1876 and Huldah (Hayes) Bond
By Joanne Skelton
1876 was a year that the United States of America remembered. They celebrated their centennial, looking back at the country’s history since the Declaration of Independence in 1776 at the beginning of their new nation. I can believe that Huldah (Hayes) Bond, my great-great grandmother, would especially remember 1876 and at least four of the events from that year for the remainder of her life.
It was not that forty-eight year old Huldah did not already have many memories when 1876 began. She probably could remember her childhood in Burton Township, Geauga County, Ohio, growing up with three older siblings (Hannah, Lydia and Seth Whipple) and then two younger siblings (Ebenezer and Sybil). I can imagine she was told the story more than once that when she was born in 1827, she was named the same name as her sister Huldah who was born in 1820 and died at age three in 1823. Probably both of them were named for their grandmother Huldah (Fenton) Jewett. Huldah Hayes’ parents, Seth and Lydia (Jewett) Hayes, may also have told her stories of their childhoods in the early days of our country. Seth had been born about 1785 in New York State and Lydia was born in 1793 in western New Hampshire.
By 1837 Seth and family had moved to Hambden, Ohio, and then he sold his land to his mother-in-law, Huldah (Fenton) Jewett, and moved his family to Indiana where their youngest daughter, Priscilla, was born. After only a few months the family moved again, into Illinois and by 1840 they located in Jefferson County, Iowa, near the town of Libertyville.
Iowa provided the memory for Huldah of meeting the Bond family. Apparently it was a good introduction, for on January 6th, 1842, Huldah was married to Solomon Bond by the Justice of the Peace, James Robinson, at Fairfield, the county seat for Jefferson County. Huldah was not quite fifteen years old when she married Solomon, but evidently she made a good choice, for many complimentary words have been written about him. Huldah’s sister Hannah followed in her footsteps and in March of 1842, she married one of Solomon’s older brothers, William Bond. In that same year in October, Solomon’s younger brother, James, married Huldah’s cousin, Laura Jewett.
We can imagine the two sisters sharing the precious memories of new babies born into their families. And I believe that Hannah was there to comfort Huldah when Huldah’s second child, Rebecca, died in March of 1846, just five days over a month old. It was the next year, 1847, that Solomon’s younger brother, James, with his family, traveled over the Oregon Trail to serve as a Baptist missionary recruit in the Oregon Country. How sad it must have been when the family received the news that James had been accidentally shot and killed in February of 1849 way out there in Oregon Territory.
It was three years later in 1852 that two of Solomon’s sisters, Susan and Ann, went with their husbands and families over the Oregon Trail to settle in the Oregon Territory. What kind of letters did they write back to Huldah and the other family members living there is Iowa? Whatever they said, it was the next year, 1853, that Solomon and Huldah, along with both sets of their parents and all of their remaining siblings and their families decided to travel overland to Oregon. By this time, Huldah and Solomon had three daughters, Lydia, Mary and Susan, and one son, William, to join them on their trek.
This was a once in lifetime event for Huldah to remember. The trip was long and difficult as they left Iowa in mid-April and had arrived in the Blue Mountains of the Oregon Territory by August 24th, when a new baby girl was born to Huldah’s sister Hannah. The wagon stayed an extra day at that camping place, but continued on the next day. On August 28th, at the Umatilla Agency, in what is now eastern Oregon, the clerk there recorded Huldah as “w” [wife] of S. Bond. The memories of this trip would forever include Hannah’s death on September 15th, on Summit Prairie as they were traveling on the Barlow Road over Mt. Hood, on the last stages of their journey. The next day, September 16th, Hannah was buried there before they traveled to “Loral Hill” to camp. It was just one week later that Solomon’s brother George recorded in his journal that he had arrived at Oregon City. Now they were in the Willamette Valley.
I suspect that Huldah felt a great sense of relief a little over a year later in October 1854, when Solomon finally chose the land in the mid-Willamette Valley where they would have their 320 acre Donation Land Claim, next to her siblings and parents claims. For that was where their second son, John Howard Bond, would be born six months later in April of 1855. Then Priscilla was born in December of 1857 and Charles in April of 1860. It was at almost the same time in 1860 that Huldah’s father, Seth Hayes, died. It is believed that Seth was buried in the Rust or Smith Cemetery, now also called the Halsey Pioneer Cemetery. There was no town of Halsey yet at that time. One more child was born to Huldah and Solomon, Austin in 1862, before Huldah’s mother Lydia died in 1864. But also during that time period Huldah’s oldest daughter, Lydia was married to Owen Clark in August of 1861. It appears that Huldah‘s first grandchild, Amy Clark, was born in February 1865.
The next ten years included many births and marriages in their family. Huldah and Solomon had two more sons, Harvey born in June 1867 and Melvin in August 1869. Mary, William and Susan were all married during this time and by the end of 1875 Huldah was “grandma” to eight children. But there also had been a death in the family, as Huldah’s youngest sister, Priscilla, had died in May of 1874.
