Then we traveled with a train and the Indians came around our wagons; some of them begged for food. One day when we sat down on the ground to eat our dinner about a dozen big red-faced fellows came and stood around with tomahawks in their hands. I did not want any dinner that day, but they went away peaceably, and we traveled on over good roads and through beautiful country upPlatte River and on and on and soon got used to seeing Indians. Sometimes they would follow our wagons and some one would throw a piece of bread out to them and they would run after the wagon and pick it up; then throw another piece, till they would look like little chickens after an old hen.Fuel was very scarce in that country. We had to burn sage brush, dead weeds, or anything we could get. Sometimes my husband would keep feeding the fire while I baked the flapjacks, as we called them.The men folks were all the time looking out for good grass and water for the stock, which they would herd on the grass till late at night, and than tie them to the wagon wheels. In the morning they would take them out again and herd them until starting time, which was pretty early, as we wanted to hurry through to Walla Walla. We gave our mules all the scraps we had left from our meals and they relished it very much and would hunt in the wagon for the dinner box and look and wait for their lunch.There were some mean people crossed the plains. There was a man and his wife and three grown daughters traveling in our train. One day when we lay over we heard a commotion, and looking toward a tent we saw a girl pitch out of it and a man's boot and foot up in the air. The girl said her papa kicked her out because she had forgotten to water the horses. One other time we had stopped to rest and I heard a woman cry and swear and pray, first one and then the other. I said to a friend, "Let us go and see if we can help her;" but she said "No; it is a woman with a very loathsome disease and the man that drives the team was kind to bring her out west." The man would cook a little food and hand it to her and then go away.Well, the people were not all bad; we found some very dear friends on our trip. I never will forget them. It was a trying trip on us all. We had some dangerous streams to cross. We would come to some that looked impossible to cross. We would stop and plan and try the depth in every way possible, and then block up the wagon bed to the top of the standard, then tie them fast to the wagon, then cautiously drive in almost holding our breath. We had four mules and the leaders were small. Sometimes we could not see much of them but their heads. Our little boy would laugh and enjoy the excitement, but I took many a cry when I thought of where we were taking him. We had started and must get through. I had about forgotten to mention the weather, which was very stormy. It rained and snowed and blew our wagon sheet off and everything we had got wet. Our flour got musty; we had to eat it; we could get no other.By this time we were getting pretty well up Platte River, and did not see many Indians, but were hearing a good deal about their committing depredations, and commenced to corral our wagons of nights. That was to drive in a circle, unhitch, then the men would pull them close together by hand, and after herding the stock would bring them in and tie to the outside wheels of the wagons for the night.One day our train came up to a corral of this kind and the women were sitting around crying and the men were standing in groups talking very earnestly, and not a hoof in sight. We soon learned their troubles. They had left their stock out a little way from the wagons to feed without any guards and the Indians had seen their opportunity and run between them and their stock andrun them off. What those poor people did we never learned. We had to travel on.One morning a few days after this sad scene we passed a train which had not started out yet, and came upon another sad scene. Two men had left their train in the evening and drove about a mile ahead, in order to get better grass for their horses. Just at dusk they were sitting on a log near their wagons when eight Indians came behind them and commenced shooting them with arrows. The men jumped for their guns, but before they reached their wagons the Indians had them both down. They left them for dead and then took the four horses and guns and ammunition and $800 in money and everything else they wanted out of the wagon, and left. But one poor fellow was not quite dead. After the Indians left he crawled a little way off in the brush and lay there till next morning. When we came along he crawled out and told us all about it. We stayed with him till his train came up, then helped him to bury his partner, and then went on. I was pretty homesick for a few days.We were getting into the mountains and the roads were bad, and so were the Indians. We were very cautious; two men stood guard every night, taking turns.The weather was getting warm and pleasant after all, and through all of our hardships we had some pleasant and amusing things happen. There was a good many jack rabbits along the road. We had a rabbit pot-pie pretty often. One day about a half-dozen men got after a rabbit and were running past our wagon and shooting with their pistols. My husband was walking by our wagon and said, "Hand me the shotgun," and I handed it to him. He shot and brought down the rabbit, then gave it to me. That ended the race and raised a laugh.Once in every two days we would stop a day and rest, lay over, we called it, to do our washing. We would take a bucket and camp kettle and go to the creek; that was all the utensils we had to wash with. When the clothes were dry they were ready to put on—no ironing on that trip. We saw irons, tubs, washboards, and a good many other things that people had thrown out of their wagons because their teams were giving out. We did not dare to pick them up and haul them for fear our own teams would give out. I knew one woman that had a cook stove in her wagon and she was so anxious to bring it through that she would get out and push on the wagon when it was going up hill, but she had to give it up and set it out and go on without it. We were beginning to find out how dependent we were on our teams.Before we left home our neighbors and friends gave me a lot of nice pieces and helped me make a keepsake quilt. I prized it very highly. One day, I put it out to sun and some fire blew on it and burned it up. Then I shed a few tears. Much as we needed everything we had we would lose and leave our things at the camps. We lost our axe and coffee pot and our comb. Then we tried to borrow a comb, but found out there were but few in the train. So we women got together and had our hair cut off. Then we were called the short-haired train.The health of our train was pretty good. Sometimes a family would get very sick from eating too many wild weeds they would gather and cook for greens so as to have a change, as variety of wood was getting scarce.We brought a keg of sorghum syrup with us, and would have had plenty to last through, but one day our little boy was missing, and looking in the wagon wesaw him. He had found the matches and was just putting the last bunch in the syrup keg, so we had to do without sorghum.One night we stopped near an old fort where some men were staying. So I felt pretty safe, but before morning we found out they were worse than Indians, for they had whiskey to sell and some of the men in our train got some whiskey and got drunk, then fought and quarreled all night. Next morning when a few wagons were ready to start the men that had been drunk were asleep. Another train came along and we drove on with them. It seemed a trip where every one had to look out for self. We did not dare to stop long to help the unfortunate or we would not get through ourselves. We did not start out to die on the plains. We passed many a new made grave.At this time it was as disagreeably hot as it had been cold on the start. One time we tried traveling at night to avoid the extreme heat, but that would not do.I have not given many dates, as I have forgotten most of them. Am writing this mostly for my children and grandchildren to read and want it to be as near true as I can remember.We learned that the main thing on that trip was to keep on moving. As we got near and into the mountains the weather got cool and pleasant. But, oh, such mountains and roads, sometimes they would seem almost perpendicular, but we would climb and get up most all out of the wagon walking, then slide down on the other side, then up, then down, and soon day after day some of the mountains seemed almost solid rock.One day we came to a beautiful little stream. Someone that was walking dipped up a cup of water and said, "Will you have a drink?" I took the cup. Imagine my surprise when it almost burned my lips. Those were the first hot springs we had ever seen. Then we came to a place that looked like it was covered with ice and frost, but it proved to be salt. We picked up some pieces and used it for cooking.We began to hear more rumors about the Indians and could see signs of their mischief. So we corralled our wagons very carefully and went to bed and were sleeping soundly when all of a sudden we were awakened with hearing screaming and very rapid shooting. I jumped out of bed and said, "The Indians have attacked us." My husband got up and said, "I will go and see what the trouble is." Then I got all of the guns and ammunition to the front of the wagon ready for battle, and was piling the sacks of flour and bacon around our little boy, who was yet asleep, when my husband came back and said it was coyotes yelping and the guards were shooting at them. So we went to bed again and were soon asleep. That was one thing we could enjoy on that trip.Well, we finally got over the Rocky Mountains. You need not be surprised if I tell you that our shoes were getting thin and pretty badly worn. We did not start with an over supply and our clothes were wearing out fast and we were looking pretty rough and sunburnt.We came to some more deep rivers and had to block up our wagon beds so we could cross. Then we came to a country infested with crickets. I never saw anything like it; they were almost as big as a mouse and could chirp and jump in such big bands. Our mules shied at them. Well, we were glad to get out of that country.One day looking ahead in the distance we saw something coming that lookedlike covered wagons, but as it drew near we could see it was actually coming the other way toward us, something we had not seen for hundreds, yes, thousands of miles. Well, they came on and passed us. It was a pack train, wonderful sight for us. They frightened our teams in their weak and half-dead condition. Then someone said those were cowboys.Then we came to where some men camped. They were excited over losing a lot of mules and horses. They were driving a band out west. The Indians had stampeded them and run a lot of them away. We saw several dead horses which the men had ridden to death trying to get the band together again. We traveled on and came to some timbered mountains. Now we could have plenty of wood to cook with. It was a treat to have plenty of wood and water at the same time.One evening after we had corralled our wagons and the guards had taken the teams out to grass one of the men came running back and said, "Get your guns quick; there is a drove of elk right among our stock." The men hurried out with their guns, fired, and brought down two big elks and dragged them into camp. I remember it so well, they looked so much like one of our little mules. The men skinned them and cut them up and then decided that my husband had fired the most fatal shot; so we had first choice piece. The meat was fine.We came to a desolate looking place. It was in a deep canyon and we had to stop over night. There were some old bleached bones and a lot of tangled hair. Someone said it was human hair and bones and that the Indians had massacred a train and their bodies had never been buried. We did not know how much of that was true, but at that time we could believe almost anything. After all, our Indian troubles were mostly scares, but as the old saying is, you had as well kill a person as scare him to death.By this time we came to some more awful hills to come down. We all got out of wagons and the men tied ropes to the hind wheels and held back while the teams and people slid down. Well, we all got down and went on our way rejoicing, and finally got into some pretty country and laid over to let our teams rest, and do our washing.That day I took a stroll down by the creek and saw a big fish lying in some shallow water in a little island. I very cautiously slipped around between it and the main creek and put my hands under it and threw it out on land. Then I wrapped my apron around it and went carrying it into camp. It was alive and weighed about eight pounds. We would not eat it for fear it might be sick, but some of the boys wanted it, so I gave it to them. They cooked it and ate it and said it was very good. Next morning we hitched up and traveled on.The weather was pleasant and we began to see signs of civilization and met another pack train which was loaded with flour, bacon, whisky, and tobacco. I should not have said signs of civilization. But we saw better things further on. Some of our people tried to buy some provisions of them, but they would not sell; said they were taking them to the mines and expected to get a dollar a pound for what they had. Our money was pretty scarce and what we had was greenbacks and only worth fifty cents on the dollar out West.Then we came to a little garden and a cabin back in the brush. We could see the green lettuce and onions through the fence. Some of our boys said they would make a raid on that garden, but when they got on the fence they saw a treeon the other side and a man hanging by the neck from a limb of that tree. Then they said, "We don't want any garden sass." We learned later that it was only a paddy stuffed with straw. Our provisions were getting scarce and our teams were getting weaker, and we very anxious to get through.We finally arrived in the Grande Ronde Valley and then we spent the last cent we had to buy a beef bone and some fresh vegetables. Then all got together and made a big dinner. All sat down and ate together. After dinner we all shook hands and said good-bye. Then each one went his own way.We started to cross the Blue Mountains and one of our mules got sick. We had urged him too much. He seemed to be asleep on his feet, held his eyes shut, and wanted to pull all the time. Well, he pulled through. I had almost learned to love those mules, they had been so faithful.We arrived in Walla Walla, Wash., footsore and weary, in just three months from the day we started.When we arrived in this beautiful little valley without a dollar and scarcely any clothing and no provisions we had a pretty hard time. Now, when a family gets their house and everything they have, burned, the people around get together and help them, and it is right they should in this land of plenty; and when a criminal leaves the penitentiary they give him a suit of clothes and some money. But there was no help for the green immigrants, as we were called, and I suppose we were, at least in some respects.We did not understand the western slang and Indian talk that we heard so much. It was something like this. A man that had been out West about five years was eating dinner with us, said, "That is hiu mucka muck." He was referring to something on the table. We asked him if he liked this country. He said, "You bet your life!" We said, "Why do so many men out West wear revolvers on their belts and big knives in their boot legs?" He said, "It is necessary to keep order; we have a man for breakfast quite often."Then we would hear the remark, lots of men out West are made to bite the dust with their boots on; and then, you sabba, or savvy, and many such expressions. Well, we finally got initiated. And the people were very kind to us. We never saw a time when we appreciated our neighbors so much. They were friends in need and in deed.This country was covered with bunch-grass, flowers, Indians, coyotes, and grasshoppers. A few white people were living along the creeks in little huts. Some were growing a little wheat and others small grain and gardens. Everything was very high priced. Wheat sold for a dollar and a half a bushel. There was scarcely any fruit to be had at any price. When I go through this beautiful valley, now a little less than forty years after, and see wagon loads of delicious fruit going to waste it makes me think of those times.Well, we went to work; had to rustle, kept at it from early morn till late at night. But we would jump from one thing to another. There seemed to be too many chances. First we would settle on one piece of land, then on another. There were thousands and thousands of acres of good unclaimed land all about us, but people thought none but the sloughs would grow anything. After two or three years of changing about we finally bought eighty acres of land and settled down. Paid eight hundred dollars for it. We gave thirty dollars, a horse,and our only cow to make the first payment. At this time we had two children in our family.Before we had any wheat to sell it came down to fifty cents per bushel. The country up to this time had been settled mostly by men; only some of them had Indian women for wives. The families that settled this country first were nearly all new married people and a baby came to almost every home in less than two years for a dozen years or more.One day I went to visit a dear neighbor and I was complaining of hard times and she said, "We have been living on boiled wheat for several days." I believe there were a good many others doing the same thing. Those hard times seemed to bind neighbors close together. Three or four of us would get together and go two or three miles to get some wild gooseberries and elderberries and red haws and fix them up for fruit. They were pretty good when there was nothing better.I will now mention some of the Indian scares that we had to endure. We had been warned by the newspapers to look out for the Indians, as they were on the war path and had murdered some of the white settlers and had mangled them terribly. So one Sunday the people were holding meeting on Mill Creek in a little school house when a little girl came running in, crying, and said, "The Indians are killing my mama and papa." Some of the men hurried to the house, which was about a mile away, and the young boy preacher got on a horse and away he went as fast as his horse could go to warn the people at their homes that the Indians had broken out. He stopped at our house and asked for a fresh horse, as his was about run down. We did not have any, so he went rushing on and stopping at every house to give the alarm. My husband and several of the neighbor men had gone from home that day. Imagine the scene. We were running from one house to another; each one of us had three or four little children. After about a dozen of us got together we decided to go to a log cabin that was near and wait for the Indians to come. There was one man in the cabin and he was getting ready to shoot out through the cracks between the logs. When a man came from the seat of war and said no one is seriously hurt, it was a drunken row and only one Indian was killed, we all went home and the boy preacher got over his scare and has been long since a good and noted preacher. And the Indian that was supposed to be dead came to life again. Some of the men took him to town and had a trial and the jury sentenced him to wash his face. Well, this is one of the many such scares as some others can remember that are yet living.I will relate one more incident. At this time there was a saw mill at the head of Mill Creek and there were several families living at the mill. The men had built a fort for the women and children in case the Indians should attack them. One day some men who lived in the valley took their teams and wagons and started to go to the mill, but when they got in the mountains they saw a band of Indians coming down the trail beyond the mill. The men at once stopped, unhitched from their wagons, and jumped on their horses and used the tugs for whips and came down the mountains on double quick and reported to all the people along the road what they had seen, and the people were soon leaving their cabins and running for the brush. And those at the mill saw the Indians coming and they went running to the fort. Some one relating the scene said the men could run faster than the women and children and got into the fort first. Well, theIndians came and were friendly and very much surprised when they saw the people running and said they had been back in the mountains hunting and fishing and did not know that there was any war going on.The health of a people in a new country is usually good, but we would sometimes get sick. Would hardly dare think of sending for a doctor. There was no money to pay one and there could hardly be one found. But there was a woman who lived in our neighborhood that had a good doctor book. It was Doctor Gunn's work. She went by it in her own family, and the neighbors sent for her. She would take her doctor book under her arm and go to visit the sick. Then they would read and study together and use the simple remedies prescribed in that book and get along pretty well. In that way she got into quite a large