TOLD by the PIONEERS - Washington Secretary of State

Told by the Pioneers
Father had two yoke of oxen, a team of mules and a span of borses
(ponies) hitched to a hack. Our motive for coming here was that my
parents had heard so much about the Oregon country they wanted to
see it. We started with seven cows. The third day out,the cattle ran
back toward home. My father captured two of them, made a yoke and
bows and hitched them in front of the oxen.
My parents took up a donation claim four miles north of Vancouver,
Washington. My father homesteaded in Clark Count)". He was
an architect and builder. He built houses in Portland and Vancouver.
Father Wilbur married Mr. Goodwin and I at old Fort Simcoe. I
think every Indian on the reservation has a branding iron that my
husband made. My husband was a blacksmith and had a shop on this
ranch and one later at Union Gap or Yakima City. I belong to the
Christian Church organized by Isaac Flint.
I was born January 26, 1852, in Missouri. I was two months old
when my parents left my birthplace. My nationality is English-German
and French. I have four children. I have never voted but I will
register and vote for the Townsend plan.
When we first arrived in Washington Territory, our first house was
of logs with make-shift furniture. Mother sat in our one chair while
taking care of the babies. Transportation was by horseback and in
wagons. I learned Chinook when I was a child. The winter of 1861­
62 killed nearly all of our cattle. We had thirty-seven head left. When
we first came here, there was no church, and only five families, and our
only recreation was to get together at each other's homes on Sunday.
I was 84 years old in J anuarv.
• •
MRS. AMANDA ERlVIN
Walla Wana County
We raised the first wheat in the Prescott country. We raised wheat
•
and stock and my husband was a stock dealer there.
Poods and Fashions
My first stove was a "step-stove." There were three pairs of lids,
arranged in steps. My mother's furniture, made in Oregon, was all
home-made. I still have a chair made of Oregon maple, with rawhide
seat. I also have a chair made by Rev. Spaulding and the first rocking
chair brought to Prescott. J oshia Osborn, millwright at the Whitman
mission, who escaped with his family during the massacre, was
61