The two remarkable elevations in the lower portion of the Rogue River Valley, known as Table Rocks, received their name and became noted landmarks in the early days of Oregon's settlement. Subsequently many of the most stirring scenes of pioneer history have been enacted where they stand. The most savage Indian wars which ever took place on the Pacific Coast devastated the lovely plain from which they rise. They were the chosen home for generations of the Rogue River tribe of Indians, and Sams Valley, just to the north, still bears the name of the doughty chief of the tribe who led his braves to battle in more than one hard-fought field. It is worthwhile to recount what has happened recently.
    In the thirties a trapping expedition from the settlements on the Willamette was ambushed a little further down on Rogue River by Indians, and several persons killed or wounded, as narrated by Gen. Nesmith. Turner and Gay, old pioneers of the Willamette Valley, were of this party, but both escaped. In 1851 Phil Kearny, then major of dragoons, led a military expedition into the Rogue River Valley and fought a severe fight with the Indians near the mouth of Little Butte Creek, about ten miles above the Rocks, and defeated them, losing an officer. Capt. Stuart, who was mortally wounded, and dying soon after, was buried near where now stands the village of Phoenix, southeast of the Rocks, and some fifteen miles away. In that and succeeding years
in Southern Oregon, and the streams issuing from the rugged mountains along the south boundary of Rogue River Valley from Wagner Butte to Galice Creek became the resort of numerous miners. The bars upon the river not far from the Rocks were worked and yielded tolerably. The agricultural possibilities of the country were soon perceived and settlements were made in favorable spots, one result being the gradual restriction of the Indians to a reservation adjoining the Table Rocks, and including Sams Valley, previously spoken of. As the settlers express it, the Rocks and the neighborhood were the principal stamping ground of the Indians in 1853. A short-lived though formidable Indian war broke out, the Indians under chiefs Sam and Joe leaving their reservations and taking to the steep mountainous country to the northwest. It was this war that gave "me and Joe Lane" a chance to signalize themselves, and the Indians were induced to capitulate and return to the reservation, under promises of better treatment than they had received before.
were discussed between the whites and Indians on lower Table Rock on a certain day in September, 1853. The whole Indian tribe was present, men, women and children, and a delegation of whites, the names of some of whom have become very distinguished. Judge Deady was there, and has written a very interesting account of the proceedings, which has been published in this paper. To guard the Indians and preserve peace between them and the whites, the U.S. government built Fort Lane directly opposite the lower rock and across the river from it. The ruins of this once noted post may still be seen by the curious tourist. The fort was abandoned in 1856. For the next two years the savages stayed on the reservation, but in October, 1855, broke out, raided on the settlers down the river, committed
of a score of people, and brought on the war of 1855-56. Not much of the fighting was in the vicinity of the rocks, but occurred further down the river. The war closing led to the expulsion of the savage, and the fertile fields of Southern Oregon knew them no more. Their reservation in Sams Valley was thrown open to white settlement, and no traces of savage occupancy are now to be seen save that the plow of the agriculturist occasionally throws up a stone mortar or a pestle, whose workmanship reveals its origin.
    The first newspaper ever published in Oregon south of the Calapooias was published in Jacksonville and named the Table Rock Sentinel. After a few issues its name was changed to the Oregon Sentinel, which it still remains. It was established by W. G. T'Vault, one of the earliest pioneers of Oregon.
    The summit of Table Rock, overlooking what is one of the most beautiful and fruitful vales of the Pacific Coast, and indeed of the whole United States, affords an almost unsurpassed panorama of grand mountains, snow-capped peaks, deep gorges, and all the sublime phenomena of nature, in sharp contrast with peaceful pastoral scenes. The cultivated fields of the Bear Creek and Rogue River valleys resemble at this season an irregular checkerwork of bright and contrasting colors. The villages of Ashland, Medford, Central Point and Phoenix are visible to the southeast, peeping through the trees that line the placid banks of the Bear. Eagle Point is to the northeast, and Jacksonville, the most interesting of Southern Oregon's towns, as it is the only one which possesses important recollections, is scarcely visible in its sequestered nook in the wooded hills to the south. Mt. McLoughlin, the most symmetrical of all the great volcanic milestones of the Cascade Range, towers ten thousand feet high and is fifty [sic] miles away; but so plainly are objects outlined upon its sides in this clear air that it hardly looks five. This splendid natural object is known on maps as Mt. Pitt, but the origin of the name is unknown. It is as unfit and meaningless a designation as possible, while the other name is one which should be kept alive as long as Oregon endures. While on the subject of names it is well to remark that another beautiful mountain, styled on maps Mt. Thielsen, but more frequently spoken of as Cowhorn Peak, offers an opportunity for the deserved perpetuation of another honored name in Oregon's history. Certainly the name Mt. Jo. Lane would be a more suitable appellation than either Mt. Thielsen or Cowhorn Peak. Patriotism and propriety alike urge the change.
    But however interesting the Table Rocks are in a historical sense, they are not the less so in their mode of origin. They lie roughly parallel to the course of the Rogue, which flows close by. They are about 500 feet high above the river and from a distance appear to be capped by a curious tubular formation, which presents perpendicular cliffs for the upper hundred feet or so and has a tendency to columnar structure. There are no other elevations in all the country like them. They present nearly the same appearance on all sides, and the lower part slopes uniformly away at an angle of 30 degrees or thereabouts. The upper rock is two miles from the lower and lies about northeast from it.
