ROBERT OREGON STEVENSON

     Ruth Eckler and her husband, George Robert Stevenson were on the Oregon Trail in 1852 traveling with the wagon train organized by John Tucker Scott.   Cholera was rampant and many were left along the trail.   John Tucker Scott's wife died of cholera 30 miles west of Fort Laramie.   George Stevenson died at the Cascades of the Columbia, leaving Ruth to complete the trip to the Willamette Valley with her children. In 1853, Ruth and John Scott married, combining the Scott and Stevenson families, including your Robert Oregon Stevenson.   For a time Scott operated an Inn in Lafayette, "the Oregon Temperance House".   In 1858 he moved his family to Washington County where his daughter, Margaret Ann and her husband, George Fearnside, were living at the foot of Gales Peak near Watts, the area where Joseph Gale had earlier built a grist and sawmill.   Scott purchased property from them. It was his intention to be where his children could receive an education.   Many of them did attend Tualatin Academy and Pacific University, including Robert and Harvey who was Pacific's first graduate.

     Robert Oregon Stevenson took his turn working on the farm. He was appointed was appointed as county judge by Oswald West in 1911.   He also served for years on the school board, promoting education, a thing for which he had a passion.   Another of his responsibilities was state game commissioner.

     His first wife Mary Ellen Buxton died early and a second marriage to Charlotte Davidson produced five children, the descendants of which we will honor with our pioneer certificates.

     Robert Oregon Stevenson was described in elder years in "Land of Tuality" as a "tall, slender old gentleman, who waved his cane as he walked.   Judge Stevenson was a lifelong Democrat - and vowed that as long as the Republicans were in office he would not cut his hair.   When the Democrats were again elected, he was so used to the long hair he continued with it until he died.   His fine home still stands on David Hill.

     We would be remiss if we didn't mention the family of Judge Stevenson's daughter Lilly Pearl who married Robert Bruce Lilly.   You might say that in the 1870's the Lilly family invaded Gales Creek.   Lilly Pearl Stevenson m. Robert Bruce Lilly in 1884.   Dixie, Echo, James, and Robert B. Lilly were born, and tonight we will award 19 certificates to some of them and their progeny.   The Rev. David Lilly was the patriarch of the Oregon branch, preaching his first sermon under the trees in Gales Creek in 1883.   He led the Gales Creek New Hope Primitive Baptist Church for many years.