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Pamplin Media Group April 2024 11
Local region has surprising ties to U . S . presidents
By DAVE MAUK Charbonneau Country Club
Over the years and despite the distance from Washington , D . C ., our area is surprisingly connected to the actions of 10 U . S . presidents . Go ahead and count them as they show up !
On June 15 , 1846 , then U . S . Secretary of State and future President James Buchanan signed the Oregon Treaty . It ended the joint occupation of the territory with the British , guaranteed open navigation of the Columbia River and established the 49th parallel as the northern boundary of what would become the Oregon Territory .
Oregon ’ s first territorial governor and one of the state ’ s initial two U . S . senators was Joseph Lane , who served under future President Zachery Taylor in the Mexican- American War . Lane was appointed territorial governor by President James Polk in 1848 , though not seated until 1849 .
In 1849 newly inaugurated President Zachery Taylor asked a prominent legislator to fill that same position as territorial governor . The legislator did not accept the offer as he had other plans . His name was Abraham Lincoln , who went on to become the 16th U . S . president .
In 1852 , four years after the end of the Mexican-American War , future President Ulysses S . Grant spent a year stationed at Fort Vancouver , Oregon Territory , before it became Washington Territory in 1853 . He returned in 1879 , after his presidency ended .
George Law Curry , who lived at Hazelglade in what ’ s now Charbonneau , was appointed by President Franklin Pierce as Oregon ’ s final territorial governor , a post he held from 1854 until Oregon ’ s statehood in 1859 . An interesting aspect of this was that the capital resided where he lived , at Hazelglade and Oregon City .
During the depression in 1937 , a ‘ grand champion ’ turkey from the Hazelglade farm of Frederick and Margaret Wagner , was sent to the White House for the Thanksgiving table of President Franklin Roosevelt . That turkey might well have been hatched from an egg incubated at the same well house that still stands on French Prairie Road in Charbonneau .
One-time Charbonneau resident Edith Green was the second Oregonian woman elected to the U . S . House of Representatives , serving 20 years from 1955-1974 . At the 1960 convention she seconded the nomination of John F . Kennedy that launched him to the presidency . She was also his host at the Oregon State Fair in Salem on Sept . 8 of that year .
Edith Green resided in Charbonneau when President Gerald Ford visited her at home in the mid-1970s , and when President Ronald Reagan appointed her to the President ’ s Commission on White House Fellowships in the early 1980s .
You may have noticed something ’ s missing . We saved one more presidential connection that ’ s one of American history ’ s most noteworthy events , as well as deeply connected with Charbonneau . In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson commissioned the Corps of Discovery , otherwise known as the Lewis and Clark Expedition . The westward journey started May , 1804 , crossing the Continental Divide , navigating the Columbia River past present day Portland , and reaching the Pacific Ocean in November 1805 . Toussaint Charbonneau , his Shoshone wife Sacajawea , and their newborn son Jean- Baptiste joined the expedition on April 7 , 1805 . Their winter settlement was at Fort Clatsop near present day Astoria , before they started the eastward return journey in March , 1806 .
However unlikely it may be , it ’ s a fun takeaway in learning more about our local history , that this obscure corner of the country has intersected the paths of so many U . S . presidents .
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