Our Family Tree

"Jabez (Jabe) Wilkes married Mary Jane Jackson and bought part of the original donation claim where the family consisting of Thomas S.; L. E. (Ellsworth) ; J. B. (Bruce) ; Elsie (Schulmerich) Dannen, and Orville G., were born and raised."

August 3, 1917 - ST. HELENS MIST. [Posted on Jabez Wilkes Memorial# 20363203, Find A Grave; added by Mark and Glorene Stevens on 3 Dec 2010], transcribed by Barbara D Corner on 23 Mar 2013.

"OREGON PIONEER VISITS ST. HELENS—Crossed the Plains in 1845 and Settled in Oregon.
"Jabez Wilkes, accompanied by his wife, were in St. Helens Tuesday en route to their home in Hillsboro. They had been visiting Mr. and Mrs. Ketch near Deer Island and stopped here to see E. E. Quick, an old-time friend. Mr. Wilkes, who is 85 years old and hale and hearty, is one of Oregon’s most interesting characters. Crossing the plains in 1845 with his mother and father, they located on a claim where the town of Banks now stands. When he arrived in Oregon the most important town in the state was Oregon City, and he states that many of the settlers would drive 40 to 50 miles to get their supplies in that city and have their wheat ground. At that time the territory now embraced by Tillamook, Columbia, Clatsop, Clackamas and Multnomah counties was all one county, and according to Mr. Wilkes had so few people that it couldn’t really be called a county. In 1865, at the time of the outbreak of the Yakima and Walla Walla Indians, Mr. Wilkes volunteered and served in the campaign against the murderous red skins. The big battle between the 1,500 Indians and the government regulars under Colonel Nosemith and the volunteers under Colonel Cornelius was found near the present site of Yakima, Wash., and the Indians were defeated with a great loss. The day before the battle a detachment of 112 volunteers, of which Mr. Wilkes was one, was sent up the valley to meet a body of Indians, and while they were gone the larger body of Indians swooped down on the regulars and defeated them. The next morning, when reinforced by the volunteers an attack was made on the redskins. Our soldiers suffered the loss of only a few men, though as Mr. Wilkes, expressed it, “bullets were flying thicker than hornets.”
"Mr. Wilkes is a staunch republican and was a member of the first committee called together for drafting the platform of the party in Washington county. His home place is a large one, half of it lying in the city limits of Hillsboro, and he states that he is pretty well known in Washington, for he has lived there “off and on” for seventy years. He and Mrs. Wilkins, after a short visit here, left by boat for Portland, as the aged couple wanted to see a little of the Columbia river."

"In 1849 or 1850, Arch, Columbus and Jabe became afflicted by the gold fever and went overland to California. We have but few details of that trip. There was a considerable party and they had trouble with the Indians on the Rogue River, but I think none of the party was killed or seriously injured. Nor do we know how long they remained in the land of gold. Father (Jabe) returned by sailboat and had a long, stormy passage of thirty or forty days. How long "Arch" and "Lum" remained or how they returned we are unable to say."

"Upon the call for volunteers to suppress the Yakima Indians in 1855, Jabe and George enlisted October 17 of that year, but here again, we have no record of the length of service.
"In this they had as comrades James and Samuel Wilkes, who were supposed to be distant relatives but the exact relationship was never positively traced. 'We have the impression that they were grandsons of Henry Wilkes, probably the one mentioned at the beginning of this article. One of these settled near Sacramento, California, and the other in Washington, in the vicinity of Yakima."