Over The Hill And Back
Last night, Don Kahle, who writes for the Register Guard, told me the Free Library was lost in the fire. I swear I smelled burning books. Gone are the smell of roses, gone with a wind that blew a fire through Blue River. What does blood smell like? What is in a name? A child pricks her finger on all that remain, thorns amongst the ashes, and so little human DNA that God sprinkled, there.
“Where art thou?” Was God first recorded question.
Here we are, Lord, in Finn Rock that should have been renamed Rosborough. Here we are amongst the pines and the cedar, the salmon and the trout that run in waters as blue as can be. My grandfather, Royal Rosamond, the son of William Rosamond, and Idia Rose talked about opening a fishing resort on his property in Arkansas. His friend, Otto Rayburn, asked Royal if he knows any poet in the West that would be interested in contribution to his Arcadian Anthology. I will be send the University of Arkansas much history about Rosboro and Blue River.
There is the College of the Ozarks where my kin, Thomas Hart Benton has some of his work. His grandfather was the Senator of the same name who was a good friend of John Astor and family, and was the Proprietor of the Oregon Territory. He son-in-law, John Fremont, blazed the Oregon Trail so many Ulster-Scot could migrate here, and fight off the British. Liz Taylor is my kin, and her uncle used to fish with Eisenhower. I tried to get the City of Eugene and the University of Oregon to preserve Ken Kesey’s cottage in Fairmont where he might have nurtured a idea for his other great novel. ‘Some Times A Great Notion’.
https://rosamondpress.com/2020/07/11/president-eisenhower-artist/
“A private party intends to remove three Doug firs, each at least a hundred feet tall, from in front of the Francis O’Brien Memorial Library,” the group said in a statement. “This removal not only will unnecessarily kill three old-growth trees, but will be dangerous to the surrounding structures. The Blue River Water District board is concerned that falling the trees will ruin the integrity of the water pipes that provides drinking water to the town.”
Dianne Dundon was born in Finn Rock, she the third generation. She and her four children worked everywhere you could along the McKenzie. She never mention the logging mill, Rosboro, that is the biggest employee in Springfield, that some call Springtucky. And now I discover Arkyville?
http://mckenzieriverreflectionsnewspaper.com/News/mayberry-without-barney-andy
https://rosamondpress.com/2013/01/11/ravola-of-thunder-mountian/
In doing research for this post I discovered another work by my grandfather, Royal Rosamond. Over The Hill And Back sounds like a story of J.R. Tolkien. I just founded a facebook group:
The Roses of Blue River Library
https://www.facebook.com/groups/359497455425768/
I found another Rose Family that is associated with Rosboro a.ka. Arkyville Members of the Rosamond lived and died in Arkansas. They descend from Patriot Captain Samuel Rosamond, who fought alongside The Swamp Fox.
Thomas Whitaker Rosborough came to Springfield Oregon with his lumber outfit that might have included his black loggers whom he may have adored, because, he refused to get rid of them when he moved Rosboro about Arkansas. I will be contacting Eric Richardson about this possibility.
https://rosamondpress.com/2019/06/04/senator-bentons-artistic-grandson/
https://rosamondpress.com/2012/05/07/garth-benton-is-dead/
https://anthonybentongude.com/
My Rosamond ancestors were real Rednecks, the Real McCoys. There is a lot a talk about Cultural Warfare in America. You got a lot of fake cowboys and armed men who say they are rednecks. In rebuilding The Free Blue River Library, we got to get down to hard tacks – and the truth – so we can build a True Story of America and The West.
Here is wild man Yates who murdered my great grandfather, Nonimund Rosamond who was the sheriff of a small town in Arkansas. There is a rose branch on his tombstone. Yates was bushwhacked by a branch of the Rosamond family. He and his niece are buried on a hill in unmarked graves in Arkansas. I see the end of my life-movie over ‘The Wolf’s bones. I look over the hill, and here they come….The Billy Boys! And they are playing their fifes and beating on their drums. Then come the bagpipes.
I thought about taking the bus up to Blue River and gifting Royal’s books to the Free Library. The University of Arkansas wants them to go with the Rayburn Collection. I had no contact with any family, back when, I was so utterly betrayed. But in the last two weeks I have been in contact with Michael Dundon and Shannon Rosamond. We have gathered our history. We have gathered our Roses.
Just now Michael Dundon told me Ray Frye worked for Rosboro, and Dianne Frye-Dundon grew up in Rosboro Camp. Vicki Presco married James Dundon, and they moved to Blue River where they built a geodesic dome on John Allensworth’s property, the owner of the Log Cabin Inn. I lived with the Dundon children, Jeremy, Jamie, Jennifer, and Lew, who are kin to several members of the Frye family.
Two days ago Shannon told me about a motto she found on a Rosamond cote of arms in Europe.
“I won’t let them win!”
We had a great laugh, and I said;
“Sounds like Scarlett in Rosemary’s favorite movie!”
