Elijah Bristow
| Elijah Bristow | |
|---|---|
| Born |
April 28, 1788 Tazewell County, Virginia |
| Died | September 19, 1872 (aged 84) Pleasant Hill, Oregon |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | First cabin built, 1846 in Lane County, Oregon |
Elijah Bristow (1788–1872) was the first white settler to stake a claim and build a permanent cabin in 1846 in the upper Willamette Valley, in what is now Lane County, Oregon, United States. He and his wife Susannah Gabbert Bristow established the first church and donated land for the first school in Pleasant Hill.
Of English descent, Elijah Bristow was the eldest child of James Bristow and Delilah Elkins. He was born April 28, 1788, in the mountains of Tazewell County, Virginia. He became an expert marksman and hunter, serving in both the War of 1812 under General Andrew Jackson, and in the Black Hawk War. Historical narratives describe his spirit of adventure and his love for frontier life. He sought adventure as a young man, moving first to Overton County, Tennessee, where he married Susannah Gabbert in 1812; then to Cumberland County, Kentucky, in 1819 or 1820; then to Macoupin County, Illinois, and McDonough County, Illinois, where his family lived about 23 years. Bristow left his family in Blandinsville, Illinois, for the Pacific Coast in the spring of 1845.
Crossing the plains by ox team, 58-year-old Bristow spent the winter of 1845 at Sutter's Fort, California, and in June 1846, set out by pony riding north with William Dodson, Felix Scott, and Eugene Skinner on an Indian trail that is now the old territorial road. They passed through the Siuslaw valley near the present day sites of Lorane, Crow, Elmira and Monroe, to Rickreall. The company traveled the east side of the Willamette Valley near present-day Salem, south to where the town of Jasper is presently located, and forded the Middle Fork Willamette River to the south side, seeing "a low ridge covered with scattering oak trees with timbered mountains rising above it." Bristow is reported to have risen in his stirrups, and said, "There I will take my claim; and I am going to name it Pleasant Hill. That ridge with the mountains in the background reminds me of my boyhood home in old Virginia."
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