killed. There was Clark's Co. from Illinois that was attacked. They killed his Mother and Brother, wounded his Sister and stole twenty horses.
The health on the plains was good this year. There were some deaths of course but it was a healthy Season. ...
Give my love to all. Tell Fred when I come back I will bring him to Oregon. Tell Liz I will send her a letter some day. Tell Mother I am looking for her letters and will answer them regularly. ...
Your Brother
John R. Tice
A week later Tice wrote hopefully to his parents regarding his prospects at Port Orford. A voyage to China, even, seemed within the realm of probability. Yet, Tice was not to visit the Orient, nor was Lucetta Redding to marry Mr. Armstrong.
Oregon City, O. T. Oct. 12/51
Dear Father and Mother,
I wrote to Ann last Sunday just as soon as I received her letter. . . . Mr. T'Vault[1] has returned since I wrote to Ann. I have been to see him and have been employed by him till the first of March, or for one year if I wish, at Seventy-five Dollars per Month. I am to go to Port Orford three hundred miles south of here. He is going to move his family there this winter. It is a new place and he says it will make a business place. It is right in the mining Region. He says there will be an opening for making money there in the Spring. He is a very fine man. His wife is very much of a Lady, one of those plain women just the kind that I like. They have three children. Two girls, young Ladies, and one Boy about the size of Fred. We will leave tomorrow. We are going through by land and I will get to see a good deal of the Country. The Will-am-ette Valley, Umpaqua ditto, and the Country about the Port which is a good Country. There has been coal found there. ... There is no coal here but that which is shipped from England. Davison
- ↑ William G. T'Vault, pioneer of 1845, first editor of the Oregon Spectator, established an express line between Winchester and Yreka in 1851, and in August of the same year an attempt to explore a trail from Port Orford to the interior settlements was frustrated by an Indian attack in which half of his men were killed.
