Richard Arthur Bogle

[1] At the age of 12, he escaped by smuggling himself onto a ship bound for New York, where he remained for one year before moving to Michigan.

[3] Bogle returned to Oregon three years later, the “land of promise” in mid-October [2] to start a barbershop in Roseburg.

[1] On January 1, 1863, the same day that the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by President Abraham Lincoln,[5] Bogle married America Waldo, an Oregon pioneer from Missouri.

[1] The wedding caused controversy due to the attendance of several white guests, including Oregon Supreme Court judge Joseph G. Wilson and state legislator Daniel Waldo.

After officiating the wedding, Dickinson's congregation received even more criticisms and heightened racial tension in Oregon that would continue until after the Civil War.

"[6] However, The Oregonian defended Wilson and Waldo's attendance, writing that "the good feeling thus frequently called forth" by the presence of white guests "is one of the gratifications of the blacks that reconciles them to their lot.