Salem woman helped support herself making jewelry from human hair

Source: 1880 Salem City Directory.

I love city directories.  Like phone books before there were phones, these alphabetical listings of people living within the city are treasure troves of historical information.  One particular advertisement in the 1880 Salem City Directory caught my eye recently.  In elegant script with floral embellishments Mrs. J.W. Weatherford advertised herself as: “Manufacturer of HAIR JEWELRY of every style and variety.  Center Street, bet. Commercial and Front, Salem, OR.” While current Google Searches of the term “Hair Jewelry” might bring up the latest offerings in hair accessories – barrettes, headbands, etc., the product advertised here by Mrs. Weatherford is more likely the Victorian fad of creating jewelry out of human hair.

While the use of human hair in personal adornment is seen in a lot of periods of history, it truly came into its own during the Victorian period and often was related to mourning customs of the time – a memento to remember a loved one.[1]  Sound a little…Halloweenesque?  You’re not alone.  Just a few decades after Mrs. Weatherford advertised her shop, hair jewelry had gone out of fashion completely –to the point where one Oregon Statesman newspaper editor had to remind their readers what the trend was all about.   Writing in 1907 they reported:

Fifty years ago, it was the fashion for women to have various articles of jewelry made from their own hair or that of her friends. These ornaments were mounted in gold, perhaps with the addition of pearls as a further ornamentation. Usually there were included in the set a necklace, a breastpin, and earrings.  In one set which has been brought out of a jewel box after long confinement there the necklace is made of hair finely woven in a long circular strand, after which it is separated to imitate beads by narrow gold filets.  A gold ball is placed directly in the center, from which depend [sic] two bells made of hair with tiny gold clappers. The breastpin is the shape of a bouble [sic] bowknot with a gold ornament in the center, and two bell-shaped sections dangling from them.  The earrings are bells.  In its day such a set cost about $100 for making. It was an art in itself, the weaving and plaiting of hair into ornaments.  Now there are scarcely to be found any workers who are familiar with the art.[2]

It wasn’t just jewelry.  Hair was collected and used in decorative artwork, too.  The Willamette Heritage Center has a beautiful hair wreath in its collections made by Margaret Conser McCoy (WHC 2021.027.0001).

But, back to Mrs. Weatherford.

It was unusual for a married woman to own a business in the 1880s – a time when the state constitution, to its credit, allowed married women to own property independently of their husbands[3], but also required a notarized declaration form in order to exercise that right.[4]  While the advertisement clearly shows she was operating a business, her occupation in the census that same year was listed as “Keeping House.”[5]  I started wondering a bit more about what may have prompted Mrs. Weatherford’s entrepreneurial spirit.

Mrs. J.W. Weatherford was born Rebecca Ellen Robinson in Missouri in about 1843.[6]  As a young girl she travelled with her parents and older sister to Oregon where the family settled in the Hillsboro area.[7]  She  was married to James[8] W. Weatherford in Portland in 1863. [9]   J.W. Weatherford worked with his father as druggist in his family’s store on Front Street in Portland.[10]  The couple would have a son Frederick and two daughters Ina and Pearl. [11]  Sometime after 1870[12], the family relocated to Salem, where J.W. opened up a second location of the family store – specializing in “Drugs! Oils! Paints!” on the west side of Commercial Street between Ferry and State.[13]

The 1880 City directory provides detailed business descriptions for both of the Weatherfords.  J.W. was described as “Earnest in his business, genial in his manner, and warm in his friendships, it is not any wonder that he has made hosts of friends, and secured almost the monopoly of the drug business here.”[14]  Of Rebecca the directory stated: “We have seen specimens of hair jewelry the handiwork of Mrs. J. Weatherford of this city, which for elegance, neatness and artistic skill, will compare favorable with anything made anywhere.  It will be a pleasure no doubt to many to know that in Salem they can have hair work done, and done at reasonable prices, and in the very finest style.“[15]  Combine these descriptions with the census record showing them employing a servant housekeeper[16] and a newspaper article describing plans for a grand new residence[17] and one might get a rosy picture of domestic bliss.  But that wasn’t the whole story as several documents uncovered through the help of folks at the Oregon State Archives and the Marion County Archives would soon prove.

