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August in Western Massachusetts Those are perhaps my favorite four words together when presented in that order. Destination in mind is Chesterwood, home studio of Daniel Chester French for a two-week residency. During those two weeks I will be working on a new orientation film for the home-museum and working on the script of a feature documentary film about the life and works of Daniel Chester French which is to be completed before Memorial Day 2022 for the rededication of the Lincoln Memorial. While at Chesterwood I will have the opportunity to visit the Concord Museum and meet with experts Tom Putman a David Wood. On that same day I will be guided on a visit Sleepy Hollow, by Dan Preston and Michael Richman, curators of the Daniel Chester French papers. While at the cemetery, I’m planning to pay my respects to Washington Irving, Andrew Carnegie, Walter Chrysler, Samuel Gompers, Elizabeth Arden, Leona Helmsley, Brooke Astor, and William Rockefeller to name just a few. If all goes well, on the way back to Chesterwood I’ll have a chance to stop at Alice’s Restaurant in Stockbridge, “just a half a mile from the railroad tracks” where “you can get anything you want”, excepting Alice of course.

Acabo de desayunarme, aunque tarde, como de costumbre, que hace unos días murió Horacio Gonzalez a causa del puto virus nuestro de cada día. Habían pasado muchos años desde nuestro último encuentro, muchos más desde el primero. Creo que la última vez que lo ví fue cuando había venido Hugo Chávez a Buenos Aires. En aquella ocasión dije en vos alta que el tipo me parecía un vendedor de autos usados, un chanta de siete suelas. Horacio me dijo que había que darle tiempo, David Viñas dijo que en cuanto ese tipo nos tomara el tiempo ya iba a ser demasiado tarde. David tenía razón. Lo cierto es que no volvía a verme con Horacio. La visita de Hugo Chávez marcó un antes uy después, y ese después lo encontró a Horacio junto a Néstor Kirchner y a la gente de Carta Abierta a los que nunca pude tragar. Sin embargo siempre mantuve el afecto con el que me sorprendí al conocerle una tarde en casa de León Rozitchner en la calle Pampa. Ahí nació iuna breve colaboración que, si no me equivoco fueron sus primeras en el cine documental. Dicen por acá, que "En el género documental Horacio González aportó su testimonio en películas como "Harto the Borges" (2000) y "Cortázar: apuntes para un documental" (2001), ambas de Eduardo Montes-Bradley.” Supongo que el espíritu de colaboración trasciende las desavenencias. Si en algo ayuda, el cine documental sirve por lo menos para eso.

The exemplary life of Louis Alexander Southworth Charlottesville, Va - Louis Southworth was born into slavery in 1830. He was a blacksmith, a farmer, and a fiddler raised in Tennessee and then Missouri. By the time he was brought to Oregon he was 21 and ready to dig for as much gold as it was needed to buy freedom. At Yreka and Jacksonville mining camps, he quickly learned that playing old-time music could earn him what he needed while playing the tunes he learned in the South. And so, he did. His happiness would have been complete but for one circumstance. Although a freeman first, and an outstanding member of the community for the rest of his life, Southworth was kept from going to church by the white brethren who warned him against playing the violin. The exclusion asserted an extraordinary blow to the old man, then in his late eighties, during Jim Craw and increasing racial tensions in America. Shortly before his death in June of 1917, Southworth wrote that “The brethren wouldn’t stand for my violin, which was all the company I had most o’ the time. They said it was full of all wicked things and that it belongs to the devil.” Fiddling has long been associated with the demonic in America religious communities. Almost fifty years before Southworth was expelled from his church in Oregon, Sy Guilliat was barred from his in Richmond for attempting to make music with the stroke of his bow’s horsehair against the fiddle’s strings made of cat guts. Even a hundred years before, a woman named Clarinda, born into slavery in 1730, was brought to court and accused being in communion with the Devil. The records show that folks would gather around her playing in joyous dance, “both sexes” reads the accusation, “not having the fear of God before their eyes, delighted like herself, in sinful and pernicious amusement.” In his memoires, written shortly before his death, Louis Southworth recalls being told that “Playing a fiddle is a proceeding’ wholly unbecoming’ to a Christian in the sight of the Lord.” By then, one-hundred years had passed since charges where brough up against Clarinda, and since Sy Gilliat was expel from church in Richmond. What seems to have changed in his case, is that given his stature in the community he was able to contest, and this was what he said: “I know, friends, you won’t think hard of me, and will give me the cold shoulder for lovin’ my fiddle these many years. Every man has his own way of looking at things and lovin’ them, you have your way, and I have mine; and my way is to love this old friend of mine that always pleased me and never went back on me. And I sometimes think than when you go up yonder and find my name, to your surprise, in the Big Book, you’ll meet many a fellow who remembers the old fiddler who played “Home Sweet Home”, “Dixie Land”, “Arkansas Traveler”, “Suwanee River”, and other tunes for the boys who were far away from home for the first time. “And some of the fellows will tell how the lonely, homesick boys listened to the fiddle during the long winter evenings until they forgot their troubles and slept as they had once slept under their mothers’ roofs at home. And they’ll talk after the gold excitement days when there was no society out West for men like us; when there wasn’t any Bible, and hymn books were unknown; when playin’ poker and buckin’ were the only schoolin’ a fellow ever got; when whiskey ran like water and made the Whites and Indians crazy, when men didn’t go by their right names, and didn’t care what they did; when there was no law, and the court was the man who carried the best six-shooter. When they have talked over those early days, the fellows will say: “‘Where’d we all been, and what’d we all done in the mines, but for Uncle Lou’s fiddle? It was most like church of anything we had.’ For the boys used to think the good Lord put a heap of old-time religion into my fiddle, and the old-time religion is good enough fo’ an old man who’s done some mighty hard work in 85 years. “But I forget the work I’ve done and the years I’ve lived when my bow comes down soft and gentle-like, and the fiddle seems to sing the songs of slavery days till the air grows mellow with the music and the old-time feeling comes back. It makes me hear familiar voices that are no more. “There are things a plain old man can’t tell in words, and there are feelin’s that won’t fit into common, everyday talk like mine, But when there’s plenty of rosin on the bow and the player’s feelin’ fine, and the fiddle pours out great torrents of music, he seems to hear the bob-white’s whistle and the rustlin’ of the corn. The whippoorwill and the mockin’bird come to sing for him, and he forgets what he ought not to remember, and he wants to make everybody glad – then it is that a plain man has feelin’s he can’t describe. “But he knows he’s happier and better, and his next day’s work is easier. He has a smile and a kind word for everyone he meets, and everyone has a smile and a kind word for him. The word is heavenly to that man, and his feelin’s are night on the religious. “So, my friends, I hope to keep my fiddler a little longer, ‘cause it’ll make it easier and pleasanter for me the few more days that I can stay. And if you’ll be kind to the old man and let him keep his friend, I know your pillows will be softer and your dreams will be sweeter when you lay your head down some day for the last time. “My fiddle is as dear to me as David’s harp was to him in his lonely hours. And I know the good Lord who loved David and the music of his harp won’t turn down and aged man and his old-time friend, nor will He forsake those who gave him aid in trouble. But He’ll have a smile and a kind word for them who made the road smoother for the old pilgrim, who traveled footsore and alone with his violin, with no one to care for him except the Father who loves music everywhere—the music of the waters, the music of the woods, the music of the winds, and the music of an old man’s violin.” Louis Alexander Southworth died on 23 Jun 1917 in Corvallis, Benton County, Oregon. He’s buried in Crystal Lake Cemetery. Sources The Afro-American Fiddler by Theresa Jenoure Hampshire College, 2008 Days and Deeds in the Oregon Country by John B. Horner The J.K.Gill Company, Portland Oregon, 1929 Marshall Wyatt, archive

En agosto me instalo en el estudio del escultor Daniel Chester French en Massachussetts por dos semanas. La idea es pensar en un film documental sobre su relaciono con los espacios. Al menos así surge del requerimiento inicial. Nunca se sabe. EMB El artista puede definirse por el espacio que habota, por el entorno que crea, por su lugar de trabajo, su tapera. Uno no espera encontrar al maquinista de una locomotora diesel viviendo entre rieles, pero es dificil suponer al escultor en un lugar donde no puedan habitar sus obras. Con los pintores sucede algo parecido, algo que no tiene correspondencia entre los músicos, bailarines, biólogos marinos y poetas. Estos últimos entran y salen de su lugar, no comparten espacio con la obra, con el studio. Tal vez los coleccionistas de de juegos de mesa fueran distintos, tal vez ellos vivan con sus tableros apiñados en el cuarto en el que duermen. Pero es difícil, decía, pensar que el escultor pueda vivir en un lugar que no se preste a la creación que lo consume. Pienso en Daniel Chester French, en Chesterwood, su studio de verano cerca de Concord, en Massachussetts. En esa dirección pongo proa, ahí me dirijo. Durante las dfos primeras semanas de Agosto estaré soñando el sueño de mármol, el sueño de faunos, manos, torsos y Andrómeda. El propósito es plantear la estructura de un film documental sobre el hombre monumental, escultor del Lincoln Memorial, del busto de Emerson, del Alma Matter de la Universidad de Columbia, de tanto otro espacio público iluminado por su tenacidad infinita. Al final de aquella residencia, plan en mano, me espera la tarea de traducir ese lugar al lenguaje documental, un film que nos permita descubrir al artista detrás del mármol, el bronce y la arcilla.

During the past six months I’ve been triresly looking for evidence of Black fiddlers of the past. It’s been quite an experience, and often a struggle in trying to identify a given image. Who’s that men, or those men in front of the lens? Almost no women where out there playing the fiddle at dances or celebrations. I did learn that at least two of the Snowden's girls where part of the traveling family troupe and I owe that to Howard and Judy Sacks who welcomed me at their home in Mount Vernon (Ohio) last month. But of all the images found, the one that impressed me the most was the stringband of musicians in Austin, Texas. The photo is believe to have been taken by Grace Murray Stephenson on June 19th, 1900 during a Juneteenth celebration. The 120 year old image has been retouched and enhance to use in Black Fiddlers and I believe it makes an important point concerning the fact that Juneteenth it’s been here all along, at least since the day Mr. Stephenson captured the likeness of these distinguished men in Austin.

