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As told to Blanche Eakin
I was born in Missouri in the year 1839, and was only a little girl, five years old when we made the long, long, journey across the plains to Oregon, and I can only remember the exciting things that happened along the way the little things, that impressed me so and have stayed with me all these years. It was in the year 1844, that we started from Missouri, with our ox teams and wagons, slowly wending our way over the rough, untraveled trail, seeing only Indian camps and herds of buffalo. I will never forget the buffalo and my fear of them. I often heard the men of our company talking and when those great herds would gather round us, watching with that unwelcome look in their eyes, there was an uneasy feeling among us that they might stampeed our camp. My father, Cornelius Gilliam, was Captain of our train, and took the responsibility, and led us through to our destiny. Some times we camped with Captain Ford’s company, but for days and weeks we were alone, traveling over the weary way. Any house or building was of great interest to us, for we saw so few, and I can remember that we all went to take a look at Fort Hall, as we passed it on our way. Before we reached The Dalles, we were met on the trail by some of the English from Vancouver; they had brought us some provisions, some dried fruit and salt pork, and a keg of very stale butter; we had plenty of bacon and often killed a deer, but were glad to get the pork and dried fruit. When we reached The Dalles one of the things that impressed me-that I remember so distinctly, was a great pile of dried salmon which the Indians had dried. You know things always look larger to us when we are children, but as I remember it now, it looked as large as Lee Fenton’s two-story house. The Indians had dried the big sides and packed them so neatly together and covered the great pile with rushes to keep off the rain. They gave the children some to eat, and I thought I had never tasted anything so good. The Indians laughed to see us eat it for we were soon grease from head to foot. My father bought some from the Indians. We could buy a great side of this dried salmon for one pin or one needle. Our oxens’ feet were sore, from traveling so far over the rough trails of rocks and stones and we stopped a few days at The Dalles making ready to come down the Columbia river. Our wagons and possessions, along with ourselves, were put in small canoes and flat boats and brought down the river, but the oxen and cattle had to be brought over the mountains. We had a little heifer which mother was so anxious about, as she must county on her for milk for his children and she was afraid she could never make the trip over the rough mountain trail. I can remember that my mother made her some moccasins of leather, and filled them with tar and tallow and fastened them on her feet, when they started with her on that hard journey over the mountains. She made the trip all right and joined us later in the valley. We came down the river from The Dalles in those little boats, how we ever did it, I don’t know. It was mid-winter, between Christmas and New Year, that we landed on the river bank at a little landing called Linnton; there Captain Waters, father’s friend, met us. One thing that I will never forget happened there. The landing was of poles and not very substantially made. One woman whose tiny baby had only been born a few days ago, fell off this landing into the water, and my brothers leaped in and helped her out. We came on to where Portland now is and waited there several days until the men came with our cattle, from over the mountains. At that time, there was but one cabin (where Portland now is) where a French trapper lived. The place was covered with enormous trees, and there were high hills and deep canyons, covered thick with timber, and wild animals (cougar, wildcat, bear and panther) were all around us. I followed my father to the cabin of the trapper and we went inside, and found the place filled with furs and skins of wild animals, which he had caught. The odor was something awful, more than I could stand. I went outside and sat down on a projection which was a cross piece of the door of his cabin. Later when he and father came out he looked at me and said in his broken English, “Well, sissy’ can’t you stand the stench?” I have a picture of that first cabin, but it is not just as I saw it. The projection on which I sat is not on the door. There were a few houses across the river at Vancouver, where the English were located and a few at Oregon City. Other than that, there was not a town in Oregon. But Portland sprang up almost immediately. The next time we were there, we found White men, Indians and Chinamen, cutting tress and clearing the land and the city was on its way. Our company scattered, some went here and some went there, we stayed a few days, then went with father’s friend, Captain Waters, to his cabin on the Tualatin Plains, where we spent the rest of the winter. That winter we almost lost mother’s little heifer, for a cougar leaped upon her back and tore the flesh nearly off her hips. We were so sure we were going to lose her, I remember, mother cried, and it was not often she cried. She feared if she lost the little cow she would have no milk for her children. Captain Waters told her if she died he would hunt the country over until he found another cow. She was such a little thing that the men carried her into the cabin and there mother dressed her wounds by the