Ezra Meeker is an enduring figure in Washington's history as a pioneer, successful hops farmer, merchant, mayor of Puyallup, and influential advocate for preserving the Oregon Trail. His brother Oliver Perry Meeker might have enjoyed similar acclaim had his life not been cut short by tragedy. After journeying west on the Oregon Trail in 1852 and again in 1854, Oliver worked side-by-side with his brother until 1860, when Oliver drowned in a shipwreck off the California coast at age 31.
Ezra's Brother
A brutal Eddyville, Iowa, winter, the opportunity for a better life, and the lure of free land enticed Ezra Meeker (1830-1928) and his wife, Eliza Jane Meeker (1834-1909) to journey over the Oregon Trail to Oregon Territory in 1852. They were accompanied by their infant son Marion, and Ezra’s older, unmarried brother, Oliver Perry Meeker (1828-1860). The Oregon Trail extended 2,000 miles from Missouri to the Oregon Territory, which included present-day Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and parts of Montana and Wyoming. In 1853, Washington Territory separated from Oregon Territory and took the land north of the Columbia River, parts of present-day Idaho, and Montana.
The Meekers's journey took nearly six months. After a few months spent near Portland, Ezra, Eliza Jane, Marion, and Oliver reached Puget Sound in the spring of 1853 and built a cabin on McNeil Island across the water from the village of Steilacoom. There they received a letter from their father, Jacob Meeker, saying that if Oliver would return home to accompany Jacob and other family members, they would join them out west. Oliver jumped at the opportunity, especially since it would allow him to get reacquainted with Amanda Clement, whom he had met a year earlier. Oliver was quite taken with her, but she was 13 and too young to marry.
Oliver's return journey in 1854 to meet up with his family was arduous. He took a steamship down the West Coast to Panama, crossed the Isthmus of Panama, took a steamer to New York, and traveled by train to his parent's home in Indiana. On their way to the location on the Missouri River where wagons and the ox teams were outfitted and wagon trains organized for the Oregon Trail, the Meekers stopped overnight in Iowa to visit the Clements. Oliver and Amanda, then 15, apparently fell in love during the evening they had together, and she accepted his marriage proposal. In the morning, Oliver went to her parents seeking their approval. Oliver suggested that he go west to build a home and then return for Amanda. The parents decided the best thing would be for the couple to marry immediately, so that Amanda could go west with Oliver and help with setting up a home there.
Tragedy on the Oregon Trail
On the way west to Steilacoom in 1854, the Meeker family experienced two disasters.
The Oregon Trail followed the Platte River in the future states of Nebraska and Wyoming. While the river was unusable for boat travel, the Platte River and North Platte River valleys provided an easily passable wagon corridor going almost due west with access to water, grass, buffalo, and buffalo chips for fuel. The river was described by travelers as "too thin to plow and too thick to drink." The water was silty and foul tasting, but it could be used if no other water was available. Letting it sit in a bucket for an hour or so or stirring in a quarter-cup of cornmeal allowed most of the silt to settle to the bottom of the bucket. Because of the Platte's brackish water, the preferred camping spots were along the many freshwater streams draining into the Platte or the occasional freshwater spring found along the way. These preferred camping spots became sources of cholera in the epidemic years (1849-1855), as many thousands of people used the same camping spots with essentially no sewage facilities or adequate sewage treatment.
Phoebe Meeker, Jacob's wife, died of cholera on June 18, 1854. She was buried in an unmarked grave just west of Henry, Nebraska, on the eastern edge of Wyoming on the north side of the Platte River.
On July 6, Jacob’s young son Clark drowned in the Sweetwater River at Devil’s Gate in Wyoming Territory. Adding to these tragedies, delays along the trail resulted in the party running low on supplies. Word was sent forward to Ezra, who rode out to meet the train near present-day Richland. Ezra guided the party over Naches Pass in the Cascade mountains; their wagon train was the last one in that year.
Within a year, Jacob married Nancy Burr, who had lost her husband to cholera on the same trip west. Later, "Jacob Meeker encouraged Oliver, Ezra, and Eliza to abandon McNeil Island and settle on the mainland. Meeker moved his young family to Swamp Place near Fern Hill (southeast of Tacoma). During the Yakama Indian war of 1855 they sought shelter at Steilacoom, where Ezra, Oliver, and Jacob built a blockhouse and opened a general store called J. R. Meeker and Sons. After gold was discovered on the Fraser River in Canada in 1858 they opened a branch in Whatcom and profited greatly by selling provisions to hopeful miners."
SS Northerner
As commerce was developing along the West Coast, steamships traveled between towns transporting mail, freight, and passengers. The ships were a vital commercial link between communities. The SS Northerner, sailing for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, was one such ship on the San Francisco, Columbia River, and Puget Sound routes. The SS Northerner was built in 1847 by William H. Brown of New York City.