Coming Saturday I´ll be heading South again. This time the goal is to meet and record with Iris Thompson Chapman in Mebane, hometown of her relative How Thomson, perhaps the last direct descendant in a lineage of African American fiddlers dating back to the 1700s. On my way back I will share images and videos capture on location, for now, just some basic information... About Iris Iris Thompson Chapman was born in Orange County and completed high school at Central High in Hillsborough. She matriculated to North Carolina College (now NCCU), where she earned a BA degree in English. Dr. Chapman continued her education at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, SC, earning both her master’s and doctorate degrees. Her experience ranged from teaching on the secondary level to professorships at various colleges and universities. Dr. Chapman’s specialty was English Composition and Rhetoric, and she also did scholarly work in African Studies and Oral History. Dr. Chapman retired from Elon University as Professor Emeritus. A short time later, she accepted an adjunct assignment at her undergraduate alma mater, North Carolina Central University, in the English Department. A few relevant highlights from her career include taking college students to Ghana, West Africa, as a coordinator of one of Elon University’s Study Abroad Programs and coordinating First Year Writing. She produced the award-winning film, The Life and Times of the Fiddler Joe Thompson. Also, she has created and presented a highly regarded workshop on the development of the Black Church and has edited a deceased friend’s memoir, Outliving Your Disease, by Sheila Alston, that related her spiritual battle against cancer. Currently, she’s working on a documentary about The Closing of a School, specifically showcasing the closing of Central High School in Hillsborough, NC, where she graduated. Dr. Chapman is still active in her community and church. She serves on the Mebane Museum Board of Directors and is now the president of Alamance Burlington Schools Closing the Achievement Gap board. She attends Green Level Christian Church in Haw River where she is past youth director and now has developed a College and Career Coaching Program for students at her church. Dr. Chapman is the daughter of George W. Thompson, Joe Thompson’s first cousin and the late Ira Belle Thompson. She resides in Mebane, with her husband, William Chapman, and they have one son, William.

GPS Audiovisual - Buenos Aires, 15 junio, 2021 - Eduardo Montes-Bradley rueda en la ciudad de Mebane, Carolina del Norte, su documental Black Fiddlers, producción sobre músicos afroamericanos cuyas contribuciones a una identidad cultural nacional aún no han sido plenamente reconocidas. Organizado como un libro de cuentos con un hilo conductor común y unificador, navega por el espacio y el tiempo, desde las costas del Atlántico hasta el Pacífico, desde el período colonial hasta la Guerra Civil estadounidense, en busca de hombres y mujeres negros, libres y esclavizados, quienes contribuyeron con su música al paisaje sonoro musical estadounidense. El cineasta argentino radicado en Estados Unidos recogió en Mebane el testimonio de Iris Thompson Chapman. Es la ciudad natal de su pariente How Thomson, quizás el último descendiente directo de un linaje de violinistas afroamericanos que se remonta al siglo XVIII. Iris Thompson Chapman nació en el condado de Orange y completó la escuela secundaria en Central High en Hillsborough. Se matriculó en North Carolina College (ahora NCCU), donde obtuvo una licenciatura en inglés. La Dra. Chapman continuó su educación en la Universidad de Carolina del Sur en Columbia, SC, donde obtuvo tanto su maestría como su doctorado. Por otra parte, Montes-Bradley tiene un proyecto acerca de un documental sobre el reconocido escultor Daniel Chester French, recordado principalmente por su monumental estatua de Abraham Lincoln (actualmente) en el Monumento a Lincoln en Washington, uno de los fundadores de la Sociedad Nacional de Escultura y miembro de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes y las Ciencias, la Accademia di San Luca, la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes y las Letras y de la Academia Nacional de Diseño. Desde el martes 1 de junio está disponible una nueva serie de largos y cortometrajes realizados en Argentina y Estados Unidos correspondientes al ciclo FOCO MONTES-BRADLEY, muestra retrospectiva del cineasta, ensayista y documentalista Eduardo Montes-Bradley, con la coordinación integral de la multiplataforma GPS Audiovisual. Entre las novedades se incluye el preestreno exclusivo de Alice: At Home with Alice Parker, documental de 30 minutos dirigido y filmado por Eduardo Montes-Bradley, con producción de Heritage Film Project. También volverán a exhibirse Los cuentos del timonel (2001), documental sobre Osvaldo Bayer y Le mot just – Ideografía de Héctor Tizón (2004), documental sobre el poeta jujeño. FOCO MONTES-BRADLEY es una mirada parcial a los trabajos que el cineasta realizó en Argentina, Estados Unidos, Alemania y Brasil entre 1999 y 2020. Cada dos meses incorporará producciones inéditas para la Argentina y reestrenos, que estarán disponibles durante 60 días en forma gratuita y exclusiva en la plataforma Vimeo de GPS Audiovisual.

As an artist in residency in Chesterwood, I will have a unique opportunity to explore a possible documentary film about Daniel Chester French. Donna Hassler invitation, the hospitality of her dedicated team of curatos, the proximity to Concord, and the scholarship of Daniel Preston, Michael Richman and Harold Holzer, will certainly contribute to enhance the experience and the prospect of a new documentary in time for the rededication of the Lincoln Memorial. In the coming weeks I will be sharing more about my DCF journey, a journey that promises to be unique and filled with gratifying experiences.

