I WAS BORN BYRD J. CLARK Dec. 27- l888 at Hartland
Wash. the son of David K. and Rowena E. Clark. There were four girls and
four boys in the family. There are just two of us left now, Mrs. Edith Sorenson
and myself of Lyle. My folks really done pioneering here. My folks moved
here from Portland where they had one hundred and sixty acres where East
Portland now is. If we only had that now.
They had Hartland Post Office for years, at that time the mail was brought
from The Dalles horse back and if there was enough mail they would use a
pack horse and would bring the mail three times a week to begin with but
soon increased it to daily mail and by the time I came along they had a
road straight across the mountain to The Dalles, a distance of about twelve
miles. They had a steam wood-burning ferry boat across the river at that
time. I Hauled my first wheat to The Dalles with a four horse team and a
wagon.
Most of the wheat was hauled to Lyle and shipped by wood-burning steam
boats to Portland. We had some pretty narrow and steep grades over the mountain
to The Dalles, and in the early days most of the shopping was done in The
Dalles, and, of course, if they wanted anything strong to drink they went
to The Dalles to get it as there was always plenty of saloons there. This
story was told to me and I believe it, as in later years I knew the parties.
I was too young at that time, one of the men had a real foxey driving team,
and they had been to The Dalles for a supply of whiskey, there were four
or five men in the hack, and coming back they got pretty happy and at the
top they started down the mountain with its long steep grade and the horses
got to running and this one fellow looked down that terrible grade and got
pretty badly scared, and he says to the man that was driving, "Sam,
don't you think those horses are running away?" Sam said, "I don't
know, we'll see". He grabbed the whip and whipped them into a dead
run, down over that road that would have scared anybody nearly to death.
Pretty soon, he said, "Yep, they are running away, because they can't
run any faster!" When I started to haul wheat to Lyle, my older brother,
Erta, would go ahead with a four horse team and wagon loaded with wheat
and I would come behind with two good old gentle horses, and going down
the steep old grades I would put on just all the brake I could and then
I would have to make the horses hold back the rest of the load. I could
drive horses when I was six or seven years old. I sure hauled wheat to Lyle
a good may years with horses, up until trucks finally took over the job.
There used to be thousands of bushels of wheat come off of High Prairie.
They used to take me out in the field or I begged them to let me get
in the field with a team to work the ground when I was so young they would
send my older sister out to watch me to see that I didn't get in trouble
with the horses.
In the school days, we had a one room school and the teacher roomed and
boarded with whoever would keep her or him for from ten to twenty five dollars
a month, and go to school and do all the janitor work, teach school all
day to from twenty five to fifty children (kids in them days) all eight
grades, and have time for programs and take part in all Community affairs.
Kids and teachers alike walked to school if it wasn't too far, and if it
was too far, they rode horseback sometimes for rniles through the rain,
mud, and through deep snow with wind blowing regular gales. Pardon a persond
story, but this is a true story. When I was a small boy I nearly always
drove the team when my mother and sisters wanted to go anyplace. We had
what they called a democrat wagon, a light wagon on which you could put
two or three seats and haul several persons when you wanted to take passengers.
One day, we started out and me driving and my mother in the seat beside
me to hold me in line, and two of three of my sisters in the back seat and
the horses got to going too slow to suit me so I raised up with the whip
gave them a whipping, and they jumped ahead suddenly and throwed my sisters
seat and all over the back end of the wagon on the ground, |
Byrd and Kamma Clark Residence
and then we went on down the road leaving them laying there in the middle
of the road and my mother nor I knowing that we had lost them. After a awhile
we discovered we had lost them, and we turned around and drove back up the
road, and as luck would have it, they weren't seriously hurt and were coming
down the road a foot, but oh boy oh boy were they mad at their little brother
for dumping them out on the road, and then add insult to injury by going
off and leaving them there in the middle of the road. My father used to
be sick a lot, and he liked to go down to Wahkiacus (I think some spell
it differently now but that is the way we spelled it Wahkiacus) and
take baths in the warm mineral springs there the way nature left the springs.
Sometimes he would lead the family in a large wagon and take all of us
down over the hill, and then it would be quite a thrill to ford the river
there at Wahkiacus. Sometimes the water would come up into the wagon bed,
and that was the way we got across the Klickitat River for his bath. There
was not bridges across the river at that time except here at Lyle, just
above the present bridge, but a little later there was a bridge built at
Fisher Hill where it is no. There was not railroad at that time.
I remember when a small boy soon after the Stearns brothers, Rolley and
Al moved on out to that land across the river from where the town of Klickitat
now stands. They cleared the land for farming and pumped water out of the
river and built them nice houses there. They had to come up over that hill
on horseback to my folks place to to the Hartland Post Office to get their
mail and I know they didn't get no daily mail at that time. Sometimes once
a week and sometimes once a month. There was not Neals Lumber Co. in there
at that time and the only way you could get in there at that time was an
old wagon road from the top of the hill near the Appleton country. It just
doesn't seem possible to me when I go down there now and see what the Neals
have done and see the town of Klickitat, see their logging railroads, their
log loading places and Camp Draper and well I haven't seen half of it. Well,
I just don't know what?
Klickitat was where the Wright family lived in early days. My grandfather,
Jason Clark, had the first store
|
in the original town of Lyle over on the South side of the tracks close
to the present site of the old sheep sheds standing in the old part of town.
I remember when the railroad as built from Lyle to Goldendale and the track
ran down to the river just east of Lyle, and the Company put in a big floating
dock. The track ran dovn nearly to where the tunnel is now east of town.
All freight for Goldendale and way points was unloaded from the boat on
to the dock and from there onto the cars, and passengers from the boats
into a passenger coach and onto to go to Goldendale and way points to Portland
including wheat in sacks and livestock of all kinds, as there was neither
railroads or highways on this side of the Columbia river and, of course
no flying machines.
There was a railroad on the Oregon side, but no road. I remember I loaded
a wagon load of fat hogs at High Prairie and brought them to Lyle at 7:30
A.M. to ship them to North Portland by boat for market. They run the gang
plank from the boat to the back end of the wagon, with gates on the sides
so they could run the hogs up onto the boat, there was no boat dock at that
time, and we let the hogs out of the wagon, and it was up to the deck hands
to get the hogs onto the boat. They got them started but they didn't want
to go for a boatride and they knocked the panels down and about ten or twelve
of the hogs went into the river, and went swimming on down the river while
part of them got back on the ground, but about eight or ten hogs went swimming
on down the river towards Portland. The Captain of the boat ordered the
deck hands to launch two or three of the life boats from the big boat. The
life boats were just row boats and he ordered two or three deck hands into
each boat to go after those hogs swimming down the river and pick them up
in the little boats, while the rest of the deck hands gathered up the hogs
that were running loose and get them to the landing, and get them aboard
the boat. Fat hogs cantt swim very long until they give out and drown. Needless
to say those men in those row boats didn't go out in the river and pick
up two to three hundred pound hogs by hand out of the river and put them
in the row boats and haul them in with themselves, but they did manage to
get them herded up on the bank where it ran down to the river about a quarter
of a mile below Lyle, and when the big boat these loaded here and we got
down that far with the big boat they managed to get them loaded on the boat
by all hands helping, but there was sure lots of squealing going on and
youcan imagine what the deck hands said. The boat company paid me for two
or three hogs we never did find, and they evidently did drown. The boat
was sure late getting away from Lyle that morning also late getting into
Portland that evening.
Yours truly,
Byrd Clark |
|
|
