"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. 122. MRS. JANE W. PATTISON The place Mrs. Jane Willey Pattison holds among the ranks of Thurston County pioneers is almost unique, for while every woman who came to this country over the Old Oregon Trail endured hardships and privations, dangers and sufferings, Mrs. Pattison's experiences, as related by herself, were so wild and thrilling that the pen of the compiler hesitates in seeking words strong enough and description sufficiently vivid to show the bravery and genuine pluck of this little woman. Born in Ayreshire, Scotland, not far from Glasgow, daughter of well-to-do parents, the little Jane was brought to New York City when but three years old. Her life in that city is among Mrs. Pattison's earliest recollections, and she can remember it when it was but a scattering hamlet with but a few thousand inhabitants. When Jane was seven years of age the Willeys moved into what was then the wilds of Illinois, taking up the occupation of farming. Here Jane grew to young womanhood, received her education and, in 1847, became the wife of James Pattison, one of several brothers of a neighboring family. "You know college-raised people generally are not much account, but my people were A No. I," the little woman asserted, with a pardonable pride, '' and they had me taught how to do a great many useful things, and a number of accomplishments besides. But Father-in-Law Pattison was a man terribly set in his way and when he said, 'We'll go out West,' none of his sons dared to object. We, my husband and myself, wanted to go, too, in a way, but I didn't like being dictated to by the old man, but we finally decided to come along, though father-in-law was always boss of the train, and when he said stop we'd stop and when he said go on we'd travel, and it was that way the whole time of the long trip from Illinois. Mr. Pattison called for so many vexatious delays and was such a poor manager that we got caught out by the winter when we reached the Cascade Falls above Fort Vancouver. When we left Sparta, Illinois, there were the seven Pattison brothers, Mr. and Mrs. Pattison, senior, myself, with a three month's old baby in my arms, and another family named Willey, distant kin folks. This family, however, became dissatisfied with father-in-law's management and left our company before we were caught by the snow and cold. "When we reached where The Dalles, Oregon, is (but which was then a perfect wilderness), the men cut logs and made a raft for us to go on down the Columbia River. Our baggage was piled on this rude craft and we humans huddled on as best we could. We were twelve days traveling nine miles. The winds were so strong that we were always being blown back the way we had come. The icy water was often dashed all over us and we were pretty thoroughly discouraged. When we reached the Cascades the snow was deep and the weather bitter cold. One of the Pattison brothers drove our oxen along the trail beside the river to where they could get some grass to eat. The brother then returned to help make the raft and when they went to look for the cattle they had strayed away and we never did find them. We were first snow-bound in the latter part of November, and on Christmas day we reached Portland. "When at the place where we were held up to make the raft our provisions were exhausted and we had absolutely nothing to eat. Had it not been for the kindness of an Indian family who were camped not far from where we were we would have starved to death. This family had a considerable stock of salmon, dried and pounded, which I always thought looked like the stuff they stop up cracks in boats with (oakum). This family was mighty good to us and let us have enough of the salmon to keep alive on for four or five weeks. In payment Mr. Pattison told them to pick out whatever we had that they wanted, and, if they didn't choose my clothes. So one by one I had to see the articles of my wardrobe disappear, now a dress, then a skirt or jacket, and so on till my clothes were all eaten up and I had a good many, too, for I hadn't been married a great while and my parents had given me a good setting out. Well, by the time my clothes were all gone, down to one ragged skirt and jacket, the raft was done and we managed to get on down the river to where Portland, now is, but there were only a few log cabins there then. A man loaned us a boat and we went on up the river to Oregon City, which was a settlement of several houses. Our men folks got work on the road which was being built from this place to Portland, and we were fortunate enough to find an empty log house into which we could move. I didn't go outside the house; I was that ragged and poorly dressed I was ashamed, besides I had all those men to cook for, the baby to take care of and mighty few utensils to manage with. I didn't even have a washboard and it was no light task washing the heavy shirts for those men, besides Willie's, the baby's clothes. Well, one day a neighbor woman, Mrs. Moore, called to me across the back yard and asked me if I wouldn't like to do some sewing for her. I eagerly accepted the offer and she told me she would give me calico for a dress for myself if I would make her one. I was just plum tickled