Roberta McKern
At the East Linn Museum, it gladdens the researcher to come across an anecdote-filled history about a family that settled here in 1852 (and its descendants).
Alvin and Polly Morris homesteaded on Fern Ridge about two miles west of town. Like Sweet Home’s founders, the Ames family, they were Mormons who left Missouri in search of religious freedom and did not believe in polygamy. Their descendent, Garry M. Morris, wrote of them and other generations in a 1994 compilation that included and cited recollections from different family members.
In these we find reference to “shooting anvils” and a medicine show, two topics about which we’ve wondered in the past. What were “shooting anvils,” we asked then, and what kinds of medicine shows came to town? As fo – tale regarding the murder of a peddler, that will follow.
These first two questions arose after we encountered the copy of a term paper written by three area teachers taking a University of Oregon summer school class called “Know Your Community.” They put forth a history of Sweet Home that involved “shooting anvils” at Fourth of July celebrations and the in-town arrival of a medicine show.
“Shooting anvils” was not explained. The teachers reported, on the other hand, of Jud Mealey being badly burned around the head when an anvil went off before he was ready. So we speculated that the act might have involved leaving a trail of gunpowder on an anvil, igniting it and watching it burn with smoke and sparks and sizzles.
We can envision a circle of girls in their calico summer dresses, with Fourth of July red, white and blue ribbons in their hair, and of boys slicked up for the occasion in clean shirts and jeans crowding around while the man at the anvil cautioned, “Get back there, Johnny. You, too, Levi. Don’t get too close, Nancy,” as he prepared to set off the shebang.
After Jud Mealey’s unfortunate accident, knowing that danger was part of the event should have sharpened anticipation. But, yet, what exactly were “shooting anvils”?
From this paper we also learned about a medicine show that made periodic appearances in Sweet Home. Uncle Dutchy and his troupe arrived in town along with summer. Setting up three big tents that could be lit by torches, Uncle Dutchy swallowed swords and vaudeville shows were presented, all in honor of “Uncle Dutchy’s Liniment.”
There’s no report of what the liniment contained. Maybe capsaicin, an extract of cayenne pepper, gave it a comforting burn. The trio of educators did mention other medicine shows that sold soap, sometimes using a hall over Dick Watkin’s store.
What were they like? Rita Mae Morris wrote a recollection of her childhood spent near the Santiam Rive – nd Sweet Home, casting light both on “shooting anvils” and the nature of another medicine show.
This account is found in the Morris family history. This time Henry Slavens, a village blacksmith long experienced with anvils, did the honors. Things don’t seem all that exciting because he put gunpowder under the anvil and set it off, producing a loud bang. Rita Mae doesn’t mention sparks and smoke. Yet, for children who suffered from a fireworks shortage, “shooting anvils” proved exciting and with – considering Jud Mealey’s accident – a definite suggestion of danger – and titillation.
Rita Mae also went to a medicine show held in a hall over a store where soap called “Yocka-Fulla-Mucha” was sold. A woman played the fiddle and sang a “ditty,” which Rita Mae, who had an interest in music, kept in mind. It went, “Boys, keep away from the girls, I say, and give them plenty of room, For when you are wed, they’ll bang you over the head with the bald-headed end of the broom.”
By whipping up much, much, very much lather, the showman demonstrated the potential of “Yocka-Fulla-Mucha.” He proceeded to fling foam around, showing that foaminess was next to cleanliness next to godliness. The same plentitude of suds was never experienced by those who purchased the soap, so reported Rita Mae, to whom we are grateful for giving us further awareness of “shooting anvils” and medicine shows.
As for the unsolved murder, we meet another member of the Morris family, Daniel Boone Morris. This crime was the shooting of a peddler, a tale well-written by Doris Gunderson for the Albany Democrat-Herald in 1959.
It was found among the notes at the museum kept by Margaret Carey and Patricia Hainline when they wrote “Sweet Home in the Oregon Cascades.” Earlier newspaper reports from the time of the crime likely supplied the case’s specific details.
Its main details are as follows: A peddler was murdered on a summery September day in 1894. Although he isn’t named, he was familiar to area residents. His stock consisted primarily of costume jewelry and other trinkets less likely to be found in local general stores, and his success allowed him to afford both a riding horse and a pack horse.
