esjoslyn.html

The above portraits are from a 1905 issue of The Hood River Glacier

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

ERASTUS S. JOSLYN AND WIFE OF WHITE SALMON 1853
D.M.C. Historian

Mr. and Mrs. Joslyn came to White Salmon in the spring of 1853. He was born in Massachusetts on September 17th, 1825, where he grew to manhood and was married to Miss Mary Warner, May 10, 1848.
In 1852 they came to Oregon by way of the isthmus of Panama, remaining in Portland through the winter. They came to their lonely home in the spring of 1853 locating on the North bank of the Columbia River, the only house east of the Cascades.
In the spring of 1854 Nathaniel Coe, wife and son Henry, made a trip to The Dalles, they were returning on the little steamer Allen, which became belated and tied up to the North bank to wait for daylight. Mr. Joslyn came to the river and invited the captain, crew and passengers to his home for the night. The invitation was gladly accepted and this was the beginning of a life long friendship between the Coe and Joslyn families. The Coe family depended upon the Joslyns for supplies while they were getting established in their new home, and later Sabbath services were held alternately at their homes. When the Indians threatened the Joslyn home they found a temporary refuge with the Coes. When both families had fled to The Dalles for safety, Mrs. Coe and Mrs. Joslyn organized the first Sabbath School ever held there. After the burning of their home in the early days of March 1856, Mr. Joslyn went to The Dalles on business, while Mrs. Joslyn visited with the Attwell family at the Cascades, on the Oregon side. The following letter written by Mrs. Joslyn to a friend at The Dales and published in the Times of March 30, 1881 as a reminiscence, gives a vivid picture of the happenings and struggles of the early pioneers in those days of Indian warfare. She says: "I am very grateful to you f or awakening so many reminiscences by your recent postal. I have never saved by writing or picture any one of those early experiences, but they come back to me vividly, freshly as I ponder them o'er, filling my otherwise lonely hours with brighter pictures than I find in books, so that I am only afraid of being too lengthy or egotistical.
Yes, I was there that March 26th, 1856, waiting a Mr. Attwell's, on the opposite side of the river, while my husband returned to The Dalles on business. You may recollect that only three weeks before I had seen our own home consumed by Indian fires and, heard their savage yells as the troops attempted to cross the river, but returned to the Oregon side to await further orders. So, as we heard the firing on the opposite side of the river, and saw the strange course of the steamer "Mary" as she staggered in the strong current, dropped down, down, turned and trembled and finally made trilling headway upward. We were perhaps more calm than some when the hurrying neighbors said it was the Indians. -- "The woods on the other shore are alive with hostiles; they have killed, will kill everybody; their hideous yells even now come across the water. But see! The "Mary" is nearing our shore. We are safe."
Mothers hurry their crying children on board; fathers carrying wood and rails, (anything to burn, for I think she burned hatchways to get across). We gather a little bedding, a few eatables, but think more of escaping with our lives. At another time we might have said, "What a bare, comfortless boat", but now it is our only hope. Her every plank meant protection escape. My first greeting from the engineer was, "Can you do anything for the wounded?" And as I looked around I realized how narrow the escape only six men on board; four of them wounded while getting her off; no officer but the engineer. The men who have families on board help as well as landsmen can. We are barely under way when a small boat hails, and a woman is lifted aboard with a babe scarce twenty-four hours old.
On the bare floor of the little cabin one of the wounded ones is moaning sadly, while his life blood is trickling through his blanket and staining the boards. We ask can we help him; try to find him a pillow; but he seems not to understand our language and turns away, so we seek for the others. Little Johnny Chance is in the cook's bunk, crying piteously. "Where are you hurt, Johnny?" "Oh, my leg they will cut off my leg!" And then he cries for his mother. But when we take off his boot and find the bullet in it, having gone clear through the leg, he is less excited, and he seems to believe us when we tell him, "They won't cut off your leg."
