"Early History of Thurston County, Washington; Together with Biographies and
Reminiscences of those Identified with Pioneer Days." Compiled and Edited by
Mrs. George E. (Georgiana) Blankenship.  Published in Olympia, Washington, 1914.
p. 147.
 
ANDREW CHAMBERS

     Had the pioneers who built up this country, and through whose labor and
enterprise Washington has grown from a beautiful wilderness into a land of homes
and cultural advantages, only taken the time and trouble to write down the
history of their early trials, adventures and hardships, and in many instances,
final success, as did Andrew Chambers and his wife, Margaret White Chambers, the
work of compiling these reminiscences would have been reduced to the mere
collection of the sketches and presenting them in book form. But too often,
although these men and women realized their experiences were unique in the
history of the world and the days they might tell of were a closed chapter in
history which could never be repeated, owing to the march of civilization, the
task of actually writing down any record of events seemed too formidable or were
put off to a later time, which time never came.
     But the children of the honored couple whose stories are given in
connection with this article, were insistent with their parents, and aided them
in every way possible to put their reminiscences in lasting form. Well they did
so, too, for now both Mr. and Mrs. Chambers are .gone to their last rest,
leaving only cherished memories.
    The histories give a completer and more vivid description of the life of
those days than would be possible to obtain in any other way. Of a high order of
intelligence and
with a natural eloquence, the writers of the sketches were enabled to present
the pictures of those wild days with a charm and clearness that no words of the
writer could add to, so the reminiscences of Mr. and Mrs. Chambers are given
word for word as they have written them.
    Mrs. Chambers dictated her sketch to her youngest daughter, Nora, and the
other daughters were so pleased with their mother's story that they had it
preserved in the form of a booklet.
     The ten daughters of whom the mother speaks of so lovingly, were:
Elizabeth, now Mrs. J. H. Hunsaker, of Everett; Eliza, now Mrs. R. T. Grainger,
of Puyallup; Addie J., now Mrs. G. N. Talcott of Olympia; Ella, who was Mrs. H.
Raymond, but who has been dead for many years; Rheta, now Mrs. C. L. Denny of
Seattle; Selma, who died about ten years ago; Margaret, now Mrs. Wm. Calhoun, of
Seattle; Estelle and Edith, both of whom died in infancy, and Nora, now Mrs. W.
T. Hoskins, living at present in Sacramento.
     Mr. Chambers realized the wishes of his wife as expressed by herself, and
ended a long and honorable career by passing away peacefully in the old home on
Chambers' Prairie. He died in April, 1908. Margaret White Chambers survived
her beloved husband a few years longer, but sank to rest in December, 1912.
Husband and wife sleep side by side near the scenes of their many trials, joys
and sorrows, in the family plot in Masonic cemetery, near Olympia.

ANDREW CHAMBERS' STORY
     My father's reading Lewis and Clark's Journal was the means of our crossing
the plains. We started the first of April, 1845. Our company consisted of my
father, Thomas M. Chambers, mother, Letitia Chambers, five brothers, James W..
David J., Thomas J., Andrew J. (myself), John and McLain, and two sisters, Mary
Jane and Letitia. My brothers, James and David, were married, and their wives,
Mary and Elizabeth, accompanied them. We started from Morgan County, Missouri,
and crossed the Missouri River on a ferry at St. Joe. This place marked the last
of the settlements. From this point we traveled the old emigrant road up the
Platte River. Our journey led us through what are now the states of Missouri,
Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. Then this was a
wilderness with only the old tracks of emigrants that had passed that way in
1834-5. We crossed the Kaw River about forty miles from St. Joe on a ferry;
after that we forded all the streams to which we came.
The first day that we saw buffalo was on the South Platte River and it was
buffalo as far as the eye could reach. We camped and killed fifteen that
evening. It took two days to jerk all the meat we wanted.
     Buffalo and antelope were plentiful for twelve or fifteen hundred miles.
Hunters sometimes put a handkerchief up on a stick and the antelope came around
to see what it was and often we killed them by shooting from the wagons. We
had to go out to the edge of the hills to hunt buffalo, except the first day we
saw them, of which I have spoken.