Having had a good summer with successful sales, he was returning home to Portland. After crossing the Cascades on the Santiam toll road, he spent the night in Sweet Home at a guesthouse run by the blacksmith, Henry Slavens, and his mother. Upon leaving early the following morning, the peddler paid his bill with money from a “thickly stuffed” belt in front of bystanders who would estimate at least $1,400 in cash.
His route took him down the Santiam River to Lebanon, which led through the “narrows” where the river’s banks draw close together.
At this spot a spring provided fresh water for travelers and many Sweet Home residents before Highway 20 was built and turned into a four-lane highway. It was here that the peddler was shot.
A man on his way to Foster to set up a store found his body tossed into the brush. One horse remained tied near the spring. The other was missing, having pulled up a young tree by its roots to break free. The peddler’s packs had disappeared.
A six-man coroner’s jury called the case murder, and a local doctor probed for bullets. Only one was found in the body, although the peddler had been shot twice, and there were two bullet holes in his hat. The second bullet was never recovered.
The missing horse turned up in the possession of a man who had hoped to sell it. Because many recognized the animal as the peddler’s, the accidental horse thief was arrested and told he would face long years in prison if he didn’t name the murder’s perpetrator.
He’d found the wandering horse, he insisted, and served several years in jail for trying to sell an animal he knew wasn’t his. No wonder, we might think. Better to go to jail than be hung as an accomplice of the peddler’s murder if he’d provided further details had he known them. The crime was not solved. The peddler’s brothe – rrived from Portland to take the body home.
Now, for Daniel Boone Morris. D.B. – or Dan, as he was called – was born in 1860, Alvin and Polly’s sixth child. He married twice, fathered a child by one wife and two by the next but didn’t stay married to either. Both marriages ended in divorce. His occupations varied and the census listed him as a laborer. It’s possible he roamed the country with a brother
Mason Jones remembered Dan as being on the slippery side. He had dark hair – and walked softly. Mason claimed Dan was rumored to have killed a man. Forrest Morris remembered that story, too, and said it had come up about D.B. shooting a man, but his grandmother (Polly?) said, “No, it wasn’t Dan Morris done the shootin;’ it was Black Harry Wadkins.”
Garry N. Morris, who assembled the history of Alvin, Polly and their kin, tried to track this story down. In 1989 he did find Harry Watkins’ son, Reese, still living in Sweet Home.
From Reese he learned more of the peddler’s unfortunate story. Reese hastened to clarify, too, that the suspected murdere – nd thief was not his father, Red Harry Watkins, but rather Black Harry Wadkins. (Black Harry was so called because of his hair color, as was Red Harry.)
Reese made a definite distinction. The suspect was Black Harry Wadkins with a “d”, not Red Harry Watkins with a “t.”
Dan Morris was merely a suspect, one of several. He lived out his life and died peacefully to be buried in Lebanon where, for a while, he had lived with his brother, Joe. But, here, do we have an answer from this family history of the murder of the peddler? Was it really Black Harry Wadkins, not to be confused with Red Harry Watkins?
Reese’s memories of the peddler’s travels differ from those relayed in the Democratic Herald, but the incident happened before he was born and was a story he heard from family members. He was told that the peddler stopped in Brownsville where he flashed a wad of cash while at a livery stable getting one of the horses shod by a local blacksmith. From there he traveled to Sweet Home and Lebanon and finally to his meeting with fate at the springs in the Narrows. But Reese noted that the peddler was given recognition for the unfortunate loss of his life when the place where it happened was thereafter called “Peddler’s Spring,” a name that lasted fo – while.
So, does the Morris family history give us a solution to a cold case from long ago? Perhaps, but Black Harry Wadkins, whose reputation may have led to the accusations, cannot defend himself, and so we must withhold judgment. We value the family histories entrusted to the museum. They provide glimpses into the past and allow us to become better – acquainted with those early settlers who built this community we call Sweet Home. But we must always keep in mind that details shift and change through remembrances.
We are certainly grateful to Garry Morris for donating the Morris family history, filled as it is with interesting glimpses of the past such as those supplied by Rita Mae Morris and the one regarding Daniel Boone Morris, a mere suspect in a locally well-known crime.
You’ll never know what you find at the East Linn Museum, so be sure to visit. Despite the past year, we are still here and in need, as always, of more volunteers.