Told by the Pioneers - Washington Secretary of State

Told by the Pioneers
matches, 1,200 in a bunch, sold for 25c, and there was 12c revenue tax
on them. They always bore the stamp.
Our clothes were always well patched. Father's pants looked like
Jacob's coat was said to look-of manv colors. "Ve wore what were
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called jeans-pants, of a heavy cotton cloth.
Roads
We traveled by horseback, by stage, or walked. The stage coach
changed horses at Jackson's. They used four or six horses, depending
on the condition of the roads. There were never any hold-up on
this stage route. Sometimes the road ,vas too bad for the stage coach
to travel, so the passengers had to go by horseback. The roads were
sometimes terrible. The military road sounds good, but it was an
awful road really. Father said the men who built it looked for the
highest hills and went over them. Pumphrey's mountain was an awful
pull-only nine miles from Jackson's to Pumphrey's, but so steep
a change of horses was needed at the top. There was a saloon and a
hotel at Pumphrey's. Once a traveler going through stopped there
and saw some apples on a tree. He was hungry for some fruit so
asked to buy a dollar's worth of apples. ]\10st apples were worth
nothing then; everyone had trees and there was a big crop and people
did not can fruit as they do now. So the hotel man got boxes and
pails and started fixing up a dollar's worth for the fellow. 'When he
sawall he was getting he was surprised and said, "Oh, I only want a
few to eat."
Indim/ Stories
There were a good many Indians when we first came here. Indian
camps all along the river. About 150 Indians, I should say, around
here, and earlier there were more. They had split-cedar houses. The
first year I was here I played all summer with an Indian boy, Si-wayou,
by name. I knew some of the older Plamondon boys. They used
to work here in harvest time. Cheholz was another Indian who lived
here. He took a homestead but when he signed up he found he would
have to part with one of his two wives. He had added his brother's
wife to his household after the brother's death, which was according
to the Indian custom. He was very fond of both his wives and it was
heartbreaking to witness their separation. He kept his own old wife
and sent the younger woman to the reservation. She wept and carried
on terribly. They were clean Indians and the squaws helped the white
women with their housework. When we first came here the Indians
were all filthy. You could smell them long before you could see them.
They never bathed and so much smoke. After the whites came, they
cleaned up.
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