and when her dress was done it looked so nice and neat that the other women in Oregon City asked me to sew for them, too, so I began to earn enough to get myself some decent clothes again. I was always up at daybreak in the morning and would sew every minute I could spare from my cooking and other work, and when night came I would make up a big fire in the old fireplace and sew by the light of the flames. I had no other light of any kind. "After about a year of this life Father-in-Law Pattison decided we would come up into the Cowlitz country. I hated to leave Oregon City, for the men could get work there and I was beginning to get a little used to the place, but we had to come. Our means of travel this time was down the Columbia River in Indian canoes manned by Indian braves. When we reached the month of the Cowlitz River we found one family already settled there, the Catlins. They were very kind to us and showed us many favors. Father-in-law liked the looks of the country and decided to stop there. A little shack was built way out in the brush and we soon moved in. One day a white man, heading a train of about one hundred Indians, came riding .up to the shack. The Indians had their ponies packed with bundles of dried furs which they were taking to the Hudson Bay trading post, which wasn't very far away, on the Columbia River. " 'Hello,' called the man, 'my name is Roberts and I am manager of the Hudson Bay post; can I stay here all night?' " 'Why," I said, 'you see, we haven't much room,' but he said the Indians could camp on the ground outside the house and if only he could sleep in the house he would be satisfied. We let him do that and a very pleasant and talkative man he was, too, and very interesting. During the evening he told about having a ranch or clearing further on up the Cowlitz River and said he didn't see how he was going to get it worked, for it took all his time to manage the Hudson Bay property. Mr. Pattison didn't say anything, but I just wanted to break away from the old folks and take up Mr. Roberts' offer more than I ever wanted anything in my life. In the morning Roberts went on his way, telling us that he would be back within a few days. The old man must have guessed what was in my mind, for he gave me hardly any chance to talk to my husband alone, but when Mr. Roberts came back again and we were all sitting around the fireplace in the evening I managed to get my seat right in front of my father-in-law's where he couldn't see my face and when Mr. Roberts began talking again about his clearing, I said, 'My husband and I have decided to accept your offer and go and work your ranch if you want us to.' Husband didn't say anything, but father-in-law was terribly mad, but couldn't object right there. So then and there the bargain was struck. 'When can you be ready?' asked Mr. Roberts. 'We haven't, anything to get ready,1' I told him, 'so we can go any time.' In the morning Mr. Roberts sent some Indians with us in a canoe, together with what few possessions we could call our very own. We traveled all day up the Cowlitz, and when we finally reached the landing were met by a Hudson Bay man, a friend of Roberts', a Mr. Gobar. A brother of my husband had taken the trail along the river's banks with the span of mules with which we proposed to plow the land. At the landing we were met by a brother of Mr. Roberts with a yoke of Spanish oxen and only the running gear of a wagon. I just couldn't stick on that wagon gear, so our things were tied on as best we could and Willie and I were put on one of the mules. I had a man's saddle and had to hold the baby, so couldn't manage the beast very well, and when we were about four miles from the end of our destination my mule bucked me, Willie and the saddle off. I struck my head against the root of a tree and that is where I got this scar." (Mrs. Pattison pushed back her silver hair and showed a very perceptible sear above the temple). "Husband came back to see what was the matter, and as we still had four miles to go and as it was getting on towards night I just had to climb up on that mule again and ride him on to the clearing. Well, when we finally got there we found that the house we had been promised was a good half mile away and not finished at that and it was raining hard. What to do then? There we were miles and miles from anywhere with no roof to cover us for the night. While the men were bemoaning the hard plight I looked around and spied a sheep shed that had been abandoned the year before by the Hudson Bay people, as it was their custom, when one pasturage was eaten off, to drive the flock on to some new place. I went over and looked in and decided that here, at least, was shelter, for there was a fairly good roof and the dirt floor was dry, although lumpy and rough from the sheeps' feet. I called the men and started to fix a pole across one side of the pen to hold our bedding in position during the night. I then had our bedclothes unloaded from the wagon and made the bed so the baby could go to sleep. There was a big log right in front of the opening or door of the sheep shed, so the men made a big fire there and I got supper. As the season was getting late, the men had to go right to plowing, so they left Willie and me there