Died: 1857 near Oakville, Washington Territory
Benjamin Charles Armstrong's ancestral heritage and a personal tragedy contributed to his decision to move west, where he ran a sawmill and met untimely death.
Benjamin's Scottish ancestors were part of an early migration into the wilds of Kentucky, and his parents moved from there to Indiana Territory, where Benjamin was born in 1819. At age 22, he married Frances Pea, and the newlyweds wanted to follow Benjamin's pioneer legacy and go west. But their plans were halted when Benjamin's parents died.
The young couple stayed in Vincennes, Indiana, where they started a family. Tragedy struck in 1850, when Frances died of complications from childbirth. At age 31, Benjamin left two young sons in the care of their maternal grandparents and headed west to start a new life.
He arrived in Oregon Territory in September 1851 and later formed a partnership with Casper Strahl and C.C. Cox. They built a sawmill on Benjamin's donation land claim at Cedar Creek in the Chehalis Valley near present-day Oakville. From there he could send rafts of lumber downstream.
James Swan, who promoted the region in his book The Northwest Coast, wrote about Benjamin's mill, saying, "The cedar and ash plank, and boat stuff I have seen from Armstrong's mill was equal to any I ever met with, while the fir and spruce lumber cannot be surpassed by any mills in the Union," Swan wrote that Benjamin had saws that could "cut a log of spruce measuring six feet through the center." The mill produced lumber for frame houses along the Chehalis River and Cowlitz Trail as well as in the town of Montesano.
Benjamin's writings reveal that he was a practical man. He knew that traveling for days to transact government business south of the Columbia River was impractical. It is not surprising that in July 1852 he joined others in signing a petition to establish Olympia as the county seat of Thurston County and later served as delegate to the Monticello Convention. In 1853, Michael Simmons and Edmund Sylvester sponsored Benjamin's membership into the Masonic Lodge of Olympia. Shortly thereafter, he married Mary Nechars, eldest daughter of Chief Satsop of the Chehalis, first by Indian custom and then before Justice of the Peace Sidney Ford. His marriage to Mary signified that his life had indeed started anew. They had three children.
Benjamin also served as Indian agent and he was an interpreter at treaty negotiations at Cosmopolis. But his contributions ended abruptly at age 38. In September of 1857, the Pioneer and Democrat reported that he died at his residence. Circumstances surrounding his death have remained a mystery. The lives of his family were shattered because his Indian widow received little from the estate worth thousands of dollars and the children were placed in foster homes. Overcoming tremendous odds, the youngest son, Benjamin Franklin Armstrong, managed to become a successful logger and millwright, fulfilling his father's dream to help build Washington.
The author, Junel Davidsen, is a great-great granddaughter of Benjamin C. Armstrong. Her great grandfather was Benjamin Franklin Armstrong, the only one of Benjamin and Mary's children to have children. Sources for this article include "They Tried to Cut It All", by Edwin Van Syckle, public records and James Swan's book cited in the article.
Compiled and contributed by Junel Davidsen on 9 May 2003.