Onward to Oregon

Mary Goen was born about 1793. She married John Laws. Mary and John had a daughter, Nancy Laws, born Dec 31 1823 in Lawrence County Illinois,  and, according to Find A Grave, two sons, Andrew Jackson Laws and Thomas W. Laws.

Their daughter, Nancy, had six children with her first husband, Eli Bryan, of Lawrence County Illinois before he died in 1848. Her second husband, Rev. Nathaniel "Nathan" Wood, had nine children of his own. "It seemed that the family was too large for one household."

John Laws was the captain of a company, with ox teams, that left Illinois for Oregon. John and Mary took four of their grandchildren with them.  

"The year was 1852 and they were seven months and one week upon the way. Amos Pettys was the only man out of twenty-one who died during the entire trip, but difficulties and hardships were endured, such as cannot be imagined by the traveler of today who speeds across the country in a palace car. The stock was stampeded by Indians on several occasions, but the emigrants always succeeded in recovering their horses and cattle. While near Snake River Mr. Laws went on ahead of the company to look for a good place to encamp for the noon hour and was attacked by an Indian on horseback but managed to escape."

"The company settled in what was then Oregon, near Vancouver, remaining there through the first and very hard winter, and in the spring went to the beautiful Turlitin plains in Oregon. There Mr. Laws and his family remained during the harvesting season, after which they proceeded to Lynn City, opposite Oregon City. In the fall of that year, he moved with his family to Olympia, Washington Territory, where he conducted a hotel during the winter of 1853-54.

"In the succeeding spring John secured a government land claim of three hundred and twenty acres on the Miami Prairie, which property he improved, transforming it into a rich farm and made his home thereon for many years. Energetic, industrious and honorable, his was a successful business career. He held membership in the Baptist church and died in Chehalis County at the age of seventy-four years [seventy-one years according to the grave marker].

"His wife, who bore the maiden name of Mary Goen, attained the very advanced age of ninety-three years. She was a typical pioneer woman, courageously braving the trials and dangers of frontier life and on the journey to the Pacific coast she drove her own team the greater part of the distance across the plains, and for fifteen years after arrival did her own housework on the farm and was never known to get angry enough to quarrel with any person."  Mary died May 25, 1886 at the age of 93.

Taken from A Volume of Memoirs and Genealogy of Representative Citizens of the City of Seattle and County of King, Washington, Including Biographies of Many of Those Who Have Passed Away (New York and Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Co., 1903), 189 - 192; imaged book, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/volumeofmemoirsg01lewi/page/189/mode/1up : accessed 18 February 2023).