‘Tis the season of family reunions, and one of Tillamook County’s Pioneer families held theirs today … along their namesake river.
The “face” of the Tillamook County Pioneer during it’s first five years was that of Elbridge Trask – the great-great-great grandfather of the Tillamook County Pioneer’s founder, LeeAnn Neal.
We have been working to launch a regular series about the Pioneer families of Tillamook County, and found it fitting to launch that series with the Trask Family.
Here’s the 2023 invitation to the Annual Trask Family Reunion – Sunday, August 6, 2023
On Sunday, August 6, 2023, the descendants of the Pioneer family Elbridge and Hannah Trask will gather at the Trask River County Park East of Tillamook on the Trask river.
Elbridge Trask first came to Oregon from Massachusetts on the Wyith’s brig, the Mary Dacre, in 1834. Later he went to join the Rocky Mountain Men to hunt and trap. He has mentioned in several accounts of Jim Bridger, famous trapper and hunter of the 1830s.
He returned to the East and acted as a guide for a wagon train coming to Oregon in 1842.
In August 1852 he brought his family to Tillamook taking a land claim on what is now Trask river, east of the county park. He took part in the building and launching of Tillamook‘s first venture and shipbuilding, The Morning Star.
Elbridge Trask died in June 1863 at the age of 49.
The Trask family reunions have been attended by some members of the family for more than 90 years.
Here is the Elbridge Trask Family History from the Tillamook County Pioneer Museum:
Elbridge Trask was born in Beverly, Massachusetts on July 15, 1815. He was the son of John and Bethiath Trask and a descendant of Osmond Trask, one of the earliest pioneer settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Plantation.
Elbridge lived a colorful life before immigrating to Oregon. He was a “Yankee sailor,” an explorer of the west, and a trapper and hunter. He was a frequent participant in the fur traders’ rendezvous where the Horse Creek meets the Green River in the Rocky Mountains. Family history claims that Elbridge was a trapping companion of both Kit Carson and Jim Bridger, but no corroborating evidence is available. Elbridge did survive several Indian attacks before joining the Elijah White wagon train in 1842, bound for the Willamette Valley of Oregon.
It was on that wagon train that Elbridge was smitten by a young Indiana widow Hannah Abell, traveling with her baby daughter, Rosealtha. Hannah had left her two older daughters, Sarah and Elizabeth, in Indiana. According to Trask family history, given that Elbridge had not been around a white, single woman for many years he began courting young Mrs. Abell. When the wagon train arrived at Willamette Falls, Elbridge and Hannah were married, on October 29, 1842.
The couple took up residence on the Clatsop Plains outside of Astoria. Elbridge built Hannah a home near his old trapping companion Solomon Smith. The couple had a set of twins, Harriet and Martha, born on the Clatsop Plains in 1843. They also had two daughters Bethair (Mrs. Jeptha Walling, 1845-?) and Nancy Jane (Mrs. David Cyrus Fisher, 1847-?) and a son George, (1849-1912) while living on the plains. Elbridge and a group of neighbors built a ship called The Pioneer and sailed it to San Francisco in 1848 where they sold the ship and all its wares for items the pioneer families needed. They returned to Clatsop on the ship Priest.
When gold fever struck in 1849, many of the men from Astoria left for the California gold fields. Elbridge had other plans. He wanted to move south to the Tillamook Bay where he had noticed good, fertile land on his trips driving cattle from the Willamette Valley. And in 1852, the Trasks left Clatsop to settle in Tillamook.
There is some dispute as to whether the Trasks or the Doughertys were the first family to settle here. It is documented that Nathan Dougherty brought his wife in the spring of 1852, and Elbridge Trask brought Hannah in August of 1852, making the Trasks the second white family to settle in Tillamook. Their daughter Endora (Mrs. William Summers and Mrs. Lafe Barclay, 1853-1923) was the first white child born in the newly established county of Tillamook. Two more boys joined the family: William (1855-c. 1869) and Charles (1857-?). Daughter Arvilla (Mrs. Neal) was born in 1858.
The Trask River, one of the five major rivers emptying into Tillamook Bay, was named after Elbridge Trask. Mr. Trask was a good neighbor and his home served as a local meeting place. The Trasks had a good relationship with the Tillamook Indians, but when the Tillamooks became upset with other white settlers, Elbridge fortified his home so the white settlers could seek refuge. Elbridge and his future son-in-law, Warren Vaughn, negotiated with the Chiefs Kilchis and Illega to negotiate a peace but there were intermittent uprisings in the area for several years. Fort Trask served as safe haven during those times. Elbridge Trask never broke his trust with the Indians and they soon came to realize his word was his bond.
When Tillamook became a county in 1853, Elbridge Trask was one of its first three county commissioners, later serving as a Justice of the Peace.
In 1855, Elbridge helped the Tillamook settlers build a ship called The Morning Star, which they used to transport goods to and from Astoria. A replica of this ship stands in front of the Tillamook Cheese Factory today. Elbridge also served as captain of the vessel Gull and later built his own schooner, The Rosealtha, which he named after his adopted daughter.
One of the Trask twins, Harriet, married Warren Vaughn and was the mother of eleven children. (See The Vaughn Family History.)
Elbridge died in 1863, at the age of 49, from what was termed “the mountain malady.” He asked to be buried on a hillside of his own claim, leaving the hillside as a cemetery plot in his will. The settlers gathered to honor the man who had served as a leader to them for eleven years.
Mrs. Trask took the children and moved to be near her sister, Mrs. W.T. Perry, in Coquille, Coos County, Oregon. Hannah remarried Mr. David Morse. She died in Coos County at age 47 in 1868, and was buried in a small cemetery in Norway, Oregon.
Descendants of Elbridge and Hannah Trask live throughout the western United States and still gather yearly in Tillamook for a reunion.
In 1960, Don Berry wrote a novel called Trask about Elbridge Trask’s adventurous life. Copies of this book are available in the Pioneer Museum gift shop.
WATCH FOR FEATURES ON TILLAMOOK COUNTY’S PIONEER FAMILIES. If you have suggestions for Pioneer families that should be featured, please send to editor@tillamookcountypioneer.net. We will work our way through the dozens of portraits in the Pioneer Museum’s “Pioneer Room”.