The Klickitat County Agriculturist, Goldendale, WA., December 31, 1904, page 7
PIONEER JOSLYN
Death of Earliest Settler of the White Salmon Section of Klickitat County
Erastus S. Joslyn, one of the earliest settlers on the
middle Columbia and for many years the owner of what is the Glades ranch
at White Salmon, the property of Judge A.R. Byrkett, died recently at Santa
Barbara, Cal., at the age of 79.
Mr. Joslyn was a native of Massachusetts. The early years
of his life were spent in his native state, where he was married on May 10,
1848, to Miss Mary Warner. In 1852 Mr. and Mrs. Joslyn started for Oregon
by way of the Isthmus of Panama, arriving in Portland in the fall of that
year. In the spring of 1853, Mr. Joslyn made a trip up the Columbia river
in search of a location, selecting a donation claim at White Salmon, where
the present town of Bingen stands. There for many years he and his wife were
the only white settlers on the north side of the Columbia river, between
the Cascades and Walla Walla.
In the fall of 1855 rumors of disturbances and threatenings
among the Yakima Indians became alarming, although the tribe of Klickitats,
living about the Joslyn place, remained friendly to the whites. Led by their
chief, Kamiaken, the Yakimas determined an extermination of the whites along
the Columbia. Although at first restrained and discouraged in their plan
by the friendly Klickitats, the apparently unwarranted arrest of three Klickitat
chiefs by government officers precipitated an alliance and attack upon the
settlers. This arrest was strongly opposed by Mr. Joslyn, who, fearing its
effect, removed his wife to Portland, leaving his claim in charge of two
men. Scarcely had they left the Washington shore when the men were warned
by a friendly Indian that an attack was imminent, and leaving the claim they
fled for their lives before a band of warriors for one whole night, reaching
the river and crossing unharmed to Hood River. From there they saw the Joslyn
house and barn go up in flames kindled by the hand of old White Salmon Dave,
a Yakima chief, who still lives in the neighborhood of Bingen.
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© Jeffrey L. Elmer