WM. E. RINEHART. – Mr. Rinehart was born in Iowa in 1846 on his father’s farm. In 1854 the parents crossed the plains to Oregon, and made a home in Lane county, suffering only the usual hardships incident to such a journey, and the deprivations of a new country. The old Donation claim lies ten miles south of Eugene City. There William remained with his parents until 1864, in that year joining his brother James H. as drover of a band of cattle, coming as far as his present abode in the Grande Ronde valley. There he invested in company with George Allen of his own Lane county neighborhood in a Cayuse pack-train, and packed to Boise until winter. He sold out in time to return to the land of “Big red apples” before winter, and remained at the old home two years. The memory of the Grande Ronde valley, however, attracted him back to its beautiful scenes; and with a band of his own cattle he made his headquarters near the present site of Summerville, Oregon, where he pursued the avocation of stock-raising and farming, until in 1883 he closed out his interest in that line and engaged in his present occupation as hardware and implement dealer in the rapidly growing town of Summerville.
In 1868 he married Miss Elizabeth Jane Martin of Lane county; and three of their ten children are now living in the Grande Ronde. Six of their children died of the devastating scourge of diphtheria, all within one week in the year 1881.
