Research Continues

After I got back from my research at the Oregon Historical Society, I still had questions but no real leads left. I checked out newspapers.com and found some fantastic details that both encouraged me and made me stop and think. On the Vaughan front, I found the news articles about F.G. buying a dairy in July of 1900. He bought an existing dairy called Barett's which apparently gave him "one of the finest herds of Jersey cows in this county." There may be county records of the sale to find. There were several ads, beginning in 1906, which show F.G. selling the cows, one "splendid Jersey" at a time. He sold them "fresh" which I think means that they had given birth and were full of milk, and if he was no longer selling much milk himself that would make sense. I'm guessing that he was a tired old farmer and when the government started demanding more inspections and procedures for insuring clean milk, he gave it up. These old pioneers were determined and hard-working people, and he was in almost 70 when he bought the dairy. Land disposal would have been on his mind, providing for his remaining years and his children.

In one paper I found an article about TB in milk and the resulting killing of exposed dairy cows in the Portland area, so I suspect that at that time there was a push for legislation and government control of  that disease vector, and that may have contributed to him ending his dairy at about that time. The only previous evidence of it was the recollection by Grace Bowers that she grew up on the dairy, and she would have been about twelve in 1900 so that all fits nicely together. I have records of property Vaughan owned throughout his lifetime and probably can track fairly accurately the lots he bought and sold and used as pasture for the cows. He then, to my theory, let the dairy operation go when the city limits changed, his properties were no longer practical for livestock, and he and his family turned to hauling buildings to the Van Buren and 12th Street lots and remodeling them to sell, or selling the lots to others to build on. At any rate, by 1916 when my board was signed, the dairy was probably all the way  gone.

As far as the Huddleston and Davis families go, I found out details about several siblings but when I got to the articles about the various lawsuits involving Samantha Huddleston, things got sad. I think she lived too long. Her son died about a year before she did, and it seems that Margaret Bilyeu, Lark's wife, was involved in helping her settle her estate, and was in fact the executor. Lark had crossed the plains with the Vaughans in 1847 and had been the lawyer for both the Vaughan and Huddleston families in many land transactions and lawsuits. I don't have the complete picture yet (and may never) but he was a young man when they all met and a lifelong friend and associate as many of the pioneers were. It seems that to suffer such a hard journey together was a bonding as would be expected. I believe that FG so admired Lark Bilyeu that he named one of his sons after him (Bilyeu Vaughan,the name on my board) and although Lark himself died shortly before Samantha did, Margaret Bilyeu no doubt felt responsible for helping Samantha for many reasons. Perhaps the most compelling was that she needed help.

We must consider the source, but in the lawsuit over Samantha's estate brought by one of Iantha's sons, William Castleman, he said that Samantha had been ill for many years, was so weakened that she was mentally unable to have a coherent conversation, and was incapable of making her will. She had apparently had a falling-out with her brother Melancthon, whom she had previously put in charge of her properties. While this may or may not have been true, the suit did not change the will, which left the bulk of her estate to the Children's Home in Corvallis. The article put that value at $55,000 but others said $20,000. There may be more I haven't found, but it's a sad story no matter what, so I don't know quite how to handle it. Descendants may not know the particulars, as it's not the kind of family story often told, and it isn't a very honorable last word on someone who lived in Eugene for almost 80 of its earliest years.

But it could explain a few things, such as the dearth of photographs. Samantha could have suffered from dementia or some other debilitating illness, and it could indeed have lasted for many years. The other big lawsuit, one brought twice by her son's Henry's wife in 1917 and 1918, accused her and her brother MM of undue influence over Henry causing him to divorce his wife after seven years of marriage. They apparently accused her of being after the family money, and she sued for $20,000. She was given some type of settlement but the case did not go forward as she had no proof, and it was likely that the social position of the Davis family influenced the judge that the suit did not have merit. Henry, 63 at the time of the divorce, was 32 years older than his wife, Evelyn, and it seems both sides accused the other of wicked and malicious treatment. We can't know from a newspaper article who was right, but life tells us that both sides probably had some legitimate complaints. There are a couple of small articles about property on 8th St., which I will write more about when I figure out the nuances. There was apparently some resistance to paying some city taxes for improvements on land that was once county and became city land. That could have been more neglect to keep up with business that proof of some ill feelings...again, we can't know.

It's still a mystery to me why our local history says little about these families, except for the fact that most history is carried forward by proud descendants and the artifacts they saved. The recent exhibit at the Lane County Historical Museum is about early doctors in the area and fails to mention Mother Davis, the ministering angel, most likely because there is little in the historical record about her. My studies are important but will likely remain incomplete, though I hope to write a few articles with what I do know. It's an interesting question to me why more wasn't written about them, but it might just be unlucky coincidence caused by the early deaths of the men and the personalities of the women, which of course is complete speculation on my part fueled by little facts found here and there.

I will go and review the Huddleston collection at UO again soon. It's really in the little tiny details that the story will be found. My current theory is that Margaret Bilyeu put together the collection in Samantha's last days, and what was donated was meant to tell a story without making actual statements. The letters and bills and excerpts from Huddleston's diary, the artifacts such as the US Grant campaign ribbon, and such objects point to political and personal opinions about the important subjects of the era. I can theorize a lot about what they all did and why, and at least for myself paint a relatively factual portrait of this family and those lives. Whether or not that will be historically useful or interesting enough to publish isn't quite clear yet. I get discouraged but then I read more and find that these ordinary stories are useful and interesting in themselves, and when placed in context still have lessons for us to learn about our town and how it grew.