     Opposite Ash Hollow we crossed the Platte River which though wide and
shallow, was difficult to ford on account of the quicksands. We passed near to
Chimney Rock which rose like a great chimney from the level country. We could
see this land mark for a number of days and passed it within five or six miles.
     At Fort Lararmie, on the North Platte River, measles broke out in our
family and we had to lay by fifteen days. We had overtaken other west-bound
wagons on our journey and our party now comprised thirty wagons. While being
detained here about one thousand wagons passed us and most of our company joined
a party and left us at Laramie.
     From Fort Laramie we traveled to Port Hall, in Idaho. We had tried
traveling with large and with small companies and found that we got on much
faster with small companies, but it was very hard to stand guard with only a few
in the party. We fell in with a company of fifty wagons. Their teams had been
seared by the Indians and had got in the habit of stampeding. They stampeded one
day while we were with them. It was a terrible sight to see fifty teams running,
each team of three or four yoke of oxen, about three yoke of cattle was an
average team. There was no way of holding them except to hang on to the yokes
and call to the cattle. It was an anxious time for the women and children in the
wagons. One ox fell and broke his neck. This was the last day we traveled with
them. After leaving Fort Laramie we had fallen in with the wagons of what
remained of our old company. This was all that saved us from the stampede on
that day.
    This event recalls the first Indians we saw. Father was captain of the
company. He ordered the wagons into two lines, the women and children to stay in
the wagons, except those able to carry guns. I can recollect seeing mother
marching along carrying a rifle. All the horses and cattle were driven into the
enclosure made by the wagons to protect them from stampeding. We never, stopped,
but marched along in two lines, with the wagons and the horses and cattle
between them. Father stepped out to meet the chief, who was coming towards us.
The Indians seemed friendly, but wanted tobacco. As soon as father gave one
tobacco another would step
up and say "Me big Chief, too." Father gave them all that he had in his pouch.
There was a large camp of the Indians and it appeared that this was a war party
and that they had been out to fight other Indians. They were now on their way
home.
     On much of our way, wood was very scarce. We always sent a party ahead of
us to find wood, grass and water. We found buffalo chips plentiful for at least
a thousand miles and often we had to use them altogether for fuel. On the
Sweetwater, in Wyoming, we caught a great many nice fish.
     From Fort Hall, we traveled to Fort Bridgers, which was about 200 miles
north of Salt Lake. A man by the name of Bridgers was located here and carried
on trade with the emigrants and with the Indians. From here we went to Salmon
Falls on the Snake River, and here we met a few Indians, but they were friendly.
Until we crossed the Rockies through the Devil's Gate, we traveled up hill and
up stream, but after we crossed the Snake River, the waters flowed westward,
and we could almost see where the divide came.
     From Salmon Falls we traveled two or three days down the river before we
crossed. We found a place where there was an island in the river. We crossed to
the island first and then went diagonally across the rest of the river, which
was about three-fourths of a mile wide. We always took horses and rode across
the rivers we had to ford and found out exactly where the wagons ought to go.
The fords were always thoroughly prospected before the teams were driven into
the water. We found at this crossing the deepest part was eight or ten
feet wide, and deep enough to swim the cattle, the rest of it averaged about two
feet deep. We blocked up the wagon beds as high as the standards would allow to
keep our goods dry and hitched on ten or twelve yoke of cattle to the first
wagon. The other wagons were fastened together, one behind the other. There was
a chain attached to the tongue of the wagon following and that in turn to the
hind axle tree of the forward wagon. The drivers went to the lower side of their
teams to keep the cattle braced up against the current and to keep the direction
slantingly up stream. They had to hold on to the bows of the yokes to keep
themselves braced up, too. By the time all the teams were in the water, the lead
teams were in shallow water and we were finally safely over, without wetting any
of our goods.
    Shortly after this our oxen began to give out. We became uneasy for fear we
could not travel across the mountains, which were before us, on account of snow.
