Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 14.djvu/363

 father was organizing the Oregon Institute. Mr. and Mrs. Abernethy are now living at Forest Grove.

"My father took up a donation land claim where the town of Salem now stands, but traded it to J. L. Parrish for a location on Clatsop Plains not far from Astoria.

"I was the next child to be born, being born in Oregon City in 1845.

"The next child, Albert Williams Gray, was born on their Clatsop Plains farm. He is now captain of a steamboat on the lower Columbia.

"The next boy was Edwin Hall, who died when he was eight years old, and the next child, Truman Powers, died when he was two years old.

"The next child, James T. Gray, now has charge of the Tanana division in Alaska for the Northern Navigation Company. He married General O. O. Howard's daughter, Grace. Their home is near Milwaukie.

"When I was four years old we were living at Clatsop Plains, so my father decided I had better go to school. I had to walk two miles each morning and night to school. My first teacher was Miss Rebecca Ketchum. I went to this school for two or three terms.

"When we were at Clatsop Plains the first Presbyterian church in that whole district was organized at our house. After the church was organized one of the people there donated the ground and my father built the first church in Clatsop county.

"When I was eight years old my parents moved to Astoria. I went to school there to a Scotchman named Sutherland. The only part of the Bible that he knew well was the part where it says, 'If you spare the rod, you will spoil the child.' There was no danger of any of us getting spoiled, for he put in the major part of his time using the rod.

"Our next teacher was Miss Lincoln, who later married Judge A. A. Skinner.

"When I was ten years old, I took my first contract. Father had a theory that it was a pretty good scheme for his boys to