Recollections of Andrew J. Chambers
Washington Standard
Olympia
May 29, 1908

Early in the fall of 1847 we hired two boats from Dr. McLoughlin, and four Kanaka boatmen. We loaded our effects, wagons, ox-yokes, and bedding on the boats at Oregon City. We went down the Willamette to the Columbia River, down the Columbia to the mouth of the Cowlitz, and up the Cowlitz to Cowlitz Landing, thirty miles. It was fine boating until we came to the rapids on the Cowlitz river.

There it was hard work and slow traveling. We had to use the tow line a great deal and go from one side of the river to the other to take advantage of the eddies and shallow water, so that we could use the long poles to push the boats up stream. Our boats were heavily laden and for about fifteen miles, we used the poles and towline, the water being too swift to use the oars. There was a great quantity of salmon in the river. We had all that we wanted and cooked it Indian fashion.

This was, to dress the fish, run a stick through it and place the stick in the ground close to the fire, and, as the fish cooked, turn it so that it would bake evenly. We always left the scales on until it was cooked. After working hard all day, it was fine, we thought delicious. We arrived at Cowlitz Landing after twenty days of travel, the only accident on the trip being the loss of a rifle, a considerable loss in those days, too.

In making this trip to Cowlitz landing, we started the hands with the stock, horses and cattle, to cross the Columbia. All were ferried over at Fort Vancouver, then they were driven down the river to Lewis river, where they were ferried over this stream, following down the Columbia to the mouth of Cowlitz river. They were driven up the Cowlitz and swam the South Fork. When they reached Cowlitz Landing, they swam the stock to the north side of the river and waited for the boats. This landing is at the lower end of Cowlitz prairie.

This prairie was settled by the Canadian French and it is a fine farming country. The Hudson Bay Company and the Catholic Mission each had fine farms there. We rented twenty acres of land from the Catholic Mission and twenty acres from John R. Jackson and put in a crop of winter wheat. When the crop was in we left the stock needed to haul our wagons to the prairie (Chambers') which we had selected for our future home, and started to drive the remainder of the stock through. 

We drove them over Mud Mountain, or Mud Hill, all of the first settlers traveled this way, and we crossed the Deschutes about two miles above Tumwater. There was an Indian trail from Bush prairie to Chambers' prairie. Then we went back to Sanders' Bottom and completed the wagon road around Mud Mountain. This hill is east of Chehalis. There was one family living there at that time. We prospected and blazed out a road. We found trees on the bank of the creek that suited us for making a bridge.

We built the bridge and cut out the wagon road through Sanders' Bottom, a distance of three miles. The creek's source was from Mud Mountain and the banks were steep and muddy and could not be crossed without a bridge. We then came to New Market, one of the first settlements at Tumwater. The men of this settlement turned out and all helped to cut out a wagon road to Chambers' Prairie, a distance of three and a half miles. 

The old settlers here were glad to see newcomers and they were ready and willing to help us. What they had they were willing to share with us. They were much pleased when they learned that we had sieve wire, for they had no bolting cloth for their small grist mill. They thought it a fine thing to have sieve wire, so that they could take the coarse bran out of their flour. On the prairie we built a log house of two rooms; the smaller one we used for a kitchen and the larger room was curtained off into bedrooms. We then went for the family and brought them over. 

We stopped a few days with Mr. Simmons' family. We crossed our wagons on boats, when the tide was in, below the lower falls of the Deschutes, near where the old Biles house stands. When the tide was out we drove our work cattle across Budd's Inlet, and then drove out five miles to our future home. The fifteenth day of December, 1847, we took our first dinner at our home on Chambers' prairie.

Here, our stock had plenty of grass and wintered well, and they were fat in February. We butchered a fine beef and had plenty of tallow to make candles, and we were glad to have candles. Mother brought enough candle wicking to do several years. The candles were a great improvement on the old iron lamp in which we had to burn hogs lard. This lamp was made with a short spout for the wick to lie in, and one end of the wick came out in this spout to burn. 

The handle at the other end of the lamp was so arranged that it came up over the center of the lamp, so as to hold the lamp level. With a small chain this lamp could he hung up. A cotton cloth, twisted, served as a wick. Father put up a milk house and in March commenced to make butter, and in April, to make cheese. Brother Thomas and I took up claims adjoining, and we milked the cows morning and evening for our board. We built a log house of one room on our claim. We made it a five cornered house, the fifth corner being for the fireplace. 

In May we dug two troughs and started a tan-yard, on a small scale. We used the troughs for vats, and alder and hemlock bark for tanning purposes. We dried the bark and pounded it fine. We burned oyster and clam shells and used the lime to take the hair off the skins. We made sole leather out of beef hides and for the upper leather, we used deer and cougar hides. By the first of November, we had our leather ready to make shoes. 

We brought a kit of shoemakers' tools with us, and father and I made the shoes. I made the ladies' shoes. We brought with us a number of lasts of different sizes. For sewing we put a number of strands of shoe thread together, the length we wanted, and we twisted and waxed this string, tapered the ends and put a hog bristle on each end for needles. It was a nice piece of work to put the bristles on so they would stay. This we could do to perfection. 

If they came off they could not be put on again. We made our shoe-pegs of maple and dogwood, well seasoned, sawed the length and size we wanted the pegs to be. We split off slabs the thickness to make square pegs, and shaved the slaps to make the pegs sharp at one end. We used a stick with a notch against which we held the slabs and sharpened first one side and then the other. A strip of leather with a slit in it was fastened to the shoe board. We took two or three of the sharpened slabs and held them with the left hand against the leather which served as a lever for the knife, and, with the point of the knife held to place by running it in the slit in the leather, we split off the pegs. 

The crop we put in on Cowlitz prairie turned out well, and we hauled it over early in the fall, or enough of it to plant to keep us until we grew our first crop on Chambers' prairie. The next two winters were very mild and pleasant. We made rails to fence in land to protect our crops. We raised plenty of wheat, potatoes, peas, and other vegetables, We had wheat coffee and pea coffee and we could always change from one to the other. Boiled wheat and milk made an extra dish for supper.

Father and mother were highly pleased with this country and they thought that there was no place like it, fat beef off the range in February and plenty of oysters and clams for the digging. One beef would give us sixty pounds of tallow, and in those days tallow was an important item. That same spring of 1848, we built the log barn which stood over half a century and finally had to be burned on account of it being unsafe for the stock. 

It was built similarly to those already described, except that this barn had five apartments, two for hay and grain, one for stalls, one for the wagons and one for threshing. It was a long, narrow barn, and all under one roof. The clapboards were put on with wrought nails from England. The sheeting was of logs, put on the right distance apart to use four foot boards. 

Thomas and I had been looking forward and calculating to return to Missouri in two years to see our girls, that we had left behind us. In 1848 mother received a letter from our old home, telling about what had taken place since we left, and among the news was the marriage of a certain young lady, and this had the effect of making me contented to remain on Puget Sound. This was a sensible decision, for, during the winter of 1847, Indians broke out and massacred Dr. and Mrs. Whitman and many others at the Mission near Walla Walla. The people of Oregon raised a company of volunteers to subdue the Cayuse tribe, the only hostiles. They succeeded in bringing the leaders to justice.

We, on Puget Sound, did not know about the trouble until it was all settled. The Indians here were friendly and they were glad to have the Boston's, as they called the Americans.  About this time gold was discovered in California, and Thomas and I got the fever to go, as brother James was already there.