practice. She often rode a little blue pony. People would sometimes make the remark, "I think there is someone sick at a certain house. I see the blue pony tied at the gate."This woman officiated where more than a hundred babies were born. She was very successful, never lost a mother or child while she was taking care of them. She most always went back every day for a week to see the patient and wash and dress the baby. And most of the time she had one of her own to take with her. She made no charges, as she did not have any license. But she received a good many presents, and is sometimes yet pleasantly reminded of by-gone days. Just a few days ago she received a photo of five large, stalwart men and a letter from their mother saying these are pictures of your boys; see how they have grown. Then another time a picture came from a distance of two large twin boys and a girl and word saying, see how your boys have grown.I have not made mention of any names in this sketch, thinking it would be just as interesting without.Well, I must get back to my pioneer days that I started to write about. Schools and churches were scarce. One woman taught a school in her home of two rooms. She had about a dozen scholars. About one-third of them were part Indian children. As I said before, some of the men that came out West first came alone and took Indian women for wives. People called them squaw men. We remember another woman that taught school in her home of one room. At noon when the children were out playing she would cook dinner and the family would eat, then she would take up her school again.We would sometimes go three or four miles to church in a home of one room where three or four persons lived. The preacher would stand up in the corner between the table and fireplace and preach, while the congregation sat around on the beds and benches and boxes. Every corner would be full. Many a one received a blessing in those humble meetings. But we did not have to do that way very long. People with such energy soon built school houses and churches.Building material was hard to get. When one man worked for or sold another man anything he would often pay him in gold dust. They used that a great deal. We would take our little sack of gold dust and go to town to buy things, and the merchants would weigh and blow and spill it till we would not have much left. I said go to town; there was not much town to go to. It was not like the town the little boy said he could not see for the houses. One would hardly know it was a town by the houses. At that time there was about a dozen, mostly business houses, scattered around in Walla Walla.Mrs. Brewster Ferrel.Equally characteristic of the first days is the narration of the "first boy in Walla Walla." This was Charles W. Clark. One of the honored citizens of Walla Walla, he was doubtless "the first boy to ride down Main Street," as he expressed it. Through his kindness we are able to present here some scenes from his memory of the first days in the history of Walla Walla.RECOLLECTIONS OF THE FIRST BOY IN WALLA WALLAI was born on August 29, 1846, in Oregon, on my father's claim near LaFayette, Yamhill County, from which the family was taken to Oregon City and thence to Portland.Needless to say, Portland was then a raw, crude town on the edge of the Willamette River, with no business places except on Front and First streets.In 1855 my father, Ransom Clark, left home for Colville mines. On his way home to Portland he selected the place on the Yellowhawk, since known from his name, ran out the lines with a pocket compass, for there was no Government survey. The place was nearly in a square and extended from about where the road just east of Harry Reynolds' house now is to the present Whitney Road.My father was on the place in 1855 when the Indian war broke out, and he, like all the other settlers—few in number, of course—was ordered by the United States commandant to leave the country.That war prevented my father's making proof on the claim, but the Government ruled that since the settlers had been obliged to leave on account of war, they should not lose their time, but could resume possession and continue to prepare for making final proof.We lived in Portland until 1859, when announcement was made that Indian disturbances were at an end. In the fall of 1858 father had returned to the claim. With the coming of winter he went back to Portland, but on March 1, 1859, he went back again to Walla Walla, taking me with him. I was then twelve years old, a strong, active boy, and accustomed to all sorts of work and capable of being of much assistance to my father in starting the place.We came from Portland with a team and wagon, putting them on the steamer at Portland and going as far as The Dalles; thence driving to Walla Walla. Mother was left alone in Portland with my brother Will, then two years old.We had quite a lot of apple and peach trees which we obtained at the Tibbetts and Luelling nurseries, near Oregon City. I can tell you the Walla Walla Valley looked beautiful in those early spring days. It was just a waving sea of new grass, green all over without a fence or anything to obstruct riding anywhere that we might wish.We reached our claim on March 28th. So far as I remember there was not another white boy in the whole valley, except at the fort, or whose parents were employed at the fort. Some of the army officers had children, but I hardly ever saw them. I had no playmates except the Indian children, and they were very friendly. There were no women, that is, no white women outside the fort, unless two or three transients. There were several Indian women married to white men, former Hudson's Bay men, down the valley at Frenchtown and elsewhere.When we reached the claim we discovered that "Curly" Drumheller and Samuel Johnson had done some plowing on the south edge of our place, fromthe spring branch to Russell Creek. We sowed it with oats and there was a good crop, which we threshed out with flails in the fall. We set out some of our fruit trees on the flat just southeast of where Harry Reynolds' house now is. Those were, I am sure, the first trees ever brought to Walla Walla, that is, after those that had been raised from seed by Doctor Whitman at Waiilatpu. John Foster bought the trees which were set on his place from our lot. The bill for those trees from Seth Luelling is still in possession of my brother Will.After remaining six weeks my father returned to Portland to get my mother and brother. I was left to keep the place, in company with Robert Horton. We had nothing but a tent for a house, but we managed to get along very comfortably. My main work was to cook. I helped plow on John Foster's place to help pay for the logs which Foster had gotten out that spring or summer for making our cabin. On Sundays and sometimes on other days I would go to "town," which was just a mongrel collection of shacks and tents, with a confused mass of settlers, Indians and soldiers straying through. The chief amusement was horse racing and gambling. There was a straightaway track where the cemetery now is and another just about through where the chief part of town now lies. The first circular track was laid out by George Porter about three miles down the valley, running around the peculiar hill on the Sam Smith place, afterward the Tom Lyons place.The saloon business was very active then and every species of vice flourished. There was a man named Ed Leach who had come with father and me from The Dalles, who had afterwards drifted around town.One day I was near the saloon owned by W. A. Ball, and I saw that there had just been something going on, for there was a bunch of men standing around talking excitedly.Ed Leach was there, and seeing me he pulled me over to a place where I saw blood on the ground, and he said, pointing out the puddle of blood, "There, Charlie, is where I got him." He had just killed a man.Nothing was done about it, so far as I know.W. A. Ball was uncle of my wife, and one of the first business men in Walla Walla. He was the one especially who insisted on giving the name of Walla Walla to the town. Some wanted to call it Waiilatpu, while some favored Steptoeville.One day while in town a man called to me saying that he had heard it rumored that my father was dead. I paid no attention to this, for I had heard from him a few days before, that he had safely reached home, was getting ready to return, and that everything was well. There were no mails at that time and the only way to get messages was through the army or by stray travelers. It would take a week or two to hear anything from Portland.But though I paid no attention to the rumor it proved a sad reality. That very day after I had returned to the tent which I called home, my mother's brother, Uncle Billy Millican, who is still living in Walla Walla, appeared and told me that it was only too true, that my father had been taken suddenly sick and had died a number of days before, and that my mother was even then on her way to Walla Walla.The next day she came, having come on the Steamer Colonel Wright, of which Lew White was captain, on her second or third trip from The Dalles toWallula. From that place she came with Capt. F. F. Dent in an army ambulance to Walla Walla. That Captain Dent, by the way, was a brother-in-law of General Grant.As you can imagine it was a sad, hard journey for a woman who had just been made a widow, and who was soon to be again a mother.It shows something of the nerve and heroism of pioneer women that they could go through such experiences. My mother had been strongly advised to give up her claim. A man had offered her $300.00 for it, and Judge Shattuck, one of the leading lawyers of Portland, urged her to take it, assuring her that it would be the most that she could ever get out of it. But father had been greatly impressed with the prospective value of the place and the prospects of the town, and my mother had been so much impressed with his views that she determined to hold the claim.Accordingly, after spending two weeks with me she returned to Portland. I spent that summer, sometimes a very lonesome one, in the tent, or hoeing the garden which he had put out, and in September Robert Horton and Uncle Billy Millican put up a cabin from the logs.The cabin was put on the present location of Harry Reynolds' house. It was moved from there a few feet many years ago, and put on a good foundation, so that it is now just about as sound as ever. It is undoubtedly the oldest house now existing in the Inland Empire, in which a white woman lived. My mother was about the first white woman in this region, after the missionary period.My mother came back to Walla Walla in October of that same year, 1859, with her newly born child, then six weeks old, to live the remainder of her life in Walla Walla.During those early years the valley seemed to be filled with Indians, but they were very kindly and well disposed, and we had no trouble with them, even though a good part of the time we were alone, mother and the baby and the little boy and myself as the nearest a man about the place. We had plenty of horses and cattle and chickens and garden and had an abundance of the necessities, though no elegancies.There were two principal Indian chiefs, and they, with their squaws and children were often around the house. They were fine Indians. Yellowhawk was one of them, and his location was on the creek named after him, on what is now the Billy Russell place near the Braden schoolhouse. The other was Tintimitsy. His location was on what became the J. H. Abbott place.As I remember the old town in 1860, there were several shack stores. One was that of Neil McClinchy, on what would now be between Third and Fourth streets.Baldwin Brothers were about between Second and Third. Frank Worden was located just about where the Third National Bank now is. Guichard and Kohlhauff had a store on the same corner where the White House Clothing Store now is. John F. Abbott had a stable right in what is now Second Street, just about what would be between the Jaycox Store and the Jones Building. There was no order or system to the streets for many years, and, as we know, they are very irregular now, having followed convenient trails or breakings through the cottonwoods and birches which grew on the creek.The creek at that time ran right on the top of the ground and in high waterran out in many places. Quite a stream at high water ran through just about where Senator Ankeny's house is, over through the present high school grounds and thence joining Garrison Creek.During the long, cold nights of winter in 1860-61 we lived alone in our cabin. Mother and I would grind our flour in the big coffee-mill. One regular job we had, and often we were up till midnight working at it, and that was to make sacks for the flour-mill which A. H. Reynolds, in partnership with J. A. Sims and Capt. F. F. Dent, put up in 1859 on what is now the Whitney place.But my mother was anxious that I should have some schooling, and having become married to Mr. Reynolds, she sent me to Portland Academy for two years, and two years more to LaFayette where I lived with my grandparents.When I returned in 1865 I was a man. Walla Walla was growing. That was right in the midst of the mining times and the Vigilantes, when they had "a man for breakfast" nearly every morning. It was a wild, exciting time, but through it all Walla Walla has grown to be the beautiful city of which we are now so proud.We have devoted considerable space in the early part of this volume to Indians and Indian wars. The narrative of W. W. Walter gave a view of the Cayuse war from the standpoint of a participant. Other wars with the natives followed. The most spectacular and in many ways most remarkable of all was that of 1877, with the Joseph band of Nez Percés.We incorporate here an account of the personal experiences of W. S. Clark, one of the leading pioneers of Walla Walla, and one of the best informed students of early history.THE NEZ PERCÉ WAROn the morning of June 19, 1877, a courier reached the City of Walla Walla bringing the sad news of the engagement on Camas Prairie between the Nez Percé Indians and Colonel Perry's troop of cavalry in which one-half of Perry's troop had been killed. The news caused a great deal of excitement. Word also came that the citizens of Lewiston were in danger of a raid by the Indians and that the settlers were pouring into town from all sides and help was much needed.Thomas P. Page, county auditor of Walla Walla County, started to work raising a volunteer company. At 1 o'clock in the afternoon a meeting was called at the courthouse where the facts were presented and resolutions were passed promising aid to the people of the Lewiston District. One hundred names were soon down on the roll and all who could get horses were to start that night. The quartermaster at the fort here gave us rifles and sixty rounds of cartridges apiece. At 6 o'clock that evening the following party left Walla Walla en route to Lewiston: A. Reeves Ayres, John Agu, Ike Abbott, A. L. Bird, Chas. Blewett, W. S. Clark, Lane Gilliam, H. E. Holmes, Albert Hall, Jake Holbrook, Frank Jackson, John Keeney, J. H. Lister, Henry Lacy, Wm. McKearn:, S. H. Maxon, Aleck O'Dell, C. S. Robinson, J. S. Stott, Ben Scott, Albert Small, Frank Waldrip, T. P. Page, L. K. Grimm and J. F. McLean.We arrived at Dayton at 1 o'clock that night, and put our horses in the livery stable and ourselves to sleep in the hay-mow overhead. Next morning we breakfastedat the hotel. A. R. Ayers, H. E. Holmes and Tom Beall were missing. We traveled to Marengo where a short stop was made and the troops under Colonel Whipple came up. The volunteers took the Indian trails across the hills and the regular troops followed the wagon road. We stopped two hours on the Pataha and then traveled on to Dan Favor's ranch which was about fifteen miles this side of Lewiston, where we went into camp. Here we waited about three hours for supper, there being some misunderstanding as to the getting of the meal. When the troops came up they camped at the same place.On the morning of the 21st, after paying our bills, we traveled on to Lewiston. Leaving our horses on this side of the river, we crossed over to the town where we met Major Spurgeon, the commander at that place, who gave us to understand that the settlers nearby were in no immediate danger and told us that, if we cared to go on into the Indian country, we could be of service, but would have to be under the command of the regular military authorities.We re-crossed the river to our horses and, after dinner, signed our names to report to General Howard for eight days of service. We then elected our officers as follows: T. P. Page, captain, L. K. Grimm, lieutenant, and John F. McLean, sergeant. Then we again crossed over to Lewiston, this time with our outfits, and were regularly mustered in for eight days of service. Up to this time, Ayres, Holmes and Beall had not caught up with us. Some thought that they had backed out and gone home, others thought that they would yet come up.Major Spurgeon directed us to Fort Lapwai to report to General Howard, where we arrived at 6 o'clock in the evening. Here we had supper, after drawing on the post commissary for rations. It rained on us all that night. The morning of the 22d we spent in repairing and fixing up our outfits. At 1 o'clock we were again on the march as General Howard's guard, the troops going in advance. There were three companies of infantry, two companies of cavalry, one company of artillery and one company of volunteers.As we were starting off from camp that afternoon we were surprised as well as pleased to see Doc Ayers, Doc Holmes and Ike Abbott coming up. They were forgiven for their delinquency when we learned that they had gotten lost, being led astray by Beall whose horse gave out and who then gave up the expedition and went back home. They joined us in the march without waiting to secure any dinner. While we were going up Craig Mountain Ike Abbott's horse got away from him and he did not catch him until several hours later. On the evening of the 22d we made camp on Craig Mountain, putting our horses out with those of the regular troops, and Sergeant McLean detailed J. H. Lister, Frank Waldrip and myself to be on guard the first part of the night and Lane Gilliam, A. L. Bird and Frank Jackson for the latter part. This was our first guard duty and I thought that upon me rested the entire burden of herding those 300 head of horses.On Saturday, June 23d, we started early and traveled along the mountain until after noon when we reached the great Camas Prairie. I was very much surprised at the extent and richness of this prairie on any part of which, it was claimed, timothy hay would grow. We passed the place where our former citizen, Lew Day, was first attacked by the Indians and later came to Ben Norton's place on Cottonwood where we camped. Owing to the fact that we were in advance of the command, Captain Page put a guard on the house andbarn. He placed Henry Lacy as guard over the barn and, after the command came up, Captain Wilkinson started to enter the barn and Henry stopped him. The captain told Henry who he was. Still this did no good and the captain turned and went away. Henry Lacy and Charley Blewett were the youngest members of the company.The following morning Aleck O'Dell, Lane Gilliam, Al Hall, Jake Holbrook, Ben Scott, Ike Abbott, Wm. McKearn and I got up early and started for Mount Idaho, nineteen miles distant. We passed the place where Norton and his family, John Moore and Miss Bowers had been overtaken by the Indians, also the place where a load of goods for Mount Idaho had been captured by the Indians. We passed through Grangeville and went on to Mount Idaho, arriving there at about 12 o'clock. We hitched our horses to the fence of a man by the name of Aram (?) who gave them some hay. Mr. Brown at the hotel told us that dinner would be at 4 o'clock. We told him that we were hungry and could not wait. He wasn't long in getting us something to eat.During our stay here O'Dell and one or two others had their horses shod. I went into Volmer's store and wrote a letter home. Mr. Scott, the manager of the store, showed us many courtesies. Both he and Mr. Volmer had formerly lived in Walla Walla. Mr. Scott said that all the people in that district who could were preparing to leave for the Salmon River. Mr. Aram (?) invited us all in to dinner, which invitation we gladly accepted.Here we secured the following information with regard to the depredations of the Indians. Joseph's band from the Wallowa and the Salmon River Indians under White Bird had been camped on Rocky Canyon, eight miles from Mount Idaho. The Indians attacked on Thursday, June 14th. The settlers on White Bird suffered severely. Jack Manuel was living there with his wife and baby. The baby was killed and Mrs. Manuel, after being horribly mistreated, was locked up in a room of their house and then the house was burned to the ground. James Baker, who lived about a mile below Manuel's place on White Bird, was killed. Samuel Benedict was killed but his wife and little girl escaped and came safely into town. H. C. Brown was shot in the shoulder but escaped in a boat and was later found by the cavalry. Harry Mason was killed but his sister escaped in the brush. William Osborn was also killed. Those killed on John Day's Creek were Henry Elfreys and his nephew, Robert Bland, Dick Divine, and two Frenchmen. The Elfreys were killed by the Indians with their own guns which