Former slave Reuben Shipley was honored on April 30, 2022, at Mount Union Cemetery near Philomath, Oregon, where he and his family are buried. Shipley was honored by the DAR for donating the land for a cemetery for both Blacks and whites. He also successfully sought the freedom for his children still being held as slaves, resulting in an 1854 court decision that definitively declared slavery unlawful in Oregon. The Shipley story is told in R. Gregory Nokes’ book, “Breaking Chains: Slavery on Trial in the Oregon Territory.”
