John Harper's wife Mary was a member of a relatively solid and respectable Michael family of Linn Co, Oregon. Perhaps her marriage to John Harper was relatively poor one by social standards of the day, if we has assessed the Harper's backwoodsy character properly. If so, Mary's poor prospects may be traceable to her descent from the first marriage of Eli Wesley Michael, a marriage which ended in a legally complicated divorce. Eli W. Michael had migrated to Oregon in 1847 from Missouri with a company of his relatives, including his parents Jared and Mary Michael Tradition says that Eli's first wife Nancy Frazier had started out on the wagon train west but then turned back leaving their oldest three children ( including Mary) on the train to Oregon and keeping her youngest two, Melissa and Martha with her. Tradition has it that she returned to Missouri with a brother of Eli's but much of this may be a romantic fable. Perhaps instead they simply split up in Platte County, Missouri, where the Michaels spent the winter of 1846-47. In any case it took about six months for the Michael wagon train to cross the plains to Oregon, although it was not a particularly hard journey. Indians contacted the wagon train a number of times but did no damage, once their cattle were stampeded but most were recovered without serious loss. Elijah J. Michael, a younger brother of Eli's, had been only fourteen that summer and was nearly worn out, for he had walked barefoot the entire distance driving two yoke of oxen. When the Michaels first reached Oregon they planned to settle near Harrisburg but it was winter and the Willamette River was very high. When they got a good look at the floods along the river, it scared them out and they moved to the north and nearer to the foothills to take up their claims. Their first house was a small one room cabin. Claims of Jared and Eli Michael is on some of the poorest farmland in the Willamette Valley with quite shallow soil. It is possible that the Michaels may have poorly managed the land because much of the soil has washed off the slope districts of both claims, however, this could have happened before they settled. Nevertheless they obtained 40 to 50 bushels of wheat per acre, which was high for those days. Native grass stood four or more feet tall in the valley when they first arrived , up to the sides of range cattle. Often it was possible to stand at the old cabin door and see large herds of deer grazing a short distance below. Eli and Jared took donation land claims about three quarters of a mile apart to the south east of Brownsville in Linn Count Township 14 S Range 3w of the Willamette Meridian. Their claims, each 640 acres were laid out not in the true north south lines but angled to the northeast Marena Michael Fruit, Eli's youngest daughter, said that the mistake was due to the fact that he had no compass, he simply staked it out diagonnally, Rodney Fruit, her grandson, feels that the error was due to the magnetic declination in Oregon of + or - 21 degrees, the declination being near zero in Indiana from whence they came. Whatever the reason, the results can still be seen in the property lines in that neighborhood today. Eli Michael is said to have waited for news of a divorce from Nancy brought west by subsequent wagon trains, but none came. Thus we read of a petition for divorce made by him to the House of Representatives of the Oregon Territory, a petition on which the Judiciary Committee under Mr. Thurston, felt it inappropriate to act, the house concurring on Febuary 10, 1849. According to one report Eli went to the California Gold Rush ( which would have been in 1849 or 50 ) and made about $ 6,000 but another report says that it was his brother Elijah. In any case about 1858 a better house of sawed lumber was built, it was quite large and one room was especially large with the idea that church services could be held there. Rodney Fruit says this house no longer standing was built for $ 1,500 on the line between the Donation Land Claims of Eli Michael and his second wife, Jane Hodges, and that Eli and Jane Cohabited the house until the way was more or less clear for them to marry. Eli and Jane were married on July 27 1851 amd their first child, Monroe Hodges Michael was born on August 24, 1852. Subsequently Eli was granted a divorce from his first wife since a receipt survives for $ 18.39. the U. S. Discrict Court ( Linn County ) costs in the case of Eli W. Michael V. Nancy Michael suing for divorce. The receipt is dated April 20, 1853. The large living room in Eli's house was indeed used for monthly prayer meetings. During these prayer meetings the children would sneak into the attic with straw and help themselves to Eli's wine, which he made for home use and kept there. During the three weeks in July between hay and harvesting there would be a camp meeting on the Michael claim, since the Michaels were Methodists. This campground was about three miles south of Brownsville on the road to Union Point. There were wooden booths put up there and people came from miles around to take part in the meetings. Eli's brother, Elijah Michael, in fact became a Methodist preacher, in 1868 entering the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church South that was a part of the Methodist Church which was concentrated in the Confederate States, the split occuring shortly before the Civil War and continued until 1930. The choice of the southern branch of the Methodist Church seems congruent with the following statement from Jared E. Michael, son of Rev. Elijah. " the old Michaels were all Democrats and great admirers of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. None of them ever owned slaves and in fact they were opposed to slavery. But they also were opposed to the Civil War and always contended that it could have been settled in a better way and that the war was the result of political jealosy." Oregon was a quite conservative State during this period. If fact it was one of the three States that did not give U.S. Grant a majority vote for president in 1868. The Michaels were, of course, farmers and spent the rest of their lives farming in Linn County. Jared and Mary Michael and Eli and his second wife Jane as well as other Michaels are buried in the family cemetery on the original claim. Mary Michael Harper is among them, her grave originally marked with an Oak Stake since fallen. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Nancy lane, Librarian of the Brownsville Library is a descendant of Mary M. Michael.