had been secured while the settlers were at work in the field.The settlers on Camas Prairie shared a similar fate. According to Mr. Scott, Lew Day left Mount Idaho to place the settlers on the prairie on guard and to give notice to the troops at Lapwai. The Indians overtook him about two miles beyond Norton's house. They immediately fired on him, hitting him twice in the back. Lew turned and went back to Norton's place where he found Norton and his family getting ready to go to Mount Idaho.Norton, with his wife and boy, Joseph Moore, Miss Bowers, Mr. and Mrs. Chamberlain and their child and Lew Day all got into the wagon and started for town, the Indians following and firing on them. Four miles the other side of Grangeville the Indians succeeded in killing the horses and they were forced to abandon the wagon. Hill Norton and Miss Bowers made their escape and came into Grangeville, bringing the first information of the attack. Norton was killed,Joseph Moore was hit twice, Mrs. Norton was shot through both legs, Mr. Chamberlain and their child were killed, the child's head being split open with a hatchet, and Mrs. Chamberlain was shot in the breast with an arrow. Theodore Schwartz, another settler, was wounded.At 6 o'clock that evening we started back to camp and arrived there at 9 o'clock. On Monday, June 25th, we left our camp on the Cottonwood and continued our march to Johnson's camp or ranch, where we again made camp. On the road we passed the place where, before the outbreak, about one hundred lodges of Indians had been set at the lakes, on the rocks, in the canyons and on the prairie. Also we passed over the ground of Colonel Perry's retreat. Captain Page picked up some twenty cartridge shells within a distance of fifty yards. At Johnson's we were given a camping ground to the right of the main column, about half a mile from wood and water. The boys were dissatisfied and we secured permission to camp within the enclosure at Johnson's house. H. E. Holmes, Ike Abbott and C. S. Robinson were put on guard.After breakfast on Tuesday morning, June 26th, we left camp to reconnoiter. We were in advance of the command that day. In our reconnoitering we came across the body of a dead soldier about two miles from camp. We were compelled to rest at times to allow the infantry an opportunity to dig trenches which we might use in case of need. About 12 o'clock we reached the summit looking down on White Bird Creek. During the morning's ride most of the soldiers killed in Colonel Perry's fight with the Indians were buried. For several miles we kept coming upon their dead bodies.In the afternoon, with Chapman as guide, we rode along the top of the divide between Salmon River and White Bird. It was rough and tiresome riding. We saw fresh tracks and Chapman told us that we were liable to meet Indians at any time. Soon we discovered three Indian scouts across the river and shortly after that we discovered the whole band moving farther up the mountain. We fired a number of shots toward them but they were too far away and we were only wasting our cartridges.We then left the ridge and went down on the bottom at Manuel's on White Bird. We went inside the gate and looked at the remains of the buildings which the Indians had burned. A few of the volunteers strayed down to the creek and what was their surprise to see, sitting in a little shed which the Indians had spared, a white man whom we all soon found to be Jack Manuel, and whom we had previously reported as among the killed. He had been wounded in the back of the neck by an arrow and had also been shot in the hips.Our next task was to get Manuel out and away to safety. We soon fixed a pole in a broken buggy that was standing near and by fastening what spare ropes we had to the buggy and to the pommels of our saddles we succeeded in getting him away. Finding that we were not making headway fast enough, our captain sent to Captain Miller for two pack mules which were soon at hand. Then, making the pole into shafts, we soon arrived at camp where we turned Mr. Manuel over to his friends, who were to care for his wounds and take him to Mount Idaho the following day. It had rained all that day and we had had a hard day's work.On June 27th we broke camp and marched to White Bird, the soldiers burying the dead soldiers we found which they had not had time to bury the precedingday. It was there on the White Bird side of the divide that the terrible battle had taken place. That night we camped within a short distance of the Salmon River which we expected to cross the following day. It seemed likely that, on crossing the river, we would have a fight with the Indians for we could see them for hours that afternoon riding their horses about and swinging themselves from side to side in all kinds of capers.After we had made camp we received instructions to escort the pack train back to Lewiston where they were going for supplies. On reaching Lewiston the eight days for which we had engaged were up and, believing that the army of General Howard was fully able to conquer Chief Joseph and his braves, we returned to our homes.On the afternoon after our return came word of the ambushing of Lieutenant Rains and a dozen volunteers and regulars, and the killing of Blewett and Foster near Cottonwood. The troops there had known that the Indians were in the vicinity and the lieutenant called for volunteers to go and hunt for Blewett and Foster, who had gone out earlier in the day and had failed to return as they had been ordered to do. The lieutenant and his men had not been gone long before a volley was heard and, on other troops tracing them up, they found that they had all been killed from ambush at the one volley. Foster had been killed earlier in the day near the road at the entrance to the prairie. Blewett had been killed a little later, around the mountain, undoubtedly after a run for his life.This Charley Blewett was my next-door neighbor and had been for ten years prior to his death. We were students together at the school in district number one and also at Whitman Seminary. We had all regretted very much leaving Charley but he wanted to stay and Colonel Whipple said that he would look after him. This he did, taking him into his own mess. As soon as conditions would permit we had his remains brought home and he was given a military funeral.The long chase after Chief Joseph and his Nez Percé Indians, with one or two fights and finally his surrender to General Miles, is now a matter of history. While General Howard has been greatly maligned it must not be forgotten that he was fighting one of the bravest tribes of Indians in the United States.Among the most attractive features of Walla Walla is the park. This has usually been known as "City Park" for lack of a better name. Discussion has been rife as to a better and a permanent name. That question is still pending but the author ventures to express the opinion here that the most appropriate name would be "Pashki," one of several forms of the Indian name for the location of the park and also used for the creek. The word means "sunflower."We are fortunate to be able to present a sketch by Miss Grace Isaacs, a "Native Daughter" of Walla Walla, and one of the foremost among the creators of the park.THE PARK AT WALLA WALLA"When Mr. Olmstead outlined a plan for Walla Walla's parks ten years ago, it was a source of satisfaction to discover that the work by our first park commission was along similar lines."The Olmstead plan included a boulevard encircling the city and connecting a series of parks in the four quarters of the town, embracing land now leased by the golf club and other tracts owned by the city. Its fruition has been regarded by many as a beautiful dream, or an ideal not realized in this generation by some of our men of affairs. Not so, however, with some enthusiasts, encouraged by the president of the Park Commission, John W. Langdon. When the plans for our first City Park were outlined, this forty acre tract, a part of the oldest farm in the valley, had been the property of the city for some years, it having been acquired by the purchase of the water system, and contained two of the main reservoirs of spring water, which then supplied the town. John F. McLean, as a member of the City Council, had endeavored to improve the tract, but was handicapped for lack of funds, and by lack of interest among his colleagues to the extent of a resolution in the council to sell a part of the land for building lots. Mr. McLean opposed this plan so vigorously, and continued to urge the park's improvement so earnestly, that others became interested, and when Mayor Tausick appointed the first Park Commission, Mr. McLean was a member, with Mr. Langdon, John P. Kent, Mrs. J. C. Huckett and Mrs. E. S. Isaacs."It was in 1901 that Mrs. Conde Hamlin of St. Paul, a member of the Civic Improvement Committee of the General Federation of Woman's Clubs, at the invitation of The Women's Reading Club and the Art Club of Walla Walla (at that time the only clubs in Walla Walla, though our city has the distinction of having organized in 1885, the second woman's club in the State of Washington, it being also one of the first dozen in the United States), gave us our first public lecture upon Civic Improvement. The Commercial Club supplied the theatre and W. P. Hooper, vice president of the Commercial Club, presided and introduced the speaker. The immediate result was the organizing of local Improvement Clubs of men and women, that did much to prepare public sentiment for a broader development. The Women's Clubs which had already their civic committees, making tentative experiments (of trash cans and such) received an impetus, and finally the Park Commission was appointed, and Mr. Langdon proceeded to draw a plan for the improvement of City Park. A park superintendent was secured and then came the question of money. It would require $4,000 to lay the system of water pipes through forty acres; the Council gasped, and said 'dare we do it?'"A mass meeting of women was called, and a petition to the Council asking that this work be done, was circulated by women, and assumed the remarkable length of fourteen feet of names when presented to the Council. Needless to say, the argument was irresistible, and the work was hurried to completion. There being still the necessity for funds, the Woman's Park Club thus organized on the broad lines of membership, willingness 'to work for parks' constituting eligibility to membership, and year by year its plans have been carried to completion in proportion to the state of the exchequer. Dreamland, a tract of ten acres in the southwestern part of town, has been acquired, and following Mr. Olmstead's recommendations, an effort is being made to secure land for another in the northwestern area, which is more than a mile from the Dreamland, and two from City Park. There are also eight acres on Boyer Avenue known as 'Wildwood' awaiting development, as well as the land lying along Mill Creek, previously mentioned as leased by the Golf Club. Walla Walla possesses abundant land forall the recreation places she will need for one hundred years at least, if wisely conserved."The Park Club established and maintains the playgrounds in two parks, and hopes another season to build swimming pools. For the establishment of this department credit should be given the eloquence of Jane Addams and of Judge Lindsey in depicting the need for the right environment of children in their leisure hours. It was with the hope that preventive measures might make some of the unhappy conditions of cities impossible in this community. The Park Club has for eight years given annually a 'Community' entertainment, usually an open air festival in the park. The Pageant of 1914, written and staged by Porter Garnett of the Pageant Association of America, the artist who has staged so many of the Bohemian Club's Grove Plays, will linger long in memory as 'the most beautiful thing Walla Walla ever did.' It was a wonderful artistic success, owing to the devotion of the Park Club to ideals, which were epitomized by Mr. Garnett as 'those whose Civic pride and constructive idealism have enabled them to dare and to achieve.'"The year 1917 has been marked by a 'Kirmess,' the proceeds of which are to be devoted to Red Cross work. It is the judgment of all concerned that though the park needs work, the soldiers in the field need our money more."While there are naturally many more recollections in respect to Walla Walla and its near vicinity, yet we have a number of others of great interest from other parts of the field.We are turning therefore, now from Walla Walla to the youngest sister of the counties, Asotin. We have first a reminiscence of early settlement in Asotin County, by Mrs. Mary A. Wormell, whose family is among the most prominent of the builders of the county:SOME PIONEER RECOLLECTIONS OF ASOTIN COUNTYBy Mrs. Mary A. WormellIn the summer of 1880 the writer came with her family to that portion of Asotin County known as Asotin flat. We arrived late in July from California travelling by the "prairie schooner" route. We had encountered many difficulties and no little discouragement en route, and heard many disparaging stories about the new country towards which we were travelling. One Californian, disgusted and homeward bound, solemnly informed us that we would see icicles in Washington a foot and a half long. And as the darky said: "We have seen all that an' mo'."One day we met a family taking the back trail that had left our locality the year before with this slogan printed on the new, white cover of their "prairie schooner"—"Washington or Bust." They passed slowly by, a weary, dejected looking outfit, and the weather-beaten old canvas top bore the single word—"Busted." But even this demonstration of defeat did not daunt us, for we were already "busted," had nothing to lose and everything to gain, so we kept right on as the western phrase so aptly puts it—"hitting the trail," to the north that brought us at last to what is now Asotin County. It "looked good" to us then and has kept right on looking good to us ever since.
Then we traveled with a train and the Indians came around our wagons; some of them begged for food. One day when we sat down on the ground to eat our dinner about a dozen big red-faced fellows came and stood around with tomahawks in their hands. I did not want any dinner that day, but they went away peaceably, and we traveled on over good roads and through beautiful country upPlatte River and on and on and soon got used to seeing Indians. Sometimes they would follow our wagons and some one would throw a piece of bread out to them and they would run after the wagon and pick it up; then throw another piece, till they would look like little chickens after an old hen.Fuel was very scarce in that country. We had to burn sage brush, dead weeds, or anything we could get. Sometimes my husband would keep feeding the fire while I baked the flapjacks, as we called them.The men folks were all the time looking out for good grass and water for the stock, which they would herd on the grass till late at night, and than tie them to the wagon wheels. In the morning they would take them out again and herd them until starting time, which was pretty early, as we wanted to hurry through to Walla Walla. We gave our mules all the scraps we had left from our meals and they relished it very much and would hunt in the wagon for the dinner box and look and wait for their lunch.There were some mean people crossed the plains. There was a man and his wife and three grown daughters traveling in our train. One day when we lay over we heard a commotion, and looking toward a tent we saw a girl pitch out of it and a man's boot and foot up in the air. The girl said her papa kicked her out because she had forgotten to water the horses. One other time we had stopped to rest and I heard a woman cry and swear and pray, first one and then the other. I said to a friend, "Let us go and see if we can help her;" but she said "No; it is a woman with a very loathsome disease and the man that drives the team was kind to bring her out west." The man would cook a little food and hand it to her and then go away.Well, the people were not all bad; we found some very dear friends on our trip. I never will forget them. It was a trying trip on us all. We had some dangerous streams to cross. We would come to some that looked impossible to cross. We would stop and plan and try the depth in every way possible, and then block up the wagon bed to the top of the standard, then tie them fast to the wagon, then cautiously drive in almost holding our breath. We had four mules and the leaders were small. Sometimes we could not see much of them but their heads. Our little boy would laugh and enjoy the excitement, but I took many a cry when I thought of where we were taking him. We had started and must get through. I had about forgotten to mention the weather, which was very stormy. It rained and snowed and blew our wagon sheet off and everything we had got wet. Our flour got musty; we had to eat it; we could get no other.By this time we were getting pretty well up Platte River, and did not see many Indians, but were hearing a good deal about their committing depredations, and commenced to corral our wagons of nights. That was to drive in a circle, unhitch, then the men would pull them close together by hand, and after herding the stock would bring them in and tie to the outside wheels of the wagons for the night.One day our train came up to a corral of this kind and the women were sitting around crying and the men were standing in groups talking very earnestly, and not a hoof in sight. We soon learned their troubles. They had left their stock out a little way from the wagons to feed without any guards and the Indians had seen their opportunity and run between them and their stock andrun them off. What those poor people did we never learned. We had to travel on.One morning a few days after this sad scene we passed a train which had not started out yet, and came upon another sad scene. Two men had left their train in the evening and drove about a mile ahead, in order to get better grass for their horses. Just at dusk they were sitting on a log near their wagons when eight Indians came behind them and commenced shooting them with arrows. The men jumped for their guns, but before they reached their wagons the Indians had them both down. They left them for dead and then took the four horses and guns and ammunition and $800 in money and everything else they wanted out of the wagon, and left. But one poor fellow was not quite dead. After the Indians left he crawled a little way off in the brush and lay there till next morning. When we came along he crawled out and told us all about it. We stayed with him till his train came up, then helped him to bury his partner, and then went on. I was pretty homesick for a few days.We were getting into the mountains and the roads were bad, and so were the Indians. We were very cautious; two men stood guard every night, taking turns.The weather was getting warm and pleasant after all, and through all of our hardships we had some pleasant and amusing things happen. There was a good many jack rabbits along the road. We had a rabbit pot-pie pretty often. One day about a half-dozen men got after a rabbit and were running past our wagon and shooting with their pistols. My husband was walking by our wagon and said, "Hand me the shotgun," and I handed it to him. He shot and brought down the rabbit, then gave it to me. That ended the race and raised a laugh.Once in every two days we would stop a day and rest, lay over, we called it, to do our washing. We would take a bucket and camp kettle and go to the creek; that was all the utensils we had to wash with. When the clothes were dry they were ready to put on—no ironing on that trip. We saw irons, tubs, washboards, and a good many other things that people had thrown out of their wagons because their teams were giving out. We did not dare to pick them up and haul them for fear our own teams would give out. I knew one woman that had a cook stove in her wagon and she was so anxious to bring it through that she would get out and push on the wagon when it was going up hill, but she had to give it up and set it out and go on without it. We were beginning to find out how dependent we were on our teams.Before we left home our neighbors and friends gave me a lot of nice pieces and helped me make a keepsake quilt. I prized it very highly. One day, I put it out to sun and some fire blew on it and burned it up. Then I shed a few tears. Much as we needed everything we had we would lose and leave our things at the camps. We lost our axe and coffee pot and our comb. Then we tried to borrow a comb, but found out there were but few in the train. So we women got together and had our hair cut off. Then we were called the short-haired train.The health of our train was pretty good. Sometimes a family would get very sick from eating too many wild weeds they would gather and cook for greens so as to have a change, as variety of wood was getting scarce.We brought a keg of sorghum syrup with us, and would have had plenty to last through, but one day our little boy was missing, and looking in the wagon wesaw him. He had found the matches and was just putting the last bunch in the syrup keg, so we had to do without sorghum.One night we stopped near an old fort where some men were staying. So I felt pretty safe, but before morning we found out they were worse than Indians, for