Hines, H. K. "An Illustrated History of the State of Oregon." Chicago: Lewis
Pub. Co. 1893.  p. 270.

ADAM BROWN

     One of Oregon's old pioneers of 1844, was born in Pennsylvania, May 27,
1817.  He was of German ancestry, and his parents, John and Regina (Dinges)
Brown were both natives of the Keystone State.  Our subject was the fifth of
nine children and was reared in his native State, lived with his parents till he
was twenty-three years old, and worked for wages until his twenty-fifth year,
and then started on the long and perilous journey across the plains with ox
teams, to Oregon.  His train was commanded by General Cornelius Gillian.  At the
tributary of Wolf river the Indians stampeded the stock.  Twenty men were
detached from the company to follow the Indians and force them to replace the
lost cattle, which they did.  The Indians which they captured they kept under
guard all night.  A heavy rain storm raised the river and the place where the
Indians were located was covered two feet deep with water by morning.  When they
were liberated they were very glad to get away as soon as possible.  After a few
days this company stopped at the Black Vermillion river, the water here had
risen so high that it was up to the forks of the trees along the banks.  For
fourteen days they delayed, which discouraged many and in the camp a song was
struck up, "And to Oregon we will go."  After crossing the river but a few days
later, another torrent of water began to fall, and all the little streams were
so swollen that it took a day to get across one.  The next river was the Long
Sandy, and they traveled up it seven days and came to the dividing ridge between
the Sandy and Platt rivers.  Here they saw a great many buffaloes.  The river
bottom lands was black with them for miles and the emigrants were in great
danger of being trampled under foot, for when they are in motion it is nearly
impossible to turn them aside, as the buffaloes behind push the other.  Here
they killed a number of fine fat buffalo cows and had an abundance of beef.  The
river was 150 yards wife and a foot and a half deep, with a quicksand bottom.
In crossing this they dared not let the teams stop or they would have sunk in
the quicksand and have been lost.  However, they all crossed safely and traveled
on to the Laramie river, and this also they crossed and kept on up the North
Platte.  One day the train stopped for the women to do the washing.  Mr. Brown
went up the Platte two miles and climbed a high bluff, from which he could see
the country for many miles.  A deep canon led the nearest way back to camp.
This had water in it and he decided to go down it.  After he got half way down
he saw fresh big grizzly bear tracks.  He couldn't go back so he kept on,
although he did not see the bears and he gladly welcomed the sight of camp
before dark had set in.  On the 4th of July the company camped at Independence
rock.  One-half of the provisions had already been consumed and two-thirds of
the journey was still before them.  They now divided into smaller companies and
traveled faster.  They arrived in the South Gap in the Rocky mountains and then
came down a steep road to the pacific Springs.  South of the gap Mr. Brown
climbed the butte and there had  magnificent view.  A deep valley stretched away
toward the Pacific ocean.  He was filled with astonishment at the great
mountains that divided the States from Oregon, in which he intended to make his
future home.  He looked eastward and night had set in.  On this summit he knelt
down, filled with awe and prayed the great Maker of the earth, to have pity on
them and bring them safely through.  Then he arose and took another look to the
west.  The sun was getting low, the country looked like a vast level plain, no
high mountains to be seen.  The golden rays of the setting sun seemed to
disperse his gloom.  Soon after the company reached Green river, so called
because the bed of the river is green although the water is clear.  The next
stream they reached was Bridger.  Here the Hudson's Bay Company had a trading
post, and here the Indians in war-paint displayed great pomp, but when they saw
the guns of the emigrants they soon left.  The provisions had become so short
that they left extra wagons and everything that would impede their progress and
they pressed on still faster.  The road lay through the sage brush and soon it
was hot and dusty and the dust stuck to them until they looked like black
people, thus on and on they traveled, day after day, facing all danger, slowly
but surely they advanced.  They reached Bear river, a tributary of Salt Lake.
Here they found hot water and soda water springs.  Some of the springs
continually sent up spurts of steam and were called steamboat springs.  Leaving
Bear river to the left they reached Snake river and followed it many days,
finding more boiling hot springs, camped out beside them and made coffee with
the water and boiled it in the spring.  When they arrived at Fort Hall, one man
who had a family got out of flour and gave a yoke of oxen, valued at $100 for
100 pounds of flour, and then it did not last his journey through.  At the
fording place in the river the water was very swift and below it was a deep
eddy, and if the teams were not kept up in the right place they would be lost
with the load that was so valuable to the emigrants.  For some days they
traveled all day without water for man or beast.  By September they only had
bacon and bread to eat, but at Salmon falls, on Snake river they got fish from
the Indians.  Following this river they came to Burnt river, followed it several
days, crossed it and left it to the right.  Here they came to high hills, which
seemed as if they could not be climbed, but by doubling teams they made the
ascent and then found it was just as difficult to get down safely, and in this
effort one wagon was smashed.  They next came to Powder river, which takes its
name from the sand which is black like powder.  From her they soon reaches Grass
valley, then Grande Ronde valley and, in two days afterward crossed the Blue
mountains and reached the Umatilla river.  Here some of the men went to Walla
Walla for supplies from Dr. Whitman.  They got from hi some unbolted flour and
came down the Umatilla river to the Columbia river, then down its steep sides
and over hills, crossing John Day's near the Columbia at the Des Chutes.  They
crossed on a zig-zag ford and engaged an Indian to help them.  In this way they
