Digital Exhibits

Small House on Cleared Forest Land

A small house, probably in the forested hills of the Coast Range northwest of Forest Grove, Oregon; possibly near Hillside, Gales Creek or Hayward. The house is a very modest structure, probably consisting of just one or two rooms, with a pyramidal hip roof. A man, a boy and a horse stand on the left. A shed or small barn stands behind the house, and another small but tall-roofed outbuilding sits to the left. The latter structure might be a smokehouse. The land around the house has been cleared of trees recently, with many stumps and ferns still present in the foreground. An old wood plank sidewalk is also visible. The forested hill in the background looks like it may have been burned, with dead snags left standing. All of the structures including the fences appear to have been built recently before the photograph was taken. Flaws in the photograph are due to dust and deterioration of the emulsion layer on the negative.

This is one image from a set of glass plate negatives created by William Alonso Clapshaw. Clapshaw was a clerk and shopkeeper who lived near Forest Grove, Oregon for most of his life. He was born in 1880, probably at the family's home in the Hillside neighborhood of Forest Grove, on what is now Clapshaw Hill Road east of Gales Creek. Around 1910-1914, William took an interest in photography and created a set of glass plate negatives documenting scenes near his family's lands as well as images of himself, his friends and family members. He most likely used a silver gelatin dry plate process. The photographs were donated to the Pacific University Archives in 2023.

Clapshaw, William Alonso, 1880-2006

circa 1910-1914

PUA_MS154_028

Farms--Oregon

Houses

Forest Grove, Oregon

Gales Creek, Oregon

Hayward, Oregon

Gelatin silver negatives

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/CNE/1.0/

Pacific University Archives