R.H. Espy circa 1918
Community Historian Mike Lemeshko recently ran across this great glimpse into the personalities of two of Oysterville’s early pioneers:
It is related in Oysterville that one day Major R.H. Espy and Judge Miles Standish Griswold met in Osborne Goulter’s village butcher shop. The two oldtimers engaged in a discussion that became somewhat heated. Espy had come across the plains on horseback in 1852, and Griswold had sailed around Cape Horn from Boston in a ship. Both were rugged individualists of the old school and had their own opinions, It seems that Espy had made a purchase of homegrown beef from the butcher, and since even butcher paper was scarce in those days, Goulter had merely run a skewer through one end. Major Espy stood there during the altercation holding on to the skewer. A little dog slipped in and began chewing at the bottom end of the string which was lifted from time to time, but never quite out of reach. Tradition does not record just what Mrs. Espy said to her august husband when he finally got home, but the dog merely licked his chops and went his way, while Osborne Goulter grinned…
Julia Jefferson Espy c. 1895
The source of this anecdote is Frank Turner’s “Auld Lang Syne” column that ran in the Ilwaco Tribune in the 1950s. Turner was the publisher/editor of The Ilwaco Tribune from 1925 until 1942 at which time he sold the paper to his daughter and son-in-law, Martha and Dick Murfin. It was while the Murfins were running things that Turner wrote his wonderful column of anecdotes about the early days here.
I have always understood that my great-grandfather was a rather taciturn individual but this little look into his temperament might indicate a side to him that his children and grandchildren never mentioned. I’d give a heap to know what the ‘altercation’ between himself and Griswold was all about.
Interesting, too, to learn that the Goulter connection with cattle goes back that many generations and that the Murfins have been involved in information of one sort or another for a long time. Great read!