I thought at this time it would be fitting to write a sketch on C.S.D. and Elizabeth (Peckenpaugh) Rose's only son, Randolph Thomas Rose. The following article was written by my grandmother, Mrs JF Rose, July 1941.





















Randolph Thomas Rose was born Jan. 26, 1840 in Schuyler Co. Ill. He was the oldest of four children. He crossed the plains with his parents in 1847 in a train of 40 wagons. Although he was only seven years of age, he was called upon to assist with the work and he drove one of the ox teams a large part of the way. The trip was fraught with much hardship, especially when an epidemic of yellow fever took many lives. His mother and one sister died on this trip. The family stopped at The Dalles and later moved to Salem, Oregon. Here he received his education after which he went with his father to work in the mines. They quit $10.00 a day in the mines to run a pack train of mules from Scottsburg, Oregon, to Crest City, California. At that time food was very high, flour was $1.00 a pound.
Roseburg, at that time, was only a small village boasting of a Post Office and a few dwellings and up Canon Creek was just a trail. At one time they had a train of 30 mules, just think of packing 30 mules in the morning and unpacking 30 mules at night. Some job.
Pa, as we called him, done the work as a bell boy, he rode a horse or mule with a bell on as leader, and the rest of the mules followed. On one of those trips he almost froze to death. When they got to the end of their journey they had to take him off the horse and roll him in the snow to thaw him out.
I suppose it was on one of those trips that he met Miss Rachel Beaver, who afterwards became his wife. She was born in Jefferson Co., Iowa. She crossed the plains by ox team with her uncle James Hodson, Mr Howard Paris being captain of the train. They endured all the hardships which were attached to the journey of all of Oregon's pioneers. They arrived in Oregon, Oct. 11, 1859. And she was living near Canyonville, Oregon. And on Nov. 22, 1860 they were married in the James Clark house near Canyonville. The house is still standing. They made their home on Roberts Creek.
To this Union was born 14 children. 6 sons W.C., J.F., R.D., J.E., T.B., and J.M. Rose. 8 daughters, Frances, Ella, Anna, Mary, Carra, Jane, Della, and Edith Rose. All lived to be grown and married but two, Frances and Della, who died when small children. On Sep. 5, 1902 his wife died at the home of their daughter Carrie at the place known as the Cash Wait place at Roundprarie. From then on he made his home with his children, and on March 22, 1931 he died at the home of his son R.D. on Roberts Creek, just a short distance from where his father C.S.D. Rose dropped dead. He was laid to rest beside his wife near his father in the Gilmore Cemetery on South Deer Creek.

Dear Father
I take this opportunity to inform you that I am well at present and I hope that these few lines will find you enjoying the same blessing. I can not give you any satisfaction at all about my children. I left them in Oregon on the 3 of September last at William Pugh at a good house. I, indeed, left orders for them to be sent to school during my absence. I have sent them one hundred dollars since my departure from them. I hope to see those little ones again in the fall, if the Lord wills. I long to see them, they are the dearest of my thoughts. The only comfort I have is when in there presence, their little chatering voices around me. I must postcribe to you my local position in the gold mines. I am situated on the middle fork of Feather River about 3 miles above the mouth of the south branch. I have 3 claims on this stream one here, one 5 miles below, one 10 miles above. Myself and Co in with Simon Doyal, Frances Thornton, James Doyle, T. Silvers, J. Gapen, J. Teel, Dickson, the above claim CSD Rose Simon Doyal, James Doyal, Frances Thornton, J. Gapen, Charles Wells, William Lusk, Weeden and Wilson from Kentucky. I plan on sending you some of the gold from this claim and some from the claim above in order to show you a specimen of my prospects here. I will postcribe to you the prices of provisions. Flour this winter has been one dollar and twenty five cents for pound, pork the same, rice 75 cents, beans one dollar for pound, potatoes one dollar and 50 cents for pound, coffee and tea according, pound cheese 2 dollars for pound. Other articals too teadius to mention. You can tell by this how my expences have been this winter at the mine. We expect three or four months yet before we can do much at mining more than clean our teeth. I shall make my letters short , having but a short time to write to you. This gold I dug myself out of my claim on this river, The largest pieces out of my middle claim, smallest pieces out of the upper claim. just to show you and the boys the quality of the gold. No more at present but hoping a letter from you.
CSD Rose

