After an illness of three months, Tillman Houser, one of the first pioneers of the valley and said to be the first man who drove a team across the Snoqualmie Pass, died early yesterday morning at his home on east Second Street. Mr. Houser was 78 years old and shortly after the new year he suffered a general breakdown from which it was known that he could not recover.
Mr. Houser was born in Monroe County, Pennsylvania in 1840 of Pennsylvania Dutch parentage. He served for three years in the Civil War in the Seventeenth Pennsylvania calvary and at the close of his service went to California and thence to the Sound country. After farming for six years near Renton, Washington, he drove across the Snoqualmie Pas to the Kittitas Valley, slashing a trail most of the way and successively took two homesteads near Ellensburg. Many losses and hardships beset the Houser in the early days of their stay here but after the seventies, Mrs. Houser was able to accumulate several tracts of land an herds of stock. Since 1901 the family have lived in Ellensburg.
Mr. Houser was married in 1860 in Pennsylvania, his wife dying in July 1916. About a year ago Mr. Houser was married again to Mrs. Bertha Dalson. Five children of the first marriage are living: Mrs. Thomas King, Mrs. C. C. Churchill and Harrison, Clarence, Pernina, and Alva Houser who now lives at Conrad, Montana. All the other children live in Ellensburg. A brother, Josiah, lives near Spokane and a sister, Susan in Nebraska.
The funeral will be held at the Presbyterian Church tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock. Rev. W. B. Young will officiate and burial will be in the Odd Fellows Cemetery.
