wife died in July, 1850.[1] He finally decided to resign his position, become an American citizen and take a donation claim,[2] and set about making arrangements to leave the PSA Company. In 1851 Roberts began to take part in the public life of what was by then at least partly an American community in Lewis County, Oregon Territory, and acted as a justice of the peace.[3] With some of his neighbors and acquaintances such as Simon Plomondon and Michael Simmons, he attended a precinct meeting at John R. Jackson's house early in July, 1851. The gathering concluded to call an August meeting at Cowlitz Landing in order to petition Congress to form a separate Washington Territory, and Roberts was appointed to the correspondence committee which notified other precincts north of the Columbia River.[4] It seems doubtful that he attended the Cowlitz Convention in August; he did not sign the meeting's proceedings, which
- ↑ Entries in the Nisqually Journal note the departure of Dr. Tolmie to treat Mrs. Roberts and the arrival of Mrs. Roberts' youngest child, Emma, born that March. After Mrs. Roberts died in July, Mrs. Ross and Mrs. Tolmie took care of Emma until September. See WHQ, XI:295, 296, 297, 298 , and XII:137.
- ↑ The news of the passage of the long-expected donation land act reached Oregon late in 1850 (Oregon City Oregon Spectator, 4[5] December, 1850, p. 2, col. 6). Roberts probably picked the location for his claim before his wife died, but subsequently he could only claim 320 acres. His statement that he became a citizen about 1854 (v. 2, P.S.A. Co. Ev., 64) is misleading since the donation law required that every claimant be a citizen or declare his intention to become one before December 1, 1851. Roberts was called an American citizen by a hostile source in 1851 (see Salem Oregon Statesman, June 6, 1851, p. 3, col. 1), so he had probably made his declaration of intention.
The claim is listed in Charlotte Shackleford, "Donation Land Claims," Chapter XVI of Building a State: Washington, 1889-1939, edited by Charles Miles and O. B. Sperlin (Tacoma, 1940), 428: No. 374, Geo. B. Roberts & wife, 321 acres in Sections 29 and 30, Township 13 North, Range 1 West. (Hereafter Shackleford, Washington DLCs.) - ↑ He performed two marriages. See Oregon Spectator, January 16, 1851, p. 3, col. 2; and November 4, 1851, p. 3, col. 3; and signed 1851 Lewis County election returns (Papers of the Oregon Provisional and Territorial Governments, No. 1854).
- ↑ Oregon Spectator, August 18, 1851, p. 1, col. 3, and Oregon Statesman, July 29, 1851, p. 2, col. 1.
[107]