To be caught on the east side of the mountains meant almost certain death. We
began to break in the cows. We started across the plain, with about twenty milk
cows. By the time we reached The Dalles, in Oregon, we had about all the cows
broken in. They were lighter on their feet and traveled much better than the
oxen. We didn't know at that time that we could have saved our cattles' feet by
providing ourselves with shoes and nails before leaving the States.
    Three or four days before we came to Fort Boise, we were camped on a creek
and when supper was ready and each one had set down to his place on the ground,
an Indian, standing there, knelt down at the place intended for a man named
Smith. As soon as Smith finished washing himself, he knocked the man over with a
stick and took the place himself. Sticks which the Indians had used for digging
roots or for some other purpose, were lying around plentifully. The Indians
looked very sullen after this, and next morning one of our horses was
gone,stolen. We traveled on as though nothing had happened for two days and came
to a place where we thought it advisable to rest the cattle for a day, there
being good grass and water there. James Chambers, Smith and myself concluded to
ride back that evening to the place where we had lost the horse, and it might be
we would find an Indian camp and do something terrible. Smith wanted to kill an
Indian. We rode all night and when we reached the place another party of
emigrants were camping there and we found an Indian there, riding on the horse
which was stolen. Smith felt all the time that his act had been the cause of our
losing the animal and he was very anxious to straighten things out by killing an
Indian. Brother James went around the camp one
way and I, another. I came upon the Indian on the horse and I caught the horse.
Immediately Smith insisted on shooting the Indian, but some of the campers
interfered. They contended that we were out of the way and that if we killed the
Indian his friends would come and take revenge on them. They also argued that
this, maybe, was not the Indian that stole the horse and they urged ns to make
the women in camp feel easy by releasing the Indian. After considering for some
time we decided to let the Indian go and give him something to recompense him
for being nearly seared to death. He was so badly frightened that great drops of
sweat came out on his face. The next thing to consider was what to give the
Indian. As it was coming on to the fall of the year, mother had supplied us well
with shirts. I had enough to last me two years
and I had on two at this time. They agreed that I must pull off one of my shirts
and give it to the Indian. So I did, and all parties concerned, except myself,
were well pleased, the Indian most of all.
     From Boise we traveled to Grande Rounde and after we passed the valley and
came down off the Blue mountains into the Umatilla valley we saw lots of
Indians. Mary Jane, my sister, was then a comely girl, about sixteen years of
age. Indian chiefs offered my father fifty horses and a hundred blankets for
her. They didn't care whether the girl was willing or not. They wanted a white
"klootchman." This was their custom, to pay for their "klootchman." Mary Jane
was frightened and she never showed herself when the Indians were around.
      When we were within a few days' journey of The Dalles, and after we had
crossed the Des Chutes River, two horses were stolen from us. We went back from
Fifteen Mile Creek  to a village near by and called on the Chief. He said he
would have the Indians bring in the horses. We waited about his tent, keeping
guard, until an Indian came in with the horses. They claimed that the horses had
been stolen by some bad Indians and that a good Indian brought them back and
that he ought to have pay for it. We had become accustomed to paying, so we were
prepared to give a shirt. This satisfied them.
      Our trip had not been a pleasure trip, for from the time we left St. Joe
each one of us had to stand guard about once a week and from the time we left
Fort Boise each one had to stand guard half the night every other night and
after having had measles, this was no fun.
    On October 15 we arrived at The Dalles. On account of the lateness of the
season, we selected a place for winter quarters. This was on a creek about two
miles from the Methodist Mission.
     Here in November, we built huts for the family and large corrals of logs in
which to keep the horses for their safety at night. We watched them during the
day. Our cattle were at large. We looked after them to prevent their straying
too far. We drove them together several times each day. Several parties left
their stock in our care during the winter.
     As soon as the family was in its winter quarters, father and I went down
the Columbia River and up the Willamette River for a winter's supply of flour.
This was about the 20th of November. At Oregon City we bought a skiff and
about 1,000 pounds of flour. A young man by the name of Scroggins and myself,
started out to take the flour to the family.
