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HARRUT SESM!TH Ag'd 11 Years RECOLLECTIONS of the RICKREALL

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HARRUT SESM!TH Ag'd 11 Years RECOLLECTIONS of the RICKREALL HARRUT SESM!TH Ag'd 11 years RECOLLECTIONS OF THE RICKREALL BY HARRIET NESMITH MCARTI-LUR 1930 PORTLAND, OREGON PT.* of Koke-C1ipman Co EufeTe. Or.gon RECOLLECTIONS OF THE RICKREALL ByHARRIET NESMITH McARTHuR THE STORIES of the emigrations of 1843 and 1844 in which our people crossed the plains to Oregon and of the subsequent years of settlement and establishment of homes, we children knew only by hearsay. These stories were the common tales of the fireside, in which we were not par- ticularly impressed by the hardships of the weary six months' journey and of the difficulties in starting homes. We were perhaps too young to appreciate fully these narra- tives. My father,1 young and unattached, came to Oregon on horseback, arriving at old Fort Walla Walla, now Wallula, in the autumn of 1843. He and two other young men, Otey and Haggard,2 made their way to the Dalles, where they arrived on Monday, October 16, 1843. Here they exchanged their horses for an Indian canoe in which they navigated the lower Columbia River, arriving at the Hudson's Bay Company post at Fort Vancouver, where they were kindly received by Dr. John McLoughlin, that good friend of the pioneers.Continuing their voyage they finally landed at Canemah on October 27. After some months at Canemah my father settled on a claim west of Monmouth, in what was later Polk County. Three large families of this immigration remained on the upper Columbia and built boats in which they made the descent of the mighty river, and were welcomed at Fort Vancouver after a tragic passage in November, in open boats and in constant rain. My grandfather, David Goff, and his wife and three children had a sad experience in the Blue Mountains in the fall of 1844. Exhausted oxen forced a halt for rest and recuperation. The meager rations gave out and the family's plight was relieved only by the gift of some dried salmon by 1James W. Nesmith. 2See Nesmith's "Diary of the Emigration of 1843," Oregon Historical Quarterly, volume VII, pages 329-59. 4 HARRIET NaiITH MCARTHUR friendly Indians. Mv grandfather, who was mindful of the danger to the rest of the large emigration, begged the mem- bers to go on. The Goffs arrived late at Dr. Whitman's mis- sion in the Walla Walla Valley. Here they remained until spring, the children being placed in the school.I do not know how the time of the elders was employed, beyond lending aid in whatever their hands found to do at the mission. My grandparents and my mother,who w a s thirteen years old, always spoke with great affection of these devoted people and mourned the tragic end of their fine lives. Mv father went with the volunteers to assist in the punishment of the Indians who massacred the \Vhitmans in 1847. My grandfather Goff's fmily made the perilous cross- ing of the Cascade Range in the spring of 1845 before the building of the Barlow road, which was constructed in a rough way later in that year. There were incidents in these experiences that would be of absorbing interest if I had listened with more intelligence in my childhood, but I heard a common fireside tale with the indifference of youth. After stopping a few weeks at Linn City, across the river from Oregon City, the faithful oxen were again yoked to the wagon and they began their final march, ever westward, until they reached the rich valley of the Rickreall. My grandparents took up a donation land claim extending across Rickreall Creek, and on the bank of the stream built what was then a comfortable house. Here they lived and died. The Goff home was about 1000 feet east of the present highway intersection at Rickreall, on the north side of the Salem highway. There is a slight angle in this modern high- way, at a point just about opposite the east end of where the old house would be if it were in existence to-day. I was born in this house on Easter Sunday. April 20, 1851, at the time my father was operating a mill west of Dallas. My mother, her sister and their cousins, the daughters of Colonel Nathaniel Ford. had the rare good fortune of at- tending the Jefferson Institute as pupils of John E. Lyle. I Lucinda Pauline Goff. :: c;T:.'