they had whiskey to sell and some of the men in our train got some whiskey and got drunk, then fought and quarreled all night. Next morning when a few wagons were ready to start the men that had been drunk were asleep. Another train came along and we drove on with them. It seemed a trip where every one had to look out for self. We did not dare to stop long to help the unfortunate or we would not get through ourselves. We did not start out to die on the plains. We passed many a new made grave.At this time it was as disagreeably hot as it had been cold on the start. One time we tried traveling at night to avoid the extreme heat, but that would not do.I have not given many dates, as I have forgotten most of them. Am writing this mostly for my children and grandchildren to read and want it to be as near true as I can remember.We learned that the main thing on that trip was to keep on moving. As we got near and into the mountains the weather got cool and pleasant. But, oh, such mountains and roads, sometimes they would seem almost perpendicular, but we would climb and get up most all out of the wagon walking, then slide down on the other side, then up, then down, and soon day after day some of the mountains seemed almost solid rock.One day we came to a beautiful little stream. Someone that was walking dipped up a cup of water and said, "Will you have a drink?" I took the cup. Imagine my surprise when it almost burned my lips. Those were the first hot springs we had ever seen. Then we came to a place that looked like it was covered with ice and frost, but it proved to be salt. We picked up some pieces and used it for cooking.We began to hear more rumors about the Indians and could see signs of their mischief. So we corralled our wagons very carefully and went to bed and were sleeping soundly when all of a sudden we were awakened with hearing screaming and very rapid shooting. I jumped out of bed and said, "The Indians have attacked us." My husband got up and said, "I will go and see what the trouble is." Then I got all of the guns and ammunition to the front of the wagon ready for battle, and was piling the sacks of flour and bacon around our little boy, who was yet asleep, when my husband came back and said it was coyotes yelping and the guards were shooting at them. So we went to bed again and were soon asleep. That was one thing we could enjoy on that trip.Well, we finally got over the Rocky Mountains. You need not be surprised if I tell you that our shoes were getting thin and pretty badly worn. We did not start with an over supply and our clothes were wearing out fast and we were looking pretty rough and sunburnt.We came to some more deep rivers and had to block up our wagon beds so we could cross. Then we came to a country infested with crickets. I never saw anything like it; they were almost as big as a mouse and could chirp and jump in such big bands. Our mules shied at them. Well, we were glad to get out of that country.One day looking ahead in the distance we saw something coming that lookedlike covered wagons, but as it drew near we could see it was actually coming the other way toward us, something we had not seen for hundreds, yes, thousands of miles. Well, they came on and passed us. It was a pack train, wonderful sight for us. They frightened our teams in their weak and half-dead condition. Then someone said those were cowboys.Then we came to where some men camped. They were excited over losing a lot of mules and horses. They were driving a band out west. The Indians had stampeded them and run a lot of them away. We saw several dead horses which the men had ridden to death trying to get the band together again. We traveled on and came to some timbered mountains. Now we could have plenty of wood to cook with. It was a treat to have plenty of wood and water at the same time.One evening after we had corralled our wagons and the guards had taken the teams out to grass one of the men came running back and said, "Get your guns quick; there is a drove of elk right among our stock." The men hurried out with their guns, fired, and brought down two big elks and dragged them into camp. I remember it so well, they looked so much like one of our little mules. The men skinned them and cut them up and then decided that my husband had fired the most fatal shot; so we had first choice piece. The meat was fine.We came to a desolate looking place. It was in a deep canyon and we had to stop over night. There were some old bleached bones and a lot of tangled hair. Someone said it was human hair and bones and that the Indians had massacred a train and their bodies had never been buried. We did not know how much of that was true, but at that time we could believe almost anything. After all, our Indian troubles were mostly scares, but as the old saying is, you had as well kill a person as scare him to death.By this time we came to some more awful hills to come down. We all got out of wagons and the men tied ropes to the hind wheels and held back while the teams and people slid down. Well, we all got down and went on our way rejoicing, and finally got into some pretty country and laid over to let our teams rest, and do our washing.That day I took a stroll down by the creek and saw a big fish lying in some shallow water in a little island. I very cautiously slipped around between it and the main creek and put my hands under it and threw it out on land. Then I wrapped my apron around it and went carrying it into camp. It was alive and weighed about eight pounds. We would not eat it for fear it might be sick, but some of the boys wanted it, so I gave it to them. They cooked it and ate it and said it was very good. Next morning we hitched up and traveled on.The weather was pleasant and we began to see signs of civilization and met another pack train which was loaded with flour, bacon, whisky, and tobacco. I should not have said signs of civilization. But we saw better things further on. Some of our people tried to buy some provisions of them, but they would not sell; said they were taking them to the mines and expected to get a dollar a pound for what they had. Our money was pretty scarce and what we had was greenbacks and only worth fifty cents on the dollar out West.Then we came to a little garden and a cabin back in the brush. We could see the green lettuce and onions through the fence. Some of our boys said they would make a raid on that garden, but when they got on the fence they saw a treeon the other side and a man hanging by the neck from a limb of that tree. Then they said, "We don't want any garden sass." We learned later that it was only a paddy stuffed with straw. Our provisions were getting scarce and our teams were getting weaker, and we very anxious to get through.We finally arrived in the Grande Ronde Valley and then we spent the last cent we had to buy a beef bone and some fresh vegetables. Then all got together and made a big dinner. All sat down and ate together. After dinner we all shook hands and said good-bye. Then each one went his own way.We started to cross the Blue Mountains and one of our mules got sick. We had urged him too much. He seemed to be asleep on his feet, held his eyes shut, and wanted to pull all the time. Well, he pulled through. I had almost learned to love those mules, they had been so faithful.We arrived in Walla Walla, Wash., footsore and weary, in just three months from the day we started.When we arrived in this beautiful little valley without a dollar and scarcely any clothing and no provisions we had a pretty hard time. Now, when a family gets their house and everything they have, burned, the people around get together and help them, and it is right they should in this land of plenty; and when a criminal leaves the penitentiary they give him a suit of clothes and some money. But there was no help for the green immigrants, as we were called, and I suppose we were, at least in some respects.We did not understand the western slang and Indian talk that we heard so much. It was something like this. A man that had been out West about five years was eating dinner with us, said, "That is hiu mucka muck." He was referring to something on the table. We asked him if he liked this country. He said, "You bet your life!" We said, "Why do so many men out West wear revolvers on their belts and big knives in their boot legs?" He said, "It is necessary to keep order; we have a man for breakfast quite often."Then we would hear the remark, lots of men out West are made to bite the dust with their boots on; and then, you sabba, or savvy, and many such expressions. Well, we finally got initiated. And the people were very kind to us. We never saw a time when we appreciated our neighbors so much. They were friends in need and in deed.This country was covered with bunch-grass, flowers, Indians, coyotes, and grasshoppers. A few white people were living along the creeks in little huts. Some were growing a little wheat and others small grain and gardens. Everything was very high priced. Wheat sold for a dollar and a half a bushel. There was scarcely any fruit to be had at any price. When I go through this beautiful valley, now a little less than forty years after, and see wagon loads of delicious fruit going to waste it makes me think of those times.Well, we went to work; had to rustle, kept at it from early morn till late at night. But we would jump from one thing to another. There seemed to be too many chances. First we would settle on one piece of land, then on another. There were thousands and thousands of acres of good unclaimed land all about us, but people thought none but the sloughs would grow anything. After two or three years of changing about we finally bought eighty acres of land and settled down. Paid eight hundred dollars for it. We gave thirty dollars, a horse,and our only cow to make the first payment. At this time we had two children in our family.Before we had any wheat to sell it came down to fifty cents per bushel. The country up to this time had been settled mostly by men; only some of them had Indian women for wives. The families that settled this country first were nearly all new married people and a baby came to almost every home in less than two years for a dozen years or more.One day I went to visit a dear neighbor and I was complaining of hard times and she said, "We have been living on boiled wheat for several days." I believe there were a good many others doing the same thing. Those hard times seemed to bind neighbors close together. Three or four of us would get together and go two or three miles to get some wild gooseberries and elderberries and red haws and fix them up for fruit. They were pretty good when there was nothing better.I will now mention some of the Indian scares that we had to endure. We had been warned by the newspapers to look out for the Indians, as they were on the war path and had murdered some of the white settlers and had mangled them terribly. So one Sunday the people were holding meeting on Mill Creek in a little school house when a little girl came running in, crying, and said, "The Indians are killing my mama and papa." Some of the men hurried to the house, which was about a mile away, and the young boy preacher got on a horse and away he went as fast as his horse could go to warn the people at their homes that the Indians had broken out. He stopped at our house and asked for a fresh horse, as his was about run down. We did not have any, so he went rushing on and stopping at every house to give the alarm. My husband and several of the neighbor men had gone from home that day. Imagine the scene. We were running from one house to another; each one of us had three or four little children. After about a dozen of us got together we decided to go to a log cabin that was near and wait for the Indians to come. There was one man in the cabin and he was getting ready to shoot out through the cracks between the logs. When a man came from the seat of war and said no one is seriously hurt, it was a drunken row and only one Indian was killed, we all went home and the boy preacher got over his scare and has been long since a good and noted preacher. And the Indian that was supposed to be dead came to life again. Some of the men took him to town and had a trial and the jury sentenced him to wash his face. Well, this is one of the many such scares as some others can remember that are yet living.I will relate one more incident. At this time there was a saw mill at the head of Mill Creek and there were several families living at the mill. The men had built a fort for the women and children in case the Indians should attack them. One day some men who lived in the valley took their teams and wagons and started to go to the mill, but when they got in the mountains they saw a band of Indians coming down the trail beyond the mill. The men at once stopped, unhitched from their wagons, and jumped on their horses and used the tugs for whips and came down the mountains on double quick and reported to all the people along the road what they had seen, and the people were soon leaving their cabins and running for the brush. And those at the mill saw the Indians coming and they went running to the fort. Some one relating the scene said the men could run faster than the women and children and got into the fort first. Well, theIndians came and were friendly and very much surprised when they saw the people running and said they had been back in the mountains hunting and fishing and did not know that there was any war going on.The health of a people in a new country is usually good, but we would sometimes get sick. Would hardly dare think of sending for a doctor. There was no money to pay one and there could hardly be one found. But there was a woman who lived in our neighborhood that had a good doctor book. It was Doctor Gunn's work. She went by it in her own family, and the neighbors sent for her. She would take her doctor book under her arm and go to visit the sick. Then they would read and study together and use the simple remedies prescribed in that book and get along pretty well. In that way she got into quite a large practice. She often rode a little blue pony. People would sometimes make the remark, "I think there is someone sick at a certain house. I see the blue pony tied at the gate."This woman officiated where more than a hundred babies were born. She was very successful, never lost a mother or child while she was taking care of them. She most always went back every day for a week to see the patient and wash and dress the baby. And most of the time she had one of her own to take with her. She made no charges, as she did not have any license. But she received a good many presents, and is sometimes yet pleasantly reminded of by-gone days. Just a few days ago she received a photo of five large, stalwart men and a letter from their mother saying these are pictures of your boys; see how they have grown. Then another time a picture came from a distance of two large twin boys and a girl and word saying, see how your boys have grown.I have not made mention of any names in this sketch, thinking it would be just as interesting without.Well, I must get back to my pioneer days that I started to write about. Schools and churches were scarce. One woman taught a school in her home of two rooms. She had about a dozen scholars. About one-third of them were part Indian children. As I said before, some of the men that came out West first came alone and took Indian women for wives. People called them squaw men. We remember another woman that taught school in her home of one room. At noon when the children were out playing she would cook dinner and the family would eat, then she would take up her school again.We would sometimes go three or four miles to church in a home of one room where three or four persons lived. The preacher would stand up in the corner between the table and fireplace and preach, while the congregation sat around on the beds and benches and boxes. Every corner would be full. Many a one received a blessing in those humble meetings. But we did not have to do that way very long. People with such energy soon built school houses and churches.Building material was hard to get. When one man worked for or sold another man anything he would often pay him in gold dust. They used that a great deal. We would take our little sack of gold dust and go to town to buy things, and the merchants would weigh and blow and spill it till we would not have much left. I said go to town; there was not much town to go to. It was not like the town the little boy said he could not see for the houses. One would hardly know it was a town by the houses. At that time there was about a dozen, mostly business houses, scattered around in Walla Walla.Mrs. Brewster Ferrel.Equally characteristic of the first days is the narration of the "first boy in Walla Walla." This was Charles W. Clark. One of the honored citizens of Walla Walla, he was doubtless "the first boy to ride down Main Street," as he expressed it. Through his kindness we are able to present here some scenes from his memory of the first days in the history of Walla Walla.RECOLLECTIONS OF THE FIRST BOY IN WALLA WALLAI was born on August 29, 1846, in Oregon, on my father's claim near LaFayette, Yamhill County, from which the family was taken to Oregon City and thence to Portland.Needless to say, Portland was then a raw, crude town on the edge of the Willamette River, with no business places except on Front and First streets.In 1855 my father, Ransom Clark, left home for Colville mines. On his way home to Portland he selected the place on the Yellowhawk, since known from his name, ran out the lines with a pocket compass, for there was no Government survey. The place was nearly in a square and extended from about where the road just east of Harry Reynolds' house now is to the present Whitney Road.My father was on the place in 1855 when the Indian war broke out, and he, like all the other settlers—few in number, of course—was ordered by the United States commandant to leave the country.That war prevented my father's making proof on the claim, but the Government ruled that since the settlers had been obliged to leave on account of war, they should not lose their time, but could resume possession and continue to prepare for making final proof.We lived in Portland until 1859, when announcement was made that Indian disturbances were at an end. In the fall of 1858 father had returned to the claim. With the coming of winter he went back to Portland, but on March 1, 1859, he went back again to Walla Walla, taking me with him. I was then twelve years old, a strong, active boy, and accustomed to all sorts of work and capable of being of much assistance to my father in starting the place.We came from Portland with a team and wagon, putting them on the steamer at Portland and going as far as The Dalles; thence driving to Walla Walla. Mother was left alone in Portland with my brother Will, then two years old.We had quite a lot of apple and peach trees which we obtained at the Tibbetts and Luelling nurseries, near Oregon City. I can tell you the Walla Walla Valley looked beautiful in those early spring days. It was just a waving sea of new grass, green all over without a fence or anything to obstruct riding anywhere that we might wish.We reached our claim on March 28th. So far as I remember there was not another white boy in the whole valley, except at the fort, or whose parents were employed at the fort. Some of the army officers had children, but I hardly ever saw them. I had no playmates except the Indian children, and they were very friendly. There were no women, that is, no white women outside the fort, unless two or three transients. There were several Indian women married to white men, former Hudson's Bay men, down the valley at Frenchtown and elsewhere.When we reached the claim we discovered that "Curly" Drumheller and Samuel Johnson had done some plowing on the south edge of our place, fromthe spring branch to Russell Creek. We sowed it with oats and there was a good crop, which we threshed out with flails in the fall. We set out some of our fruit trees on the flat just southeast of where Harry Reynolds' house now is. Those were, I am sure, the first trees ever brought to Walla Walla, that is, after those that had been raised from seed by Doctor Whitman at Waiilatpu. John Foster bought the trees which were set on his place from our lot. The bill for those trees from Seth Luelling is still in possession of my brother Will.After remaining six weeks my father returned to Portland to get my mother and brother. I was left to keep the place, in company with Robert Horton. We had nothing but a tent for a house, but we managed to get along very comfortably. My main work was to cook. I helped plow on John Foster's place to help pay for the logs which Foster had gotten out that spring or summer for making our cabin. On Sundays and sometimes on other days I would go to "town," which was just a mongrel collection of shacks and tents, with a confused mass of settlers, Indians and soldiers straying through. The chief amusement was horse racing and gambling. There was a straightaway track where the cemetery now is and another just about through where the chief part of town now lies. The first circular track was laid out by George Porter about three miles down the valley, running around the peculiar hill on the Sam Smith place, afterward the Tom Lyons place.The saloon business was very active then and every species of vice flourished. There was a man named