Date: August 12,1849
Dear father, I take this opportunity to inform you that I am well and my children also. I have broke up housekeeping. I am with my children at one Mister Pewes, doing very well. Give yourself no uneasyness about me at all for I am in a plentyful Country. Money is very plenty. Wages is from one hundred and sixty to two hundred dollars a month for labor and five dollars for a cor for cutting and putting up wheat. I do not expect to return to the states as soon as I expected not with-standing I expect to return to my mother country again in one or two years from this time if permited. My health and strength so long times is flurishing in Oregon. I do not expect to return home without some money if digging will obtain it. My health is good at this time I expect to start for California on the first day of September next 1849 to remain about eight or ten months there in the goldmines. It is said and dare not to be desputed that there has been as high as three hundred dug and washed in a day. The minors will not stay when they do not make one ounce a day. They will not work at that place any longer when they do not make from fifty to three hundred dollars. They think they are doing poor business. I want to help them. I must hasten my letter. I must give you a sketch of the wheat crops. I suppose they will average about twenty bushel to the acre. That is the spring wheat. Winter wheat froze out very much, some of it was not worth cutting. Remember my best respects to my friends and relatives in Schuyler. As I expect to be here in Oregon at next harvest I want you to send me a cutting machine if you can conveniently do it without disabliging yourself too much. I am here doing nothing. I want a machine to be doing something while I am here for it is the best oppotunity for cutting I ever seen. Money is no object here. Send me the machine and I will guarantee the money. I must come to a close for the present. Hoping that these few lies will find you enjoying good health. Health is a great satisfaction. Remember my best respects to my friends all. Your affectionate son CSD Rose

The first portion of this article on the beginning of Roseburg, Oregon will be stories and letters to and from a man named Commodore Stephen Decatur Rose - known as CSD -(See above picture)

Newspaper clipping - Wagon Train Hit By Fever Going West. A wagon train of 40 vehicles was struck by an epidemic of Yellow fever when Commodore Steven Decater Rose journeyed to Oregon from Kentucky. Commodore, occasionally known as C.S.D. Rose was born Aug. 12, 1818 in Kentucky and was married to Elizabeth Peckenpaugh in 1839. They had a son and three daughters.

Commodore and family traveled to Oregon by way of wagon train. When Yellow fever tragically struck, C.S.D. lost his wife and a daughter and he buried them along the way. He and the other children, Randolph Thomas, Sarah Jane and Mary Emeline continued the journey.

They stopped at the Willamette Valley and later coming to the Umpqua Valley where he took up a donation land claim. Part of the log barn and some fruit trees that Commodore Rose placed in the area are still standing.

Commodore Rose, known to his family as "Grandpa," enjoyed talking about conditions of the past: Once, during a trip to Coffee Creek in Jackson County, he was driving a group of some 30 hogs to market, a cougar jumped the group and landed on a horse's back behind the rider. A man on a horse behind him used a blacksnake whip to slash at the cougar. The animal jumped off and scampered for the brush. Another time, while he was away from home, a grizzly bear killed one of his large hogs near his house, ate part of it and then disappeared. Commodore Rose and a neighbor, Joe Thompson decided to wait and watch for the bear to get a shot at him. At night they dragged the carcass of the hog to the foot of a tree and then climbed up in the tree. They heard the bear, fired shots and then returned to the house, as there was no way of seeing which way the wounded animal went.
The next morning they found the animal about 100 yards from a fence he had broken through.
Commodore Rose also convinced an Indian he could shoot. While traveling between Canyonville and Cow Creek, an Indian overtook him and demanded that he give him the red handkerchief he had around his neck.

When the Commodore refused, the Indian motioned that he would shoot him with his bow and arrow. Commodore Rose had his six shooter with him and pointed to a knot on a tree some distance ahead.
In Indian jargon, he asked, "Do you see that knot in that tree?"
The Indian nodded.
He hit the knot with a bullet from his six shooter and the knot broke into pieces.
The Indian fled.

Commodore Rose's son, Randolph, was born in Illinois and was the oldest of the four children. When only seven he was called upon to assist with the work. He drove one of the ox teams a large part of the way out West. With his father he went to work in the mines, but they quit $10.00 a day to run a mule train from Scottsburg to Crescent City, CA. At the time food was very high with flour selling at a dollar a pound. Roseburg was but a small village with a post office and a few dwellings and Canyon Creek was just a trail.

Randolph was a Bell boy. He rode a horse with a bell on it, and the mules followed the sound. On one trip he almost froze to death and when they got to the end of the journey they had to take him off the horse and rolled him in the snow to save his life.

