Whoever has seen the magnificent forest of Western Oregon’s gentle swinging tree tops 200 - 300 feet high on a balmy, fair day, yet is otherwise unacquainted there, would hardly believe them a place of danger or treachery.
In August of 1886 I, tolerably ‘green’ yet for Oregon, filed on a homestead of 160 acres in Columbia County in the most tremendous woods, my nearest neighbor was then Mr. Beusch, over 2 miles away; and he was very good too, for he helped me in every way materially and with advice, as he knew the hard lot of a poor man, who tries to make home in this otherwise splendid country. Everything would have been well, if I could have been working right along on the place, but without any ready money, I was obliged to work out a great deal of my time to buy tools and provisions, and then the road through windfalls cost me very near 3 months work.
My first location in winter was on a small creek flat near the top of a hill in a bunch of the finest and tallest firs on my homestead. As I hated to slash them down, and because the creek got dry, I located on a knoll, l/4 mile from there in a bunch of dead trees, which I commenced to slash. Now to give anybody some idea of this immense amount of work for one man, I state this: it takes from 5 - 6 acres of space slashed over to be out of reach of trees, each acre ground containing from 35 - 50 standing firs 2-6 feet in diameter.
First I took the auger and burned them down, but the most of them contained so much pitch, that I had to abandon this method and resort to the axe. After falling about 100 trees, hardly one third, I left the balance to fall for the winter and started to build a comfortable house out of split cedar boards. To carry the boards together and fit them with drawing knife and plane took much of my time, and of course my headway was very small, all the while I slept and cooked in the shanty on my first location. Soon I had to work out again and did not return till the end of October 1887.
Before going to my place, I visited Mr. Beusch. In the course of our conversation he asked me: "Well, Josef, do you sleep already in your house or in the shanty yet among the standing trees?" Telling him, that neither house nor slashings would be any ways completed for some weeks yet, and I had to sleep in the shanty of course, he replied: "Well then, I as your good friend advise you to find some sort of safety and make a road to it by all means; we have experienced severe storms here in fall and winter and in the night too, severe, to make anybody's hair stand up, and the noise of the falling, cracking and breaking trees was simply terrific. It has rained already much, the ground is soft and of course can't hold the roots of these infernal long trees. I would just as soon be in a battle among whistling bullets as in that timber during a storm, for somebody would finally take care of me after the battle if hurt, but here no soul could know." I thanked and promised him to follow his advice. Before leaving, Mr. Beusch again said: "Josef, you know, what I told you, look out for your safety". Again I promised.
After I got home, I hunted for a safety spot around the shanty and was lucky soon to find it under the butt of a 4 foot in diameter fir turned up by the roots and lying about 15 feet from its root across the roots of another turned up fir tree, leaving a space of safety of 15 x 4 x 4 feet. The trail I made to it, was not straight to avoid heavy cutting through fallen trees, but good enough, I thought, for such temporary purpose. As often as possible, I walked along the trail to commit it well to memory and to be master of any emergency I put some dry wood and kindling under the tree; then somewhat triumphantly I said to myself, "ladder comme (let her come)!" It did come to be sure, but I must confess not quite according to my smart and self-conceited calculations in the terrible night from the 7th - 8th of November 1887, which I shall never forget.
The day had been foggy and misty, so common in this section in fall and winter, then it gets dark very early in these woods, dark, so the darkness can be cut out in pieces. Coming home that particular evening rather late from work on the house, I went to bed after a scanty supper of black coffee and dry bread, because I hated cooking desperately and in fact there was not much there to make a meal out of.
Like all nights before lantern, slippers, overalls, hat and a long rubber coat were in readiness for danger. How long I slept, I don't know. A noise awoke me - and what a noise! From the cot I flew, mechanically reaching for slippers and hat, when a glaring lightning flash and the instantly following deafening peal of thunder brought me to my senses. There was to be sure no time to get in the safe place to lose by dressing completely or lighting the lantern, therefore I threw the rubbercoat over me and started for the trail, which in spite of the darkness I found and followed by feeling for the cut end of the logs. A perfect hurricane blew a drenching rain and some fir brush in my face; the trees seemed to fight, they struck and pounded on another with their tops, sometimes seemingly entangling themselves; their limbs, being in the way, got knocked off by the thousands and came down soaring, whistling and hissing. At short intervals trees fell. The noise of the howling wind in the trees, the breaking limbs and tops, the falling trees made a labyrinth of sounds after the thunder, never to be truly described nor forgotten by my mind. Soon the wind took my hat. Of course it was no use nor time to hunt for it.
In danger of being crippled or killed at any moment by a falling limb, top or tree, I moved on slowly but surely to safety. All at once I came to a standstill by a log about breast height. In the belief I had missed the trail I felt first one then the other way for the sawed end of the log in the trail without result. A feeling of being completely lost and crestfallen overcame me and my former smartness was all gone. The cold rain ran from my head down my back and legs. The fury of the storm increased steady and trees fell everywhere. About 300 yards from me I judged then and in the direction from which the wind blew, the trees fell as regular as the ticks of a clock and I knew it soon would reach me.
