Oregon Trail Chapter, NSDAR

08/25/2025

Reserve your spot at our August lecture, Downtown Gresham: A History in 10 Buildings ! August 30 from 5 to 6pm at the Gresham Historical Society: GHS Director Silvie Andrews presents research on buildings and what they say about different eras in Gresham's history. From its beginnings as a camp meet...

08/25/2025

Come see us at the Oregon State Fair! We will be there everyday with some fun activities and displays about America's upcoming 250th Birthday.

08/25/2025

To honor the summer's last Music Monday (on 8/25), we present the Gresham Band in the summer of 1925. A lot has changed in a hundred years, but the music plays on in Gresham!

08/21/2025

08/21/2025

In February 1909, a rare photograph captured the weary face of Geronimo, the legendary Apache chief and one of the last great Native warriors to resist the expansion of the United States.
Born in 1829 in what is now Arizona, Geronimo became a fierce resistor against Mexican and American occupation and the forced relocation of Native Americans to reservations. He led his followers in raids against settlers and the military for over a decade, fighting to protect Apache lands and way of life. Geronimo eventually surrendered in 1886 and spent the remainder of his life as a prisoner of war, dying in 1909.

The image reflects a man worn by years of struggle, a warrior whose life had been marked by relentless conflict and unyielding courage. Geronimo had spent his final years as a prisoner at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, a shadow of the fierce leader he once was.

One day, while returning home, Geronimo fell from his horse and was left exposed to the elements overnight, enduring cold and pain without aid. He was discovered at dawn, but the damage was done. Pneumonia quickly set in, and his condition deteriorated rapidly. On February 17, 1909, Geronimo passed away, his life ending far from the battlefield where he had fought so valiantly.

According to his nephew, his final words were as stark as they were honest: “I should never have surrendered. I should have fought until the last man was alive.” Today, Geronimo rests in the Apache Prison Cemetery at Fort Sill. Yet his free spirit and those haunting words continue to ride on in the memory of a people who never fully surrendered, keeping his legacy alive for generations.

He is remembered as a symbol of Native American resistance and resilience.

08/07/2025

When Susie King Taylor was born into slavery on this day in 1848, it was illegal to educate African Americans in Georgia but she learned to read and write at a young age thanks to a secret school. After she fled to Union-controlled St. Simons Island during the U.S. Civil War, her talents brought her to the attention of Union officers who asked the teenager if she would organize a school if they could obtain books and materials. She gladly agreed and, at age 14, Taylor became the first Black teacher for freed African-Americans at a freely operating school in Georgia. She taught 40 children in a day school and, as she wrote in her memoir, “a number of adults who came to me nights, all of them so eager to learn to read, to read above anything else.”

Soon after, she married Edward King, an African-American non-commissioned officer stationed there with the First South Carolina Volunteers of African Descent. When the island was evacuated in 1862, she opted to follow his regiment as a nurse. For three years, she served as an unpaid nurse for the regiment, and taught many Black soldiers to read and write in their off-duty hours. After the war was over, Taylor and her husband returned to Savannah, Georgia where she established another school for freed African-American children. Sadly, her husband died shortly afterward, and the opening of a free school nearby forced Taylor to close hers. Seeking new opportunities, she traveled to Boston as the domestic servant of a wealthy family and remarried in 1879.

More than ten years later -- and over thirty years after the end of the Civil War -- she wrote one of the most detailed memoirs ever written by a woman about life in a Civil War camp. Her memoir, “Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33d United States Colored Troops, Late 1st S.C. Volunteers,” was also the only memoir ever written by an African-American woman about her experience during the Civil War. In it, Taylor emphasized the important role of Black troops, as well as the often unrecognized role that women played during the Civil War: “There were loyal women, as well as men, in those days who did not fear the shell or the shot, who cared for the sick and the dying.”

Susie King Taylor is also the author of the only memoir published by an African American woman about her experiences during the Civil War -- it is still in print today at https://bookshop.org/a/8011/9780820326665 (Bookshop) and https://amzn.to/3SyjpaI (Amazon)

To introduce children to her heroic story, we recommend “Memoir of Susie King Taylor: A Civil War Nurse,” which uses excerpts from Taylor’s own words to bring Civil War history alive for ages 9 to 12 (https://www.amightygirl.com/memoir-of-susie-king-taylor) and "Susie King Taylor: Nurse, Teacher & Freedom Fighter" for ages 10 and up (https://www.amightygirl.com/susie-king-taylor)

Taylor's Civil War contributions are also recounted in the excellent book about 16 women who made a mark during the war: “Courageous Women of the Civil War" for teens and adults, ages 13 an up, at https://www.amightygirl.com/courageous-women-civil-war

For an uplifting picture book about a woman who ran a secret school, we recommend "Midnight Teacher: Lilly Ann Granderson and Her Secret School" for ages 6 to 9 at https://www.amightygirl.com/midnight-teacher

For children's books about more trailblazing African-American women, visit our blog post "99 Books about Extraordinary Black Mighty Girls and Women" at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=14276

07/28/2025

Today we celebrate the birthday of Margaret Lothrop, Member #1 and daughter of our founder, Harriett M. Lothrop! Margaret helped spark a legacy of patriotism and Revolutionary Valor that lives on today. From just one dedicated member, we’ve grown to over 8,000 strong across the country!!

07/28/2025

07/28/2025

https://greshamhistorical.org/museum-store/ols/products/picnic

07/28/2025

July 28, 1868: Following its ratification by the necessary three-quarters of U.S. states, the 14th Amendment, granting citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States—including formerly enslaved people—is officially adopted into the U.S. Constitution. Secretary of State William Seward issues a proclamation certifying the amendment.

Two years after the Civil War, the Reconstruction Acts of 1867 divided the South into five military districts, where new state governments, based on universal manhood suffrage, were to be established. Thus began the period known as Radical Reconstruction, which saw the 14th Amendment, which had been passed by Congress in 1866, ratified in July 1868. The amendment resolved pre-Civil War questions of African American citizenship by stating that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States…are citizens of the United States and of the state in which they reside.” The amendment then reaffirmed the privileges and rights of all citizens, and granted all these citizens the “equal protection of the laws.”