On October 10, 1858, sailing from Olympia to San Francisco on a clear, starlit night with no fog, the SS Northerner collided with the Steam Tug Resolute in Dana Passage, a mile-wide channel a few miles north of Olympia. The Northerner was moving at 12 knots and the Resolute was traveling at 9 knots. A passenger on the Northerner noticed lights in the distance and could see the impending collision, but neither ship blew a whistle nor reduced speed until just before the crash. The Resolute struck the Northerner on her starboard bow and slid along aft until clear. Since thousands of dollars of damage was done to both vessels, both owners filed cross-suits in Washington Territorial Court.
The court ruled that a case of mutual fault was involved and that the damage cost be divided equally. The court relied in part on the rules established for the United States Navigation districts. The owners of the Resolute were not satisfied with the Washington court decision and filed their case in the United States Supreme Court in December 1859. The Supreme Court ruled that the Northerner was at fault for steering across the path of the Resolute. The court noted that at the time of the incident, Washington Territory was not included in any of the nine districts established by the supervising inspectors. The Resolute conformed in all respects to the general rules of navigation and was not at fault. The owners of the Northerner were ordered to pay for the damages done to the Resolute.
Meanwhile, the Northerner underwent its own costly repairs and continued to sail, apparently none the worse for wear. That's where Oliver Perry Meeker reenters the story.
Oliver’s Demise
The Meeker family had achieved some success with their general stores, and Oliver was sent to San Francisco carrying the family’s savings to buy goods. He booked passage to return on the Northerner. The steamer left San Francisco at 5 p.m. on January 4, 1860, for Olympia via Portland. On the afternoon of January 5, the ship was sailing in relatively smooth waters with a brisk south wind when a scraping of the ship’s bottom was heard and felt. It had struck a rock miles offshore from Cape Mendocino, south of Humboldt Bay, California. Captain William Dall was on deck at the time and thought the ship had struck a whale. He soon discovered that a breach in the hull from 15 to 20 feet in length had occurred and scraped off several of the planks from its bottom. The ship was taking on water. All the pumps were put into action. They were within about 20 or 25 miles from Humboldt Bay, which they hoped to reach before the ship sank. The water continued to rise.
Captain Dall, finding that the ship was filling with water rapidly and that it would be impossible to save it, turned the ship toward land. It arrived in an hour, just in time to prevent it from sinking. But the way the Northerner was built contributed to its eventual wreck. It was built as an open-bottom boat with cross timbers in which the planking was nailed and not closed and caulked. If it had been built as a close-bottom boat like the Columbia, another Pacific Mail ship, and struck the rock in the same manner, it would not have been in danger.
Between the time when it scraped the rock and got to shore, a storm had come up, with a terrible surf raging on the beach. The surf was so fierce it was almost impossible for a boat to sail in it. Realizing the ship would go down, the crew fired off distress rockets and made for the sandy beaches south of the Eel River. It was a full gale with drenching rain and large breakers on the shore when the ship came to rest in the sand. The women and children were put into the largest lifeboat and made it to shore. One woman, Miss Gregg, refused to go unless her brother could accompany her. She stayed on the ship. The next two lifeboats were loaded and capsized.
A line was run from the ship to the shore, and one-by-one the remaining men tried their luck with the surf and waves; some made it all the way to shore on the rope, others were washed ashore and survived or drowned.
The Northerner had 108 people on board, with 53 crew. All of the women survived, except for Miss Gregg. Thirty-eight men died, including 17 passengers and 21 crew. Oliver Meeker drowned while trying to make it to shore.
A cross was erected at Centerville Beach, California, to remember those who lost their lives in the wreck.
After the shipwreck, the Meeker family went into debt. Ezra and his father tried to supplement their store business with a failed attempt to manufacture soap. In 1865, a friend of Jacob Meeker, Charles Wood, encouraged him to grow hop roots that were used in beer production. Wood operated a small brewery in Olympia and had been importing hops from England. The hop roots added flavor and aroma complexity to beer. Over the next few years, Jacob and Ezra grew acres of hops and continued to expand their production.
After Oliver’s death, his widow lived with Ezra Meeker’s family until she married Frank M. Spinning in 1870. In 1883, the General Land Office of the United States recognized the claim of Oliver Meeker and Amanda Meeker of 320 acres south of Tacoma. They divided the land one half to the heirs of Oliver Meeker and one half to Amanda Meeker and her heirs.
Frank Spinning died in 1883 and Amanda went to live with her son Frank O. Meeker in Holland, Oregon. She died on February 1, 1917, at the age of 78 and is buried in Kerby, Oregon.
