[or-roots] Moving To Oregon (1868)

[Cecil Houk]

Florence Courtney Melton was the sister of my great grandmother, Sarah Jane Courtney Houk.

                                                                             taken from

HISTORY OF A PIONEER FAMILY 
Written by Florence (Courtney) Melton 1857-1926 
signed by her 24 February 1923 and later donated to 
Garfield Co, WA Historical Museum in Pomeroy, WA 


Moving To Oregon

    I don't know who proposed it.  It was decided to come west to Oregon.  They sold their homes.  We fitted two wagons.  [Jacob] Houk fitted one wagon and had three horses.  Mary had one horse.  Ahira Morse had a horse.  He drove one wagon.  We furnished a span of mules.  So that made one four horse team.  Baxter drove the other team.  We had three horses, but drove two most of the time.  Uncle Holbrook made a sale.  We sent our surplus stock and plunder there.  It was sold, and as I remember, they didn't get much out of the sale.  Everyone knew we could not take everything with us, so why pay much for it.  Mother had moved her bureau and bookcase from Ohio.  She knew she could not move it farther.  She gave them to Jacob, our married brother.  His daughter cherishes the bureau yet as the most precious heirloom of her grandmother she was named for but never saw.  They had so many books.  It was quite a struggle to pack in a box two feet square all your treasures and cast aside others seemingly so dear.  As long as Mother lived she would wish for books left in Iowa.  The was one keepsake, however, she would not part with.  That was Grandfather Ashbaugh's copper kettle,  It held twenty gallons, and he bought it about the year 1834, when their orchard came in to bearing.  Mother boiled apple butter by the barrel in this kettle.  (It is in my cellar now.)  The winter of 1867-68 was a busy time for everyone.  They kept the teams up and rolled the corn to them.  The man who bought our farm moved in the last of March to get settled in time to begin work when the weather would permit.  There were nine in their family and six in ours.  It is safe to say we were somewhat crowded.  It was a late spring.  I don't think they had plowed any or very little when we left. 
     We started at four o'clock May first, 1868 for the great West.  I don't think any one of the party had any regrets for leaving Iowa, or indulged in a moment's longing for it ever after.  We were on our way to the great unknown.  We expected it to be wild, lots of Indians, but that had no terrors for Mother.  She declared she would go until she found a place where she could raise fruit.  Several men had visited us that last winter who had been out to Washington and Oregon.  They were loud in praise of the Willamette Valley; it's possibilities as a great fruit country.  We left Iowa with Albany as our destination, but Uncle Holbrook thought if he could get to Wally Wallee, it would be near enough to Paradise for him.  One man came to see us who had been a soldier stationed on the plains.  After telling Indian stories for two hours, he reached over and took hold of a bunch of my hair and said, "Well, Sis, when the Indians scalp you, they will get a pretty head of hair."  I gave a scream and nearly fainted.  He told one yarn I never forgot.  When they were in a sod fort, the ground was covered with a light fall of snow.  They had butchered a beef and hung the haunch up on a post so the coyotes would come within shooting distance.  A Dutchman had to stand guard that night.  He saw the haunch, and looking out over the snow enough bushes showed that it looked like Indians creeping up to surprise the fort.  He began shooting and calling for more amonish, more amonish.  The haunch was riddled, but no Indians killed. 



Cecil Houk, ET1 USN Ret.
PO Box 530833
San Diego CA 92153
FAX 619-428-6434
mailto:cchouk at cox.net
ANDERSON - BLAKELY - FORD - HOUK - KIMSEY - MOE - RULAFORD - SIMPSON
Searchable GEDCOM: http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/~cchouk
My web page MENU: http://members.cox.net/~cchouk/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://omls.oregon.gov/pipermail/or-roots/attachments/20040520/563d92f0/attachment.html>