J.W. Weatherford sold out of the family business in 1881.[18]  Several lawsuits against Weatherford appear in the Marion County Circuit Court records in May of 1883 with a local merchant[19] and a local Masonic lodge demanding money.[20]  That same month J.W. sells a lot in downtown Salem he owns to Rebecca for a dollar, free from all encumbrances except a $2,000 mortgage on the property and several judgements amounting to over $400, plus legal fees.[21]

Rebecca filed for divorce in July 1883.  In her complaint she alleged her husband had neglected to provide for her and her children for two years and “with rare exceptions…[rendered] her very unhappy and her life burdensome.”[22]  Handwritten notes of testimony to a court appointed referee give a few more details.  In addition to failing to provide for the family, Weatherford had apparently gone so far as to forbid his wife credit at a number of stores around town and published a newspaper notice to all merchants in the city that he would not pay any of his wife’s bills.  Rebecca reported that he had repeatedly come home intoxicated, “making it very unpleasant for myself and family.”[23]  When asked where her husband was, she replied: “I do not know, when I last heard from him he was in San Francisco.  He never writes to me.”

While it is evident that J.W. Weatherford was served with summons,[24] he did not appear before the court and the divorce was granted in October, as was full custody of the children to Rebecca.  Her ownership of property (at what is now the northwest corner of Commercial and Center Streets) free from claim of her husband was also confirmed.[25]  Less than a week after the court granted the divorce[26] Rebecca sold her lot and bought another cheaper one at the NE corner of Union and Liberty Streets,[27] presumably to help clear some of the debt.  Although there is really no way to know for sure when money and marital problems started for the family, it is at least plausible to think that the hair jewelry business may have been a way for Rebecca to support herself and her family.

Rebecca and her daughters would move to Portland and Arlington, Oregon before settling in the Seattle area.[28]  It is interesting to note that in the 1889 Polk’s Directory for Seattle lists Rebecca as “widow of J.W. Weatherford,”[29] even though she would predecease her ex-husband.  This little detail gives a bit of insight into how she might have felt about the divorce and the stigma it carried in the society in which she was living.  She did eventually remarry.[30]   Rebecca died of cancer in 1892 and is buried in the Salem Pioneer Cemetery.[31]

J.W. would die a year later of heart failure in the water closet of his Portland offices.[32]   It appears that after his divorce he attended the Willamette University Medical School (at the time in Portland[33]) and graduated as an allopath in 1890.[34]  His final resting place is at the Lone Fir Cemetery in Portland.[35]

Sources

[1] See “Hair Jewelry.” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair_jewellery

[2][2] “Antiques are Now the Thing.” Oregon Statesman. 09 Jul 1907 pg. 7.

[3] See State Constitution of Oregon Article XV, Section 5 (https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/Pages/OrConst.aspx).  Note that this provision has been in the State Constitution since it was drafted in 1857 (reference: Chused, Richard H. “Late Nineteenth Century Married Women’s Property Law: Reception of the Early Married Women’s Property Acts by Courts and Legislatures.” The American Journal of Legal History. Vol. XXIX.  Accessed through Digitalcommons.nyls.edu

[4] The constitutional provision stated that laws should be drawn up for the registration of this separate property.  I did not look up all the legal citations, but I did read Mrs. Weatherford’s signed affidavit in the Marion County Women’s Property Register at the Oregon State Archives.  In the declaration form they state: “That I make this declaration to obtain all the benefits of the Constitution and laws aforesaid.”  While we’re talking of inconsistencies, too, it should be noted that she only claims her piano and not the three acres of land she bought in her own name in 1875!  See “Deeds Filed in the County Clerk’s Office.” Weekly Oregon Statesman 25 Sept 1875 James X. Smith to R.E. Weatherford; 3.44 acres in t7 s, r 1 e; consideration $100.  Double checked and refers to “her.”  This may be because she did file an affidavit that is not saved in the record series currently held by the Oregon State Archives.

