| A2C4a. | Jefferson Gilmour was born in the year 1866, in Lebanon, Linn County, Oregon. He was listed in the 1870 U.S Census, residing with his parents in the Sand Ridge Precinct for Linn County, Oregon. His age 4. He died on 15 May 1876, and according to cousin, Ernie Gilmour was buried next to his sisters, Ellen and Rova Gilmour, in the Sand Ridge Cemetery in Lebanon, Linn County, Oregon. |
| A2C4b. | Ellen J. Gilmour was born on 2 September 1867, in Lebanon, Linn County, Oregon and died at, or shortly after birth. She was not included with her parents and family in the 1870 U.S. Census who resided in the Sand Ridge Precinct, Linn County, Oregon at that time. According to cousin, Ernie Gilmour, she was buried in the Sand Ridge Cemetery in Lebanon, Linn County, Oregon next to her brother Jefferson Gilmour and sister Rova Gilmour. Ellen does not appear in my great Aunt Maud Gilmour’s family chart but, she didn’t put this chart together until the mid 1930’s when she was living in Los Angeles, California. She probably did not know about Ellen since she would have been born ten years before her own birth date. Aunt Maud’s older sister Frances, the oldest surviving Gilmour family member, who was still living in 1930, may not have not known about Ellen either. |
| A2C4c. | Frances Irene Gilmour was born on 31 July 1868, in Lebanon, Linn County, Oregon and died in Ellensburg, Kittitas County, Washington on 4 December 1954. She and her descendants are discussed in Chapter 18 of this volume. |
| A2C4d. | Helena Bell Gilmour was born on 18 November 1870, in Albany, Linn County, Oregon and died on 9 July 1960, in Hawthorne, Los Angeles County, CA. She and her family are discussed in Chapter 19 of this volume. |
| A2C4e. | Rova H. Gilmour was born in August 1872, in Albany, Linn County, Oregon and died in Lebanon, Linn County, Oregon on 16 February 1879. Very little is known about her. She was buried next to her siblings, Jefferson and Ellen Gilmour in the Sand Ridge Cemetery in Lebanon, Linn County, Oregon. |
| A2C4f. | Frederick [Fred] Gilmour was born on 14 October 1875, in Lebanon Linn County, Oregon and died in Ellensburg, Kittitas County, Washington on 17 November 1928. He and his descendants are discussed in Chapter 20 of this volume. |
| A2C4g. | Maud Gilmour was born on 12 November 1877, in Lebanon, Linn County, Oregon and died in Hawthorne, Los Angeles County, California on 9 March 1968. She is discussed in Chapter 21 of this volume. |
| A2C4h. | John Lewis Gilmour was born on 13 March 1880, in Silverton, Marion County, Oregon and died in Ellensburg, Kittitas County, Washington on 27 July 1969. He is discussed in Chapter 22 of this volume. |
| A2C4i. | Ellen Gilmour, died at birth in the year 1882 in Ellensburg, Kittitas County, Washington. |
| A2C4j. | Ona Jeanette Gilmour was born on 19 August 1883, in Ellensburg, Kittitas County, Washington and died in Covina, Los Angeles County, California on 16 March 1968. She and her descendants are discussed in Chapter 23 of this volume. |
| A2C4k. | Grace Gilmour was born in the year 1885, in Ellensburg, Kittitas County, Washington and died in Ellensburg, Kittitas County on 11 May 1900. She was buried in the IOOF Cemetery in Ellensburg with her father and mother, John T. and Virginia Gilmour and grandfather, John Wilson Gilmour. |
| A2C4l. | William Gilmour, died at birth in the year 1885 in Ellensburg, Kittitas County, Washington |
|
Mrs Frances Lathrop [Frances Irene Gilmour], died here this
morning. From the Record, Dec. 4, 1954. A pioneer daughter
of pioneers who came to Kittitas in a covered wagon. The
Gilmour family are truly pioneers of the Pacific Northwest. Many of us have smiled at the picture of the little girl who brought her doll with the broken head to the village blacksmith and hoped he could mend it for her. Once I said to an old timer when he was smiling at the little picture, “any pioneer blacksmith would have tried to fix the broken doll head, and would have, at least, done his nest to comfort the child”. Said the old timer, “she’d taken her busted doll head to old John Gilmour, by golly, he’d have fixed it”. And so he would have. Nine years before the Civil War, John Wilson Gilmour, left his home in Illinois, and with his family and all of his possessions in the heavy wagons, the plodding oxen followed the well-traveled trail across the plains to the Oregon country, the lodestone for so many pioneers. All that summer, through the dust, the burning sun, scant grass, poison water, the wagon went slowly but surely westward. The father strode by the side of the straining oxen with his eyes seeking the far horizon to the mountains with the straight black pines and the fragrant cedar, the cozy valleys covered by the high walls, where the wild grasses grew and thrived in the friendly sun. When we read the stories of these pioneers, one seldom reads of a wagon train that had a good blacksmith among the members that ever experienced the misfortunes of the trail that one associates with crossing the plains. And John W. Gilmour was the blacksmith and skilled wheelwright with his company, even beyond the authority of the train master, the blacksmith’s word was law. The trail was traveled only when he said the wagons were in order. His son, John Thomas Gilmour, was 11 years old, quite old enough to assume many of the camp chores and assist his father as he mended wagons and tightened wheels. Gilmour never mended what he called a “done-out wheel” . He carried extra spokes in a neat bundle tied at the end of his wagon all read to be set and tightened into the ring of a new wheel. Thus the Gilmour sons learned the father’s trade and acquired his skill. The Gilmour family built the western home in Lynn County, Oregon. John Thomas went to school, helped his father, did any and everything that fell to the lot of a pioneer boy. In 1862, he and Virginia Linebarger were married and made their home on a claim near Albany. Here John had his own blacksmith shop. Life in Oregon was pleasant, but tales were being told of wonderful valleys, grassy plains and free land in Central Washington. Also, the weather was lauded, and that was an attraction to those who never liked the fog and rain in Oregon. So, it was in 1879 