    Ascending them, they are seen to be composed wholly of a coarse-grained, black, hard, tough and dense basalt or dolerite, not unlike the typical volcanic rocks of the eastern plateau of Oregon. The upper surface of the Tables are truly level in general, as far [as] the eye can discern, and it is obvious at once that both rocks once formed a continuous plane surface, which has been partly removed. They were, in fact, part of an ancient lava stream, which ran down the valley of the Rogue and hardened into solid rock, where they now stand. The whole structure of the elevation proves it. They are doubtless composed entirely of lava and stand in an abandoned river bed, that of the Rogue, perhaps, or an ancient relative of that stream, although the first glance conveys the idea that only the tubular layer on top is so composed. The slant of the lower part of the hill is the angle of stability of the broken-down outer portions, which form a huge talus, skirting the central mass. The dolerite has a strong tendency to divide into roughly spherical masses a foot or so in diameter for the most part, and these being held with a slight cohesion to the parent blocks soon weather loose and roll downhill and are carried by pluvial agencies to a considerable distance.
    What gives additional proof of the lava occupying an accessible river bed is the form in plan of the lower rock, which is regularly crescentic in shape, and is called by the neighboring farmers "The Horseshoe." While the total length is said to be about four miles, and the area of the upper surface 1000 acres more or less, the enclosed basin opening to the south is perhaps a mile in diameter, its floor sloping regularly toward the river. The gap between the upper and lower rocks is about two miles wide and some 400 guessed feet in depth, measured vertically from the upper surface of the rocks. On top the solid ledge is half covered by loose boulders of lava, black mainly, but some of a lighter color, the most of them about a foot in diameter. No other rocks are to be found save a very few water-worn gravel stones, apparently siliceous, which the writer picked up. Still, the existence of these little erratics is sufficient to prove that water or ice once covered the Table Rocks.
    It is probable that the lava of which the Table Rocks is composed originated as a part of the great sheet which overwhelmed and now covers almost all Eastern Oregon and the neighboring territories. Probably it was a roving streamlet of that gigantic sea, which, leaving the parent body in the higher regions of the Cascade Range, flowed down the bed of a then existing river and did not solidify until reaching the lower end of the valley, which there is good reason to suppose existed at that time, but not to its present depth. It probably came to the end of its course where we now see these remains, just at the entrance to the Rogue River canyon. By this intrusion the river would of course be forced from its channel and would begin to wear another one. River erosion would under ordinary circumstances account for the carving out of a good-sized valley in the time subsequent to the lava age of Oregon, and it is very possible that the principal work of sculpturing the valleys and mountains of Southern Oregon has taken place since that time. The geological problems presented in that region are, however, of great complexity, and not to be settled by anything short of the severest study.
    There are in California several parallel cases of "table mountains," as these old lava streams are called. The principal one is in Calaveras and Tuolumne counties, and is 100 miles long and averages perhaps 300 feet wide on top, nearly the width of the table rocks of which we speak. It is composed of lava of exactly the same aspect as the latter, and is about as high above the surrounding lands. It runs through a mountainous country of great mineral wealth and has itself been the scene of very great mining operations. The sides of Table Mountain are punctured with an aggregate length of tunnels far beyond those of all the quartz mines in Oregon united. They were constructed in drifting for the old river bed underlying the lava, which contains gold-bearing sands of astonishing richness. Fortunes have been made by those lucky enough to reach the pay gravel, but as much has been spent in useless work.
    Prof. LeConte, who is the most distinguished student of California geology, says of the Table Mountain that the molten stream, when it hardened, lay between banks of rock which resist wear and tear much less than lava, and so when the country was eroded by subsequent agencies, the lava stream suffered little in comparison with the surrounding rocks, and in the course of time, instead of occupying a depression, came to project above the adjoining rocks. At present the stream is for long distances entirely above the ground on each side, so that what was once the bed of the old river is now many feet above the general level of the ground and is accessible by tunneling horizontally under the overlying lava.
    Such is the similarity between the table rocks of Jackson County and those of California, and so closely parallel are the surroundings, that there is the very best ground for conjecturing that the table rocks themselves overlie auriferous gravel deposits, left there by the ancient river upon whose bed they stand. The probability, or rather we should say possibility, that such may be the case is heightened by the strong likelihood that the ancient stream, like those mysterious rivers of a past eon in California, flowed over a country of metamorphic gold-bearing rocks. At the present day the upper course of all the streams which have their rise in the Cascades is over lava; but beneath this lava there doubtless are metamorphic rocks of character similar to those of the lower Rogue River, among which gold is so widely diffused. Here is a question of practical importance which, as well as others of equal importance, should be solved by a state geological survey. Research into such questions would repay well whatever time and money might be expended in the prosecution of scientific inquiries.
    It is wonderful to reflect that these massive hills were in old times moved bodily to their places, urged by the resistless forces of fire and heat. They mark the westernmost point reached by the lava flows in all that part of the country, as if he who guided had determined to spare one small nook as a refuge from the inconceivable destruction of that age. It is not at all unfitting that the old rocks which have been to savages a sanctuary and a fortress; to white men of a fast dying but immortal generation a loved landmark; and which have witnessed the romantic history of the country's occupation; should become the scene of active and important mining operations in the future.

