Ritzville Journal-Times
Thursday, October 7, 1948
Bill Pettijohn, Oldest Resident of Ritzville, Dies After a Full Life
Ritzville's oldest resident, W. T. (Bill) Pettijohn, died Friday morning. During his 97 years he had fled the Minnesota Indian uprising of 1862, rounded the Horn on a windjammer, and broke virgin soil in Kansas and Adams county. But though he lived for almost a century, his spirit never seemed to grow old. The day before he died he made two trips to the new elementary school site to see what progress had been made. Few things failed to interest him, from beginning to end, from the breathless drama of growing up in a real and savage frontier to the victory gardens he grew during the second World War. Bill Pettijohn's long life was a full one and even as dusk overtook him he must have felt entirely satisfied.
Seven of Pettijohn's eight children are living and they all were present for the funeral service here Sunday. Afterward, the body was sent to Spokane for cremation in accordance with the bearded pioneer's expressed desire.
Pettijohn was born at Traversdes Sioux, Minn., an Indian outpost which no longer exists, on June 3, 1852. His father was a missionary and government teacher. His boyhood was spent in a mid-western wilderness where white men were just beginning to settle.
Indians Rise Up
In August of 1862, when Bill was 10 years old, the Sioux Indians rose up. Their chiefs lashed them with cries that the "great white father" had failed to keep his side of the treaties which had taken their lands away.
The Sioux struck first at an Indian agency 57 miles from the Pettijohn home, killing the clerk and raiding the stockrooms. Perhaps a hundred men, women and children had been massacred before the Pettijohns learned of the danger, so slowly did word filter through a frontier-land.
The father, Jonas Pettijohn, bundled his wife and possessions into an ox cart. The sons, Albert and Bill, drove the family's cow and calf.
Soon this frightened party was swelled to 43 persons. Indians ranged on every side of them, looting and burning.
Defense Weak
"Our defenses," the elder Pettijohn recalled in his printed memoirs, "consisted of four guns, one was no good and the other three were single barreled Indian shotguns. But we had no bullets except for the old rifle which wouldn't shoot. It would have been difficult to hold off any Indians."
The pioneers traveled night and day. They didn't dare to build fires until the third evening, when they killed a two-year-old heifer and boiled it.
One day four of the young men chose a different route and struck out on their own. They walked straight into an ambush and though he never claimed to remember it, Bill Pettijohn of Ritzville heard the shots that killed them.
The party reached Fort Ridgley but found the outbuildings afire and the garrison hard pressed to drive off repeated attacks. They detoured the fort and after nearly a week on the trail finally reached safety.
Close To Death
During the bitter Minnesota winter of 1868 both father and son nearly died of pneumonia, the elder Pettijohn records in his memoirs. Shortly afterwards the family moved to Linn county, Kansas. There, Bill first tried his hands at farming alone, "or at least he did his best to," Jonas Pettijohn recorded, for Bill's first crop was almost an entire failure. The next year, though, his corn and potatoes supplied a large share of the family's larder.
In 1873 Bill attained his majority and sought to fulfill his boyhood dreams of the sea. He headed overland for San Francisco and shipped on a windjammer. For five boisterous years his ships played up and down the coast, and across to Australia and the Hawaiians.
Then Bill came back to Kansas to help his parents farm. He was married in 1875 to Octavia Clark. Nearly 30 years later, disgusted with crop failures and hot Kansas winds, he visited the Pacific Northwest.
"When I arrived in Spokane, I fell in love with the timber and the waterfalls," Bill said later. Albert, his brother, already was living in Ritzville. Bill moved to Adams county in March, 1906, and farmed near Tokio for another 15 years until 1921. After his wife died he sold out, visited his grown children in Seattle and California, and decided to retire at the home of one of his four daughters, Mrs. Henry Ahlers of Ritzville.
"After coming to the Northwest," he said, "I had always felt Ritzville was my home town." He lived here during his last seven years.
Bill Pettijohn was a member of the Methodist church and had belonged to the Odd-fellows lodge for 60 years. He was one of the organizers of the Farmers Union elevators in Ritzvile, which later became the Ritzville Warehouse.
