Iman family notes |
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Columbia River Gorge
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Imans were early pioneers in Washington State and settled
what came to be the county seat (Stevenson) of Skamania
County. This page provides an overview and a growing variety
of links.
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- Skamania
County - Louis F. Iman
- Writing Iman
History - BIll Iman
- My arrival
in 1852 - Margaret (Windsor) Iman
- Who were these
Indians? Steve Iman
- Imans of Skamania
(James Windsor)
- Palmers of Oregon (Joel
Swink) Joel shares the history of the Palmers, early pioneers
to Oregon Territory from Illinois who lived at the "lower
landing" at the Cascades. Much about their life is known
from family correspondence between 1852 and 1850. Norman Palmer
took many roles in frontier society ad a building contractor,
brick maker, merchant, judge, school board commissioner, and
entrepreneur. Palmer men were living in the Cascades area in
the Spring of 1856 when the famous Fort Rains massacre ensued.
Some of them had been fishing, working at the sawmill, or managing
the little store below the blockhouse where so much action took
place and lived to tell about it.
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Felix Grundy Iman
arrived in the Northwest from Illinois in 1852 as part of a
wagon train of 37 ox-driven carts. He was a carpenter,
mechanic, and could be a ship-builder. He was serving as a
consultant in Portland to an outfit interested in building
steamboats for the Columbia when he met his wife to be at
the Bush Hotel in the upper cascades.
Margaret
Windsor came from poor family where most of
her brothers and sisters were handed off to neighbors Her
mother died when she was only two. The step-mother was a
shrew and kept her locked up. She ran away as far as she
could with the Wilson family, but was critically ill when
she reached the Columia. She was left there for a good
doctor who cared, and was working off her debts at the hotel
when she met Felix. They decided to stay in the area, and
built several houses in the Columbia River Gorge. Click
here to view the
parcel map for the early Stevenson area.
 Though
Felix could not read or write be built two sawmills, built a
steamship for the Columbia River, started a saloon and built
the first school in Skamania County. He and Margaret had 16
children, among the very first children of pioneers along
the Columbia.
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The upper Columbia was rugged country with a river full
of rapids, a land of great timber. It was also along
important Indian trails connecting tribes from far North to
the fur trade. Hundreds of natives lived peacefully with the
settlers, though tensions grew with heavier immigration and
with inter-tribal tensions between local peaceful bands and
the more aggressive Yakima indians.
Felix and Margaret survived the Fort Rains massacre, but
just barely.
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Down the line to Steve and Jay
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