* A portrait has been posted on-line at http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~westklic/wcportrait.html
ANDREW W. LANE, now retired from active business, resides with his son, L.L. Lane, in The Dalles, Oregon. He was born in Fountain county, Indiana, on February 11, 1830. His father, David Lane, was a native of Virginia and his parents came from England. His father, the grandfather of our subject, was in the Revolutionary war and David Lane was in the War of 1812. David Lane's mother was of Scotch descent and died aged ninety-seven, her husband having died at the same age. The mother of our subject was born in Kentucky and her maiden name was Drusilla Swearingen. Her parents were natives of Virginia and Kentucky and came from German ancestry. Her father was a remarkably strong man and could carry two bushels of wheat into his grist mill at the age of one hundred. He died, aged one hundred and two. Our subject grew up on his father's farm in Indiana and when sixteen came with his parents to Missouri. Two years later, he returned to Indiana, where his mother died. Then he started out in life for himself, taking up the patent right business, having a fine ditching machine that he handled. For four years he traveled through the middle states with that, then farmed with his brother. Afterward, they decided to come west and in 1853 a train captained by our subject's brother wended its way from Benton county, Indiana to the Willamette valley. The journey was uneventful, save that our subject was detained in the Grande Ronde valley, Oregon ten days, by mountain fever. No hostilities of the Indians were experienced except on one occasion one drew his bow quickly to kill our subject, but he observing the action covered him with his revolver so much quicker that the Indian dropped hostilities and said "How do, How do." Recovering from his fever in the Grande Ronde valley, Mr. Lane started for the Willamette valley and the first house he came to, twenty miles east from Oregon City, was Foster's. Later, he passed on to Salem where he was confined eighty-four days by typhoid fever. Then he removed to Harrisburg, where he began wagon making with Mr. Macy, a pioneer blacksmith.
There, on January 10, 1858, Mr. Lane married Miss Indiana Smith, a native of Illinois. Her father, Abraham Smith, was born in Tennessee from agricultural stock and died when one hundred years of age. He married a second time when ninety-eight years of age and in 1852, had crossed the plains with ox teams. Mr. Lane and his wife lived in Harrisburg eighteen years, where he followed wagon making and did a good business. He never used his land rights but later moved to Springfield, Linn county and put up a wagon shop, where he could utilize water power. There his wife died on October 6, 1876. Soon thereafter, our subject's health failed and he was practically an invalid for twenty-five years. For nine years of his life he was in California and assisted by his three boys conducted a cooper shop. He also patented a windmill, which netted him considerable money. At various times, he had hemorrhage of the lungs but constantly fought off death until at the present time, in the riper years of his life, his health is splendid, practically no trace of his former sickness remaining. Mr. Lane is a natural mechanic and has invented many useful appliances. He is the thirteenth of a family of fourteen children.
Mr. Lane is a venerable and esteemed pioneer and it is with pleasure that we are permitted to give this epitome of his interesting career.
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Submitted to the Oregon Bios. Project in January 2005 by Jeffrey L. Elmer. Submitter has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned above.