Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 37.djvu/164

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138
E. Ruth Rockwood

there. They seem to have lived in several places, finally settling in Princeton. He was a tailor and worked at his trade there, but was evidently becoming restless, and felt that the confinement was injuring his health. As early as 1846 he was getting interested in Oregon, as in the second letter, written from Princeton, October 15, he says: "Oh, I wish I was in Oregon ... I have not been out much lately, so I have got hold of no Oregon news. I heard yesterday that there was a man in this country that came from there last spring. If I can see him at any time I shall do so and learn from his mouth about the country. If you have any news from there, that I have not seen, just send it over this way.” By 1851 he was making definite plans to go, and in 1852 he started, reaching Oregon October 26 of that year. The family settled first in Milwaukie, then went to Portland for a short time, and finally to the country at the mouth of the Columbia. After living at Chinook and on Shoalwater Bay for a time, they went to Astoria and he took up a claim in 1854, a few miles east of that place, which he sold in the 1870s. Some of the time he ran a boarding house, sometimes worked at his trade, and at various periods held the offices of justice of the peace, county school superintendent, port inspector, county justice and deputy clerk.

Gaston, in his History of Oregon, says that he had nine children, seven of whom came to Oregon with him. Two had died earlier. Those coming to Oregon were:

Irving,[1] born about 1837; died 1885; Birney,[2] drowned 1868;

Esther,[3] born about 1841, married Hiram Brown, died 1901; Frances E.,[4] married first George Warren who died in 1875; she married second, Isaac W. Case. She died May 18, 1882; Mary E.,[5] born 1846, married 1872, G. W. Raymond. She died in Dec. 1930; Aurelia L.,[6] married Capt. H. A. Matthews; Benja-


  1. Oregonian, May 30, 1885.
  2. Gaston, already cited, II, 1052.
  3. Oregonian, May 1, 1901.
  4. Oregonian, May 20, 1882.
  5. Oregonian, December 14, 1930.
  6. Gaston, already cited, II, 1052.