America Waldo Bogle

America Waldo was born in Missouri on June 2, 1844.[1][2][3][4] Her mother is believed to have been a slave of Missouri farmer John Waldo (1796–1849), and her father was a white man, probably either John Waldo or his brother Joseph (1805–1871).[1][2] In 1854 America traveled by wagon train to Oregon with John Waldo's widow, Avarilla, and several other African Americans.[1][2] They spent the winter with Avarilla's brother-in-law, Daniel Waldo, at his farm east of Salem. In the spring of 1855 they moved south to Douglas County where Avarilla established a Donation Land claim near Roseburg, Oregon.[1] America remained in the Roseburg area for the next five years, during which time she met her future husband, Richard Arthur Bogle, a barber in Roseburg.[1] In 1861 she returned with Avarilla to Salem where she lived with the Daniel Waldo family until her marriage.[1] Daniel Waldo, a former legislator in the Provisional Government of Oregon, who had arrived in Oregon with the Great Migration of 1843, "may have taken responsibility for raising her and thus acted as a father figure."[1] In 1862 Richard Bogle left Roseburg and settled in Walla Walla, Washington, but returned to Oregon briefly at the end of that year to prepare for his marriage to America. [5][1]

In Salem, Oregon, on January 1, 1863, at the age of 18, America Waldo married Richard Arthur Bogle, a free Black man born in Jamaica.[1][3] Their wedding was on the same day that President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation went into effect. The wedding was controversial because there were both white and black guests at the ceremony, going against racial segregation practices.[6][7] Reverend Obed Dickinson, an abolitionist, presided over the marriage.[6] Daniel Waldo publicly supported the wedding and gave them "several gifts of great value with which to start their home."[1] Newspaper editor Asahel Bush called the wedding "shameful" in the local newspaper and in a letter to Matthew Deady he wrote, "It was a negro equality sentiment mixed up with a little snob-aristocracy."[7][6] The Oregonian retorted to Bush's negative press coverage by saying, "the heart of a man who could be guilty of making light even of a poor mulatto girl's feelings is blacker than the skin of any African."[7] News of the wedding traveled all the way to the San Francisco Bulletin, where it was written that the wedding included, "distinguished white ladies and gentlemen, who saw proper to witness the ceremony and participate in the festive proceedings."[7] America and Richard had eight children together.[5][1]

The Bogles settled in Walla Walla, Washington, where they started a 200-acre ranch.[8] America Waldo Bogle was known as "a lady of estimable character, noted for her deeds of charity to the poor and suffering."[8] Her three older children appear to have died between 1876 and 1878.[1] She died in Walla Walla on December 28, 1903, and her husband died a year later on November 22, 1904. Her five surviving children out of an original eight were Arthur, Belle, Waldo, Katherine, and Warren Bogle, and the sons followed in their father's footsteps and became barbers.[1][9] Her great-grandson, Richard "Dick" Bogle, was later the second African-American city commissioner in Portland, Oregon.[10]