Claude Mansfield as a young man. Photo courtesy of Patricia Mansfield Harris, who shared the photo from Ancestry.com. An interesting note: The photo was saved by a photo rescuer, Diane Herd, who found the photo and contacted the family. Captain Salmon B. Ormsby, supervisor of the Cascade Forest Reserve. Photo provided by Chuck Whitten, who scanned it from S.A.D. Puter’s book “Looters of the Public Domain,” published in 1908. 10 The Oregon Surveyor | Vol. 47, No. 3 Featured Article There are many names that appear on maps. They are usually attached to physical features such as creeks, rivers, mountains, etc. Some names are recognizable while others are relatively unknown but still have an interesting background. One of these in the North Santiam country is Mansfield Creek, which flows into the Breitenbush River near the hot springs, approximately 10 miles upstream from Detroit, Oregon. Mansfield Creek is named for Claude Howard Mansfield, born in 1868. He was the only son of Margaret Adaline Hill and Howard Mansfield. His mother was the daughter of an Oregon pioneer, Dr. Rueben Coleman Hill. Margaret became widowed and then married a fellow named Rufus Thompson and they then had nine more children. In the 1880 Census, Rufus Thompson, his wife, and six children were noted along with “Claude Mansfield, age 12, stepson, at school.” In July 1892, Claude married Harriet (Hattie) Eliza Ross in Albany, Oregon. They would then go on to have three children: Cynthia Estella Mansfield, Alfred Lorenzo Mansfield, and Naomi Claudine Mansfield. Cynthia died in infancy. The Breitenbush River was “officially named” by John Minto while on his 1873 “exploring trip” to the Minto Pass area. He named it after John Breitenbush, who he called “a one-armed hunter and nothing else.” John lived at the confluence of the Breitenbush River and the North Santiam River, east of the present Mongold Boat Ramp. The 1890 U.S. Census records were all destroyed in a warehouse fire, therefore, not much information is to be found about Claude and Hattie, but they evidently lived in the Detroit area in the 1890s. The Mansfields started visiting the hot springs and developed a plan to make Breitenbush a spa where people could come and “take the vapors.” In 1900, Claude applied for a “Homestead Claim” within the “Cascade Oregon Forest Reserve.” As a surveyor, I have come across many “Homestead Entry Surveys” and they normally have random boundaries that follow natural features or improvements, etc. instead of north-south and east-west lines. In looking up “Homestead Entry Surveys” in the General Land Office records, I was surprised to see that they were authorized by “The Act of June 11, 1906”! I then started to wonder how Mansfield could apply for a “Homestead Claim” when the law authorizing them was enacted six years in the future! There had to be an explanation, since the survey for Claude’s “claim” was actually completed in June 1900. Further research reveals that an earlier “Homestead Act” was passed in May 1862! It went into effect on January 1, 1863, the same day Abraham Lincoln issued his “Emancipation Proclamation.” To acquire a patent to 160 acres of public land, only residence, cultivation, and some improvement upon it was required. After five consecutive years, the homesteader could apply for and receive a patent to the land for the cost of a $15 filing fee. To “get the ball rolling,” an application for the “Homestead Claim” would have had to be submitted to the General Land Office, whose representative in this area was Captain Salmon B. Ormsby, Supervisor of the Cascade Forest Reserve. Ormsby was later dismissed by the GLO in 1902 after he was implicated in the “Puter Land Frauds” scheme in T11S R7E, eight miles south of the hot springs. However, once the application was filed and accepted, a Government Deputy Surveyor named James A. Warner, by then 66 years old, was instructed by Ormsby to begin the required survey. Warner had started surveying for the GLO in 1876 and worked both in eastern Claude Mansfield (no relation to Jayne) By Chuck Whitten, PLS
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