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