"Portrait and Biographical Record of Portland and Vicinity, Oregon." Authors: "a compilation of this work....by a number of writers". Chapman Publishing Co; Chicago, 1903. p. 328. DR. WILLIAM GEIGER, JR. Few men were more familiar with the history of the settlement and improvement of the Pacific coast than Dr. William Geiger, Jr. He was born in Angelica, Allegany county, N.Y., September 15, 1816, and was a son of William Geiger, a farmer by occupation. In his native town he was reared and attended a private academy. When he was about seventeen years of age he removed with his parents to Oakville, Monroe county, Mich., where he remained from 1833 until 1837, when he started for Quincy, Ill., proceeding by steamer to Cleveland, Ohio, thence by canal boat to Portsmouth, on the Ohio river, by steamer to St. Louis and by a small boat to Quincy, arriving at his destination after four weeks of travel. About five miles from Quincy was the Mission Institute and therein Dr. Geiger became a student, and in 1838 he made plans to cross the plains to the Pacific coast, accompanied by a schoolmate by the name of Benson. After two weeks spent in St. Louis, they proceeded by steamer to Westport, Mo., where they purchased their outfits and started to the mission on the Kaw river, hoping to catch the American Fur Company's outfit before it left there, but in this they were disappointed. While there, however, Dr. Geiger became acquainted with the Rev. Harvey Clark and the Rev. Mr. Allen, both independent Congregational missionaries. Rev. Mr. Clark and Rev. Mr. Renshaw accompanied Dr. Geiger and Mr. Benson to the Kaw mission, expecting to go across the plains, but the party's guide, John Gray, a quarter Iroquois Indian, insisted that it was too dangerous to attempt the journey with so few in the train and the party therefore returned to Westport. Dr. Geiger then taught school in that locality through the winter, receiving $3 per quarter for each pupil and having from fifty to seventy-five pupils. The schoolhouse was built after he was employed and was constructed of logs, with an immense fireplace in one end of the room. In the spring of 1838 Dr. Geiger met the Rev. J. S. Griffin and they went to Independence to see Rev. Mr. Clark, who arranged to go to California the following spring with a colony, while Dr. Geiger was to go through and meet the party, having in the meantime decided upon a good location for the colony. In the spring of 1839 he made the long journey across the plains and had no trouble with the Indians, reaching the present site of Hubbard, Ore., September 13. Two or three days later he proceeded to the mission on the river bank. With two companions he rode down to where Oregon City now stands and took a skiff for Vancouver. Dr. Geiger taught the Indian children at the Methodist mission during the winter of 1839-40 and then started to California on a sailing vessel in the spring, stopping at the Russian settlement on Bodego bay, but the Russians would not allow any one to leave by land from that place unless they started northward. Dr. Geiger continued on to San Francisco but the authorities refused to allow him to land because he had no passport. He then went to Honolulu, where he taught school for about eight months, receiving $30 per month. In February, 1841, having procured a passport, he left Honolulu on the American ship Lausanne for Monterey, and later went in a coaster to San Francisco, which was then a small place. The Hudson Bay Company had a double log house there, and there was a combined saloon and billiard hall and a partly finished hotel, containing about one hundred people, fully half of whom were transients. After a short time at San Francisco, Dr. Geiger went across the bay to a point opposite the embryo city and securing some cattle took them up the river to Sutter's Fort, where he remained until the spring of 1842, and in the meantime surveyed Captain Sutter's claim for him and had charge of the fort while the captain went to Monterey for supplies. He gave to Dr. Geiger for his services land three miles square, situated in the forks of the Yuba and Feather rivers, but in the spring of 1842 he traded everything he had to Captain Sutter for horses and mules and started for the states. The party with which he was traveling determined to go by the northern route and as he wished to go by the southern route he left the party at Bear river and proceeded to the head of Salt Lake and then to Fort Hall, but danger from Indians and lack of food caused him to turn back. In August, 1842, Dr. Geiger went down the valley. He sold many of his horses and mules to the emigrants, but took the remainder down the Willamette valley and for a while he lived with Alvin T. Smith, near Forest Grove. In October of that year, in compliance with a letter from Dr. Whitman, he started to take charge of his mission, remaining there during a part of 1842-43, or until Dr. Whitman's return in the fall of 1843. Before this he had secured a donation claim where the town of