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Samuel James, his wife Anna (Foxwell) James, and their four sons left Cornwall, England, for America in 1842. In England they were successful farmers and landowners, who emigrated more for political and philosophical reasons than because of economic hardship.

The James family first stayed in a Cornish settlement near Racine, Wisconsin, in the summer of 1842. They lived there for seven years, but it is clear from the name they chose for their fifth son, Richard Oregon, born in 1846, that the Oregon country had already caught their fancy. The extremes of climate in Wisconsin, which caused the children to be ill much of the winter, as well as published accounts of the good life (and mild weather) in Oregon, eventually motivated the famly to journey westward.

The journey was undertaken in two stages. Setting out in October, 1850, the family spent the winter in Dudley, Iowa. There they prepared for their Oregon Trail journey. They resumed travel in April of 1851 and arrived at their destination on September 9 of the same year.

The family's first Oregon homestead was on the Clackamas River near Milwaukie, Oregon. Damp weather, poor pasturage, and a return of the illness experienced in Wisconsin encouraged them to seek a better location the following year. On October 12, 1852, they settled at Grand Mound Prairie on the Chehalis River, northwest of present-day Centralia, Washington.

The family prospered at Grand Mound Prarie and got along well with the native Chehalis Tribe. During the Indian wars of 1855 and 1856 (which involved tribes other than the Chehalis), they found it necessary, with other local white settlers, to construct a stockade, which was called Fort Henness.

In 1859, Samuel and his grown sons established new homesteads at Lone Rock (now known as James Rock) on Grays Harbor, at the mouth of the Chehalis River in Washington. They travelled frequently between the homesteads.

Samuel James died in 1866 at the age of 61. Anna Maria died 13 years later at the age of 73. Their children and descendents continued to live and prosper in the settlement which became known as Jamestown, situated between the present-day Washington towns of Rochester and Grand Mound.