GEORGE F. HERBERT. – This gentleman and his wife were a venerable couple whose lives as pioneers in our state, and as citizens of great merit in social, religious and business life, have made them well known and highly respected in the entire circle of their acquaintances. Mr. Herbert was born in Frederick County, Virginia, in September, 1815. Mrs. Herbert (Elizabeth) née McCormick, was born May 1, 1818, in the same state. They were married in 1838, and emigrated to the frontier of Illinois, where they remained until 1842, when they moved to Iowa, making a second prairie home.
In 1850 they yielded to the impulse, then very strong throughout the prairie states, to cross the continent, and securing an outfit, made the great journey to Oregon with Captain Williams’ train. Arriving within the limits of our state, they made their first home at The Dalles, living all the first winter in a tent. This first winter of their life in our state they met with the great loss of their eldest son, James Ambrose, a lad of thirteen. By this sad event much of their pleasure and enthusiasm in founding a home in the new West was for a time overshadowed. The next year they removed to Eugene, Lane county, engaging in farming and stock-raising, but in 1856 returned to Wasco county and located on the beautiful little steam known as Fifteen-mile creek, which waters that section of the country lying south and east of The Dalles. Here they made and improved a home and farmed until the death of Mr. Herbert in1868. Mrs. Herbert there-upon removed to The Dalles in order to afford her children the advantages of a school, and has resided there to the present time, – a noble and venerable lady, meriting the honor of a life given, with that of her husband, to the upbuilding of our great state.