The Judsons Relocate

Having little luck at the Grand Mound site, the Judsons traded their land with a man who wanted to raise livestock and tried their hands at a more fertile bottomland. Their discovery was that while the land was fertile, they lacked the ability to harvest and secure the crops before the rainy season and floods ruined it. To add to their difficulties, the Indian Wars began not long after the ruined harvest, in 1856.

During the Indian Wars, the Judsons were secured within the walls of Claquato stockade. At this point, too, Mrs. Judson was given a musket, and proudly learned how to use it “…in defense of my home and country….” She was a supporter of women’s rights, and was bolstered by the bravery of a woman killed in the White River Massacre, Mrs. King, “…whom, it was said, shot and killed two Indians while fighting to save her husband’s life….”
This shows that while Phoebe Judson was friendly with the Indians, she was as frightened as everyone else when the hostilities began. Her experience was that while most of the local natives were friendly, some were joining the hostile Indians in the area and made it so that the settlers became uncertain about the Indians’ motives.
When the Indians began to show unusual interest in the settlers’ personal belongings including rifles, the settlers were able to find out through the Indian wives of some of the white settlers that an inventory had been taken of the property to be divided up once they had dispatched the white owners.

After the hostilities subsided, the Judsons moved to the town of Olympia, opened a dry goods store, and rented a genuine frame house for a time. This allowed them a social life, neighbors, church gatherings, and the sort of events they missed from their life in Ohio.
Unfortunately for the Judsons, the Indian Wars staunched the tide of emigration, caused a depression, resulting in financial failure for the dry goods store. It was 1864, and the country was focused on the imminent Civil War. The settlers in the Pacific Northwest were left to fend for themselves. Phoebe’s sister Lucretia seemed to be having good fortune in California, and they were discussing a move there when the news of her sister and brother-in-law’s murders by plunderers ended that idea.

Shortly after this event, a man visited from the Nooksack Valley, near the Canadian border. Colonel Patterson, whose Indian wife ran off a hired hand, leaving the Colonel with two small children, approached the Judsons about caring for his little girls. He described his home with such exuberance that not only did they agree to take in the two half-breed girls, but to move with them to the Nooksack River area to start anew.

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