The Vanderpool Project:
Jacob Vanderpool's Story
Jacob Vanderpool lived in Oregon City and he is the only known person expelled from Oregon under the state’s Black exclusionary laws. He was a business owner and was forced to leave Oregon after a competing white business owner reported him to authorities. He was our historical neighbor. His crime? Being Black in the state of Oregon.
Starting His Business
Jacob Vanderpool first appears in Oregon in the summer of 1851. He was a former sailor from the West Indies turned hotel manager. He was an industrious man, running an ad in the Oregon Statesman nearly every week for his hotel, the Oregon Saloon and Boarding House.
However, one month after Jacob Vanderpool first advertises his hotel, the ad for another Oregon City hotel appears in the Oregon Statesman by a man named Theophilus Magruder. And less than one month after that, Theophilus Magruder makes a formal complaint in front of the Supreme Court of the Territory of Oregon where he says that he “prays that a warrant may open for the arrest of the said Jacob Vanderpool and that he is dealt with according to law.” Jacob Vanderpool would then be arrested the very next day.
Oregon’s Black exclusionary laws were not written to expel African Americans living in the state, just prevent them from settling here.
Yet the judge, Thomas Nelson, who presided over Jacob Vanderpool’s case chose to apply the laws in the former.
The same judge who happened to be staying at Theophilus Magruder’s hotel.
The same judge who spoke fondly of the hotel management.
The same judge who was given the nicest room at the hotel.
The Ruling
On August 26, 1851 Thomas Nelson ruled that:
The above-named Jacob Vanderpool, having been brought before me on a warrant based upon the complaint of the above named Theophilus Magruder, and I being satisfied, that the said Jacob Vanderpool is a mulatto, and that he is remaining in the territory of Oregon contrary to the statutes and laws of the territory. I therefore order that the said Jacob Vanderpool remove from the said territory within thirty days from and after the service of this order.
Just like that, Jacob Vanderpool was expelled from the state of Oregon, never to return. An article would run in the Oregon Statesman the following week that praised Thomas Nelson’s ruling as a “reaffirmation of a well-settled doctrine.”
The Place We Make
Learn more about Jacob Vanderpool’s story and the white individuals who created the rules and culture that lead to his expulsion. Check out The Place We Make by Sarah Sanderson, Oregon City resident.
Sanderson explores her own relationship to this story, the lineage that connects her back to 1851, and her personal pursuit of historical reconciliation.
Sanderson continues to support the work of ORP, the Oregon Black Pioneers, and the Grand Ronde Tribe to memorialize Jacob Vanderpool where his business once stood.
Discover More
Read our articles to learn about the Vanderpool Project.