He died Friday after a brief illness following a stroke. Funeral services in the Newman-Danekas chapel were conducted by the Rev. Clifford Knight of the Trinity Methodist church.
Attending were his three sons, A. E. and Thomas Pettijohn of Lodi, Calif.; and Howard of Berkeley, Calif.; his four daughters, Mrs. Zelda Wood and Mrs. Ahlers of Ritzville and Mrs. Ruth Pettijohn and Mrs. Agnes Higginbotham of Seattle; and other friends and relatives.
Perhaps of all of them, Bill Pettijohn himself minded the occasion the least.
"I have always been grateful," he remarked a few years ago, "that I was privileged to live during the period I did. I have seen the greatest advancement in the history of science and man. There is little more I could have asked for."
______________________
Washington State Death Records
First Name: William T.
Last Name: Pettijohn
Date Of Death: 1 Oct 1948
Age: 96
Gender: Male
Father Name: Johnas Pettijohn
Mother Name: Fannie Huggins
Death Place: Ritzville, Adams Co., Washington
Thursday, October 7, 1948
Bill Pettijohn, Oldest Resident of Ritzville, Dies After a Full Life
Ritzville's oldest resident, W. T. (Bill) Pettijohn, died Friday morning. During his 97 years he had fled the Minnesota Indian uprising of 1862, rounded the Horn on a windjammer, and broke virgin soil in Kansas and Adams county. But though he lived for almost a century, his spirit never seemed to grow old. The day before he died he made two trips to the new elementary school site to see what progress had been made. Few things failed to interest him, from beginning to end, from the breathless drama of growing up in a real and savage frontier to the victory gardens he grew during the second World War. Bill Pettijohn's long life was a full one and even as dusk overtook him he must have felt entirely satisfied.
Seven of Pettijohn's eight children are living and they all were present for the funeral service here Sunday. Afterward, the body was sent to Spokane for cremation in accordance with the bearded pioneer's expressed desire.
Pettijohn was born at Traversdes Sioux, Minn., an Indian outpost which no longer exists, on June 3, 1852. His father was a missionary and government teacher. His boyhood was spent in a mid-western wilderness where white men were just beginning to settle.
Indians Rise Up
In August of 1862, when Bill was 10 years old, the Sioux Indians rose up. Their chiefs lashed them with cries that the "great white father" had failed to keep his side of the treaties which had taken their lands away.
The Sioux struck first at an Indian agency 57 miles from the Pettijohn home, killing the clerk and raiding the stockrooms. Perhaps a hundred men, women and children had been massacred before the Pettijohns learned of the danger, so slowly did word filter through a frontier-land.
The father, Jonas Pettijohn, bundled his wife and possessions into an ox cart. The sons, Albert and Bill, drove the family's cow and calf.
Soon this frightened party was swelled to 43 persons. Indians ranged on every side of them, looting and burning.
Defense Weak
"Our defenses," the elder Pettijohn recalled in his printed memoirs, "consisted of four guns, one was no good and the other three were single barreled Indian shotguns. But we had no bullets except for the old rifle which wouldn't shoot. It would have been difficult to hold off any Indians."
The pioneers traveled night and day. They didn't dare to build fires until the third evening, when they killed a two-year-old heifer and boiled it.
One day four of the young men chose a different route and struck out on their own. They walked straight into an ambush and though he never claimed to remember it, Bill Pettijohn of Ritzville heard the shots that killed them.
The party reached Fort Ridgley but found the outbuildings afire and the garrison hard pressed to drive off repeated attacks. They detoured the fort and after nearly a week on the trail finally reached safety.
Close To Death
During the bitter Minnesota winter of 1868 both father and son nearly died of pneumonia, the elder Pettijohn records in his memoirs. Shortly afterwards the family moved to Linn county, Kansas. There, Bill first tried his hands at farming alone, "or at least he did his best to," Jonas Pettijohn recorded, for Bill's first crop was almost an entire failure. The next year, though, his corn and potatoes supplied a large share of the family's larder.