fireplace. There was not another cabin anywhere around us, we were all alone on the plains in this new unsettled county. I wonder now, how we ever lived and when I look back I can not help but think what a foolish, foolish thing that was for my father to do to bring all that family of little children out into this wilderness, not knowing what he was coming to, nor what would become of us. My husband, Frank Collins and I both came from Missouri, his people came through California, over the Southern route in 1846, two years after my people came. From the time they left the settlements in Missouri they did not see a house until they reached the site of what is now Eugene, where they came to Skinner’s cabin, which my father had built. The next house they came to was Mr. Avery’s cabin, which my father had also built, and around this cabin is now built the city of Corvallis. We spent our first summer in a beautiful spot on the banks of the La Creole, where is now located the city of Dallas, and our first garden was planted in what was later known as the Levens hopyard. Our neighbors were Indians and they were greatly interested in our garden and were especially fond of turnips. I think we raised some of the largest turnips and pumpkins that I ever saw. They would watch us bring the vegetables up from the garden and one the old chief told my mother the vegetables were too heavy for the children to carry and he would send the squaws to carry them for us. Of course he knew they would get some for their labor. Father located on the Donation Land Claim of what was afterwards patented to Isaac Levens; he later sold his right and located on our claim in the Pedee valley. Adam Brown came across the plains with us and lived with us that first summer at Dallas. I remember that he wore out his clothes and walked to Oregon City to get himself a new shirt and a pair of pants. We wondered, why, since he walked so far, that he did not get himself a coat also, but he didn’t, and came back with only the shirt and pants. Father built our cabin near the site of the old home of John Ellis, just south of the cemetery, now known as the Old Cemetery near Dallas. Soon after we built out house, one of father’s nephews died and father had him buried on our claim where this cemetery now is, the next person buried being a man named Gillispie, who died near Rickreall. Father sold his rights to the claim to Mr. Bowman, Hardy Holman’s grandfather, reserving the land which is now the Old Cemetery for that purpose. The next one to be buried there was my father. Father was a Baptist minister and often preached at different places in the valley and built several cabins for men who were bringing their families out to Oregon. He was also a Mason, but the Masons were so scattered and so few in the valley, that when de died, they could not get together at the time he was buried which was April, 1848, but later, in June of that year, they gathered from all over the valley as far south as Roseburg and held their ceremony at his grave. I can remember it yet, they were wearing their regalia, and dug down into the grave and removed several feet of earth and lowered a casket lid and all reverently cast into the grave the sprig of green from their coat lapels. I learned my a-b-c’s from Captain Waters the first winter we were here. He took a smooth board and printed the letters on it for me. A little later Mrs. Eugene Skinner came to Oregon and gave me a primer, which I prized most highly and that book was passed around among children until it was completely worn out. On our claim, which we located on what is now known as Isaac Levens donation land claim, was built a little log cabin, on a little raise just north of our cabin and west of where Dallas is now located, and where is now built the slaughter house west of Dallas. In this little cabin was held the first school in Polk county. It was built during the fall of 1845 or the spring of 1846. I went to school there. It was my first school and the teacher’s name was Mr. Green. David Grant, who married my elder sister, America Gilliam, located on a claim just east of where Dallas now is, and their little boy, William Grant, walked to this school house to school. The grass grew so tall on the prairie, that Mr. Grant took his yoke of oxen and plowed a furrow from their cabin to the school house for his little son to follow so that he might not lose his way and become lost in the tall grass. After father sold his right to the claim at Dallas, we went farther up the valley following the little mountain stream called Pedee creek, there we came to the most beautiful spot, I think, I ever saw and my father bought out the man who had located on that claim; it was in a little valley nestled in among the hills and covered with grass as high as my head, there was no underbrush as there is today, and on the hills around us, where today they are cutting saw logs, not a tree was growing. From the door of our little cabin which stood on a little raise we could see the backs of the deer just peeping above the tall grass as they pastured along the trail. There were herds of them all around us and also big grey wolves, which were not so pleasing. At Oregon they started a grist mill and people would walk for miles and miles for flour, which they carried home on their backs. We got some wheat from the Hudson Bay people and planted it on our claim. We made it into hominy and also ground it in our coffee mill and made it into bread. After a mill was started at Ellendale by Jas. O’Neil, we got our wheat ground