Early Tumwater-
How did the Tumwater pioneers survive the first winter?
In late October of 1845, the Simmons-Bush party arrived at the falls of the Deschutes River. They had left their homes in Missouri a year and a half earlier. Their journey on the Oregon Trail had led them through parched deserts, wide prairies, steep mountains, and uncut forests. The Simmons-Bush party had originally planned on settling in the Willamette River Valley, in present-day Oregon. But when they arrived, they found out that the citizens of Oregon had just passed exclusionary laws that said that Black people were not allowed to live there. Since one of the members of the party, George Washington Bush, was considered a Black man, they decided they would push north, to the South Puget Sound area, which was controlled by the British, who had no anti-Black policies.
In order to get from Fort Vancouver to South Puget Sound, they took the Cowlitz Trail. Although the Cowlitz Trail was the shortest part of their entire journey, most of them agreed that it was by far the worst. The Cowlitz Trail had never been traveled by a wagon train before, and it led through deep mud and dense forests. The Simmons-Bush party had to spend much time hauling their oxen out of the muck and chopping down trees to make room for their wagons.
A year and a half had passed since they’d been left their homes. During this time they had been sleeping in tents, in wagons, on the hard ground, and in rooms rented at rough trading posts. Their diet had been dried beans, hardtack (dry biscuits made from flour and water), rice, and other non-perishables. They had seen other travelers die of cholera and diseases, and had helped to bury them under the dry dirt of the Trail. They had fought off starvation and misery. Elizabeth Simmons had even given birth to a baby boy in a sheep pen, who was named Christopher Columbus Simmons.
Although they had reached their final destination, there was no time to relax. The settlers selected parcels of land for themselves. This was called staking a claim. In 1850, Congress passed the Donation Land Act, which gave settlers a free title to the land they had claimed and worked.
After staking their claims, the settlers had to get right to work building new homes to protect them from the coming winter. They didn’t have a lot of time or many tools, so they couldn’t build sawn timber houses. Instead, they built small log cabins. They would build nicer homes in a few years. However, building a log cabin was a lot of work!
Men had to take down enough trees to clear a space for the new home. The logs were peeled and hauled by hand and fitted one on top of another. The spaces in between the logs were filled with mud, moss, clay, and pebbles. This kept out most of the chilly winter wind and rain, and let the settlers stay warm and dry. The roof was made of split cedar shakes. Windows were simply holes cut in the walls.
It would be a long time before the pioneers could afford to buy glass windowpanes. Instead, they covered the holes with thin cotton fabric or oiled paper. This let some light in, but kept in the fire’s warmth. There was often only one room in a log cabin. It was used as a bedroom, kitchen, living room, and sometimes even as a chicken coop! Imagine how crowded it would be if you and your whole family had to live in only one room.
Often the fireplace was in the center of the log cabin. It was built of rocks hauled from the river and set in place with clay. The chimney was made out of sticks and mud, called a cat and clay chimney. The fireplace was used for light, heat, and for cooking. Even though the pioneers were no longer on the Oregon Trail, cooking was still a challenge. Most women had to cook their food on an open fire, which meant that they spent their days stooping down in the ashes, and choking on smoke.
There was no bread in Tumwater until Michael T. Simmons’ gristmill was finished in 1846. Instead, the pioneers boiled their wheat kernels whole. Even when the mill was finished, the flour was coarse and gritty. They did not have the sieves yet to make a soft, fine grade of flour. What a luxury it must have been to taste good, fine bread once the sieves arrived at the mill.
Tumwater pioneer Isabella Bush brought this tea kettle and platter with her on the Oregon Trail. Artifacts held at the Washington State Capitol Museum. Henderson House Museum photograph. |
Pioneers often made all of their own furniture. If they had brought any with them, they might have had to dump it from the wagon to lighten the load of the struggling oxen. They built rough tables, chairs, and beds out of small logs. What they could not build, they had to do without. Mrs. Phoebe Goodell Judson, an 1853 pioneer, wrote that the first year the only household furnishings she had from her home back east were three china plates, one glass tumbler, a kettle, frying pan, broom, Bible, and Webster’s dictionary.
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The first year they lived on boiled wheat and dried peas. Many years later, Christopher Columbus Simmons said, "Yes, those were hard times. We all had to scramble for enough to eat. There was [very little] that could be bought from any market for several years." They probably would have starved to death if the Indians hadn’t shown them how to fish for salmon, gather shellfish, and eat the plants that grew wild in Tumwater.
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These foods helped them to survive, although they were very different from the foods the pioneers had eaten at home in Missouri. It must have taken them a while to get used to their new diet. Luckily, the settlement of New Market wasn’t far from Fort Nisqually, and Dr. McLoughlin of Fort Vancouver had directed Dr. Tolmie, chief factor at Fort Nisqually, to let the pioneers have seeds, grain, and animal feed on credit. Now they could start tending their farms and growing their own food. |
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