358
THE WEST SHORE.
December, 1879
MR& TAHITHA BROWN,
' Honor to teltom honor U tmtT
MKS. Y. F. VICTOR.
Longfellow lias sung :
" Utm hi I'm ni iimn nil ri'tnlnil ua
Wr iiiuv in 11 b IIvai 11
Ami it in 11 truism that needs not to lie
tine in poets' numbers. Hut areat
- a
men have a fair field and always plenty
! pMM ; and it is of great women,
whose deeds of heroism most often go
unnoticed, that I propose to place a few
things on record, in the hope that by so
uoing
HtMM forlorn mill - in . i. , k l atrtngor
'" nn niuy lako Inmrl Male."
On the 1st day of May, 17S0, there
wan bom in the town of Hrimfield.
Mass., to Dr. and Mrs. Joseph Moffat a
girl MUM, to whom they gave the very
iinmclodious name of Tahitha Tahitha
Moflut. The name certainly was not
pretty, hut the girl was, and she had,
besides, the privilege of changing it
partly. However, it so happened that
she did not make much of her privilege,
for when she was nineteen vears old
she resigned the best part of hers for
the common and inelegant one of
Brown, and now she was Tahitha
Brown, wife of Rev. Clark Brown, of
Stonington, Conn., a clergyman of the
1'rotcstani Episcopal Church. Like
most ministers in those tunes, Mr.
Brown WU poor. He had a treasure,
though, in his wife, which made his
modes! living seem letter than other
men's aliluence.
In the changes of his ministerial life
Mr. Brown was called to reside in
Maryland; where he died, leaving Ta
hitha, his wife, a widow with three
children. Mrs. Brown was the right
woman in the right place. She was
living in a community where school
book were about at scarce as they
wore in Oregon under the Provisional
Government but she got together a
large school, and, with such books
could be picked up around the country,
taught it with profit to the students and
herse lf. For eight years she continued
. this kind of labor, and when there was
boy too poor to pay his tuition, she
gave him a chance to cam it by per
forming slight services for her, giving
one young man his entire education in
that way.
Feeling iu necessity of her boys
acquiring some trade by which to get
an honest living, she apprenticed them
iH'lh.butthry lan awaj ami w-nt tosc.i,
as so manv bovs did in those adventur
ous days of the Republic. Then, seeing
that the best way to cure them of this
fancy was to give them enough of sea
life and at the same time keep them
within her reach, she purchased a
schooner for them and set them up in
business. Probably they did not get
rich at their new business, but the family
struggled along, Mrs. Brown's head
always above water, during the eight
years first subsequent to Mr. Brown's
decease. 1 hen, there being a tide of
emigration setting towards Missouri,
mid hoping to do better in that country
than in Maryland, she sold off all her
effects except such as could be carried
111 a two-horse wagon and started for
the then land of promise, with her two
boys, her one girl and her mother, who
had long been dependent upon her for
support. On the way her mother died
and wus buried in a lonely grave beside
the road, which was then through a
wilderness a great part of the way.
In Missouri she lived many years.
and her children married, and she be
came grandmother to grown up boys,
out all the time using her unfailing
energies in good works.
In 1S43 one of her sons, Mr. Orris
Brown visited the much-talked-of Ore
gon country, returning to Missouri in
845 and emigrating to Oregon with
his family the following year. The
account ol the Wallamet valley which
he brought back decided Mrs. Brown,
then in her sixty -sixth year and lame
from a badly set fracture of one of her
limbs, to accompany him to the sun.
down shores of the Pacific. It was at
first expected that both her sons, as
well as her daughter und son-in-law,
Virgil K. Pringlc, would remove to
Oregon; but when it came to the noint
of departure, only Orris and Mr.
1 nngle made the start. Orris, having
boon twice over the road, was appointed
pilot, which kept him at the head of the
train and deprived his mother of his
services. It was not, however, as a de
indent in any way that Mrs. Brown
was emigrating. I provided myself,"
she says, "with a good ox-waon team
nd a good supply of what was requi
itc for the comfort of myself, Capt.
Urown and my driver. Uncle John
insisted upon coming and crossed the
plains on horseback." rc.m. Krnurn
1 g
and Lnclc John were the same person
an older brother of her husband.
All went well and Mis. E.uwu enjoyed
the journey as far as Fort Hall, which
was the common experience of emi
grants to the Pacific Coast. From thai
post, whatever route they pursued tool
them over barren plains, rough moun
tains and many dangers and hardships,
which had to be encountered with teams
already half worn out. It happened,
too, that this year the new southern
route was discovered by a party who
went to meet the emigration and pilot
them into the Wallamet valley, with
the intention to avoid the difficulties
and dangers of the passage down the
Columbia, there being at that time no
road over the mountains (Barlow's road
was first opened that year) and 10
proper means of conveying passengers
from The Dalles, where wagons were
left, to Oregon City. Two circumstan
ces operated against the perfect success
of this enterprise a very dry summer,
which parched the grass and dried the
streams, and the early rains which fol
lowed, as usual, the extraordinary
drought.
Mrs. Brown's and Mr. "rinse's
wagons were among those tht took
the southern route, which, owing to the
causes just named, proved hard'upon
the cattle, reducing their strength and
causing their owners to relieve them
by a considerable waste of other prop
erty. Remaining too long in the
Rogue River valley to recruit, the m
rains set in with great violence, and in
passing through the Umpqua canyon,
which the rains had flooded, much loss
and suffering resulted. Winter over
took the emigrants in the Umpqua val
ley, and but for the relief which
sent by the people in the Wallamet
valley on their situation ixxommg
known, they must have perished of cokl
and starvation. Some trifling incident
will display the courage and endurance
of my heroine. After Mrs. Brown had
been compelled to abandon her wago
and the last scanty allowance of food
had been parcelled out: " In the after
part of the day Capt. Brown complaint11
of sickneaa, and could only walk h
horse at a distance behind me. HeW
a swimming in his head and P" w
his side. About two or three bo
before sundown he became dclirkw
and fell from his horse. I w ,ftd
'.o jump down from my horse to a
him, as it was one a woman had neW
rode licforc. He tried to raise upt