ç.;. / :; .,-.. ':jiF. - ':,-. ': RECOLLECTIONS OF THE RICKREALL 5 The institute was a log building on the donation land claim of Carey Embree, two miles west of the Goff home. Julia Veazie Glen has written interestingly about Mr. Lyle and the institute, in theOregonHistorical Quarterly for June 1925. The term under Mr. Lyle's instruction was un- fortunately all too brief, for pretty girls were scarce and in great demand by the hustling young settlers. At very tender ages these girls were married, and there was little rest or romance in their lives. Mr. Lyle married beautiful Ellen Scott,and a warm friendship has existed between her family and ours unto the fourth generation. My parents' first home was on a claim west of Mon- mouth, then at the mill two miles west of Dallas. Henry Owen and my father purchased this mill from James A. O'Neal about 1850, and men hurrying to the gold diggings in California came there for flour. The locality of this mill was subsequently named Ellendale, for Mrs. Reuben P. Boise. About 1853 my father moved to Salem and practiced law. I was a small child, too young to remember our Salem home, although I was large enough to set the curtains on fire, with a candle.Lafayette Lane, the son of General Joseph Lane, was in the house at the time and put the fire out. My first distinct recollection is that of moving from Salem to our new home on the Rickreall, on an April day in 1855. The family consisted of my father and my mother, two little sistersand myself, and the new home, which was temporarily in a barn, was ten miles west of Salem and but a few minutes walk from the Goff home. No subse- quent experiences ever equaled the delight of the spring and summer months spent in that wide, sunny barn, sweet and fresh from the builders' hands, with no paint nor oil to mar the fragrance of the wood. There was a simple furnishing of chairs, tables and two high four-poster beds, with valances to conceal that in- dispensable bit of pioneer furniture, the trundle bed. The A daughter of Felix Scott. Mary Jane and Martha Ellen Nesmith. 6 HARRIET NESMITH MCARTHUR large room above, which was to bea hay mow when the building was put to its legitimateuse, was a charmin place in which to play in rainy weather. Sugar ina barrel, rice and coffee in foreign bags and fascinating tea jars,were stored there. One day, by way of entertaininga small maiden of my own age, I invited her to assist in mixing the coffee and the rice. The former was thegreen berry which was to be roasted and ground. Before accomplishing too much mischief, we discovered a bottle of cherry pectoral, a popular cough medicine, and we drank sufficient to make ourselves desperately ill, although there was either too much or not enough prussic acid to kill us outright.I must add that when the barn ceased to be our home and the haywas in the loft, we had great frolics jumping from the high beams. Wild strawberries grew to thevery doors, and the unbroken, virgin soilin many places was abloom with beautiful flowers. The building of the new house was of absorbing interest as the kindly carpenters, Messrs. Ferguson and O'Donnell, gave us long shavings in wondrous curls, and made boxes and toys for our play house. Some details of the construc- tion of the dwelling may be worth telling, in view of present- day methods and materials. The shingles were made in the Chehalem Mountains, and a load required two or three days' hauling, and it was a wide roof. The lath was split by hand, as was much else that to-day is millwork. We were duly impressed later on to be informed that the door and window casings in the parlor were suggested by Egyptian architec- ture. Just why I do not know. The building rested on three- foot lengths of large oak logs. There were four ample rooms with fireplaces, a central hall and a wide veranda that seemed to extend welcome. The ceilings below were very high, and the long straight stairway was all that could be desired for rapid descent down the banisters. The furniture was made in Salem by a New England cabinet maker, and it is pleasant to pay tribute to the superior craftsmanship of William S. Barker.The condition of the beautifully Fathpr-in-Iaw of Edward Lthrop CoidwelL RECOLLECTIONS OF THE RICKREALL 7 wrought maple pieces today bears witness to his skill. We moved to the new house in August, 1855, and a fourth little sisterwas added to the trio in September. Owing to such a lively flock, it was possible to keep only one room pre- sentable, and later the parlor was pretty with mahogany furniture upholstered in hair cloth and with red damask window curtains. In keeping with the fashion of the day, a few choice books adorned the center table: AToken of Friendship,Shakespeare and Burns in red morocco bindings and Thomas Moore in aubergine and gold.Burns, well worn, was always in evidence on my father's reading table.
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