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History of Early Pioneer Families of Hood River, Oregon. Compiled by Mrs. D.M. Coon

THOMAS R. COON AND FAMILY I.H.W. 1878

Thomas R. Coon was born at Silverton, Oregon, March 4, 1854. His father, Thomas Lewis Coon crossed the plains to California in 1850, coming to Oregon the following year. He homesteaded land about fifteen miles east of Salem, the same land on which the town of Silverton is built. He sent for his family in Wisconsin to join him, but mails and everything else moved slowly in those days, and it was not until the fall of 1852 that his wife and daughter reached their Oregon home. She was accompanied to Oregon by her parents, Mr. & Mrs. Paul Crandall and their families of sons and daughters, who also found homes near Silverton.
Thomas Lewis Coon died on his homestead in Jan. 1854. His widow continued to live there for several years, then moved to Salem for better school advantages. Thomas R. was educated in the Salem public schools and Willamette University and prepared himself for the teaching business. His first school was a night school for negroes, taught in the winter of 1869 and '70, under the supervision of the Salem School Directors. He aftorwards taught at Puyallup and Sumner in Washington Territory.
In 1875 he moved to Mt. Tabor and taught there two years, going from there to East Portland where he renamed two years.
In the sununer of 1877 he and Wm Hudson came up the Columbia River over the trail, to Hood River for the purpose of seeing the country and having an outing.
In the summer of 1878 the family spent three weeks camping near Coe's spring, studying the resources of the valley and getting acquainted with Hood River people. That fall Mr. Coon and Mr. Price purchased 160 acres just south of Indian Creek. Mr. Price built a house and made improvements on the land in the summer of l879 while Mr. Coon's family lived in a tent on the banks of Hood River, near Mr. Price's house. The following year Mr. Coon was employed in the Seattle Schools but during the winter he purchased 80 acres more, just south of the original land purchased. The Seattle Schools closed early that spring and he came at once to Hood River and taught the Barrett School for a term of three months. Mrs. Coon taught the Frankton School at the same time, this being the first term in the now building on the E.L. Smith place.
That summer Mr. Coon was employed by Clark & Maynard Book Co. and his work lasted into the fall so that he did not enter the school work again until the fall of 1881, when he became principal of the Astoria schools, continuing there two years. On account of poor health he abandoned school work and engaged in farming but at various times as a side issue, he has taught in the Hood River schools, at Barrett, Frankton, Oak Grove and town. In the summer of 1883, the tract of land known as the "Price place" was sold and with it Mr. Coon's interests, so that he at once built on the 80 lying south which he had secured earlier. In securing strawberry plants for this place he discovered the valuable qualities of the Clark Seedling strawberry which became the foundation for Hood River's first prosperity.
In July 1886 he became Justice of the Peace serving two years, to the detriment of the farm and his own interests. In 1893 he helped to organize the Hood River Fruit Growers Union. It was a cooperative union and the first one organized in the Northwest. He served as its president for seven years, never receiving a penny for his services, although his duties often entailed expense and absence from his farm work.
During the strawberry season of '95 & '96 he wnt into the Denver and Omaha markets receiving and distributing thirteen carloads of berries the first season. This was the beginning of carload shipments, former shipments having been made by express. In 1897 he went into Montana, receiving five carloads in Butte, the first carload lots ever sent into Montana. For his work as distributing agent he received three dollars per day and expenses.
In 1894 he was sent as a delegate from Hood River to the Northwest Fruit Gro-wers Association, organized at Spokane in Feb. The following year in February, the association met in Portland and Mr. Coon was elected secretary, serving one year. In 1893 and again in 1895 he was joint representative from Wasco and Sherman counties, to the Oregon legislature. He once served as school clerk in the Barrett district and as director in the schools of the town of Hood River. He was elected mayor in 1903 and served over a year, but resigned before the expiration of his term.
In the spring of 1905 he bought a farm near Lyle and moved there but spends considerable time at his former home on the Heights in Hood River.
His family record dates back, on his mother's side, to John Crandal who came to Massachusetts in 1636 from England. This ancestor voluntarily cast his lot in Rhode Island where he was associated with Roger Williams and others in their struggle for religious toleration. Rev. John Clark, pastor of the Baptist Church at New Port, Holmes and Crandall, also ministers, went together to Lynn, Mass., to visit one of their faith who was old, sick and blind, and had desired to see them. While there they held divine service in his house and were arrested by constables for daring to preach the despised religion on Massachusetts territory. After ten days confinement in the Boston jail they were found to be guilty of being Baptists and were sentenced either to be whipped or pay a fine. Friends paid the fine for Clark and Crandall but Holmes, for conscientious reasons, refused to accept liberty at such a price and received thirty strokes with a three-corded whip on the bare back.
Bystanders turned sick at the sight of his bleeding back but he turned smilingly to the magistrates and said "You have struck me as with roses". On his father's side the record is not so plain but they were of Scotch descent and came to America at a very early date. Mrs. Coon's family record is similar to that of her husband. An ancestor on her mother's side came from England about the year 1645 and settled at Scituate, Mass. This ancestor was Captain Michael Pierce, who with his whole company was caught in an ambush by the Indians in King Phillip's War. For two hours the little bank fought nearly the whole Narragansett tribe and only nine men were taken prisoners. This occurred at Attleboro Gore, Sunday March 26, 1676. Mrs. Coon's grandparents, on her mother's side were from Massachusetts. Mr. Coon's were from Rhode Island and Connecticut. Both parents on both sides were born in western New York between the years 1822 and 1833 and all went to Wisconsin where they were married. Mrs. Coon was born at Green Bay, Wisconsin, April 5, 1854. Her parents moved to Nebraska in the spring of 1856, where her mother died in August 1859. The mother's maiden name was Beebe and her mother's name was Pierce. Mrs. Coon's father, Mr. McNeal, with his four motherless girls, crossed the plains from Nebraska to California in the summer of 1860. His outfit consisted of a farm wagon loaded with supplies and a two seated covered buggy. The wagon was drawn by two horses and the buggy by one, and an extra horse was taken along. One horse was bitten by a rattlesnake on the way, but did not die. A young man was employed to drive the farm wagon. The rest of the train was made up of ox teams. The four girls rode in the buggy drawn by "Old Fox". She was sold after the arrival in California for $350. Mr. McNeal came from California to Oregon in Sept. 1861 locating in Salem where the children entered the public schools at the "Old Central".
Mr. and Mrs. Coon were classmates in school from the time they were nine years old until their education was finished and they went to Puget Sound to teach. They were married at Tacoma April 12, 1874 and were the first couple married there. They taught at Sumner and Puyallup that summer and during the winter taught private school in which nothing below the grammar grades was taught. This school was at Puyallup and was undertaken in response to a request from the parents, of advanced pupils, whose children had been attending school at Olympia and Seattle, those schools being closed that winter for lack of school funds.
At Puyallup, Mt. Tabor, East Portland and Astoria Mrs. Coon was an assistant while Mr. Coon was Principal.
Eight children have been given to them; Ida Cornelia, the eldest, was a pupil in the Hood River schools at Frankton and Barrett. She died in Astoria Sept. 29, 1882, Charles Wells was born at Hood River Jan. 1895 and died at the age of 20 mo. Elinor died in Jan. 1899 at the age of 3 months. Five other children were born, raised and received most of their education in Hood River. They are: Eugene Carl and Thomas Melvin, residents of Portland. Ruth, now Mrs. W.W. Foss of Hood River, Florence, now Mrs. H.W. Woods of Portland and Mabel also of Portland.