The Breyman brothers, Eugene and Werner, were prominent merchants in early Salem and several handsome buildings in the downtown historic district still carry their names. Judge Reuben Boise is remembered as a outstanding jurist in the years when Oregon was formulating its first laws. These families united in the second generation with the marriage of Minnie (GaGa) Breyman and Reuben Boise, Jr. The lifelines of the three Breyman sisters-in-law and the two wives of Judge Boise give us a portraits of five women whose husbands were the most successful and prosperous of early Salem and who were, themselves, models of social behavior in the young city. Born a generation after the pioneers of the mission, they introduce us to a Salem that that is familiar today.
The Lifeline of Louisa Breyman Waite
(1823-1907)
Louisa, sister of Werner and Eugene Breyman, was ten years the senior of her sister-in-law, Isabel, and fifteen years older
than Margaret. She may have had less in common with her brothers' wives than they
had with each other. However, their three homes were within a few blocks of
each other, reflecting their close relationship.
The home of E. M. and Louisa
Breyman Waite
This is the present site of the
former Carnegie Library at State and Winter Streets
Our records of Louisa come from contemporary published articles.
In 1865, The Pacific Christian Advocate's annual report on education offered by Willamette University, included this paragraph:
"The musical department of the institution, for several years past, has been under the faithful and skillful management of Miss Luisa Breyman - and every succeeding examination has given evidence of great improvement. The music, during the commencement exercises, has not only been completely successful, but a decided triumph. Miss B. is entitled to great credit for her efficiency and perseverance in this ornamental department." During this same year, she also taught German, "her native language". Also on faculty were two women whose lifelines are included in this series: The daughter of Jason and Lucy Thompson Lee, Lucy Lee, now Mrs. Francis Grubbs, was teaching English Literature and French; Chloe Clarke Willson, who had been a teacher, would become Governess of the Ladies Department in the next term.
Over thirty years later, in 1897
In 1907, this tribute marked her own death:
The Waite fountain in Willson Park was created by Louisa as a memorial to her husband after his death. The colorful lights that played upon the waters at night were a community delight until 1962. The wind storm of that year destroyed the machinery producing the effect and where it was reconstructed that feature was not included.
The Waite fountain in Willson Park was created by Louisa as a memorial to her husband after his death. The colorful lights that played upon the waters at night were a community delight until 1962. The wind storm of that year destroyed the machinery producing the effect and where it was reconstructed that feature was not included.
The home of Werner and Isabel
Watt Breyman, c. 1903
This is now the site of the the
Micah Building at State and Cottage Streets
We have more information about Louisa's sister-in-law, Isabel, wife of Werner and daughter of John Watt and his wife Mary
Scott . Born in Mt. Vernon, Ohio, December 1, 1833, her childhood was spent in
Missouri. In 1848 her family crossed the plains and settled
in Amity, Yamhill County. Her brothers were Joseph and Ahio, noted Oregon
pioneers. (Joseph’s son James built the house at the southwest corner of 14th and
Chemeketa streets.) In 1853 she married Werner Breyman, and twelve years later,
in 1865, moved to Salem.
In reference to her as a young woman, her 1909 obituary
recalls she was a “Cheerful, capable and energetic young girl married to young
merchant of pioneer village of Lafayette … at a time when everybody knew every
body and when true neighborliness resulted from a society characterized by a an
almost perfect equality in worldly possessions.” The obituary described
her role in Salem as a “woman of great refinement, kind temperament and essentially a
woman of the home. To her family she was ever the kind, loving wife and mother
and her home life was of a singularly pure, sweet character.“
Werner Breyman’s merchant enterprise, and his
successful business partnership with his brother Eugene, allowed the couple to
build, before 1871, a substantial home on the southwest corner of State and
Cottage streets, then a residential neighborhood. The first floor of the house,
elevated above a daylight ground floor, had a generous front porch facing State
Street. Two bay windows decorated the second floor and a tower rose in a third
floor the east side of the structure. In 1923, when the house was moved around
to Cottage Street for the construction of the Elks Club (now the Micah
Building), it housed 20 apartments. It was later demolished.