Table Rock, July 1942

    Gen. J. C. Tolman said: "I am not in a condition of health to give a satisfactory account of my pioneer experience; have been confined to my room for several days past, the result of an accidental fall. I came to this valley with a party of emigrants, men, women and children, September 1, 1852, the first arrival of emigrants that year. I was here during all of the Indian wars. I never enlisted, but spent my time guarding families and running an ambulance wagon. I heard of the fight with the Indians near the Table Rocks in 1851, but I never heard of the Indians jumping off the rock. I think that must have happened at 'Jump-off-Joe.' [The origin of the name of Jump-off Joe Creek is under dispute, but no accounts of its naming have anything to do with Indians committing suicide.] I have often heard the legend you speak of and have seen it in print, but I think it is a canard."

    Deputy Revenue Collector A. J. Barlow, a nephew of Gen. Joseph Lane, has been investigating the truth about the famous historical fight made by Gen. Lane and his troops against the Rogue River Indians at Table Rock and concludes that it is a myth. Mr. Barlow writes to the Grants Pass Courier as follows:
    Some years ago General Gibbon, so famous in our civil war, and a great admirer of General Joseph Lane, stopped at my place in Gold Hill, and requested me to ascertain and furnish him all the facts about General Lane in one of his famous raids against the Rogue River Indians, having driven the Indians, after a hard and stubborn resistance on their part, over the frowning precipice of Table Rock. General Gibbon furnished me his address and promised that when he got all the data that it should be written up and go into the literature of the nation. I myself, always proud of the achievements, the daredevil bravery and lightning-like movements of General Lane, had come to believe that it was a fact, though I never heard General Lane, with whom I lived for several years, ever mention having a fight on Table Rock with the Indians. I remember he used to relate his experience when ratifying the treaty of peace, after he had surprised and chastised the Indians on Evans Creek. The treaty took place under the precipice on the south side of the table, overlooking Rogue River. It was at that place that General Lane and his party of friends, who accompanied the General to act as witnesses to the treaty, came so near being massacred by the Indians, the facts of which are familiar to most of your readers. In compliance with General Gibbon's request, I set about in quest of information, and after diligent research I found that the Table Rock fight was a myth. It existed only in the fevered imagination of sensational minds.
Ashland Tidings, November 18, 1895


