The Clark Morris Ranch
Is located about 4 miles west of John Day, OR along US Highway 395/26. This ranch has belonged to the Clark Morris family for more than 75years.
This story begins with the marriage of Lewis Clark Morris and Ramona Jane Chambers November 18, 1939.
Upon this marriage, Clark and Ramona purchased the Jemina J. Allen place. The original place included the house and 320 acres. 240 acres was behind the house, which included the acreage called the "Little Field"
behind the old schoolhouse and behind the little house where Eula Wyllie lived. This transaction included the small piece of property we call "the orchard". Additionally there was approximately 40 acres of meadowland and 40 acres across the John Day river.
Clark and Ramona added acreage over the years. The acreage we call the "back pasture" was originally owned by Willie Lewis. That is a school house section consisting of 640 acres. It was purchased in the late 1940's or early 1950's from William Lewis. We call it call this piece of land "the Willie Lewis place".
The small piece consisting of 1.5 acres beginning at the fence in front of the house to the highway, going west towards the schoolhouse was owned by Art Morgan. It was purchased after in 1950. About this same time, there was negotiations to purchase the property we call "the lane", which gave easement to the meadow and the property across the river.
There was also a small piece State owned property next to the schoolhouse, Ramona purchased that property at public auction after 1969.
They raised commercial cattle there until 1961. In ___, Ramona purchased purebred Hereford cattle.
The original house was much different than it is today. Clark and Ramona remodeled it possibly around 1950 adding on to the living room and the downstairs bedroom. Originally the upstairs was 4 bedrooms with the back bedroom being two rooms. At one time there was a porch across the front of the house and there was access through doors out of both front bedrooms. It is possible they tore off the porch when they remodeled the downstairs. We are currently looking for pictures of the house in it's orginial condition. Now the house has four bedrooms and two bathrooms, a laundry/utility room and office/sewing room, and a large pantry. One interesting note is the house was never wired to have an electric dryer. For as long as any family member remembers, there have been lines for laundry in the laundry room as well as a nice big clothes line outside. The original cook stove in the kitchen provides heat to much of the house and my mother still cooks meals on the stove as long it has a fire in it!
Editors' note: In the spring of 2001, the pantry and kitchen were remodeled. In the fall of 2003, the back porch was given an updated look and in the summer of 2009, the laundry room and office was remodeled into one room and was wired for an electric dryer.
In the early years of the ranch, the farming, haying was done by horse drawn equipment. It is possible that Jamie Wyllie had a mowing machine. We had a tractor with a farm hand on it. It was basically a device to lift loads of hay up on a stack. Of course all the hay at that time was loose hay. We believe, that Tony Bragga had a Ford tractor with a hay buck on it. Homer Barry had a side delivery rake. Jamie Wyllie would start at Homer's and mow hay then Homer would rake it and then Tony would get a load of hay on the hay buck and take it to the stack where Clark would stack it. There was always someone on the hay stack to spread the hay around. From there they would move to the next ranch which belonged to Art Morgan (now owned by Tidewater Contractors) then it was to our place and they to Wyllie's. No one remembers if the "hay crew" went any further down the river.
This website is a work in progress, and was started with the intent to compile information and documentation about my family's history in Grant County. I have also found it a great tool to update our spread out family in order to keep in touch share our activities with each other. My aunt Mary Margret, has been an amazing wealth of information due to the hard work and time she has put in to researching on family ancestry. I also hope this website will be of interest to people as it includes some history of Grant County, a place my family has called home for more than 75 years. I have learned a lot while working on this site, and I hope readers will enjoy the pictures, of my family, our activities and seeing how "things have changed".