Lewis County, West Virginia         Biography of Henry J. PETERSON

This biography was submitted by Elizabeth Burns,
E-mail address:  <burns@asu.edu>

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Henry J. Peterson was born in Weston, West Virginia and married Eliza
Allen from Massachusetts.  Distinction is conferred on the maternal
family by the war record of Ethan Allen, colonel of the Colonial army
during the Revolution and on the paternal side of the house has no less
a worthy representative in the Rev. Peterson, a minister of the
Methodist Episcopal church whose era of greatest usefulness centers
around the strenuous times culminating in the Civil War.  Mr. Peterson
led the useful and self-sacrificing life of the early clergyman and
though a southerner in character, chivalry and manner, he vigorously
espoused the cause of the down-trodden slave, freeing those upon his
western Virginia plantation as soon as he became convinced that slavery
was wrong.

Henry J. Peterson was reared in West Virginia and as a young man made
many moves in search of a desirable location.  From West Virginia he
moved to Indiana, then to Medina County Ohio, afterwards to Illinois for
one winter, and still later to Henry County Iowa, his last home in the
middle west.  In 1845 he prepared for a journey across the plains which
in the extent of its adventure, deprivation and suffering, equaled that
of any undetraken at that very early time.  Five sons and five daughters
had been added to his family and for their transportation to the coast
he had five wagons, each with from three to five yoke of oxen, as well
as a yoke of oxen on the wagon used to transport their provisions.  The
Indians proved very troublesome and constant vigilance was required on
the part of the emigrants to preserve their ownership of the stock.

They came by way of the ill-fated Meek's cut-off, one of the most
troublesome routes presented to early emigrants to the west.  For many
days and weeks food had been scarce and towards the latter part of the
journey starvation stared them in the face.  One son two years old died
on the Green River cut-off and was left in a grave beside the river.
The father stopped the first winter on the Tualatin plains and in the
spring of 1846 moved to Howell's Prarie and later to Santiam.  In 1848
he took up a claim at Peterson Butte, twelve miles southeast of Albany.
He was a natural mechanic and applied his ability to the construction of
a home more comfortable than that of many less skilled in the art of
construction and around him established a large stock-raising
enterprise, probably the most successful in his vicinity.  He was
influential as a politician and was a member of the First Territorial
Legislature which convened at Oregon City. His children followed his
example and took up farms of their own, many of them settling around him
as neighbors, often visiting the old home, with its memories of struggle
and adversity.  The wife died in 1861 and the husband in 1864.  Asa, the
oldest of their children, died in Lebanon Oregon, William died in
Albany; Marshall, a veteran of the Rogue River war lives in eastern
Oregon; Henry lives at Plainview; Granville died on the plains; Lydia
the wife of Mr. Parish died in Linn County, Sarah is the deceased wife
of Mr. Brooks of the Dalles; Laura, now Mrs. Ketcham lives in Pomeroy
Washing; Martha, now Mrs. Barnes and Eliza now Mrs. Walker of Athena
Oregon.

Pioneer Biographies, Portrait and Biographical Record of the Willamette
Valley.


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