Polk County observer. (Monmouth, Polk County, Or.) 1888-1927, 1915-08-27
BORN BY THE ROADSIDE.
SOME "REMINISCENCES OF PIO-
NEER DAYS TERSELY TOLD.
Frank Collins First Saw Light of
Day While Parents Were Crossing
the Plains With Ox-Team.

ed Polk county for the purpose o
gathering information from pionee
settlers, has the following about on
of this sections best known citizens
F. M. Collins:
| "Francis Marion Collins is what
) was christened but they generally cal
me Frank" said an Oregon pionee
J. of 1916 when I visited him recent,
at his home in Dallas. 81 was born
in Missouri on November 10, in tht
year 1884 My father. Smith Col
Inns, was born in Virginia. My moth
er, Emily Wyett Collins, was Ken
tuckian. They were married in Mis-
souri, and had 12 children, eight boys
and four girls. | was II years old
when we started for Oregon in the
spring of 1916. On Bear river. six
or seven miles this side of Soda
springs, one of my brothers fell out
of the front of the wagon and before
the oxen could be stopped the front
wheel ran over him and killed him.
Father made coffin for him from the
false bottom of our wagon. They
buried him by the side of the trail.
They covered his coffin with fiat wa
ter-worn rocks from Bear river so the
coyotes could not dig him up. AT
Fort Hall we were met by Captain
Levi Scott, the founder of Scottsburg,
near the mouth of the Umpqua. He
told us that he and the Applegates
and some others from Polk county
had a new cut off which saved the
hard climb across the Cascades or the
dangerous trip down the Columbia by
raft or batteau.
"Four families of our train decid
ed to take the new cutoff. There
was our family, the Pringle family,
the Faulkners and Old Captain
Brown, who followed Captain Levi
Scott. We took different road than
that taken by Stephen Meek the year
before when he attempted to show a
large train of emigrants a cutoff by
the southern route and they came to
grief.
"We had no trouble except near
Klamath lake. One of our party, a
man by the name of Tanner, Jagged
behind and failed to come in one
night. Next morning they went back
to look him up and found him back
a piece in the road, stripped naked
and full of arrows. They dug shall
low grave for him beneath big
chunk of sagebrush with their hunt
ing knives and tramped the ground
down and left him.
"We struck the head of Bear creek
and followed it down to about where
Medford now is. We had been joined
by nearly a hundred wagons which
lad turned south at Fort Hall, among
hem the Vanderpools, the Crowleys,
md others. Old man Vanderpool was
bringing in some blooded sheep, but ,
It near what is now Grants Pass the
indians charged his band of sheep, {
catered them and got most of them. t
Us we were making our way down {
eavy grade the man who was driving q
'rowley's wagon called out for me to \
top. had the wagon just ahead of t
'rowey's. He told me Leland Crow
" was dying and for me to send my
lother back at once. Mother went
ack to Crowley's wagon but Leland
My lived few minutes. She was
cry bright, pretty and likeable girl, ]
bout II OF Is years old We drove
own the grade and camped beside
lie stream. Mother laid Leland out
nd prepared her for her burial. They 8,
lried her by the side of the stream h
hich for years went by the name of
rave creek. 1t is now called Leland
eek after Leland Crowley. Crowley j.,
alton and postoffice here in Polk u
'unty is named for the Crowley fam
Y.
A few days after we buried Le
nd another party came along and
und the Indians had dug her up
Id taken all her clothes, leaving her
Iked. They reburied her. J. D.
NTH, who lives in Dallas. was in the
Irty that reburied her. He still has
e iron fire shovel they used to bury
r. 1t happened to be the only shov-
they had.
"Colonel Cornelius Gillian, my
IS father, who had come out two
ars before, helped build the first
use in Marysville, now Corvallis,
r Mr.. Avery, and be built cabin
r Eugene Skinner at what is now
lgene. F. Skinner had gone east
+ his family, so my brother Jim
ou probably know him as Judge j.
Collins) stayed all winter in Skin
RS cabin, taking care of our cat
. A man from French Prairie, l =
nix his name was La Chappelle, =
ne to SINNERS Butte, or Eugene, r
they now call it, and father hired
n to take our family and our goods
packhorse farther up the valley.
took us to what was later called
rkers station, on the Big Luckia- :
tie, not far from the present town
Independence. We wintered there.
xt spring, the spring of 1S47, we
k up a place near what is now
led Suvers station. Ny father and
ther lived there until their death.
brother Alec's family now live
the old claim.
In the sprincr of 1910 fatbar vrentIE