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Greetings,The 2024 Applegate Family Reunion will be held on Sunday, August 4. This year it will be in the Ashland, Oregon area at our Treasurer Mark Kellenbeck’s new place. It is located just two miles off I-5. Amble parking is available on site. Instructions and a map will be provided in latter correspondence.
Many folks are planning on staying in lodging in the Ashland area over the weekend to take advantage of some of the many attractions such as the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in downtown Ashland and the Britt Music & Arts Festival in historic Jacksonville nearby. The Shakespeare festival has 3 theaters and on Saturday before the reunion, Macbeth and Much Ado About Nothing are playing along with several contemporary plays. The Britt Music & Arts Festival has not announced their summer program yet. It is a wonderful outdoor venue set in nature above the historic gold mining town of Jacksonville about 30 or 40 minutes from Ashland.
There are two places at exit 14 (Ashland Hills Hotel and Suites, and the Best Western Windsor Inn). Plus, there are many hotels, motels, B&Bs, and the like in the Ashland area. There are campgrounds at nearby Immigrant Lake with both tent and trailer/RV sites. If you think you might attend the reunion, you may want to make reservations for lodging now, and then cancel them later if you decide not to come, as they may be booked up closer to August with all the events and activities that Ashland hosts.
In addition to the reunion potluck, business meeting, and program are visits planned to the Jenny Creek slide on the Applegate trail to the east led by our President John Norton (it’s where the wagons were lowered down a steep mountainous hillside and big ruts still exist that can be seen from across the valley) or a trip to the Ashland Pioneer Cemetery where Lindsay and Elizabeth Applegate are buried. We hope to have the Ashland Historical Society lead this along with a short historical tour of Ashland on Sunday afternoon.
If you are coming from the north, there are several opportunities to go back to see some Applegate things. If instead of going back on I-5, you head over to Jacksonville through town and past the Britt Festival site and giant pioneer cemetery and head up the canyon on the highway, you will cross over the ridgetop and down into the Applegate Valley along the Applegate River. It goes through the tiny town of Applegate where there is a post office/store and the Applegate Lodge with rooms to stay the night and a restaurant. Right there along the river is a park with a wonderful swimming hole with rocks to jump off into deep pools within the river. Continue west to the town of Murphy and turn right to go across another bridge over the Applegate River and proceed into Grants Pass where you can get back onto I-5. This scenic detour will take an extra hour or two, depending on whether you stop along the way.
In other news, every year on the Saturday before Memorial Day weekend there is a work party at the tiny hillside Jesse and Cynthia Applegate cemetery just north of Yoncalla along Highway 99. The Jesse Applegate historic sign along the highway there fell and is yet to be replaced, but you can see the cemetery from the road. Turn into the driveway and take the immediate left through a gate which should be unlocked and up the gravel road to the cemetery where there’s a little parking lot. The tidying up of the cemetery begins around 9 AM. Be respectful of the property as the farm it’s located on is not owned by the family. Descendants of Jesse and Cynthia can still be buried there at no cost.
The 400th Anniversary of the arrival of the Thomas Applegate family to north America is coming up. Sharon Applegate (the wife of Gene Applegate) thinks it was in either 1626 or 1627. Shannon Applegate thinks it was in 1628. We need you deep history sleuths to find out what ship they came on to Massachusetts and find the manifest that nails it down so we can celebrate properly!
We hope to see you on Sunday, August 4, 2024!
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
411 Majestic Lane, Ashland, OR, United States
