Yamhill County Oregon Historical Society

Lafayette, Oregon – A patriotic heritage | NewLafayette.org

By S. King

When Amer­i­cans came out west on the Ore­gon Trail, they left so much behind, includ­ing fam­ily mem­bers, cher­ished pos­ses­sions, and the com­fort and secu­rity of civilization.

Some of Oregon’s ear­li­est pio­neers set­tled in Lafayette, and as you’ll see below, one thing they did not leave behind was their patri­o­tism. By learn­ing about the his­tory of our town’s name, founder, and pio­neers, you’ll see that July 4

The founder of Lafayette, Ore­gon is Joel Perkins. He had our town offi­cially named and rec­og­nized as the first county seat of Yamhill County in Decem­ber of 1846.

Two years before, in 1844, Joel Perkins arrived in Ore­gon City off the Ore­gon Trail with his par­ents, some of his sib­lings and their fam­i­lies, and one other sin­gle young man besides himself.

The Perkins fam­ily had a patri­otic her­itage of which any Amer­i­can would be proud. Both of Joel’s  grand­fa­thers had served in the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary War. His pater­nal grand­fa­ther was a Minute-Man, who served with Gen­eral George Wash­ing­ton. Joel’s father, Eli, used to tell Joel and his sib­lings about his mem­ory of Mr. and Mrs. Wash­ing­ton vis­it­ing his child­hood home, Eli would even­tu­ally name one of Joel’s broth­ers George Wash­ing­ton (Perkins).

What’s even more note­wor­thy is that accord­ing to the Perkins family’s genealog­i­cal and his­tor­i­cal records, Joel’s other grand­fa­ther served in the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary War under Gen­eral Lafayette, another famous hero from that war. So did Joel name our town after this Gen­eral? Keep reading.

His­tor­i­cal accounts of Lafayette, Ore­gon say that Joel Perkins named Lafayette after his home town back east — Lafayette, Indi­ana.  Inter­est­ingly, this small Indi­ana  town was plat­ted in 1825 and named after Gen­eral Lafayette:  the very Gen­eral Joel’s  own grand­fa­ther had served under. Many towns were being named after the war vet­eran at the time, as he was a house­hold name in that day and one of the last sur­viv­ing offi­cers from the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary war.

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