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THE ASTORIAN • THuRSdAy, MARcH 24, 2022
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IN ONE EAR • ELLEDA WILSON
OLD ROSE
ld Rose the cow was a terror, Minnie Belle
Rhoades Goodpasture (1870 — 1956) recalled
in her childhood memories of pioneer life in Pacific
County, Washington, but Rose was no match for Min-
nie’s quick-thinking mother, Catherine M. Parrott
Rhodes, “a brave little woman.”
“One Fourth of July afternoon she took us for a
walk on the beach and to see if father’s boat was in
sight,” Minnie recalled. “She was expecting him home
from the oyster grounds, where he had gone the day
before.
“We children were playing on a sand dune, when we
heard mother call. Looking up, we saw her motioning
excitedly. We ran to her … (and) she pointed toward
the north where a band of wild cattle, headed by a ren-
egade, Old Rose, was coming toward us.
“Snatching off her apron, mother threw it about
Janie, whose red dress, she feared, would excite the
herd. In doing this, she felt something in the pocket
and investigated, to find a bunch of firecrackers and a
block of matches left from the morning’s celebration.
“Without hesitation, she lighted the crackers and
tossed them at the cattle, now almost upon us. The
scheme worked, and the cattle, as frightened now as
they had been fearless an instant before, turned and
fled.” Why? “They had been shot at so often that they
were gun-shy.”
Minnie, her parents, some of her nine siblings, her
daughter and her husband, Frank Gerald Goodpas-
ture, are all buried in the Bay Center Pioneer Ceme-
tery in Bay Center, Washington.
O
ALMOST SHANGHAIED
elonious rerun: Court note from The Daily Asto-
rian, May 11, 1883:
• A petition is being circulated, asking the governor
to pardon William DeLashmutt, who was sent to the
penitentiary from this county last January for an alleged
attempt to shanghai a gentleman of leisure named
James Cannon.
Note: Earlier in 1883, DeLashmutt, owner of the
Ford Saloon on Ninth and Bond streets, “… feloni-
ously, and without lawful authority, forcibly seized and
confined, and kidnapped James Cannon with the intent
to cause James Cannon to be sent out of the state of Ore-
gon against his will …”
DeLashmutt’s “spirited defense” didn’t save him
from serving time, and the petition to pardon him failed,
as well. Overall, he spent three years in the state peniten-
tiary. (In One Ear, 5/11/18)
HARBINGER
story in The Daily Morning Astorian
on March 24, 1885, was a harbinger of things to
come.
On March 23, when M. Conley was light-
ing the street lamps on the corner of what are
now Commercial and 11th streets, a puff of smoke
and flames in the office of nearby Bain’s Planing
Mill caught his attention. The fire alarm was sounded
immediately.
Within a few minutes, “over 1,000 people were on
the ground.” The fire quickly covered the front of the
wooden building, and a hotel next door was at immi-
nent risk.
Circumstances
worked
against
Astoria’s
fire department. It was dead low tide, so they
couldn’t easily access water to put out the
blaze. Then the hose burst open in several spots.
Eventually, they got three streams of water going, but
even so, there was no saving the mill, and the fire was
advancing.
Within half an hour of the fire starting, the whole
city was illuminated, the mill and hotel were lost, and
the flames jumped to a house, the Baptist Church and
another building.
“Everyone lent a willing hand, and by the most
strenuous efforts the fire was kept within bounds,”
the newspaper reported. “ … A breeze sprang up
from the northeast, and sent clouds of cinders and
half burned shingles flying over the roofs far beyond
the new schoolhouse. Every roof had men posted on
it, wetting it down and ready to put out the first brand
that fell …”
An an hour and a half after the fire started, it was
essentially out. The city was safe. The conflagration
turned out to be arson, and those who lost their homes
or businesses were all underinsured.
The lessons offered here were that cisterns were
needed for fires at low tide, and that “it is poor econ-
omy to have rotten hose bursting under no more than
ordinary pressure.” Whether or not they fixed those
problems was moot: An enormous out-of-control fire
ravaged Astoria in 1888. They were just lucky, this
time.
L
TELL THE STORY
O
A
F
ARE YOU HAPPY?
o surprises here: Finland is ranked the world’s hap-
piest nation for the fifth year in a row by the World
Happiness Report, according to Yle.fi
The annual report is the result of a survey organized
by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solu-
tions Network.
In fact, all of the Nordic countries were in the top 10:
Denmark was second, Iceland was third, Sweden was
seventh and Norway was eighth.
The high rankings were, in part, credited to “strong
social cohesion, excellent work-life balance and free
education and health care.” Another happiness fac-
tor was citizens trusting each other and their govern-
ments. For Finns, time spent outside was an important
component.