One who has never seen nor heard one of these trees, growing like a straw 250 - 300 feet high, fall cannot imagine the roar and danger produced by many of them falling at once. And there I stood meditating perhaps about the insignificance of man and the grandeur of nature or getting ready to die, for there seemed to be no escape, the same danger prevailed everywhere. Another flash of lightning was my salvation - it revealed to me that the tree had just fallen across the trail, which was to my right close to the place of safety. Over the log I went in a "jiffy" losing both slippers and landed on the other side in brush and limbs. Any other time my bare feet would have rebelled against such an experiment. This however was no time for reflection. Slowly groping on I was soon in safety; not too soon though for a big fir went cracking across my tree scattering a heap of dirt all over me from its root in consequence of the jar.
The main danger of getting killed or crippled was over and I felt the cold, wet and the bruises on my feet. My fire after many failures was a poor success; wood and kindling had got wet, so it gave little or no heat but all smoke, which tortured my eyes and nose. The storm, it seemed to me, raged for an eternity and numerous trees fell. It stopped suddenly. How glad I was in all my plight, I can't describe. Burning candles from dry cedar wood left from the kindling in hand I hunted the slippers, which I soon found one half full of water. Surely it was no easy task to walk barefooted on the wet, cold ground, strewn with splinters and limbs. Two trees had crossed the trail.
My anxiety about the shanty being destroyed was unfounded. Some of the roof boards had been thrown off, bed and stove were drenched, but the provisions were all right. The watch showed half past 1:00 a.m. The remainder of that miserable night was spent in cleaning myself and drying my clothes and blankets at the stove.
The next day showed the havoc of the storm: the ground was literally covered with limbs and tops, some sticking in the ground, trees lay everywhere, many acres completely uprooted. A terrible fire swept over this windfall the following summer and destroyed what the storm had left, and that way a good deal of this beautiful and useful timber goes to ruin. The Government undoubtedly made a mistake in throwing this section of Oregon and Washington open for settlement.
That night's experience was a lesson for me. A little coffin-like hut under the safety tree (all preserved yet) served as my bedchamber during the short but hard winter of 1887-88, and in stormy days I went to bed before night to avoid such danger. My perseverance overcame all difficulties and obstacles and today I not only have the Warranty Deed for my homestead, but a good and comfortable home also, and a dear wife does the much dreaded cooking.
[Josef’s many notations regarding “windfalls” in his journals indicate large swaths of trees were blown over at his homestead before he arrived. In a Rainier Review article of 1964, Mrs. May Richard Johnson of Hudson recalled a “terrible windstorm” of 1880 and remembered seeing her mother pray for the safety of her father when the trees were being uprooted. The little four-year-old consoled her mother with “that’s all right, now we can see the sunshine all around us.” Some 50 trees were blown down.]
Another eye witness account of windfalls:
“Rainier, Oregon Territory, July 24th 1853 ~ Brother Dexter
. . . we are situated on the south bank of the Columbia; the country on this side is very hilly & heavyly timbered. The old growth of trees are now lieing prostrate & cover a great portion of the land. I have traveled a great distance upon ceder logs that were three & four hundred feet long & from 4 to 10 feet in diameter such trees as these would surprise you were you to see them. Most of the timber that is standing is very large & lofty. . . Silas. “Life on the Lower Columbia, 1853-1866”, Oregon Historical Quarterly, Fall 1982, page 254.
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| Above: Married Dora Winchester, June 3, 1891 |
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| Dora was a widow previously married to Thomas Wells for a short time. |
Above: “Whereas there has been deposited in the General Land Office of the United States a Certificate of the Register of the Land Office at Oregon City, Oregon, whereby it appears that, pursuant to the Act of Congress approved 20th May, 1862 ‘To secure Homestead to Actual Settlers on the Pubic Domain,’ and the acts supplemental thereto, the claim of Joseph R. Hackenberg has been established and duly consummated, in conformity to law, for the south east quarter of section twenty-seven in Township seven north of range three west of Willamette Meridian in Oregon containing one hundred and sixty acres according to the Official Plat of the Survey of the said Land, returned to the General Land Office by the Surveyor General:”
“Now know ye, that there is, therefore, granted by the United States unto the said Joseph R. Hackenberg the tract of Land above described: To have and to hold the said tract of Land, with the appurtenances thereof, unto the said Joseph R. Hackenberg and to his heirs and assigns forever; subject to any vested and accrued water rights for mining, agricultural, manufacturing, or other purposes, and rights to ditches and reservoirs used in connection with such water rights, as may be recognized and acknowledged by the local customs, laws, and decisions of courts, and also subject to the right of the proprietor of a vein or lode to extract and remove his ore therefrom, should the same be found to penetrate or intersect the premises hereby granted, as provided by law.”
"In testimony whereof I, Grover Cleveland, President of the United States of America, have caused these letters to be made Patent, and the seal of the General Land Office to be hereunto affixed. Given under my hand, at the City of Washington, the fourteenth day of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and ninety three, and of the Independence of the United States the one hundred and eighteenth. By the President: Grover Cleveland”
William’s letter to niece Carol, dated May 24, 1966:
. . . Our father married our mother June 3rd, 1891 in Rainier. Things were a little different in those days, as you well know, but the future must have looked b right that day. They borrowed a row boat from Uncle Bob and went for a boat ride and laater walked home. The road was no doubt either muddy or dusty and from Wilson’s (mill site on Pellham Hills) was onlay a trail that went partly over high laying logs. But they had a home – crude as it was – all proved up on and I guess they would have been “happy ever after” if old Father Time didn’t mess things up.
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