     Father stayed down the Willamette in Tualatin plains all  winter, looking
for a place in which to locate. When we reached The Dalles, James and his wife
left their stock with us, their oxen had given out, and went on and father
remained with James and his wife until Spring.
     Scroggins and I started with plenty of provisions for our trip, which we
calculated would be about seven days. On account of stormy weather, we were
seventeen days. Below Cape Horn on the Columbia River, we had to lay by in one
place for two days. Cape Horn is a rocky spur of the Cascade range, two or three
hundred feet high and almost perpendicular.
     This was the hardest seventeen days' work I ever did. It stormed almost all
the time. We had the flour in sacks of 100 pounds each and we loaded and
unloaded these sacks sometimes as high as eight or ten times a day. The wind
would stop blowing for a time and by the time we got loaded and ready to start
it would begin again and we would be obliged to unload, the river was so rough
we did not dare to risk becoming swamped with our heavy load. The wind blew
either up stream or down stream. The family needed the flour badly, and we were
anxious to get to them with it. Some days we would not go over a mile after
working hard all day and then the wind would apparently abate, when we could not
avail ourselves of the calm. Our supply of provisions were soon about all used
up except the flour. Flour and water, without even salt, was not very good to
keep up our spirits, as well as strength. We mixed the flour and water together
in the top of a sack and made the dough into long strings, which we wrapped
about a stick. We set the stick by the fire and baked the dough, which tasted
pretty good after a hard day's work. We varied this with noodle soup made of
water and flour. We were three days making the five miles of rapids and seven
miles of portage. The last day on the rapids our boat took a sheer and the one
on shore had to pull so hard against the current that the boat filled with
water. In the face of this calamity I thought the family would starve. I was
twenty years of age but in my anxiety, I cried. This was the first, last and
only time I cried while crossing the plains.
     We finally got the boat to a safe place and baled it out. We were sure the
flour was ruined. We took the sacks out and let the water drain off, reloaded
and proceeded on our journey.
     That night we built a fire and dried the sacks and found that the flour was
not much hurt. We were lucky to find two white men and three Indians to help us
carry our boat over the portage. Four days of travel up the river brought us
to our winter home. We found all well and anxious for our return.
      As I have said, father remained down the Willamette the winter of 1845,
with Brother James and wife, looking for a place, and the middle of January,
1846, he and James came back to The Dalles to help build a boat to move us.
There were plenty of boats then on the Willamette for emigrants who wanted to
pass on down to the valley, but a very short time after we arrived at The Dalles
they had all been taken  off for the winter.
      James was a boat builder. We selected a place close to  the river to build
our boat, where there was good timber. We chose two large trees for the purpose
of making gunwales, the trees being about three feet in diameter. Then we picked
out smaller trees for making the plank. We hewed out the timber  the proper
length and squared it. This we lined on both sides the thickness we wanted to
make our planks. We chose a place on a side hill to make a saw pit. It was so
arranged that one man could stand underneath the log and one man on top of it.
Then the squared logs were put in place and we ripped out enough plank for a
bottom and a false bottom and for the sides of the boat. We used the old whip
saw which is now on exhibition in the Oregon Historical rooms at Portland.
    This old whip saw told its own story, when in. 1894, a gentleman asked it to
tell of its adventures:
    "I started for Puget Sound from Missouri in 1845 and, after passing through
the trials and incidents of an overland journey of six months, reached The
Dalles Oregon, where, with the assistance of four men, I sawed timber enough to
construct a boat 16 feet long and fifty feet wide. On February 1, 1846, the boat
was loaded with myself among the passengers and we moved down the Columbia to
the Cascades. At the Cascades I took passage in a wagon around a five mile
portage. Our boat was the first boat ever sent over the Cascade Falls. The craft
was secured and proceeded to the mouth of Sandy River. From that point my
travels varied, sometimes by land and sometimes by water, up one stream and down
another. Finally, in the Spring of 1848, I reached Puget Sound, after a tedious
journey behind an ox team. In the three years of my travels my master always
found me of service. But during forty-seven years, after I reached what was to
be my home, I remained undisturbed and unthought of in my master's tool house on
Chambers Prairie. On April 26,1894, the flames destroyed my home and I was
ruined and defaced almost beyond recognition."
