Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/295

Rh The sons, however, never expected to farm, except along the narrow creek bottoms; but the open oak groves and endless hills offered great scope for cattle range. As a matter of fact, however, the hills have proved the best of wheat land, and have now become still more valuable for fruit and prune raising. "The Jory settlement "is now in the very region where there are great orchards crowning the hills, and where fruit driers are as conspicuous as the hop houses of French Prairie. The donation land claim of John Jory has been divided into small fruit-raising tracts, and H. S. Jory, the youngest brother, has become well known as the inventor and maker of one of the most serviceable fruit driers in use.

While, however, the Jorys have been agriculturists in Oregon, their tastes have been mechanical, reverting to the original occupation of their grandfather and father. H. S. Jory, of South Salem, has invented and patented the "Oregon Fruit Dryer," and an ingenious harrow-hinge; Henry Jory, who died in Marysville, California, and his son, James W., each invented and patented a swivel plow. John W. and Arthur, sons of James Jory, invented and patented a wheat header; T. C. and John W., sons of James Jory, of this sketch, invented and patented a grain separator. Thomas C. Jory, who was for some time Professor of Mathematics at Willamette University, Salem, where he graduated, also invented and presented for patent a machine for converting reciprocal into rotary motion, avoiding the "dead points;but was preceded by Westinghouse, of the celebrated airbrake apparatus. These items are of interest as showing a still larger truth, that probably half the young men of Oregon, at least among those at school, devote much of their leisure time in planning practical inventions in mechanics, and of the many who do not succeed in producing a tangible result the case is not so much