John Presco
https://rosamondpress.com/2011/07/04/patriot-samuel-rosamond/
https://rosamondpress.com/2019/08/02/evangelical-leader-begins-new-cold-war/
https://www.ozarksalive.com/vance-randolphs-photos/
OTTO ERNEST RAYBURN
Otto Ernest Rayburn moved to the Ozarks in 1917. He lived in Missouri and Arkansas, where he was a teacher, newspaper publisher, bookseller, and promoter of tourism. Toward the end of his life he organized his enormous hoard of information about the Ozarks into the collection now in the University Libraries. He died in 1960.
THE COLLECTION
The Otto Ernest Rayburn Collection was acquired from Mr. Rayburn, a collector, educator, publisher, and bookseller then residing in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, in part purchased by an agreement dated September 8, 1952 and by additional deposits in 1959 and 1960.
The collection included an extensive library of books and other print material pertaining to the Ozark Mountains Region, which has been cataloged and shelved in the Libraries’ main and Arkansas collections. The remaining portion, divided into 13 series, comprises a voluminous collection of research files entitled the Ozark Folk Encyclopedia, bibliographies of Rayburn’s writings and other writing about the Ozarks, several typescript volumes written or compiled by Rayburn, correspondence, scrapbooks, pictures, and other material.
The Rayburn Collection, organized in 13 series, consists of correspondence, writings compiled or written by or about Otto Ernest Rayburn, research files, scrapbooks, and pictures. The bulk of the collection is the Ozark Folk Encyclopedia, 229 folders containing Rayburn’s working files of clippings, notes, letters, pictures, etc., arranged in alphabetical order.
Some material was compiled by Rayburn into book form: Bibliographies of his works and of other writing on the Ozarks; Enchanted Ozarks, in 3 volumes, “anecdotes of men and women who have helped enrich the lore of the region;” Ozark Panorama, in 3 volumes, “folkways and customs, actual events, and traditional folklore;” Ozark Folks and Folklore; Survey of Ozark Superstitions, in 2 volumes; Ozark Sketchbook; a compilation of his verse; Book reviews and comments on his works Forty Years in the Ozarks and Ozark Country; Way Back Yonder, copies of a published newspaper column by Rayburn.
There are 4 scrapbooks and a series of pictures, mostly photographs. Processed by Special Collections. Special Collections Division, University of Arkansas Libraries, Fayetteville, Arkansas.
https://rosamondpress.com/2020/09/17/roses-of-blue-river-library/
https://rosamondpress.com/2019/02/06/branding-royal-rosamond-press-3/
“I walked on, for I had yet a long way to go before nightfall. Now it
was but a mite after mid-day. After leaving the train at Winona, I
could have perhaps caught a ride to Eminence had I stayed with the
wagon road instead of footing it up the spur-track leading northward
to cross Jack’s Fork at the Hodge place where I left to journey up
Possum Trot toward Little Wonder Schoolhouse and Tucked Away Church
House, above which in the ride to the north, I lived – the place
where I was born and which I called home, where my parents had
settled in their youth and planned some day to die.”
https://rosamondpress.com/2013/07/14/orange-order-leaders-warn-of-cultural-war/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRuIBbm4kz0&feature=emb_title
https://rosamondpress.com/2011/11/24/real-hillbillies/
HILLBILLY (Hillbillies)
The origin of this American nickname for mountain folk in the Ozarks and in Appalachia comes from Ulster. Ulster-Scottish (The often incorrectly labeled “Scots-Irish”) settlers in the hill-country of Appalachia brought their traditional music with them to the new world, and many of their songs and ballads dealt with William, Prince of Orange, who defeated the Catholic King James II of the Stuart family at the Battle of the Boyne, Ireland in 1690. William of Orange The signing of the National Covenant, Greyfriar’s Kirkyard, 1638 Supporters of King William were known as “Orangemen” and “Billy Boys” and their North American counterparts were soon referred to as “hillbillies”. It is interesting to note that a traditional song of the Glasgow Rangers football club today begins with the line, “Hurrah! Hurrah! We are the Billy Boys!” and shares its tune with the famous American Civil War song, “Marching Through Georgia”. Stories abound of American National Guard units from Southern states being met upon disembarking in Britain during the First and Second World Wars with the tune, much to their displeasure! One of these stories comes from Colonel Ward Schrantz, a noted historian, Carthage Missouri native, and veteran of the Mexican Border Campaign, as well as the First and Second World Wars, documented a story where the US Army’s 30th Division, made up of National Guard units from Georgia, North and South Carolina and Tennessee arrived in the United Kingdom…”a waiting British band broke into welcoming American music, and the soldiery, even the 118th Field Artillery and the 105 Medical Battalion from Georgia, broke into laughter.
Rosamond Cemetery
Newton County, Arkansas
Birth: Jul 1885(MO)
Death: 9 Jun 1960
Son of NN and Rosa (Bennett) Rosamond
Married to Delia, Maiden Name Unknown
Children:
Elered (Name unclear on census),Willie F, Maggie M, Charles N
Note: This is a remarkable stone. It appears that the flat part with writing was ground flat. The area above the writing was chipped out. The writing is very fancy cursive.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/359497455425768
https://rosamondpress.com/2017/03/23/ida-rose-rosamond/
https://rosamondpress.com/2017/03/22/the-history-of-lurton/
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Mauldin,_Arkansas
Arewine Yates Standridge was in Prison at Jackson County, Arkansas, for shoting through a door killing N.N. Rosamondand Martha T. Rosamond Overturf, wifeof F. M. Overturf, on January 1, 1908, in Newton County, Arkansas.
