"One dog, myself and elder sister and brother were carrying water from our spring, which was a hundred yards or more from our house, when a number of Indians came along. We were afraid of them and all hid. I hid by the trail, when an old Indian, seeing me, yelled out, 'Adeda!' and I began to laugh, but my sister was terribly frightened and yelled at me to hide, so they found all of us, but they were friendly to us, only a wretched lot to steal, as they stole the only cow we had brought through, leaving the calf with us without milk. "My father was quite a hunter, and deer were plenty, and once in a while he would get one, so we did get along without milk. During the first year we could not get bread, as there were no mills or places to buy flour. A Canadian put up a small chop mill and chopped wheat something like feed is chopped now. "My father being a jack-of-all-trades, set to work and put up a turning lathe and went to making chairs, and my mother and her little tots took the straw from the sheaves and braided and made hats. We sold the chairs and hats and helped ourselves along in every way we could and did pretty well. "One day, while my father's lathe was running, some one yelled 'Stop!' A large black bear was walking through the yard. The men gave him a grand chase, but bruin got away from them. "My father remained on this place until the spring of 1847, when he and a number of other families decided to move to Puget Sound. During that winter they dug two large canoes, lashed them together as a raft or flatboat to move on, and sold out their places, bought enough provisions to last that summer, and loading up with their wagons, families and provisions, started for Puget Sound. "Coming up the Cowlitz River was a hard trip, as the men had to tow the raft over rapids and wade. The weather was very bad. Arriving at what was called the Cowlitz Landing we stayed a few days and moved out to the Catholic priest's place (Mr. Langlay's) where the women and children remained while the men went back to Oregon for our stock. They had to drive up the Cowlitz River by a trail, and swim the rivers. My father said it was a hard trip. "On arriving at Puget Sound we found a good many settlers. Among them, now living that I know of, was Jesse Ferguson, on Bush Prairie. We stayed near Mr. Ferguson's place until my father, McAllister and Shager, who lives in Olympia, took them to places in the Nisqually bottoms. My father's place then, is now owned by Isaac Hawk.