Linn County OR Archives Biographies.....Preston, Mrs. Matilda Cox August 19, 1845 - July 28, 1927
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Ila L. Wakley iwakley@msn.com and   June 30, 2006, 12:54 am

Author: Author: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company

History of the Columbia River Valley From The Dalles to the Sea,  Volume II, 
Pages 201-202

        MRS. MATILDA COX PRESTON.  Enshrined in the hearts of all who knew her 
is the memory of Mrs. Matilda Cox Preston, whose life was fraught with good 
deeds and kind words.  She was the first white child born in Idaho, which was 
then a part of the Oregon country, and lived in the Walla Walla valley of 
Washington for more than sixty years, experiencing every phase of frontier 
existence in the Pacific northwest.  Her father, Anderson Cox, was a native of 
Dayton, Ohio, and a son of John and Johanna (Swallow) Cox.  In Indiana he 
married Julia A. Walter, a daughter of William and Sarah Walter, and afterward 
took his bride to Ohio.  Mr. and Mrs. Cox left their home in the Buckeye state 
in 1845 and started for the Willamette valley of Oregon.  They stopped at 
Kelly Hot Springs, near Fort Boise, where their daughter Matilda was born 
August 19, 1845, and when the mother was able to travel the family journeyed 
to Albany, Oregon.  There they resided for about seventeen years and in 1862 
settled in the Walla Walla valley.  Mr. Cox built a sawmill on the Coppie 
river, near Waitsburg, at a place known as the old state station, and this was 
the first plant of the kind operated in Walla Walla county.  A farsighted 
business man, he was responsible for the inception of many enterprises and 
also became a member of the Washington legislature.  He was the founder of 
Whitman county, Washington, and one of the most active and potent forces in 
the development of the northwest.
        His daughter, Matilda Cox, attended the public schools of Albany, 
Oregon, and 1869 became the wife of William G. Preston, a pioneer in the flour 
milling industry at Waitsburg, where they resided for many years.  About 1897 
they removed to Walla Walla, Washington, and in that city resided for many 
years, manifesting a deep and helpful interest in matters pertaining to its 
welfare and advancement.  Mrs. Preston was a charter member of the 
Presbyterian church of Waitsburg and afterward became affiliated with the 
First Presbyterian church of Walla Walla.  Those who knew her appreciated the 
threads of gold that were woven in the web of her life and her demise on July 
28, 1927, at the venerable age of eighty-two years, brought deep sorrow to her 
family and many friends.  She is survived by two sons:  Herbert Platt Preston, 
of Seattle, and Charles Bliss Preston, of Portland; a brother, Butler Cox, of 
Newport, Oregon; and a sister, Mrs. Mida Smith, also a resident of Newport.  
In the issue of July 30, 1927, the editor of the Walla Walla Union paid the 
following tribute to Mrs. Preston:
	“A pioneer of pioneers died in Walla Walla Thursday when Mrs. Matilda 
Cox Preston closed her eyes.  She was born where the present city of Boise, 
Idaho, now stands and witnessed the entire development of the northwest and 
took part in it.  When she opened her eyes the great gold rush to California 
had not started and the Whitmans were ministering to the Indians.  It had been 
but forty years since Lewis and Clark made their exploration trip to the 
northwest and but eleven years since Jason Lee, the Christian crusader, had 
come into the northwest.  Walla Walla was not yet on the map and in fact there 
were but few settlements and these widely scattered. * * * James L. Polk was 
president and the flag bore thirty stars instead of forty-eight as now.  Polk 
had been elected with the war cry, ‘Fifty-four forty or fight.’ The population 
of the entire Oregon country at that time was only about thirteen thousand.  
Mrs. Preston was indeed a pioneer of pioneers with a vivid recolleciton of all 
important events which transpired in the northwest.  She saw the Oregon 
country divided.  At the time of her birth it extended from the Pacific to the 
summit of the Rocky mountains and from the Canadian line to the California 
line.  She was two years old when Marcus Whitman and his party were 
massacred.  Her father and mother were beloved pioneers of this section, to 
which they came in 1862.”


Additional Comments:
History of the Columbia River Valley From The Dalles to the Sea, Volume II, 
Chicago, The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1928


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