HASSO HERING

Miss Maude’s name on the side of the Henderson family’s monument in Albany’s Riverside Cemetery.

For last week’s story on planned improvements at Albany’s Henderson Park, I went looking for the origin of that little park. I found that and a lot more, including a thread that led to a mystery that so far is unexplained.

E. (for Ella)  Maude Henderson died in her home at 807 Calapooia St. on the morning of Dec. 31, 1935. She was 67 years old and had been ill for some time, having undergone what the newspaper called a “major operation” at the Albany hospital on Oct. 2.

A month after her death, the papers reported that Miss Henderson’s will was made public. Among dozens of provisions, she bequeathed her Calapooia Street house to the city of Albany for park purposes. That’s what a few years later became Henderson Park.

But there was more. The Albany weekly Greater Oregon reported on Jan. 31, 1936: “Offer of two tracts to the city of Albany for public park purposes was made known when the estate of E. Maude Henderson was admitted to probate by Judge J.J. Barrett.” One was her house. The other was “part of a five-acre tract near the Calapooia river bridge.”

Where’s that tract? I hoped the will would say so.

The records department of the circuit court dove into the microfilms for 1936 and came up with the Henderson will. And on Page 4 the will says:

“I do hereby give and devise unto the City of Albany … the north half of the five acre tract described in that deed of record on page 27 , volume 84, deed records of Linn County … to be held by said city in trust and kept and maintained as a public park and named Henderson Grove.”

Page 27 of that volume, kept along with many others in the clerk’s office at the courthouse, does indeed describe a 5-acre tract, complete with compass directions and measurements in links and chains.

Across the hall in the assessor’s office, cartographer Christopher Bonn charted those measurements on a map of present-day tax lots. And what do you know? The northern half of that property along with a right of way to the street, which the will gave to the city to hold in trust and keep and maintain as a public park named Henderson Grove, is in fact what was Hazelwood Park until the city council declared it surplus and sold it to the neighbors last year.

To dispose of Hazelwood, the parks department relied on a deed from 1947, which transferred the property named in the Henderson will from Linn County to the city of Albany, without mentioning any restrictions as to its use as a public park.

The mystery that wants explaining is this: How could Linn County in 1947 give the city a piece of property that was supposed to be given to the city by the provisions of a will 11 years before? How did that work?

Unfortunately, readily accessible documents in the assessor’s office trace the ownership of this parcel only as far back as 1959. So it’s going to be hard to find out.

Other aspects of Maude Henderson’s life, particularly her connection with Amanda Johnson, the former slave girl who crossed the plains to Oregon with Maude’s grandmother in 1853 and who died in Albany in 1927, are a story for another day. (Amanda’s words to an interviewer of why she left Missouri bring tears to your eyes.)

But from what I’ve learned so far, one thing seems clear: Maude’s will concerning “Henderson Grove” has not been carried out. (hh)

For the incredible help I got in looking up material for this story, I’m very grateful to the employees at the Linn County Circuit Court, the county departments of the clerk and the assessor, the Albany parks department, and the Albany Regional Museum.

But one thing is clear: Maude Henderson’s