Told by the Pioneers - Washington Secretary of State

Told
by the Pioneers
CHAS. H. ROSS
Pierce County
I have been requested to give a short account of my early experiences
and what Pioneering meant to me.
I was told by my parents, D. l\1. Ross and Eliza J. Ross, that we
started for Oregon from near Des ~loines, Iowa, in the spring of 1851,
making a ~,500 miles journey in less than six months, arriving in Portland
late in September of that year. We made the trip through valley,
over plain and mountain without serious accident. There were about
65 wagons in the train pulled by horses, cows and oxen.
Having first seen the light of day on top of the Blue Mountains near
Walla Walla, enroute, my extreme youth will palliate for my inability
to quote the market prices on any of the commodities other than Mellen's
food.
For the first few years it was my mother's duty to keep me growing,
pick splinters out of my feet and keep my ears clean. We spent
one winter in Portland, then we moved down on the Columbia near the
Cowlitz, where father took up his first claim. His first crop grown on
between two and three acres consisted of potatoes and onions, which
were sold at $3.00 per bushel, and shipped to California during the
gold excitement and netted him about $1,500.00.
The following year more land was cleared, and a larger crop was
planted but the June freshet, or high water, caused by the melting
snow, covered the ground and destroyed the crop, hence father became
discouraged and traded his place for one just across the river
near Rainier in the Valley owned by our late and early beloved Calvin
Barlow's father. This was about three miles back in the woods
from Rainier, Oregon. On the new Beaver Valley place we had but
one neighbor, no church, no school, no store, no doctor. No, not even
a stove to cook on.
Pioneering here meant going out to live alone in the tall timber, in
a log house, with a big open fireplace, where mother baked her" salt
Risin' " bread before the fire in a deep Dutch oven or skillet. This
skillet was heated by setting it in front of the fire on a bed of coals,
also coals were put on top of the lid. Oh, what nice flavored bread
it produced, rich, sweet and nutty.
Here is where father killed his first deer and elk; although but six
years of age, I recall seeing father slipping up on that deer, which was
feeding in the pasture not far from the house. By taking a cluster of
leafy bushes about five feet tall and carrying them in front of him till
he came within gunshot when he stepped behind a large stump, laid