PART 3B Article about Tryon Family By Fred Lockley 8-25-1928 Oregon Journal “My father’s name was Socrates Hotchkiss Tryon,” said S.H. Tryon when I interviewed him recently. “Yes, I was name for my father and I live about a mile and half up river from Maygar. My father was born in Vermont and died in 1855, when he was 60 years old. My mother, whose maiden name was Frances Safely, was born in Edinbourgh, Scotland. Six of the children in our family died before I was born. I was born in the first brick house built in Marion, Linn county, Iowa, on August 19, 1848. She lives at No. 1140 Hassaiostreet, Portland, with her niece, Mrs. Elmer. My sister’s son, Charlie Cleveland, is principal of benson Polytechnic. Another of her sons is a professor at Washington State college, at Pullman. “My father, Socrates H. Tryon, built a sawmill on his donationland claim near Oswego in the fall of 1849. Later he was a partner of Captain Joseph Kellogg and Captain J.C. Ainsworth. Father died at Oswego 73 years ago. Mother and I cam to San Francisco in 1850 by way of Panama. Father was uncertain whether he was going to stay in Oregon or come to California, so we lived in San Francisco about a year before we joined father at Oswego. “I was always found of music, so when I heard somebody playing the fiddle in a saloon near the house where we were living I climbed over the fence and went into the saloon to listen to the music. They didn’t want me underfoot there, so one of the men set me out in the street and told me to run along home. The big fire that almost wiped San Francisco off the map in 1851 started in a building near the saloon. Within a half hour after I had been put out of the saloon it was in ashes. My mother ran a lodging house in San Francisco and also took boarders, but when the town was burned we came up to Portland to join father. “I attended the Bishop Scott school at Oswego. Not long after my father’s death my mother married Mr. Young. My father left a well in which he left $4000 to be used to educate myself and my sister. My stepfather told mother that he had some business to attend to in the East and also that he thought the trip would be good for his health, so he got her to give him an order on the man in Oregon City that had this $4000, so he could draw the interest, which was due. They paid high interest in those days - from 4 to 5 per cent a month. When mother went in to Oregon City a week or two after my stepfather had left she met the man who had the money. He told her that my stepfather had drawn the money as well as the interest. He had changed mother’s order to include the principal as well as the interest. There were no telegraphs in those days, and while mother sore out a warrant for his arrest, by the time the warrant had got to San Francisco he had already sailed on a steamer for Panama, so we never heard of him again, and I had to go to work instead of getting an education, as my father had planned. “Mother was a Scotchwoman and was one of the hardest workers I ever saw. She took a man’s place on the farm and in addition to that she did the washing for the girls’ school. I went to work when I was 13. When I was 21, I went down to Oak Point and caught salmon. This was in 1869. I followed fishing for the next 10 years. When I was 31 I married Minnie Hudson. Hudson street, in Longview, is named for my wife’s father. He had a donation land claim on Arkansas creek, and after he sold that he bought a place in Beayer valley, near Rainier. That was where I met my wife. from Oak Point I went down to Astoria, where I fished till 1881, when I went into a logging camp at Maygar. Later I cut cordwood and sold to the steamboats at $2 to $2.50 a cord. For some years I was postmaster of Tryon postoffice. My wife died two yearsago, and though I am 80 years old I am running the farm and batching.” The history of Dennis and Hulda Tryon, early pioneers of Orego nand California and of the Gold Rush Days of 1852. The incidents mentioned below are incidents in the family life, told by John Marlin Tryon and compiled by his grandson, Presley Tryon. Dennis Tryon was born January 14, 1822 in New York [1], later in life he moved to Vermont, then to Iowa where he met and married Miss Hulda Clark (born February 16, 1830) married on December 20, 1849 [2]. A negro boy [3] was given to them by her parents as a wedding present. To them, in Iowa, was born George Edwin Tryon and William Dennis Tryon. The Gold rush was on in 1852 and the Tryons, with their two sons and the negro boy, started for the Golden West. They came to Yreka, California. Dennis Tryon did mining and Hulda, his wife, operated a bakery, she being the only white woman there at the time. The Miners would give her as much as 10.00 to bake a pie or cake for them. The Tryons, being raised Farmers, started moving to farmlands of their choice. They came to the mouth of the Rogue River and settled on the north side, near Wedderburn, Oregon, where they built their stockade or home. The Rogue River Indians soon started on the war path and some of the neighbors, who could, came to the Tryon Stockade for shelter. All together there were six men and ten women and children, with four muskets. With their stockade banked high with dirt, they kept the Indians from burning them out or capturing the stockade. After several weeks, three of the men and the negro boy, with their ox