A Case of Mistaken Identity

The Erasmus Miller Owen Family, part 11

Today we are going to settle once and for all the question of whether or not Erasmus Miller Owen was pastoring a church in Palouse, Washington in 1916.  The last time we looked at him, he was living in Oregon during the first decade of the 1900s.  When we examined articles from the local newspapers, we discovered that he, his son Erasmus (Uncle Ras), and his son Conrad were all preaching in various Oregon churches during that time.  The surprising fact that Uncle Ras was not just preaching, but actually pastoring a church in Enterprise, Oregon makes it all that much more likely that he was the Erasmus Owen found in Palouse.  But do we have definitive proof?  I believe we do.

First, let's take a look at the newspaper articles from the very church in question.  There are numerous articles from April through August of 1916.  Here are just a few:

The Palouse Republic
28 April 1916

The Palouse Republic
12 May 1916

The Palouse Republic
2 June 1916

The Palouse Republic
4 August 1916

The Palouse Republic
11 August 1916

So, Erasmus Owen, whichever one it was, was filling in as "acting pastor" of the Baptist church in Palouse, because their regular pastor was on a leave of absence.  I wonder how such a situation came to be.  Did Conrad Owen know this other pastor from his wide-ranging evangelistic work?  He did preach a revival there in December of 1916.  Were the two men friends, and when Conrad heard that Rev. Crowell needed a stand-in he said, "Hey, you know, my father/brother isn't really doing anything right now . . . ."  We'll never know.  We will also never know if my theory of Erasmus taking the train down to Palouse from Spokane on a weekly basis is true, but the fact that this was just a four-month gig makes that scenario sound quite reasonable.

Okay, so where are we now?  There was nothing in those articles to tell us which Erasmus Owen they were talking about, but I think it is clear that he was one of ours.  So what else can we look at?  

Well, let's look at what the editions of the  American Baptist Year-book have to say.  Each year, the American Baptist Publication Society put out a book with all kinds of Baptist information in it.  Each volume included a listing of all ordained ministers in each state, as reported at the end of the previous year.  That means that the information is going to be at least a couple of months out of date.  Also, there is a note in each book explaining that some churches do not diligently send in a report of their ministers every year, so the last reported information has been published.  That means that, in many instances, the information in the book is years out of date.  

I am now going to show you excerpts from each book for the years that our family was in the Oregon and Washington area.  Unfortunately, there is nothing on the full page to indicate which volume the information came from.  This is why I am just going to put up the excerpts.  You can download the full page by clicking on the subtitle, and you will have to rely on the file name to know in which year it was published.  

The first time we see anyone in Oregon is in the 1908 book:

The American Baptist Year-book - 1908

This shows only "E. M. Owen" and "C. L. Owen" as ordained ministers in Oregon.  Remember, this information was reported near the end of 1907.  We saw in the newspaper articles that Conrad Luther Owen accepted a call to the church in Astoria in May of 1907, so that makes sense.  This shows that E. M. Owen, which would be Erasmus Miller Owen, was in the town of Grouse that year.  If you remember, Grouse was in Wallowa County, way up north of Enterprise on the border with Washington, and it was where his daughter Leticia Owen Mallory's family had settled.  There is no mention of Uncle Ras.

But look at this excerpt from the Baptist Home Mission Monthly periodical:

The Baptist Home Mission Monthly - January 1909

Here we have a lovely page taken out of context.  If all you had was this page, you'd have no idea when or what it was showing us.  If you look under the OREGON heading you'll see that Erasmus Owen was something.  The previous page showed that this section is for home mission appointments made in Dec 1908.  That is about as real time as it gets.  So we now know that Uncle Ras was preaching in Enterprise as a home missionary.  But just because he was barely appointed in December doesn't mean that he wasn't already preaching before then.  Remember this article?

La Grande Evening Observer
27 May 1909

This is obviously talking about Uncle Ras, not his father.  So why was he not shown on the list for Oregon ministers in the 1908 book?  Well, the way the Baptist Publication Society got their information was from the minutes, reports, and catalogs sent in by the secretaries or clerks of the various Baptist associations, conventions, seminaries, and colleges.  Perhaps Erasmus Miller Owen, having previously been involved in association affairs (we'll talk about that later) made sure his information was sent in.  Or maybe the larger Baptist association for Wallowa County messed up and thought E. M. Owen and E. Owen were the same person and only submitted the name once.  Or maybe the printer made a mistake while typesetting, thinking they had already put the name on there and thus skipping the second one.