Salem now stands, but gave it up later because it was wanted by a Methodist mission. He next secured a donation claim of six hundred and forty acres south of what is now Cornelius. He was married in this state in 1847, and then engaged in farming, also further continuing, under Dr. W. N. Griswold, the study of medicine, which he had first taken up some years before under the direction of Dr. Whitman. He began the practice of Homeopathy in Forest Grove in 1864, and was undoubtedly the pioneer homeopathic physician of the Pacific coast. Dr. Geiger served as clerk of Washington county while Oregon was still a territory, and was afterward county surveyor for several years, having excellent ability in that line. He surveyed and laid out Forest Grove and the Buxton cemetery, and from the time of his arrival in the northwest took an active part in its development. He was an honored member of the State Medical Society of Oregon, in which he served as president. Dr. Geiger was united in marriage with Elizabeth Cornwall, a native of the south, and a sister of Rev. J. A. Cornwall, a Presbyterian minister located at Sodaville, Linn county, Ore. The father, a preacher in the same denomination, resided in Arkansas for many years and brought his family to this state in 1846, traveling by way of the southern, or Applegate route, as one of a large party, by ox-teams. In the fall of 1847 he came to Forest Grove, taught school that winter, and in the following spring removed to Yamhill county. He was accompanied by his wife and five children, and their supply of food becoming exhausted, they underwent intense suffering. The party separated at Fort Hall, Idaho, some of the families going through to California, and the remainder accompanying the Cornwall family through Nevada and southeastern Oregon, traversing the Humboldt valley for some distance. They spent the winter in the Umpqua valley and in the spring of 1847 Mr. Cornwall secured a donation claim of six hundred and forty acres four miles south of McMinnville, on South Yamhill river. Mr. Cornwall afterward went to California and spent his last days near Ventura, where he died at the age of eighty-one years. He married Nancy Hardin, who was born in Davisonville, Ark. Her father came from Kentucky and served as sheriff of his county, while her grandfather was a hero of the Revolutionary war and died at the advanced age of ninety years. Mrs. Cornwall died in Eugene, Ore. In her family were nine children: Elizabeth; Joseph, a minister at Sodaville; Narcissa, of Walla Walla, Wash.; George, of Idaho; Laura, of Walla Walla; Angelica, wife of A. C. Shim, of Seattle, who was the first white child born at Forest Grove; Adamson and William, who are in Arizona; and Neal, a resident of Berkeley, Cal. Mrs. Geiger was only seventeen years of age when with her parents she crossed the plains. They were on the way for more than six months and spent the winter in the Umpqua valley, where they were without bread, but there was plenty of wild game and they had forty-nine deer. During part of the winter, however, they were without salt. The father built a small cabin on Applegate creek and they remained there until spring, when in May they proceeded to the Willamette valley. Indians would visit them and pry around the house and on one occasion the father showed them a trunk filled with books, and they did not then molest the other trunks, thinking, probably, that they were also filled with books, for which they had no use. On the 5th of October, 1847, Elizabeth Cornwall gave her hand in marriage to William Geiger and unto them were born nine children: William Cornwall, who was born August 5, 1848, and now resides in Heppner, Ore.; Sarah Elizabeth, born May 1, 1850, and now the wife of Capt. James Magee, of Coos Bay; Charles Edwin, who was born March 20, 1853, and is a practicing physician of Forest Grove; Millard Fillmore, who was born April 14, 1857, and died August 23, 1881; Fremont Lincoln, who was born May 27, 1860, and resides in Cornelius, Ore.; Wolcott Webster, born September 23, 1862; Ella, born June 28, 1865, the wife of S. B. Huston, of Hillsboro, Ore.; Laura Belle, born September 18, 1869, now the widow of William Wells of Forest Grove; and Hubert Hahnemann, who was born August 9, 1875, and is a graduate of a dental college of Chicago, Ill., and now a practitioner of his profession in Montague, Cal. Dr. Geiger and his estimable wife celebrated their golden wedding, having traveled life's journey for a half century, in 1897. Almost four years passed before they were separated by death and then Dr. Geiger was called to his final rest, June 16, 1901. He was a consistent Christian who held membership with the Presbyterian Church and in many ways he aided his fellow men, so that the world is better for his having lived. His wife holds membership with the Methodist Church, and no record of the pioneer women of Oregon would be complete without mention of Mrs. Geiger. ******************* 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.