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

SILVER LOCKS D.M.C. 1786

     His hair was long and snowy white, when I first knew him, and I never heard any other name for him other than Silver Locks, although he doubtless had another name in his younger days. Whatever that other name may have been, it was laid aside with other childish memories. He came to our strawberry field in the early summer of 1891, and talked with Mr. Price I cannot quote his words, but I can give the substance of his talk. He claimed that he was a young man about twenty years of age when the first white men came to this country, he said their names were Lewis and Clark, that they stopped near The Dalles and hired Indians with bows and arrows to go with them down the river and hunt "moose moose", he was one of the hunters and went with them as far as the mouth of the Sandy River.
     For the pay they gave him a number of things, the most valuable being a gun which he used many years, and with which he killed many deer and other animals. He said the white man traveled fast and went down the river to the "Big Chuck", that next year they came up the river and went home "siah illahee", but that he did not see them on their way back, but the other Indians told him.
     In 1891 Silver Locks' home was near Mosier. He had a wife about sixty five of seventy years of age, and two daughters, Ada and Polly who were fair workers in the strawberry field, but Silver Locks came only as an interested spectator. He was too old to stoop, even if it had not been beneath the dignity of a hunter, to do menial work. He died in the winter time several years later and was laid to rest on Memaloose Island. His age was not far from one hundred and ten years.

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