Lewis Southworth, also identified as Louis Southworth, was a pioneer and freed slave who settled a donation land claim in 1880 near Waldport in the U.S. state of Oregon. Born in Tennessee, he was brought to the territory by his "master", from whom he bought his freedom with cash earned chiefly from his expertise with the fiddle or violin. Southworth lived or worked near Monroe, Jacksonville, and Buena Vista before settling along a small tributary of the Alsea River, where he farmed and engaged in other enterprises and civic undertakings. After his wife died in 1901, Southworth bought a house in Corvallis, where he lived for the rest of his life. Southworth was the first African-American member of the Oregon militia. Southworth Creek, a small tributary of the Alsea River, is named in his honor.
Slave
In 1853, James Southworth, a Tennessee slave owner, had brought Southworth to the Oregon Territory as property. Slavery was not legal in the territory, and African Americans were prohibited from settling there. Efforts to discourage former slaves and their descendants from moving to Oregon continued through at least 1926, when a clause in the state constitution that made it illegal for African Americans to live in Oregon was repealed. Despite restrictions, James Southworth brought Lewis to Oregon and continued to regard him as his property. In 1854 Lewis Southworth settled on an abandoned donation land claim near Monroe, in Lane County. Another pioneer, Benjamin Richardson, allowed him to live there on a claim that Richardson’s son no longer wanted. According to an article in The Old Time Herald, James Southworth, thought to be cash-poor, lived with Lewis on the Richardson claim. Shortly thereafter, Lewis traveled to the gold fields near Jacksonville, where he earned $300 that he remitted to James in partial payment for his freedom. While returning from Jacksonville to Monroe, Lewis encountered soldiers fighting in the Rogue River Wars who threatened to confiscate his rifle. To avoid proceeding unarmed through dangerous places, Southworth joined the militia but was subsequently wounded in a skirmish in 1856. He was the first African-American member of the Oregon militia. Soon the James Southworth family moved again, this time to California to try gold mining, taking Lewis with them. While mining in Yreka, Lewis found fiddle playing more lucrative than looking for gold, and he subsequently taught violin and played for dance schools in Yreka and in Virginia City, Nevada. In this way, Lewis earned enough to pay James Southworth another $700 to be set free in 1858 or 1859. After Lewis bought his freedom, James Southworth circulated a petition in Lane Country, Oregon, to protect "slave property." The petition made its way to the state legislature, but was not adopted.
Lewis Southworth returned to Oregon, and by 1870 he was running a livery stable in Buena Vista and working as a blacksmith. He married Mary Cooper in 1873 and helped raise her adopted son, Alvin McCleary. Under provisions of the Homestead Act of 1862, Southworth acquired a land grant near the Alsea River upstream of Waldport, where he farmed, fished, hunted, built a sawmill, became active in community affairs, and played the fiddle for dances. He donated land for a school near Waldport and served as a chairman of the school board. After Cooper died in 1901, Southworth moved to Corvallis, where he bought and lived in a house at the corner of Southwest Fourth Street and Adams Avenue. He died in 1917 and is buried in Corvallis' Crystal Springs Cemetery next to his wife. The tributary along which Southworth lived near Waldport was until 2000 officially known as Darkey Creek. On the recommendation of the Oregon Geographic Names Board, it was changed by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names to Southworth Creek in 2000 in honor of Southworth.
