Early Life
Benjamin Burch was born in Chariton County, Missouri, on May 2, 1825, to Samuel Burch and Eleanor (née Lock) Burch. In 1845, he crossed the Great Plains on the Oregon Trail bound for the Oregon Country. He settled in what became Polk County in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. At the time it was under the authority of the Provisional Government of Oregon, and in 1848 became the Oregon Territory. In 1846, he helped Jesse Applegate and Levi Scott build the Applegate Trail, a route to the valley through Southern Oregon.
Burch then returned to his home where had tutored Applegate’s children before becoming a teacher at the first school in the county. After the breakout of the Cayuse War in 1847, he volunteered for the militia and served as an adjutant. Following the war, on September 6, 1848, he married Kentucky native Eliza A. Davidson who had immigrated to Oregon from Illinois the year before. They had seven children, including Benjamin, Jr. During the Yakima War in 1856 Burch served as a captain of a company of militia.
Read more about this topic: Benjamin Franklin Burch
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“I do not know that I meet, in any of my Walks, Objects which move both my Spleen and Laughter so effectually, as those Young Fellows ... who rise early for no other Purpose but to publish their Laziness.”
—Richard Steele (16721729)
“What if it should turn out eternity
Was but the steeple on our house of life
That made our house of life a house of worship?”
—Robert Frost (18741963)