OUR COLLECTION

Our collection includes over 120,000 artifacts, including 60,000 pieces in the Horner Collection which was donated to the BCHS in 2008. The collection includes photographs, historical documents, textiles, quilts, clothing, domestic arts, farm implements, natural history, scientific instruments and personal possessions.

The Cockrell Quilts are a highlight of our collection, donated by Susan Cockrell and representing a spectrum of quilting styles and techniques from the Revolutionary to the Civil War.

TRANSIT THEODOLITE

The theodolite is a predecessor to today's transit instruments used for land surveying. It measures horizontal and vertical angles.

August Oertlings company in Berlin made this theodolite for the survey of the Great Lakes in 1867.
CIVIL WAR DRUM

Drum Corps member James Plunkett arrived at Fort Hoskins about 1864 with the 4th California Infantry, a volunteer infantry regiment.

Fort Hoskins was one of three forts built by the U.S. Army during the Civil War to monitor the Coastal Indian Reservation in Oregon.
JOHN B. HORNER BRIEFCASE

John B. Horner was one of the first graduates of Philomath College. The building that was home to Philomath College from 1867 to 1929 now houses the Benton County Historical Society and Museum. When Mr. Horner died in 1933 a letter was found in his typewriter. It was a proposal to Henry Ford, requesting $1,000,000 to create the finest museum on the Pacific Coast.
ERECTOR SET FERRIS WHEEL

Native Oregonian A.C. Gilbert first conceived of the Erector Set in 1911. By 1935 he had sold 30 million sets!

Leafy Album quilt from the Cockrell Quilt Collection, circa 1840s.

Artist Octar Copson painted this plate (produced by H. and Co in Bavaria) in the Art Nouveau Style prior to 1936. Born in England, Copson worked as a china painter for the Royal Worcester Porcelain Company before immigrating to the United States in 1893. He worked as a furniture painter and an artist for a pottery company, as well as establishing an art colony in Michigan. In 1931, he moved to Corvallis to join his son, a professor at Oregon State University.

TRANSIT THEODOLITE

CIVIL WAR DRUM

JOHN B. HORNER BRIEFCASE

ERECTOR SET FERRIS WHEEL