It was sixteen miles to our market town, Steilacoom, over the roughest kind of road. Nobody had horse teams at the start; we had to go with ox teams. We could not make the trip out and back in one day, and we did not have money to pay hotel bills. We managed in this way: we would drive out part of the way and camp; the next morning we would drive into town very early, do our trading, and if possible, drive back home the same day. If not able to do this, we camped on the road again. But if the night was not too dark we would reach home that night. And oh, what an appetite we would have, and how bright the fire would be, and how joyous the welcome in the cabin home!
The trees and stumps are all gone now and brick buildings and other good houses occupy much of the land. As many people now live in that school district as lived both east and west of the mountains when the Territory was created in March of 1853. Instead of going in ox teams, or even sleds, the people have carriages or automobiles; they can travel on any of the eighteen passenger trains that pass daily through Puyallup, or on street cars to Tacoma, and also on some of the twenty to twenty-four freight trains, some of which are a third of a mile long. Such are some of the changes wrought in fifty years since pioneer life began in the Puyallup valley.
A hop field with the hops ready for picking.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
FINDING AND LOSING A FORTUNE
Our youthful dream of becoming farmers was now realized in fullest measure. The clearing was gradually enlarged, and abundant crops came to reward our efforts. The comfort and plenty we had hoped and struggled for was attained. Next came a development in the family fortunes that we had not dreamed of. Never had we thought to see the Meeker family conducting a business that would require a London office.
This unexpected prosperity came to us through the hop-growing industry, upon which we entered with all our force. The business was well started by the time of my father's death in 1869, and in the fifteen years following the acreage planted to hops was increased until the crop-yield of 1882, a yield of more than seventy-one tons, gave the Puyallup valley the banner crop, as to quantity, of the United States—and, some persons asserted, of the world.