     We had no nails and the boat was put together entirely with wooden pins. It
resembled a scow of today. Its capacity was large enough to carry fifteen head
of cattle at a time in crossing a river and to store all of our wagons when they
were taken apart, and all of our plunder that we had brought with us across the
plains, as well as those members of the family who were not on shore driving the
cattle.
     When we got the boat ready and launched we loaded our effects, wagons and
plunder and all the ox yokes and proceeded on down the Columbia River. When we
collected the stock to make the start our cattle were in good condition. The
snow rarely stayed on the ground on the southern slopes of the hills and the
cattle had opportunity to do well. But not so with the horses. The Indians had
managed to steal most of them during foggy weather when it was pretty hard work
to guide, them. We did not have more than three out of a lot of horses whose,
manes and tails had not been cut off.  The mutilated animals looked horrible to
us. There was always some "good Indian" to help me hunt the stolen horses. It
appeared the Indians did not want the horses except to have a big ride on them
and get their manes and tails. They made ropes out of the hair.
     Our boat had long oars and when we started two men attended to these.
Brother James usually steered the boat and Father and David were ashore most of
the time. We let the boat run with the current as great a distance each day as
we could drive the cattle. Then we tied up and resumed our course next morning.
We traveled on the north side down the river bottom until we came to Shell Rock,
a place where the hills came right up to the river's edge. We could not drive
over this rock, neither could we swim our cattle around it. Consequently we were
obliged to ferry all our effects and the cattle, to the north, side, and
traveled down that side until we came to the Cascade Falls. At this point we
unloaded our wagons, put them together and loaded our plunder into them, hitched
on the teams and started out to make our way to the lower end of the Falls.
    Everything had been removed from the boat and the sides boarded up. Brother
James and two men who were willing to take the risk, went aboard. James acted as
captain and the other men stood at the oars. We had several small boats so we
took her out in the river and gave her a start, heading her straight for the
falls. She went over, shipping only a nominal number of gallons of water. It wag
in February that we made this run with the first flat bottomed boat ever to pass
over these five miles of rocks and rapids.
      Having gotten safely over they returned, after tying up to help us with
the teams and stock. We had to blaze a trail  to go through and prospect a road.
We were obliged to go  back about a mile from the river and pass through an
Indian  graveyard. In this graveyard the dead were all buried in houses and we
had to drive carefully between them. It was an ancient burying place, for the
houses were all decaying. I think it could not have been used for many, many
years. After traveling about six miles we came again to the river just below the
lower falls. We re-loaded the boat and proceeded as before. The drivers took the
cattle along by the river until we reached Cape Horn. Here we were obliged again
to leave the river and travel out into the country and around this high
promontory. We had to drive very slowly and it was hard work. On this trip we
took a little flour, salt and enough bread to do us the first day out. After
that we tied up the calves so that we could get milk enough to make noodle soup
with milk, flour and salt. It was nearly three days before we reached the river
again. At the mouth of Sandy River we found the scow and the folks waiting for
us. Here we unloaded again and ferried our stock across to the southern side of
the Columbia, at the mouth of the Sandy. From this point we drove the cattle
across the country by Oregon City to Milk Creek, near Molalla, where father had
selected a place for us.
    After ferrying the stock across at the mouth of the Sandy, we re-loaded the
boat with our effects and ran down the Columbia, to the Willamette and up the
latter river to Oregon City. Here we sold the boat for $50. We put our plunder
in the wagons and moved out to the place selected for our future homes, and set
to work to build houses in which to live.
    The citizens of Oregon were of the opinion that Uncle Sam was slow in
extending protection to his people on the Pacific Slope, and they formed a
provisional government and elected Abernathy governor. The representatives
passed laws saying that a married man and his wife could take up 640 acres, a
mile square, of land; a young or single man, half that amount, and that this
could be selected any place, so that it did not interfere with other claims.