We meet the third man, Jesse, by the engine, holding his shoulder, and trying to show the raw hands how to help, and to our query, "What can we do for you?" says, "I am pretty bad, but that fellow in Brush's room is worse." So we go on to find Mr. Lindsay, with the cold drops of perspiration on his forehead, and his lips closely pressed from excessive pain. The ball had passed through his lung. Can we stanch the blood? We find in the engineer's satchel some cotton and make lint as we have read, for not one person has had experience. We bathe his hands and face and try to find something to nourish him; succeed in getting a little tea, of which the man in the cabin partakes. The sick woman has a few blankets on the other side of the cabin, and the children are huddled in the corner and the women soothing as best they can, for there is nowhere else to go. As the long hours pass by, (the boat runs slowly against wind and current), the engineer is now at his engine, now at the wheel, untiring, calm, masterful. Mrs. Attwell, I think it is, finds us something to eat; some flour on board, and soda that she mixes and bakes while doing her part watching the children and sick. She is a brave, true woman, and I feel ashamed when I see her energy and endurance; but I can't stay long from the sufferer in the little room. To die so! Can we prolong his life until help is reached? We have not time to think of the dear old home so recently devastated as we glide slowly past. The night shadows are gathering now, and weariness and well nigh despair come over me as I steal over the guards and curl down at the end of the boat. Rumor says The Dalles was to be attacked at the same moment with the Cascades. It was just as unprepared, so we may be met by hostile foes instead of our friends. If so, what can we do? No friendly port within reach! We drop back to meet the foe almost anywhere on either side.
There is no outlet over these impassable mountain ranges. We almost hear savage yells as we round rocky points or steer nearer the shore, to avoid the swift current. It is quite dark now. The man in the cabin has ceased to breathe. Lindsay is sinking. We forget self as we try to minister to his needs. We can give the cup of cold water if nothing more.
How welcome the cry, "The Dalles! The Dales!" The lights are burning as usual. All is well. What a crowd of citizens is on the shore, for word has reached them by the little "Wasco" of our peril and probable escape. How precious is kindness now. How keenly we appreciate the upper room made ready for us by Mrs. Cushing.
Lindsay is carried so carefully to a roan, and the army surgeon is ready to do all that can be done, after a long illness he recovered. The engineer has done a grand, brave deed, for which I cannot think he was ever suitably rewarded."
After the immediate danger from the Indians had passed away, Mr. and Mrs. Joslyn went to the Forest Grove neighborhood and lived on a farm for more than a year. In the meantime the Government had built a blockhouse at White Salmon and sub-agent Townsend lived there.
A family by the name of Roberts, missionaries from the South Sea Islands, had located there and when Mr. and Mrs. Joslyn came from their sojourn at Forest Grove they were joined by Mr. Warner and family from Massachusetts. He was a brother of Mrs. Joslyn and took land near them, so that White Salmon was never again the lonely place it had been in former years. Joslyn had business interests in The Dalles, being one of the incorporators of the Wasco Woolen Mills, yet he never lived there more than a few months at a time.
On September 17th, 1859, the Congregational Church was organized in The Dalles and Mr. and Mrs. Joslyn were charter members.
More than once Mr. Joslyn represented Skamania County in the Washington Territorial Legislature. In 1875 they sold their home at White Salmon and removed to Colorado Springs, where Mrs. Joslyn died. In 1902 he moved to Santa Barbara, Cal., and two years later he died at that place, leaving a second wife, formerly Miss Anna Tuck of The Dalles. The Forest Grove Times says: "Former acquaintances remember him for his hospitality and uprightness of life." H.C. Coe in his writings says: "But I must not forget our dearest friend and kindest neighbor, Erastus S. Joslyn of White Salmon, who had preceded us a year. A man who never let his right hand know what his left did -- what we owed him as a neighbor, words cannot tell. Only those who have endured hardships and privations of pioneer life in real earnest can fully comprehend and appreciate such men."