"This is a plain recital of actual occurrences, without exaggeration, obtained from the parties themselves and corroborated by numerous living witnesses.
"There were 128 people in that train, and through the indefatigable efforts of Mr. Geo. H. Rimes, of Portland, Oregon, who was one of the party, and in fact the ten-year-old boy referred to, I am able to give the names in part.
"I have been thus particular in telling this story to illustrate what trials were encountered and overcome by the pioneers of that day, to the end that the later generations may pause in their hasty condemnation of their present surroundings and opportunities and to ask themselves whether in all candor they do not feel they are blessed beyond the generation that has gone before them, the hardy pioneers of this country."
This book could easily be filled by the recital of such heroic acts, varying only in detail and perhaps in tragic results; yet would only show in fact the ready, resourceful tact of the pioneers of those days.
I want to repeat here again that I do not look upon that generation of men and women as superior to the present generation, except in this: The pioneers had lost a large number of physically weak on the trip, thus applying the great law of the survival of the fittest; and further, that the majority of the pioneers in the true sense of the word—frontiersmen for generations before—hence were by training and habits eminently fitted to meet the emergencies of the trip and conditions to follow.
One of the incidents of this trip should be related to perpetuate the memory of heroic actions of the times, that of the famous ride across these mountains and to Olympia, of Mrs. Catherine Frazier, one of this party, on an ox.
Three days after arrival, Mrs. Frazier gave birth to the third white child born in Pierce County, Washington Frazier, named after the great territory that had been chosen for the home of the parents and descendants.
The first report, that the "mother and son were doing well," can again and again be repeated, as both [7] are yet alive, the mother now past seventy-three and the son fifty, and both yet residing at South Bay, near Olympia, where the parents soon settled after arrival.
The curious part of such incidents is the perfect unconsciousness of the parties of having done anything that would be handed down to posterity as exhibiting any spirit of fortitude or of having performed any heroic act. The young bride could not walk, neither could she be taken into the wagons, and she could ride an ox, and so, without ceremony, mounted her steed and fell into the procession without attracting especial attention or passing remark. Doubtless the lady, at the time, would have shrunk from any undue notice, because of her mount, and would have preferred a more appropriate entry into the future capital of the future State, but it is now quite probably that she looks upon the act with a feeling akin to pride, and in any event, not with feelings of mortification or false pride that possibly, at that time, might have lurked within her breast.