Sketch from the Life of a Pioneer Minister
By REV. J. A. HANNA.
I MARRIED a handsome and accomplished young lady in the city of Pittsburg, Penn., at 6 o'clock a. m., and at 7 of the same day took the advice of Horace Greeley, "Go West, young man, go West." Having advertised for a company to go as a Presbyterian colony to Oregon, we rendezvoused in St. Joseph, Mo., and on the 5th day of May, 1852, we crossed the Missouri River and were on Indian territory. We journeyed continuously, except on the Sabbath day, which we observed religiously, for four and a half months, when we arrived in Oregon City September 20. Here we received our first mail from home. After a welcome rest we resumed our journey up the Willamette Valley, and located in Benton County, thanks to Uncle Sam, who gave us all a farm.
Now comes the home life. We obtained rough lumber at a sawmill ten miles distant and erected our little cottage on the prairie, where we lived without doors or windows for one year. By the fireplace, which, with the chimney, was made of mortar only, the good wife did all of her baking and cooking. But, you ask, what did you have to eat? Flour at $10 per hundred pounds, potatoes at $3 per bushel, beef 25 cents per pound, and butter $1 a pound. Sadder still, we had no money to buy with.
Owing to the generosity of the government in giving such large donation claims, neighbors were remote from each other, but they were kind and obliging. Earlier pioneers remembered that they, too, were pilgrims and strangers, and how much they enjoyed the kindness and assistance given them in time of need, and each newcomer soon learned how to show Western hospitality.
There were a great many old bachelors among the early settlers of the country. They were required to live on their claims to hold them. Lonely and disconsolate, they sighed for the joys and comforts of a real home. The married man could double his possessions, as the government gave the wife also, in her own name, one-half of a section of land. Hence on each fresh arrival of immigrants these anxious bachelors were on the lookout for a fair young lady to share their comforts and increase their possessions. Too often they married in haste and soon parted. And yet, as a rule, marriages were of the type that are made in heaven, each loving pair laboring diligently to build up a permanent and happy home.
We were a contented people, as we should be, holding such possessions in a goodly county, with a mild climate, rich and productive soil, conditions that never fail to produce crops sufficient to meet the demands of every industrious laborer.
Oregon Territory enjoyed the distinction of being a prohibition district.
