Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 13.djvu/254

 246 WILLIAM BARLOW family of sons and daughters. But about the time the family was all grown, the old veteran took sick and died, while his wife was hale and hearty. The boys and girls were young and stout, so they all thought while the family was all together they would emigrate to a newer, richer and healthier state. So they sold out and moved to the State of Kentucky. After remaining there two years, they concluded they would try a free state, so crossed over to Indiana, which had recently be- come a state. My father, Samuel Kimbrough Barlow, about the same time had left Ketnucky and gone over to Indiana to try his fortune in a free state. There he met, wooed and married one of the Lee girls, Miss Susannah Lee, who was my mother. A nobler woman never breathed the breath of life. She lived to raise her family and came to Oregon in 1845. She died on the place that I now live on and was almost worshipped by all who knew her. It was from her that I got my first idea of gold mines. She was born and raised in the State of South Carolina, and at that time such a thing as gold or silver mines were never heard of west of the Mississippi. But she would tell us children about the great gold mines of South Carolina. She said she knew a man there who had a gold mine on his own land and owned the negroes that worked it. Said his income was one dollar a min- ute ; that is, if the negroes came up to their task. This was to fill a goose quill an inch and a half long every day, and any over that was to be put in the darkey's sack. In case the darkey failed to have dust enough to fill the goose quill, any day, it was filled out of the negroe's surplus sack; but if the darkey had no dust in this sack to make up the deficiency, he was stripped to the bare back and the overseer was compelled to hit him a lick with the rawhide for every troy grain short. Now, I will take up my own father's life and what brought him to Oregon. In the first place, he was a great admirer of Henry Clay, more particularly on account of Clay's being a strong believer in the emancipation of the negroes. He thought he was the greatest natural statesman that ever lived, but I think