The Senior Highlights
newsletter of the Mid Columbia Community Action Council, Inc., The Dalles, OR.
Part I from the June 1993 issue
Part II from the July 1993 issue

REMEMBER WHEN…..

O.D. TAYLOR and GRAND DALLES, WASHINGTON
By William Scofield

Part I

Editor's Note: Professor William Scofield, Yakima Community College, wrote this most interesting account of Rev. O.D. Taylor and his shoe factory, built at Grand Dalles (Dallesport) in 1890. We appreciate Professor Scofield's permission to print his article in SENIOR HIGHLIGHTS. Following is Part I of this two part story, Part II will follow in next month's issue of SENIOR HIGHLIGHTS).

     The Rev. Orson Daton Taylor arrived at The Dalles with his family in December 1881 from Orange, New Jersey, to assure his duties as Pastor of the First Baptist Church of The Dalles. How soon Taylor became involved in commercial ventures is unclear, but by 1883 he was selling considerable amount of real estate in The Dalles. In August 1886 Taylor, his wife Sarah, Donald Ross (a Portland Baptist minister) and Ross's wife Catherine bought on credit 800 acres of land adjacent to the Tumwater fishery on the North side of the Columbia River near the present Horse Thief Lake state park. Taylor and Ross also operated the Tumwater Fishing company until Taylor bought his partner's interest in 1889.
     As early as 1887, Taylor's aggressive business methods had led to disputes with Indians fishing at Tumwater in accordance with provisions contained in treaties made with the United States government in 1855. An assistant Indian Agent was appointed by the Indian Bureau to assist the Indians, and special agents were sent to the scene several times to investigate and settle the problems, but allegations that fishermen were assaulting the Indians continued to be made. An attempt was made by Nathan Wheeldon, Taylor's fishery foremen, to "jump" the land claim of John Selatsee, an Indian. This effort failed, but Taylor persisted in putting up fences to keep the Indians from reaching their fishing sites.
     As a result of these activities, in the spring of 1890 Taylor was charged with contempt of court for allegedly violating an injunction issued in 1887 by a Washington Territorial court to protect Indian fishing rights. The sheriff of Klickitat county, Washington, had a warrant for Taylor's arrest, but for several months O.D. was careful not to visit his Tumwater fishing operations in Washington when he thought the lawman might be around.
     The Indian Bureau sent yet another special agent to The Dalles in the fall of 1890 with instructions to assist in the prosecution of O.D. Taylor. The agent, a colorful old Indian fighter named Captain Jack, urged Taylor to cross the river and submit to arrest, but the minister refused, claiming that to do so would be humiliating and beneath his dignity as a man of the cloth. Captain Jack then granted an interview to the editor of The Dalles Times-Mountaineer in which he presented the government's side of the issue. O.D. Taylor quickly agreed to voluntarily appear in court at Walla Walla.
     The trial was rather anticlimactic. Taylor testified that he had no connection with the fishing cannery and had never interfered with Indian fishing rights. There is strong evidence that O.D. Taylor perjured himself. Several years later he testified in another case that he still owed the fish wheel operated by the Tumwater Fishing Company. Perjured or not, the testimony was effective and Taylor was acquitted.
     The Rev. Mr. Taylor was already too involved in other matters to have much time to devote to his Tumwater Fishing Company. He had recently purchased several hundred acres of land a few miles West of the fishery as the site for a projected city he claimed would "soon be larger, more richer than any other in the region. In July 1890 Taylor had formed the Interstate Investment Company with capital stock of $150,000. He retained slightly more than one-half of the stock and placed the remainder on sale for $5,000 a share. Taylor then sold the Investment Company his heavily mortgaged land for $150,000 -- $50,000 to be paid in cash and the remainder in notes due in 1895 and 1900. He also arranged to receive a commission on the sale of company stock and lots in the new city which was originally named North Dalles.
