Lyman's history of old Walla Walla County, embracing Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield and Asotin counties . ri,while the mother was probably also born in tjiat state. William Tomjikins diedwhen his son Richard was a youth of fourteen years. He was the fourth in afamily of eight children and at seventeen years of age he took charge of the homefarm, which he managed until he reached his twenty-fourth year, when a youngerbrother became old enough to take care of the mother. Then our subject, in thespring of 1887, made his way westward to Washington. Here he entered theemploy of A. C. Wellman on th
Lyman's history of old Walla Walla County, embracing Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield and Asotin counties . ri,while the mother was probably also born in tjiat state. William Tomjikins diedwhen his son Richard was a youth of fourteen years. He was the fourth in afamily of eight children and at seventeen years of age he took charge of the homefarm, which he managed until he reached his twenty-fourth year, when a youngerbrother became old enough to take care of the mother. Then our subject, in thespring of 1887, made his way westward to Washington. Here he entered theemploy of A. C. Wellman on the Eureka Flats, Mr. Wellman having been an oldfriend of his father in Missouri. During the first summer he worked for adollar per day. The following summer he received thirty dollars per month,working for J. C. Painter, and that summer he purchased a team, harness andwagon and went to work on the construction of the \\ashington & ColumbiaRailroad. In the spring of 1889 Mr. Tompkins bought a quit claim deed to a preemptionof eighty acres, on which he filed as a preemption. He rigged up a fi\e horse. RICHARD .1 TllArPKlXS OLD WALLA WALLA COUNTY 715 gang plow, plowed his own place and then hired out to plow for others, utilizingall his time that summer and fall in that manner. In 1890 he bought eightyacres adjoining, proved up on the preemption and mortgaged the one hundred andsixty acres. He cultivated his farm and continued to work out for others duringthose hard times. In the summer of 1892 he kept account of the days which hedevoted to his own crop, and figuring his labor at the same price which he receivedwhen working for others, his wheat crop, which was a bounteous one, cost himin labor twenty-five cents per bushel and he hauled to market a mile and a half,where he received twenty-five and a half cents per bushel. The price of wheatcontinued low until 1896, selling from twenty-five to fifty cents per bushel, and thefour years from 1893 until 1896 inclusive were years of cro
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookidlymanshistor, bookyear1918