Black Fiddlers is a documentary film about African-American musicians whose contributions to a national cultural identity have yet to be fully recognized. Organized as a book of short stories with a common and unifying thread, Black Fiddlers navigates space and time, from the Atlantic shores to the Pacific, from the Colonial period to the American Civil War, in search of Black men and women, free and enslaved, who contributed with their music to the American musical soundscape. In eighteenth-century Richmond, Virginia, the filmmaker finds Sy Gilliat (1756-1820), AN acclaimed virtuoso enslaved to Lord Botetourt, Governor of the Virginia Colony. Gilliat performed European opera melodies and a wide variety of dance tunes for the Virginia aristocracy. However, Gilliat’s fame transcended the Governor’s mansion, and his music also filled the rooms of Richmond’s taverns and dance halls where diverse audiences would gather to hear one of the best-known musicians of the day. As our team of researchers and musicians move westward in search of other fiddlers, we find Eston and Madison Hemings in Charlottesville. They were the mixed-race children of Thomas Jefferson and the enslaved Sally Hemings. After their manumission following Jefferson’s death, Eston and Madison pioneered a musical tradition in Charlottesville that could still be glimpsed in the first performances of The David Matthews Band on West Main Street where Eston and Madison lived before moving West to Chillicothe, Ohio. It is in Ohio, however, where the musical legacy of Jefferson’s Black children still resonates loud and clear. In Mount Vernon, not far from Chillicothe, Black Fiddlers’ director Eduardo Montes-Bradley learns of the legend of The Snowden Family Band, a multigenerational clan of Black musicians. The Snowden’s talents have been recognized and celebrated in recent years through the recordings of The Carolina Chocolate Drops and Rhiannon Giddens. “It was the violin playing and not the gold” As the crew resumes the journey in search of Black fiddlers of the past, their attention is momentarily diverted to Wilmington, North Carolina, and the sounds of Old Frank Johnson’s fiddle. Old Frank enjoyed an extraordinary reputation for almost half a century, and according to some he was the James Brown of his time. Back on the road, the Black Fiddlers team hears the echoes of Lewis Alexander Southworth (1830-1917) and the sweet melodies he played to entertain gold diggers, “loose women,” and pioneers in the mining camps of Oregon. “It was the violin playing and not the gold”, he said, that ultimately paid for his freedom. Southworth was a musician, pioneer settler in the frontier, exemplary citizen, and an early champion of voting rights. Pictorial evidence of Southworth’s later years shows him dressed in a dark suit and worn dusty boots, sitting in a rocking chair and gazing at a portrait of Lincoln hanging over the mantle next to his violin. In another photograph, the bridge of his nose crinkles with a smile that extends to his eyes. He holds his violin, a dear companion and witness to the extraordinary transformations that had taken the United States from the early years of British, French, and Spanish colonialism through Emancipation following the Civil War. Black Fiddlers, narrated by Benjamin Hunter and produced in collaboration with distinguished scholars and performers, is not just a documentary, it’s a road movie aspiring to provide the first comprehensive account of America’s rich musical history as told by Black fiddlers of today.

During a recent visit to Marshall Wyatt in North Carolina, I was introduced to “Days and deeds in the Oregon country: Ten-minute stories from Northwest history”, by John B. Horner. In so reading I became fascinated with the trials and tribulations of the old fiddler of whom you’re about to learn more from Peggy Baldwin’s “A Legacy Beyond the Generations”, a text published on the site of the office of the Secretary of State (Oregon). These finding could have not come at a better time as Benjamin Hunter, Loren Ludwig and I continue to search for the stories that are to be included in the upcoming documentary “Black Fiddlers”. I would love to stay, and say more, but let the voice of Louis Southworth sing his own song, after all, that the intent and purpose of “Black Fiddlers”. A Legacy Beyond the Generations, by Peggy Baldwin, MLS Death takes us from this world, yet each of us hopes that somehow we leave a piece of ourselves here. We hope to have made a difference. We hope to have been truly seen for who we are and for that to make a difference in the lives of others. When we have children, we at least know that our legacy will go on. But when we are childless, that mark is more difficult to believe in. When a person is a member of a disenfranchised group, all that may be seen of them is what marks them. Because this could be said to be true of Lewis Southworth, what chance did he have of being seen, appreciated for his true nature, and to leave his mark? Lewis Southworth, called Louie or Uncle Louie by many, was described as that "old cotton-headed fellow who for several years walked the streets of Corvallis leading a big stallion of which he was very proud." In earlier years he was know as a "good young man, quiet and peacable, and obedient to his master."1 All "good" and childlike qualities for a time when African-Americans were not allowed their full manhood. This is a mild expression of the attitudes that Louis encountered in Oregon, when he arrived. His life would take on a dynamics and sureness that belied the expectations of whites around him, who discounted the ability of African-Americans to prosper outside of slavery. In 1853, Lewis came on the Oregon Trail with James Southworth, his master, and James' family, to the Oregon Territory, where the attitudes were about as primitive as the countryside.2,3 As the enslaved, he had no choice in the matter, at a time when Oregon was hostile to ethnic minorities. Many of Oregon's early settlers came from the South, via Missouri, and wanted to avoid the "trouble with negroes" they had witnessed in the places they had come from. Early settlers feared a backlash of violence from African Americans, joining with Native Americans. As a result, most people did not support slavery, or any other activity that would bring blacks to the Oregon Territory. The first exclusion law was passed in 1844, not allowing blacks to settle in Oregon.4 Oregon has the dubious honor of being the only state to have an exclusion provision in the state constitution. Article 1, Section 35 from the Oregon Constitution, passed in 1857, and not repealed until 1926, reads: