Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 14.djvu/362

322 "He was greatly in favor of our owning not only Alaska, but all of Canada. He thought the United States should take in all the continent of North America. When Secretary Seward went up to Alaska he took my father with him, on account of father's familiarity with the Indian customs and languages.

"Father came back from Alaska greatly impressed with Seward's statesmanship. He said Seward was a high type of American. At that time Thomas Nast and others were cartooning Seward and showing Alaska as an iceberg with a solitary polar bear guarding it. I remember hearing father say when some one criticized Seward's purchase of Alaska: 'The only criticism I have to make of Seward's purchase of Alaska is that he didn't also buy British Columbia at the same time. "I guess few families are more typically western than our family. My oldest brother, John Henry Dix Gray, was born in 1839 at Lapwai, while father was building the mission buildings there for Dr. Spalding.

"The next child, my sister, Mrs. Caroline A. Kamm, now of Portland, was born at Whitman mission when father was building the flour mill for Dr. Whitman. Father was one of the most resourceful men I ever saw. If he wanted to make something and had no tools, he would make the tools and then go ahead and make what he wanted. After he had built the mill for Dr. Whitman, though he had never in his life attempted making mill stones, he quarried them out successfully, shaped them up and installed them.

"My father's father died when my father was only eight years old. His older brother was a Presbyterian minister. He bound out my father to a cabinet maker.

"The next child to be born was Mary Sophia, who later became Mrs. Frank Tarbell. She also was born at Whitman station, and died in Portland in 1895. Her husband at one time was the treasurer of Washington Territory.

"The next child to be born was Sarah Fidelia, who married Governor Abernethy's son. She was born at Salem when