This brief history of the Hammill family of Salkum, WA was contributed by Julie McMullen:
Lucretia FULLER, daughter of Harrison FULLER and Cyrene SMYTHE, was born on 5 November 1882, near Dassel, Meeker County, MN. She was married at the family home at Salkum, Lewis County, WA on 4 October 1903 to John Henry HAMMILL of that place. Henry was born 21 October 1880 in Walla Walla, WA shortly after his parents, William HAMMILL and Lucretia SOULE, arrived there by wagon train from Kansas City.
When Harrison and Cyrene Fuller bought a farm in Salkum in 1902, the young people of the Hammill and Fuller families soon became acquainted. The Fuller farm adjoined the Hammill Homestead on the south, and there was a trail up the hill and through the woods to the Fuller place.
There was very little employment in the Salkum area then and Henry worked on the shingle bolt drives. The cedar was cut in the upper regions of the Tilton and Cowlitz Rivers and floated in rafts to a mill at Kelso. We have pictures of these crews, all wearing their pocket watches on a cord about their necks. There was a dock at the Hammill place, for in early days the boats operating on the river ended their run there. They dared not go further upstream because of the treacherous Mayfield Chasm. The Buesch family had a store and post office there, and it was thought a thriving community would develop there. However, as the roads were improved and the price of horses came down, traffic on the river diminished.
In one of the old letters, Crissie said Mrs. Van Woert of Silver Creek had made her wedding dress. It was of white India linen with lace and insertion, and could be washed when it became soiled.
From the large outdoor picture of the wedding party, we notice that the attendants were Lucretia's sister, May, and her husband, Clarence Coyle. The minister was her brother-in-law, William Blair. It is an odd circumstance that Henry's mother was also named Lucretia.
Henry and Crissie first lived at Puyallup, WA, then bought 40 acres near Mitchells, at Salkum. Later they went to Napavine where Henry worked in the Emery and Nelson Sawmill. When Crissie developed lung trouble, they went to Chico, CA for a time. They returned in late 1915 and lived on land they purchased at Kennedy's Crossing, between Salkum and Ethel, until 1928. By then, Henry was tired of felling trees in the logging camps and wanted to have an irrigated farm. They traded their place there for a farm in Stanfield, Umatilla County, OR, where they lived until retirement. After that, they lived in Pendleton until Henry died, when Crissie came to Portland where most of her children were.
Lucretia Fuller Hammill died in Portland, OR following a stroke on 6 December 1971, at the age of 89. Henry died in their hometown of Pendleton, Umatilla County, OR on 30 December 1946, following a stroke. Both are buried in the Olney Cemetery in Pendleton.
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