Wade, Thomas

The following data is extracted from History of the Pacific Northwest, Oregon and Washington, 1889.

THOMAS WADE. - Mr. Wade was born in Virginia in 1837, and is the eldest of the three brothers, mention of whom is made herein. In 1853 he emigrated to Wayne county, Iowa, where he engaged in farming, and so continued until 1862, when he crossed the plains and located in the Grande Ronde valley on his present homestead. There he commenced with a capital stock of about two dollars and fifty cents to assist in developing that portion of our glorious Northwest, substituting on game and some flour from the Willamette valley. The next spring he paid fifteen cents per pound for seed wheat and oats. There he has delved and digged until now, a hale and hearty man of fifty-two summers, he is in possession of a thousand acres of the choicest land in the world, with a fine residence, out-buildings, orchard, a large herd of range cattle, and a band of horses, including thoroughbreds in each line. he is a partner in the large mercantile establishment at Summerville, and is a notably hospitable as well as a successful and happy man.

In the winter of 1860 he returned to Iowa by way of San Francisco, Panama and New York, and came back to Oregon in the spring of 1867. In 1870 he returned to Iowa and married an old friend, Miss Lucy J. Jackson, of Van Buren county. During the years of his residence here, Mr. Wade has crossed the plains four times, and has come upon many fresh indications, such as embers still aglow, of the devastations of Indians; yet luckily he has never been attacked, and never lost anything by them.

Source: History of the Pacific Northwest, Oregon and Washington, 1889

  Go Back