In 1873 Bill attained his majority and sought to fulfill his boyhood dreams of the sea. He headed overland for San Francisco and shipped on a windjammer. For five boisterous years his ships played up and down the coast, and across to Australia and the Hawaiians.
Then Bill came back to Kansas to help his parents farm. He was married in 1875 to Octavia Clark. Nearly 30 years later, disgusted with crop failures and hot Kansas winds, he visited the Pacific Northwest.
"When I arrived in Spokane, I fell in love with the timber and the waterfalls," Bill said later. Albert, his brother, already was living in Ritzville. Bill moved to Adams county in March, 1906, and farmed near Tokio for another 15 years until 1921. After his wife died he sold out, visited his grown children in Seattle and California, and decided to retire at the home of one of his four daughters, Mrs. Henry Ahlers of Ritzville.
"After coming to the Northwest," he said, "I had always felt Ritzville was my home town." He lived here during his last seven years.
Bill Pettijohn was a member of the Methodist church and had belonged to the Odd-fellows lodge for 60 years. He was one of the organizers of the Farmers Union elevators in Ritzvile, which later became the Ritzville Warehouse.
He died Friday after a brief illness following a stroke. Funeral services in the Newman-Danekas chapel were conducted by the Rev. Clifford Knight of the Trinity Methodist church.
Attending were his three sons, A. E. and Thomas Pettijohn of Lodi, Calif.; and Howard of Berkeley, Calif.; his four daughters, Mrs. Zelda Wood and Mrs. Ahlers of Ritzville and Mrs. Ruth Pettijohn and Mrs. Agnes Higginbotham of Seattle; and other friends and relatives.
Perhaps of all of them, Bill Pettijohn himself minded the occasion the least.
"I have always been grateful," he remarked a few years ago, "that I was privileged to live during the period I did. I have seen the greatest advancement in the history of science and man. There is little more I could have asked for."
______________________
Washington State Death Records
First Name: William T.
Last Name: Pettijohn
Date Of Death: 1 Oct 1948
Age: 96
Gender: Male
Father Name: Johnas Pettijohn
Mother Name: Fannie Huggins
Death Place: Ritzville, Adams Co., Washington
Ritzville Journal-Times
Thursday, October 7, 1948
Bill Pettijohn, Oldest Resident of Ritzville, Dies After a Full Life
Ritzville's oldest resident, W. T. (Bill) Pettijohn, died Friday morning. During his 97 years he had fled the Minnesota Indian uprising of 1862, rounded the Horn on a windjammer, and broke virgin soil in Kansas and Adams county. But though he lived for almost a century, his spirit never seemed to grow old. The day before he died he made two trips to the new elementary school site to see what progress had been made. Few things failed to interest him, from beginning to end, from the breathless drama of growing up in a real and savage frontier to the victory gardens he grew during the second World War. Bill Pettijohn's long life was a full one and even as dusk overtook him he must have felt entirely satisfied.
Seven of Pettijohn's eight children are living and they all were present for the funeral service here Sunday. Afterward, the body was sent to Spokane for cremation in accordance with the bearded pioneer's expressed desire.
Pettijohn was born at Traversdes Sioux, Minn., an Indian outpost which no longer exists, on June 3, 1852. His father was a missionary and government teacher. His boyhood was spent in a mid-western wilderness where white men were just beginning to settle.
Indians Rise Up
In August of 1862, when Bill was 10 years old, the Sioux Indians rose up. Their chiefs lashed them with cries that the "great white father" had failed to keep his side of the treaties which had taken their lands away.
The Sioux struck first at an Indian agency 57 miles from the Pettijohn home, killing the clerk and raiding the stockrooms. Perhaps a hundred men, women and children had been massacred before the Pettijohns learned of the danger, so slowly did word filter through a frontier-land.
The father, Jonas Pettijohn, bundled his wife and possessions into an ox cart. The sons, Albert and Bill, drove the family's cow and calf.
Soon this frightened party was swelled to 43 persons. Indians ranged on every side of them, looting and burning.
Defense Weak
"Our defenses," the elder Pettijohn recalled in his printed memoirs, "consisted of four guns, one was no good and the other three were single barreled Indian shotguns. But we had no bullets except for the old rifle which wouldn't shoot. It would have been difficult to hold off any Indians."
