A Document With Personality

About the Worms

When I first read the abstract, the image of a fisherman’s can of worms popped into my mind. I had fished for details about my husband’s Coursen abodes before, but not in this rich and complicated source. Much of the information in this format confused me. I felt like the data would crawl and disappear like worms before I would make sense of it. The abstract contained 72 pages filled with deeds, names, dates and maps. Its full title was Abstract of Title to Real Estate in Multnomah County Oregon (no. 8410). It details a small plot of land.

Why did Frances Cabell Coursen, my husband’s Grandmother Perritt, keep this book? As written on the cover it is an abstract and contains legal actions, transfers of ownership, property maps and other facts related to a certain property located in Rose City, Portland, Oregon.

The short answer is abstract book details a lot with a house that Frances owned in 1941. When I opened the book, paperwork fell out which gave credence to Frances’s claim of ownership.

Here is a copy of a receipt for the premium on the title policy for this lot and house.

The Abstract Book

This book details the history of Lot 1, Block A in the Caruthers Addition to the Caruthers Addition to the city of Portland. While the repeating of the phase” to the Caruthers Addition,” seems redundant, it was done for this reason. Block A was not found in the first Caruthers Addition. I say this book of documents has personality or character in spite of its legal land descriptions and run on sentences, numbers and repetitions. Many characters are named. In large part they were Oregon pioneers and early settlers.

Here is a copy of page 1 of the abstract. It details the piece of land (lot 1) Frances Coursen owned in 1941. Her father-in-law, Edgar Coursen owned lot 1 before Frances. This property is located in the top right corner of Block A. This map, drawn at the time Edgar Coursen purchased the property, showed these streets-Hood Street to the east. The other streets were Lincoln Street to the south, and Front Street to the west. The street where the Coursen house would be built was unnamed on this date. It would be named Brazee Street when this neighborhood was developed.

Plot A of a Real Estate Subdivision

The Characters

Elizabeth and Finace Caruthers

This piece of land originally part of property owned by Elizabeth Caruthers and her son Finace Caruthers. Elizabeth and Finace settled near the Willamette River in 1847. They filed claims under the Donation Land Claim Act and acquired 320 acres of land.  In 1864, after both mother, Elizabeth and son, Finace, died, the South Portland Real Association bought this land.  

John W. Brazee and Family

John Brazee, also an Oregon pioneer, came to Portland in 1858. He laid out the second Carthers Addition. A street to the north of lot 1, unmarked and unnamed, became Brazee Street. The abstract contained biographical details of John W. Brazee and his family. Also, I found couple of index cards from the pioneer Index in the Oregon History Society’s records. These cards provided reasons for the street naming other than that he had laid out the subdivision.

John W. Brazee left a will dated November 11, 1886, and filed January 20, 1887. There is a copy on page 21-22 in the abstract. His wife, Minnie, and his children were to get equal portions of the upper part of lot 1 in block A. The division of property was to happen after his youngest turned 21. In 1887 the ages of John’s and Minnie’s four children were Fannie, 13, Nellie 12, Albert, 10 and Essie ,8.

In 1890 John Brazee’s widow, Minnie, married Frank Alton Knapp. Her new husband took over the job of executor of this will.

Edgar and Annie Coursen

In 1907, Edgar and Annie Coursens started paperwork to buy the upper half of lot 1 in block A. There were several owners of this land. The plat map from the abstract shows the owners. The entire lot is within the area marked at corners W-X-Y-Z. The land the Coursens wanted is indicated by the letters t-u-v-x. The Law Offices of Gammans and Malarkey prepared this heavy load of paperwork.

The lawyers of Gammans and Malarkey went through a large amount of examining and explaining. Edgar Coursen wanted to make sure the upper half of Lot 1 was free and clear.

Names on the Map

Plot D- Lewis Lavinas Peck bought the entire Lot 1 from the Caruthers Estate on September 13,1864. He paid $400.00 for it.

Plot C- Charles and Anna McGinn -On June 14, 1873, L.L. Peck sold a piece to Charles McGinn.

Plot B- W.H. Lang also owned 1/5 of this piece. The Brazee heirs, whom the death of Essie Brazee had reduced to four people. They were Minnie Brazee Knapp, Fannie Insley, Nellie Effinger and Albert Brazee. They each owned 4/5 of this piece. Fannie and Nellie were married by this date. The Deed for this piece went from L. L. Peck to Justin Chenaweth in January of 1871. Then from Justin Chenaweth to John W. Brazee on December 11, 1880.

Plot A- W.H. Lang owned this piece. He bought it from Sarah J. McKitrick and E. J. McKitrick. This deed is dated January 21, 1907. Lang paid $2,000 for this piece. The land description in this deed reads “all of the north forty-four feet except the twenty-two feet of Lot number 1 in Block A of the Caruthers Addition to the Caruthers Addition to the City of Portland in the county of Multnomah and State of Oregon.”

The 22 feet of Lot 1 not in the McKitrick property was in the hands of Fred S. Love and his wife, Mayme Love. Lang obtained it with a quick claim on May 29,1907.

The Brazee heirs sold their upper half of Lot 1 to Lang on May 22, 1907.

Here are copies of the deed fronts and the Quick claim.

 Edgar and Annie Coursen received the Deed stamped and dated May 31, 1907. Brazee Street and houses were to come. The same year, 1907, Portland’s great street renaming plan started in this neighborhood, Rose City Park.

Rose City Park and the Great Street Renaming

The city of Portland had started renaming their streets in 1891. The plan called for streets running north and south to be called Avenues. An avenue would be designated by a number.

Streets running east and west would have names, often of people in Portland’s past and be called Streets. Brazee Street was on Portland maps then but did not extend to the Rose City neighborhood. The Alameda Street, a street just one block north of where Brazee Street soon would be, was already there.

When Brazee Street extended into this area Lincoln Street, Hood Street and Front Street were gone. Front Street had become an avenue. Brazee Street, Sacramento Street and a park swallowed the south part of Lot 1.

The section of a 1927 Portland map show The Alameda. Brazee is one block to the south. The house is on the corner of Brazee and 63rd Avenue.

The House

The house was built in 1926. The front door faced NE Brazee Street. If people looked across Brazee Street and NE Sacramento Street, they would glimpse a lovely park. Rose City Park anchored and defined the area neighborhood.

Along with the street renaming came the renumbering of the houses.. Before this Portland had a confusing and random system. It became much easier to deliver the mail when the house numbers were sequential and predictable. The numbers get larger from both sides of the Willamette River outward and from Burnside outward.

As for the house built on lot 1, block A its address was 1641 Brazee. This address changed to 6305 NE Brazee Street in the the renumbering. I found the Portland Street Renaming Directory, p 17, matches the old names and numbers to the new ones.

The Coursens were not the first family to live at 1641 (old number)6305 (new number) Brazee Street. Sometime in the years between when they bought lot 1 and when the house on on this lot was built and sold, the Cousens sold this property.