Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 16.djvu/374



346 C. A. BARRETT

In the spring of 1870, J. C. Mays, father of Mrs. C. A. Barrett, of Athena, and W. B. Mays, of Pendleton, plowed and sowed 40 acres of wheat on his place at Weston, which place is now owned by J. M. Banister.

This grain was cut by hand with cradles and threshed with flails. Two of the men who helped cradle this grain are still living in this county, Henry Pinkerton, of Athena, and J. R. Brown, of near Pendleton. The grain was mostly used for flour and seed in the Weston vicinity. In 1871 Henry Pinker- ton had a small acreage of wheat, and William Nichols, of Milton, brought a header into the neighborhood and cut and stacked wheat, the grain afterwards being threshed by horse- power and hand-feed machines.

In 1866 my uncle, Charles Barrett, settled on Dry Creek, two and one-half miles northeast of Weston, and engaged in the stock business. He commenced raising wheat and oats shortly after this, the grain being cut for hay. About 1872-3, he cut and threshed quite an amount of oats and in February, 1873, the writer plowed 50 acres of ground for him, which was that spring seeded to oats, cut in the fall with a self-rake reaper and threshed, after being stacked. He also grew grain hay on the creek bottom for a distance of three-quarters of a mile up and down Little Dry Creek some years before this.

STOCK-RAISING CHIEF INDUSRTY.

Although stock-raising was still the principal industry, about this time the settlers near Weston and on the mountainside above Weston had commenced to plow up the sod and raise grain. The winter of 1874-75 an 18-inch snow fell, which stayed on the ground for six weeks and feed was scarce. At this date the writer was working for J. F. Adams on his stock ranch on Wildhorse, near where Adams is now situated. Mr. Adams being short of hay and not being able to buy sufficient hay, he bought up all the grain to be found in the Weston country, which consisted of two lots of wheat. One lot was