in other words
june15
2017
7
The Good Ol ’ Days
By Tobie Finzel
Who Was Here First?
Clark Parker came to the Up-
per Nehalem Valley to trap beaver in
1873. He went back home to East Port-
land with 600 pelts, a disturbing number
to our modern sensibilities but a way
of supporting his family in those days.
While Parker was not the first non-native
to pass through exploring or trapping, all
known records show that he was the first
to bring a family and establish a home on
the east side of the Nehalem (Mist Drive
and Heather Park area) in 1874. A few
months later, the extended Van Blaricom
family that included Sheeleys and Bak-
ers settled in what is now “downtown”
Vernonia along Rock Creek and both
sides of the Nehalem near the conflu-
ence. As a result of their location, the
Van Blaricoms claim to be the first true
Vernonians.
According to the history of the
Nehalem Valley written by Veldon Park-
er and edited by Ruby Condit for the
1937 Memolog, the Adams and Tucker
families soon came, the Tuckers moving
from further down the valley in order to
have neighbors. Albert Parker, the first
settlers’ child to be born in the valley
and the seventh of the Parkers’ children,
arrived in 1875. By 1876, Judson Weed,
Ozias Cherrington, Israel Spencer, Ed-
gar Brand, Charles Plowman, William
Wood, John Kerr, and John Pringle were
part of the community. Several were
young bachelors at the time, but oth-
ers brought families. When John Van
Blaricom, Jr., and Julia Etta Parker wed
in 1878, it joined the two “first fami-
lies” and was Vernonia’s first wedding.
Thirty-nine ballots were cast in the first
local election in 1878; at the time, only
men could vote so one can see that the
population had increased substantially in
those four short years.
All of the history noted above is
fairly well documented in family histo-
ries and records from that time, so imag-
ine our surprise when Bill Weed, a de-
scendant of two Vernonia pioneer fami-
lies, the Van Blaricoms and the Weeds,
recently found an old Sunday Orego-
nian newspaper article, written in 1922,
about a man who claimed to be the real
first settler. Bill is an amateur historian
who researches his family heritage and
shares the results with other members of
his family and with the museum. The
August 6 th Oregonian article was about
the exploding growth of Vernonia due to
the coming of the mill and railroad with
predictions that the town would grow
to 10,000. It should be noted that the
maximum population during the 1920s
reached about 2,500, and it’s never been
larger.
The Oregonian article stated
that “the first man, who more than 40
years ago settled in that section of Co-
lumbia County where now is arising a
new Vernonia, did so by virtue of the
fact that one of his oxen died and left
him stranded. This is the story that N.H.
(Shorty) Entler, engineer in charge of
the works of the Hill interests (Note: the
Hill family owned the railway), who are
building a railroad into the heart of the
Nehalem timber district, would have the
casual visitor absorb and believe.”
Surprised at this new informa-
tion, Bill researched BLM online land
records and found no records of him in
Columbia or any other Oregon county.
Survey crews from the Oregon and Cen-
tral Railway came through parts of the
Upper Nehalem in the early 1870s for a
potential route to Astoria that was never
built, but no evidence of any of them set-
tling in the valley is known. The 1922
article concluded that the railroad ex-
ecutives “are glad that the ox of which
Shorty Entler talks died where he did and
caused the original settler in the Verno-
nia district to remain.” The stories from
the Parker and Van Blaricom families
of the narrow trail into the valley that
required thirteen crossings of Pebble
Creek and room only for single file trek-
king cast further doubt on a claim that a
team of oxen (at least two abreast) could
have made it that far before the first road
was built in 1876.
Vernonia Pioneer Museum
board secretary, Barbara Larsen, figura-
tively did a bit more digging using Find-
agrave.com. Norman Entler’s parents
lived in Yamhill County, having moved
there circa 1904 from Virginia accord-
ing to the obituary of his father, Daniel
T. Entler and youngest brother, Wil-
liam. They died in March 1912, frozen
to death while hunting on their timber
claim eighteen miles east of their home.
Norman was born in Virginia in the ear-
Sunday, June 16, 1907: Went
up to Vernonia and played ball
with Natal. Score 11 to 1in favor
of Natal.
Cloudy but pretty
good day. Got home about 6
P.M. and then went back up to
Vernonia to the Chivelrie (Note:
Perhaps he meant “shivaree”) at Mills.
Camped on way coming back
and did not get home till 4:30
A.M.
Monday, June 17:
Did not
get up till pretty late. Sawed
some wood in the morning
and hauled wood and went
down to the Haselett place and
brought up a load of bark in
the afternoon. Wrote several
postals.
Received a leather
postal from the East.
Tuesday, June 18: Worked on
the road all day. Awful hot all
day. Sent several postals.
Wednesday, June 19: Went up
Rock Creek with Mr. Carlson
and cruised S.W. ¼ Sec 24-5-5.
Thursday, June 20: Worked on
the road. Cloudy and pretty
cool most all day. Planning
for next Saturday at Grange at
Vernonia.
Friday, June 21: Cloudy and
not very warm any of the day.
Shoveled hard all day and you
bet I am good and tired.
Saturday, June 22: Worked on
the road all day. Came home
in the evening and Alice was
here so we went up to Grange at
Vernonia. Got up there about
9:15 P.M. and got back home
at 2 A.M. Had a dandy time.
Pretty cool all day.
Sunday, June 23: Was home till
11 A.M. then went down horse-
back with Alice and I went on
down and we played Mist a
game of ball. Score 18 to 19 in
favor of Mist. Pretty warm all
day. Had a dandy time going
down. Wm. Deeds and sister
came up and spent the day.
The Vernonia Pioneer Museum is located
at 511 E. Bridge Street and is open from
1 to 4 pm on Saturdays and Sundays
(excluding holidays) all year. From June
through mid-September, the museum is
also open on Fridays from 1 - 4 pm. There
is no charge for admission but donations
are always welcome. Become a member
of the museum for an annual $5 fee to
receive the periodic newsletter. We now
have a page on the Vernonia Hands on
Art website, www.vernoniahandsonart.
org If you are a Facebook user, check
out the Vernonia Pioneer Museum page.
The museum volunteers are always
pleased to enlist additional volunteers to
help hold the museum open and assist in
other ways. Please stop by and let one
of the volunteers know of your interest in
helping out.
DM
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From Virgil Powell’s Diary
Virgil Powell (1887-1963) was a long-
time resident whose family had a farm
in the Upper Nehalem Valley between
Natal and Pittsburg. Each year from
1906 until 1955, he kept a regular di-
ary of his activities. June of 1907 en-
tries show that he “worked on the road”
most days except when the rain was too
heavy, Sundays and when he was feeling
“bum.” We wish we knew which road
or section of road this was, but we pre-
sume it was the road between Pittsburg
and Vernonia.
Got up there at 9:30 A.M. and
got back home at 2 P.M. Pretty
hot all day.
D
Vernonia
Dental
ly 1880s, several years after Vernonia
was settled. Census records from 1910
through 1940 list him as a civil engineer
for various railroad companies and liv-
ing in Portland. His father’s obituary
states that Norman was working for the
Hill family in Southern Oregon in 1912.
As Bill and we collectively con-
cluded, it appears that the reporter heard
a tall tale that gave him a good human
interest perspective on the Vernonia ar-
ticle but although skeptical of the story
did no fact-checking.
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