The old Middle School building was once Lebanon High School]
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5. THE CALLIOPE |
In 1871, the Calliope, a small, flat bottomed steamboat ascended the South Santiam to what was then known as the Ridgeway ferry, near where the two bridges now cross the Santiam just east of town. The little steamer left Corvallis one day at noon under the command of Captain Robert Copeley and succeeded in reaching Jefferson that evening. The next day she started for Lebanon but she had to be helped by the dozens of farmers who had congregated along the river bank to watch her make the trip. The farmers were as anxious as the townspeople to have boats navigate the Santiam and they all willingly lent a hand to pull her over the shallow places in the narrow stream.
The Calliope's whistle shrieked almost constantly as she struggled upstream and the answering yells of the crowds who congregated along the river to watch her progress were encouraging, but not very helpful.
A great celebration was planned. People came from miles around to see the vessel whose trip was to be, they hoped, the beginning of a regular transportation service. A barbeque and ball were planned. But Captain Copeley who had been able to see bottom much of the way to Lebanon did not dare to stay in Lebanon overnight lest the water go down and his boat be grounded. So the return trip had to be started at once.
What was to have been an historic shipment, about 20 tons of freight, was loaded on the Calliope for her return trip, but after a few miles most of it had to be taken off to keep her afloat. A number of Lebanon people too had taken passage on the boat for the experience of helping initiate what they hoped would be regular service. But they as well as the freight had to be hauled home. Every team in town was used to bring back the passengers and the goods.
Even so, the little steamer had to wait this side of Jefferson for a heavy rain to bring the river up so it could sail back into the Willamette. Thus ended all hope of navigation of the Santiam. The railroad bridge was built without a draw and agitation for boat service ended.
But the problem of transportation remained to be solved for there were constantly increasing crops and numbers of livestock to be shipped. Then came the railroad.
| Jesse W. George was a pioneer of Oregon, having crossed the plains in 1851. He first settled on a farm at the front of Peterson Butte, three miles from Lebanon. He died in March 1895 in Seattle of pneumonia. His son, Silvanus E. George, died Oct. 16, 1866 at the age of 4 years and 8 months. |
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SOUTHERN PACIFIC COMES IN 1880
A branch of the Southern Pacific was built from Albany to Lebanon in 1880. To a generation to whom railroad travel means as little as it does to this generation, it is hard to picture the excitement in Lebanon when the line was built. Mrs. Jeremiah Ralston gave the Southern Pacific a right of way through a field and 13 and a half acres for a station, receiving as a mark of appreciation from the railroad company a lifetime pass.
That the donation land law and other colonization efforts of the time appealed to the homeseeker rather than to the speculator and the adventurer is seen in the early organization of churches and schools. Since most of those who first came to Lebanon were Methodists, that was the first denomination to hold regular services and when the town was platted, a ten acre tract was given to the Methodist conference by the Ralston and Kees family for church and school purposes.
The conference sent the Rev. L. T. Woodward and Mrs. Woodward to Lebanon as teachers and missionaries and thus began one of the outstanding schools of early Oregon, Santiam Academy.
The late Judge Owen Denny, who crossed the plain when a boy in 1852 and lived much of his early life on the Denny homestead west of Lebanon, became the American Consul General in several cities in China. There he saw the ringnecked pheasant and conceived the idea of shipping some to Oregon. As most of the first birds sent over in 1881 died on the way, he sent a second lot the following year to his brother who lived on the family homestead. Of this second shipment twenty-eight survived. John Denny kept them penned up until he was sure they were all well acclimated. Then he turned them loose on Peterson's Butte. The value of the gift has increased each year until now it is estimated that as food alone it is worth not less than $7,000 a year. The esthetic value is immeasurable.
In appreciation of the effort he made to introduce this valuable fowl, a venture that cost him more than $4,500 of his own money, the Oregon State Legislature empowered the game commission to pay a pension of $50 a month to Mrs. Denny after Judge Denny's death. And though an effort has been made to call the bird the Denny pheasant, the name has never come into common use.
Sportsmen of the state have reason to thank Judge Denny for the introduction of one of the most popular game bird in the West - the China Pheasant. Go to Page One
Lebanon Genealogical Society
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© 1998 Jan Phillips
First posted January 1998
