Tag: The Gazelle

Over a Barrell at Rainy Lone Fir

Dear Liza,

Yesterday was a hard morning. I woke up tired and grouchy. I didn’t even write a blog. Even the snow which was supposed to come, didn’t, and we had cold, wet slush.

But as the day moved on, I pulled myself out of it. Drank a lot of water. Had an apple and peanut butter. Did a crossword puzzle with Grandpa Nelson.

After lunch I decided to head to Lone Fir Cemetery, in spite of the drizzle. I am researching the family of Colburn and Aurelia Barrell and wanted to see their headstones. Back in the day, Mr. Barrell was a businessman who invested in all sorts of things, and by 1854, he owned a steamship called The Gazelle and a large chunk of property on the east side of Portland.

Young Crawford Dobbins’ memorial

That year, The Gazelle exploded, killing twenty people. Two of them were young friends of Mr. Barrell, and he wanted to honor them with proper burials. He established the Mt. Crawford Cemetery on his East Portland property and had very nice monuments put up. Mr. Crawford, who gave his name to the place, has a ten foot high obelisk, and Mr. Fuller, a coffin-sized slab.

David Fuller’s slab, which says “…killed by the explosion of the steamer Gazelle.”

Mrs. Barrell later convinced her husband to change the name to Lone Fir, because of the one fir tree that stood on the property.

That is what people know about the family. But there were seven children…. surely, in the 160 years since, someone else must have done something else interesting. I am researching old Portland newspapers online to see what they might have been up to. I will keep you posted.

Feeling better, moving forward.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Lone Fir Cemetery

Dear Liza,

Today was very hot in Portland! I went for a walk with Auntie Bridgett early in the morning, enjoying the quiet of Laurelhurst Park. Then we retired to the cool of the house, her and Grandpa Nelson working in their offices in the basement and me reading and unpacking upstairs.

By 8:00 in the evening, it had started to get a little cooler. The sun wasn’t going down until almost 9:00, so we had lots of time for a walk. We went to explore the Lone Fir Cemetery at Stark and 26th.

Lone Fir has been here a long, long time. It had its first burial in 1846, when the land was a family farm. The farmer, J.B. Stephens, had traveled west with his elderly father, who passed away and was buried on the property. A few years later,  the property was sold to Colburn Barrell, the owner of a steamboat called The Gazelle. That same year The Gazelle exploded, killing several people. The owner of the steamboat buried them near the site of J.B. Stephen’s father, and established a proper cemetery, calling it Mt. Crawford.

We walked through the cool cemetery with a familiar feeling of quiet curiosity. I enjoy “visiting the dead people”. My father often said that any day above ground was a good day. Visiting cemeteries reassures me that whatever I am wrestling with on a given day, it is, by my father’s definition, a good day. Knowing that generations of new transplants have come here and made it their home allows me to see my panic over lost kitchen items in perspective.

The name of the cemetery was changed to Lone Fir because when it was started, there was only one fir tree on the property. The place is now an arboretum, a tree garden, with hundreds of trees of all types giving wonderful shade.The cool breeze and peaceful shade were delicious after the bright heat of the day.

The most recent graves we found were from 2007, polished, black, beautiful headstones in Russian, printed with photos of the deceased, telling of a whole new wave of people coming from far away to start new lives here.

Lone Fir has small roads that lead among the graves. We saw people walking quietly along these roads, enjoying the evening, or sitting on benches by war memorials, reading. This is a place for living people as well a for remembering the dead.

Many of the older gravestones are impossible to read, the centuries of moss and rain having started to dissolve the stone. I love cemeteries partly because of the stories they tell. I am a little sad that these people’s stories can’t be read anymore. But I enjoy know ing they were here, anyway.

Love,

Grandma Judy