Told by the Pioneers - Washington Secretary of State

Told by the Pioneers
$55 per month in coin, or its equivalent in legal tender. The first
school house was on the Lewiston road where the John Rowe residence
recently burned. It was built of logs, with a rock fire-place in one end,
oiled paper for windows, and logs hewed flat on one side and with pegs
driven in the other side for legs, were the seats and writing desks.
Curious though it seems, the children appeared to learn about as
much as they do now under more favorable circumstances.
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In 1865 and '66 the real farmers and wheat growers began coming.
The BUlldys, McCauleys, Bramletts, Woods, Livingoods, Bald"ins,
and Stovall came here and settled in the Bundv district between Hog-
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eye and 'Whiskey creek, a section thereafter known as the solid south.
These people began to raise wheat, which they hauled to Wallula for
shipment down the river, and although prices were not high, they
seemed to prosper. Fifty cents per bushel was a good price in those
days after hauling it to Wallula.
The first saw mill in the country was built bv Mark Baker in 1864 on
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the Eckler mountain near the present VanLew house, and known as
the Baker & Baile~- saw mill. It was operated by Simon Critchfield,
and the houses began to change from the log cabin to the frame and
box house. The first lumber building, however, in the country, was a
barn built on my father's place in 1862, from whipsawed lumber. After
standing for 53 years it was torn down about a year ago. From
1865 to 1871 the settlement of the foot-hills was quite rapid. The hills
were not then considered as first-class land, but would with proper
care produce wheat.
Dennis Guernsey, )Iatt Riggs, Dan Kimball and others came in the
fall of 1871; O. C. White took charge of the district school, which had
been removed to the vicinity of the present warehouses, and in the
spring of 1872 the "Vaits, Matzgers, the elder Dr. Day and others beg'an
to come in, and Dayton sprung into existence. There the history
of the Touchet valley ends and that of Dayton should begin.
The early settlers were a very hospitable, friendly people, assisting
each other in every way, never letting a traveler go through without
entertaining him, and usually refusing any compensation. They visited
with each other, taking the whole family and staying for two or
three days at a time. The whole country from Coppei to the Tucanon
was one neighborhood. Country dances, usually held at the Buzzard
place, were very popular. Bill Montgomery sawed the fiddle and
J onathan BuzzaI'd hallooed "alamen left, and swing on the corner."
I can remember one dance in 1865, when some of the boys ribbed up
a fight between Frank Thompson and a man named Slocum, who was
running a small store and saloon at 1Iilton Mills, now Longs Station.
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