Yates was shot and killed from ambush by George Ellis. Yates and his niece Ada Johnson were returning to Vian, Oklahoma from a shopping trip to Sallisaw. This was shortly after noon on August 8, 1940. (A news paper clipping says that Yates was killed outright while his cousin, Mrs Ada Johnson, 29, who was with him died enroute to a Ft. Smith Hospital.) Yates is buried at Hartman, Arkansas in the same cemetery as his mother. Yates Standridge and Mrs. Ada Johnson the woman who was killed with him are buried in a cemetery on a hill in Hartman, Arkansas, in the corner of the junction of two roads. There are no markers. The spot was verified by the town marshall when Yates lived there, Lee Morrow, who had helped to dig these two graves as well as the grave of Yates’ mother Jane (Yates) Taylor Cavin Standridge).
FINN ROCK: “I always wondered why they called it a camp,” Billie Rose recalls. “Our folks lived there for almost 20 years. I guess ‘camp’ sort of gave the impression we were transients but we weren’t.”
Billie, her sister Nancy and brother Joe, were part of a gathering of old friends last Saturday who grew up in a community that many of today’s McKenzie Valley residents might never know existed. Their home, the Finn Rock Camp has long roots, stretching back to 1890, when Thomas “Whit” Whitaker Rosborough built a sawmill in Rosboro, Arkansas. After his honeymoon itinerary swung though the Pacific Northwest, Whit had a longing to return. He did that in 1939 when he moved to Springfield, Oregon, and built what a newspaper of that time called the region’s “most modern timber manufacturing plant.” Timber for the mill came from lands he’d purchased up the McKenzie Valley.
Many of the men who brought the wood out of the woods followed Whit from back East. Nancy said their Dad made the move on his own at first and later arranged for his family to move out on a train.
Doyle Hawks said his father had been hired to build the houses at the camp. When his family rolled into town on a Greyhound bus, Whit’s chauffeur was their to pick them up in a black limousine. He and Whit’s housemaid had also made the move, living in Oregon until he died.
David Quillin’s Dad heard the call from Texas, leaving behind a job as a welder in a shipyard. His family, he said, “sold what they had, loaded up an old black Packard and the clothes on their backs.”
The reminiscing was part of a story gathering process in anticipation of this year’s McKenzie Memories event sponsored by the McKenzie Watershed Council. Scheduled for April 1st in Eugene, the program will include a “Fireside talk” with people recalling what it was like growing up in the Finn Rock Camp, as well as a session with local author Barry Lopez.
This year’s McKenzie Memories will be held at Venue 252 (the old Eugene Planing Mill), 252 Lawrence Street in Eugene, beginning at 7 p.m. Tickets for $15 will go on sale on March 1st. For more information, call 541-345-2799 or contact brandi@mckenzieriver.org.
Top Photo Courtesy Curtis Irish. Back in the 1950’s, the Finn Rock Camp was a thriving community with 27 homes for employees of the Rosboro Lumber Company.
Second image: Lamar White, Nancy Rose, Joe Rose, Billie Rose, Doyle Hawks, and Dave Quillin in front of the last structure standing, the old camp’s pumphouse.
McKenzie River Reflections
BORN OF TWO ROSES
A half hour ago I talked to Deborah Cryder at the Forestvale Cemetary. She is going to send me information on Ida Rose who died when she was 28 years of age of dropsy. Twenty days later, Ida’s daughter, Dollie Rosamond, dies. She is less then one year old. Royal Rosamond lost his mother and baby sister in one fail swoop. He must have been traumatized. Then, his father gets remarried to a Mildred, who may not have wanted Frank around, and he is “bound” out to his uncle, James Taylor, who married Ida’s sister, Laura Rosamond. Frank will call William Scott Spaulding his father. Did William adopt Frank? If so, when? I believe there is a typo, in regards to the Reese name. John Wesley Rose buried here. Is this where Frank got his middle name? This would make three generations of the Rose Family buried in Montana.
Edward Haney Rose is the grandfather of Ida Rose, and father of John Wesley Rose.
To be born by a mother born Rosemary Rosamond, who named me John, not knowing her great grandfather was named John Rose, is a genealogical wonder. I will be recording my findings with the Rose Family Association.
http://www.rosefamilyassociation.com/html/Rose-Family-DNA-Project.html
https://www.ancestry.com/genealogy/records/edward-haney-rose_131956025
https://www.ancestry.com/genealogy/records/j-wesley-rose_131953322
Deborah went out to where Ida and Dollie are buried side by side. She drove a stick in the ground, and took a picture that she is going to send me. I thanked her profusely, for I saw roses take bloom, and thorns.
The struggle I have had in finding these Rose Names, and gathering them in our Family Vase, is epic, and poetic. To reunite these roses, is a wonder and delight. There was laughter between Deborah and I. This caretaker is happy when people care. All our time, is enchanted.
