The Hood River News, Hood River, OR., April 30, 1943, page 1
JOSEPH M. GARRISON, CAME TO HOOD RIVER IN 1872, SON OF ANOTHER PIONEER
By Arlene Winchell Moore, from data compiled by Della M. Coon.
Pioneering seems to be an hereditary instinct. In checking
the data relative to the families of most of the early pioneers, in almost
every instance the family record shows a history of several generations of
Pioneers. Often these men have had the best educational advantages of the
day. Frequently they found little use for their "schoolin'" in the brought
new land from which they elected to wrest a home.
Joseph M. Garrison, the pioneer of this narrative, was
born in Indiana, February 17, 1812. His father, Abraham Garrison, was a pioneer
of the state of Ohio, and to him was born three sons, one of whom was our
Joseph M. Garrison, and several girls. I do not find a record of the exact
number or of their final place in the general scheme of life. In April of
1843, when young Joseph was thirty-one years of age, the family joined a
wagon train headed for the Oregon country. They arrived in Yamhill county
on November 6 of the same year and immediately filed on a claim.
One of the members of the same wagon train with the Garrisons
was a family by the name of Matheny, originally from Virginia. The father,
David Matheny, had pioneered first in Kentucky, from there to Indiana, then
to Illinois and finally to the Oregon country. His small daughter, Mary,
was eleven years of age that year of the westward trek. Most of the wagon
in this train were oxen drawn, but, as in all the trains of that era, there
were scouts riding horses to check the way ahead for the easiest travel,
and to keep a sharp eye for hostile Indians.
Joseph Garrison rode the trail, a gay, tireless, striking
figure. Often, small Mary, tiring of the slow, dusty wagons, begged to be
taken up behind the saddle of the genial scout rider. The friendship thus
developed during these long, weary months of travel, over an unbroken trail,
grew to an early romance. At the shockingly early age of fourteen years,
Mary Matheny became the bride of Joseph M. Garrison on April 16, 1843.
Immediately upon arrival in Oregon, Joseph Garrison became
a charter member of the Oregon Rangers, and served in that protective group
for a number of years. He was captain of his company in the Cayuse War of
1848.
He was selected from the Champooick District to serve
in the First Provisional Legislative Assembly, under Provisional Governor
George Abernethy, in 1843, which met at Oregon City, at that time called
Willamette Falls.
The Jason Lee Foundation, later known as the Willamette
University, was started in 1842. Some years earlier, in 1834, Jason Lee had
opened a mission school for the Indians about ten miles north of Salem on
the east bank of the Willamette River. The first teaching work done by Joseph
Garrison in the Oregon country was in this Indian Mission school. As soon
as he married, he moved his little bride to the Mission buildings. With the
growing demands of the Willamette University, the Methodist organization
gave up the Indian school and sold the land to Joseph Garrison and Alanson
Beers. Garrison Landing, on the Willamette, is on this land, farmed by Beers
and Garrison during the time that Garrison taught in the Willamette University.
In 1861, the Willamette river went on one of its periodical
flood rampages, and washed houses, barns, fences and stock away from the
settlers, especially venting its angry violence against those residents near
Garrison Landing. Mr. Garrison then sold his remaining interests to the Northcutt
Brothers, and took his family to La Grande, eastern Oregon. Failing to find
content there, the family moved again, buying a farm near Salem, and Mr.
Garrison taught again in the Salem schools. Still restless in 1872, the family
moved to Hood River and located on the land later known as the Gibbons property.
Mr. Garrison taught the first two terms of school ever
held in the Pine Grove district, after it had divided from the Odell district.
The school was a little log cabin at the north base of the Van Horn butte,
and the time was about the year 1885 or 1886. This date is not exact in my
files. He also taught at other schools in Hood River, but I do not possess
the exact dates and locations of these terms either.
Mrs. Garrison was an ardent lover of flowers, always
growing a lovely garden wherever the home happen to be. A Good Neighbor,
she was generous with their blooms, and ever willing to give a neighbor a
"start" of her beloved plants. Many an early day new mother owned much of
her comfort to the ministrations of Mary Garrison, who was always willing
to assist or even take the responsibility of bringing a new life into the
homes of her pioneering neighbors.
Later still, the Garrisons lived at The Dalles, and Mr.
Garrison was for many years the county school superintendent of Wasco county,
and later still, assessor.
One of the daughters of Joseph and Mary Garrison, Elizabeth,
became the wife of J.C. Hall, in the Oak Grove district, on the land afterwards
owned by Harvey Crapper. To this couple were born five children, who attended
school in the Barrett district, five miles from their home.
Jasper Garrison Jr. developed the land now used as the
Hood River Country Club.
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© Jeffrey L. Elmer