Presumably, Randolph, on one of the trips, met Miss Rachel Beaver who later became his wife. She had crossed westward with her uncle, James Hodson.

Date: April the 2nd 1848
Dear Father, I take this opportunity to inform you that we are all well at this time and I hope that these few lines will find you enjoying the same blessing. I suppose that you will hear of my misfortune before you get this letter. I have lost my wife. She deceased November the 18 1847. Katharine deceased October the 24 1847. I got to Oregon with great trouble and grief. I will assure you, indeed, I would not advise no man to come to Oregon except he becomes very unhealthy. This is no place for a man to live unless he wants to live a dogs life. This is a good wheat country, but when that is said, about farming. Water cannot be beat. Health is good. Tell my friends that I, myself, am as well as I ever was in my life. My weight is 200 pounds. I have worked for my living since I have been here. Wheat is worth one dollar for bushel. Corn four pounds for one dollar. Beans from one to four dollars for bushel. Potatoes fifty cents. Labor is from one dollar to two for a day. It is too tedious to mention every particular. I must make my letter short on the account of paper. This territory is very small to what it has been represented us. You can stand on the mountain and see your prison walls all around you. Willamette Valley is from size of a narrow canyon to thirty miles wide and about two hundred miles in length with the valleys of other small rivers putting in containing small valleys. There is Yamhill River, a handsome stream and many others that I could name. I hope that if this letter should find you on the way that you may turn back. Although I am opposed to taking the back track but this country, you will not like it if you come here. I don't expect to stay here longer than the spring of 49. I want it understood by all of my friends I am not pleased with this country. If you have not sold your place, hold on to it for you cannot better yourself. Oregon is too small to even make a country. Not only this, there is no outlet for a market. I am living on the Willamette River in Yamhill County, but I have taken a claim in Champoeg County 5 miles above D. Matheny and five miles below the institute. This town of Salem, is supposed by the old settlers, that it will become the seat of government. I expect my claim tomorrow or in a few days. I expect to sell it and go back to the states. I got here with 3 yoke-steers but they died during the winter, which left me with 5 oxen, 2 cows, one with young. I was compelled to leave the wagon, that you let me have, at the first crossing of the Snake River. You have no idea of the property that is left on the way. You have heard that the people were more on a equality here than any other place. The reason of it, them that has the most, loses the most. Remember what I tell you it will make any man poor to come to this Country. Take a fools advice and stay home. For if you come here you will not like the place. I don't want you to fool yourself because I did tell John Rose that I am displeased and likewise William John Peckenpaugh, Vans and Ed and Louise and George and Buck and all of my old neighbors. I want you, if this letter meets you on the road, I would advise you to turn back and I want you to write me a few lines whether you do or not for I want to lay in provisions for you and if you turn, where you will stop for I expect to return. I consider that I have wrote enough to satisfy you, if you can put any confidence in what I say I shall come to a close. I want you to look at these lines as though I was talking to your face. I add no more at present but remain your affectionate son until death. C.S.D. Rose

Grizzly and the chief to show the character of this venerable pioneer...
Compiled from the Oregon Historical Society
History will tell the year of the Rogue River Indian trouble. CSD Rose camped one night previous to the trouble near an Indian Camp on Rogue River. He found at the camp some dead and many sick from measles. The Indian's cure for all diseases was to take a steam bath; then jump into cold water. This means of cure caused the death of many.
The chief's son, young John, was sick and the members of the tribe were preparing his steam bath. Rose and his companions prevailed upon the chief to allow them to treat the boy. Giving the boy the usual treatment for measels he recovered as did the others that did not use their ancient "cure-all".
Soon afterwards Rose was adopted by the tribe with tribal ceremonies and was during his life time known by the Indians as "Grizzly". During the Rogue River Indian War the man with the white whiskers and known as Grizzly never stopped his pack train for a single day. While to travel the same road meant death to others. Grizzly would often take honey to the chief as a token of friendship. Their friendship lasted as long as the old chief lived. He was the last chief. The chiefs name was Indian John. Indian John later took up arms against the white people and refused to sign the peace treaty at the meeting of all of the chiefs and the white delegates on the Illinois River in May 1856. This meeting took place near the junction of Illinois River and Rouge river.

You may have guessed, C.S.D. Rose was our great-great grandfather and we are very proud of his part in settling Roseburg. We realize that Aaron Rose was the one the town was named for and did great work building some of the main buildings. But both C.S.D. and his son Randolph (our great grandfather) hauled in their wagons Aarons needs and building material. All very important to the process.