     Taylor also seems to have been instrumental in the establishment of the Boston Shoe and Leather Company, although Nathan Wheeldon was the visible promoter of the project. The shoe company sold several thousand dollars worth of stock, mainly to residents of The Dalles, and received sizable subsidies from local civic organizations and from the Interstate Investment Company for building a factory at North Dalles.
     Construction of the building for the shoe factory began in September 1890, and production of shoes began the following February with management personnel and skilled workers brought from the east coast. The factory closed its doors within few weeks, however, amidst a flurry of law suits demanding payment for construction of the building, for the equipment and for the wages of the employees.
     Taylor formed the Interstate Improvement Company in March 1891 and it acquired the assets of the Interstate Investment Company in return for notes and stock in the Improvement Company. The Rev. John F. Ellis was elected president of the new company, but, Taylor retained control with a majority of the stock and he served as general sales manager. S.L. Skeels was sales manager at the eastern sales headquarters at Cleveland, Ohio, with responsibility for supervising sales offices in more than a dozen cities including Saginaw, Michigan, Buffalo, New York and Chicago, Illinois.
     Taylor made several trips to the east coast in 1891 and 1892. He publicized his city -- renamed Grand Dalles -- during his travels and sold stock in the Improvement Company and Grand Dalles lots. Everywhere he journeyed, Taylor distributed circulars describing the great opportunities awaiting investors at Grand Dalles and displayed a painting more artistic than accurate. It showed broad tree-lined avenues, city parks, a trolley system and a bridge spanning the Columbia - none of which in fact existed.
     The circulars were equally deceptive. They referred to three railroads running into the "imperial Gateway of Oregon, Washington and Idaho." Claims we're also made that deposits of coal, iron ore and asbestos, said to be abundant near Grand Dalles would soon be developed. All of this accompanied Taylor's very enthusiastic persuasive oral descriptions.
     By the summer of 1893, O.D Taylor was the target of increasingly bitter criticism and personal attacks, and not all were verbal. He was publicly whipped on the streets of The Dalles the afternoon of July 21, 1893 by a young lady. She claimed that, as president of the board of director of the Wasco Independent Academy, Taylor had promised to par her room-mate $700 for teaching, the 1892-93 school year, but he refused to pay her more than $600. Members of the crowd which quickly gathered to view the spectacle shouted encouragement to the defender of honesty and integrity as she whipped Mr. Taylor while he desperately attempted to make his way safely home.
     Men in the crowd would seize Taylor and hold him while Miss Equa flailed away at him with the whip. When the frantically struggling minister broke free and attempted to run away, spectators pursued, caught and held him until the breathless young woman arrived to land a few more blows on him with the whip. This routine continued until the city marshall arrived, arrested Miss Equa and took her to police court. The judge ordered her to post a $250 bond as a guarantee she would not again engage in such lawless activity.
     The crowd had followed the Marshall and his prisoner to court, and within five minutes sufficient money for the bond had been pledged. Gifts of flowers, a new dress and other tokens of appreciation were presented to the young lady by merchants eager to express their gratitude to the one who had publicly humiliated the Rev. O.D. Taylor. A final gesture of contempt for the creator of the Grand Dalles scheme was expressed a few days later when the teacher and her friend were presented $106.50 raised hr raffling off the now famous whip.
     The public whipping was extremely humiliating, but the pastor of the First Baptist church was soon to face even more serious problems arising from his real estate promotion.

