PARSONS GLEASON. – Mr. Parsons Gleason is one of the oldest and most venerable of our pioneers now living, having been born in Rutland county, Vermont, in 1799. At the age of six years he moved with his father to Western New York, and at the age of twenty-one went out to Indiana, and three years later had drifted as far as the Indian Territory, and was with the missionaries for three years among the Osage Indians. Three years later he went on to Indiana, making his home at South Bend. In tat state he married and made his residence, forming a great attachment to the old military hero and political chieftain, W.H. Harrison, with whom he became intimately acquainted.
In 1851 he made the great journey across the plains to Oregon, thereby becoming one of the earliest settlers in our state. he made his home at the place first humorously called “Hard Scrabble,” but later translated as “Needy,” in Clackamas county. Here he has passed a long, active and honorable life, and still lives at the age of ninety.