The pioneers traveled night and day. They didn't dare to build fires until the third evening, when they killed a two-year-old heifer and boiled it.
One day four of the young men chose a different route and struck out on their own. They walked straight into an ambush and though he never claimed to remember it, Bill Pettijohn of Ritzville heard the shots that killed them.
The party reached Fort Ridgley but found the outbuildings afire and the garrison hard pressed to drive off repeated attacks. They detoured the fort and after nearly a week on the trail finally reached safety.
Close To Death
During the bitter Minnesota winter of 1868 both father and son nearly died of pneumonia, the elder Pettijohn records in his memoirs. Shortly afterwards the family moved to Linn county, Kansas. There, Bill first tried his hands at farming alone, "or at least he did his best to," Jonas Pettijohn recorded, for Bill's first crop was almost an entire failure. The next year, though, his corn and potatoes supplied a large share of the family's larder.
In 1873 Bill attained his majority and sought to fulfill his boyhood dreams of the sea. He headed overland for San Francisco and shipped on a windjammer. For five boisterous years his ships played up and down the coast, and across to Australia and the Hawaiians.
Then Bill came back to Kansas to help his parents farm. He was married in 1875 to Octavia Clark. Nearly 30 years later, disgusted with crop failures and hot Kansas winds, he visited the Pacific Northwest.
"When I arrived in Spokane, I fell in love with the timber and the waterfalls," Bill said later. Albert, his brother, already was living in Ritzville. Bill moved to Adams county in March, 1906, and farmed near Tokio for another 15 years until 1921. After his wife died he sold out, visited his grown children in Seattle and California, and decided to retire at the home of one of his four daughters, Mrs. Henry Ahlers of Ritzville.
"After coming to the Northwest," he said, "I had always felt Ritzville was my home town." He lived here during his last seven years.
Bill Pettijohn was a member of the Methodist church and had belonged to the Odd-fellows lodge for 60 years. He was one of the organizers of the Farmers Union elevators in Ritzvile, which later became the Ritzville Warehouse.
He died Friday after a brief illness following a stroke. Funeral services in the Newman-Danekas chapel were conducted by the Rev. Clifford Knight of the Trinity Methodist church.
Attending were his three sons, A. E. and Thomas Pettijohn of Lodi, Calif.; and Howard of Berkeley, Calif.; his four daughters, Mrs. Zelda Wood and Mrs. Ahlers of Ritzville and Mrs. Ruth Pettijohn and Mrs. Agnes Higginbotham of Seattle; and other friends and relatives.
Perhaps of all of them, Bill Pettijohn himself minded the occasion the least.
"I have always been grateful," he remarked a few years ago, "that I was privileged to live during the period I did. I have seen the greatest advancement in the history of science and man. There is little more I could have asked for."
______________________
Washington State Death Records
First Name: William T.
Last Name: Pettijohn
Date Of Death: 1 Oct 1948
Age: 96
Gender: Male
Father Name: Johnas Pettijohn
Mother Name: Fannie Huggins
Death Place: Ritzville, Adams Co., Washington
Thursday, October 7, 1948
Bill Pettijohn, Oldest Resident of Ritzville, Dies After a Full Life
Ritzville's oldest resident, W. T. (Bill) Pettijohn, died Friday morning. During his 97 years he had fled the Minnesota Indian uprising of 1862, rounded the Horn on a windjammer, and broke virgin soil in Kansas and Adams county. But though he lived for almost a century, his spirit never seemed to grow old. The day before he died he made two trips to the new elementary school site to see what progress had been made. Few things failed to interest him, from beginning to end, from the breathless drama of growing up in a real and savage frontier to the victory gardens he grew during the second World War. Bill Pettijohn's long life was a full one and even as dusk overtook him he must have felt entirely satisfied.
Seven of Pettijohn's eight children are living and they all were present for the funeral service here Sunday. Afterward, the body was sent to Spokane for cremation in accordance with the bearded pioneer's expressed desire.
