LETTERS OF JOHN R. TICE[1]
EDITED by J. F. SANTEE
Now and then comes a reminder that, not only are the men and women of the covered-wagon days almost gone, but their sons and daughters, also, are rapidly passing. A news-item in the Seattle Times of May 5, 1935, constitutes such a reminder:
Medford, Ore., Saturday, May 4.–Fred Tice, one of the last of the old-time stage coach drivers, died here at 79.
When he was 20, Tice was piloting the passenger stage from Yreka, Calif., to Oregon. He set a speed record by driving his coach forty-five miles in four and a half hours, an average of ten miles an hour, which was fast time.
His perilous job led him through many adventures, one of which was seeing his six-horse team swept away from him and drowned in flood waters that caught them.
The Fred Tice mentioned was the eldest son of John Repleyea Tice, an Oregon pioneer, whose existing letters make an interesting commentary on life in the far west in the early 1850's.
John R. Tice, a son of Jacob and Elisa Elder Tice, left his home at Covington, Indiana, in the spring of 1851, to make the overland trip to Oregon. Only nine years previously the first considerable body of immigrants set out for the Pacific northwest over the Oregon trail.
In 1851 John R. Tice was nineteen years old. Besides his parents, he left behind at Covington a married sister, Kate, and the younger children of the family, Ann, Fred and Lizzy. To these younger children he had a strong attachment, mentioning them frequently in his correspondence.
In September, 1851, Tice completed his journey. While in Milwaukie he wrote this letter to his sister Ann:
Dear Sister,
I received your letter the 2d of the month which pleased me
- ↑ These letters were made available through the courtesy of Mrs. Ira (Effie Frances) Phelps and her granddaughter, Miss Margaret Phelps, both of Lebanon, Oregon. Mrs. Phelps is one of John R. Tice's four surviving children, the others being Mrs. Nettie Clark, Mrs. Margaret Culver and Mrs. Hazel Robinson. With commendable pride Mrs. Phelps exhibits the powder horn which her father carried across the plains, and which is an heirloom from John Tice of New Jersey, a soldier of the American Revolution. Acknowledgments are also made to Mrs. Phelps for supplying certain information used in this paper.