Jon Presco
https://rosamondpress.com/2016/06/15/william-rose/
https://rosamondpress.com/2011/11/25/royal-reuben-rosamond/
https://rosamondpress.com/2011/10/17/humble-rosamond-roots/
https://arkansasgravestones.org/cemetery.php?cemID=7560
https://rosamondpress.com/2018/12/05/tolkien-lie-near-rosamond/
https://rosamondpress.com/2017/03/23/ida-rose-rosamond/
https://rosamondpress.com/2013/09/13/col-lemuel-benton-and-capt-samuel-rosamond/
https://rosamondpress.com/2013/07/05/oprah-winfrey-and-the-rosamond-family-roots-in-kosciusko/
https://rosamondpress.com/2011/10/05/the-rosamond-family-of-texas/
https://rosamondpress.com/2020/03/08/the-rosamond-american-authors/
https://rosamondpress.com/2018/07/23/the-rosamond-hodge-dynasty/
https://rosamondpress.com/2012/01/14/history-of-the-rosamond-family/
https://rosamondpress.com/2011/11/27/sheriff-rosamond-murdered-by-crazed-moonshiner/
This ancient Scottish surname is locational in origin, from the place called “Roxburgh” near Kelso in what is now the “Borders” county of Scotland, formerly Roxburghshire.
https://www.haswellhistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Paper-by-Prof-D-C-MacGregor.pdf
https://rosamondpress.com/2017/03/22/the-history-of-lurton/
In the late summer of 1939, Benton took his son Thomas Piacenza (T. P.) to Arkansas for two short vacations. The pair spent time floating and fishing the White and Buffalo rivers. Benton also sketched and painted the scenery there, resulting in the lithograph Down The River, which featured his son. Another product of these trips was a painting and lithograph of a White River scene, Shallow Creek.
Benton returned in the spring of 1940 with a group of his advanced students from KCAI. They spent about ten days sketching and painting in Newton County, near Jasper. The following year, Benton returned with yet another group of students.
It was about this time that Benton became acquainted with various Arkansas artists and writers. He met poet John Gould Fletcher, who introduced Benton to the artist Adrian Brewer in 1938. Benton knew artists Louis and Elsie Freund and was a periodic visitor at their home in Eureka Springs (Carroll County). He also knew Ozark writer Vance Randolph and illustrated some of his work.
https://rosamondpress.com/2020/09/13/blue-river-revelations-2/
It’s high noon….I said after my Old Man Nap failed to take me into the future, because, the future has arrived at the New Gateway to the McKenzie! I found another Rose. Billy Ruth Rose is The History Keeper, a true Oregonian Hobbit. She might be my kin!
Two days ago my niece, Shannon Rosamond, sent a message of concern. She had hear about the fires in Oregon on NPR radio. She offered me a safe haven in Arizona where she lives close to Christine’s other daughter, Drew Benton.
Dianne-Frye Dundon is third generation Finn Rock. The Fryes are one of the oldest families on the McKenzie River. She married Michael Dundon, the brother of Jim Dundon who married my younger sister, Vicki Presco, who I saw running around topless on John Allensworth’s land. John owned the Log Cabin Inn. Jim built a geodesic home on John’s property. His brother built a cabin next to the dome. Three years later, Michael is a father of four working in the woods as a tree-topper. He later became a foreman for a famous logging outfit. This is ‘Sometimes A Great Notion’.
Michael was a cook at the Inn and the Cougar Room. Both these places burned down years ago. Dianne bartended at the Inn and all her children worked at other restaurants and stores. Dianne got my newfound sixteen year old mother, a job teaching at McKenzie High School. Jennifer Dundon had just moved out of the cabin you see above, and it was for rent for $500 a month. I sent these photos and offer to Heather, but she had moved. There was no forwarding address – until three days ago! I am in theory, moving all my Rose Family – to Finn Rock – for the rebuilding time started at Noon today! Come back for a visit, for this post….will grow. You can’t keep the dream of a good man down. The ghost of Harold Carlson woke me this morning.
“Time to go to work!”
I have more kin than I know of up the McKenzie in Blue River thanks to my little sister, Victoria Mary Presco marrying James Dundon. They found this little town and built a geodesic dome on John’s property. John owned the Log Cabin Inn until he suffered a heart attack. He wasn’t around when it burned down in 2008. The Duke of Windsor came here to fish, and stayed at the Inn, along with Clark Gable. I better add, they stayed at different times. Folks can talk, make stuff up, if you’re not careful.
Yep! I lived the life my grandpappy dreamed of living after he left it for awhile. Royal Rosamond owned forty acres in Arkansas where he talked with his friend Otto Rayburn about making a resort for poets who like to fish. I got the letter to prove it. Rayburn is the acme me of Ozark Historians.
I don’t talk to any of my River Kin, because they DeFolked me. Its what folks do up river, sometimes. I was ‘The Odd One’ not from around here. I came on a train in 1987 to get sober at Serenity Lane. I stayed in a trailer on Michael and Diane”s property.
Greg and I started studying in his little movie video shop. Blue River People would pull up in those great long squarish cars they don’t make anymore, rent a movie, and lay gravel as they headed home to feed the boredom of their brood. In those days, real loggers thought this was fake plastic stuff. They preferred to watch a kerosene lamp till their kids dosed off. Being authentic, being the Real McCoy, was the local ambition.
When I came to visit, the Dundon’s were on pins and needles. They had waited for days to ask me a question.
