Washington County Oregon
2006 Pioneer Certificate Awarded for

Samuel Butler Raffety and Mary Jane Hoover Raffety

SAMUEL BUTLER RAFFETY and MARY JANE HOOVER RAFFETY

Rod Wilson, Lake Oswego
Alma I (Raffety) Wilson
Rodney Aaron Wilson
Brian Eric Wilson
Bryan Malcom Wilson
Aaron Joshua Wilson
Melinda E. Mellom
Honoring their Pioneers - Samuel Butler Raffety and Mary Jane Hoover Raffety

    Samuel Butler Raffety was born in 1815.   He arrived in Oregon in 1852, the year noted for the numbers lost to cholera. He and his wife, Mary Hoover Raffety, started for Oregon with their 5 children and 58 other wagons.   Mr. Raffety was chosen to be the captain.   Arriving in 1844 he took a land claim of 320 acres on Dairy Creek, about 8 miles north of Hillsboro, what we now call Mountaindale, and resided there until his death in 1892.   In Oregon three more children were added to the five.

    The five sons were educated at Forest Grove:   Charles graduated from the medical department of Willamette University in 1869.   He went to East Portland where he and brother David, set up a drug store at Oak and 1st Streets, and Charles practiced his profession.   Charles became the first mayor of East Portland, then separate from the west side of the river and was on the Portland water board for 18 years.

    David returned to school and graduated from Willamette University Medical School in Portland In 1880 and set up a joint practice with his brother at 368 E. Oak Street, Portland.   David was an ardent collector of Indian artifacts and minerals.   His Pacific University class of 1867 placed a 1635 pound petrified stump on the campus to mark the position of the log cabin built by William Gibson for the use of Tabitha Brown's Orphan Asylum.   In 1815, David donated a collection of 5,000 different specimens of rock formation and an invaluable collection of Indian relics, all carefully labeled and described, to Brooklyn School, an east side Portland grade school.   David was also one of the Commissioners for the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition.

    Jacob Christopher Raffety was the youngest son of Samuel Raffety,and this is the line leading to our recipients.   He was an ardent, all season, hunter, and in his old age invited the boys to carry him to the top of the hill where he could see to shoot a deer.   When he did shoot one he waited for the postman to come help him carry it.   He was a farmer and when he reached about 60 he began renting out sections and selling off parts of is land to maintain his retirement, dying in January 1947, age 87.


Web page last updated 10 Feb 2020         

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