there. The Indians made bread from camas roots and something that we called bread roots, or sup-lill in their language, which grew along swales or low places. There was plenty of it growing every where then but we never see any of it any more. They would pulverize it. They used to give us children some and we liked it, but they soon learned our way of making it from wheat flour and dropped their hard and tedious methods. My father was accidentally killed near Walla Walla during the Cayuse Indian war, in 1848. He had command of the volunteers at that time. The Indians were not afraid of the Regulars and would laugh at them, saying “they could catch their bullets in their mouths,” but no with the volunteers. They used the Indian methods of fighting and fought them in their own style and soon had them whipped. One day, my father asked some of his men to take a rope from a wagon bed in which a number of guns had been placed. One of these guns was loaded and in pulling out the rope the gun was discharged killing him instantly. Col. jas. W. Nesmith then took command of the volunteers, but the fighting was all over. It was twelve days before they arrived with my father’s body. I can remember that Mrs. Blodgett came all the way over the hills and mountains from what is known as Blodgett’s valley to stay with mother, and after she went home, Mrs. King came, who lived where Kings Valley now is and stayed a while with mother. We had no near neighbors, no white person within fives miles of us. Two bachelors had claims five miles to the East of us, one was Mr. John Johnson, and he was so good to help mother, and she in turn would wash and mend for him. Soon after we moved up on the Pedee, there was an epidemic of measles among the Indians, and whites also; several Indians died; we children all had it and mother nursed us through it. The old Chief’s daughter took it and he came to mother and asked her to help cure his child; mother heisted, for , for we had seen him shoot a medicine man as he sat on his pony because some of his patients had died. My brother advised her to have nothing to do with it, but the old chief begged so hard, and so faithfully promised to do as mother told him, that she finally consented. Mother made him promise to feed her only food that she herself had prepared, and each day he sent some one to our house for food. She told him to hang skins around the wigwam to keep his daughter warm and soon she would break out all over with little red spots. He promised to allow no one in the wigwam except the one squaw who attended her, and to keep her warm and not to tallow her to jump into the cold water in the stream as the Indians did when sick. One morning early, we heard the old chief at our door, calling mother. We were all frightened nearly to death for fear the girl had died and he had come to kill mother. But he had come to tell that his little papoose was all covered with red spots, just as mother said she would be and he was so pleased. She got well in a short time, and after that there was nothing mother wanted which this old chief would not do for her. One day a band of Klikitat Indians came by our place on a hunting trip. They went on South, down the Umpqua and when they came back they had two Indian women with them whom they had stolen from the Coquille tribe, and were taking them back with them as slaves. I think they were the largest Indian women I ever saw. They stopped for several days and camped near us, and when the men returned from a hunt they would send these two squaws out over the trail to bring in the deer on their backs. I have seen these two slave squaws with such loads of bark tied on their backs, so large that it looked like a load of hay coming, all we could see underneath the load was their feet. They walked bent over, holding two sticks in their hands, and had to be helped up to start with their load. When they were relieved of it they wiped their face with their two hands and gave one big grunt. They were taken on up into Washington as slaves for the Klikitat tribe. While we were living at our home on the Pedee, U.S. Grant, in company with General Wood stopped at our door, one day, to inquire of mother the direction of Fort Hoskins, which was being built at that time, a few miles father southeast from our house. Grant was never stationed in Oregon, but often came from Vancouver, where he was located, to inspect the forts in the Willamette Valley. Lieut. Phil Sheridan often stopped at our house, and many times spent the night with us on his trips from Grand Ronde to Fort Hoskins. It was a days ride from Grand Ronde to our home, and seven miles farther on to Fort Hoskins. Later he was stationed at Fort Hoskins and the house that he built there for him, was afterwards moved to my brother, Marcus Gilliam’s claim and is still used as part of the home of my nephew, Frank Gilliam. I knew Sheridan’s squaw wife, who was the daughter of Chief Harney of the Rogue River tribe, and who has been at our home a number of times. She was a bright little woman, very good looking, and quite likeable. Sheridan was always good and kind to her and taught her to read and do many things. They had no children. But when he went back to Washington and left her, it almost broke her heart. We all liked Phil Sheridan. One day she came to our home, pretending to be looking for a horse, but she really came to tell us that she was going on a trip to Washington D.C. Her father had died and her brother was no Chief Harney, and he and she, along with several other Indians, influential