The Owyhee nugget. ([Silver City], Idaho) 1905-1984, 1910-12-15
OWYHEE PIO-
NEER GONE.

ptOuCOIS -eHc piOHccIS WHO gave tuOlr
best efforts for the upbuilding of Owyhee
County. Each year few are taken from
the number of the living and added to
the number of the dead 1t is with sor-
row that posterity each year marks the
decreasing number, the thinned ranks, Of
those who laid the foundation for what
Owyhee County, the State of Idaho, and
the West are to-day
The fortunes they have dug from these
hills, or amassed through business enter
prises, are now being used in the upbuild-
ing of new towns and communities. The
fortunes they have toiled for they have
been granted certain number of years
to enjoy; to some many years have been
granted; to others, but few.
They must have certain feeling of
joy, of elation, in the thought that they
were the founders of this, now prosper
Gus, country; that, when they behold the
cities and towns standing now where
there was nothing when they braved the
dangers of an unknown land to open up
this great country, they, in measure,
are responsible for it all.
When these first settlers have been laid
away, the epitaph that most fittingly,
most touchingly, records the events Of
their lives; the epitaph that has more of
meaning to posterity than anything else
that may be said of them, are the simple
words, "a Pioneer.
December u, 1910, marks the end Of the
long and useful life Of one of those few
remaining persons to whom the above
epitaph may be ascribed.
David Adams, at the age Of 81 years,
z months and day, died in San Diego,
California, from complication of dis
eases.
He was born in Darwin, Clark county,
Illinois, April IL, 1S43. He emigrated
with an uncle to Pocohontas, Arkansas,
in 1857, leaving the latter year or so
afterward and going to Fort Smith, in
that state, where he started in to learn
the printers trade. He worked a year or
so as ''devil'' in an office there, and then
went to the Indian Territory for short
time, locating finally at Sherman, Texas,
where he worked in printing offices until
the 4th day of March, 1861. On that
memorable day in American history, the
day on which Lincoln took his seat in
the presidential chair for the first term,
when the states were seeding from the
Union and war clouds we're gathering,
he joined party whose sympathies were
with the North, and, with mule teams,
went to Chihuahua, Mexico, thence to
Arizona, and, late in the fall Of that year,
landed il. Watsonville, Santa Cruz coun-
ty California. Here he worked at his
trade until 1864, when he enlisted in the
army-in Company A, Eighth infantry,
California Volunteers, and served until
the end Of the war, being stationed most
of the time at Fort Point, San Fsancisco,
and the mouth of the Columbia river.
He was discharged at the Presidio in
1865; he remained in California until the
next spring, whenshe drove horse team,
loaded with flour, to Humboldt county,
Nevada. Here he engaged in various
occupations, among which were "keep-
ing station" operating pack trains and
burning charcoal for smelling companies,
until the spring of 1868, when, in COM
pany with seven or eight others, he
walked from that point, through a por-
ton of Oregon, to Silver City, Idaho, a
distance Of nearly 800 miles The great
er portion of that summer was spent as a
laborer on farm in the Snake river val
ley, known as the Ike Jennings ranch, on
Catharine creek, and now known as
0reana. That fall he was employed with
a government surveying party surveying
township lines and subdividing on both