cart, ventured out to a potato patch which was 300 yards from the Stockade. Suddenly about 200 savages leaped from the ferns and bushes and rushed in and surrounded the four settlers. The three white men jumped in the Rogue River and were shot by the Indians with arrows as they tried to swim. The negro boy ran for the oxcart and the Indians scalped him and killed the ox there in the potato patch. That left two men and then women and children, and one gun, three being lost with the three drowned neighbors. At that time soldiers were being sent to Fort Vancouver to protect the Oregon Settlers and ships would pass frequently. The settlers kept a distress flag flying all the time, hoping it would be seen. At last the signal flag was seen by a ship lookout and the ship turned and sailed into the mouth of the Rogue River. Choosing to risk their lives trying to reach the ship, the settlers gathered all their belongings and crawled through a drainage ditch to the river bank, then dashed to their boats and through the breakers to safety on board the ship. They landed on the Crescent City beach in June of 1856. On July 31, 1856, John Marlin Tryon was born at Crescent City. That same year the Tryons moved to Smith River and bought the farmland known as the Morrison McIndoe Ranch and part of the Westbrook Farm. In 1852 the family was made happy by the arrival in Smith River of the youngest brother, John M. Tryon [4], for whom their third son was named. He was then in the service of his nation assigned the duty of seeing the steady movement of chrome ore from Low Divide to Crescent City where it was loaded on ships. Today many marks of that Chrome road are still visible from Low Divide to Smith River and from Thomas Ford Ferry to Lake Earl. Fords Ferry crossed the Smith River 100 yards below Fine Memorial Bridge. Mr. Timothy Minard was one of the Teamsters hauling Chrome Ore from Low Divide to Crescent City over that early Chrome road in Civil War times. When peace came to the nation in 1865, Brother John left to go to Vermont to be with his mother [5]. In the ensuing years, Laura, Frank, and Charles were born to the Tryons. Sadness entered the home on January 29, 1862, when Hulda Tryon passed away at the age of 33. She is buried in the Smith River Cemetery and is one of the first recorded of the earlier settlers to be called away from their families and home by death. With the passing of Hulda Tryon with child birth, a baby boy came to the Tryon home. A kindly Indian Lady, who was the mother of a young blind baby boy, chose to share her mothers nourishment and care. Baby Charles Tryon and Blind Henry grew to be playmates under this Indian ladies guiding care. The love and affection for this Indian Lady and Blind Henry never perished in ninety years. Blind Henry would always stop and visit when passing by, until his death not many years ago. There was no school in that neighborhood and Dennis Tryon helped organize the Rowdy Creek school District and gave the ground for the school. School could only be held about three months in the winter time. Some neighbor would be the teachers. By 1865 the Smith River Indians knew the Settlers quite well and were hired in the harvest season. The Farmers would cut the grain with a scythe with a cradle attachment and some farmers had reapers. The Indians would be hired to bind the loose sheaves of grain. Mr. Luther Jones, one of the early settlers, hired the Alec Brothers, upper Smith River Indians to bind the sheaves of grain. These contracting Indians engaged several of the Reservation Indians to help them. When binding was completed, Mr. Jones paid the upper Smith River Indians their pay with gold coins, which they claimed they lost. The Reservation Indians later found out the upper Indians had money to spend. For this breach of honesty, the reservation Indians would kill the three upper River Indians. Between Rowdy Creek and the Tryon Home was a rail fence which the Reservation Indians hid behind and as the two brothers of the three came along the road, they shot them in the back, killing one and mortally wounding the other. The wounded Indian ran and fell on the floor of the Tryon barn, where Dennis and his children were threshing out peas with flails. Before the Tryons knew what had happened, in came the murdering Indians, prepared to drive a deer antler through his temples, then scalp him. Mr. Tryon told them, “You wont do that to this dying Indian”, then stepped across the dying man. He then told the murdering Indians to drop their gun and knives and wait a few minutes till the wounded man was dead. Then Dennis Tryon told the Indians they were to carry the dead Indian away and bury him like good men should. The murdering Indians told Dennis Tryon he was a good man, then left, taking the dead Indian with them. In the winter of 1864, Smith River had a terrible, high flood and almost all the settlers on the Yontocket area were flooded and left their farms. Dennis Tryon bought six farms from Fort Dick to Lake Earl and the Lone Ranch in Oregon. He sold his Smith River Farm and moved to the south side of the Smith River at Fort Dick in 1870. In 1868 Dennis Tryon received a letter from his mother, Laura Tryon, in Vermont, that John, her youngest son, had passed away and she was alone at home. He left his young family in neighbors keeping, saddled up two horses and rode from Smith River