The Enterprise, White Salmon, WA., March 28, 1913, page 1
Includes portrait
CAMAS VALLEY PIONEER DIES
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James O. Shaw '49er Drove Overland From California to Camas
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James O. Shaw, a California '49er and one of the first
settlers in the Camas valley of western Klickitat county, died at his home
in this place at the age of 86 years. The body was interred at Goldendale,
where a son preceded him to the burial ground several years ago.
In the funeral party were the widow, John Wyers and wife,
E.E. Bartholomew, Halsey Cole, George Gilmer and some of the grandchildren.
Though buried almost within sound of the wash of the
Pacific Ocean, James Shaw's birth place was in a state at the of extremity
of the United States where the waters of the Atlantic lapped up against the
bleak shores of the Maine coast. He tarried in Maine long enough to become
a full-fledged Yankee, leaving at the age of 19 for Boston where he worked
in a wholesale merchandise warehouse till the stories of gold finds in California
fired his imagination. Procuring passage on the Argonaut, about to leave
on its second trip around the Horn, he left the East, landed the in Frisco
and started for the camps. He soon realized that reward was not to every
seeker and he turned his attention to lumbering in the vicinity of Redwood
City. Here he made his great find, a winsome young woman, Telitha J. Teague
by name, to whom he was married in May 1859.
In this summer at 1870 Shaw covered a couple of wagons
with canvas, loaded a few household essentials, gave the reins of one team
to his wife and accompanied by a Halsey Cole, a gold seeker from New York,
took charge of the of the wagon and started for Camas Valley in western Klickitat
County, where he worked arrived in the fall, spending his first night in
the county at the cabin of Mrs. E.C. Gilmer, mother of Geo. Gilmer. He squatted
on some land at Fulda at the lower end of the valley and became its first
postmaster. He afterwards took a homestead at what is now the townsite of
Glenwood and he became its first postmaster. He prospered, sold his land,
bought more, and three years ago came to White Salmon to spend the remainder
of his days. He was one of the organizers of the Pioneers of Association
of western Klickitat County and its first president. He took great interest
in the association and was one of its most revered members.
James Shaw is survived by his wife, a son in Oakland,
Calif., two daughters, Mrs. John Wyers of White Salmon and Mrs. E.E. Bartholomew
of Glenwood. There are eight grandchildren and three great grandchildren.
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