When John R. Jackson rode south to Oregon City for supplies in the spring of 1848, it’s hard to know if he planned to find a wife, but he did.
Not only a wife, but four young stepsons as well.
Matilda Coonse (later spelled Koontz) traveled west along the Oregon Trail from Missouri with her husband, Nicholas, and their four young sons, ranging in age from 9 to 3. But crossing the Snake River at Three Mile Island, as Matilda and her sons watched, Nicholas dove into the water to untangle the horns of an ox caught in the ferry line. Either kicked in the head or caught in a whirlpool, Nicholas drowned; his body never recovered. His widow and four boys — Henry, Barton, Grundy, John — continued on to Oregon City, where she met Jackson.
It had been only six months since her 36-year-old husband died, so she and her boys were still grieving. Yet from a practical standpoint, a widow with four boys had few choices on the Oregon frontier. But she probably didn’t want to marry just anyone, so when they met, Jackson likely boasted about the rich country between the Columbia River and Puget Sound, so much so that, at the editor’s request, he penned an article for the Oregon Spectator newspaper touting the virtues of Lewis County, which stretched north to British Columbia.
“The Cowlitz settlement is in a prairie district, situated on the Cowlitz River, about thirty miles, by way of the river, from its mouth. The settlement is small as yet, and composed principally of Canadians, who are excellent citizens, and for industry, not surpassed by any citizens of the Territory,” Jackson wrote.
He described the soil of the beautiful plains as extremely rich, with vast quantities of timber and strong signs of an abundance of lead, iron ore, and “stone-coal.”
“The river is now navigated by bateaux, from its mouth to the settlement, and it is said by more experienced watermen than myself, that it may be navigated by steamboats for the same distance, six or eight months in the year.”
Jackson estimated the distance from the Columbia to the Cowlitz settlement at 20 miles, “over which a wagon road is practicable.” He also noted that “the settlement has a saw and flouring mill.”
The road leading to Puget Sound reaches the Chehalis River 10 miles north of the settlement, he said, with soil as rich as that in the Cowlitz area, and “admirably adapted to agriculture, and grazing purposes.”
Jackson described the banks of the Chehalis River as “smooth and beautiful, and altogether, it is one of the most safe and easy streams in Oregon for navigation.”
He continued his description of the land north of the Chehalis River.
“There is a small American settlement at the head of the Sound, which also has a saw and flouring mill,” Jackson wrote. “The settlement is called New Market (present-day Tumwater), and I have seen as good vegetables growing there as I ever saw on the continent of America.”
Another small American settlement lies to the north of New Market, he said, referring to present-day Olympia.
The distance from New Market to Fort Nisqually, by water, is 30 miles, he wrote. Jackson boasted about the wheat harvests and fine timber on the land north and east of Fort Nisqually, with plenty of water available but at that time sparsely populated.
“Puget Sound is a beautiful sheet of water, more than one hundred miles in length, which, with its numberless bays and harbors, will admit of the settlement of one thousand families, on a section each, and each having ship navigation at their own door.”
Oh, if only he could see the Puget Sound today.
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Julie McDonald, a personal historian from Toledo, may be reached at memoirs@chaptersoflife.com.
