American Memory: Canyon City Folkways

The American Memory Project has several Federal Writer's Project interviews on file, including a lively one from 1939, in which William C. Haight interviews a Mrs. Ford about her life in Canyon City, Oregon.

For whatever reason, I'm having trouble establishing a direct link to the interview. But if you use the title link to get to the American Memory home page, and then search for Canyon City Folkways, you can get there from here.

In any case, Mrs. Ford comes across as quite a character, really:

I was the second child born in Canyon City. Jennie Nunes Powers was the first. She certainly was no credit to the village.

My father left Kentucky in 1849 and went to California. He heard of the big gold strike in Canyon City, and left California to settle in Canyon. You know, then you could almost pick up gold nuggets by the handful; at least it was much easier than it is now.

Father made a great deal of money out of the mines and started a grocery store in partnership with Poindexter. The store was known as the Poindexter & Clark Mercantile Store. My father started in this business with a great deal of money and no experience. Mr. Poindexter started in with no money and a great deal of experience. The partnership ended with Poindexter having the money and my father the experience.

Father worked for the Wells Fargo company, and had the stage line from The Dalles to Canyon City. Every Saturday morning the Chinese would line up outside of my father's business with their bags of gold dust to be weighed and shipped to San Francisco. I can still hear the clock-clock-clock of the Chinese as they talked to my father. They seemed to like him quite well. Often, father would have me come over to the office and sew the canvas he had into bags to hold the gold dust....

And so on for several pages. It's a colorful narrative, with Mrs. Ford quite obviously enjoying the spotlight. Oh, well. Many of the early settlers were full of themselves, of course. It went with the territory. And she does relay some riotous stories about herself as well as her friends and neighbors.

For fun, if you live in the United States, you might stop by the American Memory page and search for what they have on file for your area. There are some very interesting reads there. (And you might find out that your ancestors weren't as dull as you thought...)

As it happens, there are still annual cattle drives through John Day/Canyon City, but unlike Mrs. Ford's ferocious wild beasts the cattle are generally well-behaved Herefords nowadays - and the drives are in the late winter/early spring, just prior to calving. (The story is that the cows have an easier time calving after a good long walk. In any case, the fall 'cattle drives' back to winter range are done with trucks.)

The Episcopal Church in Canyon City Mrs. Ford talks about still stands. See here and here for pictures.

Perhaps Grant County's best known historic church is the former Adventist Church on the main street in John Day. See here.