No free negro, or mulatto, not residing in this State at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall come, reside, or be within this State, or hold any real estate, or make any contracts, or maintain any suit therein. . ."5 The hostility that many people in Oregon felt for African Americans was expressed vehemently by Asabel Bush, publisher of the Oregon Statesman newspaper. He objectified Blacks in an editorial: Their assertions that Negroes are entitled to approach our polls, to sit in our courts, to places in our Legislature are not more rational than a demand upon them that they let all adult bulls vote at their polls, all capable goats enjoy a chance at their ermine, all asses (quadruped) the privilege of running for their General Assemblies and all swine for their seats in Congress.6 Not surprisingly, the African American population of Oregon was very small during the early years of the Territory and State. A mere 54 blacks were counted in the 1850 Census. The population of blacks in Oregon was 1870 was 346. The percentage of blacks in Oregon did not pass 1% until 1960.7 It's not that there was no one in Oregon in that time who believed passionately in the right of blacks to equality. Jesse Applegate, builder of the southern branch of the Oregon Trail, in his position in the State Legislature, was champion for the rights of ethnic minorities.8 But even those who did support blacks settling in Oregon wanted them in their place. Another supporter of the right of blacks to settle in Oregon said: What negroes we have in the country it is conceded are law-abiding, peaceable, and they are not sufficiently numerous to supply the barber's shops and kitchens of the towns . . . If a man wants his boots blacked he must do it himself.9 Did Lewis Southworth have what it would take to survive in this environment? His name was sometimes written Lewis with an "ew" and sometimes Louis with a "ou." His full name was Lewis Alexander Southworth, but it could easily have been Lewis Adaptability Southworth, for that was the trait of this good natured man that helped him most to prosper in this hostile, primitive environment. As the Serenity Prayer goes, he would have the “serenity to accept the things he could not change; courage to change the things he could change; and wisdom to know the difference.” He would work around the limitations he was saddled with in this racially prejudiced environment. And lest we envision him a saint, he could also “dish it out” with the best of them, possibly another trait that ensured his survival. Lewis would disprove the idea that many whites had -- that blacks were not resourceful enough to make their way in this world — by eventually raising $1000, the equivalent of $23,000 in today's dollars, to buy his own freedom.10 When asked why he bought his freedom, in a time in Oregon when slavery was not legal, he said that "his master had been good to him." We have no way to really know how Louis felt. It's obvious that avoiding discord was important -- to not encourage the wrath of whites, who had the law on their side. Besides, these words supposedly out of the mouth of Louis, were reported by J. B. Horner, who sometimes had words coming out of Louis' mouth that appear to have been heavily edited.11 In 1854, Benjamin Richardson allowed Lewis to settle on an Oregon Donation Land Claim that his son had taken up and abandoned, near Monroe, Lane County, Oregon.12 Donation Land Claims were only open to whites. He was not there long because he soon left for the gold fields of southern Oregon. Earning his way to freedom was pressing him to take action. He would earn $300 to bring back to James Southworth on this trip making freedom seem possible.13 As he traveled back from Jacksonville, he was accosted by soldiers fighting in the Rogue Valley Indian War, who threatened to take the rifle he had bought for $50, necessary for protection traveling through this isolated country. Lewis joined them, because as he said, "Feeling as if I could not part with my gun, which was the only means of defense I had, I joined the company."14 Colonel John Kelsay's Second Regiment fought in two skirmishes in March and April of 1856.15 Lewis was wounded in one of those battles. The irony of an African American fighting American Indians, one subjugated race fighting another, should not be lost on us. He would head south again in the Fall of 1858 to Yreka, California. By this time he had discovered that he could make far more money teaching violin and playing for dance schools, than he ever could mining for gold.16 He earned another $400 toward his freedom and his life long dream. In 1859, after Louis had made his final payment to James Southworth to purchase his freedom, James Southworth circulated a petition in Lane County to protect "slave property", which was presented to the state legislature. It's obvious that Louis' dream did not quite coincide with James' action.17 In the end, James did not withhold freedom from Louis, but he never gave him formal papers. The headiness of Lewis' new found freedom added a new-found joy to everything he did. He had worked for years toward this dream and it made all the difference in how the rest of his life would play out. All he accomplished created a life for himself. He would finally settle in Buena Vista in Polk County, Oregon around 1870. He purchased land and established a blacksmith shop and livery stable, on the 100 foot wide Main Street in the heart of this little town of 183 people.18 By comparison with modern day quiet Buena Vista, on a bluff overlooking the west bank of a sleepy portion of the Willamette River, this town was thriving, with two hotels and stores in general merchandise, boots, and groceries. Other businesses included a grist mill for flour, sawmill for lumber, butcher, and saloon. The town had a doctor, a post office, and a two story school that served the 147 students that would be present in the district in 1880. The Methodist Church in Buena Vista could seat 150 people. This was an industrial town, the home of Smith's Buena Vista pottery, producing sewer piper, stoneware, flower-pots, vases, and firebrick, among other things, and employing 50 people in 1880. Steamboats, during a time of heavy dependency on river travel, carried Smith's Buena Vista pottery to its markets, and also served to transport people from Buena Vista up the Willamette Valley. A Buena Vista ferry also operated then, as it does today, carrying people to the east side of the Willamette River.19 Lewis himself may have used that ferry to cross the river, when he courted and later married Mary Cooper on 16 June 1873 in Salem.20,21 Mary had