The Breyman families enjoyed travel: they “camped”
on the grounds during the annual State Fairs, took tents and equipment
(including a Chinese cook) when they made the over-night journey to Seal Rock
for summer vacations. In what must have been an unusual adventure for Salem
residents in 1896, Isabel and Werner also enjoyed what was known as the Grand
Tour, traveling in Europe for 6 months.
Isabel was mother to seven children, only four of
whom survived infancy: Elva, Mrs. Clifford Brown, 1856-1934; Ada, Mrs. William
Eldridge, 1857-1934; and Anna, Mrs. Rudolph Prael, 1865-1968. Carl, the only
son, died of typhoid fever in 1878 at the age of 10. His obituary recalled how
Carl “had so much to live for…in his destiny that promised so much from his
manhood” and deeply sympathized “with the parents and sisters who thus see the
darling of the house taken from them.”
Tragedy struck the family again in 1927 when
her 42-year-old grandson, Clifford, the son of Ada and William Brown, drowned in Alaskan
waters while on a eight member hunting and fishing expedition. Four days of searching
the remote Gardner Canal did not recover his body. Alice, his widow, returned
to Salem and their two young sons, Chandler and Werner Brown. In 1935 she named
their home “Deepwood” from a favorite book of these sons.
Lifeline of Margaret Skaife Breyman
(1839-1918)
This home of Eugene and Margaret Skaife Breyman was
moved from Church and Court Streets (present site of Statesman Journal
Building) to Summer Street, just south of Mill Creek, the location of this
photograph. It was demolished for the State Lands Building.
Margaret Skaife Breyman was the wife of Eugene Breyman. Despite a romantic story that she learned to
walk as one-year old toddler crossing the plains on foot with a wagon train,
the truth is that as an infant in 1840 she came from England with her parents
on a sailing vessel. The family settled on a farm near Dubuque, Iowa, but her
parents died in 1861 and she journeyed west by ship through the Isthmus of
Panama to San Francisco and on to Salem by stagecoach. She made her home with
her sister Mrs. Henry Rickey when they moved to Walla Walla.
Eugene Breyman, who had met her at the Gilbert home in Salem, married Margaret
at her aunt’s home in 1864. Their first home was replaced within a few
years by a Victorian mansion, in which they resided for the rest of their
married life. During those years, social life, political ceremonies and
Salem festivities like the Cherry Festival parade revolved around Court Street
and this imposing residence. Seven family funerals were conducted here.
Three daughters survived their parents:
Lena, (1865-1952) married Frank Snedecor of
Birmingham, Alabama in 1902. After his death in 1918, she returned to Salem.
Her funeral was the seventh conducted in the family home, by that time moved to
Summer Street.
Minnie Louise, (1868-1965) married Reuben Boise,
Jr. in 1891. She was affectionately called “GaGa” by her family and her many
lifetime Salem friends. Her husband died in 1934 of an accidental gunshot
while on a hunting expedition at his Polk County property, Ellendale. Mrs.
Boise died at her Kingwood home in West Salem in her 97th year.
Jessie (1877-1918) married Charles McNary in 1901.
The couple lived next door to his parents’ Court Street home until his election
the United States Senate in 1917. In the next year, while she was in Salem for the funeral of her mother, Jessie died in an automobile accident in which her sisters Lena
Snedecor and Minnie Boise (with their husbands) and her nephew Breyman Boise, the driver of rhe car,
were slightly injured. The trio of sisters was very close, and shared many
friends in Salem, making this reunion especially tragic.
Reuben Boise, Jr. (the husband of "GaGa") was the son of Judge
Reuben Boise, one of early Oregon's most respected jurists. The judge
married twice:
In 1850 Ellen Frances Lyon of Boston was a
young schoolteacher in Chicopee Falls, engaged to Reuben Boise of Oregon.