among the tribes, had been invited to go to Washington, at the expense of the government. She was all fitted out in clothes and trunks and ready for the trip. I told her she would see many wonderful things and probably see Phil Sheridan, and asked her to come and tell me all about her trip when she came back. It was wonderful, the things she told me afterwards about her trip and what she saw. And she did see Phil Sheridan. He came and shook hands with them all and took her hand and asked about her welfare and then took them all upon the rostrum and introduced them. After that she never saw him again. My brother Smith Gilliam who lived at Walla Walla, has often seen General Grant’s squaw wife, and his two children, one a daughter whom he named Nellie. He seemed to like that name for he named his white daughter Nellie too. His other child was a boy, but I fail to remember his name. It was no uncommon thing for a white man to have a squaw wife in those days. James O’Neal had a squaw wife but when he met the Bowman family he decided he would rather have a white one, so he discarded the Indian woman and married one of the Bowman girls. The squaw wife was so angry and jealous that she took her little half breed papoose and went down to Yamhill county and drowned little Jimmie O’Neal in the Yamhill river. Among the Indians who camped near us was a little Indian girl about my age, who often played with my sister and me and we became great friends and playmates. One day one of the older Indians came to our home and told us that this little girl was sick and wanted to see us, and mother let us go to their camp near by. She was very sick but tried her best to welcome us and we knew she was glad that we had come. But it was only a few days until they came again to us and asked mother to go too for the little thing was dying. When we got there they were all gathered around and in their way were trying to keep death from taking this little favorite away. They were making all kinds of mournful sounds beating on sticks and trying to scare the bad spirit away, but to no avail. That night the little girl died. Next morning when we went to their camp we found that they had moved the tent in which she had died a few feet from where it had been, and had brought in all the horses belonging to the tribe. They cot off the tails of all these ponies, pulverized quantities of beads in their mortars and with ashes gathered from their camp fires, scattered these ground beads, horse hairs and ashes all around the tent and ground, and over the bushes near where the child had died. They had found out in some way that white people placed their dead in boxes and asked my brother if he would make them a box in which to bury this little girl, and he got together a few boards and made them one. My sister Reta and I were invited to attend the burying, being special friends and playmates of the little girl, but no others of our family were asked. Mother hesitated at first, but she decided that we might go. They buried her within sight of our house and mother and by brothers stood outside our door watching. They dug a grave, not very deep, and had my sister and I to stand at one side of the grave, while the Indians were all arranged on the opposite side. Inside the box they placed beads, strands and strands f them, covering the child completely. I believe they must have used four bushels of them for that funeral. Then they placed inside all her ferments and nicest things. Over the grave when filled with earth, they stuck sticks about two feet high, on which were tied all her trinkets and playthings and numerous red strings. At the head of the grave they lead a little pony and at the foot a dog. They talked only in the Indian language and we could not understand what was being said, but never at any funeral have I ever seen such grief displayed for the whole tribe loved this little girl. All at once a shot was fired and they killed the pony and dog. We children were frightened nearly to death and my sister grabbed me by my skirts; then Indians came to us and told us to have no fear, they would never harm us, and explained they had killed the pony for the little girl to ride on her journey to the Happy Hunting Ground, and the little dog would protect her on the way. Our old friends are passing away and not many are left with whom to talk over old times; no one living today will ever see again the changes that we have seen. We have seen this country in its virgin state, just as nature made it, grow and change into what it is today and to us it seems like magic.
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By R.P. Boise
ELLENDALE Ellendale and the O’Neil-Nesmith Mill history are so interwoven that it is well to briefly to tell first of the O’Neil-Nesmith Mill which was erected at the spot where O’Neil creek, now called Ellendale creek, flows into the Rickreall river. The mill and a small store building were built in the winter of 1844-5 by James A. O’Neil. Who had come to Oregon in 1834 as a member of the Nathaniel j. Wythe party. This was the second grist mill to be built on the west side and drew its patronage from all that country stretching from the northern end of Yamhill county to as far south as Oregon was then settled. J.W. Nesmith and Henry Owens purchased the mill from O’Neil in 1849, they selling in spring of 1856 to John H. and William P. Lewis. In November 1857, Lewis Brothers ceased to operate the mill, sold its machinery and moved their store to Dallas. In December 1863, they sold the mill site, water