Columnist

Editor’s note: Over a period of 12 years beginning in 1983, local historian Ken Munford wrote 561 columns for the Gazette-Times. The newspaper is publishing a selection of these columns each Saturday. This one was originally printed on Nov. 7, 1994.

Johan Baptiste Swadlenak, born on Aug. 4, 1856, to immigrant parents in Brazos, Texas, has had a lasting influence on the culture of Benton County.

He had many accomplishments, but not as Johan Swadlenak. After his father died and his mother married Elias R. Horner, he became John B. Horner, the name by which he is remembered today.

He is the one who publicized Chintimini as the name for Marys Peak and recommended the name Winema for the local chapter of Daughters of the Revolution. As an energetic speaker he aroused interest in local and foreign history and travel. His books gave him a reputation as the first literary historian of Oregon. As a teacher and administrator, he helped develop Oregon Agricultural College into Oregon State University.

In the winter 1981 issue of the Oregon Historical Quarterly, Dorothy Godrey Otton tells of Mary Anna Cozelle and Franz Swadlenak migrating with other Moravians from central Europe to Texas. After their marriage, a son and two daughters were born to them. In the unsettled times before the Civil War they moved on westward to California, Nevada and Washington.

Franz Swadlenak became ill along the way and died in Walla Walla. Mary Anna accepted Elias Horner’s proposal of marriage. When United Brethren missionaries came to Walla Walla, he felt the “call” to preach and became an itinerant minister, moving the family several times.

By November 1872, 16-year-old Johnny had found a good job in a sawmill in Union County, Oregon. His mother wanted him to have a good education. She persuaded him to take the advice of a visiting minister to enroll in the United Brethren college at Philomath. With $60 of his sawmill earnings and wearing clothing donated by friends, he started west, traveling by wagon to Umatilla Landing, riverboat to Portland, rail to Albany and stagecoach to Corvallis.

In Philomath, the Rev. T.J. Connor, who had led the United Brethren wagon train to Benton County in 1853 and had founded the college, welcomed the newcomer and found a place for him to room and board. John took a job as janitor at the college and John Shipley’s store began paying for a suit of clothes.

In his second year at the college, he passed the county examination for a teacher’s certificate. He was not yet 18, but he was hired by the Independent School two miles south of Philomath. Later he taught in Union County, and in the fall of 1876, returned to Philomath College. He helped his parents move to Philomath, where E.R. Horner became a Methodist circuit rider.

When John finished college in June 1877, he and J.C. Leasure started The Crucible, the first newspaper published in Philomath. The new paper had a vigorous start but after two years died of malnutrition.

John went back to teaching. After a year at Buena Vista, he obtained a contract as principal at Huntsville Academy in eastern Washington. He found that he was expected to be a married man with a wife who would also be a teacher. He and Isabelle Skimpton had an understanding. They moved their wedding date up to Sept. 5, 1880, and were married in the college chapel.

After teaching at Union and Brownsville, they moved to Salem so that he could attend Willamette University. She taught in country schools and he served as chief clerk for E.B. McElroy, superintendent of public instruction. From Willamette University, Horner received an A.B. degree in 1885, and later returned to receive an M.S. degree in 1887 and the honorary degree of doctor of literature in 1929.

In 1885, the Rev. J.N.R. Bell, a pastor and school board member in Douglas County, arranged for the Horners to come to Roseburg as teachers. In the six years they spent there, two daughters, Vera Delle and Pearl Alicia, were born to them. Horner instituted changes in the Roseburg school system and edited a journal for Oregon teachers.

President B.L. Arnold invited him to come to Corvallis as a professor of English language and literature at the Agricultural College of the State of Oregon. Horner jumped at the chance and set forth on a new round of adventures.

Next week: More on John Horner.