Brownsville Bad Boy of 1895 Points to Thinness on Panic of 1893: Peter Boag's Pioneering Death

The hook for Pioneering Death: The Violence of Boyhood in Turn-of-the-Century Oregon, historian Peter Boag's brand new book, is a sensational murder near Brownsville, Oregon in 1895.

Loyd Montomery had shot his parents and a neighbor. It made the Salem papers with regular front-page headlines between November of 1895 and January of 1896.

Nov 20th, 1895 and Jan. 31st, 1896

But the book is much, much more than a "true crime" history. The crime is an occasion for a close reading of Willamette Valley society, economy, and history in several dimensions. Sometimes Montgomery and his crime fade into the background. The main subject of the book is really the context, a layered crisis with micro and macro dimensions, "violence in turn of the century Oregon." In that sense the murder story is turned inside out a little.

Much was collapsing in on John and Elizabeth Montgomery in the 1890s. The political party they had long supported was foundering. John was unable to pay his poll tax on occasion, rendering him unable even to participate in elections from time to time. In addition to facing a depression of enormous dimensions that raged across the countryside, the Montgomerys' personal wealth had diminished to an all-time low....John had hardly lived up to the republican farmer ideal - the yeoman who succeeded in his own endeavors, who became an independent agrarian on his own property and his own merits, and who properly supported his own dependents. In fact, John was himself dependent on a shirttail relative for a roof over his family's head, on a nearby businessman for food on his family's table, and on two of his minor sons to do much of the labor to pay his rent and support his family.

Boag offers readings of several stories over two decades in Willamette Farmer, and also mines the 1878 Historical Atlas Map of Marion & Linn Counties for key details. Governor Lord, father of Elizabeth, makes an appearance as he refuses a request for clemency. George Piper, brother of Edgar Piper, whom we met as the son-in-law to Leo Willis, appears in the interval between sentencing and execution. Salem is not a main player, but Salem connections and Salem things have several bit roles in the book.

via The Mill

Boys: March 19th, 1875 and
January 27th, 1882

Following readings of sentimental notions about boyhood in Willamette Farmer, Boag looks at the problem of "bad boys" and the solution proposed in the Reform School, where the Mill Creek Correctional Facility was most recently (see notes on the Rector and Herren DLCs and its offer for sale here).

January 1st, 1894

And Boag traces the shift in the press from seeing Loyd Montgomery as an immature boy to charging him for murder and being on trial as a man, images that sometimes varied as the rhetorical aim and context required.

Most interesting here are the readings of the Panic of 1893 and of the development of the Pioneer Myth.

Economic History

The Montgomerys sharecropped a hops farm, and the collapse of hops prices in the 1890s is an important detail. Boag notes the price per pound for hops contracts started the decade a little over 30 cents, and by mid-decade was down to 6 or 7 cents. That's a loss of over 75% of value in five years or less.

At least in popular history here, the depression of the 1890s is largely ignored. The historical digest at Shineonesalem for the years 1893 through 1896 does not dwell on it, and mentions it only as a national problem. The Nomination for the Downtown Historic District mentions it in passing twice only. A search of the Mill's site, willametteheritage.org, which now includes some or all of the former salemhistory.net, turns up only a handful of references in passing. As a void and empty lot, our old City Hall testifies a little to the depression. In his recent book about architect Walter D. Pugh Terence Emmons notes,"It is remarkable that the planning and execution of the city hall project coincided almost exactly with the four-year depression set off by the Panic of 1893."

Deepwood, September 19th, 1893

Our great icon for 1894, Deepwood, is by contrast an image of prosperity. Our public history neglects the economic crisis as it was particularly felt here.

The Panic of 1893 was often front page news. Though the railroad side may have got less press, by the time the Denver bank run occurred it got big headlines.

July 18th, 1893

The depression continued to reverberate, and right around the time of the murders, two years later in November of 1895, two Salem financial institutions closed.