    Miss Mae McIntyre spent Saturday with Medford relatives and was accompanied home by her sister. On Sunday Clarence Meeker came out and with Mr. Sandals and Miss Grace Dickison made a party to climb the lower Table Rock. They ate lunch by a blazing bonfire and report a good time in spite of fog and clouds.
"Table Rock Items," Medford Mail, November 22, 1901, page 3


    We are informed that the wagon road from the valley to the top of Lower Table Rock, being made by Messrs. Pankey and Strickland, is about completed, which will be good news to the many people who would like to view this lovely little valley from those rugged cliffs, but who have been prevented from doing so by the arduous ascent.
"Table Rock Items," Medford Mail, March 14, 1902, page 3


    Mr. Meeker and family, of Medford, the Misses McIntire, of Colorado, Mr. Sandles, of Ohio, and the Dickison family, of this place, made the trip to Lower Table Rock Sunday afternoon and enjoyed it and the view very much. Several other parties from different parts of the valley were also there and found many wildflowers on top, also about twenty acres of plowed ground, which looked strange to old visitors.
"Table Rock Items," Medford Mail, April 18, 1902, page 3


    Sunday being a very pleasant day, people from all parts of the valley came to enjoy the sights from the top of Table Rock. One wagon loaded with eighteen people and drawn by four horses was piloted to the top of the rock, which proves that the builders of the road have worked wonders for sightseers.
"Table Rock Items," Medford Mail, May 16, 1902, page 3


    L. B. Brown and family, E. E. Morrison and family, of Medford, and J. J. Brown and children, of Central Point, spent last Sunday at Table Rock. They relate that someone has planted beans and corn on the top of Table Rock and that the crop is a fairly good one.
"Purely Personal," Medford Mail, July 11, 1902, page 6


    Going to within 200 yards of the top of Table Rock in an auto was the exploit of L. Wheeler of Medford last Sunday in his White. He was accompanied by H. Van Hovenberg, Mr. and Mrs. H. Pelton and daughter Gladys.
"Local Notes," Gold Hill News, October 29, 1910, page 5


    "Every once in a while I run across a graphic account of the fight with Indians at Table Rock, in Southern Oregon," said Judge William M. Colvig of Medford. "All of the accounts, while more or less interesting, have one fatal defect, and that is they are lies. There wasn't any fight at Table Rock.
    "There are not many people now alive who have first-hand knowledge of the fact, though. C. C. Beekman of Jacksonville, myself and one or two others are the only ones I know of who possess personal knowledge of the matter."
Fred Lockley, "In Earlier Days," Oregon Journal, Portland, August 25, 1913, page 6




    . . . permit me to state, for the benefit of the younger generation, that there never was a battle on Table Rock, nor an Indian fight of any kind there. I do not want to appear as an iconoclast, but such mistakes, no matter how romantic, should not be allowed to go down in history as facts. My mother-in-law, Mrs. Clara Birdseye, who died a few weeks ago, was living in Rogue River Valley at the time this battle was supposed to have taken place; she had a remarkable memory for pioneer events, and I have heard her discredit this myth many times.
William M. Colvig, "Colvig Explains Origin of Name of Mount Pitt," Medford Mail Tribune, May 17, 1915, page 5


    I have lived in Jackson County ever since 1852, four miles of Fort Lane, and never heard of a battle on Table Rock.

