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Spring Valley Cemetery ~ Bartholomew Thomas Soden ~ part of the Polk County Pioneer Cemeteries of Oregon
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Soden, Bartholomew Thomas
LAST NAME: Soden FIRST NAME: Bartholomew MIDDLE NAME: Thomas NICKNAME: 
MAIDEN NAME:  AKA 1:  AKA 2:  AKA 3: 
GENDER: M TITLE: 
BORN: Nov 1807 DIED: 20 Jan 1866 BURIED:  (Spring Valley Cemetery)
OCCUPATION:  
BIRTH PLACE:  Athlone, Ireland
DEATH PLACE: Polk Co, Oregon
NOTES: 

DLC 2059 – Bartholomew Soden, Polk Co; b 1807, Athlone, Ireland; Arrived Oregon 2 June 1851; Settled Claim 20 Nov 1853; married Ann Goodale 4 Aug 1836, Lancaster, Australia. Aff: Andrew J. Doak, Walter M. Walker, Jesse D. Walling. Citizenship awarded 6 Sept 1858, 1st Judicial District Court of Oregon, Marion Co. 

1860 OR CENSUS - B. Soder [Soden], male, age 57, occupation farmer, b. Ireland, is enumerated with A. female, age 45, b. Ireland, along with Sarah, age 20, b. Australia, Jane, age 17, b. Australia, Martha, age 14, b. Aurstralia, and Theodore, age 11, b. Australia.
PROBATE – B. Soden of Polk co died intestate; Alfred Hovenden asked to be appointed administrator 28 May 1866; heirs: Sarah A. Hovenden, Martha Brother & B.T. Soden 
BIOGRAPHICAL
(Biographical Sketch originally found Ancestry.com, suplied by Heuristics Heritage Services):
Bartholomew Soden was born in Athlone, Ireland in November 1807, the son of Thomas Soden and Margaret Perdue. Thomas owned land in Ballinahinch Co. Longford, and property in Athlone itself on Barrack Square, opposite the Castle. The family attended St Peter's Church. At sometime probably 1819, they moved to Dublin, where Batholomew and his sister Margaret trained as teachers.
Around 1833, Bartholmomew and Margaret sailed to Van Diemen's Land, where they started teaching in the Government School in Springs near Launceston. By the following year they were teaching in the neighbouring village of Evandale. Here, Bartholomew also became the Postmaster and Parish Clerk, and started trading and farming, buying land in nearby Perth.
In 1836, he married Anne Goodall, a governess who had arrived in 1835 as an assisted immigrant on the "Charles Kerr" to go into service for Mr Cox at a salary of 16 pound. Anne's brother and sister followed her to Van Diemen's Land and also settled in Evandale. Margaret Soden married Samuel Johnson, who was working as a carpenter at Claredon House, owned by the Cox family.
Bartholomew and Anne had seven children, of whom three boys died very young. The Soden's initially attended the established church - they were married in the parish church at Launceston . Subsequently church services and marriages were conducted in their own school house in Evandale, until two new permanent churches were built, when the Sodens joined the Presbyterian church rather the the Church of England.
In 1848 Batholomew and Anne had their portraits painted by C.H.T. Costantini. He was an ex-convict, and had become a fashionable painter. Around the same time, Costantini painted a portrait of local landowner Kennedy Murray - who had married Anne's sister Hannah - and scenes of Evandale.
By the late 1840's, conditions for teachers had changed with the increased influence of the established church - a new school had opened in Evandale in 1847.
With the discovery of gold in California, the family decided it was time to move on. An account by his granddaughter relates that "Mr Soden was an enterprising sort of man and conceived the idea of having half a dozen houses, of assorted sizes, built and then taken apart and made ready for shipment to be set up again on his arrival in California, for rental purposes."
The Sodens and the Johnsons sailed from Hobart on the "Eudora" at the end of 1849; both Batholomew and Samuel are described as carpenters on the ship's manifest. They arrived in Honolulu in March 1850, where they left the ship instead of continuing to San Francisco, perhaps because Margaret Johnson was unwell, or maybe they just got over their gold fever.
At this time in Hawaii, the royal land was being sold off in the Great Mahele: however, only Hawaiians were eligible to purchase land. So, Barthomomew applied for and was granted Hawaiiian citizenship within a few days of their arrival. He bought one plot of land and sold it almost immediately to Warren Goodale - the chief clerk who had apporved his citizenship application. This plot is the site of the current Honolulu bus station. Bartholomew then bought another plot near the river, in what is now Chinatown. He took up an appointment as teacher in the Oahu Charity School for English-speaking pupils of foreign nationals. Probably they sold those houses that had been destined for the California gold fields - with increased numbers of European settlers and a fashion amongst native Hawaiians for wooden houses rather than huts, there would have been a ready market for them. Samuel Johnson, indeed, established a successful business in Honolulu as a carpenter and a builder. After 18 months, the lure of free land claims in Oregan prompted Batholomew to move on again. He left Anne to sort out their affairs in Hawaii, and sailed via San Francisco to Oregon. Here he changed his citizenship yet again to American, filed a land claim in Marion County, and sent for his wife and children.
Anne sold off their land in three parts - one of the purchasers was Samuel Johnson - and made a substantial profit on the sale. She and the children took the "Louisiana" to Astoria, another boat to St Helens, then the "Lot Whitcomb" to Willamette Falls (Oregon City). The "Lot Whitcomb" was a fast, new paddle steamer, and they must have been amongst her first passengers.
The family soon sold their first plot in Marion County and took up another claim in Spring Valley Polk County. They attended the local Baptist Church, and Bartholomew raised cows, sheep and horses.
* Their first daughter, Sarah Anne, aged 18 married Alfred Hovenden, a 35 year old Englishman, who had arrived from Kent in 1848 and owned a large amount of land in Marion County. She died in 1929, just short of her 90th birthday.
* Martha married S Thompson Brothers and moved to Olympia, Washington Territory, where she died in 1871.
* Their third daughter, Jane, died in 1861 aged only 20.
* Batholomew and Anne's son, Bartholomew Thomas (known as Bartle) married Cora May Wells and eventually settled in Portland, when he died in 1926.
Anne died in 1862 of tuberculosis. Bartholomew Soden died in 1865, aged 58. His son-in-law Alfred Hovenden administered his estate, and the land sold to neighbouring land-owners, and the surviving children inherited the money from the estate. The inventory also show that Bartle had some of the personal items - including a panther skin!
The site of the Soden farm is now a youth camp with some open fields, an old barn, and trails through the trees for hiking and riding. The churchyard where Bartholomew lies beside his wife and daughter is on top of the hill overlooking scenic farmland, a beautiful and peaceful spot.

DEATH CERTIFICATE: 

N/A

OBITUARY: 
INSCRIPTION: 

Batholomew Soden
Died
Jan. 20, 1866
Aged
58 Y's 2 M's
Blessed are the dead which die
in the Lord

SOURCES: 

Janssen Compilation
Saucy Survey & Photographs
Genealogical Material in Oregon Donation Land Claims, Vol 1, page 85

1860 OR CENSUS (Polk Co., Spring Valley, FA #268)
Polk Co, Oregon, Probate File #543, Oregon State Archives 

Heuristics Heritage Services

CONTACTS: 
ROW: II 27 A4  
IMAGES:
     

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