power and adjacent land to Judge Reuben P. Boise who donation land claim adjoined the property. The old dismantled grist mill building remained standing until the summer of 1865 when it was torn down to make way for the erection on the same spot of the woolen mill building. For several years following the purchase of the grist mill and store by Nesmith and Owens there was located in the latter a post office under the name of Nesmith Mill. In December 1864, for the first time comes Ellendale as the name of the woolen mill and surrounding village, so named after the wife of Judge Boise; her given name being Ellen. The Articles of Incorporation of the Ellendale Mill Company were filed with the Secretary of State December 19, 1864. The incorporators were: John Worsley, Reuben P. Boise and Joseph Watt. The capital stock of the company was first priced at $10,000, afterwards it was increased to $20,000 then to $30,000 and finally to $100,000. The names of the first stockholders were: Reuben P. Boise, John Worsley, Benjamin Simpson, Mary E. Hallock, F.W.P. Huntington, T. McF. Patton, Franklin Yocom, Isaac Levens and John Taylor. In addition to the names above written the following were at various times stockholders in the enterprise: Asa Shreve, M.L. Robbins, S.M. Cooke, Albert O. Yates, B. McAlpin, E.G. Bolter and James T. Wortley. During the entire existence of the corporation Judge Boise was its president. The following were the secretaries elected in the order in which their names appear: John Worsley, Charles Moor and E.G. Bolter. The superintendents of the mill were John Worsley, Charles Moor and James T. Wortley. The stockholders and the officers mentioned all have passed away except Albert O. Yates, who is now living in Portland. The mill, the fourth one to be erected in Oregon, did not get in operation until late in 1866 owing to a lot of hard luck. The first shipment of part of the machinery was lost in the sinking of the steamer Brother Jonathan on its run from San Francisco to Portland. Then there was a great delay in getting this lost machinery replaced. The writer hereof has in his possession letter received by Judge Boise from J.W. Nesmith, who looked after the purchase of the machinery, written from Washington D.C. and College Hill, Ohio, at which latter place, Mr. Nesmith’s family resided part of the time he was in the United States Senate, telling the story of the delay by the Bridsburg Manufacturing Company in getting the machinery made. It seemed that this company was more anxious to hurry up the orders of eastern manufacturing than it was to get out comparatively small orders for a far away Oregon concern. The mill had one set of cards, four hundred spindles and ten looms, employed twenty operators, turned out two hundred and fifty yards of cloth a day and consumed eighty-thousand pounds of wool annually. Part of the time that the woolen mill was in operation a school was conducted at Ellendale; the first teacher being Daniel Sammis followed by Mary Woodward, afterwards Mary Harrington. Most of the employes of the factory were Englishmen who had received their training in the old country. They understood their business, and a good quality of cloth was turned out. Among those who worked in the factory were Thomas Kay Sr., Jonathan Hill, Jim Kennedy, Tom Richardson, Tom Graves, Ensley M. Dawson, William Blanchard, William Worsley, George Medley, Tom Burrows and Ben S. Worsley. The last two named are the sole survivors of this band of millmen who worked at one time or another in about all of the pioneer woolen mills of Oregon. Mr. Burrows resides in Salem, and Ben S. Worsley in Astoria. On account principally of the limited market at that time, and competition of the more centrally located factories, the Ellendale venture did not prove to be much of a success in a financial way. The mill was operated until destroyed by fire in the latter part of May 1871. Such, in brief, is the story of endeavor by some of Oregon’s enterprising pioneers to advance at an early day the manufacturing interests of this state.
JUDGE REUBEN P. BOISE Judge Reuben P. Boise was born on his father’s farm near Blanford, Massachusetts, on June 9, 1818. Here he spent his youthful years, acquiring an education in the district schools, supplemented by a classical course in Williams College, from which he was graduated with honor in 1843. Afterward he made his way west to Trenton, Missouri, where for two years he was engaged in teaching school. He then went to Westfield, Massachusetts and began the study of law under his uncle Patrick Boise and in 1848 was admitted to the bar, and entered upon the practice of his profession at Chickopee Falls, Massachusetts, where he remained for two years. In the year of 1850, he started for Oregon by way of the Isthmus of Panama, arriving in Astoria, November 27, of that year. After traveling somewhat over the territory, he opened a law office and entered upon practice in Portland. In 1852, while attending a session of court in Dallas, J.W. Nesmith showed him where he could take up a Donation Land Claim of six hundred and forty acres adjoining the Nesmith Mill property on the east. As soon as Mr. Boise returned to Portland, he filed at the Land Office there on this claim and moved with his family to it and there made him home until late in 1857, still maintaining however, his law office in Portland. In 1857 Judge Boise moved to Salem. For many years his home was in Salem in the winter and on the farm in the summer. From the spring of 1865 to the fall of 1870 he