[5] 1880 US Federal Census shows family living at 131 Commercial ST SE.  Entry –R.E. Weatherford, 37, wife, keeping house.

[6] 1850 US Federal Census lists Rebecca E. Robinson, aged 7, born in Missouri living in Washington County.  The 1860 US Federal Census shows Rebecca, now 14, living in Washington County with closest Post Office Hillsboro.  Note the spelling in the records of the IOOF cemetery in Salem is Rebekah (https://www.salempioneercemetery.org/records/display_record.php?id=1672).  However Deed Records (see Marion County Deeds: Vol. 31, pg 121 free access via Familysearch.org), in which her name is listed as Rebecca Ellen.  Note also that in at least one index for her marriage record to J.W. she is listed as Ellen.  See Western States Marriage Index: https://abish.byui.edu/specialCollections/westernStates/westernStatesRecordDetail.cfm?recordID=387093.  See also article in Pacific Christian Advocate paper, indexed in the Oregon Biographical Index as: M[arried] 28 May 63 to Ellen Robinson; at res of bride’s father; by Rev. C.H. Hall; all of Portland. PCA 30 May 1863 3:1.  Multnomah, Marriage Index.

[7]  The 1860 US Federal Census shows Rebecca, now 14, living in Washington County with closest Post Office Hillsboro.  Confirmed by article about her brother’s family in the Table Rock Sentinel February 1985 published by the Southern Oregon Historical Society:  He was the son of Nathan Robinson and Mary Dorland Robinson, both natives of Ohio, who had crossed the plains with their three daughters as early as 1846 and had settled in the Willamette Valley in an area which later became Portland.  They took a donation claim of 640 acres at Reedville in 1847.  James W. [Robinson] was born there in November 1850.  It should be noted that in the sworn testimony she gives at her divorce hearing, she states that she has lived in Oregon all her life.  Census records would seem to negate this.  See notes in Marion County Divorce Records now in custody of the Oregon State Archives.  Case No. 3663 Weatherford, R.E. vs J.W. 1883 (Marion County, Record #41035)

[8] In most documentation his name is given as J.W. Weatherford.  I believe the first name is James based on the following references: 1889 Polk’s Seattle Directory lists Rebecca E. Weatherford as the “Widow of James W.” (Although we know that they were divorced he wasn’t dead from other records, this is one of the only places I have seen her name written out as well).  See also the newspaper article which calls J.W. Jim (nickname for James): “Off for Frisco.” Weekly Oregon Statesman 08 May 1875 pg 3 Mr. J.W. Weatherford left Wednesday for Portland where he proposes to take passage on the steamer John L. stevens for the metropolis of the Pacific coast.  …  We wish Jim a pleasant trip and safe return.“

[9] See Multnomah Marriage Index (28 May 63 J.W. Weatherford to Ellen Robinson; at the resident of the bride’s father; by Rev. C.H. Hall; all of Portland.  Also referenced in the Pacific Christian Advocate 30 May 1963 3:1.).  See also divorce court filing and the complains statement at the Oregon State Archives which give date of marriage as 28 May 1863.

[10] See advertisement. Oregonian 08 April 1868 pg 3. For Weatherford & Co. Druggists.  Lists W. Weatherford and J.W. Weatherford. 139 Front Street, Portland.  See also description in 1880 Salem City Directory:  “J.W. Weatherford, Of the firm Weatherford & Co., druggists of this city, although not by any means an old man, is one of the pioneers of Oregon. He crosse the plains with his father, in 1852, and his whole life—excepting during his school days—has been spent in the business which has become his life work.  He entered his father’s store as a cler in 1853, and nine years later was admitted a partner in his splendid drug business in Portland.”