With her sister Susan and brother Whitney, she sailed around the horn on the
clipper Flying Cloud for a San Francisco wedding. Her father, taking a shorter
route through Panama, would be there for the wedding. [He would become
consul to Japan in the administration of President Ulysses S. Grant and died in
Yokohoma in 1871.] Susan fell in love with Laban Coffin, a member of the
ship’s crew, and there was a double wedding. [The Coffins traveled on to
China.] In Ellen’s first letter home, she is “enjoying housekeeping in her nice
little house in Polk County [Ellendale], but lonely as Reuben rides the circuit
as a prosecuting attorney for the Territory.” Many of her early letters express
her desire for letters from her family, wondering if they have forgotten her,
so far away. Even when describing the joy of her first son, Fisher, born
in 1852, she writes, “I am obliged to stay alone a great part of the time which
makes it exceedingly unpleasant in this ne country for society of the right
kind is extremely scarce.” In 1854, Reuben’s sister Elizabeth came to
Oregon, reporting her first horseback riding lesson,” Ellen went with me
[riding] four miles to a store [where] she got herself and me gingham for
morning dresses…such a beautiful valley we rode though… I was a little
disappointed when I first got here as Reuben’s house is not finished & things
appear different from what I expected, but they rejoiced to see me and Ellen
has a faculty of making herself agreeable to everyone and is a universal
favorite in the whole Territory.” She hopes Mr. Bush (returning to Oregon) will
bring family daguerrotypes and promises to have some made here. The family
(including sister Levina Watt) had at least one reunion in California where her
father and brother Whitney had settled. Ellen had two more children at
Ellendale, Eugene and Elizabeth, both of whom died as infants. After a
short residence in Portland, Judge Boise purchased a 6-acre Salem property
[where Sacred Heart was later established] and planted it in fruit tress. Both
Reuben Breyman Boise (1959-1934) and Whitney Boise (1862-1930) were born there.
The letters written by Ellen in 1862 and 1865 are happily filled with
news of her children, the Methodist Cherry Festival, her relief in having “an
Indian woman “to wash for me every week or so” and family news typical of any
young wife in her 30s.
Ellen died in 1865 “after an illness of about
ten days.” As Reuben wrote,” She was attacked by inflammation of the brain…the
disease went to her heart and lungs…shortness of breath finally took her life.
She was a large, healthy looking women apparently destined for a long life…she
was a member of the Congregational Church in Salem and an honest a good woman
who had many friends… and influence in the circle which she moved. Elizabeth [her sister-in-law] was present when she died...”
In 1867 the judge married Emily Pratt of Worchester Massachusetts, the daughter of Ephram Pratt, a Massachusetts manufacturer and sister of Captain Pratt who started the first woolen mill here. Her life was recorded in these excerpts from her 1919 obituary:
"Miss Pratt taught in the Salem public schools until she was married on December 27, 1866, to the late Judge R. P. Boise, for many years honorable and ably connected with the Judicial history and life of Oregon, as circuit judge and justice of the supreme court. Judge Boise passed into the great beyond in Salem on April 10, 1907. After their marriage, they made their home for many years in the historic Jason Lee house, on North Liberty street, the first house built in Salem. The mills of which Jason Lee himself helped to hew. The children from this marriage were Ellen S. Boise, drowned at Sea View, Wash. In August 1891, and Maria “May”, wife of John H. Lauterman, with whom the deceased had lived for a long time, and whose home at 475 North Summer street she passed quietly and peacefully to rest, as stated, yesterday morning at two, after a very short illness brought on by a severe cold. The good woman was prominent in all things uplifting in this vicinity for a long term of years. She was a member of the First Congregational church. She was a good wife, mother, neighbor, and a true friend. She lived a life of usefulness and faithfulness long beyond the scripturally allotted time, being active even up to a day before her passing." In 1867 the judge married Emily Pratt of Worchester Massachusetts, the daughter of Ephram Pratt, a Massachusetts manufacturer and sister of Captain Pratt who started the first woolen mill here. Her life was recorded in these excerpts from her 1919 obituary:
