Our Pioneering Grandparents

The Oregon Trail

Pheobe (Stewart) Jackson was Brittany and Alicia’s Great, Great, Great, Great Grandmother. Her daughter, Angeline (Jackson) Gillespie, was Brittany and Alicia’s Great, Great, Great Grandmother who married George Charles Gillespie, their Grandfather. The following is a letter written by Nora Gillespie and her recollections of the stories passed down by our Grandparents who emigrated to the west via the Oregon Trail back in the mid 1800s.

“It sometimes takes awhile for the names, dates, places and events stowed away in my genealogy files to sink in and become meaningful. Our recent visit to the Oregon Trail Museum at Oregon City and the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center at Baker has stirred the pot again and the story of our covered wagon ancestors has come into better focus. Our Oregon Trail ancestors were not as remote as one might first believe.

Sutter’s Fort

Elnora Anna Gillespie (Grandma Shackleford) used to corner me with her wheelchair and wash behind my ears. She was so gentle in this process that I almost enjoyed it. But the real point of this story is that she was the daughter of Angeline Jackson Gillespie, who was, in turn, the daughter of Pheobe Stewart Jackson. When Angeline was three years old she left Iowa with her mother, her two year old sister, some other people, and headed for Oregon City by covered wagon.

But, I’m getting ahead of my story.

Forty four year old William Dewey Clark, an all-around craftsman, was sent west by the [US] government to teach settlers how to make saddles, yokes, furniture, leather goods, etc.. He traveled by covered wagon, arrived in Oregon City during the fall of 1845, and was granted Oregon Donation Land Claim #975 on November 7, 1845, located just south of Yamhill.

That same year, 1845, twenty five year old Thomas J. Jackson, husband of Pheobe, father of three year old Angeline and her little sister, set out [wife and children would travel west later] by covered wagon, (after leaving Chequest, Iowa home and family), for Sutter’s Fort at Helvetia, (now Sacramento, CA). He arrived there in the fall of 1845 and stayed until the spring, (gold mining). But, during the spring of 1846, the Mexican government decreed that everyone living in

California must become a Mexican citizen or leave. A Mexican general and thirty soldiers saw to it that Thomas headed for Oregon, (reportedly with a large quantity of gold which has never been found). He arrived [Oregon] in July, 1846 and acquired Oregon Donation Land Claim #3587, just a mile or two south of Scappoose, Oregon. Thomas was just about to become a positive force in the area when, in 1853, he contracted Small Pox and died. Part of his land claim is now the Fairview Cemetery.

Pheobe Jackson’s sister, Lucretia, had married Robert Merchant from Scotland in 1838. In 1846, Pheobe, Lucertia and Robert started having dreams about seeking out that Promised Land in Oregon. By the spring of 1847, their dreams were to become a reality. They managed to gather up enough oxen,

livestock, a covered wagon, kids, plus a lot of other essentials, (like money), and headed [west] into the sunset. Pheobe was twenty five, Angeline was three and Mary was two. Robert was forty nine, Lucretia was twenty eight, Andrew was six, Sarah Jane was five, William was three, and [they all] headed [west].

After what must have seemed like a journey through paradise, they arrived at their destination, Oregon City, in the fall of 1847. Robert and Lucretia were granted a land claim, (Not. 1531, claim 1531), right next to (due south of) William Dewey Clark’s [claim]. [Now widowed] Pheobe Jackson and William Dewey Clark became closer and closer friends and were ultimately married at Yamhill on October 17, 1848. Pheobe and her two girls then moved just across the way to William’s cottage where Pheobe and William continued adding to and raising their family. Part of their land claim is now the site of the Yamhill-Carlton Pioneer Cemetery.

Nora Gillespie

George and Angeline Gillespie

Angeline married George Gillespie, who emigrated from New York. They were married (pictured left) at Yamhill on June 3, 1860, and shortly [thereafter] moved to The Dalles, Oregon. They raised 3 girls and 1 boy. Mary Anges, Elnorah Anna, Jennie and John Edward.

Angeline died at Riddle, Oregon in 1893 at the age of 49. George Gillespie never remarried and returned to (silver mining) in Clarston, Idaho and died there in 1910.”

Oregon City was known as the destination of the Oregon Trail, the final stop of a 2000 mile long trail by horse and wagon. The provisional government allotted 640 acres of fertile Willamette valley farmland to every male citizen. Our family and their fellow emigrants soon learned that the legend of Oregon was true.

From Oregon City our family fanned out in all directions to stake their claims and begin their new lives. They had reached the promised land.

Oregon Trail Ruts, Guernsey Wyoming