Part II

     Nearly two years earlier, in 1891, Taylor had convinced Dr. Daniel Cornell of Saginaw, nichigan, and Jacob Rorick of Bad Axe, Michigan that they could profitably invest in Grand Dalles. Rorick bought a $5,000 share of Interstate Investment Company stock and agreed to establish a newspaper in Grand Dalles. Dr. Cornell bought a share of Investment Company stock for $6,000 and several lots in Taylor's city of dreams.
     Cornell had visited The Dalles prior to making his purchases and had been impressed by the potential offered by the town site. When Rorick arrived at The Dalles with his family in late 1892 he was shocked to discover that the "city" of Grand Dalles consisted of the defunct shoe factory, a corset factory soon fated to go out of business and one other building. This first view of reality did not totally shake Rorick's faith. He worked for Taylor for several months before his suspicions caused Rorick to act.
     Dr. Cornell was also rapidly losing faith in Grand Dalles and O.D. Taylor. Unable to obtain satisfactory answers from Taylor, Cornell and Rorick went to Cleveland, Ohio, and induced Skeels to tell all he knew about the Grand Dalles promotion. They then returned to Oregon and presented their information to the authorities. A grand jury in Portland indicted Taylor for commingling the funds of the Investment Company with his personal accounts. For his defense O.D. Taylor obtained the services of George H. Williams, a prominent Portland attorney who had helped write Oregon's constitution before serving in the U.S. senate and as Attorney-General of the United States during the Grant Administration. Grant had also nominated Williams to be Chief justice of the united states but allegations of corruption caused the nomination to be withdrawn.
     Williams earned the fees paid to him. At Taylor's arraignment he successfully asked for a postponement of the trial. Early in 1894, the charges against Taylor were dropped because the prosecution had failed to bring the case to trial within the time limits established by law.
     A little more than a year later charges were filed against O.D. Taylor in Michigan accusing him of obtained money under false pretenses. Owen Parker, a Saginaw, Michigan, police department detective, arrested Taylor in The Dalles and quickley spirited him away to Michigan to trial.
     The case was brought up in December, but proceedings were delayed several months because of contentions that Michigan's law obtaining money under false pretenses did not apply in his case. When the trial was held, O.D. Taylor was guilty and sentenced to serve six years in the Michigan State Penitentiary. Taylor remained in the Saginaw County jail for nearly five months while an appeal to the Michigan Supreme was being prepared. Taylor was treated differently than other prisoners during the time he was incarcerated. His cell was furnished with a desk and other furniture. The jailer let Taylor out of his cell almost daily and accompanied the convicted minister as he made social calls around Saginaw visiting friends made during his unwilling stay in that city. The trial judge grew impatient with what he considered to be excessive delay preparing the appeal and he ordered Taylor to be taken to the state penitentiary at once.
     As the train carrying the prisoner neared the State Penitentiary at Jackson, the Michigan Supreme Court issued a writ ordering Taylor to be released on bail pending a decision on his appeal. The president of the Michigan Central Railroad furnished bail for Taylor, who promptly boarded a train and returned to The Dalles to await the court's decision. A few weeks later, the Supreme Court of Michigan agreed with Taylor's argument that his conviction was invalid because of a legal technicality. Once again O.D. Taylor had used the judicial system to escape justice.
     There were no further criminal prosecution after his return to The Dalles from Michigan, but until his death in 1911 Taylor was almost constantly involved in civil suits arising from his Grand Dalles promotion activities. He lost nearly all his property, including the house on Case Street he had bought after fire destroyed the parsonage of the First Baptist Church in 1891. The deed to his farm on Mill Creek was transferred to George Williams as partial payment of his legal fees, but the attorney allowed the property to be used for the rest of the time they lived at The Dalles.
     O.D. Taylor moved to Baker City, Oregon, in 1900 or shortly thereafter, but his wife and younger children remained at The Dalles for some time afterwards. He and his eldest son, Daton, filed claims on several pieces of gold mining property near Baker City in 1901. Baker City directories of 1903 through 1909 list Taylor as an insurance agent, real estate dealer and mining specialist. Very likely he was involved with Jonathan Bourne's large-scale mining promotional efforts of questionable honest.
     Sarah Taylor, her two grown daughters and her two younger children moved to Baker City in 1903. The family seems to have been well received there. One of his daughters, Anna Faith Taylor, was very active in the civic club that established the first public library in Baker. This library was donated to the city in 1905 and Anna served as the first librarian of the Baker City public Library. She and the youngest Taylor girl, Eleanor, were frequently mentioned in the society columns of the Baker City Evening Herald between 1906 and 1909. The Taylor's second son, Burnside, married a Baker city woman before moving back to The Dalles to become the local manager of the Pacific States Telephone company in 1907.
