The Onaga Journal, 3 May 1883

The S. H. Taylor party pulled out Thursday morning for Washington Territory. The party consists of S. H. Taylor, wife and 2 daughters, Perry Taylor, wife and child, Elijah Ledington and family, Daniel Ledington and family, Alfred Cory and family, C. W. Stewart and family, Oliver Godlove, Leason Cory and some others whose names we did not learn. They go to some place in the interior of Washington Territory. ^[1]Merrie Pinick, Havensville, Pottawatomie Co, Ks. Area working database (Pottawatomie: October 18, 2004), http://awt.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=mp648&id=I21151 , Ancesry.com … Continue reading

Frank Mosley listed “other pioneers” that came to the Salubria and Mann Creek areas, settled a bit earlier than the upper Weiser River areas. James Colson, William B. Allison, Edward Jewell, and Andrew Abernathy were some of these men and were found living near each other on the 1870 Census of the area. ^[2]Frank P. Mosley, History of Idaho the Gem of the Mountains, Vol. 1 (no data), Chap. 33, p. 684, Images. Ancestry.com, search, “emigrants Washington County” 10-27-04; Money Stafford, 1870 … Continue reading It is not unreasonable to believe by the evidence that the road through Crane Creek was fairly good and open to emigrant wagons even earlier than 1867, and that settlers emigrating from the east that early came this route. Though we have not discovered a lot of journals or direct records, we ultimately find emigrants with eastern origins settled all along the Weiser River.

James Colson emigrated from Iowa to Idaho in1864, after moving to Iowa from Indiana, with a wife and three children. He later moved to the Salubria Valley. Two children were born in Salubria. He followed the Goodale North from Boise. He filed for homestead land, completed in 1877, and his 16 year old son, Anthony, also filed about 1880. He became a County Commissioner, and James Colson was also a delegate to the Idaho State Constitutional Convention in 1889.

Ed Jewell completed a homestead in 1881, after emigrating with a wife from Wisconsin in 1868. He had one son, William, born in Salubria. Most others on that Census living near each other were farmers, but Jewel was a blacksmith! In 1890, he became a Senator to the Idaho Legislature. One James M. Patton also came from Wisconsin, on the same wagon train as the Jewell family, and remained a bachelor for several years.

Henry Harrison Abernathy came to the Weiser River area with the Goodale Train in 1862. When a teenager on the Goodale Train, Martha Roberts, died in the valley he prepared the wagon-tailgate marker for her grave. He and his brother, Andrew, stayed in the area in 1862 and began mining, but by 1864, they moved to Weiser and homesteaded. By 1868 they moved back to Salubria, and the 1870 Census record indicated they had come from Indiana. William Allison came to Idaho with his Father’s family (Alexander) before 1865. They moved to Salubria in 1868. By the 1870 Census he had married with one daughter, Mimmie, born in Idaho, and filed had for his homestead about that time. ^[3]Money Stafford, 1870 U.S. Census (June 18-19, 1870), Boise City Pct., Ada Co., Territory of Idaho, pp. 2-3; BLM, General Land Office Records, Internet,  Search on 10-28-2004; OCTA, Emigrant Names … Continue reading

Woodson Jefferys originally came to Oregon City, OR on October 10, 1853, from St. Joseph, MO. A little more than a decade later, he returned east to Idaho, to the Weiser River area and was one of the first settlers near the city of Weiser. He had influence and money, and assisted many emigrants that followed him to Salubria. His son, Thomas, became the first Washington County Superintendent of public schools. Some information about his original emigration came from the Diary of George N. Taylor, 1853 Oregon Trail Emigrant. Kate Sharp, sister of William Allison who also emigrated with that family, was 28 years old in 1870, and was the fourth emigrant to complete a homestead in the area in 1979, behind John Cuddy in 1874, Duke Burrel in 1876 and James McGinnis, earlier in 1879. ^[4]Frank P. Mosley, History of Idaho the Gem of the Mountains, Vol. 1 (no data), Chap. 33, p. 684, Images. Ancestry.com, search, “emigrants Washington County” 10-27-04; Money Stafford, 1870 … Continue reading

There is a great deal of history written about John Cuddy, who with Edward Tyne opened the first gristmill and sawmill in the Salubria area. He was born in Ireland and emigrated from there with his parents. He came to Salubria from Boise after first moving to Boise from Washington State. He had moved to Boise in 1864, and moved to Salubria in 1869, a bachelor. He and Tyne traveled up the Goodale North, and he soon became one of the wealthiest and most influential men in the area, buying out his partner. In 1871, he married Delia Tyne, sister of Edward, and 13 years younger than himself. By 1880, they had 2 sons and three daughters. According to the Department of the Interior records, he received the first completed land Patent in the area in 1874. ^[5]Mosley, “Biographical,” History, Vol. 3, pp. 234-235; Ibid, BLM, GLOR, “Cuddy” search; V. D. Hannah, 1880 U.S. Census (June 7, 1880), Middle Weiser Valley Pct., Washington … Continue reading

Soon emigrants began to move into the area on up the Weiser River. Indian Valley, 12 miles east of Salubria, was the next area to begin to be populated. One of the early emigrants was a sickly man, Albert ‘Olly’ McDowell. He and his wife, Francis Brown, had six children and came from Dubuque, IA. Albert had tuberculosis, and his doctor had advised him to move to a warmer climate. It could be argued that the Weiser River valleys were probably no warmer than where he had come from, but in 1867, he and two brothers, with a friend, Isaac Spoor, formed a wagon train, and the family came first to Salubria. ^[6]Geneva Gibbs Barry Jewell, “Indian Valley and Surrounding Hills” (1990), p. 6. Only 4 pages of a typed copy, unpublished paper, obtained by mail from Gary Frankin, Cambridge, January 20, … Continue reading These all traveled up the Crane Creek variant.

