I was looking up our State Symbols the other day to find out what our State Pox is. We have a State Microbe (brewer’s yeast). We have a State Father (John McLoughlin). We do not have a State Pox yet. But it’s just a matter of time.
What I did not know is that we also have a State Mother. Her name was Tabitha Moffatt Brown. She was born in 1780, making her four years older than our State Father, but those things happen occasionally. They had a lot of work to do getting the Oregon ball rolling, because there was hardly anyone in the region at the time, other than all the Paiute, Chinook, Santiam, Umatilla, Tillamook, Coquille, Umpqua, Siuslaw, and so on and so forth, who have generously bequeathed their names to a number of cities and at least two good ice cream brands.
Tabitha was a ball of fire though. She married and had four children, who were not little Oregonians at the time. The names she chose for them indicated her degree of education. Orus was Greek for “first-born;” Manthano was Greek for “learning;” Pherne, the fourth child and only daughter, was Greek for “wife’s gift to her husband.” John, the third child, was pretty much a throwaway name and sure enough he died at age six.
When Tabitha was widowed, she and the kids moved in with George and Martha Washington for a while, as one does, before finding a home in Maryland. At that point her brother-in-law John Brown (not the mouldering one) retired as a sea captain and moved in with the family. That is what old men do: they find some woman to take care of them because maybe they were hot stuff on the open seas but they never learned the basic skills themselves.
Later she moved to Missouri, where Tabitha opened a school and supported the whole family teaching for twenty years. No evidence John Brown did anything but show up for meals and scratch himself. I’m reading between the lines here, but I’ve seen it before.
Later, in 1843, oldest child Orus up and left his second wife and seven children to fend for themselves while he hove off to Oregon to see the sights. He hung out for a couple years getting it out of his system and then returned for his family. He talked his sister Pherne and her husband Virgil Pringle into coming along, and in 1846 they joined a caravan and hit the Oregon Trail. Just Orus and his brood and his oxen and a bunch of Pringles. The plan was to leave their mother Tabitha behind.
Ha and ha! I don’t think so! Tabitha signed up with a wagon and tagged right along. They were all the way to Wyoming before Orus was finally able to pull ahead with his wagon train and kept going on the traditional Columbia River route. Tabitha and all the Pringles, now separated from Orus, got talked into heading south and ended up on an even more dreadful new route. It was one thing after another, mountain ranges and icy stream crossings and the landscape filling up with dead oxen and broken wagons and starving, morose emigrants. Tabitha Brown, who was (incidentally) 66 years old at the time, displayed great stoutness of spirit and faith in Providence although it should be noted that a whole slew of similarly faithful and stoical people fell by the wayside.
At one point all Tabitha had left was her original horse. The cattle were in bad shape and her daughter Pherne took that opportunity to stay behind and nurse them back to working condition, and told her mother she should go on ahead. So Tabitha took her horse and a bit of bacon and set off, but not by herself, oh no—good old John Brown, who was 77 years old, came with her. John, the Brother-in-law of Oregon, was a bunch of help. He kept falling off his horse and she kept levering him back on. She was trying to catch up to another wagon train but when it started raining she couldn’t see the tracks any longer, and decided to pack it up for the night. John Brown promptly gave a groan and fell off his horse, insensate. She covered him up and prayed all night but the old fart revived by morning anyway.
Meanwhile, Orus, who had made it to Oregon City fully three months earlier, well before winter, heard there were emigrants in trouble and came down valley with pack horses and provisions and darned if his Mom wasn’t there! Imagine his surprise!
Tabitha Moffatt Brown went on to found another school which eventually became Pacific University. In 1987, the Oregon legislature declared her the Mother of Oregon because she “represents the distinctive pioneer heritage, and the charitable and compassionate nature, of Oregon’s people.” Which was true enough, as long as we leave out how she felt about the tribes.
John McLoughlin, the Father of Oregon, on the other hand, was kind of an asshole.
If history teachers would have relayed history the way you just did, I would have paid more attention in history class. Well done, Murr!
It’s one of my worst subjects. I only know what I bastardize from Wikipedia.
I am a big fan of the Tillamook and their traditional tribal strawberry ice cream.
Although the Umpqua can give them a run for the butter pecan money.
As a historian, you have outdone yourself here. Bravo!
I read between the lines. Florida erases the lines.
I do know a bit of Oregon history, the first Mulligan into Oregon got here in 1847 also, perhaps they were on the same group of illegal immigrants…he settled in the area that he and another fellow, Eugene Skinner, had a coin toss and Eugene won, hence the name of the town.
Tabitha was a bit headstrong for Charnel Mulligan, so he married a Spores instead, and begat Jacob and some others, who begat others, then my dad, so on and so forth.
Spores will do that!
https://jtenlen.drizzlehosting.com/ORBios/jcspores.html
Read the whole thing! I love this stuff.
We read a book in highschool titled “Children on the Oregon Trail” and from then until now that was all I knew about the settlers crossing the wilds and reaching Oregon. In the book the parents die along the way so the oldest boy gathers up his siblings including a newborn and they take off on foot with just their old cow and what they can wear. The rest of the wagon train wanted to turn back apparently.
And these days we’re afraid to go across town to the store without our phones.
What Mimi said!
I recently read a book by Rinker Buck and his journey on the trail w mules and his brother and his brother’s dog. Tough go. I would have died with the cows.
Re – Rinker Buck — Have you read “Flight of Passage” — how he and his brother built and flew a Piper Cub across the country? I loved that book.
Excellent read!
This story got me thinking of an old folk song that I learned in Scouts, or somewhere along the way. She went to California, but…had adventures like Tabitha Brown. It has about 50 verses, but here’s the first, and the only one I remember:
Now don’t you remember sweet Betsy from Pike,
Who crossed the wide prairie with her husband Ike,
With two yoke of cattle and a big yeller dog,
A tall Shanghai rooster and a one-spotted hog.
Singing too-ra-li-oo-ra-li-oo-ra-li-ay
Oh I’ve heard that one since I was a kid. Probably on a Burl Ives 78…
Did Burl Ives’ recording include “…and showed her bare arse to the whole wagon train”? I can’t recall.
Seems to me you CAN recall.
I can dredge up another verse:
The [rooster?] got sick and the cattle all died
The last piece of bacon that morning was fried
Ike got discouraged and Betsy got mad
The dog wagged his tail and looked wonderfully sad
“No evidence John Brown did anything but show up for meals and scratch himself.”
I didn’t know scratching yourself, if you’re the owner of testicles, is a pretty important life skill without which you cannot be president. In the news last week, a North Carolina Republican voter told NBC news that a woman should not be president of the United States because “she got no balls to scratch.”
And that’s a really good example of why we should be teaching Logic and History (not to mention some Financial Literacy) in s hool.
I would strenuously disagree a woman gots no balls to scratch. A woman could start with HIS, for instance. Scratch ’em good.
school
The original Oregon Trail game – back when computers were new – enthralled 4th grade students. All the disasters and deaths. Then it got turned into a card game- the grand kids were miffed when they died of dysentery on the second round. Then it got turned into a car tour ( critical stops for coffee noted along the route) Now it’s second iteration as a play is being staged here inPDX. I’ve read it’s a spoof. Always a favorite! I hope they add Tabitha
I do not know this game. The entire Oregon Trail story has always been too bleak for me to spend much time with.