Elijah Bristow

Elijah Bristow. April 28, 1788 - September 19, 1872. In 1845 Elijah Bristow and his wife (Susannah Gabbart Bristow) left their home in Illinois and traveled overland to California. They came to Oregon in the spring of 1846, following the Hudson's Bay trappers' route to the northern Willamette Valley. In June 1846, with Eugene F. Skinner, Felix Scott and William Dodson, Elijah Bristow explored the upper Willamette Valley seeking a place to settle. He was struck with the beauty of a site between the Coast and middle forks of the Willamette River and said, "What a pleasnt hill. This is my claim." The area is now known as Pleasant Hill., On the side of a small hill near a little stream he built his cabin and later filed a claim for 638.41 acres of land. He and his wife were among the first pioneer residents of what became Lane County. Several of his family moved from the mid-west frontier to the Pacific Northwest over the Oregon Trail in covered wagons and filed for land claims around his. He lived here to the age of 84 with his children and grandchildren around him. The stones used in the chimney monument near this marker are all that remain of the Bristow cabin., Oregon Historical Marker Committee - Oregon Travel Information Council - 1998