Wasco County OR Archives Biographies.....Mosier, Jefferson N. September 28, 1860 - May 5, 1928 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/or/orfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Ila L. Wakley iwakley@msn.com April 19, 2008, 12:40 am Author: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company JEFFERSON N. MOSIER. One of the best known and. most highly respected citizens of Wasco county, Washington, was Jefferson N. Mosier, who was a native of the Columbia River valley, in which he practically spent his life, and was long an honored resident of Mosier, of which place he was the founder. He died May 5, 1928, and was buried in the Odd Fellows cemetery at Mosier, his death being deeply regretted by all who knew him. In the Journal of December 7 and 8, 1927, Fred Lockley wrote of his interview with Mr. Mosier as follows: “I was born at The Dalles on September 28, 1860,” said Jefferson Mosier, when I interviewed him recently at his home at Mosier. “My father, Jonah H. Mosier, was born in Pennsylvania and went to California in 1849. In 1852 he came overland to the Willamette valley. My mother’s maiden name was Jane Rollins. Father and mother were married at Paradise, Missouri. Before coming west, my father ran a store. He was a millwright, ironworker and carpenter. Be came up to The Dalles in the fall of 1862. He built a store for M. M. Cushing. A square hewed log served as counter. “In 1854 he looked around for a location for a sawmill. He took up land here on Mosier creek . Mosier creek and the town of Mosier are both named for my father. He sent to San Francisco and bought a balance wheel, two gudgeons for the wheel shaft, a carriage cog wheel, segments for the carriage and two nine-foot muley saws. He made his pulleys and the rest of the equipment from wood growing on the place. He operated the mill by water power. He built a landing here, which in steamboat was known as Mosier Landing. He cut about four thousand feet of lumber a day, and he found a ready market for it at twenty-five to fifty dollars a thousand. To save the cost of freight; he built a scow, which he operated by sail or sweep, and took his lumber to The Dalles. He bought lots on the river front at The Dalles and put up a number of stores. He was offered a good profit on his lots and stores, but he hung on, thinking they would increase in value with the growth of the town, but the town grew back from the river, so he eventually sold them for a tithe of what they cost him. High water washed his mill away. He rebuilt, and once more his mill was washed away. After it had been washed away the third time—this was about 1868—he quit the saw mill business. “Father had taken up three hundred and twenty acres of land, so in the late ‘60s he went into the stock business. He raised horses, cattle and hogs. He found a ready sale for his horses to freighters and to the stage companies. For years he ran pack trains to the placer diggings in Idaho. He also drove bands of cattle into the Coeur d’Alene country and to the camps in Montana “Father came west with the intention of cleaning up ten thousand dollars and then going back to Missouri. From the profits of his first band of cattle driven to the mines, and his pack train the first season, he cleared twenty thousand dollars. He sold the gold dust at The Dalles and was paid in twenty-dollar gold pieces. He had over one thousand twenty-dollar gold pieces. He used to pour them on the floor and we children built corrals and houses of them. We played with these double eagles all winter, using them as children of today use building blocks. Father said, ‘I have my stake, but I am making money so easily that I would he foolish to quit, so I will make a little more while the making is good.’ “One summer he bought a lot of cattle in the Willamette valley and drove them up to the Coeur d’ Alene country. Winter caught him, so he came back home. He felt pretty blue, to think that his cattle would be winter-killed. Next spring he saddled his favorite cow horse and rode up to where he had left his cattle, hoping a few might have pulled through the winter. He found the cattle had wintered in the tules long the lake and were fat and hearty. Apparently they had all lived and were in prime condition to be sold in the Montana mining camps. “Mother took sick, so they sent an Indian runner to overtake father. He followed him to Montana and delivered the message. Father turned the cattle over to E. B. Warbass, with instructions to sell the cattle for cash and to dispose of the pack train and return at once to Mosier with the money realized from the sale. Mother died, so father had to stay on the place to take care of us children. Warbass did not return, nor did he write; so, after waiting a year father went up there to see if he could hear anything of him. In place of following instructions, Warbass had decided to use his own judgment, so he traded the band of cattle and the pack train, which together were worth about twenty-five thousand dollars, for a log store and a stock of goods. When he made the trade there were very few miners around, but he supposed they would be back. What he did not know was that the diggings were worked out, and the few miners who had stayed pulled out to new camps. Father found him holding the store down and acting as custodian of the goods, for there were no customers. Father could not sell the goods at any price and the bacon, hams, flour and other goods would not pay to ship by pack train; so he called in the Indians and told them to help themselves. “Father and Warbass came back to Mosier, broke. Warbass said, ‘Mr. Mosier, it was all my fault. I should have obeyed orders. I will write you a note on buckskin for twenty- five thousand dollars.’ In those days a note written on buckskin was never outlawed. It was an obligation as long as the man who made it lived. Father studied awhile as to whether he should send Warbass to the pen or take the buckskin note. Finally he decided to take the note. Warbass never paid a dime on the obligation, and the note was outlawed at his death. “There were seven children of us at the time of my mother’s death. Father married Mrs. Martha Lewis, a widow with three children, and father and my stepmother had two more children, making twelve of us in all. “1 was sixty-seven years old on the 28th of last September. Father and mother took up six hundred and forty acres here in 1854. The east half section was my father’s, the west my mother’s. In 1894, at the time of my father’s death, I bought the interest of the other heirs and I platted the town of Mosier. “Where did I go to school? We had no schools here in early days, so father hired a man named George James Ryan to come and live with us and teach us children. Mr. Ryan had been educated for the priesthood, but for some reason had given up his work as a priest. I started to school to him in 1864, when I was four