Albert’s two older girls, Elizabeth and Elvira, stayed in Salubria where Elizabeth found a school teacher’s position in need of her skills in 1868. She met Taylor Cole, a young, earlier emigrant to the area, who was also teaching in the school, and soon married him. (Two teachers in one school offers a hint of how large the school had become with the influx of those early pioneers.) Albert tried Indian Valley for a short time, but evidently it was not helpful to his health. His family picked up their things and moved on to Monterey, CA, the same year they came to Idaho, in 1867.

Isaac Spoor, on the same train as the McDowell family, had stopped and settled in the Payette Valley. In the spring of 1868, Spoor’s friends, Albert McDowell and family, once again emigrated from California back to Idaho, and again traveled back up the old Tim Goodale road, and settled in Indian Valley. In the winter of 1868, Albert died at Indian Valley. Albert’s youngest son, Albert Warren, was 4 years old when he lost his father.

“Fannie” Francis McDowell soon married Isaac Spoor, and later they moved to Pioneer City, ID. She was about 38 years old and Isaac was 62. Some years later, about 1883, the son, Albert Warren, moved back to Indian Valley. The records show that this McDowell son also died there on May 26, 1927, after living in Indian Valley more than 40 years! ^[7]Geneva Gibbs Barry Jewell, “Indian Valley and Surrounding Hills” (1990), p. 8. Only 4 pages of a typed copy, unpublished paper, obtained by mail from Gary Frankin, Cambridge, January 20, … Continue reading

Indian Valley became a large ranching region, and though there was a Post Office there by 1873, it remained only a small town. Other emigrants came to the area over the next few years. “William McCullough, three finger Smith (Sylvester), William Marsberry, Woods brothers (Elisha, Elijah, Samuel and William), and William Coriell came to that location. These people all arrived from 1869 to 1880. There were many others that came later.” ^[8]Geneva Gibbs Barry Jewell, “Indian Valley and Surrounding Hills” (1990), p. 5. Only 4 pages of a typed copy, unpublished paper, obtained by mail from Gary Frankin, Cambridge, January 20, … Continue reading Some emigrants moved on north to later form Council, ID, in a ranching region.

Although it would be almost another decade before the Council Valley would be settled, it did acquire at least one non-native occupant in 1868: a 32 year old bachelor named Henry Childs. He built a home and did some farming about 2.5 miles up Hornet Creek from the present site of Council. ^[9]Adams County Historic Preservation Commission, “A History of the Council Valley Area,” ACHPC Web Site (Council, ID, n.d.), p. 4, Obtained 10-21-04.

The Creek was named after Childs had a nasty encounter with hornets there. Before the whole area was known as Council Valley, it was called “Hornet Valley!

George and Elizabeth Moser and children immigrated to the Council Valley in 1876. They were the first white family, and their homestead later became the beginning of the location of the town of Council. Moser had moved from Tennessee to Kentucky to Arkansas, and then came on a wagon train to Idaho with 4 children. Two more children were born at the new homestead. He had left a wagon train in Boise, and his family came alone to the Hornet Valley, up the Goodale North! By the time of the 1880 Census, the Moser family had at least two close neighbors, the Robert White family with 2 children and the Alexander Kesler family with 9 children!

Mr. White was Scottish, and had come to America, met his wife, Ellenor, in Alabama, settled in Arkansas, and then followed the Moser family to Idaho on a second wagon train from Arkansas in 1876. Alex and Martha Kesler were both from Kansas, but had also moved to Arkansas. They arrived about the same time as the White family and may have come on that same wagon train later in the summer, up the Goodale North variant-also following the Moser family. They were all close neighbors on the 1880 Census. ^[10]Adams County Historic Preservation Commission, “A History of the Council Valley Area,” ACHPC Web Site (Council, ID, n.d.), p. 4-5, Obtained 10-21-04; V. D. Hannah, 1880 U.S. Census (June … Continue reading

William and Helen Kinning Shaw immigrated to the Salubria valley from Iowa in the early 1870s. John Roberts and his wife Ruth Saphronia came in 1875, and these and other emigrants are found on the various records of the area, new arrivals all up and down the Weiser River. This was an emigrant valley, though settled a bit later than other areas of Idaho, and many followed the Goodale North. If more of these emigrants wrote journals, we have yet to discover them.

These and many other emigrants came to the Boise Basin and to the Weiser River areas over the years, some directly in wagon trains from distant areas, and some indirectly by way of not-so-distant areas, Oregon and California. During the years from 1862 on to the 1880s and 1890s, westward emigration slowed, but travelers still used parts or nearly all the Goodale North route. The few direct records and primary accounts of emigrant travel to these areas, which have been preserved and discovered to this date, do not complete the whole picture. However, the scattered partial accounts and later recollections, with the historical facts that have been recorded in histories of the Gem State do well supplement the primary diaries and journals. What more would be needed to prove that the Crane Creek variant became a more heavily used emigrant road by 1867, and later?

The limitation of the routes available to the moderate numbers of Idaho bound emigrants, miners and all others going to these two important main destinations in central Idaho, helps to fill in the blanks. We have not only a reasonable estimate of the numbers of those who followed the Jeffrey-Goodale Cutoff, but also an idea about the somewhat reduced numbers who did not go on to Oregon, taking instead the Goodale (North) Cutoff variant to the central part of the Idaho. Emigrants seemed to have used that Emmett to Salubria wagon route, with greatly increasing usage about 5 years after Goodale followed his original route, partly because it was more direct and partly because the road from Weiser to Middle Valley was a poor and rough route.

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