"Illustrated History of Lane County, Oregon." Portland, Oregon: A. G. Walling,
publisher, 1884.  pg. 491.
 
LESTER HULIN
     The subject of this sketch, a view of whose homestead appears in this work,
was born in Saratoga county, on the shores of Round lake, town of Malta and
state of New York, March 22, 1823.  Here he received his education and grew to
manhood.  In the year 1844 he proceeded to Henry county, Iowa, and in the spring
of 1845, at St. Louis, met Fremont and Col. Ebert, and with them engaged to join
an exploring expedition through Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Northwestern
Texas, the Indian Territories, and back to St. Louis.  In Colorado the
expedition was divided, Ebert taking charge of one party with Fitzpatrick as his
guide.  With it went Mr. Hulin.  After encountering many an adventure by flood
and field, many a hair-breadth escape from man and beast, in the fall of the
year 1845 he returned to St. Louis, but not long after moved to Iowa and there
made his home until the spring of 1847.  At this time he started for Oregon by
way of the plains, leaving St. Jo, Missouri, and having had the necessary
experience, was at once selected to place guards and select camping grounds for
the company with which he traveled.  The journey was not attended by any
remarkable occurrences other than in a brush with the Indians Miss Ann Davis,
now the wife of C. Hendrick's, who has the ferry of his name on the McKenzie
river, received two arrow wounds; and old Uncle Isaac Briggs, now a resident of
Springfield, received a severe scalding by falling through an active mud spring
at Black Rock.  Arriving in Oregon by the southern route in 1847, Mr. Hulin in
the first instance worked in Corvallis, but in the month of December of that
year came to Lane county and took up the claim now owned by John B. Fergueson on
Long Tom river.  From January to July, 1848, he was engaged in the Cayuse war;
in September he went to the gold mines of California, and operated between the
South and Middle Forks of the American river, there passing the winter.  In
July, 1849, he proceeded to San Francisco with the purpose of returning to
Oregon, and therefore took passage on the schooner "Hackstaff," there being on
board besides, C. J. Hills, C. Mulligan and James Chapin, all well-known
pioneers of Lane county.  Sailing from the Bay City on the twentieth of July,
for the first eight days they experienced strong gales and a rough sea,
succeeded for another period of eight days by dead calms, an unlooked for length
of time that caused them to run short of water.  To supply this want, the
master, when off Rogue river, determined to run in to the shore, rather than
float casks to the fresh stream, in doing which the schooner was stranded on the
bar.  Our subject and his co-voyagers now landed and took their way homewards on
foot, arriving at the settlements in the Willamette valley after an arduous
journey of twenty-four days.  At the end of the three weeks Mr. Hulin returned
to California, overland, and there remained until about January 1, 1850, when he
returned by water to Portland, per bark "Ann Smith," George Flanders, master.
At this period he came to Lane county, took up a claim situated three miles and
a half from Junction City, in a southeasterly direction, where he maintained a
continuous residence until the time of his establishing a domicile in Eugene
City in September, 1881, still, however, retaining his farm.  Mr. Hulin has made
two visits to the home of his youth, once over the line of the Central Pacific
railroad, in 1871, and again, in 1884, by the Northern Pacific railroad.  He
married, December 1, 1853, Abbie J. Craig, a native of Jackson county, Michigan,
and has four children, viz:  Charles S., Anna, now Mr. Tozer, Samuel Addison and
Lester Gilbert.
 
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Submitted to the Oregon Bios. Project in May 2005 by Diana Smith.  Submitter
has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned above.