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(More customer reviews)Prescott Wash. is a small town in the dry SE part of the state, about 20 miles N of Walla Walla, in Walla Walla Co. Linda Flathers Parsley's ancestors were among the early settlers. The presence of both mills to grind wheat and railroads to haul it to market opened up this remote section of Washington Territory. The author was born in Walla Walla and raised in Prescott. She must have started collecting historical material and pictures very young, and is related to many of the people she chronicles. This 400+ page book is a very professional job. It includes a 12 page list of cemeteries in and around Prescott, along with who is buried there. The two-page bibligraphy separated documents by books, family histories, etc. The index of people is 31 pages long. There is a plat map from the 1880s, and other maps of the area, and the endpapers show an overall topographical map of the area, including other smaller towns.
This is of course a highly specialized book. My father was born in Prescott, and I hoped to find his parents there. They were not, though his grandfather, who owned a mercantile store in Prescott for many years, was mentioned several times before his move to Walla Walla. The extended family of my second cousins was prominent in the book, as they had a hardware store and were postmasters, and stayed in Prescott. These cousins are now trying to find copies.
My intent when I got a copy from InterLibrary Loan was to look my immediate family up in the index and let it go at that. But I got so enthralled with how this little town came to be, that I ended up reading it from cover to cover. I was intrigued with how hard it was to harvest wheat with a combine and up to 40 mules on steep hillsides. I was fascinated at how intermarried families became in a town that seems never to have had a population of over 3000. I was used to that from the 1600s in Dutch Schenectady NY. It was fascinating to find the same situation in another isolated small town on the other side of the continent 250 years later.
So whether you have family in this little town or not, this is an interesting piece of American history. Strongly recommended. You'll get pulled in.
Click Here to see more reviews about: DANCING WITH MULES: A history of northern Walla Walla County, Washington, 1858-2000
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