that the John Thomas Gilmour family came to Kittitas over the Satus trail. It was October 1813 when they arrived, a old frosty day in the autumn of what pioneers called “an early fall, and the beginning of a hard winter”. The Gilmours were not dismayed at the stories of cold and snow; one of the things that brought them to Kittitas was the reputed ’51 days of sleighing every winter, clear and cold sunshine every day’. They liked Ellensburg. The Ellensburg of 1879 was not the village of 1871 with its long huts and leaning shacks. According to McKenney’s Pacific Coast Directory, there were more than a dozen places of business, and to them was soon added the Gilmour Brothers Blacksmith Shop, for with John T. had come his brother James, who became his partner in the shop, located at the southwest corner of Second and Pearl. The first Gilmour home in Ellensburg was the Shaser Hotel, the little boarding house built by George George Shaser on the corner of Pine and Fourth where the Safeway parking lot is now. The Shaser family had left Ellensburg the previous year, and now the Gilmours purchased the little so-called hotel. One of the partners of John Gilmour was Willis Thorp. After six months, Thorp sold out to Mr. Gilmour and Mr. Farrell, the first of the Farrell brothers to come to Ellensburg, became a partner. Others who worked at the Ellensburg shop were Jack Ware and Sam Gonigle. Lest one may wonder why a blacksmith and wheelwright needed so many helpers, it might be of interest to review a bit of Ellensburg history. Stages and freighters were of great importance; regular trips were made from the Dalles, Ore., through Kittitas and over the Colockum to the Okanogan mines. The stage line was Ellensburg to Wenatchee, to Waterville, to Coulee City, to Conconully. The stage line from the Dalles to Ellensburg, organized by Tom Johnson, was the mode of travel for travelers through Central Washington. All freight and produce was hauled over those trails in heavily drawn freight wagons drawn by four or six horse teams. The wheels on those stages and wagons required constant attention and horseshoes did not last long on the roads, if the trails could be called roads A driver must be sure that his wagon and horses were in perfect condition and the shoes of the horses must be inspected. A lame horse could not be replaced on a steep grade. The never ending horse shoeing and wagon repair was entrusted to John Gilmour. Years later, Clarence Palmer, a freight driver over the Colockum, said, “When John said you outfit was ready to roll, the driver sat tight and let her rattle, and you always got there, and nothing ever broke down either”. Mr. Gilmour was never interested in the political squabbles that occurred in all frontier towns over every question. He made new wheels and fixed old ones and left politics to the lawyer fellows, and Ellensburg, like other towns seems to have been well supplied. In 1883, occurred the amusing story of the city jail. As the result of a particularly noisy July 4th celebration, a public meeting was held in Elliot’s Hall and the outraged citizens decided to solicit money from the various merchants to build a small jail on the corner of the courthouse square. One pioneer merchant said, “What’s wrong with a man yelling on the Fourth of July?” The citizens went ahead withy the jail project and appointed J. T. McDonald, chairman and John Gilmour members of the committee to receive subscriptions from the businessmen and to help plan the building. History does not state how the committee performed its duties. . .if they ever did . . .but the jail was built and Ellensburg passed a restful July Fourth in 1884. It will be 50 years, Jan. 5, 1955 since John Gilmour died. There are a few a few old timers around who knew him and remember this pioneer blacksmith. But the Gilmour name long will be remembered in the pioneer history of Ellensburg. Firty five years ago his sons, John and Fred, opened the Gilmour & Gilmour Grocery, which is also an interesting story. |
| John T. Gilmour is a resident of Ellensburg, Washington and is following the same trade that his father followed before him— that of blacksmith. he was born in Hancock county, Illinois November 5, 1840. His father John W. Gilmour, was born in Kentucky September 13, 1813, and passed away in Ellensburg November 7, 1903, at the age of ninety. The elder Gilmour crossed the Plains with ox teams in 1851, and the following year settled on a homestead in Linn County, Oregon where he lived for thirty-three years. He then moved to the forks of the Santiam and resided there for some eight years, after which he lived with his children until his death last fall. His wife, Jane (Brounaugh) Gilmour was born in Kentucky in 1812 and died there in 1884. Mr. Gilmour, the subject of this article, attended school in Illinois until he was eleven years old, at which time he crossed the Plains with his parents. He helped them all he could until August 24, 1862, and then he took a claim near Albany, Oregon, where he lived a quarter of a century. While there in 1870, he took his father’s place at blacksmithing, with whom he learned his trade, then moved to Ellensburg and entered into business with Willis Thorp. After six months, Mr. Gilmour bought out his partner and has since continued to conduct business alone. He was married October 26, 1862, to Virginia Linebarger, who was born April 29, 1845, in Washington county, Oregon. Her father, Lewis Linebarger, was born in North Carolina in 1810, and was a farmer and frontiersman. He came to Oregon in 1843 and died in 1884. Her mother, whose maiden name was Jane Henderson, was born in North Carolina in 1808 and passed away in 1882. Mr. Gilmour was one of a family of ten children, and two brothers and two sisters are still living. Mr. and Mrs. Gilmour have been the parents of eleven children, of whom five are deceased. The surviving children are named: Fanny, Lena, Maud, Ona, Fred and John Their father was formerly a member of the Independent Order of Odd fellows and has passed through the entire Lodge, but in recent years has given up his membership. He is an ardent believer in the principle of the Democratic party, but has never been a seeker after political preferment. |