5
Oregon’s First Homes
SH b I B '
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1: fm W 1 Si I till
Samuel Brown House, Near Gervais, 1850
By DAVID C. DUNIWAY
Oregon State Archivist
When you drive d o w n Pacific
Highway
to S al-1
| n r ||can you tell w hich houses w ere
built before the end of the nineteenth
century? Do you know ymep ier the
style of a house is tru ly old? If you
knaS ffitio t the Sam ^ o w n house at
Gervais was built in the 1850’s, do
you know its significance? N ext time,
w h e n /\w i drive by, slow -down and
see one of our most beautiful S buth-
ern type homes, built by a New Eng- I
lander for his Missouri wife from the
gold he found in California. It stands
to the east f a t h e / i ^ ^ l a ‘field to thé
n o rth of the cross road th at leads to
Gervais. Its two^story'l porches,' sup
ported by tall, square pillars, are a
vision to g S lM iiW S outnern archi
tecture, and yet the house was bu ilt
by a Yankee from Yale who studied
w hat is know n as tlm§ PallaeLian or
der. E ^ ^ O a liy characteristic of m any
houses (oi the ^period is the ’doorwayy
fram ed by narrow windows. Sam
B r o wn ’s was a maj or co ach stop H
the old.fstage road th at led from P o rt
land to San Francisco.
Once you have seen th e Sam Brown
B lS B lo ^ a f o a E B ib r ^ ^ ^ n ' dowi^ t ^
back roads. On the edge of Dayton
you. w ill find the Joel P alm er house,
by the m an who founded /the
>t,§-wn’ldnd its mills. He was our first
Indian ageKa«and
the center of
storm y political battles. It should be
ea^MEsBla eriMSH since it is" so ljkMBfflEf