Lost diaries:

    He holds the diary record for Southern Oregon--R. E. Peyton of Flounce Rock, well-known pioneer of Jackson County. He has kept a diary for 50 years and has entered a record of events for each day of that half century, he informed local friends the first of the week, following his return from spending the winter in Southern California.
    Mr. Peyton is 75 years old, and many interesting glimpses of western history are to be found in the little book, filled with pages of his life. The sacking of Lawrence, Kansas by Quantrill and his gang, days on the plains of the Indian territory and trooping with Pawnee Bill's wild west show become real again as he glances through the worn and yellowed volume.
    One of his earliest recollections, told in the diary is the story of Quantrill's raid. The notorious guerrilla sacked Lawrence and burned several houses in Humboldt. Mr. Peyton's mother was then a widow, and her family went unharmed.
    As a young man Mr. Peyton was associated with many tribes of Indians in the Indian territory. He was born in the Kansas territory in 1856 and made his home there for 30 years. He became a friend of the Indians, learned to know their languages and to speak them. He knew especially well the sign language, which was used by all Indians as a means of communication between tribes.
    In 1875 he became Indian interpreter with Pawnee Bill's wild west show. He managed the Indians, who were associated with the show, and was a headliner himself in the capacity of sharp- and trick-shooter.
    He recently received a letter from Pawnee Bill (Gordon William Lillie) inviting him to visit his home in Pawnee, Okla., where Mr. Lillie has established a model frontier town and ranch, inhabited by Indians, cowboys and buffalo in a setting as colorful as the old frontier.
    Mr. Peyton came to Oregon in 1887, two years after he left Pawnee Bill's show. He came with his stepfather and mother, Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan, who located on the homestead, which now comprises the Peyton ranch. In 1891 he was married to Ora Herron, whom he had met in Illinois.
    The many hardships of pioneer life which they endured are told in the book, which describes the Flounce Rock neighborhood of 50 years ago as "a wilderness." Ten children were born to them in the old farm house. Kind neighbor women were the only doctors present when they made their arrival in the frontier world. One arrived unattended. Four feet of snow on the ground so retarded Mrs. Ditsworth's journey to the Peyton farm.
    A path had to be broken through the snow when news of the anticipated arrival was received, and by the time this task was accomplished the baby was already informing the chilly world of his existence.
    Three days were then required to make the trip to Medford and return. In the winter all roads were impassable except by horseback.
    Now a graveled road passes by the Peyton ranch, and Medford is just an hour away. Similar progress in all other lines is reported by Mr. Peyton, who states that he is glad to get back to Southern Oregon from spending a winter in California.
Medford Mail Tribune, April 26, 1931, page B1


