1855 - 1922

Another of our pioneer ancestors, one born here before Oregon was a state, was Samuel Thurston Daniels*.

Samuel, the father of Hollister Daniels, was born in 1855** to Hannah Pendleton and AC Daniels, in Clackamas County. His parents divorced shortly afterward and, as far as we know, he stayed with Hannah.

He first shows up in a census record of 1870, when he is 13 years old and living with his mother, his step-father Robert Whitney, and two half siblings in Hubbard, Oregon.

The 1880 census also lists him with the Whitney household, but this time he's twenty-three years old and a "farmer" instead of a youngster "at school." He has seven Whitney half-siblings by this time and their farm in Hubbard was next to other Whitneys and Hubbards.

Samuel's stepfather had a farm of almost 550 acres near Hubbard and raised (according to the 1895 county census) wheat, oats, hay, potatoes, apples, and hops. In that year, Robert Whitney's farm reported 26,000 pounds of hops. I don't have any way of knowing for sure, but the Whitney farm sounds like a prosperous farm in an area of very good farmland.

At some point, Robert Whitney sold or gave his step-son Samuel his own farm.

Samuel Daniels lived near the Whitney family in Hubbard, farming. The federal census for 1890 isn't available (the records burned in a fire), so we don't know where Samuel was until 1900.

In 1900, he was living in Hubbard and the census showed no family living with him. The city directory in 1901, similar to today's phone book, lists him as a hop farmer.

And we have the photograph of the hops harvest around 1906 or 1907, with Samuel Daniels seated on the ground, surrounded by his children, workers, and in-laws.***

At some point, Samuel Daniels and Elizabeth Pluard married. So far, no luck in finding a record of that marriage.

We can only guess how they met, but in this photo many of the women standing behind Samuel are Pluard women. Perhaps they met during one of the harvests?

There was an age difference between them: in 1900 Samuel would have been about 45 years old, while Elizabeth was 23.

Samuel and Elizabeth had five children--Hollister (born in Portland in 1899), Bertha, Rose, Violet and Monroe. Violet died as a very young child in 1912 and Monroe as an infant in 1911. Both of them are buried in the Hubbard cemetery and share a marker.

At some time between the death of Violet and Monroe and Samuel's death in 1922, the family moved to Alsea, where Samuel retired from farming. Dick Hockett, one of Samuel's grandsons, said he remembered hearing that Samuel surveyed the highway running from Alsea to Waldport. He remembered that Elizabeth would make quilts from Samuel's old suits.

Samuel died April 7, 1922 in Alsea. The Hubbard Enterprise, the local newspaper, wrote that the funeral services were held at his mother's home. And that Samuel had been a member of the Hubbard K.P. lodge for more than 25 years and that the order "was largely represented at the services." His K.P. brothers were the pallbearers and, the paper assures us, he was survived by "many old time friends who remember him kindly."


In the end, perhaps that's what we all hope for.


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*I'm always curious about why people are named what they are. It's very possible that Samuel Thurston Daniels was named for a prominent, though now largely forgotten early Oregonian, Samuel Royal Thurston. Samuel Royal Thurston has the dubious distinction of having urged the exclusion of free black people from Oregon Territory. Perhaps AC Daniels and Hannah Pendleton admired Samuel Royal Thurston's promotion of the Donation Land Claim Act.

**His death certificate lists his birth year as 1856, though most other documents show 1855.

***I spent a long time trying to find this very hop barn until I found that it was probably destroyed when the I-5 freeway was built.