HOME


The Infamous Black BirdSouthern Oregon History, Revised



Rogue Valley Pioneers:
Profiles of some personages and personalities of early Oregon, most of whom had something to do with Southern Oregon.
   
See also the page on Medford pioneers.


Who's Who
Hundreds of pioneers not listed below.
George H. Abbott
Early Indian agent and "Indian fighter." That isn't a good thing.
William Penn Abrams
Diarist, Portland pioneer.
Captain Bradford Ripley Alden
Commander of Fort Jones, participant in the 1853 war.
Benjamin Allston
His 1855 letters from Fort Lane.
Martin Angel
Indian murder hobbyist, until it caught up with him.
Cornelius C. Beekman
From express rider to venerable banker.
John Beeson
Driven out of the Rogue Valley for his support of the Indians.
Mary Belknap
Unsung heroine of the last Rogue River Indian War.
Joseph and Catherine Berrang
They drove a covered wagon from Connecticut to Oregon. In the 1920s.
Betseyannspikes
Aka John R. Hardin.
Bigfoot
This enduring mystery is older than you might think.
Worthington Bills
Along with his father, probably Jackson County's first white resident. But how?
Ammi Leander Bixby
Visitor to the Rogue Valley in 1923.
Stephen Palmer Blake
His 1853 Southern Oregon travel diary.
George E. Bloomer
Notes on the most popular man in Jackson County--until he made off with the county treasury.
William H. Byars
The teenage mailman who survived the last Rogue River Indian War.
William Bybee
Prominent early ferryman, farmer and landowner.
Theodric Cameron
Central Point pioneer of 1852.
James A. Cardwell
Yreka gold miner, Ashland pioneer.
James Clugage
He didn't discover gold in Jacksonville--but he did develop the town.
George E. Cole
His Oregon memoirs 1850 to 1860.
Isaac Constant
Central Point pioneer of 1852.
James Croke
Letters from the priest charged with bringing God to Jacksonville.
Basil Dairy
Jacksonville's Daisy Creek was named after him. Huh?
Silas J. Day
Pioneer of 1851, Jackson County Commissioner.
Willis John Dean
Diarist, Talent school teacher.
Russell Cooke Dement
Early Jacksonville resident, friend of Mr. Dean.
Joe Dies
Still missing.
Mary M. Dunn
Her booklet "Undaunted Pioneers," about pioneering in the southern part of the valley.
Eber Emery
A travel diary of an Ashland pioneer, going back to the States in 1858.
Chief Enos
Popular villain of the last Rogue River Indian War.
James D. Fay
So did our state senator get that girl pregnant or not?
Zany Ganung
A quiet life--except for that one moment. Or was it two?
Christina Geisel
Survivor of the last Rogue River Indian War.
Abel George
Pioneer, Indian fighter, murderer.
Daniel Giles
Working on a pack train and operating an Applegate Valley store in 1853, during the run-up to war.
James P. Goodall
'49er, head of the Yreka volunteers in '53.
Abel George
Pioneer, Indian fighter, murderer.
John B. Griffin
Hunter, writer, Manafraidofabear.
La Fayette Grover
Fourth governor of Oregon. His memoir of the Rogue River Indian War.
Hannibal Eugene Hackett
1860 diary of a bored 25-year-old in Crescent City, California.
Ezra Hamilton
A bullshitter's Rogue River Indian War reminiscences.
Joseph Lee Hammersley
"Ham" was a Gold Hill boy made good
Alice Hanley
Her reminiscences and account of the Harris cabin siege.
Mary Ann Young Chambers Harris
The most celebrated heroine of the 1855-56 Rogue River Indian War.
John Wesley Hillman
Discoverer of Crater Lake.
Alfred Cobb Howlett
Rev. Howlett recorded Eagle Point news for over 50 years.
Charles Henry Hoxie
Pioneer Methodist preacher, farmer on Bear Creek.
Chief John
Aka Tecumtum--last holdout of the Rogue River Indians.
August Valentine Kautz
A lieutenant in the Rogue River War, a general in the Civil War.
Philip Kearny
His massacres in 1851 made the other Rogue River Indian wars inevitable.
Edward G. Kilgore
Pioneer of Ashland and Central Point.
Bert Kissinger
Recorder of mining legends.
John K. Lamerick
Professional gambler and Indian war leader.
Joseph Lane
Hero of the Mexican War and the 1853 Rogue River Indian War--and he wasn't who you think he was.
Leoni, the "King of the Air"
He left a string of wowed crowds and unpaid bills when he grabbed too much air.
David Linn
Pioneer Jacksonville furniture maker.
James A. Lupton
His massacre began the last Rogue River Indian War.
Samuel Stillman Mann
His memoir of pioneering in Port Orford and Coos Bay.
Dr. J. W. and Jane Mason McCully
This is only part of the story of the Jacksonville pioneers.
John S. Miller
Pioneer of 1852, early Medford city marshal.
Raphael Morat
Pioneer winemaker who built the valley's first tasting room.
Paul Albert Mosher
Entertaining diary of a teenager with a surveying party in 1886.
William A. Moxley
His account of the disovery of gold in Josephine County.
Prentice Mulford
Not a Rogue Valley pioneer, but an introspective view into the life, mind and work of an 1850s miner.
Cyrenius Mulkey
His heroic account of the 1855-56 war. Just wish his actions were corroborated.
Silas Newcomb
His 1850 travel journal, from Sacramento to the Umpqua.
Rowena Nichols
Well-known Rogue Valley artist, none of whose works are known to survive.
Chauncey Nye
Jacksonville alcalde, early Jackson County legislator.
James O'Meara
Editor of the Oregon Sentinel during the runup to the Civil War.
John D. Olwell
The Central Point boy became the Phantom of the Exhibit Building and Medford's original "live wire."

