Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 25.djvu/367



When Curry County was created by the Legislature of December 18, 1855, "Orford" was first proposed as its name, and then many more members suggested and favored that of "Tichenor," but the Captain, who was then a member, declined the honor, and insisted on that of Curry, in response to the wish of many of his constituents in appreciation of territorial Governor Curry's prompt action in providing for the Volunteer Company defenders at the time of the sudden Indian outbreak. The bill was introduced by Captain William Tichenor. The county seat was located where Gold Beach now is, and named Ellensburg, after Ellen, the Captain's daughter.

The first white child born in Port Orford was Thomas Orford Langlois, the son of^William and Mary Langlois; and Laura E. Riley, the first white girl born there, the daughter of Michael Riley, the first sheriff of the county; and both were of the first old families there. The first family to settle here was that of Captain Tichenor in 1852, and their end was here, and in the little cemetery of the town the marble slabs point out their last resting place.

But at last, when peace, prosperity and safety had come to Port Orford, and as if fortune and misfortune had not spent their forces, there came in October, 1868, in that ill-fated and unguarded moment, the terrible holocaust of fire and destruction, which, beginning in the forest vicinity, soon enveloped the entire town, and before nightfall, but two dwellings—those of the Tichenor and Knapp families, remained. All the rest were in blackened waste, with the sawmills nearby and a large acreage of the valuable cedar timber either destroyed or greatly damaged.