The Little Red Cottage

I don’t think the Red Cottage is the smallest house in town.  Probably that distinction goes to the Hausler place at the southwest corner of Oysterville and Territory Roads.  But, now that the Nelson and Captain Stream houses have been enlarged, I think the Red Cottage (once known as the Munson House or the Munson Store) is probably the smallest of the historic structures remaining in the village.

Perhaps it’s because I know that little cottage so well that I feel it has one of the most significant histories in town.  For starters, it’s the oldest.  It was built in 1863 (perhaps as early as 1857) by Captain Joel Munson with the help of his brothers-in-law, Byron and Nathan Kimball.  The Kimball boys and their sister Sophia Kimball Munson had survived the infamous Whitman Massacre back in 1847.  (Their older sister, Susan Kimball Wirt, lived across the street with husband August Wirt.)

And if the connection to the Whitman Massacre isn’t historic enough, Joel Munson, himself, was a man of considerable distinction.  From 1865 to 1877 he served as Lightkeeper at the Cape Disappointment Light Station.  Early in his posting, the bark Industry wrecked near the Cape with a loss of seventeen lives.  Munson, greatly disturbed that there had not been a lifesaving craft available to the lightkeepers, raised money for a lifesaving boat and, later, helped establish a lifesaving station at Cape Disappointment.

Joel Munson

Captain Munson’s money-raising efforts in the cause of lifesaving had centered around his expertise as a fiddler.  He organized two dances in Astoria, charging $2.50 per person, to raise over $200.  Apparently, he also made fiddles.  Years later in her autobiography, Bethenia Owens-Adair had these reminiscences about the Captain:

Mr. Munson might well be called a ‘diamond in the rough.’ He had a big heart, a hilarious, jovial disposition, and loved good company and a good social time.  He was a tall, broad-shouldered, powerfully-built man, with a large, square head. He was a natural musician, and loved the violin on which he could play by the hour, day or night, and never tire. I have heard him say, ‘I believe I could play in my sleep if I tried.’ I have seen him play and laugh and talk at the same time, never missing a note or losing time or expression…

   Mr. Munson manufactured a number of violins, some of which were valuable. One of these he made from a piece of hardwood which he found several feet below the surface while digging a drain in a swamp near the lighthouse. No hardwood grows anywhere near that vicinity, and this fragment must have drifted ashore long years before and had been covered with [the] debris, it may be, of a century.

Bethenia, herself, stayed for some time with the Munsons in Oysterville in their little cottage.  She first came as a young woman – a friend of Sophia Munson’s – and was keen to get an education.  She attended the Oysterville School for a term, came back a few years later to teach there, went on to continue her education and become Oregon’s first female doctor.  I see her story as another historic association with the Red Cottage!

Sign on the Red Cottage

All these historic connections, of course, were well ahead of the Red Cottage’s best known claim to fame – serving as the first Pacific County Courthouse from 1866 to 1875.  And, my personal favorite Red Cottage note of importance – its ownership from 1974 to 1997 by the man who painted it red, my uncle and distinguished author, Willard Espy!