L. B. SEELEY, 75, RECALLS THE PIONEER DAYS OF OREGON
Source: 21 May 1926, Daily Oregon Journal – There is no old age of the heart in Oregon, says Lamar Boudinet Seeley, veteran Portlander. With the enthusiasm of a boy and among his friends, Mr. Seeley celebrated today his 75th birthday.
For 53 years of his active life, he has been a citizen of Oregon. His latest photograph shows him with a cane, which is more of anniversary significance than of necessity. He cut the small evergreen from which the cane was made from the tomb of George Washington at Mount Vernon 55 years ago, and presented it to his father, Boudinot Seeley, in Ohio. The cane is now the property of a representative of the fourth generation, Tyler Woodward Seeley, son of the Rev. Boudinet Seeley, formerly of Portland, and now a leading pastor in Pennsylvania.
On his 75th birthday Mr. Seeley turned to the scene of his first industrial activity in Oregon, nearly half a century ago. This was the Oregon iron foundry at Oswego, the first to be established in America west of the Mississippi and a factor in the earlier building both of Portland and San Francisco.
Statue is Suggested
The old “stack” or stone base of the foundry stands today at Oswego overlooking the Willamette at the mouth of the little stream that drains Lake Oswego, as well preserved as when the plate, “Oregon Iron Company, Founded 1866,” was first attached to it.
“I want to propose,” he said, “that this hewn stone base, 42 feet high and 34 feet square at the ground level, be used as the foundation for a statue of Sam Simpson, the poet of the Oregon Country. This poet, whose songs of Oregon were pure melody, still lacks recognition due to him. His statue should stand overlooking that Willamette of which he wrote:
Time that sears us, maims and mars us,
Leaves no track or trench on thee.
A poetic urge was felt by the former iron founder and steamboat owner as his 75th birthday dawned. With perhaps more appreciation of Oregon than metrical smoothness he wrote:
Seventy-five years ago today
I was launched on life’s highway.
At the Buckhorn furnace, land of coal, pig iron & corn,
In the beautiful Ohio Valley I was born.
When twenty-two I felt the lure of the Golden West,
Bade Ohio farewell and goodbye to the old “home nest.”Then to Oregon, grand Oregon, I came,
With heart, and soul ready for the game.
Fifty-three years have flown like a dream.
Mighty cities stand now where silence was supreme.
Ohio, my native state, ranks among the best,
But Oregon, our Oregon, leads all the rest.Here may be won health, wealth and fame
If you have “pep” and play well the game.
To my friends today, God-speed and hello.
Here’s youth of the heart, they make it so.
History is Recalled
Portland was a village and the sites of Tacoma and Seattle were wooded when Mr. Seeley first came West. The Oregon Iron Company, incorporated in 1865, with stock ownership by W. S. Ladd, Henry Failing, H. W. Corbett, C. H. Lewis, Tom Davis, John and Henry Green, H. C. Leonard, M. S. Burrell, Judge William Strong, William Ralston, and Charles A. Dimon, was a leading industrial enterprise by men who themselves represented the foremost banking, merchandising and professional interests of the day.
The stone “stack” of the foundry was quarried from a ledge on the north shore of Lake Oswego. The foundation was bedrock and the masonry is today a model. The foundry made its first blast in 1866 [the correct date in 1867] and produced a high quality of charcoal pig iron from brown hematite nearby.
Ten years later the entire property was bought by the Brown, Seeley, Crichton, Donohoe syndicate. The new owners increased the height of the stack from its original 32 feet to 42 feet, installed new blowing machinery, and built a three-mile narrow gauge railroad to the Prosser iron mine, now known as Iron Mountain, above the lake.
Modern Furnace Built
Controlling interest was sold in 1881 [correct date is 1882] to Henry Willard, president of the Northern Pacific, D. O. Mills of New York, and S. G. Reed of Portland. Then organized the Oregon Iron & Steel Company, the old furnace was abandoned and a larger and modern one was built and operated until the ore deposit of the Prosser mines was exhausted, when it, too fell into disuse.
“For all time to come,” added Mr. Seeley, “the tourists who travel the Pacific Highway will be attracted to stop as they pass by and visit the ‘Oregon Iron Furnace park’ having previously learned from their guidebooks that this is the place where the first pig iron was made west of the Mississippi river.
There they will see the first furnace erected on the Pacific coast by representative men of Portland, and will also be informed of Sam Simpson, Oregon’s poet, who brought home the grandeur of mountain, sea, river, and sky.”
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