"Portrait & Biographical Record of the Willamette Valley Oregon." Chicago: Chapman Publishing Company, 1903. p. 903. LORENZO A. BYRD The story of the early experiences of the pioneers of the northwest is always of more or less interest, and particularly so when the journey was made overland, compelling the pioneer parties of the '40s frequently to endure hardships and sufferings which no pen will ever be able to describe. The reminiscences of such a man as Lorenzo A. Byrd, who is now living retired at No. 209 Union street, in Salem, would make a volume of intensely interesting narrative, from beginning to end. Surrounding him is that absorbing interest which is inseparably associated with the hardy fore-runners of northwestern civilization, to whom danger was a spur, and deprivation an accepted heritage. Lorenzo A. Byrd was born on a farm near Batesville, Independence county. Ark., December 10, 1822, a son of John and Mary (Wise) Byrd, both natives of Kentucky. Mr. Byrd was but two years of age when his father's death occurred. His mother afterward became the wife of Reuben Millsaps, an officer in the American army during the war of 1812, who commanded a portion of the forces under General Jackson at the battle of New Orleans. To John and Mary Byrd were born three children: Micajah Luther, who died in Oregon; Virginia, also deceased, who became the wife of John Magnes, and Lorenzo A. The first twenty-four years of the life of the subject of this sketch were spent upon the home farm in Arkansas, and it is safe to assume that he lost nothing from close association with the soil, correct living, and exercise which developed an already strong constitution. In his boyhood he knew no relatives excepting his mother and a first cousin. Like the other farmer lads of his neighborhood, life did not pass by unobserved by him, for he was keenly alert to all that the future might have in store for him. Accordingly, when the opportunity to cross the plains came to him in 1846, he welcomed it as a special dispensation of Providence, believing that the chance thus offered him reflected all that he had thought and dreamed regarding his future. The party of which he was a member was under the guidance of the Rev. Josephus Cornwall, the train consisting of eighty wagons. Starting out April 15, 1846, with a large number of oxen, the man for whom young Byrd drove found his resources dwindled down to two yoke of oxen before the journey was completed. During the journey many great hardships were experienced by the travelers, but the greatest of these were met with in the Applegate cutoff, where they suffered untold agonies of mind and body, nearly dying of starvation. If the members of the party had not been possessed of marvelous physical endurance fatalities must have ensued as the result of this most trying experience. The relief of the members of the party upon their arrival in Polk county in January, 1847, can scarcely be appreciated by modern tourists, who travel amid all the comforts, even luxuries, of the twentieth century. In the month of April, 1847, Mr. Byrd located on land in the Waldo Hills, Marion county, fifteen miles east of Salem, but failed to prove up on the three hundred and twenty acres he intended to occupy. In the fall of 1848 he traveled overland to California, and after mining near Redding's Fort, on the Sacramento river, and on the American river, returned to Marion county in the spring of 1849. During the fall of the latter year he again visited California, where he remained until January, 1851. He made his way back to his home by water, and in 1852 bought the right to a donation claim of three hundred and twenty acres fifteen miles north of Salem, on French Prairie. Wild and destitute of all improvements, this land underwent a great transformation at the hands of as earnest and hopeful a pioneer as ever turned a sod in the west. In the course of time this property, naturally very fertile, approached a cultivated and valuable state, supplying not only general farm produce, but large numbers of high-grade stock. In order to better educate his children. Mr. Byrd left the farm and made his home in Salem in 1890. Though still owning his farm, he rents it to others, and is now enjoying a well-earned rest from the cares and responsibilities of a long and very active life. Two hundred and ninety-two and a half acres still remain to him of the original claim. January 1, 1854, after being thoroughly established on his claim, Mr. Byrd was united in marriage with Martha C. Savage, who was born in Missouri, December 3, 1836, and crossed the plains with her parents in 1850. Her father, Dr. John Savage, was for many years a very popular physician and farmer in Marion county, and left a large property at the time of his death. Eight children have been born unto Mr. and Mrs. Byrd, as follows: William H., a prominent physician of Salem, an extended sketch of whose life appears elsewhere in this volume; J. C., a hardware merchant of Spokane, Wash.; E. F., also a resident of Spokane; Cordelia J., wife of William Hager of Fairfield, Marion county; Lorenzo A., who lives in Fairfield; Virginia, who is an employe in the United States Land Office at Roseburg; Bertha C., who is engaged in educational work in the public schools of Salem, and Roy, who resides with his parents, and is now a student in the medical department of Willamette University. A Democrat in politics, Mr. Byrd has served as school director for many years, but has not otherwise been actively interested in official life. Though past four score years of age, he still retains his mental and physical alertness to a remarkable degree, and exhibits a keen interest in the affairs of his family, his friends and the community in which he is a venerable and honored acquisition. He is a striking type of the better class of pioneers who founded the commonwealth, and the record of no man's life is more worthy of a place in the historical literature of the Willamette valley. ******************* Submitted to the Oregon Bios. Project in September 2010 by Diana Smith. Submitter has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned above.