“Have you seen the movie ‘My Dinner With Andre’?”
“Yes I have!” I beamed, happy to hear my kin got them some culture.
“What did you think of it?”
“It made my top ten favorite movies of all time!”
The Dundon clan broke out in uproarious laughter.
“I knew it! Told you so!”
Michael had found the VCR lying along Highway 126. He took it home. Put it in the VCR, and after thirty minutes, took it out of the VCR, got in his car, and returned it where he found it. He pulled over and tossed it out the window. We didn’t know about my authentic roots. Those were the salad days. Our Blue River Diner Conversations will be the new catechism. Come time to celebrate John’s birthday, plastic images of the Dundons will be put out on your lawn – with glowing white sheep!
https://rosamondpress.com/2017/03/22/the-history-of-lurton/
One day, while I was walking to Greg’s from the Blue River Free Library, I was struck on the head. Some describe it as being dived upon by an eagle. I asked myself this question – out of the blue:
“If John was the greatest prophet born of woman, where is his prophecy so we can read it, compare it, and see it is true – for our own damn self?
https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/rosboro-pike-county-6430/
PRINGFIELD — Rosboro’s board of directors is considering putting the Springfield-based lumber company up for sale.
The privately held company’s shareholders are widely dispersed geographically and a sale could make sense, the company said.
“What was once an organization owned by just a few of the original leaders of the company today has 60 owner-families throughout the country,” Rosboro Chief Executive Officer Scott Nelson said in a statement Wednesday.
Given that dispersed ownership, the company’s strong financial position and a robust market for mergers and acquisitions, Rosboro’s board has determined it would be “prudent to undertake a review of strategic alternatives to maximize shareholder value,” Nelson said. Those alternatives include potentially selling the company, he said. The company doesn’t publicly disclose its financial figures.
Rosboro said said it is one of the largest employers in Lane County, although the company does not list how many people work for it.
Springfield city spokesman Niel Laudati said that while he has no precise employment figures for Rosboro, the company’s economic presence in the city is significant. The company’s headquarters and Springfield mill are on Main Street. The company also has six other wood products plants, all in Oregon.
“Rosboro is an important part of Springfield and employs many in our community,” Laudati said in an email. “We plan to offer any support we can as they move forward.”
Company leadership is only weighing the possibility of selling, and no deal is in place, according to Nelson’s statement. The company does not plan to disclose any additional information about alternatives until a decision is made, he said.
Rosboro has retained the multinational banking firm Goldman Sachs as a financial adviser and Stoel Rives as attorney for the exploratory process, according to the statement. Portland-based Stoel Rives has law offices around the country.
A spokesman for Rosboro did not immediately return a phone message Wednesday afternoon. Joon Cho, a banker with Goldman Sachs in San Francisco who was listed as a contact in a Rosboro news release about Rosboro’s decision, declined to comment.
Rosboro says it is the largest producer of glued laminated timber, or glulam, in North America. Composed of boards that have been glued together, glulam beams are typically used in large retail stores, bridges and other big structures.
The company says its timberland — about 100,000 acres in Western Oregon — constitutes one of the largest privately owned networks of tree farms in the Pacific Northwest.
Thomas “Whit” Whitaker Rosborough, who had been a lumberman in Arkansas, moved to Springfield in 1939, and the first board came out of his new sawmill in 1940. He retired five years later and left ownership of the company to a group of key employees.
Follow Dylan on Twitter @DylanJDarling . Email dylan.darling@registerguard.com .
Rosboro (Pike County)
Rosboro is an unincorporated community located in the northeastern corner of Pike County. It is five miles west of Amity (Clark County) and six miles east of Glenwood (Pike County). During its heyday, Rosboro was a major operational center for the Caddo River Lumber Company in the Ouachita Mountains, placed in an area that was a vast virgin forest of short-leaf pine trees.
Thomas Whitaker “Whit” Rosborough, a sawmill owner who lived near Kansas City, Missouri, became interested in this Arkansas forest and decided to move there, bringing some of his employees with him. After arriving and investigating the area, he decided that an area near Amity would be an ideal place to build his sawmill. However, the local citizens did not approve of the venture because Rosborough had African-American employees, so he found another place just five miles west of Amity. He named the new town Rosboro, a shortened version of his surname. The Caddo River Lumber Company’s mill was built around 1907. People began moving in, and soon the population was between 400 and 500. Rosboro became a thriving, well-populated sawmill town with several stores, more than 100 “shotgun” houses for families, a hotel for single employees, a kiln, a commissary, and a company–owned meat market. Everyone had electricity generated by a turbine, plus running water from a water tower.
The town was segregated, having separate living areas for the black and white residents. Both groups had their own churches and schools. In the white people’s area was a theater, while the black neighborhood had an entertainment venue called the “Barrell House.”
The Missouri Pacific Railroad had one passenger train that ran daily, plus a freight train. A depot was built across the street from the company office. A train carried logs thirty or forty miles away, and there were camps along the way for the employees. This log train ran through Self Creek settlement near Daisy (Pike County).
