munity opinion, as he says, exerted enough pressure so that he was left in peace.
Unable to take the land as a pre-emption claim after the British and American governments had arranged a settlement for the Hudson's Bay and Puget Sound Agricultural companies' claims, in 1871 Roberts and his wife moved to Cathlamet, a lower Columbia River landing where they had friends and relatives. There Roberts made his home, carrying on a mercantile business and once more taking part in public life. He was elected county probate judge, treasurer and deputy auditor. Rose Birnie Roberts died in 1880 and George B. Roberts in 1883, leaving only his son George and his family to survive him.[1] The April 3, 1883 Morning Oregonian reported Roberts' death, briefly noting the loss of one of the Northwest's "oldest and most respected pioneers … Mr. Roberts was a man of firm mind, well educated, and possessed a very retentive memory. He had met most of the early explorers to the coast and was thoroughly conversant with the early history of this country; a man of strict honesty and sterling integrity, his death is a great loss to the community in which he lived…"
George B. Roberts' Cowlitz Farm journal of 1847-51 and his 1878-83 letters to the historian Frances Fuller Victor present various aspects of his unique experience in the Pacific Northwest, separated in time of writing by thirty years. Those which take on a special tartness are some of the less emphasized fruits of "joint occupancy" of the Pacific Northwest by the resident and often disparately oriented pioneer representatives of Great Britain and the United
- ↑ Roberts' three children were all from his first marriage: Frances, a daughter born at Vancouver, May 10, 1848, died at Cowlitz, December 10, 1867; Emma, born at Cowlitz, March 15, 1850, married James T. Phillips on February 12, 1869, and died March 5, 1870; George, who survived his parents, was born late in 1844, married twice, had five living children in 1919, when he was living at Forest, Lewis County. The information on Frances and Emma is from the Pioneer Card File at OHS, and from Roberts' account book, 1878-83, which includes entries for his small estate. Edmond G. Meany's "Living Pioneers of Washington," in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, March 31, 1919, has information on George Roberts' son.
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