Early Life
Josiah Parrish was born in Onondaga County, New York to Sally Parrish (née Lamberson) and Benjamin Parrish on January 14, 1806. His mother was of Dutch and Puritan heritage born in New Jersey, with his father of English lineage born in 1777 in Connecticut. Josiah was the oldest of ten children in the family. He attended the public schools of his native state. At age sixteen the family moved and Josiah became employed on the Erie Canal at Lockport.
Josiah was married in 1833 in New York to Elizabeth Winn (died 1869), and they would have four children. In 1839, the trained blacksmith volunteered to join Jason Lee's mission in the Willamette Valley. Parrish and around 50 others sailed on the ship Lausanne around Cape Horn in South America to the Columbia River and on to Oregon City in what has been called the Great Reinforcement of the Methodist Mission. They set sail on October 9, 1839, from New York City.
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