From 'Wagons to Oregon, Stories of the Henkle Train of 1853'
published in booklet form by the Henkle Association Western Branch, 1986
comes this 'Account of Jesse Wood'. The entire booklet containing the
memories of some of the pioneers of the Henkle family is still available
from Frances M. Fowler, 13920 SW Singletree Drive, Beaverton, OR
97008-7509.
The Henkle family is well documented in Chapter VI of Oren Morton's History of Pendleton County, West Virginia and the Wood family is mentioned as a "Certain Extinct Family" in Chapter VII as well as on the List of Tithables for 1790. Descendants of these families moved west via Ohio, Illinois and Iowa. From the latter the Wagon Train left for Oregon in 1853. The names of those crossing the plains in the Henkle train are listed below.
1. Jacob Henkle, Sr. and wife Anna (Gregg).
2. Ichabod Henkle and wife Elizabeth (Conger)
children:Jesse, Jerry, Helena and Julia
3. William Henkle and wife Nancy (Walker)
daughter:Caroline
4. Jacob Henkle Jr. and wife Elizabeth (Wood)
daughters:Rachel and Mellissa
5. David King and wife Mary (Henkle)
children:Clement, Anna, Elizabeth and Sydney
6. Clement Barker and wife Christina(Henkle)
children:Sarah, William, Ellen, Elizabeth, Jacob aqnd wife
Rebecca (Montgomery)
7. Michael Walker and wife Sarah
children:James, Jesse and Martha.
8. John Goodlin and wife Mary
children:James, David, John, Eliza and Husband John Ullary
9. John Montgomery and wife
sons:William, Robert and Milton
10. Jesse Wood and wife Margaret (Henkle)
children:John, Susan, Abraham, William, Mahala, Sarah
Ellen, Joseph and wife Caroline (Barker)
11. Andrew Jackson Henkle and wife Mary (Wood)
Hired Hands:
Fred Troxel, Strod Troxel, Wm. Troxel, Ralph Riddle, Mike Abogast, John
Mann, Mike Skipton, Samuel Skipton, Pete Arnold, Sidey Bernard, Frank Hill,
John Ball, Wyatt Mulvaney, Nelse Mulvaney, John King, Thomas Conger, Mark
Conger, Benona Conger, Bill Jump, John Hughes, Marion Powell and others
whose names are unknown.
An Account of the Life of Jesse Wood
as written by his son John D. Wood
pub. by the Henkle Association Western Branch, 1986
Jesse Wood was born on the 24th day of March, 1804, in the state of Virginia, Pendleton County, and died on the 8th day of September, 1890 about 11o'clock in the forenoon at the residence of his son-in-law J.J. Newton and house of his daughter Susanne, about 4 miles west of the town of Corvallis, in Benton county, State of Oregon, at the age of 86 years, 6 months and 12 days.
When he was quite a small boy, his parents William and Mary Wood, moved from Virginia to Ohio and settled in that part of the country, near the town of Zanesville. Here he grew up to manhood and first married Miss Rachel Chenoweth, the mother of Elizabeth, his oldest daughter, andJoseph C., his oldest son. When Elizaabeth was a small child and Joseph C. was an infant, their mother died.
He was married again to Miss Margaret Henkle, who was born in Pendleton Co. Virginia on the 1st day of March 1815. Her parents, Abraham and Mary Henkle, moved from Virginia to the state of Illinois, Vermilion County, when she was nearly a grown girl, and where she was married to Jesse Wood, by whom she became the mother of twelve children, Mary, Phoebe, John, Susanne, Amos, Abraham, William, Mahala J., Sarah E., Martha, Jesse F. and Charles L. She died October the 25th at the same place and in the same year, 1890, that he died in the daytime, aged 75 years, 7 months, 25 days. They were both born in the same state, not far apart, and both crossed the continent, from theAtlantic to the Pacific and lived together as husband and wife over 54 years, and there was only about 7 weeks difference in their departure, and they lived all that time as acceptable members of the Methodist church.
They moved from Illinois to Iowa in 1839 and settled in Lee County, where they resided for seven years, and in 1846 moved about 80 miles west and settled in Appanoose County where they lived for 7 years.
In 1853 they crossed the plains to Oregon with horse and ox-teams, starting on the first Monday of April and arriving in Clackamas County about the 22nd of September, having traveled about 5 months and 3 weeks, a long, tiresome, and in some respects dangerous journey. They bought a farm in Clackamas County at the head of Clear Creek, about 16 miles from Oregon City, where they lived about one year, then sold out and moved to Benton County, and took up a donation claim of 320 acres, where they lived aboubt 36 years.
Jesse Wood had 4 brothers, Aaron, Enoch, Wesley and Moses, one older and three younger than himself, all of them itinerant Methodist preachers. But while Jesse was a local preacher he never entered the traveling connection. His mind was divided on preaching, farming, stock raising and teaming and he taught a few schools. In his younger days he spent much time in teaming in Ohio, Indiana and illinois. He was at Chicago when it was a small trading post and only a very few houses.
In Ohio, Jesse Wood, in the younger days of his manhood was quite familiar with the country around the city of Columbus, especially that part between the Sciota and Muskingum rivers and the parts along those two streams, and often talked about such towns as Zanesville, Chillicothe, Urbana and other places of note. And also he was quite familiar with some parts of the state of Indiana along on Wabash and White rivers and at such places as Indianapolis, TerreHaute, Vincennes, and Evansville in the south and Logansport and other places of importance in the north.