There were historical events which Huldah had in her memory bank also. Even though they lived across the country, they would have known about the fighting of the Civil War in the 1860s. Eventually the word about the assassination of President Lincoln reached their part of Oregon. The History of Halsey relates that one of Huldah’s nieces at age six “saw her uncle, Ebenezer Hayes, running down the road towards their home. With tears streaming from his eyes, he told them of the president’s death.”
The area where Huldah and Solomon lived saw a big change in 1871 when the Oregon and California Railroad was built at the edge of their property. A new town was established on her brothers’ land. This was Halsey. The Halsey book relates a number of facts about Halsey in 1875. With a population of about 250 people there were two churches, a school, five warehouses, a hotel, three dry goods houses and at least six more businesses.
The first event of 1876 surely was a happy one, when John, the first of the children born in Oregon, was married to Mary Ann O’Neal on June 18th. The wedding took place to Mary Ann’s home, about four miles west of Creswell. Creswell was established in 1873 after the railroad was built there in 1872. It was 38 miles from Halsey to Creswell by rail, so it’s possible they could have traveled by train to attend the wedding.
The second event for 1876 that Huldah would remember was not so happy. Huldah’s youngest daughter, Priscilla, died on August 4th, at age 18. She was buried at the “Halsey Pioneer Cemetery” about two miles southwest of Halsey, where her grandparents had been buried. No record has been found for the cause of death, but perhaps she was one of the victims of the “widespread diphtheria epidemic of 1876.” It was written in the Halsey history that pioneer doctors S. A. Smith of Halsey and Waltz of Brownsville had battled the disease.
The third event not only affected Huldah, but it affected the entire community of Halsey as well. Huldah’s brother, Seth Whipple Hayes, a prominent citizen in Halsey, was murdered on November 1st. Accounts of this event were written in various newspapers. The Albany Register for Friday, November 3 wrote: A PROMINENT CITIZEN KILLED:--On Wednesday afternoon Mr. S. W. Hayes, an old and prominent citizen of Halsey, in this county, was killed by a man named Neal, a saloon Keeper of Halsey. The facts of the case, as we get them, are these: Mr. Hayes…was boring a well in the vicinity of the saloon kept by Neal. A few words passed between the parties when Neal stepped up to where the deceased was at work, and inquired: ‘Did you say I kept a low down Doggery?’ and upon receiving an affirmative answer, Neal drew a knife and stabbed the deceased three times, the wounds causing death in five or six hours afterward. Neal then secured a horse owned by his barkeeper and fled, but was overtaken, brought back to Halsey and Sheriff Herren sent for. The citizens of Halsey were greatly exasperated, and it was with difficulty they were restrained from lynching him…..Deceased was one of the leading men in Halsey, a man of considerable property, quiet, law abiding and peaceable, and was universally respected in the community.
The Willamette Register had an article the next week, Friday, November 10, telling about his funeral. It said: Mr. Seth W. Hayes…was buried last Friday at the cemetery about two miles above that place on the Harrisburg Road. The deceased was buried by the patrons of Husbandry of which order he was an exemplary member. The procession was the largest ever seen in that part of the country and numbered over forty wagons and hacks all well filled, besides a great number of people on horseback. Mr. Hayes was one of the wealthiest and most upright and honorable citizens of that part of the country, and general feeling of sorrow pervades the entire community in which he lived.
This should have been enough tragic events for Huldah that year, but there was still one more to come in December. Huldah’s daughter, Mary Louisa (Bond) Cummings, died on December 6th, 1876, at age 27, leaving a husband and three children. Apparently her death was related to childbirth since family records show unnamed twins who died as infants as her last children. Mary was buried at Pine Grove Cemetery, located about five miles west of Halsey. The records there show four infants also buried in her plot.
Huldah had over twenty-five years to remember these events of 1876 before her own death in 1903. We don’t know if having experienced them helped her cope with another daughter’s death in 1886 or her husband’s death in 1900 or not. But I am confident that the experiences and memories, especially from 1876, shaped Huldah’s life and helped to make her who she was.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
California State Railroad Museum and Pacific Coast Chapter Railway & Locomotive Historical Society. Shasta Route. North Highland, CA: History West, 1981.
Carey, Margaret Standish and Patricia Hoy Hainline. Halsey Linn County’s Centennial City. Brownsville, OR: Calapooia Publications, 1977.
Knofler, Pamela L. and Richard R. Milligan, compilers. Pine Grove Cemetery T-13S R-4W Section 32 Linn County, Oregon. Albany, OR: Linn-Benton Business & Genealogical Services, no date.
Miles, John and Richard R. Milligan, compilers. Linn County, Oregon Pioneer Settlers to 1855, Volume 13. Albany, OR: Linn-Benton Genealogical Services, 1991.
Miles, John and Richard R. Milligan, compilers. Linn County, Oregon Pioneer Settlers to 1855,
Volume 14. Albany, OR: Linn-Benton Genealogical Services, 1991.
Unknown author. George Hayes of Simsbury and Westfield. His Family and Their Descendants. No publication information, after 1982.
THIS ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN "TREES FROM THE GROVE", QUARTERLY PUBLICATION OF THE COTTAGE GROVE GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY, VOL. XVIII, NO. 3, JUL-SEP 2005
Copyright 2005 Joanne Skelton