A veritable pioneer from the time that he doffed swaddling clothes to stretch his first suspenders, and made of the stuff that wins in the frontier fight, while he has also ever maintained a high sense of honor, and being a man of consummate energy and execution, the subject of this sketch is accorded a prominent place among the worthy men who opened this country and he is certainly deserving of the same.
Mr. Trimble was born in Illinois in 1844, May 26, being the son of Edward and Abarilla (Ross) Trimble. The father was born in 1816 and was killed by the Indians on the Platte River in 1846, when he was coming to the Willamette valley. The mother was born in 1819, and died in 1896. The family started for the west in 1846 and as the stock strayed on one night when they camped on the Platte. Mr. Trimble went to search for them and was killed by Pawnee Indians, who cast his body in the river. The heartbroken widow came on through and at The Dalles secured the services of some parties who assisted her to Oregon City.
Two years later they went to Salem and here our subject attended school some, but the mother, having married a man named Powell, and he not being congenial to Hank, the latter struck out for himself at the age of nine. He stayed with his uncle, Jonathan Bratton, then went with Dr. S. A. Smith for a year, attending school, after which, being eleven, he went with a pack train. This was in 1855, and the train was attacked by Indians and captured, several of the packers being killed, but our subject escaped by an accident.
He returned to the Willamette valley and in 1859 and i860 attended school at Peoria, Linn County, Oregon. It was as early as 1861 that he came to Lewiston, or where Lewiston now stands, and had to wait for four days to get across on the ferry, the rush being so great. He went to Oro Fino and worked in the mines and has been there off and on since that time. He mined and packed until 1865, then went to Boise and mined and then followed the same business in Montana, on Elk creek, and there, in the summer of 1868, he took out one hundred and forty-four thousand dollars from the ground. He went to Walla Walla and then came to Lewiston and mined and kept a saloon until 1880, having a hydraulic on the Clearwater and at Warren. In 1880 he bought land and took two quarters and went to farming and raising stock. He has made a great success of it, handling more stock than any one man in this country. Last winter he fed one thousand. He has just sold about two thousand acres of land and now has plenty of land left. He also has fine cattle and property in Lewiston.
At Helena, Montana, in 1869, Mr. Trimble married Anna (Dunlop) Myer, whose father was a pioneer of the Pacific coast. Mr. Trimble has brothers and sisters as follows: Martha J. St. George, living at Pomeroy, Washington, the town being named from her first husband. J. M. Pomeroy, who died there: Mary Ellen Adams, in San Diego, California; Frank and Horace, deceased.
Mr. Trimble is a Democrat and active in politics. He has the best fitted stock farm in the country and his wisdom and skill have been manifested in the brilliant success that he has achieved. He is a member of the Pioneer Association. It is of note by way of reminiscence that Mr. Trimble had twelve uncles and cousins murdered in the Mountain Meadow massacre and in the Salmon Falls massacre by the savages.
Back to: Nez Perce Biographies
Source: An Illustrated History of Northern Idaho, Embracing Nez Perce, Idaho, Latah, Kootenai and Shoshone Counties, Western Historical Publishing Company, 1903