Father of 12 - Mrs. Ralph Riggs of Portland OR, James Loundagin of Chesaw WA, Mrs. Mollie Meinberg, Mrs. Eva Hoover, Pete Loundagin all of Waitsburg, W.J. Loundagin & Mrs. Seth Hester of Dayton WA, Lowson Loundagin of Idaho...Obit Columbia Chronicle, Dayton WA, 19 Jul 1911, Page 2 Col 3-4.
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George suffering rheumatism was not drafted and he joined the Emigrant train of 61 and after the war his brothers Jack and Rod followed west. All took up homesteads near Waitsburg. According to pioneers of 1861 up to 1860 there had been nothing of special interest to induce the emigrants to Seattle on the eastern slope of the Blue Mountains, the location of old Ft. Walla Walla. There were a few settlers along the streams. They raised some grain for their own use and sold a little to the Garrison, it being their only market. But in 1860 gold was discovered at Ori Fino then in Walla Walla co., now in Idaho, and along the Salmon River and other streams. Recorded in the Walla Walla Statesman of that date, the influx of Miners from California and Oregon put a new face upon everything, the parallel of which had never been known but twice in history. A market developed over night at enormous prices. And by 1861 pack trains of 225 animals were leaving Walla Walla weekly ladened with supplies for the miners.

On April the 15 of this same year an emigrant train of 60 wagons drawn by oxen, a few had horses, and some drove their milk cows yoked to wagons, rolled out of Arkansas onto the Oregon Trail. George W. Loundagin, the third son of John Loundagin directly from Ireland: was twenty nine years old and suffering from rheumatism, he could scarcely harness his oxen to the wagon but he had inherited an adventurous nature from his father and the spirit to do or die came from old Ireland. He was a sober minded, deep thinking man with a brave heart and he awkwardly climbed into his wagon with a wife and three small children and took his place in the wagon train for that long hazardous drive toward their goal: A home in the West. They had been on the road but a few days when his wife became travel sick and was confined to the bunk in the wagon but due to his disability she would get up to help with the care of the children and to harness the oxen. Soon good neighbors came to their side and they bravely forged along but they paid little attention to the country through which they passed nor to the incidental happenings along the way.

One interesting incident: An old lady hobbled along one evening seeing the wife unharnessing the oxen asked of young George why he allowed his sick wife to do such work. – he explained his rheumatical condition where upon she remarked, "Och, you sack up those hot ashes and sit on the sack," and she passed on. After the evening chores were done he did sack the hot ashes and found the hot application to the back of his knees and legs gave great relief.

Traveling was good and supplies plentiful till they reached the Platt River in Nebraska, and there they left civilization behind. Here small trains would wait to join with larger trains for they were entering No mans Land with no trading post and the fear of the Indians made it hazardous going. However they were never severely attacked but had many frightful experiences: Once it seemed disaster was to fall upon the camp when they brought fourth guns and bullet molds showing the Indians they made their own bullets and made believe they had wagons loaded with ammunition. The Indians held a short council and sent into retreat.

At Ft. Hall a part of the train took the California Trail to join relatives. The rest passed on to separate again at the top of the Blue Mountains. The story of the gold rush and the opportunities offered in the Walla Walla Valley attracted a number of the party and they turned through the Meecham Pass down the east side of the Blue Mountains. Twenty wagons in all. On October 31, 1861 they made camp at a little settlement of thirteen houses all on the same side of the street, which on November 7, 1859 had been given the name of Walla Walla with it's first city government and made the county seat of Walla Walla country which at that time took in all the territory in Idaho and a part of Montana. The emigrants were rejoicing. Here in the shadow of old Ft. Walla Walla where excitement ran high they decided to spend the winter. Here George Loundagin found himself at his journeys end with a family, a wagon, four oxen, and seventy-five cents in cash. He gave thanks. He had reached the west and his wife had survived the trip which held no pleasant memories for her. In later years she treasured an amber flask which she vowed held the elixir that saved her life, and that of the babe to be born. When going was rough and the Indians trailing on behind some good neighbor would mix a little toddy of the brandy which renewed her failing strength.

They located six miles south of Walla Walla in a poorly constructed cabin and here at the beginning of the hardest of all winters she gave birth to a nice baby girl on December 7. Again quoting the Walla Walla Statesman: In November of 1861 many miners left the Mountains where diggings paid better than ten dollars a day and returned to Walla Walla as a favorable place to spend the winter. Prices at Ori Fino were unbelievable, and the merchants refused to sell until the miners were on starvation. Flour was $25.00 a hundred, Coffee, none to be had. Sugar scarce and beef thirty cents a pound. Hence, the trek back to Walla Walla.

Such wonderful reports came from the mines that it started a tidal wave of excited fortune hunters and in view of this a large amount of live stock was driven into the Walla Walla country. Some calculating on raising produce to sell the coming season. But winter, the hardest ever known to the white man, came on and even the plains of sunny California was strewn with dead cattle by the tens of thousands. The winter began in December and ended the 22 of March. Prices in Walla Walla raised to exceed that of the Ori Fino. Flour $25.00, butter a dollar, a pound, eggs a dollar a dozen, and hay went to $125.00 a ton. The settlers never forgot that winter. It impoverished those who had to buy or stock to starve. Yet the merchant and miner, the emigrant and pioneer and the newly born babies all survived.

The spring of 1862 was a problem; all seed had been used to keep the stock from starving. In the fall of 1862 George Loundagin had located a homestead claim eighteen miles north of Walla Walla on the little stream of Copeeii near the town of Waitsburg, founded in 1866. He immediately built a log house, moved his family and set about improving his place. He followed freighting as it was the only means of earning money. This left the wife alone with the children. Many a night she saw roving stock or pack trains in the distance and she sat through the night thinking it was marauding Indians. One night there appeared at her door some miners and demanded lodging. She refused but they forced their way in and assured her she would not be harmed. They laid small sacks on the hearth, took off their guns and placed beside them and spread their bed before the fire, and lay down. She told them her husband was expected to return sometime during the night. They assured her they would not fire upon him. She retired behind the curtain and sat till morning. After she had served breakfast the miners opened a sack, handed her a good sized nugget and went their way.

In a few short years they built a ten roomed house, beautifully landscaped and planted several acres to commercial orchard. Starting with 160 acres he bought adjoining claims until he owned at retirement better than a thousand acres. He found the land would produce anything planted. So he built a mill, ordered the machinery from Massachusetts which was shipped around Cape Horn. The crops consisted of corn, wheat, barley, flax, and castor oil beans. He hired some help but the children went into the fields as they grew up and became builders of the great West. The Indians became his friends and in the fall of each year they came with their clan and bargained to harvest his corn, sometimes a thousand bushels or more, for $15.00, so many sacks of flour and pasture for 30 or 40 head of ponies. One old Indian returned and sat in silence by Loundagin's death bed and shed tears, then silently slipped away.
In the winter days and well into the night he operated the grist mill grinding a good grade of graham flour, corn meal and hominy. Rolled barley, caster oil and some linseed oil. The latter found ready sale among the farmers as oil was hard to get, and much machinery was coming into use. And feed was sorely needed.

Written by his daughter Cora B. Loundagin