Ed Leach who had come with father and me from The Dalles, who had afterwards drifted around town.One day I was near the saloon owned by W. A. Ball, and I saw that there had just been something going on, for there was a bunch of men standing around talking excitedly.Ed Leach was there, and seeing me he pulled me over to a place where I saw blood on the ground, and he said, pointing out the puddle of blood, "There, Charlie, is where I got him." He had just killed a man.Nothing was done about it, so far as I know.W. A. Ball was uncle of my wife, and one of the first business men in Walla Walla. He was the one especially who insisted on giving the name of Walla Walla to the town. Some wanted to call it Waiilatpu, while some favored Steptoeville.One day while in town a man called to me saying that he had heard it rumored that my father was dead. I paid no attention to this, for I had heard from him a few days before, that he had safely reached home, was getting ready to return, and that everything was well. There were no mails at that time and the only way to get messages was through the army or by stray travelers. It would take a week or two to hear anything from Portland.But though I paid no attention to the rumor it proved a sad reality. That very day after I had returned to the tent which I called home, my mother's brother, Uncle Billy Millican, who is still living in Walla Walla, appeared and told me that it was only too true, that my father had been taken suddenly sick and had died a number of days before, and that my mother was even then on her way to Walla Walla.The next day she came, having come on the Steamer Colonel Wright, of which Lew White was captain, on her second or third trip from The Dalles toWallula. From that place she came with Capt. F. F. Dent in an army ambulance to Walla Walla. That Captain Dent, by the way, was a brother-in-law of General Grant.As you can imagine it was a sad, hard journey for a woman who had just been made a widow, and who was soon to be again a mother.It shows something of the nerve and heroism of pioneer women that they could go through such experiences. My mother had been strongly advised to give up her claim. A man had offered her $300.00 for it, and Judge Shattuck, one of the leading lawyers of Portland, urged her to take it, assuring her that it would be the most that she could ever get out of it. But father had been greatly impressed with the prospective value of the place and the prospects of the town, and my mother had been so much impressed with his views that she determined to hold the claim.Accordingly, after spending two weeks with me she returned to Portland. I spent that summer, sometimes a very lonesome one, in the tent, or hoeing the garden which he had put out, and in September Robert Horton and Uncle Billy Millican put up a cabin from the logs.The cabin was put on the present location of Harry Reynolds' house. It was moved from there a few feet many years ago, and put on a good foundation, so that it is now just about as sound as ever. It is undoubtedly the oldest house now existing in the Inland Empire, in which a white woman lived. My mother was about the first white woman in this region, after the missionary period.My mother came back to Walla Walla in October of that same year, 1859, with her newly born child, then six weeks old, to live the remainder of her life in Walla Walla.During those early years the valley seemed to be filled with Indians, but they were very kindly and well disposed, and we had no trouble with them, even though a good part of the time we were alone, mother and the baby and the little boy and myself as the nearest a man about the place. We had plenty of horses and cattle and chickens and garden and had an abundance of the necessities, though no elegancies.There were two principal Indian chiefs, and they, with their squaws and children were often around the house. They were fine Indians. Yellowhawk was one of them, and his location was on the creek named after him, on what is now the Billy Russell place near the Braden schoolhouse. The other was Tintimitsy. His location was on what became the J. H. Abbott place.As I remember the old town in 1860, there were several shack stores. One was that of Neil McClinchy, on what would now be between Third and Fourth streets.Baldwin Brothers were about between Second and Third. Frank Worden was located just about where the Third National Bank now is. Guichard and Kohlhauff had a store on the same corner where the White House Clothing Store now is. John F. Abbott had a stable right in what is now Second Street, just about what would be between the Jaycox Store and the Jones Building. There was no order or system to the streets for many years, and, as we know, they are very irregular now, having followed convenient trails or breakings through the cottonwoods and birches which grew on the creek.The creek at that time ran right on the top of the ground and in high waterran out in many places. Quite a stream at high water ran through just about where Senator Ankeny's house is, over through the present high school grounds and thence joining Garrison Creek.During the long, cold nights of winter in 1860-61 we lived alone in our cabin. Mother and I would grind our flour in the big coffee-mill. One regular job we had, and often we were up till midnight working at it, and that was to make sacks for the flour-mill which A. H. Reynolds, in partnership with J. A. Sims and Capt. F. F. Dent, put up in 1859 on what is now the Whitney place.But my mother was anxious that I should have some schooling, and having become married to Mr. Reynolds, she sent me to Portland Academy for two years, and two years more to LaFayette where I lived with my grandparents.When I returned in 1865 I was a man. Walla Walla was growing. That was right in the midst of the mining times and the Vigilantes, when they had "a man for breakfast" nearly every morning. It was a wild, exciting time, but through it all Walla Walla has grown to be the beautiful city of which we are now so proud.We have devoted considerable space in the early part of this volume to Indians and Indian wars. The narrative of W. W. Walter gave a view of the Cayuse war from the standpoint of a participant. Other wars with the natives followed. The most spectacular and in many ways most remarkable of all was that of 1877, with the Joseph band of Nez Percés.We incorporate here an account of the personal experiences of W. S. Clark, one of the leading pioneers of Walla Walla, and one of the best informed students of early history.THE NEZ PERCÉ WAROn the morning of June 19, 1877, a courier reached the City of Walla Walla bringing the sad news of the engagement on Camas Prairie between the Nez Percé Indians and Colonel Perry's troop of cavalry in which one-half of Perry's troop had been killed. The news caused a great deal of excitement. Word also came that the citizens of Lewiston were in danger of a raid by the Indians and that the settlers were pouring into town from all sides and help was much needed.Thomas P. Page, county auditor of Walla Walla County, started to work raising a volunteer company. At 1 o'clock in the afternoon a meeting was called at the courthouse where the facts were presented and resolutions were passed promising aid to the people of the Lewiston District. One hundred names were soon down on the roll and all who could get horses were to start that night. The quartermaster at the fort here gave us rifles and sixty rounds of cartridges apiece. At 6 o'clock that evening the following party left Walla Walla en route to Lewiston: A. Reeves Ayres, John Agu, Ike Abbott, A. L. Bird, Chas. Blewett, W. S. Clark, Lane Gilliam, H. E. Holmes, Albert Hall, Jake Holbrook, Frank Jackson, John Keeney, J. H. Lister, Henry Lacy, Wm. McKearn:, S. H. Maxon, Aleck O'Dell, C. S. Robinson, J. S. Stott, Ben Scott, Albert Small, Frank Waldrip, T. P. Page, L. K. Grimm and J. F. McLean.We arrived at Dayton at 1 o'clock that night, and put our horses in the livery stable and ourselves to sleep in the hay-mow overhead. Next morning we breakfastedat the hotel. A. R. Ayers, H. E. Holmes and Tom Beall were missing. We traveled to Marengo where a short stop was made and the troops under Colonel Whipple came up. The volunteers took the Indian trails across the hills and the regular troops followed the wagon road. We stopped two hours on the Pataha and then traveled on to Dan Favor's ranch which was about fifteen miles this side of Lewiston, where we went into camp. Here we waited about three hours for supper, there being some misunderstanding as to the getting of the meal. When the troops came up they camped at the same place.On the morning of the 21st, after paying our bills, we traveled on to Lewiston. Leaving our horses on this side of the river, we crossed over to the town where we met Major Spurgeon, the commander at that place, who gave us to understand that the settlers nearby were in no immediate danger and told us that, if we cared to go on into the Indian country, we could be of service, but would have to be under the command of the regular military authorities.We re-crossed the river to our horses and, after dinner, signed our names to report to General Howard for eight days of service. We then elected our officers as follows: T. P. Page, captain, L. K. Grimm, lieutenant, and John F. McLean, sergeant. Then we again crossed over to Lewiston, this time with our outfits, and were regularly mustered in for eight days of service. Up to this time, Ayres, Holmes and Beall had not caught up with us. Some thought that they had backed out and gone home, others thought that they would yet come up.Major Spurgeon directed us to Fort Lapwai to report to General Howard, where we arrived at 6 o'clock in the evening. Here we had supper, after drawing on the post commissary for rations. It rained on us all that night. The morning of the 22d we spent in repairing and fixing up our outfits. At 1 o'clock we were again on the march as General Howard's guard, the troops going in advance. There were three companies of infantry, two companies of cavalry, one company of artillery and one company of volunteers.As we were starting off from camp that afternoon we were surprised as well as pleased to see Doc Ayers, Doc Holmes and Ike Abbott coming up. They were forgiven for their delinquency when we learned that they had gotten lost, being led astray by Beall whose horse gave out and who then gave up the expedition and went back home. They joined us in the march without waiting to secure any dinner. While we were going up Craig Mountain Ike Abbott's horse got away from him and he did not catch him until several hours later. On the evening of the 22d we made camp on Craig Mountain, putting our horses out with those of the regular troops, and Sergeant McLean detailed J. H. Lister, Frank Waldrip and myself to be on guard the first part of the night and Lane Gilliam, A. L. Bird and Frank Jackson for the latter part. This was our first guard duty and I thought that upon me rested the entire burden of herding those 300 head of horses.On Saturday, June 23d, we started early and traveled along the mountain until after noon when we reached the great Camas Prairie. I was very much surprised at the extent and richness of this prairie on any part of which, it was claimed, timothy hay would grow. We passed the place where our former citizen, Lew Day, was first attacked by the Indians and later came to Ben Norton's place on Cottonwood where we camped. Owing to the fact that we were in advance of the command, Captain Page put a guard on the house andbarn. He placed Henry Lacy as guard over the barn and, after the command came up, Captain Wilkinson started to enter the barn and Henry stopped him. The captain told Henry who he was. Still this did no good and the captain turned and went away. Henry Lacy and Charley Blewett were the youngest members of the company.The following morning Aleck O'Dell, Lane Gilliam, Al Hall, Jake Holbrook, Ben Scott, Ike Abbott, Wm. McKearn and I got up early and started for Mount Idaho, nineteen miles distant. We passed the place where Norton and his family, John Moore and Miss Bowers had been overtaken by the Indians, also the place where a load of goods for Mount Idaho had been captured by the Indians. We passed through Grangeville and went on to Mount Idaho, arriving there at about 12 o'clock. We hitched our horses to the fence of a man by the name of Aram (?) who gave them some hay. Mr. Brown at the hotel told us that dinner would be at 4 o'clock. We told him that we were hungry and could not wait. He wasn't long in getting us something to eat.During our stay here O'Dell and one or two others had their horses shod. I went into Volmer's store and wrote a letter home. Mr. Scott, the manager of the store, showed us many courtesies. Both he and Mr. Volmer had formerly lived in Walla Walla. Mr. Scott said that all the people in that district who could were preparing to leave for the Salmon River. Mr. Aram (?) invited us all in to dinner, which invitation we gladly accepted.Here we secured the following information with regard to the depredations of the Indians. Joseph's band from the Wallowa and the Salmon River Indians under White Bird had been camped on Rocky Canyon, eight miles from Mount Idaho. The Indians attacked on Thursday, June 14th. The settlers on White Bird suffered severely. Jack Manuel was living there with his wife and baby. The baby was killed and Mrs. Manuel, after being horribly mistreated, was locked up in a room of their house and then the house was burned to the ground. James Baker, who lived about a mile below Manuel's place on White Bird, was killed. Samuel Benedict was killed but his wife and little girl escaped and came safely into town. H. C. Brown was shot in the shoulder but escaped in a boat and was later found by the cavalry. Harry Mason was killed but his sister escaped in the brush. William Osborn was also killed. Those killed on John Day's Creek were Henry Elfreys and his nephew, Robert Bland, Dick Divine, and two Frenchmen. The Elfreys were killed by the Indians with their own guns which had been secured while the settlers were at work in the field.The settlers on Camas Prairie shared a similar fate. According to Mr. Scott, Lew Day left Mount Idaho to place the settlers on the prairie on guard and to give notice to the troops at Lapwai. The Indians overtook him about two miles beyond Norton's house. They immediately fired on him, hitting him twice in the back. Lew turned and went back to Norton's place where he found Norton and his family getting ready to go to Mount Idaho.Norton, with his wife and boy, Joseph Moore, Miss Bowers, Mr. and Mrs. Chamberlain and their child and Lew Day all got into the wagon and started for town, the Indians following and firing on them. Four miles the other side of Grangeville the Indians succeeded in killing the horses and they were forced to abandon the wagon. Hill Norton and Miss Bowers made their escape and came into Grangeville, bringing the first information of the attack. Norton was killed,Joseph Moore was hit twice, Mrs. Norton was shot through both legs, Mr. Chamberlain and their child were killed, the child's head being split open with a hatchet, and Mrs. Chamberlain was shot in the breast with an arrow. Theodore Schwartz, another settler, was wounded.At 6 o'clock that evening we started back to camp and arrived there at 9 o'clock. On Monday, June 25th, we left our camp on the Cottonwood and continued our march to Johnson's camp or ranch, where we again made camp. On the road we passed the place where, before the outbreak, about one hundred lodges of Indians had been set at the lakes, on the rocks, in the canyons and on the prairie. Also we passed over the ground of Colonel Perry's retreat. Captain Page picked up some twenty cartridge shells within a distance of fifty yards. At Johnson's we were given a camping ground to the right of the main column, about half a mile from wood and water. The boys were dissatisfied and we secured permission to camp within the enclosure at Johnson's house. H. E. Holmes, Ike Abbott and C. S. Robinson were put on guard.After breakfast on Tuesday morning, June 26th, we left camp to reconnoiter. We were in advance of the command that day. In our reconnoitering we came across the body of a dead soldier about two miles from camp. We were compelled to rest at times to allow the infantry an opportunity to dig trenches which we might use in case of need. About 12 o'clock we reached the summit looking down on White Bird Creek. During the morning's ride most of the soldiers killed in Colonel Perry's fight with the Indians were buried. For several miles we kept coming upon their dead bodies.In the afternoon, with Chapman as guide, we rode along the top of the divide between Salmon River and White Bird. It was rough and tiresome riding. We saw fresh tracks and Chapman told us that we were liable to meet Indians at any time. Soon we discovered three Indian scouts across the river and shortly after that we discovered the whole band moving farther up the mountain. We fired a number of shots toward them but they were too far away and we were only wasting our cartridges.We then left the ridge and went down on the bottom at Manuel's on White Bird. We went inside the gate and looked at the remains of the buildings which the Indians had burned. A few of the volunteers strayed down to the creek and what was their surprise to see, sitting in a little shed which the Indians had spared, a white man whom we all soon found to be Jack Manuel, and whom we had previously reported as among the killed. He had been wounded in the back of the neck by an arrow and had also been shot in the hips.Our next task was to get Manuel out and away to safety. We soon fixed a pole in a broken buggy that was standing near and by fastening what spare ropes we had to the buggy and to the pommels of our saddles we succeeded in getting him away. Finding that we were not making headway fast enough, our captain sent to Captain Miller for two pack mules which were soon at hand. Then, making the pole into shafts, we soon arrived at camp where we turned Mr. Manuel over to his friends, who were to care for his wounds and take him to Mount Idaho the following day. It had rained all that day and we had had a hard day's work.On June 27th we broke camp and marched to White Bird, the soldiers burying the dead soldiers we found which they had not had time to bury the precedingday. It was there on the White Bird side of the divide that the terrible battle had taken place. That night we camped within a short distance of the Salmon River which we expected to cross the following day. It seemed likely that, on crossing the river, we would have a fight with the Indians for we could see them for hours that afternoon riding their horses about and swinging themselves from side to side in all kinds of capers.After we had made camp we received instructions to escort the pack train back to Lewiston where they were going for supplies. On reaching Lewiston the eight days for which we had engaged were up and, believing that the army of General Howard was fully able to conquer Chief Joseph and his braves, we returned to our homes.On the afternoon after our return came word of the ambushing of Lieutenant Rains and a dozen volunteers and regulars, and the killing of Blewett and Foster near Cottonwood. The troops there had known that the Indians were in the vicinity and the lieutenant called for volunteers to go and hunt for Blewett and Foster, who had gone out earlier in the day and had failed to return as they had been ordered to do. The lieutenant and his men had not been gone long before a volley was heard and, on other troops tracing them up, they found that they had all been killed from ambush at the one volley. Foster had been killed earlier in the day near the road at the entrance to the prairie. Blewett had been killed a little later, around the mountain, undoubtedly after a run for his life.This Charley Blewett was my next-door neighbor and had been for ten years prior to his death. We were students together at the school in district number one and also at Whitman Seminary. We had all regretted very much leaving Charley but he wanted to stay and Colonel Whipple said that he would look after him. This he did, taking him into his own mess. As soon as conditions would permit we had his remains brought home and he was given a military funeral.The long chase after Chief Joseph and his Nez Percé Indians, with one or two fights and finally his surrender to General Miles, is now a matter of history. While General Howard has been greatly maligned it must not be forgotten that he was fighting one of the bravest tribes of Indians in the United States.Among the most attractive features of Walla Walla is the park. This has usually been known as "City Park" for lack of a better name. Discussion has been rife as to a better and a permanent name. That question is still pending but the author ventures to express the opinion here that the most appropriate name would be "Pashki," one of several forms of the Indian name for the location of the park and also used for the creek. The word means "sunflower."We are fortunate to be able to present a sketch by Miss Grace Isaacs, a "Native Daughter" of Walla Walla, and one of the foremost among the creators of the park.THE PARK AT WALLA WALLA"When Mr. Olmstead outlined a plan for Walla Walla's parks ten years ago, it was a source of satisfaction to discover that the work by our first park commission was along