    County Judge J. B. Coleman of Medford was elected president of the Southern Oregon Pioneer Association at their 65th annual meeting at Pioneer Hall in Ashland yesterday, at which Miss Lydia McCall of Ashland, president of the association, presided.
    Mrs. T. W. Miles of Medford was named vice president, and Miss Claire Hanley of Jacksonville was reelected secretary, with Mrs. Elda Anderson of Ashland elected treasurer to succeed Mrs. Ella Garrett of Ashland, who has resigned.
    Gwin Butler of Ashland, 87, was the oldest of the hundred persons, all native sons and daughters of pioneers, gathered in revival of those spirited days fast receding into oblivion.
    Visioning the first settlers, were they to return, surprisedly zipping along the modern highways at such speed that help would be needed to enforce the speed laws, Edwin Dunn, of Ashland, son of Senator George W. Dunn, neatly connected the present and past in his address of the day.
    "Our homeland is the homeland our grandparents dreamed of," declared Mr. Dunn, himself a great-grandson of Isaac Hill, a first settler from Tennessee
in 1840. "We have played a good part in carrying on," he said, and stressed the necessity of taking care of Southern Oregon resources, game, and its scenic wonderland. Further making a comparison of "then" and "now," Mr. Dunn expressed
doubt that the present WPA system would work in with the ideals of the pioneers, whose goal was to work onward and upward. "They built well, for the present and the future," he said:
    After establishing homes, often without floors and windows, the pioneers set about establishing churches, schools, newspapers with travelers as their only news source, flour mills, sawmills, and a railroad, this pioneer son related.
    Basing his talk directly on a book of stories told by his grandmother, Mrs. Patrick Dunn, of the settlement of the Ashland vicinity by that family and others, the speaker reviewed the history of Southern Oregon for his listeners.
    He told of the item in the family diary stating that 50 bushels of wheat were given toward building the railroad, which was typical of the groceries, cash, lumber and other items donated to the project which was 19 years in completing. Great agitation existed over a cut-off from Eugene through the Klamath country, Mr. Dunn said, but it was the steady work of the Southern Oregonians that brought the railroad through this section.
    The speaker opened his address with a brief review of the founding of the Oregon country, mentioning Marcus Whitman, Peter H. Burnett, Lindsay and Jessie Apple, and others connected with its settling. He named Scottsburg on the Umpqua River, now extinct, as the only trading point for Southern Oregon and Northern California in the late '40's. He mentioned Jacksonville's gold rush after 1852, then gave in detail a few experiences of his grandparents in coming west from Tennessee and taking up the claim, which remains the present Dunn home, south of Ashland. His great-grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Hill, resided at the present site of Kingsbury Springs.
    By 1845, when all staples still were brought on pack mules from Crescent City after shipment from South America, Jackson county had attained the position of the foremost territory of all Oregon, and was the first in several lines of endeavor, the speaker said.
Medford Mail Tribune, October 3, 1941, page 1


    Mrs. F. G. Thayer will review her grandmother's diary at a meeting of circle three, Woman's Society of Christian Service of the Methodist church at a meeting to be held Tuesday, October 19. The circle will meet with Mrs. J. C. Sparks, Ideal court, at 1:30 p.m. Dessert will be served.
    The diary tells of pioneer days and the family's crossing of the plains.
Medford Mail Tribune, October 17, 1948, page 5