to get settled as best I could. The first thing was to clean house, so I hacked a good stout branch off a tree and with long tough grasses I managed to tie cedar branches to this stick for a broom. I then swept the roof and walls of the shed, smoothed down the dirt floor the best I could and began to make my furniture. Not far from the sheep shed there had been a barn made of boards hewn out by hand and put together without nails, the joists tied together with rawhide thongs. During the previous winter this barn had blown over sideways, loosening a number of the boards so I could pull them away. The only tools I had to work with were a hammer, ax and augurno saw, and I would have given an eye tooth for a saw. "My first work was to put a floor in the shed, so I dragged these wide boards from the barn and as they were much too long, I slipped them along the dirt floor, letting one end push out under the logs, which didn't come quite to the ground. Many and many a trip I had to make between the barn and the shed before I had finished, Willie trailing along after me every trip, never whining and complaining as most babies would do these days, just trailing along. When the floor was done I hacked with an as enough boards to go inside, and with these made a sort of a platform on one side of the shed. On this I spread a lot of hay that had been left in the barn and there was our bed. When the barn was blown over it left exposed some of the round stumps which had been used for corner foundations. I rolled two of these to the shed, our seats. After a long time and with lots of work, Mr. Pattison and I bored auger holes in the boards of the floor in which we fixed two upright sticks cut from the woods; on these I put some boards, letting one end extend out through a crack between the logs, and so we had a table, all the furniture we wanted or could use. I did my cooking and we kept warm by the open fire in front of the shed. We lived there all that summer and until the crops were harvested. Later in the fall we moved into Mr. Roberts' house, a half mile away from the field, which the men finished in a rough way for occupancy. While in this house a band of Indians came by one morning. They carne close to the door to look in, as we were a sort of curiosity to them. Willie stood in-the open door watching them, and so came in contact with them. Their papooses had a contagious disease, but I didn't know it then. The baby caught this disease and died within a few days. I thought I never could get over that blow. When the crops were gathered we took the wheat to the barn of Mr. Gobar, our nearest neighbor, and flailed the wheat out on his floor. He gave us the use of his fanning mill and we had a considerable lot of wheat and potatoes to pay us for our summer's work. "One day while I was sitting at the door of the sheep shed with Willie playing at my feet, who should come riding down the trail but a white woman with a little boy astride on the horse behind her. It proved to be Mrs. George Barnes, who was just married and coming to Olympia from Portland with her young husband. The boy was her little brother, John Miller Murphy. How glad I was to see one of my sex I can never tell you, and years afterwards when we finally settled in Olympia, Mrs. Barnes renewed the acquaintance began in front of the sheep shed and we became fast friends. Many a night Mrs. Barnes would take her lantern and come along the trail to my house to visit me during the evening while my children were sleeping. She was a good woman and I will never forget her. "About this time we decided to take advantage of the Government's liberal offer in regard to donation claims. In those days to every man was given the chance to take up 640 acres of land and, as an encouragement to the women who had to endure the trials and privations of the wilderness, for a very few years the Government made the offer to her of an equal amount of land as that her husband was given, as a sort of a recompense for her hardships. Uncle Sam gave us women this land just as he would a new dress or something else we wanted real badly, for it was a recognized fact the women were worth as much as the men in settling up and developing the new country. Well, with an ox team we came to Tumwater, or Newmarket, as it was called then, Crosby's mill and store was about all that there was there. We swam the oxen across the Des Chutes River and went out on what was even then called Chambers Prairie, traveling through big woods all the way. David Chambers was living on the Chambers homestead and we took up our donation claims next to his. Pattison. Lake was on our place and was named from my husband. Here we built what was to be our home for many long, hard years, a log cabin, added to from time to time as the babies began to come. Three of my children were, born there. It was a hard, lonesome life I led there. It seemed that if ever there was a hard, unpleasant thing to be done I was the one to be called on. For a few years I had no babies to keep me tied down, so whenever the neighboring women for ten miles around were sick, or there was a new baby came, or a death, any trouble, I was always the first one sent for, and I was nothing but a kid in years myself." Here Mrs. Pattison