similar lines."The Olmstead plan included a boulevard encircling the city and connecting a series of parks in the four quarters of the town, embracing land now leased by the golf club and other tracts owned by the city. Its fruition has been regarded by many as a beautiful dream, or an ideal not realized in this generation by some of our men of affairs. Not so, however, with some enthusiasts, encouraged by the president of the Park Commission, John W. Langdon. When the plans for our first City Park were outlined, this forty acre tract, a part of the oldest farm in the valley, had been the property of the city for some years, it having been acquired by the purchase of the water system, and contained two of the main reservoirs of spring water, which then supplied the town. John F. McLean, as a member of the City Council, had endeavored to improve the tract, but was handicapped for lack of funds, and by lack of interest among his colleagues to the extent of a resolution in the council to sell a part of the land for building lots. Mr. McLean opposed this plan so vigorously, and continued to urge the park's improvement so earnestly, that others became interested, and when Mayor Tausick appointed the first Park Commission, Mr. McLean was a member, with Mr. Langdon, John P. Kent, Mrs. J. C. Huckett and Mrs. E. S. Isaacs."It was in 1901 that Mrs. Conde Hamlin of St. Paul, a member of the Civic Improvement Committee of the General Federation of Woman's Clubs, at the invitation of The Women's Reading Club and the Art Club of Walla Walla (at that time the only clubs in Walla Walla, though our city has the distinction of having organized in 1885, the second woman's club in the State of Washington, it being also one of the first dozen in the United States), gave us our first public lecture upon Civic Improvement. The Commercial Club supplied the theatre and W. P. Hooper, vice president of the Commercial Club, presided and introduced the speaker. The immediate result was the organizing of local Improvement Clubs of men and women, that did much to prepare public sentiment for a broader development. The Women's Clubs which had already their civic committees, making tentative experiments (of trash cans and such) received an impetus, and finally the Park Commission was appointed, and Mr. Langdon proceeded to draw a plan for the improvement of City Park. A park superintendent was secured and then came the question of money. It would require $4,000 to lay the system of water pipes through forty acres; the Council gasped, and said 'dare we do it?'"A mass meeting of women was called, and a petition to the Council asking that this work be done, was circulated by women, and assumed the remarkable length of fourteen feet of names when presented to the Council. Needless to say, the argument was irresistible, and the work was hurried to completion. There being still the necessity for funds, the Woman's Park Club thus organized on the broad lines of membership, willingness 'to work for parks' constituting eligibility to membership, and year by year its plans have been carried to completion in proportion to the state of the exchequer. Dreamland, a tract of ten acres in the southwestern part of town, has been acquired, and following Mr. Olmstead's recommendations, an effort is being made to secure land for another in the northwestern area, which is more than a mile from the Dreamland, and two from City Park. There are also eight acres on Boyer Avenue known as 'Wildwood' awaiting development, as well as the land lying along Mill Creek, previously mentioned as leased by the Golf Club. Walla Walla possesses abundant land forall the recreation places she will need for one hundred years at least, if wisely conserved."The Park Club established and maintains the playgrounds in two parks, and hopes another season to build swimming pools. For the establishment of this department credit should be given the eloquence of Jane Addams and of Judge Lindsey in depicting the need for the right environment of children in their leisure hours. It was with the hope that preventive measures might make some of the unhappy conditions of cities impossible in this community. The Park Club has for eight years given annually a 'Community' entertainment, usually an open air festival in the park. The Pageant of 1914, written and staged by Porter Garnett of the Pageant Association of America, the artist who has staged so many of the Bohemian Club's Grove Plays, will linger long in memory as 'the most beautiful thing Walla Walla ever did.' It was a wonderful artistic success, owing to the devotion of the Park Club to ideals, which were epitomized by Mr. Garnett as 'those whose Civic pride and constructive idealism have enabled them to dare and to achieve.'"The year 1917 has been marked by a 'Kirmess,' the proceeds of which are to be devoted to Red Cross work. It is the judgment of all concerned that though the park needs work, the soldiers in the field need our money more."While there are naturally many more recollections in respect to Walla Walla and its near vicinity, yet we have a number of others of great interest from other parts of the field.We are turning therefore, now from Walla Walla to the youngest sister of the counties, Asotin. We have first a reminiscence of early settlement in Asotin County, by Mrs. Mary A. Wormell, whose family is among the most prominent of the builders of the county:SOME PIONEER RECOLLECTIONS OF ASOTIN COUNTYBy Mrs. Mary A. WormellIn the summer of 1880 the writer came with her family to that portion of Asotin County known as Asotin flat. We arrived late in July from California travelling by the "prairie schooner" route. We had encountered many difficulties and no little discouragement en route, and heard many disparaging stories about the new country towards which we were travelling. One Californian, disgusted and homeward bound, solemnly informed us that we would see icicles in Washington a foot and a half long. And as the darky said: "We have seen all that an' mo'."One day we met a family taking the back trail that had left our locality the year before with this slogan printed on the new, white cover of their "prairie schooner"—"Washington or Bust." They passed slowly by, a weary, dejected looking outfit, and the weather-beaten old canvas top bore the single word—"Busted." But even this demonstration of defeat did not daunt us, for we were already "busted," had nothing to lose and everything to gain, so we kept right on as the western phrase so aptly puts it—"hitting the trail," to the north that brought us at last to what is now Asotin County. It "looked good" to us then and has kept right on looking good to us ever since.
Then we traveled with a train and the Indians came around our wagons; some of them begged for food. One day when we sat down on the ground to eat our dinner about a dozen big red-faced fellows came and stood around with tomahawks in their hands. I did not want any dinner that day, but they went away peaceably, and we traveled on over good roads and through beautiful country upPlatte River and on and on and soon got used to seeing Indians. Sometimes they would follow our wagons and some one would throw a piece of bread out to them and they would run after the wagon and pick it up; then throw another piece, till they would look like little chickens after an old hen.
Fuel was very scarce in that country. We had to burn sage brush, dead weeds, or anything we could get. Sometimes my husband would keep feeding the fire while I baked the flapjacks, as we called them.
The men folks were all the time looking out for good grass and water for the stock, which they would herd on the grass till late at night, and than tie them to the wagon wheels. In the morning they would take them out again and herd them until starting time, which was pretty early, as we wanted to hurry through to Walla Walla. We gave our mules all the scraps we had left from our meals and they relished it very much and would hunt in the wagon for the dinner box and look and wait for their lunch.
There were some mean people crossed the plains. There was a man and his wife and three grown daughters traveling in our train. One day when we lay over we heard a commotion, and looking toward a tent we saw a girl pitch out of it and a man's boot and foot up in the air. The girl said her papa kicked her out because she had forgotten to water the horses. One other time we had stopped to rest and I heard a woman cry and swear and pray, first one and then the other. I said to a friend, "Let us go and see if we can help her;" but she said "No; it is a woman with a very loathsome disease and the man that drives the team was kind to bring her out west." The man would cook a little food and hand it to her and then go away.
Well, the people were not all bad; we found some very dear friends on our trip. I never will forget them. It was a trying trip on us all. We had some dangerous streams to cross. We would come to some that looked impossible to cross. We would stop and plan and try the depth in every way possible, and then block up the wagon bed to the top of the standard, then tie them fast to the wagon, then cautiously drive in almost holding our breath. We had four mules and the leaders were small. Sometimes we could not see much of them but their heads. Our little boy would laugh and enjoy the excitement, but I took many a cry when I thought of where we were taking him. We had started and must get through. I had about forgotten to mention the weather, which was very stormy. It rained and snowed and blew our wagon sheet off and everything we had got wet. Our flour got musty; we had to eat it; we could get no other.
By this time we were getting pretty well up Platte River, and did not see many Indians, but were hearing a good deal about their committing depredations, and commenced to corral our wagons of nights. That was to drive in a circle, unhitch, then the men would pull them close together by hand, and after herding the stock would bring them in and tie to the outside wheels of the wagons for the night.
One day our train came up to a corral of this kind and the women were sitting around crying and the men were standing in groups talking very earnestly, and not a hoof in sight. We soon learned their troubles. They had left their stock out a little way from the wagons to feed without any guards and the Indians had seen their opportunity and run between them and their stock andrun them off. What those poor people did we never learned. We had to travel on.
One morning a few days after this sad scene we passed a train which had not started out yet, and came upon another sad scene. Two men had left their train in the evening and drove about a mile ahead, in order to get better grass for their horses. Just at dusk they were sitting on a log near their wagons when eight Indians came behind them and commenced shooting them with arrows. The men jumped for their guns, but before they reached their wagons the Indians had them both down. They left them for dead and then took the four horses and guns and ammunition and $800 in money and everything else they wanted out of the wagon, and left. But one poor fellow was not quite dead. After the Indians left he crawled a little way off in the brush and lay there till next morning. When we came along he crawled out and told us all about it. We stayed with him till his train came up, then helped him to bury his partner, and then went on. I was pretty homesick for a few days.
We were getting into the mountains and the roads were bad, and so were the Indians. We were very cautious; two men stood guard every night, taking turns.
The weather was getting warm and pleasant after all, and through all of our hardships we had some pleasant and amusing things happen. There was a good many jack rabbits along the road. We had a rabbit pot-pie pretty often. One day about a half-dozen men got after a rabbit and were running past our wagon and shooting with their pistols. My husband was walking by our wagon and said, "Hand me the shotgun," and I handed it to him. He shot and brought down the rabbit, then gave it to me. That ended the race and raised a laugh.
Once in every two days we would stop a day and rest, lay over, we called it, to do our washing. We would take a bucket and camp kettle and go to the creek; that was all the utensils we had to wash with. When the clothes were dry they were ready to put on—no ironing on that trip. We saw irons, tubs, washboards, and a good many other things that people had thrown out of their wagons because their teams were giving out. We did not dare to pick them up and haul them for fear our own teams would give out. I knew one woman that had a cook stove in her wagon and she was so anxious to bring it through that she would get out and push on the wagon when it was going up hill, but she had to give it up and set it out and go on without it. We were beginning to find out how dependent we were on our teams.
Before we left home our neighbors and friends gave me a lot of nice pieces and helped me make a keepsake quilt. I prized it very highly. One day, I put it out to sun and some fire blew on it and burned it up. Then I shed a few tears. Much as we needed everything we had we would lose and leave our things at the camps. We lost our axe and coffee pot and our comb. Then we tried to borrow a comb, but found out there were but few in the train. So we women got together and had our hair cut off. Then we were called the short-haired train.
The health of our train was pretty good. Sometimes a family would get very sick from eating too many wild weeds they would gather and cook for greens so as to have a change, as variety of wood was getting scarce.
We brought a keg of sorghum syrup with us, and would have had plenty to last through, but one day our little boy was missing, and looking in the wagon wesaw him. He had found the matches and was just putting the last bunch in the syrup keg, so we had to do without sorghum.
One night we stopped near an old fort where some men were staying. So I felt pretty safe, but before morning we found out they were worse than Indians, for they had whiskey to sell and some of the men in our train got some whiskey and got drunk, then fought and quarreled all night. Next morning when a few wagons were ready to start the men that had been drunk were asleep. Another train came along and we drove on with them. It seemed a trip where every one had to look out for self. We did not dare to stop long to help the unfortunate or we would not get through ourselves. We did not start out to die on the plains. We passed many a new made grave.
At this time it was as disagreeably hot as it had been cold on the start. One time we tried traveling at night to avoid the extreme heat, but that would not do.
I have not given many dates, as I have forgotten most of them. Am writing this mostly for my children and grandchildren to read and want it to be as near true as I can remember.
We learned that the main thing on that trip was to keep on moving. As we got near and into the mountains the weather got cool and pleasant. But, oh, such mountains and roads, sometimes they would seem almost perpendicular, but we would climb and get up most all out of the wagon walking, then slide down on the other side, then up, then down, and soon day after day some of the mountains seemed almost solid rock.
One day we came to a beautiful little stream. Someone that was walking dipped up a cup of water and said, "Will you have a drink?" I took the cup. Imagine my surprise when it almost burned my lips. Those were the first hot springs we had ever seen. Then we came to a place that looked like it was covered with ice and frost, but it proved to be salt. We picked up some pieces and used it for cooking.
We began to hear more rumors about the Indians and could see signs of their mischief. So we corralled our wagons very carefully and went to bed and were sleeping soundly when all of a sudden we were awakened with hearing screaming and very rapid shooting. I jumped out of bed and said, "The Indians have attacked us." My husband got up and said, "I will go and see what the trouble is." Then I got all of the guns and ammunition to the front of the wagon ready for battle, and was piling the sacks of flour and bacon around our little boy, who was yet asleep, when my husband came back and said it was coyotes yelping and the guards were shooting at them. So we went to bed again and were soon asleep. That was one thing we could enjoy on that trip.
Well, we finally got over the Rocky Mountains. You need not be surprised if I tell you that our shoes were getting thin and pretty badly worn. We did not start with an over supply and our clothes were wearing out fast and we were looking pretty rough and sunburnt.
We came to some more deep rivers and had to block up our wagon beds so we could cross. Then we came to a country infested with crickets. I never saw anything like it; they were almost as big as a mouse and could chirp and jump in such big bands. Our mules shied at them. Well, we were glad to get out of that country.
One day looking ahead in the distance we saw something coming that lookedlike covered wagons, but as it drew near we could see it was actually coming the other way toward us, something we had not seen for hundreds, yes, thousands of miles. Well, they came on and passed us. It was a pack train, wonderful sight for us. They frightened our teams in their weak and half-dead condition. Then someone said those were cowboys.
Then we came to where some men camped. They were excited over losing a lot of mules and horses. They were driving a band out west. The Indians had stampeded them and run a lot of them away. We saw several dead horses which the men had ridden to death trying to get the band together again. We traveled on and came to some timbered mountains. Now we could have plenty of wood to cook with. It was a treat to have plenty of wood and water at the same time.
One evening after we had corralled our wagons and the guards had taken the teams out to grass one of the men came running back and said, "Get your guns quick; there is a drove of elk right among our stock." The men hurried out with their guns, fired, and brought down two big elks and dragged them into camp. I remember it so well, they looked so much like one of our little mules. The men skinned them and cut them up and then decided that my husband had fired the most fatal shot; so we had first choice piece. The meat was fine.
We came to a desolate looking place. It was in a deep canyon and we had to stop over night. There were some old bleached bones and a lot of tangled hair. Someone said it was human hair and bones and that the Indians had massacred a train and their bodies had never been buried. We did not know how much of that was true, but at that time we could believe almost anything. After all, our Indian troubles were mostly scares, but as the old saying is, you had as well kill a person as scare him to death.
By this time we came to some more awful hills to come down. We all got out of wagons and the men tied ropes to the hind wheels and held back while the teams and people slid down. Well, we all got down and went on our way rejoicing, and finally got into some pretty country and laid over to let our teams rest, and do our washing.
That day I took a stroll down by the creek and saw a big fish lying in some shallow water in a little island. I very cautiously slipped around between it and the main creek and put my hands under it and threw it out on land. Then I wrapped my apron around it and went carrying it into camp. It was alive and weighed about eight pounds. We would not eat it for fear it might be sick, but some of the boys wanted it, so I gave it to them. They cooked it and ate it and said it was very good. Next morning we hitched up and traveled on.
The weather was pleasant and we began to see signs of civilization and met another pack train which was loaded with flour, bacon, whisky, and tobacco. I should not have said signs of civilization. But we saw better things further on. Some of our people tried to buy some provisions of them, but they would not sell; said they were taking them to the mines and expected to get a dollar a pound for what they had. Our money was pretty scarce and what we had was greenbacks and only worth fifty cents on the dollar out West.
Then we came to a little garden and a cabin back in the brush. We could see the green lettuce and onions through the fence. Some of our boys said they would make a raid on that garden, but when they got on the fence they saw a treeon the other side and a man hanging by the neck from a limb of that tree. Then they said, "We don't want any garden sass." We learned later that it was only a paddy stuffed with straw. Our provisions were getting scarce and our teams were getting weaker, and we very anxious to get through.
We finally arrived in the Grande Ronde Valley and then we spent the last cent we had to buy a beef bone and some fresh vegetables. Then all got together and made a big dinner. All sat down and ate together. After dinner we all shook hands and said good-bye. Then each one went his own way.
We started to cross the Blue Mountains and one of our mules got sick. We had urged him too much. He seemed to be asleep on his feet, held his eyes shut, and wanted to pull all the time. Well, he pulled through. I had almost learned to love those mules, they had been so faithful.
We arrived in Walla Walla, Wash., footsore and weary, in just three months from the day we started.