resided altogether on the farm. For years the Judge was ever in the market to buy any land that joined his farm so at the time of his death he owned many acres in the Ellendale section. Judge Boise was married in 1851 to Miss Ellen F. Lyon, who died on the farm December 6, 1865. To this union were born Fisher A. Boise, Eugene Holden Boise, Marie P. Boise, Reuben P. Boise Jr. and Whitney L. Boise. Of these only the last two named are now living. On December 27, 1866 he was married to Miss Emily A. Pratt who died march 26, 1919. Two daughters were born to this marriage; Sarah Ellen, who died August 5, 1891, and Marie Boise Leuterman. In the year 1853 the territorial legislature elected Judge Boise prosecuting attorney for the first and second districts, embracing all those counties lying on the west of the Willamette River. In the same year he was elected one of the Code Commissioners and assisted in the compilation of Oregon’s first code. In the year 1854 he was elected a member of the territorial legislature, and by that body reelected to the office of prosecuting attorney, the holding at the same time of the two offices being not then unlawful. In the year 1856 he was again reelected to the legislature and by that body to the office of prosecuting attorney, serving in both capacities. In the year 1857, when a convention was called to formulate the State Constitution, Judge Boise was elected a delegate from Polk County and served in that convention as chairman of the committee on legislation. In the same year 1857, he was appointed by the president of the United States, James Buchanan, one of the associate justices of the supreme court of Oregon. In 1858, under the new arrangement as prepared for the state, an election was held at which Judge Boise was chosen circuit judge and ex-offico justice of the supreme court and succeeded to the office of chief justice, serving as such from 1862 to 1864. Again in this latter year he was reelected judge and in regular succession again succeeded to the office of chief justice from 1868 to 1870. From this latter year to 1876 he engaged in the practice of law at Salem. The legislature of 1874 elected Judge Boise one of the State Capitol building commissioners, and he serve din that capacity until 1876. In this latter year he was reelected to shi former position of judge and the third judicial district and ex-offico justice of the Supreme Court. Two years later the legislature reorganized the courts of Oregon and created a separate supreme court. Judge Boise then resigned the office of circuit judge to accept the appointment from the governor as associate justice, serving from 1878 to 1880 in the newly organized separate supreme court. In the year 1880 Judge Boise was reelected to his former position as circuit judge of the third judicial district and served the full term of six years. Again in 1886 he was reelected to the same position fro still another term, the same ending in July 1892. For the six years following this latter date he practiced law in Salem. In the year 1898 the citizens of the third judicial district again honored Judge Boise by electing him to his old place as circuit judge, from which position he retired in July 1904 at the age of eighty-six years, having, at that time been connected with Oregon’s judiciary longer than any other man in the state’s history. Judge Boise was a member of the Grange and for years was the master of the state organization. At different times he was connected with efforts to advance industries in this state, notable along this line was her service as president of the Ellendale Mill Company, the corporation that built an from November 1866 to May 1871 ran a woolen mill at Ellendale, Polk County. Judge Boise died April 10, 1907. In an account of his life’s work published at that time appeared the following: “Conscientious, capable, persistent in effort Judge Boise has lived and labored, and full of years and honors has passed on.”
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By Harriet Bronson Sibley
The history of the Bronsons in America begins with the early settlement of Connecticut. In June, 1636, The Rev. Thomas Hooker led a company of 100 Puritans, men, women and children, overland from Cambridge or Newton, Massachusetts through the wilderness to the little settlement at Hartford. They traveled the distance of 100 miles in two weeks, camping by the wayside, driving their cattle before them, some of the party walking, others too feeble for the long journey being carried on litters or on horseback. Among this party could be numbered several of the ancestors of David Ostrom Bronson, an Oregon pioneer of 1864. There were Dr. Thomas Lord, his wife Dorothy, with their seven children; Reynold Marvin, his wife Marie and nine children; William Kelsey, and it is believed, John Bronson, then a young man, who was found to be living at Hartford the following May when he took part in the terrible war against the Pequot Indians which resulted in their extermination. John Bronson was granted land for his services. Roger Williams had done all in his power to make peace with this nation of Indians, but without avail, and after repeated massacres of the whites by the Pequots, three Connecticut towns declared war. Sixty gallant volunteers, one third of the able bodied men of the colony, enlisted under Capt. John Mason of Hartford. To this force were added seventy Mohegans and twenty soldiers from Boston and the squadron set sail on the river, surprising the Indians in a sudden night attack. The people of