ceased talking for a moments and began silently musing into the past. Her eyes grew dreamy and it was plain that once again the heroic woman was ministering the wants of the friends who long since have finished their work. A query about the Indian war brought her wide awake again and started her flow of reminiscences. "Yes, indeed, I was in the Indian war, and knew the instant Mr. William White was killed, for I heard the shot and saw part of the struggle. Mr. White, with his wife and her sister, Mrs. Stewart, had been to church that day, the two women, each with a little child in her arms, were riding in a cart, with Mr. White walking behind with the lines in his hands driving the horse, when the Indians emerged on foot from a little point of timber a little ahead of them. They began to struggle with Mr. White and the horse became frightened and ran away with the women. This brought them away safe, and the last Mrs. White saw of her husband in life he was grappling with a big Indian buck. We knew very well that Mr. White was killed, but none dared to go after his body that evening, so all night we waited in fear and trembling, not knowing what moment the Indians would attack our cabin, but we were not molested, and in the morning my men folks started after Mr. White. I told them to take one of my sheets along, which they did. They found the body where they thought they would. There had evidently been a great struggle before Mr. White gave up his life, for the ground was all torn up and trampled. Mr. White's dog had stayed by his master all night. The Indians had stripped the body of every stitch of clothing except the boots. Our men placed the body on a board they had taken for that purpose, spread the sheet over him and brought the remains to the spring in front of our house. They called me and I bound up the dead man's head the best way I could to hide the cruel wounds and bruises the Indians had made. One arm was broken and he was shot through a vital part. Then I spread another clean sheet over the form and the men carried him on the board to a vacant house belonging to Mr. Chambers. I followed on foot and that wasn't an easy thing to do. When we got to the house we were joined by Mrs. White and the neighbors. Among the most pathetic events of this awful day was the arrival of Mrs. Bigelow, Mr. White's daughter. Mrs. Bigelow had only been married a little over a year and was quite a young girl. She came galloping up with her four-months'-old baby in her arms, the rain simply pouring down on the mother and child. My husband took the baby and helped the distracted girl from her horse. She ran into where her father's body was laid and I tell you that was hard, too. I warmed the baby and tended it all day. That baby is now Mrs. Tirzah Royal. "We buried Mr. White out in the little cemetery on Chambers Prairie and then had to return to our homes. When I started back, one after another of the neighboring women begged to go with me and stay at our house till the scare quieted down. So in all we were fourteen who were sheltered by our two-room cabin. Here we stayed for three weeks while the men were building the block house. This block house on Chambers Prairie was standing until a few years ago. As I had a big Dutch oven I baked all the bread that was consumed by these fourteen people, and I can tell you I baked every, and all day, too. "When the block house was finished we all moved in. The families who were there at that time and who had rooms in the block house were Thomas Chambers, the McMillans, Mrs. White with her children, the O'Neals, the Parsons and Mrs. Stewart. Mrs. Stewart gave birth to a baby the day after we moved in. Almost all our men had joined the volunteers to fight the Indians and we women, with the children, had to stay there all the time with one or two men left to guard us. We brought our water from the creek, the banks of which had been cleared of brush so the Indians couldn't ambush there. It was very unhandy to do our work, for each family had only one room in the block house to live in, and everything, cooking, washing, sleeping, had to be done in this one room. I got so tired of that way of living that we were the first family to return to our home, but we were not molested and soon took up our regular way of living. "Well, the years passed and we had three children who were ready to be sent to school, so we sold my part of the donation claim to David Chambers and moved into town, where the children could have advantages and see something. We came to Olympia the week Lincoln was assassinated. I was glad to come, for we were all good and tired of living away out there. We bought a place of John Swan, on the Eastside, which has been the Pattison home ever since, although the orchard that my husband planted has long ago been divided up into city lots and is almost all built over now. When we moved to our new home, Mrs. Bigelow, Mrs. Horton and a little later, Dr. Lansdale, were my only neighbors. We have had seven children, only two, my son James Renwick and Mrs. Brad Davis, are still living. My husband, father-in-law, all the Pattison brothers, my babies, all are gone, but I am still here." ******************* 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.