LIFESTYLES
WEEKEND, MARCH 28-29, 2015
AP Photo/The Gazette-Times, Amanda Cowan
Homeowner Patricia Benner strolls along the outside of the Gorman House, which is the oldest existing residence in Oregon directly tied to early black pioneers,
in Corvallis on March 17. The Oregon State Historic Preservation Office has announced that the Gorman House is now listed in the National Register.
Pioneers in history
Corvallis house owned by black pioneers added to National Register
By THERESA NOVAK
Corvallis Gazette-Times
CORVALLIS — A small Corvallis
house that is the oldest in Oregon to be built
by black pioneers has been added to the Na-
tional Register of Historic Places.
The house at 641 N.W. Fourth St. orig-
inally was built for Hannah and Eliza Gor-
man, a mother and daughter who moved
to Oregon as slaves but who built a life in
Corvallis that was perhaps not typical of the
times.
“They were beloved,” said Patricia Ben-
ner, a retired river ecologist and historian.
She and her husband, Tony Howell, bought
the house in 2004 because it was about to
EHEXUQHGDVD¿UHGHSDUWPHQWWUDLQLQJH[-
ercise.
“I knew I had to rescue it.” She also
wanted to tell the story of the people behind
the house.
Benner and local historians Mary Gal-
lagher of the Benton County Historical So-
ciety and Oregon State University archivist
May Dasch pieced together this account
over the following years:
Hannah and Eliza Gorman’s names ap-
pear in the 1844 roster of John Thorpe’s
Oregon Trail Company as “Eliza, a mulato
girl” and “Aunt Hannah, a negress.”
They lived for a time with John Thorpe’s
family, and an 1850 census listed the Gor-
mans as members of his household on his
donation land claim in Polk County.
By 1856, however, mother and daughter
had moved to Corvallis, when Eliza was
about 16 and Hannah was 48. On land pur-
FKDVHGIURP:LOOLDP'L[RQRQHRI&RUYDO-
lis’ founders, Hannah and Eliza built a mod-
est one-story dwelling with a mud-mortared
chimney (still there) where they operated a
laundry and sewed clothing.
AP Photo/The Gazette-Times, Amanda Cowan
Patricia Benner, owner of the Gorman House in Corvallis, looks through historic documents in the home’s
kitchen March 17.
A letter written in September 1861 by
Catherine Blaine of Lebanon, the wife of a
0HWKRGLVWPLVVLRQDU\UHÀHFWVWKHDWWLWXGHV
of the times as it described her impressions
of the Gorman home/business and of Eliza,
“a mulatto girl,” who was to make over a
black silk dress for her while she waited —
and observed:
“I must stop here and tell how nice ev-
erything was at Eliza’s. She and her mother,
AP Photo/The Gazette-Times, Amanda Cowan
A flight of stairs leads the way to the two bedrooms upstairs at the
Gorman House in Corvallis.
Hannah, live together, take in washing and
sewing. They will wash from $1.50 to $2.00
worth in the morning and then Eliza will do
a day’s work at sewing. She has a machine
and some days does $2.50 worth in a day.
Everything about the house is as clean and
neat as can be, some of the negro love of
ornament displaying itself. Their bed va-
ODQFHV UXIÀHG DQG VWDUFKHG WKHLU SLOORZ
and bolster cases trimmed; such handsome
bed quilts, too; then the bed was so perfect
and sweet.”
Eliza died at age 30. Her obituary, pub-
lished July 17, 1869, in the Corvallis Ga-
zette, also offered insights into how she was
regarded:
“Her intelligence, modesty, kind and
sympathetic disposition, consistent Chris-
tian life and uniform courteous behavior has
ZRQWKHUHVSHFWDQGFRQ¿GHQFHRIWKHHQWLUH
community. Herself and (her) aged mother,
by industry and economy, had built them
a comfortable home, furnished it in good
VW\OH DQG VXUURXQGHG LW ZLWK IUXLW ÀRZHUV
and everything necessary to human comfort
and happiness. They seemed to live only for
each other, and to make others happy.”
The obituary also noted “The large num-
ber of citizens in attendance and the atten-
tion she received during her illness was the
strongest proof of the high estimation in
which she was held. She will be missed, and
her loss mourned, by nearly every family in
Corvallis.”
Soon after her daughter’s death, Han-
nah moved to Portland and sold the house
in 1875. But she returned to Corvallis and
was living there at the time of her death in
1888. Both she and Eliza are buried in Crys-
tal Lake Cemetery.
Listing the house on the National Reg-
ister is honorary, but it does open the door
WRVWDWHDQGIHGHUDOWD[EUHDNVDQGSUHVHUYD-
tion grants, said B.A. Beirle of Preservation
Works, a Corvallis educational association.
And there is plenty of work to be done.
7KH KRXVH KDV EHHQ H[WHQVLYHO\ PRGL¿HG
and damaged over the years, although some
original portions remain. Benner said the
¿UVWRUGHURIEXVLQHVVLVWRJHWDIRXQGDWLRQ
under the house.
During that work, samples of soil will be
taken to search for lye or other evidence of
the laundry operation that once was there.
On a recent Tuesday, Benner’s affection
IRUWKHKRXVHZDVUHÀHFWHGLQWKHZD\VKH
carefully placed a frilled curtain in the win-
dow of the kitchen in what likely was the
area where washing was done. A rug, table
DQGYDVHRIVSULQJÀRZHUVGHFRUDWHGLQWKH
OLYLQJURRPDVSDUWRIVKRZLQJLWIRUWKH¿UVW
time since its listing. It won’t be its last.
In May, the house will be part of a sev-
en-stop bus tour by the Salem-based Ore-
gon Black Pioneers Association.
³,W¶VDOOYHU\H[FLWLQJ´%HLUOHVDLG³7KH
modesty of the Gorman House belies its
VLJQL¿FDQFHWR2UHJRQ´
1C