More Benton County WPA material

[Dave Robertson]

Grandma CARTER: Mrs. Angeline BELEAU CARTER



Mrs. CARTER, who was born in December, 1834, is remarkably active in body, age considered. She lives alone in her old home, and does all the house work but building fires, carrying water and washing. Her mind is keen, memory good, sight and hearing but slightly impaired. Unlike many old people, her outlook is toward the future. One would say from her appearance that she might live another ten years.

"My parents, whose name was BELEAU (correct spelling), came from Ray Co. Missouri to Oregon and settled at Dallas in 1845. My father was a Methodist preacher and preached the first sermon ever preached Benton County. He walked from Dallas to the Stewart home near Corvallis, had dinner after preaching, and then walked home again. He had to take off his shoes and socks to wade the sloughs. The only way of traveling, other than on foot was by ox team and that would have been slower. The first Methodist church of Corvallis was organized at the Stewart home in 1848.

"We were six months on the way from Missouri. We had no trouble with the Indians on the way nor at any time since. There were two tribes of Indians in this part: the Klickitats and the Calapooias. They were both friendly to the settlers but disliked and despised one another. As a little girl I sometimes pretended to take an Indian of one tribe for the other just to hear his indignant denials. (Here Mrs. CARTER broke into a rapid flow of words in 'Chinook jargon').

"In 1850, when I was not yet 16 and my husband was 22, I was married and came to live on this place. (About two miles and a mile south of Wells station.) I have lived here ever since. This is the third house, but all were built within a few feet of the same place. For eighty years I carried water for the household from the spring there.

"People today about hard times. They don't know what the words mean. We had to live in a house with a dirt floor. There was no timber near here then except now and then an oak or a lone fir. Even after sawmills came it was a task to transport the lumber by ox teams without roads. The first houses were built of logs. We had to sleep on the floor at first because there were no beds. My grandchildren ask 'How could you bear to have folks visit you and see how you lived?' The early settlers all started alike.

"Our nearest trading point at first was at Portland. Women used to save their butter through the summer. The whole valley in this part was covered with grass that grew higher than a man's waist. Cows feeding on it gave rich milk and the butter was yellow and firm and could be kept well. In the fall before the rains began a trip was made to town to exchange the store of butter for sugar and other necessities we could not secure from the fields or woods.

"Everybody seemed to have good health in the early days. We had hardships but people were cheerful and never grumbled. The country has changed wonderfully since I first saw it but people have changed more. They have more comforts, but they want more and worry more. They are always in a hurry. People have said to me, 'You have traveled by ox cart, by wagon, by horse and buggy, and by automobile. Now take a ride in an airplane. We will come here to the farm for you and it won't cost you cent.' I told them, 'It would be a feather in your cap to carry a woman a hundred years old on her first trip in the air, but all I would get would be a big scare. I'll stay on the ground.'

"My husband, Tolbert CARTER, was a great lover of books. He was for years a member of the County Court. Later he was elected to the State Legislature and he was State Senator when he died in 1899. I have had 8 children - 5 boys and 3 girls. They are all gone but two. My son who died in July, 1936, was for 47 years postmaster and storekeeper at Wells. The Wells post office has only recently been discontinued for a rural route.

"Coffin Butte, just west of Wells, was so-named because of its fancied resemblance to a coffin, and because, according to Hudson Bay Co. employees, an Indian had been buried on its summit."




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