But he like many others seemed to be westward bound and to follow up and on to new countries, and so he came on into the state of Illinois where the most of his time was spent in the eastern part of the state, southeast from Bloomington, in and around the section of country on the Vermilion river and about the town of Danville, and he followed teaming to Chicago and to the Lakes, and to Sandusky in Ohio by the way of Fort Wayne and this gave him a good knowledge of that country. When the meteors fell in 1834, he with other teamsters was camped out and saw them fall.
But Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, with their rich soil and fine country in every respect, did not stop his onward move westward, but in 1839, when he was about 35 years old, with his second wife and four children in a two horse wagon, he crossed the Mississippi river, when frozen over, and came to Lee County and settled on Lick Creek a few miles from the town of Farmington, on the Desmoines river. After living there about 4 years, he sold out and bought a place a few miles east on the main road running from Farmington to Keokuk, where he lived for about three years.
Jesse Wood was somewhat of a political man and took some interest in public mattters. He was a Whig in sentiment but liberal in his views. Such places as Fort Madison, Burlington, Ottumwa, Fairfield, Mountpleasant and Farmington, and other towns of note were quite familiar to him, as he went there to trade and on political business. He also took great interest in helping others to find land suitable to locate and settle on. This brought him out to look at and study the country. He would often say, "good soil, good water, good timber, good grass or range, and good health are the main essentials in locating for a home".
In the year 1846, when he was 42 years old, with his wife, and six children, after selling out in Lee County, Iowa, he moved in horse wagons about 80 miles west, to what was called the New Purchase in Iowa, and settled on Shoal Creek in Appanoose County, about 6 miles south of the town of Centerville, a place which he helped to survey off and locate and lay off into town lots, acting as County Commissioner. And in this part of the country he made himself useful to new-comers by helping them to find good claims and the numbers of the corners of the sections and the townships of land.
This move from Lee County to appanoose County was perhaps one of his most profitable moves and the most satisfactory one to himself. His oldest daughter Elizabeth had married Jacob Henkle, and she was the only child to leave behind and that not very far. The move was brought about in this way. A neighbor by the name of Manson, William Manson, about ten years older than himself, had moved to that part of the country and gave very favorable reports of it. This man, William Manson, was a Whig brother, politically, a Methodist local preacher religiously, and a Botanic Doctor brother in the curing or healing art, and a warm friendship grew up between them, as their sentiments on almost everything were congenial to each other. Jesse Wood had Doctor Thompson's medical books for his guide. He doctored his own family very successfully and sometimes was called to doctor others. There was a strong prejudice against the Thompsonian, Botanic, or Sweat doctors as they were often called, as they discarded and rejected all mineral poisons as medicines, and used only vegetable emetics and purgatives, and hot vegetable teas to sweat. But such treatments proved very quick and successful cures in most cases of common sickness.
When Jesse Wood moved to Appanoose County, he settled down on the raw prairie with no neighbor nearer than 3 or 4 miles and not many that near. They lived in the wagons until he built a small shanty and lived in that until he built a log cabin, and in that until he built a hewed long house which was attached to the log cabin with an entry between them.
With an ox-team of from three to six or seven yokes of oxen and a very large plow, he began to break up the wild prairie land on his claim, turning under the thick grass to enrich more its all ready richness and to fence it off in fields and pastures, and set out an orchard, and he soon had a good and beautiful home. He had in all six hundred acres including fields, pasture lands and timber lands, and that all paid for with good plain substantial improvements in the line of fencing. On his land were excellent springs of water and running streams that never went dry, and plenty of good timber for firewood and rails and good soil and good range then in great abundance.And here I think his ideal of a good location for a home was fully met, as it was as healthy a place as is generally found on earth. he did not want to leave it and come to Oregon, but was overpersuaded by his wife and children, and son-in-laws and friends to sell out and come to the far, far west.
After some years living in Oregon, he became reconciled and satisfied with the country, and said it was a better country than he expected to find. But several times on the plaines he would have been quite willing to have turned back if his family would have willingly turned and went back with.
He then had three brothers and three sisters yet living in Indiana and Illinois, and them he longed to see again on earth for he was a man of warm affection for his kindred. But only one of them, his youngest sister Rachel who came to Oregon with her husband Rev. George W. Bennet did he ever see again on earth. This was one thing that made him want to go back. And like all other affectional men and women who always have a strong desire to visit the scenes and friends of their childhood and younger days, so he too had a longing desire to go back on a visit. One time he came very near making the start, but it was before the railroad was built and he said he dreaded to go on the water. He became quite deaf in his old age and then he thought it would not be much satisfaction to himself nor his folks to go back and visit around among them as he could not have that pleasure in conversation with them as his hearing was so dificient, though his eye sight was good and at the age of 80 he could read without spectacles.
Jesse Wood was somewhat of a political and public man, and was a Whig in sentiment, but when that party ceased to act, he generally voted with the Republican party. He filled several county offices such as Justice of the Peace, County Commissioner, and Assessor and went by the name for a long time of Squire Wood.
When there was about to be a war between the state of Iowa and the state of Missouri about a small disputed strip or tract of land, he was elected a Captain on the Iowa side and went by the name of Captain Wood. Happily the dispute was settled without a war or any blood being shed, on either side. His beautiful sword was only kept as a memorial of innocence as well as bravery.