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The Goldendale Sentinel, Goldendale, WA., September 18, 1947, page 1

78 YEARS IN NUMBER SIX COUNTRY BRING MANY EXPERIENCES TO GEORGE SAXTON
By Helen Shaw

From the rustic roadway entrance, to the kitchen pantry, everything about the George Saxton home is strongly reminiscent of by-gone days. And rightly so, for it is the home in which Mr. and Mrs. Saxton have lived for some fifty-odd years.
When the wildgrass was still almost waist-high in the surrounding country, George Saxton, at the age of two years, accompanied his parents, with six brothers and sisters, from Washington county, Oregon, to the section southeast of Goldendale known as the No. 6 district.
Mr. Saxton, now a "youngster" nigh on to 80, is the only one of his immediate family remaining, and is probably the oldest living pioneer of his community.
One of Mr. Saxton's earliest memories is that of an Indian scare. It started with a simple childish prank, but ended in such sheer terror that even the originators became afraid.
Quite a while previously, the Indians had killed a man and his wife in the Rock Creek district. Later, a faint rumor was all the provocation needed for Mr. Saxton and his school mates. School, they felt was better when interspersed frequently with vacations. Their words were magic. Not only was school immediately dismissed, but families, pans, and hams were soon adorning wagons in a swift and almost endless procession which wasted no time in adjourning to the No. 6 district, where a fort was begun immediately.
Those who were unable to leave slept in their cornfields to remove various dangers (such as being burned or scalped).
Mr. Saxton's father failed to take any of the precautions and his family kept on with their usual life, except for the guilty conscience which, having it not been for the wonderful vacation he was enjoying, might have lain rather heavily on George's mind.
When the cringing pioneers found after several days that no scalps had departed, they finally returned to their homes and the No. 6 fort which wasn't quite completed, remained for several months as tangible evidence of the fright they had undergone. Later and it was dismantled for firewood.
Another boyhood memory is that of the diphtheria epidemic. The Linders, a family with eight children who lived close by, lost six children from the dread disease in one day. Such catastrophes were almost commonplace, during the fury of the epidemic.
Mr. Saxton, who will be a 80 on November 8th, is still sprightly enough to do by hand all the work of his garden - with the help of Mrs. Saxton. This, however, is no ordinary garden, for it stretches from his back door a quarter of a mile or so down the canyon. (They are now selling to all who call, his large crop of corn).
Mr. Saxton attributes his present good health to the rugged life he led in younger years. In his early life he herded sheep from here to Garrison Ridge. His equipment consisted solely of a pack horse and a few supplies. The ground was his bed.
At the age of 22 his fortune took a turn for the better, for it was then that, at the Methodist Church, he met and soon married Anna Lusby. After that, they homesteaded for a while on a wheat ranch near their present home. After a few years they found themselves to be raising not only wheat, but eight children as well. Of their children, only August Saxton now lives in Goldendale.
In those days, to receive and 50¢ per sack for wheat was considered sufficient. The farmers would get up before daylight, harness the horses by lantern-light in an effort to become "lead man" on the long procession of wheat-filled wagons headed for the market at the Columbia river near what is now Maryhill.
Hogs, in that time, were sold at Goldendale for 3½ cents per pound. Then if the farmer chose he could haul them over to Toppenish, for which trip the Goldendale merchant paid $11.00 per round trip.
There was the time when a stage coach driver was drown in Three Creeks. It happened in the spring of the year, Mr. Saxton remembers, when the waters were high and the driver, because of the bumpy road was fastened to the seat of his coach.
One needs scarcely go beyond the Saxton's door to realize the authenticity of the colonial atmosphere found there. Grandma and Grandpa Saxton, as they are known, have managed to keep alive that rusticity so reminiscent of the pioneer spirit. In doing so, they have set an example which a good many of us, instead of trying to keep pace with so fast a moving world today, would do well to follow.