reached the Dalles, where they purchased a few small potatoes and some beef,
paying a large price for them.  Here they camped a few days and then crossed the
Cascades; drove the cattle on a trail and made them swim from side to side of
the Columbia and they found plenty of grass, but not much food.  The journey to
the Willamette, down the mountains, on either side of the river, was about 100
miles.  The wagons and the women were brought down the river in open boats,
which were extremely dangerous.  It was late in the fall and cold and the goods
became damaged by the rain and caused much suffering.  The Hudson's Bay Company
furnished the boats.  They were twenty feet long, by eight feet wide, propelled
by four oars and steered by a rudder.  The river was about a mile wide and any
sudden gust of wind made the water rough, and it was with the greatest
difficulty that the boats were propelled through it.  At the Cascade falls the
wagons had to be put together to make a portage.  At this time it was raining
hard and seven miles had to be covered to the lower boat landing.  One boat
loaded with women and children came very near going down the Cascades falls, but
were finally rescued by those on shore, a rope being used to pull them in.  The
road around the falls was deep mud and slush and it took a day to load and make
one trip.  After one trip they stopped at the lower landing and cut wood for a
fire.  Mr. Brown went to a tree that had slipped down the mountain side, top
foremost.  He began to chop and a large gap was broken into the edge of his ax.
This tree was petrified.  He got other wood and made the fire and the women
prepared supper and they retired, although the rain fell all night.  The water
ran under the tent and wet the beds and everything, so they were actually lying
in the water.  The next day the wet things were loaded in a boat and they came
down to Fort Vancouver.  There they obtained more provisions, but it took, in
all, about two months for all to come from the Dalles to Lincoln on the
Willamette river, where they crossed the Portland mountains.  In crossing the
river a rope was put about the neck of a gentle ox and he was led into the
river, by men in a canoe and the other stock driven in followed across and thus
crossed a great many cattle at a time, although there was danger of drowning
some of them.  The emigrants came up the Willamette valley and that first winter
Mr. Brown worked for the Hudson's Bay Company for flour, tools and seed wheat.
There was a flouring-mill at the Willamette falls.  Mr. Brown says that the
Government could have, and should have furnished the poor emigrants with tools
and seed and would soon have reaped enough benefit from the taxes to pay it all
back.
     There was a French settlement on the east side of the river, and the most
of them had Indian wives and they furnished the mill with wheat.  There were a
few American settlers, far apart and a few missionaries were located at the spot
where Salem now is.  Such was the Willamette valley when Mr. Brown arrived.  The
poor emigrants saw hard times, lived on pea coffee and boiled wheat.  The houses
were little and poor, many of them without doors or windows and the country was
full of Indians.  It seemed that dangers and privations were upon every hand.
Mr. Brown says that they underwent so many hardships that two sections of land
would not have paid for it.  However, there was nothing for them to do but make
the best of it and they labored under immense disadvantages for want of means
and tools to work with.  When the wheat was raised it was winnowed in the wind
to take out the chaff, some throwing it up and others taking it up into a
scaffold and pouring it down.  Very slow and poor work was made of it.  There
was nothing to pay debts with and so wheat was made legal tender.  There was no
money in Oregon until after the discovery of gold in California.  The times
improved then and the faithful workers succeeded.
     Mr. Brown took his claim on the Luckamute, in Polk county, a mile square of
land and settled upon it in the spring of 1845 and has since resided upon it and
kept it clear of incumbrance.  During the Indian outbreak of 1848 the settlers
of the Willamette valley volunteered and there were few men left in the valley
while the war continued.  One day, while Mr. Brown was at work his wife sent for
him to come to the house quickly as there was an Indian, who was very angry
because he could not induce her to give him a tin bucket he wanted.  Mr. Brown
entered the house, and taking the redskin by the neck put him out of the door,
not knowing that he had a gun.  The Indian produced his gun, cocked it and
threatened to shoot, but Mr. Brown reasoned him out of it by telling him that if
he, Mr. Brown had come to his, the Indian's, house and frightened his wife he
would have done just right to have kicked him out-of -doors.  The Indian saw the
justice of the remark and put the gun by the fence and Mr. Brown could easily
have obtained possession of the gun and shot the Indian, but did not wish to do
so, as there was an encampment of some 200 near by.  These Indians could have
killed all the settlers in the valley at that time, if they had wished to do so.
These were some of the dangers to which the early settlers were exposed.
     December 19, 1847, Mr. Brown married Miss Sarah Nichols, a native of Clay
county, Missouri born in 1832.  She was a daughter of John Nichols, who came to
Oregon in 1844.  He settled a donation claim on the Luckamute and here lived an
honest, upright life, dying in his eighty-second year, his wife having died six
years before, aged seventy-five.
     Mr. and Mrs. Brown had ten children and their names are;  Regina, who died
in her twelfth year; Nancy Catherine died in her ninth year; John, lives on the
farm near by; Elizabeth is now Mrs. Harvey Gage; Josephine is Mrs. J. C. Frink;
William is a farmer near his father; Sarah died when three years old; Eliza,
Ruth, Christina and Henrietta, are at home with their parents.  Mr. and Mrs.
Brown are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church.  Mr. Brown is independent
in politics, never wanted office and is a fine representative of the early
Oregon pioneer.

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Submitted to the Oregon Bios. Project in October 2005 by Diana Smith.  Submitter
has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned above.