When we arrived in this beautiful little valley without a dollar and scarcely any clothing and no provisions we had a pretty hard time. Now, when a family gets their house and everything they have, burned, the people around get together and help them, and it is right they should in this land of plenty; and when a criminal leaves the penitentiary they give him a suit of clothes and some money. But there was no help for the green immigrants, as we were called, and I suppose we were, at least in some respects.
We did not understand the western slang and Indian talk that we heard so much. It was something like this. A man that had been out West about five years was eating dinner with us, said, "That is hiu mucka muck." He was referring to something on the table. We asked him if he liked this country. He said, "You bet your life!" We said, "Why do so many men out West wear revolvers on their belts and big knives in their boot legs?" He said, "It is necessary to keep order; we have a man for breakfast quite often."
Then we would hear the remark, lots of men out West are made to bite the dust with their boots on; and then, you sabba, or savvy, and many such expressions. Well, we finally got initiated. And the people were very kind to us. We never saw a time when we appreciated our neighbors so much. They were friends in need and in deed.
This country was covered with bunch-grass, flowers, Indians, coyotes, and grasshoppers. A few white people were living along the creeks in little huts. Some were growing a little wheat and others small grain and gardens. Everything was very high priced. Wheat sold for a dollar and a half a bushel. There was scarcely any fruit to be had at any price. When I go through this beautiful valley, now a little less than forty years after, and see wagon loads of delicious fruit going to waste it makes me think of those times.
Well, we went to work; had to rustle, kept at it from early morn till late at night. But we would jump from one thing to another. There seemed to be too many chances. First we would settle on one piece of land, then on another. There were thousands and thousands of acres of good unclaimed land all about us, but people thought none but the sloughs would grow anything. After two or three years of changing about we finally bought eighty acres of land and settled down. Paid eight hundred dollars for it. We gave thirty dollars, a horse,and our only cow to make the first payment. At this time we had two children in our family.
Before we had any wheat to sell it came down to fifty cents per bushel. The country up to this time had been settled mostly by men; only some of them had Indian women for wives. The families that settled this country first were nearly all new married people and a baby came to almost every home in less than two years for a dozen years or more.
One day I went to visit a dear neighbor and I was complaining of hard times and she said, "We have been living on boiled wheat for several days." I believe there were a good many others doing the same thing. Those hard times seemed to bind neighbors close together. Three or four of us would get together and go two or three miles to get some wild gooseberries and elderberries and red haws and fix them up for fruit. They were pretty good when there was nothing better.
I will now mention some of the Indian scares that we had to endure. We had been warned by the newspapers to look out for the Indians, as they were on the war path and had murdered some of the white settlers and had mangled them terribly. So one Sunday the people were holding meeting on Mill Creek in a little school house when a little girl came running in, crying, and said, "The Indians are killing my mama and papa." Some of the men hurried to the house, which was about a mile away, and the young boy preacher got on a horse and away he went as fast as his horse could go to warn the people at their homes that the Indians had broken out. He stopped at our house and asked for a fresh horse, as his was about run down. We did not have any, so he went rushing on and stopping at every house to give the alarm. My husband and several of the neighbor men had gone from home that day. Imagine the scene. We were running from one house to another; each one of us had three or four little children. After about a dozen of us got together we decided to go to a log cabin that was near and wait for the Indians to come. There was one man in the cabin and he was getting ready to shoot out through the cracks between the logs. When a man came from the seat of war and said no one is seriously hurt, it was a drunken row and only one Indian was killed, we all went home and the boy preacher got over his scare and has been long since a good and noted preacher. And the Indian that was supposed to be dead came to life again. Some of the men took him to town and had a trial and the jury sentenced him to wash his face. Well, this is one of the many such scares as some others can remember that are yet living.
I will relate one more incident. At this time there was a saw mill at the head of Mill Creek and there were several families living at the mill. The men had built a fort for the women and children in case the Indians should attack them. One day some men who lived in the valley took their teams and wagons and started to go to the mill, but when they got in the mountains they saw a band of Indians coming down the trail beyond the mill. The men at once stopped, unhitched from their wagons, and jumped on their horses and used the tugs for whips and came down the mountains on double quick and reported to all the people along the road what they had seen, and the people were soon leaving their cabins and running for the brush. And those at the mill saw the Indians coming and they went running to the fort. Some one relating the scene said the men could run faster than the women and children and got into the fort first. Well, theIndians came and were friendly and very much surprised when they saw the people running and said they had been back in the mountains hunting and fishing and did not know that there was any war going on.
The health of a people in a new country is usually good, but we would sometimes get sick. Would hardly dare think of sending for a doctor. There was no money to pay one and there could hardly be one found. But there was a woman who lived in our neighborhood that had a good doctor book. It was Doctor Gunn's work. She went by it in her own family, and the neighbors sent for her. She would take her doctor book under her arm and go to visit the sick. Then they would read and study together and use the simple remedies prescribed in that book and get along pretty well. In that way she got into quite a large practice. She often rode a little blue pony. People would sometimes make the remark, "I think there is someone sick at a certain house. I see the blue pony tied at the gate."
This woman officiated where more than a hundred babies were born. She was very successful, never lost a mother or child while she was taking care of them. She most always went back every day for a week to see the patient and wash and dress the baby. And most of the time she had one of her own to take with her. She made no charges, as she did not have any license. But she received a good many presents, and is sometimes yet pleasantly reminded of by-gone days. Just a few days ago she received a photo of five large, stalwart men and a letter from their mother saying these are pictures of your boys; see how they have grown. Then another time a picture came from a distance of two large twin boys and a girl and word saying, see how your boys have grown.
I have not made mention of any names in this sketch, thinking it would be just as interesting without.
Well, I must get back to my pioneer days that I started to write about. Schools and churches were scarce. One woman taught a school in her home of two rooms. She had about a dozen scholars. About one-third of them were part Indian children. As I said before, some of the men that came out West first came alone and took Indian women for wives. People called them squaw men. We remember another woman that taught school in her home of one room. At noon when the children were out playing she would cook dinner and the family would eat, then she would take up her school again.
We would sometimes go three or four miles to church in a home of one room where three or four persons lived. The preacher would stand up in the corner between the table and fireplace and preach, while the congregation sat around on the beds and benches and boxes. Every corner would be full. Many a one received a blessing in those humble meetings. But we did not have to do that way very long. People with such energy soon built school houses and churches.
Building material was hard to get. When one man worked for or sold another man anything he would often pay him in gold dust. They used that a great deal. We would take our little sack of gold dust and go to town to buy things, and the merchants would weigh and blow and spill it till we would not have much left. I said go to town; there was not much town to go to. It was not like the town the little boy said he could not see for the houses. One would hardly know it was a town by the houses. At that time there was about a dozen, mostly business houses, scattered around in Walla Walla.
Mrs. Brewster Ferrel.
Equally characteristic of the first days is the narration of the "first boy in Walla Walla." This was Charles W. Clark. One of the honored citizens of Walla Walla, he was doubtless "the first boy to ride down Main Street," as he expressed it. Through his kindness we are able to present here some scenes from his memory of the first days in the history of Walla Walla.
RECOLLECTIONS OF THE FIRST BOY IN WALLA WALLA
I was born on August 29, 1846, in Oregon, on my father's claim near LaFayette, Yamhill County, from which the family was taken to Oregon City and thence to Portland.
Needless to say, Portland was then a raw, crude town on the edge of the Willamette River, with no business places except on Front and First streets.
In 1855 my father, Ransom Clark, left home for Colville mines. On his way home to Portland he selected the place on the Yellowhawk, since known from his name, ran out the lines with a pocket compass, for there was no Government survey. The place was nearly in a square and extended from about where the road just east of Harry Reynolds' house now is to the present Whitney Road.
My father was on the place in 1855 when the Indian war broke out, and he, like all the other settlers—few in number, of course—was ordered by the United States commandant to leave the country.
That war prevented my father's making proof on the claim, but the Government ruled that since the settlers had been obliged to leave on account of war, they should not lose their time, but could resume possession and continue to prepare for making final proof.
We lived in Portland until 1859, when announcement was made that Indian disturbances were at an end. In the fall of 1858 father had returned to the claim. With the coming of winter he went back to Portland, but on March 1, 1859, he went back again to Walla Walla, taking me with him. I was then twelve years old, a strong, active boy, and accustomed to all sorts of work and capable of being of much assistance to my father in starting the place.
We came from Portland with a team and wagon, putting them on the steamer at Portland and going as far as The Dalles; thence driving to Walla Walla. Mother was left alone in Portland with my brother Will, then two years old.
We had quite a lot of apple and peach trees which we obtained at the Tibbetts and Luelling nurseries, near Oregon City. I can tell you the Walla Walla Valley looked beautiful in those early spring days. It was just a waving sea of new grass, green all over without a fence or anything to obstruct riding anywhere that we might wish.
We reached our claim on March 28th. So far as I remember there was not another white boy in the whole valley, except at the fort, or whose parents were employed at the fort. Some of the army officers had children, but I hardly ever saw them. I had no playmates except the Indian children, and they were very friendly. There were no women, that is, no white women outside the fort, unless two or three transients. There were several Indian women married to white men, former Hudson's Bay men, down the valley at Frenchtown and elsewhere.
When we reached the claim we discovered that "Curly" Drumheller and Samuel Johnson had done some plowing on the south edge of our place, fromthe spring branch to Russell Creek. We sowed it with oats and there was a good crop, which we threshed out with flails in the fall. We set out some of our fruit trees on the flat just southeast of where Harry Reynolds' house now is. Those were, I am sure, the first trees ever brought to Walla Walla, that is, after those that had been raised from seed by Doctor Whitman at Waiilatpu. John Foster bought the trees which were set on his place from our lot. The bill for those trees from Seth Luelling is still in possession of my brother Will.
After remaining six weeks my father returned to Portland to get my mother and brother. I was left to keep the place, in company with Robert Horton. We had nothing but a tent for a house, but we managed to get along very comfortably. My main work was to cook. I helped plow on John Foster's place to help pay for the logs which Foster had gotten out that spring or summer for making our cabin. On Sundays and sometimes on other days I would go to "town," which was just a mongrel collection of shacks and tents, with a confused mass of settlers, Indians and soldiers straying through. The chief amusement was horse racing and gambling. There was a straightaway track where the cemetery now is and another just about through where the chief part of town now lies. The first circular track was laid out by George Porter about three miles down the valley, running around the peculiar hill on the Sam Smith place, afterward the Tom Lyons place.
The saloon business was very active then and every species of vice flourished. There was a man named Ed Leach who had come with father and me from The Dalles, who had afterwards drifted around town.
One day I was near the saloon owned by W. A. Ball, and I saw that there had just been something going on, for there was a bunch of men standing around talking excitedly.
Ed Leach was there, and seeing me he pulled me over to a place where I saw blood on the ground, and he said, pointing out the puddle of blood, "There, Charlie, is where I got him." He had just killed a man.
Nothing was done about it, so far as I know.
W. A. Ball was uncle of my wife, and one of the first business men in Walla Walla. He was the one especially who insisted on giving the name of Walla Walla to the town. Some wanted to call it Waiilatpu, while some favored Steptoeville.
One day while in town a man called to me saying that he had heard it rumored that my father was dead. I paid no attention to this, for I had heard from him a few days before, that he had safely reached home, was getting ready to return, and that everything was well. There were no mails at that time and the only way to get messages was through the army or by stray travelers. It would take a week or two to hear anything from Portland.
But though I paid no attention to the rumor it proved a sad reality. That very day after I had returned to the tent which I called home, my mother's brother, Uncle Billy Millican, who is still living in Walla Walla, appeared and told me that it was only too true, that my father had been taken suddenly sick and had died a number of days before, and that my mother was even then on her way to Walla Walla.
The next day she came, having come on the Steamer Colonel Wright, of which Lew White was captain, on her second or third trip from The Dalles toWallula. From that place she came with Capt. F. F. Dent in an army ambulance to Walla Walla. That Captain Dent, by the way, was a brother-in-law of General Grant.
As you can imagine it was a sad, hard journey for a woman who had just been made a widow, and who was soon to be again a mother.
It shows something of the nerve and heroism of pioneer women that they could go through such experiences. My mother had been strongly advised to give up her claim. A man had offered her $300.00 for it, and Judge Shattuck, one of the leading lawyers of Portland, urged her to take it, assuring her that it would be the most that she could ever get out of it. But father had been greatly impressed with the prospective value of the place and the prospects of the town, and my mother had been so much impressed with his views that she determined to hold the claim.
Accordingly, after spending two weeks with me she returned to Portland. I spent that summer, sometimes a very lonesome one, in the tent, or hoeing the garden which he had put out, and in September Robert Horton and Uncle Billy Millican put up a cabin from the logs.
The cabin was put on the present location of Harry Reynolds' house. It was moved from there a few feet many years ago, and put on a good foundation, so that it is now just about as sound as ever. It is undoubtedly the oldest house now existing in the Inland Empire, in which a white woman lived. My mother was about the first white woman in this region, after the missionary period.
My mother came back to Walla Walla in October of that same year, 1859, with her newly born child, then six weeks old, to live the remainder of her life in Walla Walla.
During those early years the valley seemed to be filled with Indians, but they were very kindly and well disposed, and we had no trouble with them, even though a good part of the time we were alone, mother and the baby and the little boy and myself as the nearest a man about the place. We had plenty of horses and cattle and chickens and garden and had an abundance of the necessities, though no elegancies.
There were two principal Indian chiefs, and they, with their squaws and children were often around the house. They were fine Indians. Yellowhawk was one of them, and his location was on the creek named after him, on what is now the Billy Russell place near the Braden schoolhouse. The other was Tintimitsy. His location was on what became the J. H. Abbott place.
As I remember the old town in 1860, there were several shack stores. One was that of Neil McClinchy, on what would now be between Third and Fourth streets.
Baldwin Brothers were about between Second and Third. Frank Worden was located just about where the Third National Bank now is. Guichard and Kohlhauff had a store on the same corner where the White House Clothing Store now is. John F. Abbott had a stable right in what is now Second Street, just about what would be between the Jaycox Store and the Jones Building. There was no order or system to the streets for many years, and, as we know, they are very irregular now, having followed convenient trails or breakings through the cottonwoods and birches which grew on the creek.
The creek at that time ran right on the top of the ground and in high waterran out in many places. Quite a stream at high water ran through just about where Senator Ankeny's house is, over through the present high school grounds and thence joining Garrison Creek.
During the long, cold nights of winter in 1860-61 we lived alone in our cabin. Mother and I would grind our flour in the big coffee-mill. One regular job we had, and often we were up till midnight working at it, and that was to make sacks for the flour-mill which A. H. Reynolds, in partnership with J. A. Sims and Capt. F. F. Dent, put up in 1859 on what is now the Whitney place.
But my mother was anxious that I should have some schooling, and having become married to Mr. Reynolds, she sent me to Portland Academy for two years, and two years more to LaFayette where I lived with my grandparents.
When I returned in 1865 I was a man. Walla Walla was growing. That was right in the midst of the mining times and the Vigilantes, when they had "a man for breakfast" nearly every morning. It was a wild, exciting time, but through it all Walla Walla has grown to be the beautiful city of which we are now so proud.
We have devoted considerable space in the early part of this volume to Indians and Indian wars. The narrative of W. W. Walter gave a view of the Cayuse war from the standpoint of a participant. Other wars with the natives followed. The most spectacular and in many ways most remarkable of all was that of 1877, with the Joseph band of Nez Percés.
We incorporate here an account of the personal experiences of W. S. Clark, one of the leading pioneers of Walla Walla, and one of the best informed students of early history.
THE NEZ PERCÉ WAR
On the morning of June 19, 1877, a courier reached the City of Walla Walla bringing the sad news of the engagement on Camas Prairie between the Nez Percé Indians and Colonel Perry's troop of cavalry in which one-half of Perry's troop had been killed. The news caused a great deal of excitement. Word also came that the citizens of Lewiston were in danger of a raid by the Indians and that the settlers were pouring into town from all sides and help was much needed.
Thomas P. Page, county auditor of Walla Walla County, started to work raising a volunteer company. At 1 o'clock in the afternoon a meeting was called at the courthouse where the facts were presented and resolutions were passed promising aid to the people of the Lewiston District. One hundred names were soon down on the roll and all who could get horses were to start that night. The quartermaster at the fort here gave us rifles and sixty rounds of cartridges apiece. At 6 o'clock that evening the following party left Walla Walla en route to Lewiston: A. Reeves Ayres, John Agu, Ike Abbott, A. L. Bird, Chas. Blewett, W. S. Clark, Lane Gilliam, H. E. Holmes, Albert Hall, Jake Holbrook, Frank Jackson, John Keeney, J. H. Lister, Henry Lacy, Wm. McKearn:, S. H. Maxon, Aleck O'Dell, C. S. Robinson, J. S. Stott, Ben Scott, Albert Small, Frank Waldrip, T. P. Page, L. K. Grimm and J. F. McLean.
