Piedmont. Portland's Emerald.

Captain Lewis Love, from Illinois, arrived in Oregon in 1850, just in time. The Donation Land Claim act allowed (white) settlers claims of 320 acres and 320 additional acres for their wives, provided both arrived in or before 1850. After 1850 the claim amount was halved to 160 + 160 acres. Note that 160 acres is a quarter of a one mile by one mile PLSS section. Lewis and Nancy M. Love filed a Donation Land Claim (DLC 41, Accession OROCAA 040658, dd 03/19/1866) on 635 acres of virgin timber land between the slough and the present NE Bryant Street and from approximately the 1-5 freeway to NE 8th Avenue which is the northern half of the Piedmont Neighborhood and part of the western boundary of the Woodlawn Neighborhood. Lewis Love eventually became one of Portland’s first millionaires, and when he died in 1903 his donation land had grown to 757 acres, which he left to his bickering and litigating offspring. Love donated the land for The Columbia Cemetery, where he and his wife are buried. It was formerly called Love’s Cemetery. Farragut Park was also part of Love’s estate. So are the Lovewood, Loveleigh, and Love’s Addition areas in Piedmont.

Between Bryant and Portland Boulevard (now Rosa Parks), from Union (now MLK) to what is now I-5, are three lots of each about 37 acres, part of a Military Bounty Land Warrant of 160 acres given to A-Chars-War-Chee (MW-0229-025, dd 12/10/1864), who immediately transfered the land to David Ulery. A-Chars-War-Chee was one of the 500 Creek volunteers in Captain Paddy Carr’s Company in the Creek War. David Ulery (derived from O’Leary) was born in 1831 in Pennsylvania, then moved to West Virginia, Iowa, Wisconsin, California and finally in 1861 to Portland. He grew fruit and vegetables near the Vancouver County Road, and was active in the Grange movement. In 1882 he sold his Portland properties and moved to the Chelatchie Valley in Clark County.

Evander Howe came from Vermont to Oregon in the 1860s and established a claim under the Homestead Act for $200 (OROCAA 040709, dd 06/01/1870). The 160 acre tract is bounded today by Interstate Avenue, Kerby Avenue, Killingsworth Avenue, and Portland Boulevard where the Arbor Lodge, Piedmont, Humboldt, and Overlook Neighborhoods intersect.

In 1866, George Smith used a Military Bounty Land warrant to acquire 160 acres. More precisely MW-0229-056 was given on 03/10/1866 to Henry Walsh, who served in the US Quartermaster Department in the war with Mexico. The tract is bounded today by Portland Boulevard and Kerby, Union, and Killingsworth Streets. It forms the southwestern corner of the Piedmont Neighborhood, the northwestern corner of the Humboldt Neighborhood, and the northeastern corner of the King Neighborhood. In July 1870, Smith bought 80 additional acres, for $400, from Evander Howe, whose homestead was to the west. Note that Evander Howe’s obtained his homestead in January 1870, so he did not do anything with it. The following month Smith and his wife Elizabeth sold all their land, 240 acres to H. F. Bloch and A. P. Dennison.

The other part of Evander Howe’s homestead claim wound up at some pointsin the hands of Councilman Sylvester Farrell, who sold “an undivided ⅔ the north ½ of
the southwest ¼ of section 15, iN, 1E” to W.K. Smith on December 31, 1889, for
$ 16,666.

So, summarizing, the part of Piedmont North of Bryant street was in the Donation Land Claim of Lewis and Nancy Love. The strip between Bryant and Portland Boulevard was in the David Ulery tract. The part of Piedmont below Portland Boulevard and West of Kerby (which includes what is now Peninsula Park) was in the Evander Howe homestead, and the part below Bryant and East of Kerby was in the Military Bounty of Henry Walsh, which he immediately transfered to George Smith. It is likely (but not certain) that Smith added the 80 eastern acres of Howe’s land, which means that in 1870 the area which is now Peninsula Park was sold to Bloch/Dennison. After 1870, who knows. We do know that in 1909 the City bought the 20 acres for Peninsula Park from W.K. Smith, a banker, and another one of our early millionaires.

This is mostly taken from the Draft Albina Community Plan Context Statement, PDS, 1992. I added some information from other sources. To be expanded and continued