Salem in 1882

World Events

• In the Anglo-Egyptian War: British troops bomb and occupy Cairo, securing the Suez Canal. Egypt becomes a British protectorate.
• Roderick McLean fails in an attempt to assassinate Queen Victoria while she is leaving Windsor Station in her carriage. In St. Joseph, Missouri, the outlaw Jesse James is murdered in his home.
• The Triple Alliance is formed by Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy, mainly to unite against any French threat. The union expired in 1915 during WW I when Italy withdrew.
• Chinese immigration to the U.S. is prohibited; the first U.S. exclusion law to restricts immigration.
• Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company creates a Trust that controls secretly controls multiple corporations.
• Inventions: Thomas Edison flips the stitch to engage the first commercial electrical power plant in the U.S., lighting a square mile of Manhattan. Schuyler Wheeler produces the first electric fan.
• Oscar Wilde, Irish-born author at entry to U.S. for a lecture tour, is asked by customs if he has anything to declare. "Only my genius", he responds.
• New publications for American readers include "The Lady or the Tiger", a still-fascinating short story by Frank Stockton and Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper.

 In Salem
In this year, Adam Stephens is creating a school several miles north of the Salem town limits. The original school has now been rebuilt, but the name, Adam Stephens Middle School, is a memorial to the founder of this community.
Thirty-four year before (1848), Adam Stephens and his wife Lucinda had traveled a “blazed trail marked with wagon wheel tracks” to settle on 585 acres of land in the present area of Hayesville. In that wilderness he built a sawmill on Claggett Creek and a home in the area of the present Claxter Road. In 1858 lumber from his sawmill built a church and the first burial in a small nearby cemetery was that of his infant, namesake son. North Salem Baptist Church was built on this property. A number of family members are now buried here and their graves are carefully tended by the present generation.

When you visit
The graveyard is accessed entering the driveway of the church at 4290 Portland Road. A short walk in the graveyard takes you to the northeast corner, through the beautiful trees to the graves pictured above. The cemetery is bordered on the east by Claggett Creek.
The most public memory of this pioneer is the school founded by him. No trace of the original structure remains since it was rebuild in 1982, a hundred years after its founding.
The family homestead included the land surrounding the present-day intersection of I-5 and Portland Road. This property was annexed to the city of Salem in 1947, a hundred years after this settlement. It is in the northern half of Northgate Neighborhood that was organized in 1972. Monthly neighborhood meetings are held the 2nd Tuesday, 7 pm, at the clubhouse of Hee Hee Illahe RV Park 4751 Astoria Street NE. The public is welcome.

Other Events

• This is the year Sally Bush graduated from Smith College and returned to Salem where she will live for the rest of her life. Perhaps it was to celebrate her return home, and her love of nature, that the Conservatory at the rear of the Bush residence is built. It is now the oldest greenhouse in Oregon and is part of the Gaiety Hill/Bush's Pasture Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A recent successful campaign to restore the Conservatory was organized by volunteers of the Lord and Schryver Conservancy and Salem Art Association that administers the property. The Conservatory is open to the public.
• Willamette Valley Flouring Mill (Scotch Mills) joins Capitol Mills on the east shoreline of the Willamette River in Salem. Wheat and flour were the basic products transported on the river in this year. The Scotch Mills burned in 1904.
• Thomas Cronise came to Salem this year on the invitation of his brother Harry. He worked for Mrs. A.L. Stinson, owner of a printing business on Commercial Street and, later, for R.J. Hendricks of the Oregon Statesman newspaper as a foreman of the paper's technical department. Cronise married Nellie Riggs two year later. By 1886, he had his own print shop, however, an allergy to printer's ink eventually forced Cronise to quit the printing business. In 1892, Anna Louise, Cronise's sister, moved to Salem and introduced him to photography. By 1893, Anna had bought a photo studio at the corner of State and High Streets. Anna and Thomas Cronise hired a young photographer named Howard Trover, who married Anna. In May 1902, Cronise bought a studio and entered the photography profession on his own. He died in April 1927, and his wife Nellie operated the business until her passing in 1930. Then his son Harry operated the business until 1972. His work is commemorated in the book, The Art Perfected.

