By James Day
The Geer farmhouse is in line for a new roof, courtesy of a grant from Oregon Heritage.
Oregon Heritage, a division of the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, awarded the GeerCrest Farm & Historical Society $20,000 for its roof project. The award was one of 18 statewide that added $277,681 to historical preservation efforts.
Jim Toler, a trustee with GeerCrest said “the farmhouse roof has been overdue for a complete replacement for a few years now, but COVID has complicated things.”
The group also received $5,000 for the project from the Kinsman Foundation and will fundraise for the required $20,000 or so in matching funds.
Toler said the project will replace the entire roof with the exception of the veranda porches. Because of the farmhouse’s National Register of Historic Places status, the new roof must be a “heavy shake roof,” Toler said.
The farmhouse is a timber framed building, built in 1851. It stands as an example of the early architecture in Oregon. The property is about 5.5 miles south of Silverton. The original homesteaders, Ralph and Mary Geer, arrived in the Willamette Valley in 1847 and began to establish their 640-acre homestead early in 1848. Theirs became the second registered homestead in Oregon. From the proceeds of their success selling newly grafted apple and pear trees, the farmhouse was finished in 1851. It is the oldest farmhouse in Oregon with a descendent of the original family still living on the property.
The house also was the childhood oasis for a young Homer Davenport (1867 – 1912), who became a well-known political cartoonist satarizing policitians of America’s Gilded Age. He was also responsible for the first direct importation of Arabian horses to the United States.
Homer, the son of Timothy W. and Florinda (Geer) Davenport (Ralph and Mary’s daughter), also wrote the book The Country Boy, which relates his life growing up in the Waldo Hills area near Silverton.
Other noted residents of the Geer house have included Theodore Thurston (T.T.) Geer, the first native-born Oregon governor and entrepreneur Musa Geer, who in 1897 became the first woman known to have climbed Mt. Jefferson.
