“All spring, men and teams had been hewing out and hauling timbers while other men under the oversight of ‘Squire Tuttle,’ as he was familiarly called, had been framing them and now they were ready to be put together. It was yet in the days of log houses and ‘bee-raisings’ and notices and invitations had been sent out naming the day when everything would be ready. Men with families came from other neighborhoods in white-covered ox wagons, camping out for the time, and the affair greatly resembled the old-fashioned camp meeting. Tables were set in the old log building, partly school house, partly church, which has passed into history as the birthplace of Tualatin Academy and Pacific University, where bountiful dinners were provided by the women for the men at work. This department being under the energetic oversight of ‘Grandma Brown’ with her somewhat stern face and dignified bearing, but we knew that behind them lay the kindest heart that ever befriended a homeless orphan whose name is, if possible, more intimately associated with the history of this institution than that of Rev. Harvey Clark, its founder and patron.
“Squire Tuttle gave the signal, ‘He-oh-heave’ and up it went and settled into place. Money was scarce in those days and houses were built in a hurry so a winter and a summer passed away before even one room was ready. It was a frosty morning in October 1851 when 25 or 30 of us gathered in the lower north room and school began with J. M. Keeler on the platform. The fresh ceiling on the walls and overhead, the large new blackboard, the new double desks, homemade as they were, all combined to make it a veritable palace, used as we were to the rough log walls of the old building with its rough benches and long shelf running around the sides for desks.”
The building cost about $7,000 and the trustees were $2,000 in debt. The Rev. Harvey Clark gave 200 acres of land at first; this plot of ground was divided into lots and many of them were sold to help pay for the building. Later he gave more land for the same purpose. Tabitha Brown mentions in a letter that she gave $100, a big sum in those days, especially for a woman of 69 or 70 years of age earning her own money. Mrs. Mary Walker, wife of Rev. Elkanah Walker, gave her watch which was sold and the sale price added. Others gave generously also and the Society for the Promotion of College and Theological Education in the East contributed to the upkeep of the Academy.
In 1854, the Territorial Legislature granted a new charter with full collegiate privileges to “Tualatin Academy and Pacific University.”
General Joel Palmer Home
Carl H. Francis
The impressive home of General Joel Palmer, with its stately columns, catches the eye and excites the curiosity. In Dayton’s City Park one of the few authentic blockhouses remaining, compels attention, and each year thousands of tourists read that it stands as a memorial to General Palmer; out of the dusty past ride the well-known figures of Sheridan, Grant, Russell (who died at the Battle of Winchester), Wheeler, (both of the Confederacy in the War between the States and of the Union in the Spanish-American War), all identified with the historic blockhouse. But no note is made of the regal structure which views the passing parade from its vantage point of the State Highway which traverses the small town; and history has itself passed by one of the most colorful persons who helped hammer out the destiny of Oregon.
Let us look first for a moment to this man—a man who shaped the future, first of the Indians who occupied the land, and then of his fellow countrymen. As Superintendent of Indian Affairs, he negotiated the treaties whereby the red man ceded title to the Oregon Country; these were ratified by the United States Senate and became the law of the land. Because of his humanitarian attitude toward the Indians, Palmer was the victim of unfair criticism. But when the Whitman massacre resulted in the Cayuse Indian War, Palmer readily took the field against the errant, and it was in this War that his title of “General” was obtained. Yet all the while, he served his fellow countrymen in numerous ways. In Indiana he had been a member of the legislature before his first trip to Oregon in 1845.
As Faith Holdredge Watts says, he was then “on a journey of exploration, to test the feasibility of taking his family out later and establishing a permanent home there.” He was immediately elected captain of one company and in the fall of that year with Sam Barlow established what is now known as the “Barlow Trail”—a portent perhaps of how perverse history would refuse to recognize this leader, and give its laurels to another. Palmer then platted the Town of Dayton in 1850, setting aside the City Park as a “Court House Square” and the Brookside Cemetery in which he was later buried. His picture, in the Oregon State Capitol, looks down upon each Speaker of the Oregon Legislature, for he was the second Speaker of the Assembly—but again, perverse history dismisses him with a reference to a “Joe” Palmer; he was a State Senator, refused to run as a candidate for the United States Senate while in government employment, but in 1870, was the candidate of the burgeoning Republican Party for Governor, being defeated by less than 700 votes. He was characterized as a “man of honesty and integrity.” This was the man who built the house.
The house itself has been rebuilt, added to, and a part destroyed. Gertrude Palmer, granddaughter of the General, lives today in Lafayette, Oregon, and her mind leaps quickly back to the olden days; she recalls as a small child holding her grandmother’s hand while the original structure (one story and attic, with a double fireplace) was demolished. In the 1860’s, Palmer built an additional part which was remodeled in 1911, giving the present structure a “southern plantation” look. Palmer’s original Dayton home was Dutch Colonial. He was a “bound boy” in his youth; with no formal education, he struggled to achieve the recognition he received. The house would reflect his personality.