The U.S. came in at No. 16 on the list. At the very
bottom, at No. 146: Afghanistan.
N
NO DEAL
achary Stocks was featured on KGW’s “Expres-
sions in Black” recently. He lives in Astoria, “the
greatest small town in America.”
In case you don’t know him, he’s the execu-
tive director of Oregon Black Pioneers. He is also
a ranger for the National Park Service and a histo-
rian, concentrating on 18th and 19th century Amer-
ica, especially African American history and the
pioneer migration to the West.
“If you tell the story of Oregon, and you don’t
include the experiences of people of African descent,
then you didn’t tell the story …,” Zach told the
interviewer.
“People are surprised to learn how deep Black his-
tory runs in Oregon. That’s always at the forefront
of my mind. If we don’t share these stories, who
will?”
“One of the things I didn’t know before I started
working here (at Lewis and Clark National Histori-
cal Park) is very much about York … the only person
of African descent who was on the Lewis and Clark
Expedition. York’s status on this trip was someone
without any civil rights, without any privileges in the
U.S.
“… From literally the first day, the first footsteps
of non-Indigenous peoples in this place we call Ore-
gon, Black people have been a part of these communi-
ties, and they contributed to the development of those
places.”
He also spoke of Moses Williams, a decorated
Buffalo Soldier, who was in charge of building new
batteries at Fort Stevens in the 1880s. “… When he
retired, he was the only enlisted soldier stationed at
Fort Stevens … But nonetheless, today, very few peo-
ple even know his name.”
“I guess I just want to be remembered as some-
one who cared,” he added. “Someone who took the
time to learn my history. Someone who took the
time to appreciate the settings around me, and bring
all those things together, and share them with other
people.”
Z
ast May, this column ran a story, “The proposition,”
about Bill Nix’s proposal to use urban renewal
money to put the 1,069 foot long aircraft carrier USS
Kitty Hawk (CV-63) at the Port of Astoria to be used
as museum, cultural event center and tourist attraction.
“We must consider the economic impact by the pro-
spective 325,000 visitors annually, or 890 daily to Asto-
ria,” Nix said. He had a point, and a decision from Asto-
ria was a matter of some urgency, since the vessel had
been docked at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in
Bremerton, Washington, since 2009, and was scheduled
to be scrapped.
The Ear recently discovered that the Kitsap Sun
reported in January that the USS Kitty Hawk, which
had participated in combat operations during the wars
in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, had begun her 16,000
mile journey around the tip of South America (she can’t
fit in the Panama Canal) to her final destination, Inter-
national Shipbreaking Ltd. in Brownsville, Texas, to be
scrapped.
Adding insult to injury, @NavalInstitute offered this
on Twitter: “… Built for $264 million in 1961 ($2.5 bil-
lion in 2021), the Kitty Hawk was sold to the scrap com-
pany for the bargain price of 1 cent. For another penny,
the company also got USS John F. Kennedy.” What a
shame.
LEGACY OF EXPLORATION
n March 17, the U.S. Coast Guard website MyCG
announced that the 400-foot Polar Star set a new
Guinness World Record for reaching the southern-
most navigable region on earth on Feb. 17, in uncharted
waters off the coast of Antarctica, and 500 yards from
the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf.
The previous southernmost record-holder was the
Russian ship, Spirit of Enderby, and before that, the
record was held by Polar Star’s sister ship, Polar Sea.
Last year, the Polar Star also reached the northernmost
point on the globe under the same commanding officer,
Capt. William Woityra.
“The crew of Polar Star is proud to follow in the
footsteps of legendary Antarctic explorers like (Ernest)
Shackleton, (Roald) Amundsen, and (Richard) Byrd,”
Woityra said. “Even today, more than a century later, we
carry on that legacy of exploration, reaching new places,
and expanding human understanding of our planet.”
(Photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Diolanda Caballero/
Coast Guard)
COMING HOME
he Lightship Columbia is back in the water
at Diversified Marine Inc. (in Portland),” the
Columbia River Maritime Museum posted in a
Facebook update. “The final phase of blasting and
top coating the deck is underway.” Expected home
this month, she is shown, courtesy of the Maritime
Museum.
“Once back in Astoria, the lightship will be at
Tongue Point for a few weeks to allow completion of
some final work, including installation of a new gang-
way” to provide access during extreme tides.
“Before the lightship is returned to her customary
spot at the museum, the large navigation buoy (also
being restored, by Astoria’s WCT Marine & Construc-
tion Inc.) will be situated in … front of the bow of the
lightship, with the Columbia moored directly behind
it.” There’s no doubt about it, they will be a grand
sight at the 17th Street Dock.
‘T