THE FIRST WHITE SETTLERS OF HIGH PRAIRIE

IN 1877, Mr. Chester Parshall, and a young man named John Varker, started out from California, to go farther north and find a location for a new home. They came by wagon to The Dalles, Oregon. They went to the top of the Columbia Mountains, on the Washington side of the Columbia River, to see what they would find beyond.

They stood there atop the mountain and looked over into what was later called High Prairie. It was a land about ten miles square, hills and canyons and valleys, with timber scattered around.

They saw a most beautiful land.

They talked it over between themselves and decided that that was where they wanted to make their homes.

Mr. Parshall built a log cabin to house his family. Mr. Varker had no family, as yet. The Parshall place had high hills, low bottom land, timber and water - all that could be asked for.

Soon after the cabin was built, Mrs. Parshall and her children came The children were Mary, Hattie, Carrie, Lyman, Janie, Wilburt and Grace. Some years after the family came to Washington, Asa was born.

Mary soon became Mrs. Varker, and these young people made a home for themselves on a homestead in the neighborhood, I believe these were the first two houses built on High Prairie, except a log cabin which a bachelor had built down at the foot of the mountain. This bachelor did not stay many years.

Other settlers came and finally a post office was established. When the question of a name for the post office came up several names were suggested. Wildcat, was one, but Mr. Parshall was persistent in wanting to call it Hartland. He had come from Hartland in his native state. So the name was given to the post office, but the neighborhood was called High Prairie. The post office was, for several years, in the tiny log cabin home of
the Parshalls, with Mr. Parshall as postmaster. At first mail came only once a week, but in later years, there was daily mail.

In the last few years, the post office at Hartland has been discontinued and the people of High Prairie get their mail through Lyle.

Tragedy met the Parshall family, and other families, in those early years. Both scarlet fever and diptheria broke out among the children of the neighborhood, taking the lives of nine of the little ones who had been so hopefully brought to their new homes in a new land. Among those taken was the small daughterg of the Parshalls, Hattie, and she was laid to rest, along with the other wee victims.

And so the cemetery on High Prairie was established.

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