John Day Fossil Beds Historic Resources Study

Chapter Four:
SETTLEMENT (continued)

Early Settlement in the Vicinity of the National Monument

Records of the General Land Office and its successor, the Bureau of Land Management, confirm the significant impact of the Dalles-Boise Military Road land grant on settlement both within and in the vicinity of the present-day Monument. In 1874, the grant's alternate, odd-numbered sections removed from public entry hundreds of thousands of acres. This was especially true in the Painted Hills Unit where the wagon road passed through the watershed of Bridge Creek. The early land records further confirm that when local settlers attempted to use the Homestead Act to secure lands within the bounds of what is now the National Monument, they often did not succeed. Many relinquished their claims or had them cancelled by the General Land Office.

Sheep Rock Unit

Bisected by the John Day River, the Sheep Rock Unit lies north of Picture Gorge in Grant County, with tracts in T10, 11, and 12S, R26E, W.M. It includes arid mountain slopes, and the rich bottomlands of Turtle Cove, including the secluded valleys of Big Basin and Butler Basin. Settlement came particularly late to this inaccessible area. The first Euro-American resident is said to have been Frank Butler, a one-armed rancher who built a cabin and gave his name to Butler Basin in 1877 (McArthur 1974: 98-99).

Early settlers used several congressional programs to secure lands here. For instance, Mathias Howe, used the cash entry system to purchase 160 acres in 1876 in Section 20, T12S, R26E, W.M. In 1898, Floyd Officer secured a homestead patent to 160 acres in Section 6 in the Butler Basin. Sylvia Officer obtained a patent to forty acres under the Desert Land Act in Section 18 of this township. The odd-numbered sections — 5, 7, and 17 — were part of the grant to The Dalles-Boise Military Wagon Road Company. Because these patents were not confirmed until 1900 and 1901, it is probable that the tracts remained unsettled (though probably used for grazing) until issue of the deeds (BLM n.d.a, n.d.b, n.d.c).

BLM Master Title Plats, Historical Index, and Control Data Inventory confirm grants and filings on lands within the Sheep Rock Unit, as given below. Claims filed under the Homestead Act which were later relinquished are not identified by name in the Control Data Inventory; only the serial number and dates of filing and relinquishment are preserved.

• T10S, R26E, W.M.

Section 31 160 acres in NENW, SENW, NESW, SESW were filed upon 11/04/1893 under the Homestead Act; the claim was cancelled 4/29/1904.

Section 31 Peter J. Morrison purchased 80 acres, NESW, SESW on April 11, 1910.

(BLM n.d.p, n.d.q, n.d.r)

• T11S, R26E, W.M.

Section 20 Ransom Glaze secured patent on 8/12/1901 under the Homestead Act to NESW, NWSW, and SWSW.

Section 30 Ebon Officer secured patent on 12/01/1898 under the Homestead Act to SENW, NESW, SESW.

Section 30 A claimant under the Desert Land Act sought the NWSW and the NWSE on 11/23/1898; the claim was cancelled on 7/17/1905.

Section 31 Ebon Officer secured patent on 12/01/1898 under the Homestead Act to NENW.

Section 31 Finlay Morrison secured patent on 1/27/1904 to 159.06 acres under the Homestead Act in SENW, NESW, SWSW, and SESW.

Section 32 A claimant under the Homestead Act filed on the SENE on 2/14/1906; the claim was cancelled on 5/19/1913.

(BLM n.d.s, n.d.t, n.d.u)

• T12S, R26E, W.M.

Section 6 Floyd Officer secured patent on 1/30/1898 to 160 acres in NENW, SENW, NESW, and, NWSE.

Section 6 Floyd Officer secured patent as a Desert Land Entry on 8/16/1906 to 157.41 acres in SESW, SWSE.

Section 7 All of this section was granted to The Dalles-Boise Wagon Road Company and patented 12/03/1901.

Section 17 All of this section was granted to The Dalles-Boise Wagon Road Company and patented 12/03/1901.

Section 18 Sylvia Officer secured patent as a Desert Land Entry on 9/21/1908 to 40 acres in NENE.

Section 30 A claimant under the Homestead Act filed on the NENE, NWNE, SENW, NESW on 2/23/1895; the claim was cancelled on 7/6/1896.

