Told by the Pioneers - Washington Secretary of State

Told lJy the Pioneers
and go off in the woods.
doing.
He said he guessed Pat knew what he was
\Ve made twenty-fiye dollars, instead of three. I had been to Portland
and Tacoma and made arrangements to ship deer and birds both
ways. John and I made $255 the first thirty-fi\'e days we shipped to
Portland and Tacoma, and had to quit hunting on account of the market
being blocked.
I trapped for animals and worked out for wages to get things necesary
for my family. We worked hard and economized, going scantily
clad, and often hungry for want of food. We had quite a lot of sickness
in our family. ,Ve lost four of our children, and had hig doctor
bills to pay, besides losing lots of stock. I lost eight head of horses
in six years after we were married, and of cattle, I don't know how
many. The first sheep I bought were six ewes, and a coug'ar killed
four in one night. Latel' I traded a mule for thirty-five head of sheep.
In a short time the wolves killed twenty-eight of them. Mr. Domp
Newland told me if some of my neighbors had the stock I had lost they
"'ould think thev were rich.
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Now, this all happened in the first fifteen or twenty years after we
were married, and we were working like two beavers to get a start.
The hardest times we had were when I paid less than $]0 in taxes.
After I got to paying $100 and more, it was much easier getting along.
While I was in hops I did well. 'When Lewis County \n18 almost
bankrupt on hops, Mr. W. B. Coffman of Coffman-Dobson Company,
Chehalis, told me I was the only man in Lewis County that was ahead
on hops. I let my hops rot on the poles four years when til(' priec was
low. I put in the first hops and built the firt kiln in Lewis County,
and cultivated them fifteen years. Then I quit hops and w('nt into
cattle. I bought and sold cattle, and fattened beef. I wintered as
many as 97 head. I would put up about 140 tons of hay and feed it
out by hay time next year; together with a big lot of roots, ea \Tots,
20 tons; beets, 30 tons; turnips, 25 tons.
After I got my place opened up I kept about 130 head of sheep,.15 to
40 head of hogs. I have fattened 35 head of hogs at one time, slllpped
bacon to Portland, Oregon. I would fatten eight or ten beefs in the
fall. This was after I began to prosper.
I will now go back to when I was losing horses. I was proud of I?Y
team. One laid down and died. I would work around and get a lUce
team again, and one of them would die. I finally got me a nice matched
team. An Englishman came along and wanted one of my mares to
match one he had. He offered me five head of horses for my mare.
It was twice what my mare was worth. I would not trade. In less
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