Lyman's History of old Walla Walla County, Vol. 1 / Embracing Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield and Asotin counties

by William Denison Lyman

From these centers of settlement, Pataha Creek, Deadman Creek and Hollow, Pataha prairie, together with the still earlier Tucanon (spoken of in connection with Columbia County), and Alpowa (the lower part of which was early historic ground as the home of Red Wolf and Timothy, the Nez Perces, associated with the Missionary Spalding), the growth proceeded during the period prior to county division, following the familiar lines from sheep and cattle and horses to agriculture.

The most constructive event was the founding of Pomeroy. This thriving city, the capital and metropolis of Garfield County, was established by J. M. Pomeroy in 1877. Mrs. Pomeroy, now Mrs. St. George, is living at the date of this publication, a woman of great vigor of mind and body, the best authority on the early days in the place of which she told the author she might be called "the Mother." Mr. Pomeroy came from Oregon to the territory in 1863, and for a few months took charge of the stage station at the present site of Dayton. There the youngest child of the family, now Mrs. Peter McClung of Pomeroy, was born. In the spring of 1864, Mr. Pomeroy moved with his family to the location of the town which became his namesake. There in the last part of the year he purchased of a transient settler, Walter Sunderland, the right to the claim on which the town now stands. For a dozen years he devoted his main attention to cattle raising and to the conducting of the stage station. The author wishes that his readers could enjoy the privilege, as he has, of hearing Mrs. St. George describe in her vivid and entertaining way the times of the stage station and the express boxes with thousands of dollars' worth of gold dust, when "road agents" were figuring on breaking in and seizing them, when horse thieves ran off their horses, and when the Vigilantes would occasionally decorate a tree with the remains of a horse thief as a suggestion for moderation in becoming attached to other men's stock. As the next best thing we are going to let Mrs. St. George tell the story in the following sketch which appeared in the pioneer number of the East Washingtonian.

"Pomeroy, Wash., April 5, 1914.—I came from Salem, Ore., where I had lived with my people for eighteen years, being four years old when my folks crossed the plains, among the early pioneers of Oregon.

"I was married at the age of fifteen years, and, for a while, lived in Salem with my husband and two small children.

"I came up the Columbia River by steamer to Wallula, took the stage for Walla Walla, with twelve other passengers, on April 6, 1864.

"At Wallula I found a great rush of travel, many on their way to the reported gold strike at Orofino, Idaho.

"I had two pairs of fine blooded pigs in a small box, two dozen fine chickens, but no baggage except a suitcase with a few things for my children. My trunks had been left at Portland and came the next day.

"My husband was coming overland with a band of fine Shorthorn cattle and about twenty head of horses. He had been driving stock for about four weeks, and I had remained with my mother for awhile, so we would arrive at Walla Walla about the same time. Arriving there with my little ones, a stranger in a strange land, with very little money, and board and lodgings at the City Hotel twenty-five dollars a week, and no letter from my husband awaiting me, I did not feel very much at home.

"But soon a man with whom Mr. Pomeroy had made arrangements for the place where we were to live until we could look about and select a piece of land for our homestead. We were to stay that summer on the ranch two miles east of Dayton, belonging to Mr. William Rexford, in a small log house with a fireplace, and there, in September, Mrs. McClung was born.

"We were as poor and hard up for money as any one that ever came to this country. In the month of July Mr. King, who at that time carried the mail, express and passengers from Walla Walla to Lewiston, made me a proposition to keep a stage stand and feed his hungry passengers every day, and very soon I was giving two dinners each day to the coming and going travelers.