Pettijohn was born at Traversdes Sioux, Minn., an Indian outpost which no longer exists, on June 3, 1852. His father was a missionary and government teacher. His boyhood was spent in a mid-western wilderness where white men were just beginning to settle.
Indians Rise Up
In August of 1862, when Bill was 10 years old, the Sioux Indians rose up. Their chiefs lashed them with cries that the "great white father" had failed to keep his side of the treaties which had taken their lands away.
The Sioux struck first at an Indian agency 57 miles from the Pettijohn home, killing the clerk and raiding the stockrooms. Perhaps a hundred men, women and children had been massacred before the Pettijohns learned of the danger, so slowly did word filter through a frontier-land.
The father, Jonas Pettijohn, bundled his wife and possessions into an ox cart. The sons, Albert and Bill, drove the family's cow and calf.
Soon this frightened party was swelled to 43 persons. Indians ranged on every side of them, looting and burning.
Defense Weak
"Our defenses," the elder Pettijohn recalled in his printed memoirs, "consisted of four guns, one was no good and the other three were single barreled Indian shotguns. But we had no bullets except for the old rifle which wouldn't shoot. It would have been difficult to hold off any Indians."
The pioneers traveled night and day. They didn't dare to build fires until the third evening, when they killed a two-year-old heifer and boiled it.
One day four of the young men chose a different route and struck out on their own. They walked straight into an ambush and though he never claimed to remember it, Bill Pettijohn of Ritzville heard the shots that killed them.
The party reached Fort Ridgley but found the outbuildings afire and the garrison hard pressed to drive off repeated attacks. They detoured the fort and after nearly a week on the trail finally reached safety.
Close To Death
During the bitter Minnesota winter of 1868 both father and son nearly died of pneumonia, the elder Pettijohn records in his memoirs. Shortly afterwards the family moved to Linn county, Kansas. There, Bill first tried his hands at farming alone, "or at least he did his best to," Jonas Pettijohn recorded, for Bill's first crop was almost an entire failure. The next year, though, his corn and potatoes supplied a large share of the family's larder.
In 1873 Bill attained his majority and sought to fulfill his boyhood dreams of the sea. He headed overland for San Francisco and shipped on a windjammer. For five boisterous years his ships played up and down the coast, and across to Australia and the Hawaiians.
Then Bill came back to Kansas to help his parents farm. He was married in 1875 to Octavia Clark. Nearly 30 years later, disgusted with crop failures and hot Kansas winds, he visited the Pacific Northwest.
"When I arrived in Spokane, I fell in love with the timber and the waterfalls," Bill said later. Albert, his brother, already was living in Ritzville. Bill moved to Adams county in March, 1906, and farmed near Tokio for another 15 years until 1921. After his wife died he sold out, visited his grown children in Seattle and California, and decided to retire at the home of one of his four daughters, Mrs. Henry Ahlers of Ritzville.
"After coming to the Northwest," he said, "I had always felt Ritzville was my home town." He lived here during his last seven years.
Bill Pettijohn was a member of the Methodist church and had belonged to the Odd-fellows lodge for 60 years. He was one of the organizers of the Farmers Union elevators in Ritzvile, which later became the Ritzville Warehouse.
He died Friday after a brief illness following a stroke. Funeral services in the Newman-Danekas chapel were conducted by the Rev. Clifford Knight of the Trinity Methodist church.
Attending were his three sons, A. E. and Thomas Pettijohn of Lodi, Calif.; and Howard of Berkeley, Calif.; his four daughters, Mrs. Zelda Wood and Mrs. Ahlers of Ritzville and Mrs. Ruth Pettijohn and Mrs. Agnes Higginbotham of Seattle; and other friends and relatives.
Perhaps of all of them, Bill Pettijohn himself minded the occasion the least.
"I have always been grateful," he remarked a few years ago, "that I was privileged to live during the period I did. I have seen the greatest advancement in the history of science and man. There is little more I could have asked for."
______________________
Washington State Death Records
First Name: William T.
Last Name: Pettijohn
Date Of Death: 1 Oct 1948
Age: 96
Gender: Male
Father Name: Johnas Pettijohn
Mother Name: Fannie Huggins
Death Place: Ritzville, Adams Co., Washington
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