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LOCAL HISTORY: Rachel Brooks, Black Pioneer of 1843

Rachel Brooks’ slave receipt (Oregon State Archives)

This column was originally written for the Willamette Valley Genealogical Society’s publication in a slightly different form and is shared here with permission.

Rachel Brooks (freed married name) is in the Early Oregonians Database Index maintained by the Oregon State Archives and, mentioned in additional genealogical sources, as born a slave in Greene County, Tennessee in about the year 1828. Her first slave name was Rachel Belden and changed to Rachel Delaney when sold in 1842 at the age of 14 years to Daniel Delaney for $450 as noted on her slave receipt housed at the State Archives.

No known photographs exist of Rachel Brooks, nor formal photographs for her four sons. There might be photos out there somewhere, so the search continues. Rachel’s parentage is unknown and most likely she was the daughter of a slave woman. A majority of slaves took the last names of their owners and this could change, as it did with Rachel, with different owners. Slave surnames did not indicate paternity. Only DNA will reveal family connections. This will be difficult in Rachel’s case as she has no known modern day descendants.

The original sales receipt for Rachel’s purchase was located by Oregon State Archives staff in the probate file of Daniel Delaney Sr. It was fairly common during the 19th century for important legal documents to be written on scraps of available paper.  This fact of everyday life led to folded documents crammed into pigeon holes in desks and tall hats stuffed with paper documents.

In her research work “Book of Remembrance of Marion County, Oregon Pioneers (1927),” Sarah Steeves stated that Daniel Delaney sold all of his slaves prior to his trip to Oregon. This sale would provide funds for the expensive outfitting for his family’s long trip to Oregon. He used a portion of the money he made to purchase Rachel Beldon. She had been trained to work in the fields. Steeves also shared that Rachel “did the housework, worked in the garden and nursed Mrs. Delany (sic), who had been practically an invalid for many years and whose health did not improve after the long, hard trip across the plains.”

Much of Rachel’s early life was closely tied to the needs of the Delaney family. My research revealed to me, that as a slave she served at the call of Daniel Delaney’s sexual desires and gave birth to his sons Newman “Noah” and Jackson “Jack.” 

During Oregon’s first 100+ years of settlement, the state’s culture and its laws resembled those of a southern state. African-Americans were forbidden by law to live in Oregon. In fact, even though Oregon quickly ratified the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, the state rescinded its passage of the 14th Amendment and only re-ratified it in 1959.  Oregon was not a friendly place for African-Americans.

By the 1870 census, Marion County had the second largest population of Black people and “mulattoes” in Oregon after Multnomah County, since the majority of Black people lived in Portland or the Willamette Valley. The website Blackpast.org tells the story of a restaurant in Portland called the ‘Coon Inn’; you entered through a large “negro” head to be served the house specialty dinner of fried chicken. 

Many towns had local restrictions “sundown ordinances” regarding non-white visitors. A football coach once told me that when his Portland high school football team played a game in Pendleton, they had to leave town after sunset due to existing local municipal codes, because Pendleton, during the 1950s, required blacks to be out of town by sunset. 

Rachel lived all of her adult life in the Jim Crow environment of Oregon’s white culture.  One thing in her favor is that she was one of a very small number of African-Americans in Salem. She could be ignored and tolerated, as a strong minded individual she would not remain invisible and demanded an equal place in society. Our research revealed to us that Rachel had plenty of “pluck,” determination and a positive personality, even though she was illiterate and never taught to read and write by her owners.

After finally gaining her freedom in a “free” state in 1863, Rachel quickly struck out on her own.  Rachel and her two sons had to survive on their own in a hostile environment. Continuing to have a relationship with the Delaney family may have helped the transition.

After the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, Rachel married Nathan Brooks, a Black member of the Waldo family in the Waldo Hills, near Salem. Nathan and Rachel were married on September 15, 1863, in Salem, officiated by a white evangelical minister, John Stipp.  She then took her married name of Brooks. The license is preserved in the collection of the Oregon State Archives.

The 1863 marriage records of Rachel and Nathan Brooks. (Oregon State Archives)

Daniel Delaney Sr.’s ex-slave Rachel set up a home on the Waldo farm with her new husband, Nathan Brooks. Her oldest son, Newman ‘Noah’, according to author Ben Maxwell, was helping her, and her youngest son Jackson was helping his dad Daniel Delaney on the Delaney farm.  

Ben Maxwell confirms that, Oregon was a very rough place to live. Crime occurred in the frontier village that was Salem in 1865. It was a pioneer Salem with a few muddy streets, sinister dives and a clique of hard-drinking, hell-raising citizens. 