    "Old Nancy," as the well-known old Indian woman was known to hundreds of Jackson County people for many years, died at her home in Jacksonville last week. She had an interesting history, associated with the very earliest pioneer days of the Rogue River Valley, concerning which the Jacksonville Post says:
    "After suffering for several months with complaints common to old age, the death of Mrs. Nancy Arrasmith, a full-blood Rogue River Indian, occurred at her home here Monday evening. The burial took place Wednesday afternoon in the Jacksonville cemetery beside the grave of her husband, Ira Arrasmith, a white man, whose death occurred many years ago. Rev. Millard of Medford conducted the funeral services.
    "A history of this Indian woman's life would make an interesting and thrilling story. She was unusually bright and intelligent and was nearly 100 years old at the time of her death. She was born in the Rogue River Valley and when only a girl of 15 years was abducted and carried off to Canada by an Indian chief. After a terrific knife fight with the chief and a wild ride for her life she escaped and after many hardships finally made her way back to this valley.
    "Pursuing redskins followed and shot at her frequently, one bullet lodging in her leg and which she carried with her to the grave. The other Indians formed a dislike for Nancy, claiming she was too much in sympathy with the white settlers of this valley. This jealousy and bitter feeling resulted in numerous knife fights, and many scars marked her body as a result.
    "It is said that at one time the Indians--hundreds of them--gathered on Table Rock, at the north end of this valley, and decided to go on the warpath and kill all the whites in the valley. Nancy made her escape the night the massacre was to occur, to notify the whites of their danger, but in getting away she fell over a bluff and broke one of her legs. She managed to get onto a pony and warned the settlers, who quickly got ready for action and drove the savages out of the valley for all time.
    "Of course Nancy knew better than to return to her people, and for this brave act the whites persuaded her to remain with them, which she did to the end and was always held in the greatest respect by them. For many years Nancy lived alone in a little cottage near the courthouse and was always looked after kindly by our citizens, who saw to it that she never wanted for anything that would assist in making life as pleasant for her as possible in her declining years.
    ‘Several years ago Nancy sold her allotment claim on the Klamath Indian reservation, and from the proceeds she was enabled to live as comfortably as she desired.
    "She had no children and leaves no relatives."
Medford Mail Tribune, July 3, 1922, page 4


"Communications," Medford Mail Tribune, January 19, 1925, page 4


To the Editor:
    "Truth is mighty and must prevail."
    No circumstance of the [1851] Rogue River war is better authenticated than the report submitted by Major Phil Kearny--afterwards General Phil Kearny--who commanded the forces here in the valley.
    The Indian stronghold was near the base of Table Rock. There the stones had fallen down for centuries among the trees and brush and they had also reinforced the natural fortification with log breastworks.
    The fight on the river, in which Captain Stuart was mortally wounded and in which eleven Indians were killed, took place on the 17th of June, 1851. The Indians retreated to their stronghold, but Major Kearny awaited reinforcements, since he had only 28 men under his immediate command at that time. He made the attack on the stronghold on the 23rd and again on the morning of the 24th of June, and in the afternoon the engagement lasted about four hours. This was a determined fight--and it is said the Indians suffered severely.
    Major Kearny had altogether approximately a hundred men, mostly volunteers, in this engagement, and it is stated that Chief John's force numbered several hundred warriors, though they only had a few guns. It was at this time that Chief John boasted that his warriors "could keep a thousand arrows in the air continually."
    At the close of the battle in the afternoon Major Kearny made an effort to treat with the Indians, but they scorned his offer and he made preparations to attack again as early as possible on the morning of the 25th, but the Indians had retreated down the river. It is claimed that the Indians crossed the river about seven miles below the stronghold, and although they were pursued vigorously, most of them had scattered into the timbered hills and only thirty women with their children fell into the hands of the pursuers.
    The treaty of Sept. 10, 1853--Gen. Joseph Lane's second treaty--took place at the base of Table Rock at the old stronghold on the western side of the great cliff.
    Table Rock was used for signal and lookout purposes. The Indians were too wise to make a serious stand for fighting on the top of the rock.
    I believe traces can still be seen of the Indian stronghold at the western base of the rock. And as the years roll on people will become more and more interested in the history of the Rogue River Valley, and it behooves us to get the truth.
"Communications," Medford Mail Tribune, February 5, 1925, page 4


Medford Mail Tribune, June 25, 1929, page 3