Shaver, F. A., Arthur P. Rose, R. F. Steele, and A. E. Adams, compilers.  "An
Illustrated History of Central Oregon." ("Embracing Wasco, Sherman, Gilliam,
Wheeler, Crook, Lake, & Klamath Counties")  Spokane, WA: Western Historical
Publishing Co., 1905.  p. 883.
 
WILLIS E. SCAMMON

     was born February 18, 1862, in Stanislaus county, California.  He is now a
stock raiser residing at Plush, Oregon.
     His father is Benjamin Scammon, a native of the state of Maine, who, in
1849, came via the Panama route to California.  Mr. Scammon's mother was Mary
Jane Scammon, also a native of Maine.  She came west with her husband, and some
years later the two took a trip up the Fraser river to Alaska, and Mrs. Scammon
is supposed to have been the first white woman in that country.  Their journey
was one beset with many perils, and while still in the far North Mrs. Scammon
was stricken ill and had to be carried out by men a distance of three hundred
miles.  She died in 1896, the father of our subject being now a resident of
Surprise valley, California.
     Elsworth Scammon, a brother of the subject of this sketch, is now county
recorder for Modoc county, California, and another brother, R. R. Scammon, is a
resident of Humboldt county,California.  He also has one sister.
     The early boyhood of Mr. Scammon was spent in San Joaquin valley, and in
1871 he came with his parents to Surprise valley.  At the age of fourteen years
he left home and went to Harney valley, Oregon, and worked on the stock ranch of
Hardin & Taylor.  He was in this valley at the time of the Bannock Indian war,
and it was he who carried the dispatch from Harney valley to Camp creek, warning
the settlers of the sudden hostility of the Indians.  After this war Mr. Scammon
worked on the ranch of Mr. Hudspeath for thirteen years, the latter three years
of which time he was foreman of the ranch, and then took a homestead on Rock
creek and engaged in the stock business for himself.  He sold his ranch and came
to Plush in 1901.  Here he purchased two hundred and forty acres of land, the
most of which is meadow land and now well improved as to buildings and so forth.
He also owns the store building at Plush.  His stock business consists chiefly
in raising draft horses, mules, and some cattle.  He has a stallion of the
English Shire breed that weighs twenty-two hundred pounds.
     In 1898 Mr. Scammon was married to Mrs. Lena Sweet.  Mrs. Scammon had at
the time of her marriage to our subject, two children, Maud, wife of Joseph
Fine, of Warner valley; and Alfred Sweet, now a student in the Cedarville,
California, high school.


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Submitted to the Oregon Bios. Project in March 2011 by Diana Smith.  Submitter
has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned above.