Hartford lived in log houses, a simple religious life, but many of them were from the class in England known as the gentry. John Bronson and his brother Richard first lived at Hartford, but a few years later they were found among the original settlers of Farmington. John was one of the Seven Pillars of the Church. He was constable of Farmington, and collected the rate for “Ye Port of Seabrook.” He served as Deputy to the General Court and his name is on the list of Freemen. He died there in 1680. His children, seven in number were Jacob, John, Isaac, Abraham, Mary, Dorcas and Sarah. The Bible generally supplied names for the children of these devout Puritans. Three of these sons were among the founders of Waterbury, afterwards famous for its manufacture of clocks. John, 1644-1696, the second in line of ancestors was a soldier in King Phillip’s War, receiving from the Council of Hartford compensation for his wounds in battle. He was one of the first settlers of Waterbury. His wife was Sarah Ventris, a daughter of Moses Ventris and Mary Graves of Farmington. She is named in her father’s will as bequeathed a “feather pillow and a pewter salt cellar, she having formerly received her portion.” John and Sarah had seven children, the sixth being Moses, born in 1686. Moses’ father died when he was ten years old. When he was twenty he disappeared from Waterbury and was supposed to have died. The Court ordered his brother to take care of his estate. Seven years later he was discovered living at Statford, where he had married Jane Wait. He returned to Waterbury, reclaimed his land and took up his residence there. Late in life he left the Puritan Church and united with the Episcopal of Church of England. He died in 1754, his widow and all his children, thirteen in number, surviving him. The eleventh child of Moses was William born at Waterbury, May 30, 1734. He served in the French and Indian war in 1755-6. About 1758 he married Esther Kelsey, a daughter of Stephen Kelsey and Esther Hickox. She was his second cousin, her grandmother being Dorothy Bronson Kelsey, who was a sister of Moses Bronson. William Bronson removed to Alford, Berkshire County, Mass. where the remainder of his life was spent. In the War of the Revolution he was commissioned first Lieutenant in Captain Sylvanhs Wilcox’s Berkshire County Company, and also served as an officer under Captain Ephraim Fitch. He was referred to as “Captain” in the registry of deeds. He was on the Committee of Correspondence and safety, served as Justice of the Peace, and was a representative to the General Court or Legislature at Boston. He died November 5, 1801. There were three sons and two daughters born to William and Esther at Alford. Two of these sons in 1794, with their mother, joined the number migrating toward the west to take up government land. They settled at East Bloomfield, N.Y. Captain William Bronson in his will spelled his name “Brunson.” After the Revolutionary period, the spelling of the name became fixed, some branches using the form “Bronson,” others “Brunson” and still others “Brownson.” An early form of the name, dating back to Norman times was “de Braundeston,” meaning “of Brownstone” indicating the original name to have been derived from a place-name in England. Daniel Bronson, fifth in the ancestral line in America was born at Alford, Mass. 1766 and died in 1837. He married Hannah Ostrom, a daughter of David and Susan Ostrom of Dutchess County, N.Y. David Ostrum served in the Revolutionary War and after its close went to Utica, where he was one of the first settlers. He was appointed one of the two County Judges of Oneida County, which office he held, with the exception of three years, for the remainder of his life. He was of Dutch ancestry. Daniel and Hannah located at East Bloomfield, N.Y. with a brother Amos. Through the descendants of Amos stories of the privations and hardships of those early times have come down to us. The nearest grist mill was at Rochester, 22 miles away. Amos Bronson left his young wife and three little girls alone in the log cabin, the nearest neighbor being two miles away, to go to Rochester with a load of corn and wheat. They were obliged to cut their way with axes through the dense forest and the journey of 22 miles required six days. Mrs. Bronson, left alone in the cabin, was sitting one evening nursing her baby, the two older girls playing beside her, when a tall Indian opened the door and entered. He was followed by three others. They demanded food, so Mrs. Bronson baked johney-cakes for them on the open hearth, set the table with her best linen and china brought from her Eastern home, and gave to the Indians the meal she had intended for herself and her children. While she was busying herself preparing the food, the Indians went to the little home-made cradle, felt the babies’ hands and feet, talking it over among themselves. Finally the Chief said “What is its name?” Hulda Maria,” replied the mother. Then the chief said to his companions, “It is a girl. We will let it live.” After eating everything in the house, the guests bidding Mrs. Bronson good night, took their departure. For twenty-four years Daniel Bronson lived at east Bloomfield. During this time the country developed from a wilderness into a cultivated community, with churches, schools and the means of living in easy circumstances. His children were educated at the East Bloomfield Academy, William, who was born at Alford, Mass. in 1793, holding the rank of 1st Lt. in the Military Company of the school. An older son, Henry, was a