Cover of Oregon's first novel

• Oregon's first novelist, a pioneer teacher in the Methodist mission, dies in Seattle this year. Margaret Smith Bailey (1812-1882) resisted the attempts to "marry her off" (her suitor, according to her narration, was William Willson) while at the mission. Their "confessions" did not harm his reputation, but put an end to her ambitions as a teacher. After she left the mission and married the man of her choice, her resentment of her treatment by the Methodist missionaries (especially Rev. Leslie) and her life in the settlement, continued as she became known as a writer. in Oregon periodicals.  Finally, she published a book (The Grains, or Passages in the Life of Ruth Rover, with Occasional Pictures of Oregon, Natural and Moral) that caused a scandal and coincided with her 1854 divorce. Half novel and half record of actual events and true names, the book continues to cause speculation about its truth. 
• Pheasants in the Salem area, brought by Chinese immigrants, are the first in the United States.

Salem in 1865

World Events

• The Civil War ends with General Lee's Surrender April 9 and, within a week, President Lincoln is assassinated by John Wilkes Booth who died in a barn fire April 26. Four of his conspirators were hanged in July. ("Lincoln" film 2012)
• Andrew Johnson, a Southern Democrat, becomes president, clashing politically with the Radical Republicans in Congress.
• The 13th Amendment to the US Constitution prohibits slavery.
• Christian Mission, later renamed the Salvation Army, is founded in London by William Booth who instituted the military structure it retains today.
• Standard Oil Company opens.
• A fire near Silverton, Oregon destroyed more than one million acres of timber.
• Best Reading: Mark Twain publishes The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and Walt Whitman writes Drum Taps in memory of fallen soldiers of the Civil War. Young readers are enjoying Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Mary Mapes Dodge's Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates.

In Salem

With the end of war, the assassination of a president and the end of slavery, our nation begins to consider its future course in governance and prosperity. Salem's future continues to rely on water power. An imposing Willamette Flouring Mill is constructed on the north bank of Pringle Creek where it cascades into the Willamette River just south of Trade Street. The mill was financed by owners of the Willamette Woolen Mill that had been built a decade earlier in North Salem. This mill was sold in 1870 to the Kinney Brothers of San Francisco and, at the time, was described as the largest mill of its kind in Oregon and Salem's leading industry; it could turn out 400 barrels of flour a day. The mill was destroyed by fire in 1899 or 1904 ~ there is conflicting information.

When You Visit: Boise Cascade site

The site continues to be important for local industry and was most recently occupied by Boise Cascade. That business relocated and the property has been sold to local investors. It is now being redeveloped, with the first steps being the demolition of the existing buildings along Front and Commercial streets. One of the most interesting aspects of the project is the "daylighting" of Pringle Creek. It will pass under the Commercial Street Bridge, as it does now, but will be open on the west side. With completion of the enterprise, pedestrians will be able to walk along the waterway for the length of its passage from Leffelle Street (south of Bush's Pasture Park) through Salem's downtown to the creek's entrance into the Willamette River. A self-guided walking tour slide show of Pringle Creek and its companion, Shelton Creek, is found on this website.

Other Events

• John H. Moores is mayor of Salem in 1865.
• Near Marion Square Park, David McCully, a pioneer Salem merchant who had been successful in the California Gold Rush, builds a home at 891 Front Street. The house was damaged in the 1962 windstorm. It was moved and renovated at 1365 John Street. It is in the SCAN neighborhood and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (1978).
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  How often we pass this scene at southeast corner of Trade and Church streets (on the south side of the creek on the Robert Lindsey Tower property) without a thought, except how beautiful it is. Few realize a double hanging took place here in 1856.
   Daniel Delaney was murdered in January and his murderers, George Beale and George Baker, were convicted by Judge Reuben Boise. A witness to the murder was a young black boy, Jack, son of Rachel Belden Brooks. His testimony was at first refused on the grounds that negroes could not understand the law in a criminal trail of a white man, but was later allowed. The well-attended double public hanging took place in May at this location.  It attracted families, bringing picnic baskets for lunch, from as far as 20 miles away. After this public execution, there were no murders in Marion County for twenty years.
• The Watkins-Dearborn Building is erected at the northeast corner of State and Commercial Streets. Part of the original facade can be seen at 110 Commercial Street. R. H. Dearborn, a harness-maker, purchased this property on 1875 and occupied it until 1910. Afterward it housed the Holland Bakery. In 1931 it became the location of the Real Estate and General Insurance offices of Edward Rothstein and Samuel Adolph, prominent Salem businessmen. Mr. Rothstein was also chairman of the city's first water commission. Mr. Adolph was son of one of Salem's first brewers and is remembered today for the beautiful home he built in 1878 at 2493 State Street. This NEN neighborhood property was listed on the National Register in 1978.
• Lucyanna Grubbs, Jason Lee's daughter and a graduate of Willamette University, follows Mrs. Chloe Willson as "Governess of the Ladies Department" of that institution.