Part 14 (2/2)

Williams persuaded us to come in and he would go and get father, which he did, and father came home with us to our barn house. My little brother got better, and my father returned to his work again.

”Among the settlers on the Tualatin Plains were Mr. Lackriss, Mr.

Burton, Mr. Williams and General McCarver, who had settled on farms before we came, and many a time did we go to their farms for greens and turnips, which were something new and a great treat to us.

”Often the Indians used to frighten us with their war dances, as we called them, as we did not know the nature of Indians, so, as General McCarver was used to them, we often asked him if the Indians were having a war dance for the purpose of hostility. He told us, that was the way they doctored their sick.

”General McCarver settled in Tacoma when the townsite was first laid out and is well known. He died in Tacoma, leaving a family.

”After we moved out to the Tualatin Plains, many a night when father was away we lay awake listening to the dogs barking, thinking the Indians were coming to kill us, and when father came home I felt safe and slept happily.

”In the spring of 1845 my father took a nice place in West Yamhill, about two miles from the Willamette River and we had some settlers around, but our advantage for a school was poor, as we were too far from settlers to have a school, so my education, what little I have, was gotten by punching the cedar fire and studying at night, but, however, we were a happy family, hoping to acc.u.mulate a competency in our new home.

”One dog, myself and elder sister and brother were carrying water from our spring, which was a hundred yards or more from our house, when a number of Indians came along. We were afraid of them and all hid. I hid by the trail, when an old Indian, seeing me, yelled out, 'Adeda!' and I began to laugh, but my sister was terribly frightened and yelled at me to hide, so they found all of us, but they were friendly to us, only a wretched lot to steal, as they stole the only cow we had brought through, leaving the calf with us without milk.

”My father was quite a hunter, and deer were plenty, and once in a while he would get one, so we did get along without milk.

During the first year we could not get bread, as there were no mills or places to buy flour. A Canadian put up a small chop mill and chopped wheat something like feed is chopped now.

”My father being a jack-of-all-trades, set to work and put up a turning lathe and went to making chairs, and my mother and her little tots took the straw from the sheaves and braided and made hats. We sold the chairs and hats and helped ourselves along in every way we could and did pretty well.

”One day, while my father's lathe was running, some one yelled 'Stop!' A large black bear was walking through the yard. The men gave him a grand chase, but bruin got away from them.

”My father remained on this place until the spring of 1847, when he and a number of other families decided to move to Puget Sound.

During that winter they dug two large canoes, lashed them together as a raft or flatboat to move on, and sold out their places, bought enough provisions to last that summer, and loading up with their wagons, families and provisions, started for Puget Sound.

”Coming up the Cowlitz River was a hard trip, as the men had to tow the raft over rapids and wade. The weather was very bad.

Arriving at what was called the Cowlitz Landing we stayed a few days and moved out to the Catholic priest's place (Mr. Langlay's) where the women and children remained while the men went back to Oregon for our stock. They had to drive up the Cowlitz River by a trail, and swim the rivers. My father said it was a hard trip.

”On arriving at Puget Sound we found a good many settlers. Among them, now living that I know of, was Jesse Ferguson, on Bush Prairie. We stayed near Mr. Ferguson's place until my father, McAllister and s.h.a.ger, who lives in Olympia, took them to places in the Nisqually bottoms. My father's place then, is now owned by Isaac Hawk.

”Mr. McAllister was killed in the Indian war of 1855-6, leaving a family of a number of children, of whom one is Mrs. Grace Hawk.

The three families living in the bottom were often frightened by the saucy Indians telling us to leave, as the King George men told them to make us go, so on one occasion there came about 300 Indians in canoes. They were painted and had knives, and said they wanted to kill a chief that lived by us by the name of Quinasapam. When he saw the warriors coming he came into our house for protection, and all of the Indians who could do so came in after him. Mr. s.h.a.ger and father gave them tobacco to smoke.

So they smoked and let the chief go and took their departure. If there were ever glad faces on this earth and free hearts, ours were at that time.

”My father and Mr. McAllister took a job of bursting up old steamboat boilers for Dr. Tolmie for groceries and clothing, and between their improving their farms they worked at this. While they were away the Indians' dogs were plenty, and, like wolves, they ran after everything, including our only milch cow, and she died, so there was another great loss to us, but after father got through with the old boilers, he took another job of making b.u.t.ter firkins for Dr. Tolmie and s.h.i.+ngles also. This was a great help to the new settlers. The Hudson Bay Company was very kind to settlers.

”In 1849 the gold fever began to rage and my father took the fever. I was standing before the fire, listening to my mother tell about it, when my dress caught fire, and my mother and Mrs.

s.h.a.ger got the fire extinguished, when I found my hair was off on one side of my head and my dress missing. I felt in luck to save my life.

”In the spring of 1850 all arrangements were made for the California gold mines and we started by land in an ox team. We went back through Oregon and met our company in Yamhill, where we had lived. They joined our company of about thirty wagons.

Portions of our journey were real pleasant, but the rest was terribly rough. In one canyon we crossed a stream seventy-five times in one day, and it was the most unpleasant part of our journey.

”After two months' travel we arrived in Sacramento City, Cal., and found it tolerably warm for us, not being used to a warm climate.

”Father stayed in California nearly two years. Our fortune was not a large one. We returned by sea to Was.h.i.+ngton and made our home in the Nisqually Bottom.

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