We arrived at Dayton at 1 o'clock that night, and put our horses in the livery stable and ourselves to sleep in the hay-mow overhead. Next morning we breakfastedat the hotel. A. R. Ayers, H. E. Holmes and Tom Beall were missing. We traveled to Marengo where a short stop was made and the troops under Colonel Whipple came up. The volunteers took the Indian trails across the hills and the regular troops followed the wagon road. We stopped two hours on the Pataha and then traveled on to Dan Favor's ranch which was about fifteen miles this side of Lewiston, where we went into camp. Here we waited about three hours for supper, there being some misunderstanding as to the getting of the meal. When the troops came up they camped at the same place.
On the morning of the 21st, after paying our bills, we traveled on to Lewiston. Leaving our horses on this side of the river, we crossed over to the town where we met Major Spurgeon, the commander at that place, who gave us to understand that the settlers nearby were in no immediate danger and told us that, if we cared to go on into the Indian country, we could be of service, but would have to be under the command of the regular military authorities.
We re-crossed the river to our horses and, after dinner, signed our names to report to General Howard for eight days of service. We then elected our officers as follows: T. P. Page, captain, L. K. Grimm, lieutenant, and John F. McLean, sergeant. Then we again crossed over to Lewiston, this time with our outfits, and were regularly mustered in for eight days of service. Up to this time, Ayres, Holmes and Beall had not caught up with us. Some thought that they had backed out and gone home, others thought that they would yet come up.
Major Spurgeon directed us to Fort Lapwai to report to General Howard, where we arrived at 6 o'clock in the evening. Here we had supper, after drawing on the post commissary for rations. It rained on us all that night. The morning of the 22d we spent in repairing and fixing up our outfits. At 1 o'clock we were again on the march as General Howard's guard, the troops going in advance. There were three companies of infantry, two companies of cavalry, one company of artillery and one company of volunteers.
As we were starting off from camp that afternoon we were surprised as well as pleased to see Doc Ayers, Doc Holmes and Ike Abbott coming up. They were forgiven for their delinquency when we learned that they had gotten lost, being led astray by Beall whose horse gave out and who then gave up the expedition and went back home. They joined us in the march without waiting to secure any dinner. While we were going up Craig Mountain Ike Abbott's horse got away from him and he did not catch him until several hours later. On the evening of the 22d we made camp on Craig Mountain, putting our horses out with those of the regular troops, and Sergeant McLean detailed J. H. Lister, Frank Waldrip and myself to be on guard the first part of the night and Lane Gilliam, A. L. Bird and Frank Jackson for the latter part. This was our first guard duty and I thought that upon me rested the entire burden of herding those 300 head of horses.
On Saturday, June 23d, we started early and traveled along the mountain until after noon when we reached the great Camas Prairie. I was very much surprised at the extent and richness of this prairie on any part of which, it was claimed, timothy hay would grow. We passed the place where our former citizen, Lew Day, was first attacked by the Indians and later came to Ben Norton's place on Cottonwood where we camped. Owing to the fact that we were in advance of the command, Captain Page put a guard on the house andbarn. He placed Henry Lacy as guard over the barn and, after the command came up, Captain Wilkinson started to enter the barn and Henry stopped him. The captain told Henry who he was. Still this did no good and the captain turned and went away. Henry Lacy and Charley Blewett were the youngest members of the company.
The following morning Aleck O'Dell, Lane Gilliam, Al Hall, Jake Holbrook, Ben Scott, Ike Abbott, Wm. McKearn and I got up early and started for Mount Idaho, nineteen miles distant. We passed the place where Norton and his family, John Moore and Miss Bowers had been overtaken by the Indians, also the place where a load of goods for Mount Idaho had been captured by the Indians. We passed through Grangeville and went on to Mount Idaho, arriving there at about 12 o'clock. We hitched our horses to the fence of a man by the name of Aram (?) who gave them some hay. Mr. Brown at the hotel told us that dinner would be at 4 o'clock. We told him that we were hungry and could not wait. He wasn't long in getting us something to eat.
During our stay here O'Dell and one or two others had their horses shod. I went into Volmer's store and wrote a letter home. Mr. Scott, the manager of the store, showed us many courtesies. Both he and Mr. Volmer had formerly lived in Walla Walla. Mr. Scott said that all the people in that district who could were preparing to leave for the Salmon River. Mr. Aram (?) invited us all in to dinner, which invitation we gladly accepted.
Here we secured the following information with regard to the depredations of the Indians. Joseph's band from the Wallowa and the Salmon River Indians under White Bird had been camped on Rocky Canyon, eight miles from Mount Idaho. The Indians attacked on Thursday, June 14th. The settlers on White Bird suffered severely. Jack Manuel was living there with his wife and baby. The baby was killed and Mrs. Manuel, after being horribly mistreated, was locked up in a room of their house and then the house was burned to the ground. James Baker, who lived about a mile below Manuel's place on White Bird, was killed. Samuel Benedict was killed but his wife and little girl escaped and came safely into town. H. C. Brown was shot in the shoulder but escaped in a boat and was later found by the cavalry. Harry Mason was killed but his sister escaped in the brush. William Osborn was also killed. Those killed on John Day's Creek were Henry Elfreys and his nephew, Robert Bland, Dick Divine, and two Frenchmen. The Elfreys were killed by the Indians with their own guns which had been secured while the settlers were at work in the field.
The settlers on Camas Prairie shared a similar fate. According to Mr. Scott, Lew Day left Mount Idaho to place the settlers on the prairie on guard and to give notice to the troops at Lapwai. The Indians overtook him about two miles beyond Norton's house. They immediately fired on him, hitting him twice in the back. Lew turned and went back to Norton's place where he found Norton and his family getting ready to go to Mount Idaho.
Norton, with his wife and boy, Joseph Moore, Miss Bowers, Mr. and Mrs. Chamberlain and their child and Lew Day all got into the wagon and started for town, the Indians following and firing on them. Four miles the other side of Grangeville the Indians succeeded in killing the horses and they were forced to abandon the wagon. Hill Norton and Miss Bowers made their escape and came into Grangeville, bringing the first information of the attack. Norton was killed,Joseph Moore was hit twice, Mrs. Norton was shot through both legs, Mr. Chamberlain and their child were killed, the child's head being split open with a hatchet, and Mrs. Chamberlain was shot in the breast with an arrow. Theodore Schwartz, another settler, was wounded.
At 6 o'clock that evening we started back to camp and arrived there at 9 o'clock. On Monday, June 25th, we left our camp on the Cottonwood and continued our march to Johnson's camp or ranch, where we again made camp. On the road we passed the place where, before the outbreak, about one hundred lodges of Indians had been set at the lakes, on the rocks, in the canyons and on the prairie. Also we passed over the ground of Colonel Perry's retreat. Captain Page picked up some twenty cartridge shells within a distance of fifty yards. At Johnson's we were given a camping ground to the right of the main column, about half a mile from wood and water. The boys were dissatisfied and we secured permission to camp within the enclosure at Johnson's house. H. E. Holmes, Ike Abbott and C. S. Robinson were put on guard.
After breakfast on Tuesday morning, June 26th, we left camp to reconnoiter. We were in advance of the command that day. In our reconnoitering we came across the body of a dead soldier about two miles from camp. We were compelled to rest at times to allow the infantry an opportunity to dig trenches which we might use in case of need. About 12 o'clock we reached the summit looking down on White Bird Creek. During the morning's ride most of the soldiers killed in Colonel Perry's fight with the Indians were buried. For several miles we kept coming upon their dead bodies.
In the afternoon, with Chapman as guide, we rode along the top of the divide between Salmon River and White Bird. It was rough and tiresome riding. We saw fresh tracks and Chapman told us that we were liable to meet Indians at any time. Soon we discovered three Indian scouts across the river and shortly after that we discovered the whole band moving farther up the mountain. We fired a number of shots toward them but they were too far away and we were only wasting our cartridges.
We then left the ridge and went down on the bottom at Manuel's on White Bird. We went inside the gate and looked at the remains of the buildings which the Indians had burned. A few of the volunteers strayed down to the creek and what was their surprise to see, sitting in a little shed which the Indians had spared, a white man whom we all soon found to be Jack Manuel, and whom we had previously reported as among the killed. He had been wounded in the back of the neck by an arrow and had also been shot in the hips.
Our next task was to get Manuel out and away to safety. We soon fixed a pole in a broken buggy that was standing near and by fastening what spare ropes we had to the buggy and to the pommels of our saddles we succeeded in getting him away. Finding that we were not making headway fast enough, our captain sent to Captain Miller for two pack mules which were soon at hand. Then, making the pole into shafts, we soon arrived at camp where we turned Mr. Manuel over to his friends, who were to care for his wounds and take him to Mount Idaho the following day. It had rained all that day and we had had a hard day's work.
On June 27th we broke camp and marched to White Bird, the soldiers burying the dead soldiers we found which they had not had time to bury the precedingday. It was there on the White Bird side of the divide that the terrible battle had taken place. That night we camped within a short distance of the Salmon River which we expected to cross the following day. It seemed likely that, on crossing the river, we would have a fight with the Indians for we could see them for hours that afternoon riding their horses about and swinging themselves from side to side in all kinds of capers.
After we had made camp we received instructions to escort the pack train back to Lewiston where they were going for supplies. On reaching Lewiston the eight days for which we had engaged were up and, believing that the army of General Howard was fully able to conquer Chief Joseph and his braves, we returned to our homes.
On the afternoon after our return came word of the ambushing of Lieutenant Rains and a dozen volunteers and regulars, and the killing of Blewett and Foster near Cottonwood. The troops there had known that the Indians were in the vicinity and the lieutenant called for volunteers to go and hunt for Blewett and Foster, who had gone out earlier in the day and had failed to return as they had been ordered to do. The lieutenant and his men had not been gone long before a volley was heard and, on other troops tracing them up, they found that they had all been killed from ambush at the one volley. Foster had been killed earlier in the day near the road at the entrance to the prairie. Blewett had been killed a little later, around the mountain, undoubtedly after a run for his life.
This Charley Blewett was my next-door neighbor and had been for ten years prior to his death. We were students together at the school in district number one and also at Whitman Seminary. We had all regretted very much leaving Charley but he wanted to stay and Colonel Whipple said that he would look after him. This he did, taking him into his own mess. As soon as conditions would permit we had his remains brought home and he was given a military funeral.
The long chase after Chief Joseph and his Nez Percé Indians, with one or two fights and finally his surrender to General Miles, is now a matter of history. While General Howard has been greatly maligned it must not be forgotten that he was fighting one of the bravest tribes of Indians in the United States.
Among the most attractive features of Walla Walla is the park. This has usually been known as "City Park" for lack of a better name. Discussion has been rife as to a better and a permanent name. That question is still pending but the author ventures to express the opinion here that the most appropriate name would be "Pashki," one of several forms of the Indian name for the location of the park and also used for the creek. The word means "sunflower."
We are fortunate to be able to present a sketch by Miss Grace Isaacs, a "Native Daughter" of Walla Walla, and one of the foremost among the creators of the park.
THE PARK AT WALLA WALLA
"When Mr. Olmstead outlined a plan for Walla Walla's parks ten years ago, it was a source of satisfaction to discover that the work by our first park commission was along similar lines.
"The Olmstead plan included a boulevard encircling the city and connecting a series of parks in the four quarters of the town, embracing land now leased by the golf club and other tracts owned by the city. Its fruition has been regarded by many as a beautiful dream, or an ideal not realized in this generation by some of our men of affairs. Not so, however, with some enthusiasts, encouraged by the president of the Park Commission, John W. Langdon. When the plans for our first City Park were outlined, this forty acre tract, a part of the oldest farm in the valley, had been the property of the city for some years, it having been acquired by the purchase of the water system, and contained two of the main reservoirs of spring water, which then supplied the town. John F. McLean, as a member of the City Council, had endeavored to improve the tract, but was handicapped for lack of funds, and by lack of interest among his colleagues to the extent of a resolution in the council to sell a part of the land for building lots. Mr. McLean opposed this plan so vigorously, and continued to urge the park's improvement so earnestly, that others became interested, and when Mayor Tausick appointed the first Park Commission, Mr. McLean was a member, with Mr. Langdon, John P. Kent, Mrs. J. C. Huckett and Mrs. E. S. Isaacs.
"It was in 1901 that Mrs. Conde Hamlin of St. Paul, a member of the Civic Improvement Committee of the General Federation of Woman's Clubs, at the invitation of The Women's Reading Club and the Art Club of Walla Walla (at that time the only clubs in Walla Walla, though our city has the distinction of having organized in 1885, the second woman's club in the State of Washington, it being also one of the first dozen in the United States), gave us our first public lecture upon Civic Improvement. The Commercial Club supplied the theatre and W. P. Hooper, vice president of the Commercial Club, presided and introduced the speaker. The immediate result was the organizing of local Improvement Clubs of men and women, that did much to prepare public sentiment for a broader development. The Women's Clubs which had already their civic committees, making tentative experiments (of trash cans and such) received an impetus, and finally the Park Commission was appointed, and Mr. Langdon proceeded to draw a plan for the improvement of City Park. A park superintendent was secured and then came the question of money. It would require $4,000 to lay the system of water pipes through forty acres; the Council gasped, and said 'dare we do it?'
"A mass meeting of women was called, and a petition to the Council asking that this work be done, was circulated by women, and assumed the remarkable length of fourteen feet of names when presented to the Council. Needless to say, the argument was irresistible, and the work was hurried to completion. There being still the necessity for funds, the Woman's Park Club thus organized on the broad lines of membership, willingness 'to work for parks' constituting eligibility to membership, and year by year its plans have been carried to completion in proportion to the state of the exchequer. Dreamland, a tract of ten acres in the southwestern part of town, has been acquired, and following Mr. Olmstead's recommendations, an effort is being made to secure land for another in the northwestern area, which is more than a mile from the Dreamland, and two from City Park. There are also eight acres on Boyer Avenue known as 'Wildwood' awaiting development, as well as the land lying along Mill Creek, previously mentioned as leased by the Golf Club. Walla Walla possesses abundant land forall the recreation places she will need for one hundred years at least, if wisely conserved.
"The Park Club established and maintains the playgrounds in two parks, and hopes another season to build swimming pools. For the establishment of this department credit should be given the eloquence of Jane Addams and of Judge Lindsey in depicting the need for the right environment of children in their leisure hours. It was with the hope that preventive measures might make some of the unhappy conditions of cities impossible in this community. The Park Club has for eight years given annually a 'Community' entertainment, usually an open air festival in the park. The Pageant of 1914, written and staged by Porter Garnett of the Pageant Association of America, the artist who has staged so many of the Bohemian Club's Grove Plays, will linger long in memory as 'the most beautiful thing Walla Walla ever did.' It was a wonderful artistic success, owing to the devotion of the Park Club to ideals, which were epitomized by Mr. Garnett as 'those whose Civic pride and constructive idealism have enabled them to dare and to achieve.'
"The year 1917 has been marked by a 'Kirmess,' the proceeds of which are to be devoted to Red Cross work. It is the judgment of all concerned that though the park needs work, the soldiers in the field need our money more."
While there are naturally many more recollections in respect to Walla Walla and its near vicinity, yet we have a number of others of great interest from other parts of the field.
We are turning therefore, now from Walla Walla to the youngest sister of the counties, Asotin. We have first a reminiscence of early settlement in Asotin County, by Mrs. Mary A. Wormell, whose family is among the most prominent of the builders of the county:
SOME PIONEER RECOLLECTIONS OF ASOTIN COUNTY
By Mrs. Mary A. Wormell
In the summer of 1880 the writer came with her family to that portion of Asotin County known as Asotin flat. We arrived late in July from California travelling by the "prairie schooner" route. We had encountered many difficulties and no little discouragement en route, and heard many disparaging stories about the new country towards which we were travelling. One Californian, disgusted and homeward bound, solemnly informed us that we would see icicles in Washington a foot and a half long. And as the darky said: "We have seen all that an' mo'."
One day we met a family taking the back trail that had left our locality the year before with this slogan printed on the new, white cover of their "prairie schooner"—"Washington or Bust." They passed slowly by, a weary, dejected looking outfit, and the weather-beaten old canvas top bore the single word—"Busted." But even this demonstration of defeat did not daunt us, for we were already "busted," had nothing to lose and everything to gain, so we kept right on as the western phrase so aptly puts it—"hitting the trail," to the north that brought us at last to what is now Asotin County. It "looked good" to us then and has kept right on looking good to us ever since.