Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/546

390 had not a particle of fat on it, but we had something to eat—^poor bones to pick, without bread or salt.

"Orus Brown's party was six days ahead of ours in starting; he had gone down the old emigrant route and reached the settlements in September. Soon after he heard of the suffering emigrants at the south and set off in haste with four pack horses and provisions for our relief. He met Mr. Pringle and turned about. In a few days they were at our camp. We had all retired to rest in our tents hoping to forget our misery until daylight should remind us again of our sad fate. In the stillness of the night the footsteps of horses were heard rushing toward our tents. Directly a halloo. It was the well-known voice of Orus Brown and Virgil Pringle. You can realize the joy. Orus, by his persuasive insistence, encouraged us to more effort to reach the settlements. Five miles from where we had encamped we fell into the company of half-bred French and Indians with packhorses. We hired six of them and pushed ahead again. Our provisions were becoming short and we were once more on an allowance until reaching the first settlers. There our hardest struggles were ended. On Christmas day, at 2 p. m., I entered the house of a Methodist minister, the first house I had set my feet in for nine months. For two or three weeks of my journey down the Willamette I had felt something in the end of my glove finger which I supposed to be a button; on examination at my new home in Salem, I found it to be a 6)4 cent piece. This was the whole of my cash capital to commence business with in Oregon. With it I purchased three needles. I traded off some of my old clothes to the squaws for buckskin, worked them into gloves for the Oregon ladies and gentlemen, which cleared me upwards of $30.

"Later, I acepted the invitation of Mr. and Mrs. Harvey Clark, of Tualatin plains, to spend the winter with them. I said to Mr. Clark one day, 'Why has Providence frowned on me and left me poor in this world? Had he blessed me with riches, as he has many others, I know right well what I would do. 'What would you do?' 'I would establish myself in a comfortable house and receive all the poor children, and be a mother to them.' He fixed his keen eyes on me to see if I was in earnest. 'Yes, I am,' said I. 'If so, I will try,' said he, 'to help you.' He purposed to take an agency and get assistance to establish a school in the plains. I should go into the log meeting-house and receive all the children, rich and poor, whose parents who were able to pay $1 a week, for board, tuition, washing and all. I agreed to labor for one year for nothing, while Mr. Clark and others were to assist as far as they were able in furnishing provisions. The time fixed upon to begin was March, 1848, when I found everything prepared for me to go into the old meeting-house and cluck up 'my chickens. The neighbors had collected what broken knives and forks, tin pans, and dishes they could part with, for the Oregon pioneer to commence housekeeping with. I had a well-educated lady from the east, a missionary's wife, for a teacher, and my family increased rapidly. In the summer they put me up a boarding-house. I now had thirty boarders of both sexes, and of all ages, from four years old to twenty-one. I managed them and did all my work except washing. That was done by the scholars. In the spring of '49 we called for trustees. Had eight appointed. They voted me the whole charge of the boarding house free of rent, and I was to provide for myself. The price of board was established at $2 per week. Whatever I made over my expenses was my own. In '51 I had forty in my family at $2.50 per week; mixed with my own hands, 3,423 pounds of flour in less than five months. Mr. Clark made over to the trustees a quarter section of land for a town plot. A large and handsome building is on the site we selected at the first starting. It has been under town incorporation