Nov. 14th, 1895

There is no discussion in our public history of the Williams & England Bank. It was smaller bank, it's true. A source from 1893 suggests it was half the size of the Capital National Bank, and a much later source suggests Ladd & Bush was about 5 times as large as the Capital National Bank. So we'll swag Williams & England as about 1/10th the size of Ladd & Bush. Asahel Bush personally is listed as a creditor and brought suit against the bank. 

But even as a smaller bank, its difficulties were not without consequence. The State Insurance Company, the remnants of whose building are this month being demolished and which banked with Williams & England, also had to close.

Nov. 15th, 1895

There may be other local closures and bankruptcies also. The panic and then depression really deserve more attention. There may be academic papers out there that discuss the period in Salem, but at the level of our public history, the Panic of 1893 and its sequel are hardly discussed.

January 29th, 1896

April 24th, 1891

Through the extended metaphor of building the gallows with lumber from Mill City, Boag also offers a fascinating reading of early lumbering and its place in the local and global economy. He links to the likely source of rope, the Portland Cordage Company - whose building, to go back to hops, had been the site of a first generation microbrewery, Bridgeport - and talks about international trade with the Philippines.

Pioneer Myth

Here, Boag's chapter on the ending of the first generation of Pioneers is of special interest.

The veneration of dying pioneers such as the Montgomerys' forebears [such as Hugh Brown, founder of Brownsville, in 1888] coincided with the romanticizing of rural and agrarian life and the anxiety about, as well as the reality of, the forbidding fate of farmers during the depression of that period.

On the development of the Pioneer Idea and Myth, Boag zooms out, attending to the creation of the Oregon Pioneer Association in 1873 and with an extended visit to 1922, a 50th meeting.

Oregonian, June 11th and 16th, 1922

In the 1922 Brownsville celebration, Boag highlights what the Oregonian called the "sham battle between the 'pioneers' and 'Indians'" as a particular expression of the settlers triumph over and ejection of Native people. Boag adds the detail that the battle was not generic, but was specifically a reenactment of the Battle of Big Meadows in the Rogue River War of 1855-56. Note Walter Pierce, not yet elected Governor, there at the picnic, also.

Boag ends the chapter with notes on the 1919 and 1932 statues in Eugene of The Pioneer and Pioneer Mother, which we've discussed here. (See also Alexander Phimister Proctor's visit to Salem in 1922.)

A question for the book, then, is that here it has seemed that the 1920s, coincident and much more than coincidence with the Second Klan, were really the great period of consolidation, even invention, for the Pioneer Myth. The activity in the 1890s seems less distinctive, and the fact that the book really zooms out here may be indirect evidence in support of that. Even so, it signals another theme to be alert to in reading the 1890s.

I found the book wonderfully generative, suggesting new angles and leads on local history. It's not, it should be said again, primarily a narrative history of "true crime." The book starts and ends with that story, but the chapters in between are almost more like literary criticism, close readings of images, texts, and cultural artifacts on boyhood and bad boys, on area farming and the Panic of 1893, and on the violence typical of the era.

We think more often of the "gay nineties," and Pioneering Death is a strong corrective.

Salem Library does not yet have a copy, and a book like this should be in the Hugh Morrow Collection.

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Some previous posts here that may need to be revisited with more attention to the depression and the Salem elite's ability to evade the worst of it:

• Myra Albert, daughter of a banker, married Fred Wiggins in 1894, "Show on Photo-Secessionist Myra Albert Wiggins Opens this Weekend." (2015)
• Jessie Dalrymple married Joseph Albert, brother of Myra, in 1895, "From Jessie Dalrymple to Mrs. Joseph H. Albert: A Cycle in Bicycling." (2022)
• "Oswald West Bikes to Depot, Apprehends Forger" in 1895. (2019)
• And after the worst of it, "Fiasco of 1897 Legislature: Eldridge Block Den of Prostitution and Evil!" (2018)