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

JAMES W. WALLACE AND FAMILY                      D.M.C.                        1875

     James Wallace was born in Pennsylvania in 1841. He served during the Civil War in Company E, Pennsylvania Volunteers and was mustered out in 1865 as sergeant of Company H, Pennsylvania Reserves.
     With his wife and three children he came to Oregon arriving in Hood River November 10, 1875. He secured land in the Barrett District and engaged in farming. He was associated with John Marden in the construction of the state military road from The Dalles to Portland. The road was completed through Hood River and to Shell Rock, but there the "State went broke".
     The three older children of Mr. and Mrs. Wallace were pupils in the Barrett School from the first. They were Lettie, Albert and Charles. Frankie Wallace died at the age of four years.
     Mrs. Wallace was a sister to Mrs. Alfred Ingalls and Mrs. A.L. Rumsey. The three families were members of the Parkhurst Colony which gave Hood River its first boom.
     Mrs. Wallace died at her home in Hood River in August 1887, Lettie, the eldest daughter, married Wayland B. Perry of California.
     Albert was killed in a railroad accident. Charles is married and lives in the Oak Grove district in Hood River.
     There were two girls younger than Frankie, one of them is Mrs. Alfred Eastman of Odell and the other is Mrs. William Ellis of Mollala.
     The husbands are cousins, sons of twin sisters and grandsons of Mr. and Mrs. William Boorman of Hood River.
     Mr. Wallace was a member of the G.A.R. and always attended their reunions. He was at the Gettysburg reunion and while visiting relatives was injured in a runaway, receiving internal injuries, from which he died. His age was seventy five years. He was buried from the Christian Church, the local post of the G.A.R. took charge of the K. of P. Cemetery where concluding services were held.

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