History: Interview with Paul Marcy

Paul Marcy lived on the Phillips Farm property from 1917-1924. The interviewers' questions are in bold.  Paul's responses are in regular type. This interview was conducted December 14, 1991 by  Lee Anne Eareckson, Karen Rand and Kama White.

How much of the area of the environmental park was forested when you were there?
Pretty much the same as it is now.

From the old maps it looks as if the whole thing was forest.
I think the whole place was forested at one time. Mostly covered with Ponderosa.

You mentioned to me that there was once a cabin on the property.
That would have to be between the house and the old road. There were a few apple trees there.

Yes, and there are still.
That’s where the cabin set up there, and there was a well about 20 feet deep.

So that was there when you all got there.
Yes.

Did anyone live there at that time?
No. I think my brother and his wife went in to live there.

Was the road that went through the land on the north side?
It was on the east, and the cabin was on the east side of the road, but the barn was on the other side.

But it was still above the drainage?
No, the barn was below the drainage on the other side. We used to keep the sheep there. It was there when we went there. I don’t know if that 40 acres had been sold off a long time and been bought back again, but I didn’t pay much attention to those things.

I did find the deed of sale from the Thomas’s to your family, but I still haven’t been able to go back further.
They were old people even then.

I have written here Anna Thomas. Was she the one that—
She was the one that finally foreclosed. She argued with her lawyers because we were billed with 7% interest and the mortgage was newly interested at that time. There was no way she could replace that with any other – anything. She paid, but that was keeping the interest paid. But that was the only thing that could be done, with the prices everything went to nothing.

I guess things didn’t get better for awhile either.
No, I don’t see how they could.

Where were you living then? Where did you all move on to?
We came back out here (Bonner’s Ferry) with the neighbors. We had the place up here all designed. We had left here and went onward in the first place because my brother and I had finished grade school, and he wanted to go to that agricultural course at the University.

So your father was Elbert Marcy?
Yes.

And your mother was Mary?
Yes, Maryanne.

Where was her family originally from, do you know?
They came from Michigan. That was way back. Her maiden name was Hillsinger.  Her folks went up the Hudson River.

So, they were English?
Dutch.

My family was all Dutch and they settled in Michigan, too.
My dad’s family was the same way.

So Marcy is French isn’t it?
Yes, but my grandmother on that side was Dutch.

So you have a lot of Dutch on both sides?
Yes.

One of my students has actually made a model of the property. I thought that maybe if we put these two together we could pinpoint even better, but let me orient it first here. This is where the new highway goes now down to the house and then the other thing I was trying to figure out is where were the Hazeltines?
The old road would actually come down here.

It would actually come down the stream drainage?
The drainage would finally get to follow the road.

That makes sense even from where the new power lines are. Then how did it go by the Marcy’s?
You have to follow the other stream.

And this is where the stand of ponderosas is now. This is now all trees.
And this up here is getting towards the east side.

Yes, and here is the east boundary so it is right near the middle. That makes sense now because, at least in 1944, this was covered with trees. This field has been cut since then. This in here is a drainage itself. It’s almost like a little canyon. There are a lot of big boulders, a lot of big rocks up in there. Does that sound familiar?
Yes, I remember, You get up in there and there is a big trail in there. A lot of trees up there were Douglas fir so some of them should be getting pretty good sized.

After Virgil Phillips bought the land in about 1940, about 20 years later he passed away, his wife logged the land. It has been logged within the last 20 years, and so some of those Douglas firs aren’t so big, but interestingly in this little range here and over here it has not been logged, and even here in the Ponderosas the Douglas firs are starting to take over the Ponderosa pines, and the Firs are starting to become the dominant species. Douglas fir and Grand fir.
I don’t remember many Grand Fir when I was there.

Well, there’s quite a bit now.
I was thinking of Douglas fir always being around.

So up here, this was all Douglas fir?
We used to cut a lot of wood out there.

Some of those are still standing up here on this hill, but some of them were logged.
Across the fence on that other place there were a lot of Douglas fir over there, and Ponderosa.

How large were some of the trees?
Oooooh! There were some humongus trees up there. I cut one tree that we got 5 cords of wood out of. The wood lasted us all winter. That was just on the south side. On the other side we cut a tree and got 8 cords of wood out of it. Now that’s a lot of wood!

Virgil Phillips Farm County Park, Latah County Parks and Recreation, 5168 Robinson Park Road, Moscow, Idaho 83843    (208) 883-5709

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