In 1915, one of the sawmills burned. Three years later, the company established another town, Mauldin (Montgomery County). Heavy timber production began there in 1922. Logs were shipped via railroad to Rosboro for processing. Since Rosboro was the main operation, it outlasted Mauldin and another mill at Graysonia (Clark County) by almost a decade. In 1939, the company closed another Rosboro mill, and Rosborough made plans to move his operations to Springfield, Oregon. Nearly all of his employees, both black and white, decided to move with him. Other employees moved out of Rosboro to find other jobs, which effectively ended the town. The Ozan Lumber Mill, smaller than Rosborough’s, shut down in 1956. The population of the area declined, and the school consolidated with Glenwood in 1956.
Amity and Glenwood schools consolidated in 1995. The new high school was built at Rosboro, which is between the two towns, just east of the old town of Rosboro. The school is called Centerpoint High School.
There is little left of Rosboro in the twenty-first century. The stores are all gone, save for an empty store across the highway from the high school. Part of an old store stands just west of the high school, along with the old water tower. Local residents not employed by the school commute to other nearby communities such as Amity, Glenwood, Hot Springs (Garland County), and Arkadelphia (Clark County).
For additional information:
Early History of Pike County, Arkansas: The First Hundred Years. Murfreesboro, AR: Pike County Archives and History Society, 1989.
Smith, Kenneth L. Sawmill: The Story of Cutting the Last Great Virgin Forest East of the Rockies. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1986.
Doris Russell Foshee
Murfreesboro, Arkansas
BLUE RIVER, Ore. — Blue River residents and Francis O’Brien Memorial Library staff and patrons came together Wednesday morning in an attempt to save three trees in front of the library in Blue River.
The issue hinges on whether the trees are located on library property – or the library’s neighbor’s property.
“A private party intends to remove three Doug firs, each at least a hundred feet tall, from in front of the Francis O’Brien Memorial Library,” the group said in a statement. “This removal not only will unnecessarily kill three old-growth trees, but will be dangerous to the surrounding structures. The Blue River Water District board is concerned that falling the trees will ruin the integrity of the water pipes that provides drinking water to the town.”
“A private party intends to remove three Doug firs, each at least a hundred feet tall, from in front of the Francis O’Brien Memorial Library,” the group said in a statement. “This removal not only will unnecessarily kill three old-growth trees, but will be dangerous to the surrounding structures. The Blue River Water District board is concerned that falling the trees will ruin the integrity of the water pipes that provides drinking water to the town.”
They say felling these trees is “potentially detrimental to the town’s water system,” and that it would “hinder access to the library, and unless the trees are fell perfectly, it will damage the surrounding structures, including the library itself and family homes.”
Library supporters and Blue River residents, many in their 80s and 90s, planned to form a human chain around the trees, “if that’s what is needed,” the group said.
Property owner says trees are his
The owner of the property next to the library, Ralph Kennedy, says the trees are located on his property – and his to remove.
“The library built that building on the alley,” Kennedy said. “If anyone has any trouble with any alley, it’s the fact they built that on there.”
Kennedy said the trees block morning sunlight – and one of them is diseased and a danger to the public.
The loggers Kennedy had arranged to have cut down the trees left the scene as community members gathered to protest.
Kennedy said he still intends to remove the trees – but would not say when
Library board hopes something can be worked out
Priscilla Oxley, president for library board, said she doesn’t think any local loggers will agree to cut down the trees.
“I don’t think they’ll come back again,” she said. “If they should, our group would be back – and probably still more people.”
Oxley said she understands Kennedy and his wife’s predicament.
“Our neighbor, when she bought her land, I guess was never told this area was used as a public road for probably the last 75 years as people came to get books,” she said. “I rather feel for them. They are in a difficult situation. I would love to see them sell us that back half of their property.”
Al Artero, superintendent of the Blue River Water District, said he found out about the plan to cut the trees Tuesday.
“We have a very aging water system, it came in in the early 70s. The shockwave of these trees coming down, in my personal opinion, could cause great risk to our aging water system,” he said. “I would like some clarification on property lines – who owns what lands, where the right of ways are, and just make sure the interest of the public is maintained.”
Sean Davis, a community organizer in the area, said the problem stems from uncertainty over property lines.
“Everybody has a map, and they are making the lines mean different things,” he said.
“I know that Mr. Kennedy believes those are his trees,” Davis said.
So does the library.
“The library has been taking care of that property for 20, 30 years now,” he said.
Jim Baker, one of the residents who came out to support the library, called the situation a misunderstanding.
“You can hire a logger to come in and cut down trees for firewood, you don’t need a permit. You’re going to sell the logs, you need a permit. That still doesn’t give you permission to cut down the neighbor’s trees, or the public’s trees,” he said.
Baker planned to stay and stand between loggers and the trees as long as necessary.
“I’m 90 years old,” he said. “I got a lot of time to be here.”
History
William W. Mauldin, known as Billy Mauldin, was born in Greer County, Texas, and in 1906 had homesteaded 160 acres (0.65 km2) where Mauldin would later be located. Billy Mauldin worked in cooperation with Thomas Whitaker “Whit” Rosborough, who had formed the Caddo River Timber Company in 1906, when he started the town of Rosboro, in Pike County. The town of Mauldin first began heavy production of timber in 1922. It was, like Graysonia, Arkansas, a “company-owned town”, but did have a post office, school, church, and a large number of shotgun houses, along with business offices. The Caddo River Lumber Company built a railroad line from Womble (now Norman, Arkansas) to Mauldin, through the Gaston Settlement. The pine timber was shipped via train to mills in Glenwood and Rosboro, the latter of which was Rosborough’s main mill.
