Thursday 25 June 2009

Wednesday 24th June 2009 – Breathing a Bit of Life into History

" … said Glasgow is situated on lots two and three of section 2 and on the North-West quarter of the North-East quarter of Section 2, all being in Township 25, south of Range 13 west of the Willamette Meridian in the County of Coos, State of Oregon.  The Initial Point thereof is shown on said Plat.  Said Initial Point is the quarter-section corner between section two in said township 25 South of Range 13 West of the Willamette Meridian and section 35 of Township 24 South of Range 13 West of the Willamette Meridian." ('Township' in this context is a survey term referring to a six-mile square piece of land.  A Section is one square mile within it.  So a section is, as you all know, 640 acres.  It was often apportioned in quarters, and quarter-quarters.  A quarter-quarter is, of course, 40 acres, which is why the phrases 'lower 40' and 'back 40' are so common in American country songs and stories.)

Oh, and plat is just the Anglo-Saxon pronunciation of plot.  The plat is just a map identifying all the lots of land.

 

My historian friends had exhorted me to go to Coquille, the county seat, and ask at the county courthouse to see the original plats.  And I did.  And I have: I've actually held the original 1890s plat of Glasgow, which would have been held by the very people who called it Glasgow.  Johnathan Bourne, Jr., the President, and George F. Holman, the Secretary of the Glasgow Townsite Company, submitted the plat to the county surveyor, not only on the 11th June 1890, but at 10am on the 11th June 1890.  [Those of you preparing a PhD thesis on my trip will remember that Glasgow got a mention in the 11th June 1890 edition of the Coast Mail]

So, unfortunately, if you think about it, the name already existed at that point.  The Glasgow Townsite Company has already been incorporated, bought (presumably) the land and had it platted.  In, it would seem, Portland, referred to as Multnomah County.

 

Having had all that excitement, I went off to the coast, to a rather nice State Park called Shore Acres (used to be a posh house, with a formal garden, a posh house with a somewhat scandalous reputation locally; the posh house got burned down, so now it's just a garden) and sat on the beach and read my book for a couple of hours.

Driving back up the coast, I suddenly had a thought: do you think this might have been the seventh 'township' company these land speculators set up?  Is it possible it is called 'Glasgow' just because that begins with 'G'?  After all, the President and Secretary don't have particularly Scottish names, do they?

No comments: