Sarah Fisher Henderson

“ In 1851 he was appointed exploring agent for the Home Mission Society. My mother was ill able to assume the added responsibilities imposed by her husband's frequent absences from home; but she bore this, as all other trials, with rare Christian fortitude. We hold our mother's memory sacred, not alone because she was our mother, but also on account of her gentle, self-sacrificing life. ”

“ All cooking was done by the open fire. Boiled wheat was our staple article of diet.
During that winter my father taught a school. In the spring of 1846 he spent some weeks traveling in the interests of the denomination. He served a few months as pastor of the West Union Church, but soon removed to Astoria. Old residents of Astoria tell that he erected there a house built of clapboards, all of which were split from the trunk of one fir tree. At Astoria he organized and superintended a Sunday school, preaching also on Sundays. ”

“ Hezekiah Johnson, on May 20, 1845, began the journey across the wilderness which lay between them and the goal of their desires. For mutual safety some fifty families traveled in company. After enduring many privations, the two missionaries reached the point on the Columbia River where now stands the city of The Dalles. ”