William H. Packwood
Proud Indian killer.
Joel Palmer
Diaries of the Oregon Superintendent of Indian Affairs.
Josiah L. Parrish
An Oregon missionary's memoir of his time with the Indians.
Sarah Pellet
The temperance lecturer who nearly became a casualty of the Breakout.
Martin Peterson
The Mound Ranch preacher left us an 1877 diary.
Rogue Valley Photographers
Dozens of 'em.
Charles H. Pierce
Both of 'em--we had two.
Maximillian Gustavus Pohl

Hunting in Coos County, then driving cattle north in the 1860s, nearly dying on the Applegate Trail circa 1868, ditto in Northern California in 1871.
Frances Edna Lewis Raymond
Her reminiscences of Persist, Oregon.
John W. Redfield
Jacksonville gunsmith; his company still survives 150 years later.
Reelfoot
The last of the big Siskiyou grizzlies--called "Club Foot" south of the border.
Herman Francis Reinhart
The Southern Oregon section from his memoir, The Golden Frontier.
George W. Riddle
His memoir of growing up among the Indians.
Harvey Robbins
His 1855-56 Rogue River Indian War diary.
Albert G. Rockfellow
Pioneer of 1850. Or 1852. Or 1853.
Clark Rogers
Jacksonville's disgraced alcalde.
John England Ross
Reminiscences of the "Indian fighter."
Thomas Fletcher Royal
In 1854 he organized the Methodist Church and the Jackson County schools.
The Schieffelins
The famous pocket hunters. Ed discovered Tombstone, Arizona.
Edward Sheffield
His dispatches to the Oregonian in 1855-56.
Linsy Sisemore
Growing up in Sams Valley in the 1870s.
Alonzo A. Skinner
Indian agent and Jackson County's first white resident.
Skookum John
Probably responsible for the Ledford Massacre.
Thomas Smith
Pioneering and encounters with the natives in Ashland.
Joseph O. Stearns
The early white settlement of the Phoenix area.
Orson Avery Stearns
The indispensable account of the early white settlement of the Phoenix area.
Nelson Bowman Sweitzer
His account of his service at Fort Lane and during the 1855-56 Indian war.
William Green T'Vault
Southern Oregon's first newspaperman. Oh--and secessionist and murderer on the run.
Thomas Hart Benton Taylor
T. H. B. Taylor--steam feather renovator, Woodville hotelier, raconteur, mystery man.
Tecumtum
Aka Chief John or Old John--last holdout of the Rogue River Indians.
William Tichenor
Founding Port Orford.
James Clark Tolman
The Ashland pioneer.
Daniel Toole
With the first party over the Applegate Trail Oregon in 1846, on the Siskiyou Trail to the gold fields in 1848, and across the Isthmus in 1850.
Top Taxpayers
How much these guys paid in taxes.
Frank Trigg
Excerpts from his nationally syndicated farm column, based in Central Point.
Samuel Volturner Tripp
His 1851-54 Southern Oregon and Northern California letters.
James Henry Twogood
Pioneer of Grave Creek

Tyee George
Murdered at Camp Baker by Charles S. Drew.
Peter Waldo
Joseph Lane's ward was not his "slave."
Who's Who
Dozens of mini-bios of other Rogue Valley people.
Charley Williams
Another professional gambler, Indian war leader, killed David Butterfield with a stool.
Robert Stockton Williamson
Diary of his search for a route from Port Orford to the Oregon Trail.
Benjamin Wright
The more credible accounts of the notorious Indian agent and fighter.



Last revised May 16, 2020