adopted a boy, Alvin McCleary, who was born in 1866 San Francisco to Jamaican parents.22 Lewis would create a life for his new family that would have been impossible during his days of servitude. They lived on in Buena Vista for a few years, Alvin attending the two story school house, Buena Vista Academy.23 The principal of Buena Vista taught Lewis to read and write there.24 And then they took off for a more untamed place. Jim Doty would suggest to Lewis that they look for land to homestead in the Alsea River Valley. Jim appears in many stories about Lewis, and must have been a very good friend. He was white, and 36 years old in 1880,25 while Lewis was 50 that year. Lewis, in his own brand of humor, showing a deeply felt connection to Jim, said "Jim Doty and I were the first two white men on the Alsea Bay."26 According to Alvin McCleary, Lewis' stepson, "In 1879, Lew made a trip up the Alsea river with Jim Doty . . . and they decided to homestead. After travelling up and down the river they selected some land lying on both sides of the creek. Jim Doty, who had brought Lew, offered his companion first choice of land. Lew refused and the Jim selected the north side of the creek and Lew took the south side., which he said he preferred anyway as being on slightly higher ground. Then and there they homesteaded...A year later, in 1880, Lew brought his wife and me and we settled on the land."27 The valley begins, on the west side of the 1230 foot Mary's Peak summit of the Coast Range, as the Alsea River tumbles vigorously out of the mountains. The Coast Range serves to keep most of the rain in the valley, with an average rainfall of 60 inches each year.28 Moss hangs like light green 10 inch icicles from the limbs of trees. Mustard colored lichen and lime green moss clings to the limbs of trees – a 1 inch thick coating on all sides of the branches, giving the impression of leafed-out spring trees in all seasons. The narrow Alsea River Valley, with a strip of bottom land south of the river, and then north, opens up into the broad Alsea Bay on the Pacific Ocean. The west end of Lewis' homestead would abut the east end of Alsea Bay and extend down the valley to the east, on the south side of the river. Jim Doty's family would homestead directly across the river. The river would be their transportation, because a reliable road did not traverse the length of the valley until the 1920s, keeping them in a bucolic time warp. Lewis would clear land, plant, and build structures at a record breaking speed. Over a period of six years, he cleared 10 to 12 acres each year, with animal power and a wooden plough. Between February 1880 and October 1885, when his homestead was “proved up”, he built a 18 x 24 foot house, with a 16 foot square wing. He had 10 or 12 acres fenced and in cultivation, a small barn, orchard, and about 27 acres cleared and sown in grass.29 Alvin, speaking admiringly of his step-father: My foster-father, Lou Southworth, took up a place on the Alsea river about four miles above Waldport. Lou ran a scow here in early days and put people across the river or took them up and down the river, letting the tide do most of the work, through the course he had a pair of sweeps to help the progress of the scow. Lou was a good worker. He used to go out into Benton county, around Philomath and Corvallis, every summer to the hay harvest and wheat harvest. In this way he earned money for the winter supplies. When it came to meat there was no expense except for powder and lead. Lou had a good rifle and was a crack shot. We always had plenty of deer, elk and bear meat, and we always had enough bear grease to fry the venison and elk in. Lou also would kill lots of wild geese and ducks as well as grouse and American pheasants. There was plenty of salmon, trout, clams and crabs here; so we lived well.30 Lewis knew how to enjoy life, and lived with enthusiasm, humor, and generosity. Lewis was very fond of his master's brother William's grand daughter, Rhoda Ann Southworth Beem, who he "almost raised." Rhoda Ann's daughter Nettie Beem, my great aunt, told me a story about Lewis. Lewis told small Nettie and her brother Dewey, that if they could catch a horse that he was training, they could have him. They ran and ran, trying to catch that horse. Nettie laughed about that in later years. Lewis knew that there was no chance that the horse would allow them to catch him.31 That may have been the horse he later called Dewey; that he trained to do tricks in Oregon State Fair shows.32 Lewis A. Southworth was about 5' 6" tall,33 wiry and lanky, built for hard work. No pictures survive of the athletic man he had been as a young man. Two photographs, taken in his later years, show a balding man, with white, kinky hair fringing the back of his crown. He sports a white beard with no mustache. In one photography he's dressed in a dark suit, with worn dusty boots, and sits in a rocking chair, gazing at a portrait of Lincoln, hanging over the mantle of a dark, expansive fireplace. In the second photograph, Lewis is dressed in a light colored suit, complete with a vest. The bridge of his nose crinkles with a smile that extends to his eyes – eyes that see the humor and irony in life. He holds his violin in this photograph; a dear companion and instrument of joyous self- expression. He played the fiddle for dances in Waldport with vigor, dancing as he played. As an Alsea Valley old timer said, "Oh, boy, could he play the fiddle! He would sing, ‘Old Nigger34 Lou . . ‘ and he would get out there and dance with it." Dances were a cherished social outing and people from inland Tidewater, where my relatives lived, traveled the 12 miles to Waldport by the sea in small boats down the Alsea River.35 Generosity was a quality those around him came to identify with Lewis. Francis Gaten, who was a young boy living in the Alsea Bay area, said many years later, that Lewis was the only fisherman on the river who would take the time to show him, as a child, how to pack the net for gill netting. Born in 1889, Gaten was treated to many stories during those days on the River with old man Lewis. When in his 80s, Gaten told this story about Louis' encounter with a cougar which shows Lewis good nature: He and Doty was haying one year and they had a dog. And he went over in the crabapples and started barkin, barkin, barkin. He stayed in there barking. They called him out two or three times and he'd run back in and bark. Old Doty said, "There must be something in there. So he went over and looked up in the Crabapple and there sat a great big cougar. An awful big one. He come out and he told Old Louie, "Big cougar. Get your gun." Well, Old Louie had