This column is about preserving history and conserving wildlife and the woman whose life bridges both the local past and its future — Janice Davis Duncan Erickson.
She is a direct descendant of 1851 Oregon Trail pioneers Lewis and Susan (Clinger) Davis, who settled two years later on a hillside west of Chehalis that Native Americans referred to as Claquato. And her husband’s ancestors settled north of Rochester, where Conservation Northwest has proposed one of two wildlife corridors over Interstate 5. The other would be near Castle Rock.
If you’ll recall, Lewis County commissioners, who allowed the historic Claquato Church to fall into disrepair during the past decade or so, put the 1858 building on the auction block last summer, creating a frenzy of headlines until the Claquato Cemetery bought it for $5,000.
Janice’s great-great-grandfather, Lewis Davis, likely with help from his third child, Austin Lewis Davis, constructed the historic white church at Claquato to serve both Presbyterian and Methodist-Episcopal congregations. Austin was Janice’s great-grandfather. His daughter Hannah May Davis married Elmer Duncan, and their son, Pearly Davis Duncan, was Janice’s father.
Lacie Jendryka, manager of the Claquato Cemetery, provided an update on plans to renovate and preserve the historic church.
“Our first priority is stabilizing the building, beginning with the roof,” she wrote in an email. “The cedar shakes have already been purchased, and we’re simply waiting for a stretch of cooperative weather to move forward safely with installation. Protecting the structure from further deterioration has to come first.”
Installation of a security camera system will help safeguard the property, she said, and a new website will share its story.
“If all goes according to plan, we are really hoping to have the doors open for Memorial Day weekend visitors, as has been tradition in the past,” she said. “That is certainly our goal as we work through these first stabilization steps.”
Updates about the progress will be shared on the cemetery’s Facebook page.
“We remain committed to preserving the historic integrity of Claquato Church and moving forward thoughtfully and responsibly,” she said.
I’m relieved the cemetery acquired the oldest standing church in Washington state. Anyone interested in contributing materials or money to the restoration efforts can contact the Claquato Heritage Association, P.O. Box 1443, Chehalis, 98532, or call the cemetery at 360-748-7755.
“Because this is a historic structure, all renovations are being overseen by an experienced historic preservation architect and completed by licensed, experienced contractors,” Jendryka said. “While we aren’t using volunteers for the physical restoration work, it’s inspiring to see the community come together in support of preserving this special place.”
When I interviewed Janice about the Davis connection, she told me about her husband’s ancestors, the Ericksons, who settled in 1890 on Violet Prairie north of Grand Mound and developed the farm on Case Road where Janice spent much of her life.
Gubb Andrew Erickson, who went by G.A. or Andrew, was born in 1862 in Mora, Dalarna, Sweden, and, at 18, sailed for the United States. A decade later, he purchased 40 acres on Violet Prairie. He married Anna Olson of Minnesota on April 16, 1892, in Tacoma, and they raised their family of five — daughters Freda, Gladys, Mabel, and Ann Marie and son Ray — on the Violet Prairie farm.
When the Ericksons first bought the property, Janice said, they found arrowheads, bones and other artifacts indicating Native Americans had lived there.
Andrew never forgot his homeland. In July 1931, The Daily Olympian ran a story about Anna Erickson receiving a letter from her husband, who was having a fine time visiting his boyhood home at Bonas Mora in Sweden.
“The only building left in the town of his youth that he recognizes is the village church, a landmark that is more than 100 years old,” the article states.
He left Olympia on June 1 and planned to return by Sept. 1.
Andrew died five years later at the age of 74. He was a charter member of the Tenino Eagles, and both he and his wife, Anna, were charter members of the Violet Prairie Grange. They attended the Lutheran Church in Rochester. Anna, after living 68 years on the Rochester farm, died in March 1961 in a Centralia nursing home at 87. They are both buried at the Grand Mound Cemetery, where their 21-year-old daughter, Mabel, was buried after she died in 1920.