[11] See 1870 US Federal Census.  See also sworn testimony in the divorce case file, which lists children.  Marion County Divorce Records now in custody of the Oregon State Archives.  Case No. 3663 Weatherford, R.E. vs J.W. 1883 (Marion County, Record #41035)

[12] Family is enumerated in Portland in the 1870 US Federal Census.  A Personals article in the Salem-based Weekly Oregon Statesman 28 June 1871 pg 1 reads “Home again—Mr. J.W. Weatherford arrived home last evening” suggesting the move to Salem happened sometime between the enumeration in 1870 and June 1871.

[13] Advertisement.  Weatherford & Co.  Willamette Farmer 24 Feb 1872 pg 8   Lists address on Commercial Street. And 1874 Salem City Directory lists it as West Side Commercial Between Ferry and State.

[14] 1880 Salem City Directory listing

[15] 1880 Salem City Directory listing

[16] 1880 US Census, Salem, Oregon lists Cynthia Jordan, 18 living with the family at their 131 Commercial St SE residence with occupation as Servant/House Keeper.

[17] “News Notes from Salem.” Morning Oregonian 29 Mar 1880 pg 3 

Dr. J.W. Weatherford contemplates the erection of an elegant new residence on his lot on Commercial Street during the ensuing season. 

[18] Notice.  Weekly Oregon Statesman 16 June 1882 pg 2. From and after July 28, 1881, Mr. William A. Thomson has control and charge of the Drug establishment of Weatherford & Co., Salem.  All persons having claims again the firm to that date will present them to J.W. Weatherford; and those indebted to us, we ask their early settlement.

Weatherford & Co.

Salem, Aug 25, 1881.

[19] See suit listed in the Marion County Circuit Court Record Book, Volume 8 1882-1885 pg 149.  In custody of the Marion County Archives, Marion County Clerk’s Office.  Suit brought by merchant Mary C. Cline for $66.95 owed.

[20] See suit listed in Marion County Circuit Court Record Book, Volume 8 1882-1885 pg 148.  In custody of the Marion County Archives, Marion County Clerk’s Office.  Suit was brought by the Multnomah Chapter of the Royal Arch Masons against J.W. Weatherford for 293 47/100 plus 14.95.

[21] See Marion County Deed Books (originals held by Marion County Clerk’s Office, but they can also be accessed for free through FamilySearch.org) Vol. 31, pg 121

[22] Handwritten complaint can be found in the Marion County Divorce Records now in custody of the Oregon State Archives.  Case No. 3663 Weatherford, R.E. vs J.W. 1883 (Marion County, Record #41035)

[23] Handwritten testimony given to W. L. Boise, court appointed referee can be found in the Marion County Divorce Records now in custody of the Oregon State Archives.  Case No. 3663 Weatherford, R.E. vs J.W. 1883 (Marion County, Record #41035).  It should also be noted that in a sworn statement by merchant John G. Wright in the same case file, he is asked if he had “Have you seen the Plaintiff intoxicated during the last two years and, if so, how often.”  To which he responded: “I have –quite often.”  The plaintiff in this case was Rebecca Ellen Weatherford.  Given the testimony was given to prove Rebecca’s claim for divorce it seems odd that the witness would have been asked about her.  It seems more likely the transcription of the testimony mistook Plaintiff for Defendant (and easy switch), it is also possible that it was not an error.  Sadly, there are few other records to be able to check this against.

[24] Both the Circuit Court Record (Marion County Clerk’s Office) states he had been duly notified.  Additionally there is a signed summons in the Divorce Case Files for Marion County (Oregon State Archives).

[25] See pages 228 and 246 in Volume 8 Record of the Marion County Circuit Court 1882-1885, Marion County Archives, Marion County Clerk’s Office for entries about decisions made by the court in the matter of R.E. Weatherford vs. J.W. Weatherford.

