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1840s
September 1841 An exploration headed by Commodore Charles Wilkes, and 39 others including a number of women and children camp on the banks of the Rogue River and pass safely through the valley.
December 12 1843 General J.C. Fremont and his guide, Kit Carson, pass within sight of Mt. Scott.
July 19 1845 From Woodsfield newspaper The Spirit of Democracy 19 Jul 1845
Anti-Slavery Convention in Woodsfield 8th and 9th of August
Committee on Arrangements: William Steel, Nathan Hollister, Benjamin Hughes, Henry Ford, James Smith.
September 1846 The Applegate Wagon Train, using the newly surveyed “Southern Route” or “Applegate Trail”, crosses the Siskiyous and roll through the Rogue Valley. The first wagon train to do so.
1846 Mt. Scott, highest peak in Crater Lake National Park, is named after Captain Levi Scott, a member of the Oregon Constitutional Convention. Scott was with Jesse and Lindsay Applegate during their initial exploration of Southern Oregon and northern California in 1846.
From Park Historian, Steven Mark, April 9, 2018 when asked who named Mt. Scott. I’m assuming you’ve seen the Oregon Geographic Names entry by one of the McArthurs, presumably the elder, who does not identify the person naming Mt. Scott. There is mention, however, in a biography of Scott (Levi Scott: Oregon Trailblazer by Vira E. Cordano, page 150) of a road party associated with the Applegates that crossed the mountains to Klamath Lake, then proceeded toward Tule Lake, naming it. The book (published by Binford and Mort in Portland, 1982) lacks source citations, having only a bibliography and list of manuscripts, but it is very likely that Scott saw the peak named for him. Cordano doesn’t attribute who named landscape features, only that the party agreed to the name proposed in the case of Tule Lake. The name “Mount Scott” or “Scott Peak” was supposedly bestowed in 1846, though this not for certain, only implied.
1846 Mt. Thielsen, located 20 miles north of Crater Lake, is named by John Hurlburt for Hans Thielsen, an early explorer from Denmark.
May 6 1846 General Fremont once again visits Klamath Lake and an Indian attack is provoked. Fremont’s exploratory party is attacked by Indians while camped near the lake. Four whites are killed.
Kit Carson, along with 15 men, make a retaliatory raid on an Indian Village near the lake, burning it to the ground. In Fremont’s reports of his explorations there is a story of a “great sunken hole” or “hole in the ground”. There is little evidence to connect this entry with Crater Lake.
1846/1847 William Steel, father of William Gladstone Steel loans John Curtis, a black slave, the money to buy his freedom and Steel makes arrangements to complete the deal with Curtis’ slave owner. The incident, along with many other acts of kindness to Blacks, including the operation of a station for the Underground Railroad, are still remembered in Stafford, Ohio to this day. (Story from John Curtis’ g.g. grandfather, Henry Robert Burke519 Adams Street Marietta, OH 45750. Collected 2007 and related to the author.)
August 1848 President Polk establishes the Oregon Territory, which includes Washington.
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