Linn County, Oregon Pioneer - Supplina Hamilton

April 17, 2018

More details on the location of the first Hamilton family property in the Pacific Northwest -- the Donation Land Claim Act of 1850 homestead claim of Supplina Hamilton, DLC #2969. This information is from the research of Richard Milligan, published in 1994 and excerpted from his book on Linn County pioneer claims and families (compiled with John Miles). Milligan's Hamilton genealogy info came from the late Joyce (Stover) Hamilton, wife of cousin Gordon Hamilton of St. John, WA, with whom Milligan was in communication -- built on Joyce's original family interviews and painstaking pre-Internet genealogy research. Arrived in Oregon Territory: Sept 3, 1851. Settled claim on: Dec 1, 1854. Married: June 10, 1858. Located in Township 11S, Range 2W, Section 5, 6; 138.27 acres, on top of a hill north of Scio, Oregon. The excerpt includes two reprinted newspaper articles. The first, from the Colfax Gazette (Colfax, WA), June 17, 1904, covers the Hamiltons' 46th wedding anniversary and third triennial family reunion, held at their home three miles south of St. John -- all nine children, thirty grandchildren and four great-grandchildren were present among roughly 150 attendees. Supplina gave a sketch of his life and experience in the Cayuse Indian War, recounting a standoff at the Touchet Canyon with Chief Pu Pu Mox Mox's roughly 1200 warriors, the fighting that followed, and closing with: "I have tried to live a Christian and to set you an example worthy of imitation. Follow therein." The second, from the St. John Journal (St. John, WA), February 14, 1905, is Supplina's obituary: he died at his farm near St. John on Feb 9, aged 72, four days after being stricken with paralysis. Born in Cass County, Illinois in 1832, he crossed the plains to Oregon in 1851, joined the Church of Christ in the Willamette Valley in 1852, and became an active minister in 1863. He married Sarah Jane Sumpter in Linn County, Oregon in 1858; funeral services were conducted by L. F. Clipp of Spokane.

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