Section 30 A claimant under the Homestead Act filed on 7/8/1893 on the NWNE, SWNE, SENW, and NESW under the Homestead Act; the claim was cancelled on 3/14/1900.

(BLM n.d.a, n.d.b, n.d.c)

The first family to establish ranching operations in Butler Basin was the Officer family. Eli Casey Officer was the son of first-generation Willamette Valley pioneers. In 1861, he had migrated with his brother back across the Cascades, bringing some of the first sheep to the John Day valley. Members of his large, extended family were instrumental in the organization and early development of Grant County. Eli Officer raised both cattle and sheep on his homestead near Dayville until 1881, when according to family tradition, he moved to Butler Basin (Murray 1984b: 1-4; Taylor and Gilbert 1996: 21). BLM records, presented above, do not indicate that Eli formally secured any land there, but son Floyd, and Ebon Officer did secure patents to lands in Butler Basin under the Homestead Act.

Fig. 13. Structures and landscape features on the Floyd Officer homestead, ca. 1900 (JDNM Catalog #2736)

One of nine children of Eli and Martha (Thorpe) Officer, Floyd Lee Officer was born and raised in the Dayville area. From December of 1890, Floyd homesteaded his own land in Butler Basin. He worked the land, for seven years, and secured patent to the 160-acre Butler Basin homestead in January of 1898 (Murray 1984b: 4). That same year, he married Sylvia Fitzgerald Officer, and together they raised eight children, living a rudimentary, hardscrabble existence. Twice a year Floyd went to The Dalles for supplies. His journeys sometimes lasted up to six weeks. Sylvia Officer rode horseback to Dayville — a child in front and child behind her on the horse — to sell eggs and butter or barter for groceries. The Officers finally sold out in 1910 and relocated to ranch property in Dayville where the children could more easily attend school. Floyd Officer died in Dayville in 1948. Because of his intimate knowledge of the Butler Basin region and interest in fossils, Officer several times served as local guide for Thomas Condon, pioneer paleontologist from The Dalles (Ashton n.d. ; Murray 1984b).

After 1919, the Sheep Rock area became home to a sizable ethnic community of immigrants from Scotland. Reared in a country of limited land and resources, with a restless yearning for economic opportunity, several men and women immigrated from Scotland to the upper John Day country at the end of the nineteenth century. Family surnames — Finlayson, MacKay, MacBain, McRae, Cant, Murray, Munro, and Frazier — confirmed their Scottish origins. An estimated 130 families with Scottish origins settled in the district served by the crossroads community of Dayville. The brogue of their English, their knowledge of Gaelic, familiarity with sheep raising, willingness to engage in hard work, and love of dancing provided a unique character to their community (Murray 1984a: 15-16).

Arriving from Scotland in 1905, James Cant Sr. worked on ranches in the area and, over several years, built up his sheep holdings by taking half of the annual production of lambs in lieu of salary. Cant married Elizabeth Grant, also from Scotland, in 1908. With his partner Johnny Mason, Cant purchased the Floyd and Sylvia Officer place in 1910. For some six decades, the Cant family continued to improve and expand their property as their ranching operation grew and evolved from sheep to cattle. By the mid-i 970s, when the property was acquired by the National Park Service, the Cant Ranch had long been known as one of the most extensive, long-lived operations in the vicinity of the Monument (Toothman 1983).

Fig. 14. Home of James and Elizabeth Cant, erected 1917-18; F.K. Lentz, 1996 (National Park Service).

When the Cants acquired the Officer homestead, they used many of its existing structures and improvements. These included the corral, orchard, irrigation system, fields, and buildings. Between 1915 and 1918, the Cants hired workmen to construct a commodious new ranch house, based on designs from The Radford American Homes, a popular pattern book (1903).

The new Cant house became a familiar landmark to travelers with the building of the highway in the early 1920s through Picture Gorge. People on the road often stopped for food and drink and sometimes for a room. The ranch complex grew in the 1920s with construction of a garage, barn, sheep-shearing sheds, watchman's hut, and a shed to house the Kohler light-plant. By the 1930s, the Cant Ranch headquarters included some sixteen buildings, corrals, gardens, orchards, irrigation systems, and fields (Taylor and Gilbert 1996: 7, 27-51).