CANYON CITY — Columbus Sewell, who settled in Grant County in the mid-19th century, was a pioneer in more ways than one.

An African American resident of the area in the 1860s, Sewell was able to carve out a life for himself and his family despite Oregon’s history of exclusion laws that discouraged or outright prohibited Blacks from settling in the state.

The exclusion laws were superseded by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution in 1868, although the laws wouldn’t be repealed by Oregon voters until 1926. Furthermore, language that can be interpreted as racist wasn’t removed from Oregon’s Constitution until 2002.

Information obtained from the Grant County Museum with the help of Zachary Stocks of Oregon Black Pioneers states that Sewell was born in 1820 in Virginia and served in the Black Hawk War, fighting under Gen. Winfield Scott in the conflict between the United States and Native Americans headed by Sauk tribal leader Black Hawk.

Sewell came out West following the discovery of gold in California in the late 1840s.

In either 1862 or 1863 Sewell made his way to Canyon City, operating a gold claim with other individuals a few miles outside town. Sewell worked the claim for a time before moving into the freight business.

Stocks believes that Sewell started his freight business sometime around 1865, although he still had his gold mining claim at that time. By 1870, the census listed Sewell’s occupation as teamster (wagon driver).

Sewell operated a single wagon with 12 horses during his time running freight between Canyon City and The Dalles, a round-trip journey that took six weeks in the mid- to late 1860s.

One of Sewell’s earliest recorded exploits from his hauling days is a story from Oregon Inn-Side News that recounts an 1864 winter storm that rendered the roads in and around The Dalles impassable.

E.C. Pease, a merchant in The Dalles around that time, recalled Sewell being stuck in The Dalles in the early winter of 1884 due to a severe storm.

The storm left The Dalles with no way to get horses into town, so a number of V-type wooden plows were constructed with the intention of clearing the snow-covered roads.

Pease recalls that Sewell “saved our lives” through the use of those plows with his team, which allowed other horses to be brought into The Dalles. “Columbus Sewell with his twelve horses became our street cleaning department, making them passable,” Pease said.

Some of Sewell’s other exploits are recorded in a forerunner to the Blue Mountain Eagle, the Grant County News. Among them are stories from 1879 to 1891 that record Sewell’s journey from Washington Territory, freight hauls to Baker and Heppner and even the work Sewell and his son Tom did in “removing Judge Dustin’s farm residence from one spot on earth to another.”

Sewell married a Virginia woman named Louisa, who was over 20 years his junior. Louisa and Columbus Sewell had three children, with sons Tom and Joseph surviving into adulthood. Both of the Sewell sons went on to make names for themselves in their own rights.

Louisa Sewell passed in February of 1893 and was remembered for the ice cream she made and for entertaining her neighbors with a croquet court she built opposite her home.

Joseph Sewell was born on April 11, 1878, and was known as an excellent athlete and pugilist in his time. “A Peculiar Paradise: A History of Blacks in Oregon, 1788-1940” by Elizabeth McLagan describes Joseph as “an attractive rogue and an excellent horseman and athlete, addicted to the wild and woolly aspects of frontier life, where drinking, racing and fighting were daily events.”

The work also describes Joseph as the best fighter in the area for a time when he was a child, noting that he took on all challengers. Joseph met his unfortunate end on May 10, 1898, less than a month after his 20th birthday, although accounts differ on exactly what caused his demise. Apparently, it was either due to a shooting incident in Baker or a brawl in a Pendleton brothel.

Tom Sewell was born on June 4, 1869, and got into the freight business like his father. Tom wound up becoming a well-respected and well-liked member of the community.

At one point, Tom was incarcerated at the Oregon State Penitentiary for the crime of selling alcohol to a Native American during the Prohibition era. A petition for leniency was circulated throughout Canyon City and signed by most of the men in town.

A rebuttal was written by Grant County Judge J.H. Allen to the federal judge presiding over Tom Sewell’s case, urging that he be punished severely. The rebuttal appears to have been successful as Tom was not granted leniency and served the full term of his sentence.

Tom was married twice, first to a woman named Cora on Nov. 2, 1899. Following Cora’s death on Nov. 2, 1919, Tom relocated to Portland and met a woman there whom he later married.

Tom’s second wife’s name is lost to history, but it is known that she remained in Portland while Tom returned to Grant County with a housekeeper named Julie Jackson following the marriage. In 1943, following the death of Jackson, Tom retuned to Portland, where he sustained a head injury.

Tom would succumb to that injury, passing away a few days later. Following his death, Tom’s wife brought his body back to Grant County to be buried in the Canyon City Cemetery along with the rest of his family.

Columbus Sewell passed away on Jan. 17, 1889, in Canyon City, according to an obituary published in The Oregonian on Jan. 23, 1899. An obituary compiled by Laura Reglar described Sewell’s career as a resident in the community as above reproach.

“Every act of his life was based upon moral law and in no instance was he ever accused of unfairness (or) unjust dealings,” the obituary read. “Not a stigma rests upon his good name and he has passed to his eternal home honored by all who knew him.”

Columbus Sewell’s name could soon be attached to a Grant County landmark.

The Oregon Black Pioneers have proposed that Negro Knob, a 4,800-foot mountain about seven miles north of Kimberly within the Umatilla National Forest, be renamed Columbus Sewell Knob.

Oregon landmarks with the word “negro” are in their second phase of renaming following an effort in the 1960s to replace an even more offensive term with the word “negro.”

The Oregon Geographic Names Board voted unanimously to forward the name change recommendation to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names on Saturday, Aug. 20.