cavalry officer in the War of 1812. The desire to go West again filled the hearts and minds of this pioneer family, and in the dead of winter, when snow covered the ground, they started for Michigan on sleighs. Arriving in Oakland County before the county was organized Daniel and his family again took up government land in 1818. William lived on at the old homestead and took care of his parents in their old age. He married Almira Penelope Marvin, a daughter of Henry Marvin and Almira Keyes of West Bloomfield. Her grandfather, Capt. Ezra Marvin, was a patriot in the Revolutionary War. In 1852 William Bronson crossed the plains to California with his eldest son, Marvin, returning the following year to his Rochester farm, where he lived for twenty years, when he again crossed the plains this time by the way of the Transcontinental Railroad, to spend his declining years with his sons in California. He died at Suisun in 1879, his wife, then living with a daughter at Hume, N.Y. following him in 1883. William and his wife had twelve children. As is usual in a pioneer county the education advantages for the children were not as good as the parents had left behind them in their former home. The third child was David Ostrom Bronson, born in 1835. Since he was one of the older children of a large family, he worked in the summer and attended school only in the winter when the weather was too inclement for work. Both his parents had better educations than fell to his lot. At the age of sixteen he began working for himself. He went to Springfield, Ill. where his older sister was living. In 1857 he went to California by way of the Isthmus of Panama. While in California he worked on a farm for Dr. Baker, saving his earnings which he loaned out at a rate of 12 per cent. per annum. In 1861 he returned to Michigan and brought out to California a number of horses. He left Omaha early in May with a party of 40 emigrants, his sister’s family being among them. Their party separated at Green River, a part of them taking Lawson’s cut off. Seventy-five miles beyond Salt Lake they came upon their traveling companions who were stranded. They had been attacked by the Indians and their horses stampeded. After rounding up the horses, the party joined forces once more and traveled together to California. They saw many signal fires on the mountains but were not again attacked. In 1864, D.O. Bronson started for Oregon with Elijah Miller. They traveled on horseback. Elijah Miller was a Democrat and Mr. Bronson was a Republican. Each one claimed the most honest men belonged to his own party, and they decided to test the tavern keepers along the route when they stopped for the night’s lodging by inquiring about their politics. It developed that in every case when they had been treated fairly, the proprietor was a Democrat, so Mr. Bronson was forced to change his party and from that time claimed to be a Democrat. On arriving at Dallas, the two men made their first stop at the home of W.C. Brown. Mrs. Brown was away from home, but her little twelve-year-old daughter Ann was fully capable of preparing an excellent meal for the hungry travelers. Mr. Bronson remained at the Brown home for a few years, working for Mr. Brown and living with them as one of the family. About 1866 he went into partnership with Mr. Brown in a store at Rickreall. Miss Mary Jane Dempsey was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. I.I. Dempsey of Rickreall and Mr. Bronson became a frequent visitor at their home. Mrs. Dempsey must have been a very hospitable person as well as an industrious one, if we may judge by a diary kept by her daughter Mary at this time. The diary is a record of visitors at the house, sometimes for a meal, sometimes for days at a time. Mrs. Dempsey was a lover of flowers and spent much of her time among them. Home-woven bed spreads and blankets brought across the plains attest her industry in the household, but she seemed to always find time to cook for her friends or even the stranger who stopped at her door. Among the names frequently mentioned in the diary are Jennie, Hattie and Valena Nesmith, Rev. and Mrs. Kelsey, Bishop Marvin, Rev. Emery, Mrs. Kimsey, Dr. Jeffreys and many other well known names of pioneers. Mary Dempsey was a great granddaughter of Cornelius Dempsey, who served in the Revolutionary War. In 1867 D. O. Bronson returned to California to collect his money left there in the care of Dr. Baker. Upon returning to Oregon he brought up calves and in partnership with Mr. Brown took the cattle to Yakima, Wash. He was successful financially, and returned in 1870 to Rickreall where he and Mary Jane Dempsey were married. They moved to Yakima where Mr. Bronson had a log cabin, but the new wife did not fancy life in a log cabin and in a few months they returned to Rickreall. Mr. Bronson sold out at Yakima and after a trip to Knoxville, Ill. the former home of the Dempseys, in the winter of 1872-73, the family found themselves back in Polk County. For a few months they lived on a farm belonging to Mr. Brown at Dallas, and in September, 1873, they purchased a farm of their own on the Little Luckiamute, which was their home for many years. Two daughters and four sons were born to them. In 1912 Mr. and Mrs. Bronson purchased a home in Dallas, where they lived until Mr. Bronson’s death January 25, 1915. Mrs. Bronson survived him until December 28, 1918, and they were both buried in the Lewisville cemetery near their old home on the Little Luckiamute River.
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