Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/730

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Its boundaries were defined by act in 1870. Or. Laws, 1870, 167-8. In 1872 a part was taken from Grant and added to Baker county. Or. Laws, 1872, 34-5. These placers no longer yield profitable returns, and are aban doned to the Chinese. There are good quartz mines in the county, which will be ultimately developed. The principal business of the inhabitants is horse- breeding and cattle-raising; but there is an abundance of good agricultural land in the lower portions. The population is about 5,000. The gross valu ation of all property in 1881 was over $1,838,000, the chief part of which was in live-stock.

Canon City, the county seat, was founded in 1862, and incorporated in 1864. It is situated in a canon of the head-waters of John Day River, in the centre of a rich mining district now about worked out. It had 2,500 inhabi tants in 1865. A fire in August 1870 destroyed property worth a quarter of a million, which has never been replaced. The present population is less than 600 for the whole precinct in which Canon City is situated, which comprises some of the oldest mining camps. Prairie City, a few miles distant, Robin- sonville, Mount Vernon, Monument, Long Creek, John Day, Granite, Carnp Harney, and Soda Spring are the minor settlements.

Jackson county, from Andrew Jackson, president, was created January 12, 1852, out of the territory lying south of Douglas, comprising the Rogue River Valley and the territory west of it to the Pacific ocean. Its boundaries have been several times changed, by adding to it a portion of Wasco and tak ing from it the county of Josephine, with other recent modifications. Ita present area is 4,689 square miles, one third of which is good agricultural land, about 91,000 acres of which is improved. Corn and grapes are success fully cultivated in Jackson county in addition to the other cereals and fruits. The valuation of its farms and buildings is over $1,600,000, of live-stock half a million, and of farm products over half a million annually. The valuation of taxable property is nearly two millions. The population is between eight and nine thousand. Mining is the most important industry, the placers still yielding well to a process of hydraulic mining. Jacksonville, founded in 1852, was established as the county seat January 8, 1853, and incorporated in 1864. It owed its location, on Jackson creek, a tributary of Rogue River, to the existence of rich placers in the immediate vicinity, yet unlike most mining towns, it occupies a beautiful site in the centre of a fertile valley, where it must continue to grow and prosper. It is now, as it always has been, an active business place. The population has not increased in twenty years, but has remained stationary at between eight and nine hundred. This is owing to the isolation of the Rogue River Valley, the ownership of the mines by companies, and the competition of the neighboring town of Ashland. Bowies New West, 449; ffines Or., 78-9; Bancroft (A. L.), Journey to Or., 1862, MS., 44. The town of Ashland, founded in 1852 by J. and E. Emry, David Hurley, and J. A. Cardwell, and named after the home of Henry Clay, has a population about equal to Jacksonville. It is the prettiest of the many pretty towns in southern Oregon, being situated on Stuart creek, where it tumbles down from the foot-hills of the Cascade Range with a velocity that makes it a valuable power in operating machinery, and overlooking one of the most beautiful reaches of cultivable country on the Pacific coast. It has the oldest mills in the county, a woollen factory, marble factory, and other manufactories, and is the seat of the state normal school. GardweWs Emigrant, Company, MS., 14; Ashland Tidings, May 3, 1878. The minor towns in this county are Barren, Phoenix, Central Point, Willow Springs, Rock Point, Eagle Point, Big Butte, Brownsborough, Pioneer, Sam s Valley, Sterlingville, Thomas Mill, Union town, Woodville, and Wright.

A pioneer of Jackson county is Thomas Fletcher Beall, who was born in Montgomery co., Md, in 1703, his mother, whose maiden name was Doras Ann Bedow, being born in the same state when it was a colony, and dying in it. In 1836 his father, Thomas Beall, removed to Illinois, and his son ac companied him, remaining there until 1852, when he emigrated to Oregon, settling in Rogue River Valley. In 1859 he married Ann Hall of Champaign \n