For a time the town thrived. But the company, functioning on a “cut and move” theory, packed up and disassembled the entire town almost overnight, in 1933, having cut all the virgin timber in the immediate area. The town had two 1-acre (4,000 m2) ponds used to float logs. The ponds still exist today, located just outside Mount Ida on Arkansas Highway 270. Nothing remains today short of a few concrete blocks where the mill once stood, and the two ponds. Both ponds were turned into a fish hatchery in 1940. There is a vacant field to the side of the ponds where the town once stood. All the larger buildings were torn down, while the smaller ones were moved to a new site near Forester, in Scott County.
The Caddo River Lumber Company later sold the majority of the land they owned there to the US Forest Service. In 1939 Thomas Rosborough moved his entire operation to the northwest, settling in Springfield, Oregon, and taking with him large numbers of loyal employees. Today his company, called “Rosboro”, is one of the only fully integrated timber operators in the United States. It is also one of the largest private timberland holders of the Pacific Northwest.
The surname Roxburgh, which has been spelled in the same way for five or six centuries, is the stillliving root from which come similar names or variants beginning in Ros-, Ross- and Rose-. Examples of
the variants are Rossburgh, -borough, -brugh and -brough. Among those beginning in Ros- we find the
same endings and also the ending -boro, while for those beginning in Rose- there are also the endings –
braugh and -burrough and possibly -burrow. Some of the variants are confined to the United States,
where the tendency to phonetic spelling is especially noticeable.
Five or six centuries ago, before the name had become Roxburgh, it was Rokesburg or Rokesburgh as
we will show below. Still earlier there had been a Celtic predecessor which is mentioned in the ancient
Welsh Book of Taliessin, a collection of poetry written mainly in the sixth century.
It is hard, at first, to understand why the early Welsh bard Taliessin would have had occasion to refer to
the south of Scotland. In the early fifth century, however, what are now England and the Scottish
lowlands were still inhabited mainly by the Welsh or Cymric peoples. When the protection of the
Roman armies was withdrawn from Britain for the last time about the year 400 the invaders from across
the North Sea and from Scotland began almost immediately to drive the Welsh toward the far southwest
of the island. For two centuries the Welsh fought a delaying action Under the leadership of the
celebrated Arthur who was either a king or a chieftain, and of his successors, before they were at last
confined to what are now Wales and Cornwall.
It is from the period of this ancient struggle that the earliest known predecessor of the names Rokesburg
and Roxburgh can be traced. The Welsh form of the name, as it appears in the Book of Taliessin, is Caer
Rywc, meaning fort of Rywc or Rywg. The next form was the Anglo-Saxon Rauics Burh and the next
appears to have been Roca or Rawics burg, the word burg at that period meaning a fortified settlement.
The name Caer Rywc in Taliessin (“between Caer Ryan and Caer Rywc”, in the tenth poem, Daronwy,
as given in W. F. Skene, cited below) referred not to Roxburgh Castle, however, but to a fort located
near the River Nith, a stream that flows south-east from central Ayrshire into Solway Firth. From the
fort’s location it is thought that it was used for defense against the Picts, and in imagination one may ask
the natural but unanswerable question, was it ever visited by King Arthur himself? Today the name Caer
Rywc survives locally in the name Crawic Water, a nearby tributary of the Nith that enters it from the
north a little above Sanquhar,
Rawic’s name was not confined, however, to an obscure fort in the hills. According to Sir Herbert E.
Maxwell, in his Scottish Land Names, p.142 “this Rawic seems to have left his name attached to a better
known place; Roxburgh, spelt of old Rokesburh is Rawic’s Burgh”.. The Welsh passage in the Book of
Taliessin., mentioned earlier, is found in W. F. Skene’s The Four Ancient Books of Wales volume 1, p.
270, line 50, and in volume II, page 148, next to last line.
The name Rokesburg appears in a deed or charter granted about the year 1120 by David, Earl of
Lothian and Cumbria. It is worth recalling that David was the fourth son of Malcolm III of Scotland.
Malcolm to whose name the appellation Canmore (i.e. “big head”) is usually applied, had overcome
Macbetfi in 1054 with the aid of MacDuff, regaining the throne of Duncan his father whom Macbeth
had murdered. Malcolm (whose wife, Margaret later became a Saint) died in 1093 and was succeeded in
turn by his three older sons before David came to the throne in 1124. During David’s constructive reign
of 30 years Rokesburg, located at a strategic point on the River Tweed, suddenly became noteworthy as
the site of a royal castle that was protected by unusually strong fortifications. The charter granted by
David, already referred to, gave lands and buildings for the perpetual support of a monastery at Selkirk
Abbey. Some of the property given for the Abbey is described in the charter as “in burgo de
Roxburgh as a Place and Family Name – Prof. D.C. MacGregor Page 2 of 12
file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Research/History/Scottish%20History/Roxburgh/Roxbu… 3/10/2013
Rokesburge. This charter or deed, which contains perhaps the first mention of Rokesburg in a reliable
document, is reproduced in Appendix I.
