, it was, built the White 'Ouse and the 'alf mile race track
adjoining. Joe was a sport, but 'e was a perty fine feller, liberal with
'is money as 'ell. Why God damn it, of course they gambled. Heverybody
gambled them days. They played poker some out there. But mostly they played
a sort o' shuffle board, built like a billiard table, with halleys on the
side, an' they shuffled with quoits. 'Ardly ever played that game for less
then $20.00 a throw. They 'ad cockfights there too, but I never took much
interest in 'em. Mostly it was 'ores races. Sometimes there'd be as many as
two to three 'undred people matchin' them for the best three in five rounds
o' the track. Le's see, there was DeLashmutt, an' Bob Wilkes an' Dick
Aberdeen, an' Count Wilson. Oh 'ell! I can't remember them all --
heverybody in town what was anybody. Bob Smith, 'e was another. Wilkes, 'e
was 'orseman for Simeon Reed.

When a man drank them days, 'e drank. Went to the sideboard or put 'is foot
on the rail of a bar, and took 'is whiskey down neat. These fancy cocktails
today 's 'nough to make a real man sick. Them was the days they 'ad
prizefights too, but they couldn't al'ays 'ave 'em in Portland. I remember
once when the sports in town 'ired a boat 'an went down to Lewis River, an'
Jack Demsey an' Joe Reilly fought five rounds. Then Dempsey knocked Dave
Campbell out in 'nother five rounds. Then they 'ad a real fight; a feller
named Sullivan an' Bunco Kelly fought a 'underd rounds; an' fore they
called a draw they was jest rollin' in the mud. It was Cap. Carroll
engineered them fights.

Them was the days o' shanghain' too. Jim Turk an' the Grant boys, an' Larry
Sullivan, they was in cahoots with the sailor boardin' 'ouses; an' some o'
them they run too. Shanghain' wasn't so bad sometimes. I remember old Flavel,
'e was rich an' owned a lot o' property. Flavel -- I guess there isn't
anything left of it now. That was to be a big town down on the Columbia, off
from Astoria, wasn't it? Anyway old Flavel 'ad a son, an' 'e's no good; just
spoiled with money, so the old man got Jim Turk to shanghai him. 'E was out at
sea about a years an' after 'e got back 'ome 'e be'aved 'imself perty good.

Yes, we got a telephone 'erc. I bet it's the honly one of its kind in the
world. Habout thirty years ago twelve of us out 'ere in this community got
together an' built us a telephone line. We got the poles an 'ad the wires
stretched an' then we got connection with Portland an' now God damn it,
they can't get rid o' us. They'd like to, hall right, but they can't.
They've tried hall which ways, but we can go right to that old 'phone on
the wall an' ring Broadway an' get heny number in town we want, an' hall it
costs us his $13.50 a year. I guess it'll last as long as heny of us are
alive, but we can't add anybody to our list. Just that horiginal twelve
families.

Comment:

While Mr. Irving received what education he has in this country, strangely
enough, he is strongly addicted to cockney English, which the interviewer
has tried to reproduce, together with his healthy profanity.