I am going add a few pages every now and then of the book.

It is the story of these families Coming to Oregon and their descendants.

John Henry Schroeder, Sr. and Dorothea Dietz

John Henry Schroeder, Jr. and Emily Perry

J. Fred Schroeder and Mary Perry

August Henry Schroeder and Dorathea Perry

Charles Edward Schroeder and Lucinda Perry

Charles Albert Schroeder and Rachael Simmons

Frank Elmore Schroeder and Laura Christianson

Clara Schroeder and Levi Snyder

Eva Schroeder and James Watson

James Finley Schroeder and Birdetta Hidagarde Burgess

Louisa A. Schroeder and Orvil Ovando Dodge

Dr. Henry Hermann and Elizabeth Hopkins

William Conrad Volkmar and Wilhelmia Dieffenback

August Bender and Anna Trust

George Stauff and wife Henrietta

David Holland and Sarah Skidmore

Alexander Stauff and wife Mary Elizabeth

The Baltimore Colony and Pioneer Recollections

Published August 1959

Taken From the Original Notes of The Honorable Binger Hermann

Forward

In the following pages is a story that could have happened only in America and only at the actual point in history when it did occur.

The gold fever of 1849 had abated, to be replaced by an even greater hunger for new lands, new homes, and new opportunities. How this hunger grew in faraway Baltimore, the people it affected, and what they did about it comprises a saga in the growth and development of the West.

Today the descendants of these pioneer look back upon a century of progress made possible by the courage and fortitude of their forebears. The names of those who came in the journey of the Baltimore Colony are still names familiar to all the Valley of the Coquille.

It is our hope that on the occasion of the Oregon Centennial this history of the Baltimore Colony will help to enshrine the deeds of our pioneer father forever in the annals of Western growth.

We extend our sincere thanks to the Hermann family for the right to publish this history and to the staff of the University of Oregon for their assistance in preparing the material.

Signed,

BALTIMORE COLONY

CENTENNIAL COMMITTEE

Elton A. Schroeder

Verlin Hermann

Austin Dodge

Kenneth Dietz

Raleigh Greene

Page 1 & 2

THE BALTIMORE COLONY And PIONEER RECOLLECTIONS

History is the more valuable as it is written by actors themselves or by their contemporaries who are the witnesses to the events recited. Too much of our so-called history is but a mingling of tradition and fiction with real and now happenings. The difference between Herodotus, and the father of historians, and Tacitus, is that the former deals too much in tradition and mythology, while the latter confines himself more too record events transmitted form authentic sources. As we approach the modern, such as Bancroft in his history of the United States, he gives us still more assurance of the real facts narrated; and so also of another Bancroft still later in his history of Oregon. Such a history gives a true picture of the people and the circumstances in their lives, and of the countries in which they live, their resources, customs and laws with their beginnings. We feel that we can rely upon them.

It is interesting as the study of development and progress from the beginning of all things. We best now what we are by knowing what we have been wherever that is possible. How much there is in the old saying; “Big oaks from little acorns grow.” It involves the struggle for existence, and as Herbert Spencer called it, “the survival of the fittest.” It is the great process known as evolution, and the scientific study of nature, of man and his works unfolds that is us. Such narration is history.

The purpose of this introduction is to lead us in the reading of the most important narrative of the foundation and up building of a very interesting community in the Empire of the Pacific Northwest. It relates more especially to a part of the great Oregon country where history is presented with narrative of more pioneer energy, patience, endurance, sacrifice and triumph over difficulties than in most other sections of the United States. We linger by the hour in the recital of the perils and the hardships and failures endured by the Puritan Fathers of the New England Colonies, and by the English settlers around Jamestown, and the colonization of the further wilds of Virginia and in their long years of development. There in many respects are surpassed in the thrilling stories of adventure and daring of sacrifice and suffering of the early pioneers of Southwestern Oregon after their long, arduous and perilous ox team journeys of two thousand miles with no military for protection through an Indian country across a vast continent.

Such a picture is afforded in the story of the Coquille and Rogue River Valley from the mountains to the sea. Particularly is this true of the Coquille and to it will be confined much of what follows.

As the settlement which first gave notable history to the country described was that of the Baltimore Colony, we begin with it and associate with it as we proceed those hardy adventurers who preceded it and paved the way.