AMERICA'S WEST.

Shannon News, 21 January 1929, Page 3

AMERICA'S WEST.

GREAT PIONEER DIES.

FOLLOWED THE OREGON TRAI

SAN FRANCISCO, Dee. 10

There has just passed away in hospital in Seattle, Ezra Meeker, th last of the West's great pioneers. Tli man known to the world as the per Bonification of the type of iunuigran who braved the rigours of the Old Or; gon Trail, breathed his last, after : comparatively shoit illness, at the agof 97. Meeker met death r.s Ik had lived—squarely, lie was not sonv to go, at though it had been his rieaiic to liv< until he had seen 10- .ars. During the last few days of his life, at time? when he slipped back "into conscious ness he was the “Ezra” thousand: hSd known —he smiled, chatted cheerfully with his loved ones. He spoke of the “early days/’ aud said he would bo glad to once again .see am meet those who had passed ou long ago. It was a long trail Ezra Meeker fol lowed. He was born in 1532 in Ohio and when he was not seven years 61. his family moved to Covington, in In diana, Ezra walking every step Of tin way behind his father’s wagon. On th banks of the Wabash he learned tin art of driving four yoke of oxen t» a drag plough. Later, following tin family fortunes near Indianapolis, h< worked at odd jobs, ami at the er.< of three years found himself possess cd of 34 dollars. Then he met Elizi Jane Sumner, and in 1851 they wen married. They moved to lowa, win terihg there, were dissatisfied, and learning that the Government wouk give them 320 acres in Oregon, starter West in the spring of 1852, after th-. arrival of their first-born son. At the Missouri Ilivcr they bee am; a part of a great immigrant trail numbering more than 1600 wagons—r train that included more than 40,00( persons and strung but more than 30'. miles. Accident, disease, the drear cholera, claimed' many —the death lisi being estimated at nearly 5000 befon the journby was done. There walittle trouble from Indians. The im Migrant train w r as too large a!nd th< men were willing to fight. The historic Oregon Trail was being made. On October 1, 1852, the Meekers arrived at Williamctte River and th. village of Portland, Oregon—now~'n great metropolis of the West. In January, 1853, /they built their first cabin where the city of Kalama now stands. April came, and with it word of a new country that was to be settled, and the Meekers, still dissatisfied, started their journey northward, finally arriving at the settlement that is now the flourishing city of Seattle. The twenty log cabins made no impression on Meeker,' and lie settled oh M’Neil Island, now the site of the Federal penitentiary.

Meeker made friends with the Indians, and remained his ranch house, only 18 miles distant from th? scene' of the White River massacre) tending hi 3 cattle in safety during the Indian outbreak in 1855-56. He built his last home at Puyallup, Washington, and in 1906, at the age of 76, fitted out a prairie schooner and retraced his steps over the Old Oregon Trail. He travelled to. Washington, visited President Roosevelt and urged the United Stales Government to build a concrete road along the route he had followed in his youth. Later he marked the completed road with monuments as an undying tribute to those who had died on the first trek to Western America. Several years ago he again went over the Oregon Trail —this time in an aeroplane. The picturesque pioneer died a pdor man, his wealth cosisting ehieffy of the affection and respect of his family and large numbers of friends. His only, illness was with a digestive disorder while on his way to the east coast, retracing the Old Oiegon Trail. He was accustomed to the plain food of the rugged pioneer, and when he partook of present-day delicacies it was the beginning of his end. He partially recovered, but only sufficient to enable him to be brought back to Seattle two months prior to his death there.