to Salt Lake City, where he came to the railroad that was being built across the nation. From Salt Lake City he journeyed n to Vermont to bring her to Smith River. She often wondered where her eldest son Ephriam could be. She had not heard from him in forty years. Laura Tryon was born in New in the year 1797 while General Washington was President of the United States. She died at Fort Dick February 4, 1874, and is buried in the family plot at Smith River. [6] Many years after she was gone, Ephriam, after many years of wandering and mining, came to Yreka. He heard about a Dennis Tryon living in this Valley. Ephriam walked over the Helsey Trail in 1880 to see for himself if this was his brother; which he was. They had not seen each other since boyhood days. He came back each summer for many years after that, to visit his mother’s grave and to help his brother with the farming and then would leave for the mines in the winter. Then on summer passed and Ephriam did not come. He too had died. [7] It was 1870 before the Tryons had finished their home and farm buildings at Fort Dick, which was one two story house, one cow barn and one horse and carriage barn, all on the west side of the road. The cow barn was built on the bank of Tryon Creek. A water wheel was built in the creek for power to turn the churn. The creek did not generate enough power, so the tread mill was later installed. An orchard was planted and another dwelling and granary were built on the east side of the road. Some of the orchard trees are still standing there to this day. Dennis Tryon was now married to his second wife, Catherine, and born to this union was Thomas and Hulda Tryon. Catherine was born in 1836, passing away September 27, 1877 at the age of 41. She is also buried in the family plot at Smith River. [8] About 1875 Dennis Tryon formed the Tryon Beef and Cattle Company, ranging his livestock on his farms at Fort Dick and Yontocket and his 110 acres range, the Lone Ranch in Curry County, Oregon. He also operated a leather Tannery on G St. at 3rd and 4th in Crescent City, where the Osborn Wheelen building is located today, getting Tanbark at French Hill. The Tanbark sheds stood by the old Casquet road for many years, and can be remembered by many to this day, - the last entry made in the old cash book of the Tryon beef and Cattle Company is date October 1888, ticket number 373, to P Emmetsburg, a Crescent City butcher of that time. In the year 1884 the Smith River had another high flood and the Tryon Farm buildings were not on high enough ground. The flood came up half way on the lower flood windows and the family took to the upstairs and with pike poles steered logs away from the house, which was partly moved from the foundation leaving the house very uneven. Water came up to the eaves in the cow barn. When the flood waters subsided the barn collapsed. A new barn was built on higher ground, which is at the present site. Also a new house was built in 1892, and the older Tryon home that was damaged in the 1884 flood was torn down and rebuilt and was used by the Yontocket and Fort Dick School district from 1896 to 1912 as a school. As the years rolled by and all of his sons and daughters married, Dennis Tryon gave each son and daughter a farm and sold the lone ranch of 1100 acres to F.M. Borax Smith. He lived his remaining year in Crescent City, passing away in his 75th years on August 21, 1897 and is buried in the Family Plot at Smith River. ## There are dates and places that differ from information we have received from other sources and will note the following: [1] He was probably born in Pawlet, VT, son of Jesse (II) and Laura Hotchkiss Tryon. Whether they lived in New York is questionable as Jesse (II) is listed in all the census as living in Pawlet, VT until they came to Iowa in the early 1840 [2] History of Linn Co Iowa (by Luther Brewer & Barthimius L. Wick, published by Pioneer Publishing Co, Chicago 1911, page 132) lists the date of their marriage as December 21, 1848 and they were married by Andrew McKean, Justice of the Peace. [3] Negro throughout the document was not capitalized. [4] John was the youngest brother of Dennis and was born in Iowa about 1841. [5] John’s mother was probably living in Iowa, rather than Vermont; she was listed in the 1860 census in Iowa and he, in the 1870 IA census. [6] The dates and locations in this paragraph may have been inaccurate. John was still living in Marion Township, Linn Co, IA in 1870 census. Dennis probably went to Iowa rather than Vermont to pick up his mother, unless she was in Vermont visiting. Laura was born to Socrates and Bethiah Lathrop Hotchkiss at Wells, VT. It is also questionable if it had been 40 years that Laura had not seen her son Ephriam. He was listed in the 1850 IA census as living with his mother and was age 26. It also had listed Jesse and Dorlan as living in IA and they had gone west with their father and were also listed in the Oregon census. If Ephriam left at the same time as his father, he would have been gone about 25 years. [7] Ephriam was born about 1825 in Vermont [8] After being widowed the first time with a newborn, Dennis was widowed again with two very small children from Catherine, probably the youngest was 3 years old at the time of her death. ***************************************************************************************** END OF PART 3B