years old. I cannot remember when I could not read and write, for I was able to read three letter words when I started to school at the age of four. We attended school from January 1 to December 31. We had a half-day holiday on Saturday and an all-day holiday on Christmas and Fourth of July. Father had a sawmill, so he built a small cabin near the house, to be used as a school house. I went to school there on our own farm to Professor Ryan for fourteen years. He believed in classical culture, so he made all of us study Latin and French as well as the common branches. He had a good library, most of the books being in Greek and Latin. He was a profound scholar, a gentleman, and a lovable man. He never drank and, so far as I know, had no vices. Toward the last, Mandy McClure and the three Bradshaw children came to our school. They lived in Washington territory and rowed across the Columbia morning and evening. Several other children also came to our school. They boarded at our home. After teaching for many years at our home he became state librarian at Salem. Later he came back to our home. He told father he felt the time of his departure was at hand. Father said, ‘Tell me the names of your relatives in Ireland. I will write to them.’ He said, ‘Do not write, or attempt to look them up. I have been dead to them for many years.’ So we buried him here on our place. “The railroad came here in 1882. J. J. Lynch was the first telegraph operator and agent. He built a small building across the track and ran a store, and he was the first postmaster. Most of the men working for my father in the ‘50s took Indian wives. At about the time of the Indian massacre at the Cascades, during the Indian war of 1855-56, the Klickitat Indians, not being able to buy bullets, bought endgate rods to wagons and cut them into inch lengths and used them for bullets in their muzzle-loading muskets. As father and one of his hired men were taking a scowload of lumber up to The Dalles the scow swung in toward Klickitat Landing, on the north bank of the Columbia. The Klickitat Indians were hiding back of the big boulders and fired at father and the hired man. Father picked up his musket and said, ‘I’ll stand them off. You grab a sweep and pull out into the current.’ The man said, ‘I wasn’t hired to be a target for the Indians. I’ll hide back of the lumber.’ So he did. Father threatened the Indians with his gun, and with one hand began working the sweep. The iron slugs sang over his head, and some buried themselves in the lumber. Fortunately, a breeze sprang up and father handled the sail and got out of range. He fired the hired man and set him ashore. Father tied up his scowload of lumber at Rowena Landing and walked home. “A steamer went up the river whistling as a signal to the settlers that the Indians had broken out. Father and mother saddled some horses and with the children rode up the trail fourteen miles to The Dalles, where word soon came of the attack on the Cascades. “I was married at Caldwell, Idaho, to Mary E. Mahady. Our little boy, three and one-half years old, died from loss of blood when he had his tonsils removed. Our little girl, Jane, is three veers old and is a regular little fairy. She is as smart as she is good looking. “When I was a young man, along about 1880 and 1881, I worked in a surveying crew for the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company. Later I worked for the Northern Pacific Company. For some time I was in charge of the beef supply between Sandpoint and Missoula during the construction of the road. I was the accountant for Bingham county, Idaho, at the time they issued six hundred thousand dollars worth of bonds to build eighty-five miles of highway from Aberdeen, Idaho, to the Bonneville county line. I also kept books during the construction of the highway between Weiser and Ontario. I was the first president of the Mosier Valley Bank, and I started the Mosier Bulletin. I built and own the water system here. I was the first school clerk of Mosier and I was president of the library board. “You ask me abort my brothers and sisters. Sarah Alice was the first child. She is seventy-four and lives in Walla Walla. Her name is Mrs. John Faucette. Emily Ann married B. F. Mansford. of Weston. She is dead. Mary S. married Dr. W. L. Adams, of Hood River, who in early days was the editor of the Oregon Argus, published at Oregon City. After his death she married John Leland Henderson, who was found dead recently at Tillamook. Josephine married E. J. Willoughby, of Linn county. She is dead. The next child, Benjamin Franklin, is dead. I was the next child. Lydia, my youngest sister, died a few months ago in Walla Walla. The names of my stepmother’s three children are James, Emma and Ida Lewis. The children born to my father and stepmother are Effie Jane, who married E. U. Phillips and who lives in Portland, and Dolly, who married Dr. David Robinson. They live at Tillamook.” Mr. Mosier’s sister, Emily, taught the first school at Hood River in the early ‘60s. His mother was a direct descendant of William Penn. Mrs. Mosier graduated from the State Normal School at Duluth, Minnesota, and taught school in that state and in Oregon prior to her marriage. Both of her parents are deceased, and she has two sisters and a brother living in Minnesota. Mr. Mosier rendered effective service during the World war in various ways, having served as president of the Red Cross food distribution, as chairman of the Liberty Loan drives, was president of the Liberty Loan board, was director of public information and chairman of the Four-Minute speakers. In recognition of his tireless and patriotic service, he was awarded a Victory Liberty Loan medal by the United States treasury department. He was a stanch democrat in his political views and the member from his district on the county central committee. He was a member of the Knights of Pythias, the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks, the Modern Woodmen of America, the Royal Neighbors and the United Artisans. He was vice president of the Commercial Club and belonged to the Oregon Development League. His father was a member of the Masonic order. Mr. Mosier’s favorite diversions were hunting and fishing. During all the years of his residence here he stood consistently for the best things in community life and was a potent factor in the development and progress of the locality in which he lived, a worthy representative of one of the honored pioneer families of this section and because of the high type of citizenship which was exemplified in his own life, he commanded the uniform confidence and respect of all who knew him. Additional Comments: History of the Columbia River Valley From The Dalles to the Sea, Vol. II, Pages 460-465 File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/or/wasco/bios/mosier459gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/orfiles/ File size: 14.1 Kb