McMicken, William, 1827-1899

American pioneer family.

The 1878 wedding of Herbert McMicken and Helen Parker links together the five pioneer families represented in the collection: the McMickens, the Parkers, the Ostranders, the Wells, and the Hays. (Rowena Wells married Jared Ostrander, their daughter Rowena married William McMicken, their Son Herbert married Helen Parker (who was a descendent of Gilmore Hays), and their daughter Maude married H.L. Tibbals.) John G. Parker lived in Olympia, Washington, and spent his life serving as master, pilot, or purser of several steamboats. Gilmore Hays practiced law in Missouri, served in the Mexican-American War, and moved his family west to live in a non-slave state. On their 1852 trip west, his wife and three sons died of cholera, and his herd of cattle died that winter. He joined his family in Olympia where he was elected to the territory's first Legislature, and he served in the Indian war in 1855. William McMicken was a lawyer, an officer of the 10th Minnesota Volunteers in the Civil War, worked for the Northern Pacific Railroad, and served as Surveyor General of the Washington Territory. Maurice McMicken practiced law with a Seattle firm, and among his most prominent clients were several of the large mill companies on Puget Sound. Helen Parker McMicken worked hard as a homemaker in Olympia, but her family had difficulty scraping together enough money to survive. She contributed to the family's income by selling her artwork to tourists and for calendars, and her husband Herbert eventually found a steady job in the surveyor general's office.

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