Collection is open for research.
Gift of Lydia McCall in January 1958 (Lib. Acc. 7299) with additions via Lawrence C. Merriam in November 1960; gift of Lawrence C. Merriam, November 1984 (Lib. Acc. 17039).
Portions of the collection were microfilmed by the Oregon State Library, Salem, and are also available at that repository.
The collection is arranged in five series:
John Marshall McCall was an Oregon soldier and businessman. He was the commander of Company A, First Oregon Cavalry; served in the Oregon State Legislature, 1876-1891; and owned businesses in Ashland, Oregon, from 1859-1895. In 1868, he married his first wife, Theresa Applegate; after her death, he remarried, to Mary Anderson Brown, a widow.
John Marshall McCall papers, Mss 911, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
Collection includes materials previously designated Mss 911-1. Collection was processed by Trudy Williams in 2007, and a collection guide was written by Geoffrey B. Wexler. Minor revisions were made to collection guide in May 2024 to conform to current standard.
Papers of John Marshall McCall, a soldier and a merchant of Ashland, Oregon, include materials relating to the First Oregon Cavalry, Fort Klamath, the Central Oregon Military Road, other Oregon road companies, and personal business matters. Included are official military reports and correspondence from McCall's escort duties to the Oregon Central Military Road survey party (1865) and during his service at Fort Klamath in the winter of 1865-1866, as well as a diary relating to a military escort trip. Other military papers include a notebook detailing the cavalry's travel and expenses, along with a narrative addressed to Native people and providing details about the U.S. government's plans for them, February-November 1865; a California telegraph concerning a deserter, James Forrest; correspondence from Fort Klamath, August 30, 1865, with orders to proceed to Indian Springs and meet Captain Kelly, Company C; and news of mail, rations, military plans, and a bill for supplies, February-March 1865.
Papers relating to business and personal affairs include McCall-Applegate family letters, deeds, insurance papers, estate papers of Phoebe Baltimore, records relating to McCall's store in Ashland, the constitution of the Willamette Woolen Manufacturing Company, and material on the Southern Oregon Wagon Road Company and the West Ashland Water Ditch Company.
The Oregon Historical Society owns the materials in the Research Library and makes available reproductions for research, publication, and other uses. The Society does not necessarily hold copyright to all materials in the collections. In some cases, permission for use may require seeking additional authorization from copyright owners.
Journal entries made by John Marshall McCall from July to September 1865, during his escort duties for the Oregon Central Military Road survey party, were published in Oregon Historical Quarterly as part of the article "The First Oregon Cavalry and the Oregon Central Military Road Survey of 1865," by L. C. Merriam, Jr. (Volume 60, No. 1, March 1959, pages 89-124).