Andrew and Anna’s only son, Ray, was born in October 1897. He attended the one-room Case District schoolhouse on the old Military Road, which became Case Road. He worked for Maytown Logging Co. as a faller, cutting old-growth timber while standing on a springboard using crosscut saws often referred to as misery whips, according to his obituary. He later worked for the Thurston County Road Department hauling gravel in a horse-drawn dump wagon during construction of Case Road.
In 1927, Ray started working for Gesler-McNiven Co. in Centralia and laid carpet and linoleum for more than four decades. In 1928, he married Ruby Maxine Cook, who was a native of Boulder, Colorado, and lived in Centralia. They had two children, a daughter, Helen Marie Wright, and Allen, Janice’s husband.
Like his father, Ray raised his children on the Violet Prairie farm. They enjoyed camping trips to the ocean to dig clams, fishing trips to the beach and family celebrations at Hood Canal. Allen graduated from Centralia High School in 1954 and then Centralia College before studying forestry at the University of Washington. He served in the U.S. Air Force Reserves and worked for Weyerhaeuser Co. and later the Washington State Department of Natural Resources.
Allen and Janice Duncan married on Valentine’s Day in 1959 at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Centralia. Their daughter, Marla, was born in Longview, but then Weyerhaeuser transferred Allen to Eugene, Oregon, and then to Tacoma and Everett before sending them to Chicago, where their son Mark was born.
In 1964, Ray asked his son to take over the family farm. That’s when Janice and Allen moved to Rochester to make their home on what is known as Vine Maple Farms. A year later, their son Andrew was born in Olympia.
Allen’s parents continued to live on the farm. Ray loved to fish, hunt, garden, collect rocks and play cards. He joined the Centralia Masonic Lodge, and he and Ruby both belonged to the Washington Agate and Mineral Club in Olympia and the First United Methodist Church in Centralia. She died at 73 in April 1979. Nine years later, while digging clams with his family at Copalis Beach, he died at the age of 90.
Allen developed a passion to preserve his Swedish grandparents’ heritage and traveled three times to Sweden to research the family’s genealogy before publishing a book in 1983 titled “The Bonas Sweden Erssons Travel to the USA — A Family History.”
In 1978, Allen and Janice asked an attorney to draw up the Vine Maple Farm Trust with the two of them listed as settlers and trustees.
“Allen had stipulated that after all our family members died, the property should go for historic preservation or conservation,” Janice said.
In 1990, Vine Maple Farm was listed on the Thurston County Historic Register and through the State Department of Agriculture as a centennial farm.
But times change, especially during the past 14 years, which has been filled with loss for Janice. She lost her husband of 53 years, Allen, on Nov. 15, 2012; her son, Andrew, on March 19, 2014; and her son, Mark, on Feb. 15, 2022.
Her daughter, Marla LeFevre, explained why she and her mother decided it’s time to sell the farm to Conservation Northwest for a wildlife corridor over Interstate 5 similar to those already on I-90.
“All that are left of our family is three strong pioneer women (Mom, myself, and my daughter, Kristen) who are really excited about the farm returning to the original inhabitants (the Chehalis Tribe) and forever sanctuary for wildlife!”
Mitch Friedman, executive director of Conservation Northwest, said the nonprofit organization is funding acquisition of land by the Chehalis Tribe, including 13 acres on the west shoulder of I-5 and 78 acres on the east shoulder from the Murphy Family Trust, which closed Friday.
“The structures on I-90 have made a massive difference,” he said, adding that fencing and clearing work done on State Route 97 south of Tonasket “reduced deer collisions by over 90 percent in the state’s worst collision hotspot.”
Purchasing land on either side of proposed habitat corridors ensures they’ll be maintained into the future, he said, but funding the overpass that could cost $25 million will take time.
Selling the land for Janice is bittersweet.
“It has been an honor and a privilege to live here, but it’s very difficult for us two to give up 136 years of Erickson hard work, diligence and perseverance,” she said. “On the other hand, it is totally proper to have the Chehalis Indian Tribe get the property back. It has come full circle!”
Next week I’ll share more about this remarkable octogenarian related to the Duncans, the Davises, the Carlsons and other longtime local families.
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Julie McDonald, a personal historian from Toledo, may be reached at memoirs@chaptersoflife.com.
