Died: 1881 in Port Townsend, Washington
As a youth in Vermont, Loren Brown Hastings yearned to migrate west. At 24 years, he started west but stopped in Hancock County, Illinois, where he married Lucinda Bingham, who worked in woolens and taught school. As a first time father, his lifelong dream was manifest in his son's name - Oregon Columbus Hastings.
His wife's poor health kept them in Illinois until 1847, when the family joined a wagon train for Oregon. Settling in Portland, he built a cabin and they had two more children there. He went to California during the gold rush and accumulated more than $10,000 - -not from mining, but from operating a trading post to supply miners. When he returned to Portland, he invested much of his money in a mercantile business. But Lucinda's health was deteriorating, so he decided to move again.
He and a friend, Francis W. Pettygrove, headed north in the fall of 1851. They traveled down the Columbia River, up the Cowlitz River, then overland to Olympia and finally by canoe on Puget Sound to Port Townsend. They met two settlers who had staked claims,- Alfred A. Plummer and Charles Bachelder.
Hastings staked out a claim that fall, arranged for Plummer and Bachelder to build a cabin for him and then he and Pettygrove returned to Portland. The route he had taken with Pettygrove was more arduous than he wanted for his family so he bought the pilot boat "Mary Taylor" and advertised for passengers. With his family, four other families and a single man they sailed from the Columbia River in February 1852. Lucinda had the distinction of being the first white woman to set foot on the shores of Port Townsend. The Hastings proceeded to establish their home and he recorded his claim on April 24, 1852. They had four more children after settling in Port Townsend.
He used the Mary Taylor to make several trips to Portland and back, bringing other families to Port Townsend. He established a small trading post at first, did some agricultural activities and finally established a general store - dry goods, groceries and liquors.
He, along with Plummer and Pettygrove, contributed land from his original claim to be platted as part of the original town site.
When Jefferson County was created by the 1852-3 session of the Oregon Territory Legislature, he was one of the first three county commissioners and was a representative at the Monticello Convention in November 1852.
He was a justice of the peace and performed the first recorded marriage in Port Townsend in the new Territory of Washington on October 26, 1853. He was also a probate judge and Jefferson County treasurer. In 1860 he was elected as a representative of Jefferson County in the Territorial Legislature. He died in Port Townsend in 1881.
The author, Harry Dudley, is a great-great grandson of Loren B. Hastings. He resides near Port Townsend, Washington.
Contributed by Junel Davidsen on 13 Apr 2004.