Many of David’s later official acts were completed at Rokesburg, the place having become one of the
four royal burghs from which the perambulating government of those days was from time to time
administered. Rokesburg is for this reason mentioned at least fifty-one times in the documents in Sir
Archibald Lawrie’s collection of Early Scottish Charters prior to A.D. 1153.
The spelling of the name varies considerably, however, the first syllable appearing in three other ways as
in Rochesburg, Rogesburg and Roxburg. In addition there are four main spellings of burg, not counting
the required Latin ending in e following the preposition in. The full range of twelve spellings of the
whole word will be found in Appendix II. It is clear from this that differences and errors in spelling the
name are not confined to modern times.
In the middle of the 1100’s Rogesburg appears also as a family name, an Adam de Rogesburg being one
of the witnesses to a charter granted by King David about the year 1150. The document is reproduced in
Appendix III. A further charter, also from Lawrie’s collection (No. 213) and issued in November 1150,
refers in the body of the document to Adam de Rochesburh capellanus regis (chaplain to the king). The
two documents, which almost certainly refer to the same person, despite the different spelling, appear to
be the earliest documentary evidence of the name as applied to a family, and from the time and
circumstances it probably applied to a single family connection.
Later in the same century, between 1163 and 1185, Walter de Rokeburg appears as witness of several
charters issued by the bishop of St. Andrew’s. In the same period, Hugh de Rokesburc, who was chosen
as bishop of Glasgow after being King William the Lion’s chief minister, Chancellor of Scotland,
received a royal grant of land in the abbacy of Munros. This is recorded in the Registrum de
Aberbrothoc. He died in 1199 before his consecration as bishop, and was buried at Jedburgh, not far
from Roxburgh.
A Rokeburgh is on record in 1269, and in 1291 William de Roxburgh was an official (the ‘cellarer’ or
keeper of stores) of Newbattle Abbey, a little south of Dalkieth and within ten miles of Edinburgh. The
cellars of this Abbey survive as foundations of the country seat, Newbattle, of the Marquis of Lothian. A
little south of the Scottish border, in Northumberland, a William de Rokesburgh is mentioned in the Pipe
Rolls of Edward I in 1293-94.
Another, John de Rokesburg, served in 1295 as lawyer or procurator for the monks of Kelso, only a mile
from Rokesburg Castle. In 1332 William de Rokesburg was the head of a hospital in Berwick, about 20
miles downstream from Rokesburg, and a John Rokesburgh appears as defendant in a legal dispute in
1358.
No occurrences of the name in the 1400’s are mentioned in George F. Black’s Surnames of Scotland
(New York Public Library, 1946) from which some of the above details are drawn. The absence of the
name may reflect the misfortunes of the period. From 1346 to 1460 Roxburgh Castle was in Englishhands and on its recovery, following the siege of 1460, the great structure was demolished and the town,
already much damaged no doubt by repeated warfare, declined. Another event that almost certainly
contributed to the absence of the name after 1360 was the Black Death or bubonic plague which reached
Scotland from England and Europe in 1350 and recurred twice in the 1360’s. The plague, which carried
off about half the population of Europ
Rosamond Press 
Reblogged this on Rosamond Press and commented:
On the morning of Christine’s funeral, I stood on the steps to her daughter’s home, holding a poem her father wrote. I had found it in the big box of our family photos Rosamond had possession of. I concluded she was looking to make more prints of us, and sell them for money. I told Rosemary I was going to read this poem at the service. I was shocked and disgusted to see and hear her words; “That would be highly inappropriate!” This is when I knew my mother was part of The Plot where outsiders met in the Rosamond home and discussed – business! They talked about buying the estate and making a movie from Rosamond’s biography – that Rosemary told me Carrie Fisher might write. Rosemary, nor I, knew we were kin to Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor. If I had read Royal Rosamond’s poem, then there would exist there is a Rosy Literary History in MY family, and, proof one family member is keen on literature. No family member spoke over Christine’s body lying exposed in a open coffin – as planned!
Three months ago Michael Dundon and I talked about why he did not attend Christine’s funeral. He came over to tell me she was dead. What should have happened, is the three of us should have entered Rosamond’s home, and asked Vicki if she was going to serve as Executor. If she told the truth I would have dismissed her. “I am going to be the executor!” The third person is Michael Harkins, who drove me there.
Mr. Dundon’s father-in-law worked for Rosboro Lumber. This history goes with my movie The Big Trees. Michael’s mother’s name is Rose. She had a daughter named Rosemary. Above is a photograph of Michael and Christine. He is sixteen. Yesterday we again looked at his mortality. Somethings – are forever! The Farewell Rose – is eternal. I will send Rosamond’s poem to the friend, and brother in AA, that I love, so he can read it – to the one he loves.
Thomas Whitaker Rosborough came to Springfield Oregon with his lumber outfit that might have included his black loggers whom he may have adored, because, he refused to get rid of them when he moved Rosboro about Arkansas. I will be contacting Eric Richardson about this possibility.
https://rosamondpress.com/2017/09/24/close-your-big-eyes-bitch/