The next month the home mission magazine showed this:

The Baptist Home Mission Monthly - February 1909

This section shows the baptisms performed by home missionaries in January of 1909.  Uncle Ras baptized five people in the month of January.  (This magazine always reports what happened in the month prior to the publication date.)  Unfortunately, I have only been able to find the 1909 editions for this magazine digitized online, and the name "Erasmus Owen" doesn't come up again in the search results, so this is all we have.

 Then, in the American Baptist Year-book for 1909 we see:

The American Baptist Year-book - 1909

Once again, this is only showing E. M. Owen and Conrad Owen in Oregon.  We know that the updated information was sent in for this publication because the previous year said that E. M. Owen was in Grouse, and this one says he was in Enterprise.  But how accurate was this really?  Well, according to the newspaper, not very accurate.  Unless . . . Uncle Ras had not actually been ordained yet.  The newspapers kept calling him Reverend, but maybe that was just because that was the proper way to address a preacher.   The books made a big deal that only ministers with official credentials should be submitted for these lists.  There are gaps in the surviving editions of the Enterprise newspaper; it is possible that an article talking about his ordination has been lost.

Now, here is 1910:

The American Baptist Year-book - 1910

Now we see all three of our Owens in Oregon, but by this time (meaning the end of 1909), they were in the church at St. John.  According to the newspapers, Conrad accepted the call to be the pastor of that church in July of 1909.  And, Uncle Ras preached his farewell sermon in the Enterprise Baptist church in September of that year.  What is especially amazing is that, even though Erasmus Miller Owen drops out of the newspaper record after the middle of 1909, this shows us that he actually moved from Wallowa County to St. John with his two sons.  That means that he did not return to Texas straight from living in Enterprise like I had assumed.

But here is an excerpt from the 1911 book:

The American Baptist Year-book - 1911

This corroborates what the 1910 census reported - that Erasmus Miller Owen had returned to Texas.  Here we see that Conrad and "E.", which must be referring to Uncle Ras, were both still in St. John.  By 1912, the brothers were listed as being in two different places.  However, from this point on, the records are a bit of a mess.

Let's look at what the various documents say about their whereabouts for the next several years.  I'm not going to put up all of the images because there would be a lot. But I am going to put up a map of Washington state that shows northern Oregon also:

Cram's Map of Washington, 1902

I've put a star on every place that either Conrad or Uncle Ras supposedly lived.  There are also some stars showing locations mentioned in the following newspaper articles.  (You can click on the subtitle to open a zoomable version in a new window.)  

And now for the records:

1911: Yearbook: Conrad - St. John; Uncle Ras - St. John

          City Directory: Conrad - Portland; Uncle Ras - Portland

          Newspapers: Conrad - here and there; Uncle Ras - Vancouver

The Vancouver Daily Columbian
21 November 1910

This shows that Uncle Ras was already the pastor of a church in Vancouver, WA by the end of 1910.  He might have still been living with Conrad in Portland, since Vancouver was only a few miles away across the river.  (St. John was actually also a suburb of Portland, just south of the river.  The map has a star, but no city title.)  By July of 1911, Uncle Ras was pastoring Main Street Baptist Church in Portland.

The St. John's Review
31 March 1911

After Conrad retired from the pastorate in St. John, he spent the rest of the year preaching at various churches and revival meetings in western Oregon.

1912: Yearbook: Conrad - Laurel; Uncle Ras - Vancouver 

          City Directory: neither one found

          Newspapers: suburbs of Portland

The Oregon Daily Journal
18 May 1912

The St. John's Review
07 June 1912

This first article tells us that "Rev. Erasmus Owen" was Uncle Ras, because he was going to spend the summer with his brother - not his son.  Gaston is about ten miles west of Laurel, and Laurel is about 8 miles south of Hillsboro, with the three towns forming a triangle.  All three are to the southwest of Portland.  So, Gaston, Hillsboro, Laurel . . . that has to be Conrad Owen.  

1913: Yearbook: Conrad - Laurel; Uncle Ras - Vancouver

          City Directory: Conrad - The Dalles; Uncle Ras - not found

          Newspapers: Conrad - The Dalles; Uncle Ras - not found

I didn't come across a single article from the major newspapers for Uncle Ras during 1913.  Perhaps he went through a very long spell of very poor health.  The fact that he was not listed in Conrad's household, though, implies that he was living on his own somewhere.  But where?  The yearbook listing showing him in Vancouver could have been a last-known-address kind of thing; maybe he came and went between a residence in Vancouver and Conrad's home. 