Wheat was made legal tender for small debts at one dollar a bushel.
    Oregon City, being located at the Palls on the Willamette River; the Hudson
Bay Company had a flour mill and a store there. Up the Willamette, the old
servants of the company had settled, and taken up a great many of the choice
parts for fifty or sixty miles. One prairie, called "French Prairie," was
settled by Canadian French, and most of the settlers had native wives.
    The first settlers here cut hazel brush and made withes with which to bind
their wheat. At this time the sickle and the reap hook were used. Then the
cradle came into use and they learned to make bands of the wheat, oats. or other
grain that was out.
    After putting in one Spring crop and garden in the Molalla, we built a barn.
I then went, to Tualatin Plains, west of Oregon City, and stopped with Brother
James and family. He had married a Mrs. Scoggins, who had a family of five
children, three sons and two daughters. I, together with these children, went to
school for one term. The oldest son was one of my best friends, and it was he
who helped me to take the flour up the Columbia to my folks. Tualatin Plains,
twenty miles from Oregon City, was settled principally by Hudson Bay men,
English and Scotch. This was a fine section of the country. Plenty of wheat was
grown here, and newcomers could get plenty of work by taking pay in wheat, at
one dollar a bushel. The wheat could be taken to Oregon City and sold to the
company, and taken out in trade at the store, and a receipt would be given for
the remainder. This receipt could be used in trading with other parties for
anything wanted, and they, in turn, could go to the store and get goods and
groceries with it. There was very little money in the country, so people were
obliged to use wheat and these receipts as a means of conducting business
transactions. The emigrants to this country had spent mostly all their money for
outfits and a great many, even then, were very poorly provided for provisions
for the trip.
     After school closed I stayed with my brother, James, and helped in the
harvest. The barns were built of logs, two houses and a space of thirty feet
between them, the roof including the three. The center was used for a threshing
floor, and ten or twelve horses were used to tramp out the wheat. The farmers
would furnish us horses and board and give us one  bushel in ten to thresh out
and fan the wheat, and sometimes they allowed us a team to take the wheat to
market. While  I was helping my brother that harvest, I did the threshing  and
my brother and Young Scoggins hauled in the sheaves.  We threshed eighty or
ninety bushels a day.
      One of the oldest settlers came to my brother and wanted help. James told
him I could go and wanted to know how  much he would pay me per day. The old
settler said he would give me three pecks of wheat a day. James told him I might
remain at home and play, before I should work at that price. I told my brother
to make a contract with him to cut and shock his wheat, and Scoggins and I would
do the work as soon as we finished James' crop. He made the contract at three
bushels an acre and board.
    We went, and put in thirty acres for him. We put up three acres a day, and
the old gentleman was highly pleased with our work. His wheat was getting very
ripe and shattering out so that he proposed for us to cut and bind in the
forenoon and haul in the afternoon, and he would pay just the
same per day for the hauling. That was nine bushels a day.
    It was hard for him to keep help. One harvest was all that help would stay
with him. Some of his help told that he recommended to them to eat the peelings
off of baked potatoes. He said it was healthy and helped to fill up. I think he
was correct about its being good for the health, if he followed his own advise,
for he lived to be 104 years old.
    The Winter of 1846 we spent in looking for a new location. thinking to
better ourselves. We went to the mouth of the Columbia River and looked over
Clatsop Plains, then south to the Umpqua country, but we did not find anything
to suit us.
    Father said he had started for salt water, and so in the Spring of 1847,
after we had put in the crops, we came over to Puget Sound to look at that
portion of the country. We spent two months looking around. At Newmarket, the
present site of Tumwater, at the falls of the Des Chutes River, we found M. T.
Simmons and family, and five or six other families and nine or ten young men.
They had settled here in June, 1845. They were putting up a sawmill. They
already had a flour mill, a very small concern. The burrs were only eighteen
inches in diameter and no bolting cloth was in use. Some of the families had
sieves that were used to take out the coarse bran.
