Elizabeth Crawley Adkins Bushnell

Elizabeth Elizabeth Crawley Adkins was born 22 February 1831 in Howard County Missouri, the second daughter of James Adkins and Lucy Morgan.

Her father was James Adkins, born in 1763 in Virginia and her mother was Lucy Morgan, born about 1782 in Chesterfield County, Virginia.

James and Lucy Adkins held a land patent granted 1 April 1829, on Hunters Creek, west of Fayette, in Howard County, Missouri, adjacent to her maternal aunt and uncle, Elizabeth Richardson Morgan and Jonathan Crawley. Elizabeth was named after her aunt and uncle.

Her mother died in 1832, after giving birth to Elizabeth’s brother Joseph Edward Adkins; her thirteenth child.

In the spring of 1834, her father relocated to the area of Kirksville, Missouri.

In Kirksville, Elizabeth met James Addison Bushnell, born in New York to Connecticut natives Ursula Griswold Pratt and Daniel Edwin Bushnell. James Addison Bushnell had settled in the Kirksville, Missouri area in 1846, but worked in Hannibal, Missouri as a cooper, making barrels until he had saved enough money to purchase eighty acres of land in Adair County, Missouri. There he and Elizabeth married in September of 1849, and together, they built a home on this land.

Their first son, Charles Alvah Bushnell was born 26 March 1851. (They would later have six more children.)

By 1852, James Addison Bushnell had traveled to Oregon, and on to California.

Having done moderately well in California, he departed there for Missouri to get his family, only to be advised upon arriving by his brother-in-law Frank Adkins, that Elizabeth and Charles had already left for Oregon.

In the spring of 1853, Elizabeth had sold their Missouri farm and using a part of the proceeds, bought a team of three yoke of oxen and one yoke of cows. (Her brother-in-laws Jason and Corydon Bushnell provided a wagon.) She had set off with their son Charles Alvah Bushnell, along with her mother-in-law Ursula Griswold Pratt Bushnell, and her brother Edward Stringer Adkins to cross the plains to Oregon. She and her son were, notably, on the “Lost Wagon Train” which crossed the Cascades into via the Elliot Cutoff, and had to be rescued.

After the rescue, and arriving in Springfield, she and Alvah stayed with Isaac Briggs’ son Elias and his family, while her brother Edward and his wife Helen Augusta Bushnell Adkins (her husband’s sister), along with Elizabeth’s mother-in-law Ursula, and brother-in-laws Jason and Corydon, settled at Grand Prairie.

James Bushnell quickly retraced his travels from Missouri to New York, and traveled to Portland and on to meet them in Springfield in October of 1853.

James and Elizabeth build their first home in Oregon, settling on a donation land claim of 320 acres near Clear Lake in Lane County, and the following year put the house on runners to move it to a better location.

In November 1854, a daughter, Lucy Jennette was born. (Lucy grew up and married William McClure Pitney.) They are buried here in Luper Cemetery.

Around that time, Elizabeth and James went to work for Isaac Briggs’ son, Elias Briggs, in Springfield, James at the sawmill, and Elizabeth as a cook for six months. They returned home with two cows and supplies to fix up their house and farm. They were an industrious, hardworking pair.

In June of 1855, they were founding members of the “First Christian Church of Clear Lake” (known as The Grand Prairie Church) which met in Helen and Edward Stringer Adkins home. In July they became members of the Church of Christ.

That December James taught at the first school in their area, and by the next spring they had built the new Grand Prairie School House on Meadowview Road. There the Grand Prairie Church of Christ was reorganized and met until it moved to Clear Lake.

Elizabeth’s second daughter, Ursula Josephine, was born in September 1857, and in October 1859, a third daughter, Mary Elisabeth was born, only to die about two weeks later.

Then, Josephine contracted an infection (Erysipelas) and died in November 1859, following treatment with the wrong and poisonous medication by a local doctor.

In July 1860 William Francis Bushnell, known as Willie, was born, five years later, he died of pleurisy.

Daughter Helen Virginia Bushnell was born 24 May of 1862; she grew up and married Charles John Ehrman. They are also buried here in Luper Cemetery.

By 1864, James and Elizabeth were farming 800 acres, having bought out the Judkins family’s land claims near. Their fortunes were expanding.

In June of 1866, Elizabeth gave birth to her last son, George Addison “Addie” Bushnell.

That year, James and Elizabeth rented their home to Elizabeth’s brother James A. Adkins, and moved into a log house until building a new home across the road.

Spring of 1867 Elizabeth got wet while putting in the crops, and caught a bad cold which settled into her lungs—it was consumption. She spent the summer in the house, a good part of the time in bed, growing weaker, and died quietly the night of 2 January 1868 in Irving, Lane County, Oregon. James was devastated, and poignantly wrote later of losing her.

It was snowing furiously the night she died and by the fourth, the day of the funeral, the snow was four inches deep and full of water and as was the ground. It turned cold after this and snowed and froze and sleeted and snowed again until the snow was sixteen inches. The sleet then covered everything up with a glittering sheet of ice, and it was bitterly cold.

Elizabeth Crawley Adkins Bushnell was survived by her husband James, and their children Charles Alvah, Lucy Jennette, Helen Virginia, and George Addison.

She was laid to rest alongside her children, Ursula Josephine, Mary Elisabeth, and William Francis; Charles Alva would be buried with them in 1874 and George Addison in 1882.

James called Elizabeth a noble woman, who gave him her love without reserve; he stated “she stood by my side for nineteen years, through joy and sorrow without complaint or repining,” adding he expected to meet her in a better land.

According to the Northwest College of the Bible, James and Elizabeth Adkins Bushnell were instrumental in founding the Eugene Divinity School (Northwest Christian College). While they certainly laid the foundations, it was James second wife who wrote the checks.

James Addison Bushnell went on to become a prominent American businessman with a warehouse and extensive grain operations, and president of both Junction City Hotel and the Farmers’ and Merchants’ Bank. He died in April of 1912.