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(page 41)
Andrew Jackson Hess, a native of Oregon, was born December 20, 1846, on his father's donation claim, near the town of Newberg. His father, Joseph Hess, was born in Arkansas, in the year 1812, and was of German ancestry. He married Miss Mary L. Kiser, a native of Arkansas, born in 1814, and in that State they married.
In 1843, Mr. and Mrs. Hess crossed the plains to Oregon with the first wagon train of emigrants. He brought with him his wife and five children, two boys and three girls. They made their own roads, and as this was the first wagon train that came all the way through, they overcame many obstacles, and drove through many places where one would have thought no wagon would have been taken. With ropes the men held the wagons firm, and set their ingenuity to work to devise ways to get through.
When they arrived at the Dalles, they were short of provisions, and Mr. Hess came on to Oregon City, and got supplies, and went back and helped the party into the valley.
The Kisers struck out in the country to look for a location and they decided on Chehalem Valley, and here they settled among the Indians. Sidney Smith, George Nelson and Mr. Hess, all settled there, and they had their choice of the whole valley.
When gold was discovered in California, he went there and remained a summer, and when he returned to his family, he was able to bring with him some gold. He was always an industrious and enterprising man, and was as brave as he was industrious. He was engaged in the successful raising of stock, and in 1861, he went to the Idaho mines. That was a hard winter for stockmen and they lost 500 head of cattle and 300 head of horses. They had not been in the habit of feeding the stock in the winter, and the deep snow came, and large numbers of the animals died all over the valley.
In 1870, he went to California, and remained there some time, but later went to Jackson County, Oregon, where he was either killed by accident or murdered. It was said that he was chopping on a tree with another man and was hit with the other man's ax. His widow survives and resides on the old donation claim with three of her sons. They had a family of thirteen children, six daughters and seven sons, all of whom are still alive and well. One resides in Idaho, another in California, and the rest in Oregon.
Mr. Hess, who is the subject of this sketch, was the seventh child. He was reared on a farm and attended the district school in the winter. At the age of twenty years, December 13, 1866, he married Miss Rebecca Matilda Heater, born in Iowa, April 23, 1848, and was the daughter of Lorenzo Dow Heater, a pioneer of 1854, and a resident of Marion County.
Mr. Hess' father gave him 100 acres of land on which he resided, and where he has since resided, two and one-half miles northeast of Sherwood, in Washington County. Mr. Hess improved his land, did general farming and, by close attention to business, he added to the farm 200 acres more. He is now making money raising onions on his Beaver Dam land. He and his wife have had ten children, as follows: James Walter, Thomas Marion, Joshua E., Mary Elizabeth, Emma S., deceased in her second year of diphtheria, Hiram Jackson, Nelly, Frederick, Laura and Alice.
Mr. Hess is a Democrat in politics, but he declines to be a candidate for office, preferring the quiet of his own affairs. He has been prevailed upon, however, to serve his fellow-citizens as Road Supervisor and School Director. In addition to his home farm, he has 160 acres of land on the head-waters of Salmon River, in east Oregon. He is a reliable and respected citizen of the county in which he was born and has always resided.
(Document contributed by Pauline Mitchell Pierce)