[26] Divorce Granted 10 Oct 1883 per Marion County Circuit Court Record, Volume 8 page 246 held by the Marion County Archives, Marion County Clerk’s Office.

[27] See Marion County Deed Records Vol. 31 pg 287 for sale of the lot to J.I. Thompson 16 October 1883 for $5,000 and Volume 30, page 604 for the purchase of a new lot for $2500 at Block 26, lot number 5 on 16 October 1883 as well.  See Plat of Salem, Oregon for cross reference to location, Marion County Survey Graphic Index.

[28] See “Personal Mention.” Oregon Statesman.  03 Jun 1886 pg 3, which reads “Mrs. R.E. Weatherford and her daughters Ina and Pearl leave on Tuesday next for Arlington, where they expect to make their home.”  This article is reprinted from the East Portland Vindicator newspaper suggesting that the family at the time was living in Portland;  “Salemites in Seattle.” Oregon Statesman. 28 May 1889 pg 4 reads: Mrs. R.E. Weatherford, wife of a former well-known Salem druggist, has been in Seattle for a year.  Her daughter Miss Ina was on May 21st married to Mr. C.S. Wenner, of Arlington, Or.  Miss Pearl Weatherford was on March 5th united to Fred A. Snow, of Heppner, Morrow county, Or.

[29] 1889 – Polk’s Seattle Directory

Weatherford, Rebecca E. (wid James W), res. 417 ½ Pike nr 5th.

Weatherford Ina, clk WE Ledgerwood, bds 417 ½ Pike

[30] “Died” Capital Journal 14 Jul 1892 pg 3 Comfort– in Seattle, Wednesday, July 13, 1892, Mrs. H.S. Comfort.  Deceased was formerly Mrs. J.W. Weatherford, of this city , and was well known in Salem.

[31] “Died” Capital Journal 14 Jul 1892 pg 3 Comfort– in Seattle, Wednesday, July 13, 1892, Mrs. H.S. Comfort.  Deceased was formerly Mrs. J.W. Weatherford, of this city , and was well known in Salem.  The remains will be brought to this city for interment Saturday;  The Salem Pioneer Cemetery database burial notes for Rebekah E. Comfort give cause of death as cancer and show burial in the cemetery.

[32] “Formerly Lived Here.” Oregon Statesman 24 Sept 1893, pg 8.  At Portland Friday night the body of J.W. Weatherford was found in a water-closet in a building at 3d and Madison streets, where he had his offices.  The discovery was made by Dr. Kent, who has offices in the same building.  As he pushed open the closet door to enter, Dr. Kent almost fell over the body of a man, doubled up as if in pain.  Dragging the body into the hall, he discovered it was that of Dr. Weatherford and that life had been extinct for some time.  After an examination his conclusion was that death was due to heart failure.  The deceased was a widower, 50 years of age, and leaves a son and two daughters.  He was a son of Dr. William Weatherford, who came to Oregon and settled in Portland with his family in 1852.  Dr. Weatherford was formerly a resident of Salem, where he was engaged in the drug business at the stand now occupied by D.J. Fry.  He was a member of Protection lodge No. 2 A.O.U.W. and had $2000 life insurance in the order.  Yesterday morning A.W. Dennis paid the doctor’s last assessment, $2.50 sent before he died.

[33] Note timeline given in Wikipedia article here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willamette_University_College_of_Medicine.  Which states the school moved to Portland in 1880 and would return to Salem in 1895.

[34] Directory of Deceased American Physicians, 1804-1929 [database on-line].  Accessible through Ancestry.com:   J.W. Weatherford, Death date 20 Sept 1893, Portland, Oregon.  Allopath.  Med school Willamette U. Medical department, Salem, 1890 (G).  JAMA Citation, 21:667.  Note, author assumed
“G” stood for graduated, but admits I am relying in the index not the actual source in hand.  It may mean something else.

[35] See burial record on Find-a-grave.  https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/52176921/james-washington-weatherford