Bits on the History of the Reed Opera House, Spiritualism, and Squatting

One hundred years ago there was a fairly detailed history of the chain of title on the Reed Opera House. It's not the legal description of course, but it must be pretty close. It is interesting as it skates a little over the way the original claim to the land was constituted and the claim's legitimacy. The shifting name for the building is also interesting, and it was not always known as the Reed Opera House.

December 29th, 1922

The piece:

McCormick Block Sold 12 Times Since Patent Issued In Early Days

When the Jason Lee missionaries decided that the land on Mission Bottom was not exactly the right place to build a city, they authorized William H. Willson to enter on 615 acres of land, now the center of Salem, with the understanding that as soon as title was secured, he should lay out a city and sell lots to the early settlers for a small commission.

In November of 1884 [1844?] Willson made formal entry of the 615 acres extending from Mission street on the south to a short distance beyond Division street on the north. When the patent was issued by Abraham Lincoln in 1862, the north half of the tract was patented to Chloe A. Willson and the south half to William H. Willson, following the custom of those days where a section of land was entered by man and wife.

The block on which the McCornack building, hereafter to be known as the Steeves-Moore building, is located is known on the official city plat as block No. 33, extending from Court to State and Commercial and to Liberty street.

On December 10, 1855, this block, along with other property was sold by William H. Willson to Thomas Powell for $1000. Two years later Powell sold the lot on which the south half of the Steeves-Moore building is located for $200. In 1863 the lot on which the building now occupied by Worth & Gray now stands, was sold for $2000. Having purchased the entire block and other property for $1000 Thomas Powell told the corner lot in 1857 to Mortiz Brey for $200. Brey held the lot until 1864 when he sold it to George A. Edes for $300 and three weeks afterwards Edes sold the lot to John L. Starley for $450. Starley held the lot three years and then on May 13, 1867, sold It for $1500 to George W. Gray. Business lots in Salem had advanced 300 per cent in value in the three years.

Gray held the lot about a year and a half and on December 1, 1868, sold the corner to Lucinda Reed for $3500. During the year a building was erected on the lot an on December 2, 1869, it was sold to the Opera Building company for $30,000.

In 1871, the Opera Building company sold the property to John H. Moore. George H. Jones and Stephen Coffin for a consideration of $30,000. The building was then known as the Reed opera house and was the center of all social activities In the early '70s.

Stephen Coffin sold his one third Interest to Cyrus A. Reed in 1876 for $12,800. In 1880, William Reid secured an interest and in 1883, Cyrus A. Reed and Leo Willis became the principal owners of the building that occupied all the corner lot of the block and the north half of the lot adjoining to the south.

M. L. Chamberlain purchased an Interest in the building in 1884 and a short time later sold it to E. P. McCornack. C. A. Reed also in 1892 sold his interest to Mr. McCornack and In the same year Leo Willis and Eugene Willis sold out to Mr. McCornack.

Mr. McCornack died in 1895. His will, dated January 25, 1895, gave the property to his nieces and nephews, and In the settlement of the estate, eight of the twenty-five nieces and nephews, who benefitted by the will, accepted interest in the building.

The history had been occasioned by the sale of the property a week earlier.

December 23rd, 1922

A decade later there is a bit that is tantalizing, but which must remain an unverified rumor for the moment: Spirits told Cyrus A. Reed to build!

December 30th, 1931

Sharing an old-timer recollection in 1931 from Joseph A. Baker, the Bitsman related

C. A. Reed was a leading spiritualist. The shades of the departed had more authority and influence in the early days of that movement than now. Reed was instructed by the spirit of a friend or relative "on the other side" to build an opera house.

Specifically it would good to find out more about this! But generally it is plausible, as Reed was indeed a spiritualist, and Lucy Rose Mallory later started her spiritualist newspaper there. The Reed was a base for spiritualism in Salem in the 1870s and 80s.

See previously:

• "Cyrus Reed of Reed Opera House was also a Spiritualist" (2020)
• "Lucy Rose Mallory: Publisher, Feminist, and Spiritualist" (2020)
• And not a spiritualist, but referenced in the history, on Leo Willis: "The Rebel who Owned the Opera House, Chaired the School Board, and was Willamette Trustee" (2020)
  

Back to Baker for a moment, it is interesting to note that his own family history involves problematic claims to land.

December 17th, 1932

From Joseph Baker's obituary in 1932:

[Father of Joseph, Isaac Baker] joined the California gold rush in 1848. He was back in 1849. and bought a squatter's right to a section of land on what is now the Garden road [now Market Street], with his house just east of Kay park [now Englewood Park] in the Salem of the present day....When be entered school there were 17 houses in the struggling settlement that became Salem, and was called by that name after the first town site plattings were filed in 1850.

Land claim difficulties in California, where his father had on acreage while in the mines, prevented the coming true of the dreams of young Joseph about becoming a doctor.

You might recall a 2017 article in OHQ on squatting.

Fall 2017 Oregon Historical Quarterly

It's now a book!

Dangerous Ground

From the publisher:

With one eye on Washington and the other on flashpoints across the West, Dangerous Ground tracks squatters from the Mississippi Valley and cotton lands of Texas, to Oregon, Gold Rush-era California, and, finally, Bleeding Kansas. The sweeping narrative reveals how claiming western domains became stubbornly intertwined with partisan politics and fights over the extension of slavery. While previous generations of statesmen had maligned and sought to contain illegal settlers, Democrats celebrated squatters as pioneering yeomen and encouraged their land grabs through preemption laws, Indian removal, and hawkish diplomacy.