Hiram “Hi” Gorman was a formerly enslaved Oregon settler who became a prominent figure in Salem in the late 19th century. Hiram was born around 1835 in Missouri. He and his family were enslaved by plantation owner John Thorpe. In 1844, Thorpe moved to Oregon with Hiram’s mother Hannah and his sister Eliza. Hiram was left behind in Missouri and continued to be held in slavery.
At the dawn of the Civil War in 1861, Missouri seceded to join the Confederate States of America. However, that same year, Union forces retook Missouri for the United States. Enslaved Black Americans in Missouri were freed by Union troops as they moved through the state. Hiram Gorman was one of these newly emancipated people and he used his freedom to volunteer for the Union Army. Gorman served as a teamster (a wagon driver) for the Army, including at the famous Battle of Lyon Creek.
Around this time, Hiram married a woman named Georgia Ann, from Kentucky. The couple had a son named Frank in 1861. The family then went west and were residents of Montana in 1865.
Hiram Gorman and his family moved to Salem, Oregon in 1871. In Salem, Hiram was able to reunite with his mother Hannah after almost 40 years apart. Hannah was living alone in a home of her own in Corvallis; her daughter Eliza had died in 1869. Hiram purchased his mother’s home around 1875, but continued to live in Salem with his family. He and Georgia Ann had two more children together.
Hiram was known around town for his beautiful home on the corner of Liberty and Chemeketa streets. Community stories published in local papers reflected the pride Gorman took in his vegetable garden. One 1871 article stated “Hiram Gorham, a colored individual … brought to this office yesterday a pea stalk grown on his plantation, which measures seven feet and three inches in length.” Another report from 1879 said, “Mr. Hi Gorman has one of the finest gardens we have noticed in the city. Yesterday evening he brought us in a nice bunch of beans, which for size, at this season of the year, are hard to surpass.”
Hiram was best known in town as the operator of the steam powered letterpress at the Oregon Statesman newspaper. From 1871 through 1883, every paper printed by the Statesman passed through Hiram ’s hands. Hiram Gorman died in 1888 and was buried in an unmarked grave in Salem’s pioneer cemetery. In 2003, as a tribute to his Civil War service, the local Sons of Confederate Veterans purchased a headstone for him.