    A letter to the Mail Tribune from Mrs. Elva C. Person, Burbank Calif., contains clippings from the Burbank Review which detail items from the diary of Mrs. Person's mother [Rachel Taylor--see above], written on a covered-wagon trip from Rockton, Ill., to the Rogue River Valley.
    The diary, a leather-bound book, was written in 1853, when Mrs. Person's mother was a girl of 14. It is the account of a band of hardy, God-fearing pioneers. In the group are Stephen Taylor, his wife, and four children and a brother.
    In her letter, Mrs. Person says that there are a number of Stephen Taylor's descendants who live in the valley. His brother, Sylvester Taylor, with T'Vault and Blakely, published the first newspaper in the Rogue River Valley, the Table Rock Sentinel.
    Mrs. Person also is possessor of a number of relics from the overland trip.
    Excerpts from the diary, and portions of the Burbank Review's story, follow:
    April 15th, 1853: (They had traveled nine days) "Roads extremely bad and Uncle's team had to be pulled out of the mud five times. Of course this does not increase our speed."
    April 16th: "Roads still worse. Uncle's team and wagon stuck fast in the mud eight times."
    April 17th: "The Sabbath has again rolled around and we do not move today."
    "In history," says Mrs. Person, "the group was known as 'The Preacher Train,' because there were so many Methodist ministers traveling in it." The wagon train did not move on Sunday but the men had to un-hitch all stock and drive the animals to water three times a day. A good day's travel averaged 12 miles, and the journey took the Taylor family six months and eleven days.
    Recounting more of the hardships encountered by way of the diary:
    May 14th: "This night finds us at Twelve Mile Creek, where we were told that it was 15 miles to any more water, and 27 miles before fuel can be obtained."
    May 16th: "Came across another company bound for Oregon and traveled with them. In the night there came up a terrific storm of wind and rain. Our tent blew down and we were as completely soaked as drowned rats."
    May 17th: "Roads very muddy and water high. Bridges are swept away in many places and delays are frequent. Stopped at noon and built a bridge, had just time to cross and camp before dark."
    June 23rd: " Father was out early to see about horses, and found that one had become twisted up in the lariat ropes and broken his leg. Had to be shot. This threw a damper on our feelings to think of our favorite thus coming to an untimely end, and some tears were shed before we left him on the plains."
    (Arrived October 27, 1853--Editor's note.)
Begin Farming
    After establishing their living quarters on a donation land grant from the government they began farming in the wild region.
    In 1855, at the time of the last Rogue River Indian War, grandmother Abigail Taylor and her family were ordered by General Joe Lane to leave their land and take refuge at Fort Hoxie, present site of the town of Medford. "She went to the fort under protest, but daily mounted her white horse and rode back through Indian-infested territory to feed her small brood of chickens," chuckled Mrs. Person.
    A tiny sewing machine, which was brought across the plains in the early '50s and bought second-hand for $35 from a Massachusetts family; extremely useful wool cards, and a small coffee mill are also prized possessions.
    Included in a rare coin collection is a French five-franc piece which Mrs. Person's husband cut his teeth on. It is admired by tiny Robin Cornelia Person, a granddaughter whose parents are Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Person of N. Beachwood Drive.
    Mrs. Person wears a black silk dress made by a great aunt Abigail in 1855.
    "It was suitable for any occasion," says Mrs. Person, "from births to funerals, weddings and wakes, and any other social occasion that might come along."
    Excerpts from letters written back to Iowa quote butter at more than a dollar a pound, and $12 as remarkably good pay for a man's five days' labor.
    She also has a quilt made from a dress worn by a woman who was the last victim of the last Indian raid in Deerfield, Mass. And newspapers dating in the 1700s are among the collection. A number of precious and valuable keepsakes have been donated by her to various museums around the country.
    Living with her son and daughter-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Person at 743 N. Beachwood, the charming white-haired lady is full of interesting stories of the pioneering days along the "Oregon Trail."
    Born in Grants Pass, Oregon, she married at the age of 22 and has raised four children. She recalls that her grandfather, who was appointed postmaster by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862, was also the first Justice of the Peace, Methodist minister, and all-around law in the city of Phoenix, Oregon. She has been a Burbank resident for the last eight years.
Medford Mail Tribune, November 14, 1948, page 11


    A recent letter from George H. Graves, Salem, Ore., to Mr. and Mrs. Harry Barneburg, Medford, contains several excerpts from Graves' diary, made when he traveled in Southern Oregon as a salesman for a hardware firm. He now is in his 80s and has many friends and business acquaintances in the valley.
    The first excerpt is dated Feb. 2, 1899, and begins, "5 p.m., took the train to Medford and put up at the Hotel Nash. In the evening called on a store and then came to the hotel and wrote up my diary." (Then the stores were open nights.)
    February 3, the same year, he said, "Snowed during the day. Worked the stores, taking only one order. 6 p.m., took the train to Jacksonville, arriving at 7. (In those days it took an hour for the train to go from Medford to Jacksonville.) Put up at Mrs. Taylor's (Lyden House). Retired at 9 o'clock after soaking my feet in hot water and placing a mustard plaster on my back. Slept in an awful cold house. Met a Miss Reames."
    The February 5 entry opens, "Arose at 8 a.m. Did some business and then drove to Eagle Point selling George Brown and sold him $60 worth of merchandise. Then drove to Gold Hill in a snow storm, arriving at 5 p.m. Slept in the Union Hotel or more like a barn, with the thermometer at zero. Only 1 room in the hotel had a window in it."
    An earlier quotation from his diary dated Jan. 23, 1895, tells of a trip which he made with a friend to Honolulu on a sail boat, the voyage taking 20 days.
Medford Mail Tribune, April 17, 1953, page 15


Last revised August 27, 2026