"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. 229.
 
THE JAMES FAMILY

     Samuel James and his wife, Anna Maria, with their family of eight sturdy
sons and daughters, were the original settlers on Grand Mound Prairie. Of
English birth, the couple came to America with their sons, Samuel, William,
Thomas and John. E. The first home in the land of their adoption was made in
Wisconsin, Mr. and Mrs. James living, in that state for several years, and here
were born to them their daughters, Eliza and Mary, and their sons, Richard
Oregon and Allen. While the children were still small and the younger ones
but little more than babes, Mr. James became infected with the western fever.
The home place was sold and the purchase price devoted to outfitting for the
perilous journey across the plains to the new country of Oregon.
     The incidents of that .journey cannot be preserved in history, for the
father, mother and children who were old enough to remember the experiences, are
all gone, but the surviving son, John, who is still hale and clear-minded,
relates that there were three yoke of cattle to each wagon and that five months
were passed in steady traveling before the promised land was reached.
     Milwaukee, Oregon, was the first stopping place of the adventurers. Here
Mr. James rented a farm and put in his crops. But this vicinity did not satisfy
them and they decided that Puget Sound was the land of golden opportunities, so
after spending a year at Milwaukee, Mr. and Mrs. James decided to pull stakes
and away.
     The trip was made in the manner customary in those days, hiring bateaus
from the Hudson Bay people, up the Willamette and Cowlitz Rivers to Cowlitz
Landing. The cattle were driven along the Indian trail paralleling the river by
the three brothers, Samuel, William and Thomas. When the Cowlitz Landing was
reached, the wagons were unloaded from the bateaus, fitted up and loaded with
the furnishings and equipment of the James family.
     Arriving at Grand Mound in 1852, Mr. James took up a donation claim of 320
acres on the Chehalis River, built a cabin home and started to improve what
afterwards became one of the finest farms in Thurston County. The prairie land
was broken up and put in grain fields. Mr. James was a very progressive pioneer
and among his first work was starting a ten-acre orchard, the little trees for
the planting being brought with almost incredible difficulties from Oregon. The
land was rich and the farm prospered almost from the beginning. As there were no
other settlers on the prairie for a while, Mr. James had the run of the fine
ranges for his cattle and later a band of sheep, which he possessed. Soon after
locating, he bought a small band of forty sheep from James McAllister, the
Nesqually pioneer. This flock increased to a band of 500 head and was a source
of considerable profit to the James family.
     It was a good three days' journey from the Grand Mound ranch and return, to
Tumwater, with the wagons heavily loaded with grain to be ground into flour.
This town and the little settlement which had sprung up on the Sound,
called Smithfield, now Olympia, was the nearest market.
     Mr. John James, the only surviving son out of the stalwart band relates
some very interesting experiences of the family in the troublesome time
preceding the Indian war, one of the incidents, which is here given, showing
that the natives were sometimes responsive to humane treatment.
     "It was in berry picking time in the Summer of 1853," said Mr. James, "and
a considerable band of Indians went into camp near our place, to gather their
annual supply of the wild berries which grew in great profusion in the vicinity.
Soon after their arrival the chief of the band, several members of his family,
and a number of the tribe, were taken down with smallpox, the scourge of the
frontier in those days. Now it so happened that father, mother and one of my
brothers were immune, owing to their having recovered from the dread disease at
an earlier period. Besides being one of the most progressive men, father was
also one of the kindest hearted I ever knew. Consequently he, with the
assistance of mother and brother Thomas, nursed the sick Indians,
administering the simple remedies which he had knowledge of, and, undoubtedly
saved the lives of many.
     "When the disease had rim its course and all were well again, the chief and
head men called upon father and entered into a solemn treaty with him that all
claims to the section of land on which was the James homestead were forever
relinquished by the Indians, and should remain in the undisturbed possession of
the family for all time, as far as the Indians were concerned. The chief further
made a treaty of good will that Mr. James and his family would ever be protected
by the Indians in the event of trouble arising between them and the settlers,
who by this time had begun to arrive in considerable numbers.
    "This good-will treaty was all that prevented Grand Mound Prairie from being
selected as an Indian reservation a few years later, when Governor Stevens made
the
allotments of territory to the natives, instead of Black River."
     In the Fall of 1853 a goodly number of emigrants came into the country,
having arrived over the terrible Natchez Pass. With cattle worn out, supplies
exhausted, and men and women fatigued to the limit of human endurance, the fine
ranges, bountiful supply of wood, land easily put under cultivation, springs of
delicious water, the prospect was alluring so they decided to settle on Grand
Mound, and from that time on there was no lack of good neighbors for the pioneer
family.
     Among the early settlers of Mr. John James was: B. F. Yantis and family;
Alexander Yantis and family; James and Charles Biles; J. W. Goodell and large
family; Holden Judson, Josephine Axtel, Patterson Luark, Abraham Tilley, Arthur
Sergeant and sons, while on Miami Prairie early settlers were: The Bryans, with
their sons and daughters, Esther, Mary, Preston and Edgar; Camby brothers, four
in number; John Laws; the Waddells, with their children, Robert and Susan; the
Dodge family, consisting of father and mother and children Robert, Bruce, Marion
and Samuel. Other pioneers of the neighborhood were Lawton Case, Wm. Mills and
family, Henry Hale and family, Paron Quinn, Elijah Baker and wife, Olive, with
their boys, James and William; Jacob Croll, S. H. French, Andrew McCormack and
family; L. D. Durgan and wife; Augustus Gangloff, Thomas and William Cooper,
Robert Barge, and the Northcraft brothers.
     The most of these people made their headquarters for over a year at Fort
Henness, during the troublous Indian outbreak.
     James Biles built the first tannery on Scatter Creek, north of the Columbia
River. L. D. Durgan and A. Gangloff started the first fruit nursery; John
Guynnup, a Mexican war veteran, started the first brick kiln at Grand Mound, and
in 1853 a Mr. Armstrong built the first sawmill on the, Chehalis River, locating
a little below the present town of Oakville.

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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.