Then came the murder of Daniel Delaney Sr. The Oregon Historic Preservation Office in their preservation document for the Delaney house states that, “On January 9, 1865, Delaney was virtually alone in his Waldo Hills home; Mr. Delany’s wife, being an invalid, was not at home, but was being cared for at the home of her son, Daniel Jr. about 1 mile away. Another neighboring son, David, was away at the time in Eastern Oregon, where he and a man named David Daley were freighting from The Dalles.” 

Delaney was robbed and murdered at his front door by two masked men. Jack and his dog were shot at with a shotgun and chased off the scene.  The Oregon Statesman newspaper (May 17, 1865)  covered the murder and subsequent trial in great detail and reported the capture and conviction of two white men for the murder.  Ben Maxwell states in a Capital Journal (March 17, 1945) article that the murderers met their fate at a double gallows in a grove of small oak trees at the southeast corner of Church and Mill streets in Salem. It was a huge spectator event drawing almost the entire Salem area population. 

Following the burial of Daniel Delaney, and with the help of white lawyers, Rachel sued her previous owners, the Delaney family. Research by the Oregon State Archives for their Rachel Belden Brooks page on their website reveals that: “After the death of Daniel Delaney, Rachel sued the estate in civil court for the sum of $10,333.30 for payment for services and work for her and her son Noah Newman, for a combined total of 27 years and 10 months. She was awarded $1,000, with the argument that because she and her son were housed and fed at the Delaney’s, it negated any additional cost of payment for work.”

(Page one of Rachel’s 1865 Delaney $1,000 probate settlement. Oregon State Archives)

The original court settlement is preserved in the records of the Oregon State Archives.

The $1,000 settlement was a lot of money for the times and provided Rachel and Nathan a start on their farm located on a portion of the Daniel Waldo Donation Land Claim.  

Rachel and Nathan’s family grew as they quickly added two children, Samuel and Mansfield, to the farm residence, as shown in the 1870 U.S. Census for their farm.  The elder son Newman “Noah” lived and worked with the Stanley family in nearby Salem. In later years, “Aunt Rachel Brooks” became a familiar figure in Salem.   

Nathan and Rachel are listed in the 1870 U.S. Census living in Aumsville in Marion County. She is found on the 1877 tax records with 144 homestead acres on the west side of the Willamette River.  Following the death of Nathan, the 1880 U.S. Census lists Rachel living in Polk County in the Eola division (now West Salem).  

Rachel regularly bought and sold property, over the years, as listed in Marion and Polk County land transaction records. 

In her later years Rachel lived in a house on Miller Street (southwest corner of Fir).  She is listed there in the 1910 Census and various Salem City Directories. 

When she needed care she moved in with her son Newman “Noah” at Commercial 1 North Mill Creek and stayed there until her death.  As indicated in the Salem City Directory, her sons found life-long employment near the Commercial St. address with the Salem Lumbering Company, which was a very short walk.  

Kylie Pine at the Willamette Heritage Center may have located an early photograph, pre-1920, with Rachel’s sons at work at the Capital Lumbering Company

Virginia Green in her “Shine on Salem” webpage mentions Rachel’s death on October 12, 1910.  There were several obituaries published in the newspapers.  The local papers say that the funeral was very well-attended. Rachel Brooks was buried at City View Cemetery in Salem, next to her sons, Noah and I believe, her son, Jack. 

Rachel Belden Brooks 1910 death certificate. (Oregon State Archives)

One of the obituaries appeared in the Oregon Statesman on October 13, 1910, entitled “Death Comes to Mrs. Brooks: Historical Character Died at the Age of Ninety.” It describes her as the pet of the family when she was a slave and “a woman of great industry and energy.”  

Part of the enduring interest in Rachel may have been because she claimed to know the location of the stolen and hidden Delaney fortune. 

Virginia Green, on the Salem Shines website, writes a parting note about Rachel, from the Steeves book: “Those who knew her best say of this slave woman, who knew nothing but hard work all her life, that all through her privations and the hardships she endured, she did not complain and was always kind.”  

It is sad to report that no headstone was found at the site of Rachel’s burial in City View Cemetery.  The exact site is on record at the Cemetery office.  She now looks down the hill and west to the grave of her son Samuel and his wife, and the recent Oregon Black Pioneers historical marker in the adjacent Pioneer Cemetery on Commerical St. S. 

Editor’s note: This column is part of an effort from Salem Reporter to highlight local history in collaboration with area historians and historical organizations. If you have any feedback or would like to participate in Salem Reporter’s local history series, please contact managing editor Rachel Alexander at [email protected].

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