     At the present site of Olympia there was only one man, by the name of
Smith. His log cabin stood on the ground where the Huggins hotel is now. We
finally staked out claims on what is now known as "Chambers Prairie." Then we
returned to our homes in Oregon to make preparations to move to the Puget Sound
region in the Fall.
     Early in the Fall of 1847, we hired two boats of Dr. McLoughlin. and four
Kanaka boat men. We loaded our effects, wagons, ox yokes and bedding, on the
boats at Oregon City. We went down the Willamette to the Columbia River, down
the Columbia to the mouth of the Cowlitz and up the Cowlitz to Cowlitz Landing
thirty miles.
    It was fine boating until we came to the rapids on the Cowlitz River. That
was hard work and slow traveling. We had to use the tow line a great deal and go
from one side of the river to the other to take advantage of the eddies and
shallow waters, so that we could use the long poles and push the boats up the
stream. Our boats were heavily laden and for about fifteen miles we used the
poles and tow line, the  water being too swift, to use the oars.
     There was a great quantity of salmon in the river. We had all we wanted,
and cooked it Indian fashion. This was to dress the fish, run a stick through it
and place the stick in the ground close to the fire, and as the fish cooked,
turn it so that it would bake evenly. We always left the scales on till it was
cooked. After working hard all day, it was fine we thought, delicious.
     We arrived at Cowlitz Landing after twenty days of travel, the only
accident on the trip being the loss of a rifle, a considerable loss in those
days, too. In making the trip to Cowlitz Landing, we started the hands with the
stock, horses and cattle, to cross the Columbia. All were ferried over at Fort
Vancouver; then they were driven down the river to Lewis River, where they were
ferried over this stream, following down the Columbia to the mouth of the
Cowlitz. They were then driven up the Cowlitz and swam across the south fork.
When they reached the Cowlitz Landing, they swam the stock to the north side of
the river and waited for the boats. This landing is at the lower end of Cowlitz
Prairie, which prairie was settled by the Canadian French and is a fine farming
country. The Hudson Bay Company and the Catholic Mission each had fine farms
there. We rented twenty acres of land from the Catholic Mission and a like
number of acres from John R. Jackson, and put in a crop of winter wheat.
      When the crop was in, we left the stock needed to haul  our wagons to the
prairie (Chambers), which we had selected for our future home, and started to
drive the remainder of the stock through. We drove them over Mud Mountain,
or Mud Hill all the first settlers traveled this way, and we crossed the Des
Chutes about two miles above Tumwater. There was an Indian trail from Bush
Prairie to Chambers Prairie.
     Then we went back to Saunder's Bottom and completed the wagon road around
Mud Hill. This hill is east of Chehalis. There was one family living there at
that time. We prospected and blazed out a road. We found trees on the banks of a
creek that suited us for making a bridge. We built the bridge and cut out the
wagon road through Saunder's Bottom, a distance of three miles. The creek's
source was from Mud Mountain and the banks were steep and muddy and could not be
crossed without a bridge. We then came to New Market, one of the first
settlements at Tumwater. The men of this settlement turned out and all helped to
cut a wagon road to Chambers' Prairie, a distance of three and a half miles. The
old settlers here were glad to see new comers and they were ready and willing to
help us. What they had they were willing  to share with us. They were much
pleased when they learned that we had sieve wire, for they had no bolting cloth
for their small grist mill. They thought it a fine thing to have sieve wire so
they could take the bran out of their flour. On the prairie we built a log house
of two rooms, the smaller we used for a kitchen and the larger was curtained off
into bed rooms. We then went for the family and brought them over. We stayed a
few days, visiting Mr. Simmons' family.
    We crossed our wagons on boats, when the tide was in, below the lower falls
of the Des Chutes. When the tide was out, we drove our work cattle across Budd's
Inlet and then drove out five miles to our future home. The fifteenth of
December, 1847, we took our first dinner at our home on Chambers' Prairie.
    Here our stock had plenty of grass and wintered well, so they were fat in
February. We butchered a fine beef and bad plenty of tallow to make candles.