one that he made. He run down and got the single shot muzzle loading proposition. He shot up there at that cougar. It was rabbit loaded and there wasn't very much powder in it and it didn't blow the shot clear through this old cougar. Down him come and he gave that dog a good maulin. The dog fought him good too. But Old Doty took the gun and weighed in and the first lick he broke the stock off and then he grabbed the barrel and he soon made mince meat out of that cougar. He come out a draggin the cougar in one hand and the two pieces of gun in the other, and he didn't say anything about his cougar. "Look, Louie what I done." And old Louie's eyes was sticking out. "Yeah, he said, that is a good dog." "Look at here what I done, I broke the gun." "Oh", he said, "it's easy for me to make another gun, but it's hard for me and you to make a dog like that one."36 Lewis had demonstrated an ability to find opportunities, work hard, enjoy life with humor, and share what he had and knew generously. He certainly heard derogatory racial remarks, but he could “dish it out” too. Gaten told a story about Lewis, Jim Doty, and Dutchman Strope building a sawmill . . . “And every time they would saw something too short, Old Louie would say, ‘Stick a Dutchman under it.' This little Dutchman had gotten just about enough of that and they got one that there that was a little too short and he said, ‘Stick a God Damned nigger under that ‘un.'"37 Lewis, in 1883, donated 1⁄2 acre of land in Alsea Bay, at Oakland Landing, for a school, where a building was erected typical of unpainted clapboard siding schools.38 Perhaps he felt, because it was his land, generously donated, that he should have more influence on decisions that were made, and so the story from Francis Gaten goes: There was three old fellers -- Old Louie Southworth, Nick Contantine, and Old John Turk. One was a nigger, one was a Greek, one was a Turk. They'd hold meetings about, oh, they'd hold one at least once a month, and sometimes every week. That was what they lived for, them school meetings, ya know. And they could never get along. They would always have some kind of a falling out over them. Old Louie was there one day and things weren't going just to suit him. He jumped up and says, "I makes a motion and I seconds it. This Meetin's adjuned." And old Nick Constantine says, "Oh Louie, you cannot do dat." "No, but I can punch you God damned head in." Well, they went at it. Us kids didn't keep 'em from fightin' it, either. . . They went down first. They clenched and then they went down. And then they got up on their feet again, and then they got down again. Old Louie just took Old Nick down, right down. And they landed right in the yellow jacket's nest. They didn't have on no hats. Nick was down so far on the ground, and Louie was kinda on top of him. These yellow jackets just swarmed on top of Old Louie's head. Louie said, "I thought it was that Greek a pecking me on the head."39 In these stories, you can hear the teller's regard for Lewis' pluck and admiration for the strength of character that exemplifies a true pioneer. You can also hear labeling. He was never just a man. He was viewed through a racial veil, always to be a "nigger." It would be said of his step son Alvin, that even during the days of the KKK in Waldport, he was considered to be a descent, respectable citizen, and so "they left him strictly alone."40 He was respected, but not one of them, except for a few, like Jim Doty, who could see Lewis first as a person. Lewis must have sometimes had a lonely existence, in a time when African Americans and Whites did not easily mix. And the African American population was so low in Oregon, especially in the rural areas where Lewis lived, he had to companion himself in creative ways. When the Baptists told him that he could not play his fiddle and go their church, his course of action was clear: Was brought up a Baptist. But the brethren would not stand for my fiddle, which was about all the company I had much of the time. So I told them to keep me in the church with my fiddle if they could, but to turn me out if they must; for I could not think of parting with the fiddle. I reckon my name isn't written in their books here any more; but I somehow hope it's written in the big book up yonder, where they aren't so particular about fiddles. Every man has his own way of looking at things and lovin' them. You have yours and I have mine; and my way is to love this old friend of mine that always pleased me and never went back on me. [He said that after a person plays his fiddle], "he knows he's happier and better, and his next day's work is easier. He has a smile and a kind word for everyone he meets, and everyone has a smile and a kind word for him The world is heavenly to that man, and his feelin's are nigh to religious."41 In 1901, Lewis' wife, Mary Cooper Southworth died.42 He continued to live in the Alsea Bay until 1910,43 but by August that year he had moved to Corvallis in the Willamette Valley. He purchased a house, on the corner of 4th and Adams, in a neighborhood of Victorian houses like the ones nearby that still survive and are listed in the National Register of Historic Places.44,45 In the next few years his health took a turn for the worse. Lewis worked hard until he could work no more, in the days before social security. Most people must have done that, especially if they did not have family to take care of them. At the end of his life he ran into financial difficulties and members of his community came to his rescue, raising money to pay the rest of his mortgage.46 He had married Josephine Jackson, who was 31 years his junior,47 in 1913, when he was 84 years old.48 Josephine, a nurse, was taking care of him and they married, he lying in bed and her standing alongside.49 He died in 1917 and was buried in Crystal Lake Cemetery in Corvallis.50 Years later, a woman named Jessica Dole would take up a cause in the name of Lewis Southworth.51 Two features on Lewis' land on the Alsea River were named Darkey Creek and Darkey Road. Darkey Creek was a branched creek, that ran through Lewis' homestead property, with a west branch of 21⁄2 miles and an east branch, approximately 1 mile long. Jackie fought, and surprisingly it was a fight, to get the names of the creek and road changed to Southworth Creek and Southworth Road. Others argued that is was part of our history, without regard for the hearts and minds of African Americans who would see it today, and without thought of the man they had been named for. In the end, don't we all have the same need " to be truly seen " beyond the externals of skin color, size, gender. If we could talk