Hines, H. K. "An Illustrated History of the State of Oregon." Chicago: Lewis
Pub. Co. 1893.  p. 286.
 
WILLIAM TUCKER

     an Indian war veteran and an Oregon pioneer of 1852, now residing near
Beaverton, Washington county, Oregon, was born in the State of Indiana, October
24, 1833. Our subject was the third child in the family and was reared in his
county. While still a boy he worked for wages, and came to Oregon with his
father and family. His first work in the State was cutting cord wood in Portland
on Polk street between Third and Fourth, which now is in the center of the city,
but was then dense forest. After three months he came to Washington county, and
took up a claim of 120 acres of land near where Beaverton now is and with his
brother Thomas, built the first sawmill in that vicinity. In the fall of 1855
the Indian war having broken out our subject enlisted under Captain Cornelius
and assisted to elect him Colonel of the regiment. Mr. Tucker furnished his own
horse and outfit and served all through the war. Suffering many privations they
were reduced to the eating of their own horses to keep them from starving to
death. He was a brave soldier and did his share in subduing the Indians, and
after the war he retired to his home and in 1859 he was married.
     The lady who became the wife of our subject was named Miss Mary J. Landess,
and was born in Illinois in 1844, a daughter of Mr. Abram Landess, who came with
his family to Oregon in 1847. They built a little, cheap house in the woods on
the clearing and there they began their married life, lived on this property and
made improvements and after seven years of residence, then sold out and
purchased 120 acres of land, where he has since resided, three quarters of a
mile south of Beaverton, and on this property he built a good residence.
     During the gold excitement in Powder river valley in 1862ö'63 he tried gold
digging, but did not remain a great while. At that time Irish potatoes sold for
fifteen cents per pound and flour was $15 per fifty pound sack. After he had
sufficiently satisfied himself at mining he returned to his family and since
then has engaged in farming and also has done some building as he understands
the carpenter trade. He and his good wife have reared a family of eleven
children: Delila, the eldest married George W. Tefft and resides near her
father; Abraham Lincoln married and died in his twenty-fifth year leaving a wife
and two children; Thomas B., has a wife and child and resides in Beaverton;
George is married and has a wife and two children and is a resident of
Beaverton; Elizabeth is the wife of Henry Woolf and resides at Beaverton;
Adaline is the wife of William B. Anderson and they have one child and reside
near the parents; Eva, married J. H. Anderson and has one child; Ira, William;
Lottie and Carl, are yet at home.
     Mr. Tucker is a member of the Masonic fraternity. All of his life he has
been a Republican but recently joined the People's party. For forty years he has
been in Oregon and for thirty-five he has been a member of the School Board. He
has led a life of honest industry. This is a happy family, the father still
living, in his eighty-eighth year and looking younger than either of his sons.
All through the county our subject is known as an honest, industrious man worthy
of the esteem given him.

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Submitted to the Oregon Bios. Project in August 2008 by Diana Smith.  Submitter
has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned above.