Mother had brought enough candle wicking to do several years. The candles were a
great improvement on the old iron lamp in which we had to burn hog's lard. This
lamp was made with a short spout for the wick to tie in and one end of the wick
came out of this spout to burn. The handle at the other end of the lamp was so
arranged that it came up over the center of the lamp, so as to hold the lamp
level. A cotton cloth, twisted, served as a wick. Father put up a milk house,
and, in March, commenced to make butter, and in April, to make cheese.
     Brother Thomas and I took up claims adjoining, and we milked the cows,
morning and evening, for our board. We built a log house of one room on our
claim. We made it a five-cornered house, the fifth corner being for the
fireplace. In May we dug two troughs and started a tan yard, on a small scale We
used the troughs for vats, and alder and hemlock bark, for tanning purposes. We
dried the bark and pounded it fine. We burned oyster and clam shell and used the
lime to take the hair off the skins. We made sole leather out of beef hides, and
for the upper leather we used deer and cougar hides. By the first of November we
had our leather ready to make shoes. We brought a kit of shoemakers' tools with
us and father and I made the shoes. We brought with us a number of lasts of
different sizes. For sewing we put a number of strands of shoe thread together,
the <mailto:together@the>length we wanted and we twisted and waxed this string,
tapered the ends and put a hog bristle on each end for needles. It was a nice
piece of  work to put the bristles on so they would stay. This we could do to
perfection. If they came off they could not be put on again.
      We made our shoe pegs of maple and dog wood, well  seasoned, sawed the
length and size we wanted the pegs to  be We split off slabs the thickness to
make square pegs, and  shaved the slabs to make the pegs sharp at one end. We
used  a stick with a notch against which we held the slabs and  sharpened first
one side and then the other. A strip of leather  with a slit in it was fastened
to the shoe board. We took two  or three of the sharpened slabs and held them
with the left  hand against the leather which served as a lever for the
knife and, with the point of the knife, held to place by running it in the slit
in the leather, we split off the pegs.
       The crop we put in on Cowlitz Prairie turned out well, and we hauled it
over early in the Fall, or enough of it to plant, and to keep us until we grew
our first crop on Chambers' Prairie
     The winters of 1845-6 and 1846-7 were very mild and pleasant.  We made
rails to fence in land to protect our crops. We raised plenty of wheat,
potatoes, peas and other vegetables.  We had wheat coffee, and pea coffee, and
we could always change from one to the other. Boiled wheat and milk made an
extra dish for supper.
    Father and mother were highly pleased with this country and they thought
there was no place like it; fat beef off the range in February, and plenty of
oysters and clams for the digging. One beef would give us sixty pounds of
tallow, and in those days tallow was an important item.
    That same spring of 1848, we built the log barn which stood over half a
century and finally had to be burned on account of its being unsafe for the
stock. It was built similar to those already described, except that this barn
had five apartments, two for hay and grain, one for stalls, one for wagons, and
one for threshing. It was a long, narrow barn, and all under one roof. The
clapboards were put on with wrought nails from England, the sheeting was of
logs, put on the right distance apart to use four-foot boards.
    Thomas and I had been looking forward and calculating to return to Missouri
in two years to see our girls that we had left behind us. In 1848 mother
received a letter from our old home, telling about what had taken place since we
left and among the news was the marriage of a certain young lady, and this had
the effect of making me contented to remain on Puget Sound.
    This was a sensible decision, for, during the winter of 1847, Indians broke
out and massacred Dr. and Mrs. Whitman and many others at the Mission, near
Walla Walla. The people of Oregon raised a company of Volunteers to subdue the
Cayuse tribe, the only hostiles. They succeeded in bringing the leaders to
justice. We, on Puget Sound, did net know about the trouble until it was all
settled. The Indians here were friendly and they were glad to have the Bostons,
as they called the Americans,
come. About this time gold was discovered in California, and Thomas and I got
the fever to go, as Brother James was there.

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Submitted to the Washington Bios. Project in May 2007 by Diana Smith.
Submitter has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned
above.