1914: Yearbook: Conrad - The Dalles; Uncle Ras - not found

          City Directory: Conrad - not found; Uncle Ras - not found

          Newspapers: here and there

The Vancouver Daily Columbian
8 August 1914

The Spokesman-Review
8 September 1914

The Spokane Chronicle
31 October 1914

The 1914 directories for the places I thought they might have been were missing.  But the newspaper articles were helpful.  In the first article, Uncle Ras was obviously going to visit his brother Conrad.  In the second, he was preaching in the town of Colville, waaaaay up north of Spokane near the Canadian border.  (I didn't crop the words off - that is how it was printed!)  The third article is the reason we all jump up and down when we get a hit from a newspaper search.  It tells us that Conrad was the preacher in The Dalles up until October of 1914.  Another article said that he had spent the past eight years doing evangelistic work, so I don't know exactly what roll he played in The Dalles.

1915: Yearbook: Conrad - not found; Uncle Ras - not found

          City Directory: Conrad - Spokane; Uncle Ras - Spokane

          Newspapers: Conrad - Spokane; Uncle Ras - Spokane

The Spokesman-Review
9 January 1915

This eloquently written article by Uncle Ras shows that he was living in Spokane at the beginning of 1915.  The address is the same as shown for Conrad in the city directory, meaning that they were living together in that year.  I only found two other articles for Uncle Ras from 1915, both in May.  In one, he was preaching at the church in Wilbur (65 miles west of Spokane!), and in the other (three days later) he was officiating a funeral in the same town.  

1916: Yearbook: Conrad - Spokane; Uncle Ras - Spokane

          City Directory: Conrad - Spokane; Uncle Ras - Spokane

          Newspapers: Conrad - Spokane; Uncle Ras - Spokane & Palouse

The Spokesman-Review
15 July 1916

Here we see both Uncle Ras and Conrad giving lectures at the annual assembly of the Baptist Young People's Union. 

1917: Yearbook: Conrad - Spokane; Uncle Ras - not found

          City Directory: Conrad - Spokane; Uncle Ras - Spokane

          Newspapers: Conrad - Spokane; Uncle Ras - Spokane

The Spokesman-Review
19 September 1917

This article shows Uncle Ras again lecturing on the topic of war.  The newspaper articles show that Conrad remained the pastor of the Central Baptist Church of Spokane until about the middle of 1917.  In July of that year, he can be found giving a series of lectures in Goldthwaite, Texas, the town where he pastored his first (I think) church.  Perhaps he had returned to Texas around the time of his father's death (the end of May) and stayed for awhile afterward.  By August, he had returned to Spokane, where he pastored at least two different churches (I think at the same time) before accepting a call in Idaho one year later, in August of 1918.

I've only searched the major papers for these later years.  It's possible that there are some other references to Uncle Ras in smaller papers that I haven't yet found.  There are hundreds of articles mentioning Conrad.  It will take me weeks to finishing clipping and saving those, and weeks more to compile them into a pdf.  (I have to figure out the best way to attach the newspaper name and date with the images - articles out of context are absolutely worthless.)  But Conrad isn't even who we are really talking about here. The next record I have for Uncle Ras is the 1920 census.  He can be found once again in the household of his brother Conrad, in Twin Falls, Idaho.  

So.  Let's summarize:  Near the end of 1909, Erasmus Miller Owen (a.k.a. E. M. Owen) left the town of Enterprise in northeastern Oregon and moved to the town of St. John, all the way in the northwestern part of the state.  He went with both of his sons, Conrad and Erasmus (a.k.a. E. Owen, Erasmus Owen, or Uncle Ras).  No mention of an E. M. Owen occurs in either Washington or Oregon after that time.  We do find Erasmus M. Owen in the household of his daughter, Minnie Owen Conklin, in Brown County, Texas (according to the 1910 census, enumerated on April 27).  We continue to see a Rev. Erasmus Owen in Washington and Oregon, all the way up until 1917.  Newspaper articles confirm that this Erasmus Owen was the brother of Conrad, meaning Uncle Ras.  His last known article is dated September of 1917, almost four months after his father passed away in Texas.  So, the Erasmus Owen that we find in Washington state is Uncle Ras, and not his father, Erasmus Miller Owen.

Still not convinced?  Then take a look at this:

The Texas Spur and Dickens Item
2 June 1916

Erasmus Miller Owen couldn't have been in Palouse, Washington in 1916, because he was in Texas.  Had we found this article several weeks ago, we could have skipped a whole lot of trouble and easily labeled the aged-Reverend-Erasmus-Miller-Owen-pastoring-a-church-in-Washington story a case of mistaken identity.  But I'm glad we didn't; the research revealed documents that allowed us to gain new insight into the life of Uncle Ras.  And besides, putting the pieces together is always half the fun!

                                                                                                                                                - Therese