From the desk of Jeff Martin

A Pioneer’s Search for an Ideal Home

Written by: Phoebe Goodell Judson

Union Printing, Binding and Stationary Co., Bellingham, Washington

Publication date: 1925

Phoebe Goodell Judson who crossed the Plains in 1853 and became a resident on Puget Sound before the organization of Washington Territory.

A Book of Personal Memoirs (Published in the author’s 95^th year)
CHAPTER I

It is the oft repeated inquiry of my friends as to what induced me to bury myself more than fifty years ago in this far-off corner of the world, that has determined me to take my pen in hand at this late day.

Did I come around the Horn, cross the Isthmus, or come across the plains? Was I not afraid of the Indians, and much more they ask. So I have decided to answer them all and singly by writing a short history of our pioneer life, and to affectionately dedicate my book to the memory of the late Holden A. Judson, my dear husband, who journeyed with me for half a century in the wilderness.

This will be but a condensed narrative of events which I shall endeavor to recall out of the mists of the past, written with no attempt at literary display, containing no fiction, but simply a record of the homely, everyday incidents of a plain woman, who has now exceeded her three score years and ten, and who has roughed it in the early fifties on the extreme northwestern frontier.

Time has passed so rapidly I can scarcely realize that I have already attained the number of years allotted to mortals on earth.

The romance of frontier life beyond the confines of civilization with its varied, exciting and interesting experiences among the children of nature both human and brute-has caused the years to fly swiftly, as on the wings of the wind.

Excerpt by Phoebe Goodell Judson