     In 1907 the daughter of Taylor's closest friend, the Rev. Mr. George Burnside of Buffalo, New York, also lived in The Dalles. In that year she, O.D. Taylor, his wife Sarah and the four of Taylor's six children who were of legal age signed an affidavit claiming they were the sole surviving members of the First Baptist Church of The Dalles. They then transferred ownership of the church's property to Eleanor Burnside, the Rev. Mr. Burnside's widow in return for payment of unspecified debts of the church. Two years after acquiring the property, Mrs. Burnside transferred the deed to Sarah Taylor for notes, totaling $2,000. Wasco County purchased the property for $2,000 in 1911 to be used as the site for a new court house.
     Mr. and Mrs. Taylor and five of their six children moved to Portland, Oregon, in 1909. Orson Daton Taylor died at Portland in January 1910 when he was, sixty-eight years of age. His wife Sarah lived another 25 years, dependent upon her son Burnside for financial support. She unsuccessfully tried for years to collect a government pension based on her husband's service in the Union Army. Taylor had frequently said that he served throughout the Civil War, but the records of the War Department indicated that he had been called into service during the Gettysburg campaign and had spent only 30 days on active duty. The truth of the matter will never be known.
     The amount of money Taylor realized from Grand Dalles will also never be known. The $150,000 he was to have been paid by the Interstate Investment Company never existed except on worthless pieces of paper. Instead of the $50,000 payment he was to have received in 1891, the company agreed that Taylor was to retain money paid by purchasers of stock and land until the down payment was collected. A referee appointed by Multnomah County Circuit Court struggled to determine how much money was collected, what the money was used for and how much was owed to whom. The problem was complicated by very poor record keeping and the fact that considerable property was accepted in trade for Grand Dalles real estate. Title to most of these trades was transferred to Sarah Taylor and the actual value of the property was seldom known to the referee. After years of frustration, he concluded in 1903 that approximately $80,000 in Company receipts was retained by Taylor and that almost $70,000 was due him from the Interstate Investment Company, but the company was without funds and had no valuable assets with which to pay Taylor.
     What Taylor did with the money he received is unclear. A piano and several other fine pieces of furniture were purchased by the Taylor's about the time that they moved into the house on Case Street, but that would account for only a very small portion of the money - Beyond any doubt, substantial sums were used to pay expenses associated with the promotion. The cost of litigation was also very high. George H. Williams almost certainly received a major part of the cash held by the Taylor's between 1893 and 1900. All or nearly all of their property in The Dalles either transferred to William or was seized to pay court judgments against the Taylors. There is some evidence suggesting that a part of the money may have gone to respectable investors in The Dalles whose names were never closely linked with Taylor's operation.
     The Times-Mountaineer strongly criticized Taylor for his actions involving both the Tumwater Fishing company and the Grand Dalles promotion. The Dalles Chronicle was established in 1891 apparently to counter this negative press. O.D. Taylor owned stock in the Chronicle Company and the French bank seems to have provided financing to the newspaper. The French and Company Bank furnished Taylor with letters of introduction and perhaps financing as well. Taylor's real estate office was located in the French and company Bank in The Dalles and when he moved to Baker city his office was also in a building owned by the French family. If the Frenches did finance Taylor's Grand Dalles promotion, it is ironic that their bank failed in the 1920's partly because of real estate loans made to owners of land located in the same area where Taylor's Great Dalles was situated.
     Taylor's children suspected that their father was sacrificed by others, more influential figures involved in the Grand Dalles scheme. The allegation is very difficult to prove or disprove because the evidence is limited, vague and circumstantial, but the evidence is clear that Orson Daton Taylor was a fascinating figure.

[Part I contained a photograph of the Shoe Factory building. The caption is below.]

INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT through promotion and over-selling, 1891-style, is symbolized by the infamous three story shoe factory at Dallesport, Wash. (once known as Rockland and later as North Dalles and Grand Dalles), across the Columbia River from The Dalles. The promoter was the Rev. Orson D. Taylor, a man with a reputation for free and fast financial dealings. The factory, pictured in handsome literature sent to prospective investors, actually operated for a time, employing 40 or 50 men, but neither the lumber for the building nor the machinery was paid for. The building stood for 20 years and for a time housed the offices of Twohy Brothers, contractor for the north bank railroad. Development plans for the town, as claimed by promoters, included factories for manufacture of other goods. Printed illustrations even showed a bridge spanning the river, more than 50 rears ahead of time. Taylor was prosecuted but upon appeal was able to avoid imprisonment.

(Photograph and caption from Wasco County Historical Society Calendar)

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©  Jeffrey L. Elmer