to Lewis we would say: We see you now, Lewis. You did not leave a legacy of descendents, but you left a legacy of vigor, joy, generosity, love of life, and maybe a little mischief. You leave a legacy in the hearts of us, reaching back in time, who feel we know you. Every time we drive past Southworth Creek, in the verdant Alsea River Valley, we think of you and you live on. 1. "Aged Colored Veteran Answers to Call", Weekly Gazette Times, Corvallis, Oregon, 28 Jun 1917, page 3, column 5. REFERENCES James B Southworth Oregon Donation Land Claim entry file, Roseburg Land Office, certificate 866, T16S R5W, WM, Sec. 16, 17, 20, 21, 1 January 1866; microfilm, Oregon and Washington Donation Land Files, (Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources, 2000). John B. Horner, “Oldest Nego Now Lives Here”, Weekly Gazette Times, Corvallis, Oregon, 16 July 1915, page 3, column 1 – 2. Elizabeth McLagan, A Peculiar Paradise: A History of Blacks in Oregon, 1788-1940, The Oregon Black History Project (Portland, Oregon: The Georgian Press, 1980), 19. Ibid., 187. Ibid., 42. Ibid., 185. Ibid., 28. Ibid., 28. 10.Weekly Gazette Times, Corvallis, Oregon, 16 July 1915. 11.John B. Horner, “Uncle Lou and His Violin,” Days and Deeds in the Oregon County. (Portland, Oregon: J. K. Gills, 1928, 139 – 146. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15.Charles H. Carey, General History of Oregon (Portland, Oregon: Binfords & Mort, Publishers, 1971), 597. 16.Weekly Gazette Times, Corvallis, Oregon. 17."Petition of James B. Southworth and Others Praying the Recognition of the Right of Legislative Protection of Slave Property", 4 January 1859, Item No. 10974, Oregon Territorial and Provisional Papers; microfilm reel 73, Oregon Territorial and Provisional Records, United States Department of State (Salem, Oregon: Oregon State Archives). 18.Isaac Connett and Mary Eliza Connett to Lewis Southworth, Polk County Deeds, Book 7:12, Polk County Courthouse, Dallas, Oregon. 19.Howard McKinley Corning, “Ghost Towns on the Willamette of the Riverboat Period,” Oregon History Quarterly, XLVIII (June 1947): 55 - 68. 20.Alsea Bay and River: Early Recollections, Alvin McCleary file, ALSI Historical & Genealogical Society, Waldport, Oregon. 21.Jeanne Custer and Daraleen Wade, compilors, Marion County Oregon Marriage Record 1871 - 1874, vol.2 (Salem, Oregon: Willamette Valley Genealogical Society, 1979). 22.Alsea Bay and River: Early Recollections, Alvin McCleary file. 23.Fred Lockley, “Impressions and Observations of the Journal Man,” Oregon Journal, Portland, Oregon, 23 December 1932, page 6. 24.Bob Zybach, “Southworth Made Mark on Region” Corvallis Gazette- Times, Corvallis, Oregon, 21 February, 1991; clipping from Louis Southworth file, Benton County Historical Museum, Philomath, Oregon. 25.James H. Doty household, 1880 U.S. census, Benton County, Oregon, population schedule, Lower Alsea, Enumeration District (ED) 9, p. 102B, dwelling 8, family 8; digital image by subscription, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com: accessed 28 September 2005); from National Archives microfilm T9, roll 1080. 26.Oral history interview with Paul Keady and Francis Gatens, audiotape (Portland, Oregon: Oregon Historical Society, 197-?) 27.Alsea Bay and River: Early Recollections, Alvin McCleary file. 28.Guin Library (Wind, temperature, pressure, precipitation), HMSC Weather Summaries, Oregon State University Hatfield Marine Science Center (http://hmsc.oregonstate.edu/weather/summaries/index.html : accessed 29 April 2006). 29.Lewis Southworth homestead entry file, Oregon City Land Office, certificate 2015, T13S R11W Sec. 26, 10 March 1886; General Land Office Records, Bureau of Land Management, record group 49; National Archives and Record, Washington D. C. 30.Oregon Journal, Portland, Oregon, 23 December 1932. 31.Interview with Nettie Beem Haggerty, at Nettie’s home in Enterprise, Oregon, by Peggy R. Burrell (now Peggy Baldwin), 1978. Nettie Haggerty is now deceased. 32.Oral history interview with Paul Keady and Francis Gatens. 33.Height based on a photograph of Lewis holding his violin. Based on the standard 14-inch 4/4 violin, his height would be about 5'6". 34.The word “nigger”, which is repugnant to many of us today, will be used only when in quotes. The fact that a label like “nigger” did not have the shock value in Louis’ day as it has today, is a measure of the racial views of the time. 35.Oral history interview with Paul Keady and Francis Gatens. 36. Ibid. 37. Ibid. 38.Corvallis Gazette-Times, Corvallis, Oregon, 21 February, 1991. 39. Ibid. 40. Ibid. 41.Horner, “Uncle Lou and His Violin,” Days and Deeds in the Oregon Country, 130 – 146. 42.Cemetery Records and Tombstone Inscriptions of Benton Count (Corvallis, Oregon: Mid-Valley Genealogical Society, 1990), 118. 43.Louis A. Southworth household, 1910 U.S. census, Lincoln County, Oregon, population schedule, Alsea Precinct, Enumeration District (ED) 166, p. 6A (penned), 187A (stamped), dwelling 122, family 122; digital image by subscription, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 6 February 2006); from National Archives microfilm T624, roll 1281. 44.G. A. Whiting and Retta G. Whiting to Louis Southworth, Benton County Deeds, Volume 52: 226, Benton County Courthouse, Corvallis, Oregon. 45.H. S. Penot House, 242 SW 5th Street; Dick Kiger House, 508 SW Jefferson Street; and O. Wilson House, 340 SW 5th Street. "Walking Tour of Selected Historic Sites and Structures in Downtown Corvallis", City of Corvallis, Oregon (http://www.ci.corvallis.or.us/index.php?option=content&task= view&id=1053&Itemid=1262: accessed 29 April 2006). 46.“Ellsworth Post Boosts for Ex-Slave,” Weekly Gazette Times, Corvallis, Oregon, 26 April 1917, page 5, column 4. “Helping Aged Negro Soldier L. Southworth,” Weekly Gazette Times, Corvallis, Oregon, 28 June 1917, page 3, column 3 - 4. 47.George F. Sanborn household, 1910 U.S. census, Multnomah County, Oregon, population schedule, 2-Wd Portland, Enumeration District (ED) 131, p. 8A (penned), p.192A, dwelling 63, family 58 ; digital image by subscription, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 6 February 2006); from National Archives microfilm T624, roll 1285. 48.Lewis Southworth & Josephine Jackson, marriage license no. 25703, Multnomah County Marriage Book 33: 392, Marriage License Section, Portland, Oregon. 49.Oral history interview with Paul Keady and Francis Gatens. 50.Louis Southworth, certificate of death local register 31 (1917), Bureau of Vital Statistics, Oregon State Board of Health, Portland, Oregon. 51.Brian T. Meehan, “Historical Name or Slur?” Oregonian, Portland, Oregon, 22 July 1999, page A01.