TOM WOOLDRIDGE holds the State of Washington certificate declaring John Pollock’s gravesite an historic location. Photo courtesy of La Center Historical Museum
JOHN POLLOCK’S gravestone draws the attention of Tom Wooldridge, who has owned land on the former La Center pioneer’s homestead for 37 years. Photo courtesy of La Center Historic Museum
A SIMPLE STONE has marked the grave of La Center pioneer John Pollock since 2009, when his great-granddaughter Roberta Ferguson Emerick and Tom Wooldridge put it there. Photo courtesy of La Center Historic Museum
He was a relative of U.S. President James Polk. He worked as an Indian agent in the Oregon Territory at the age of 24. Later, he served as a Washington Territory legislator.
Yet, many Clark County residents haven’t heard of La Center pioneer James Pollock, who was born in County Monahan, Ireland, in 1824 and died on his North County homestead in 1868. That could change now that Pollock’s gravesite in front of Pollock Road and the East Fork Lewis River has been listed on the Washington Heritage Register of Historic Places.
Tom Wooldridge, vice president of the La Center Historical Museum’s Board of Directors, appeared before the Washington State Department of Archaeology and History Preservation last month to ask for the designation.
The request was granted and Wooldridge recently announced the designation. Barbara Barnhart, president of the La Center Historical Museum, said members of the public may view the site on Pollock Road where a sign stating “Historic Gravesite” marks the location just beyond the south end of the La Center Bridge.
Wooldridge wasn’t aware of the Washington Heritage Register until fairly recently. He said he began efforts to include the gravesite on the register “as soon as I found out there was such a thing.”
He has owned the former homestead for 37 years. The covenant requires whoever owns the property to care for the gravesite in perpetuity, which lifelong history buff Wooldridge has been happy to do.
He and Pollock’s great-granddaughter, Roberta Ferguson Emerick, put a tablet-style grave marker on the spot in 2009. The marker is simply inscribed “John Pollock 1824 – 1868” and has an image of a sternwheeler boat traveling into the distance.
Pollock was the son of Scottish immigrants, according to information on the Washington Heritage Register, and his parents departed from Belfast, Ireland, when he was just 4 days old, on a voyage to New York.
Pollock became an attorney, practiced law in Des Moines, IA, and was active in Democratic Party politics. He was summoned to Washington, D.C., by first cousin President Polk in 1848 to be offered an appointment as Indian agent in the Oregon Territory, which Pollock accepted. His job included studying Native Americans of the Lewis River area and promoting understanding between the tribes and increasing number of settlers.
Pollock’s first wife died in childbirth, but in 1857 he married her 15-year-old sister. They built a house on the Lewis River homestead and had three children.
His community stature rose when he was chosen as a member of the House of Representatives from Clark County in the 13th and 14th sessions of the Washington Territorial Legislature. Traveling in the dead of night back home from Olympia in 1868, Pollock caught a cold that turned into pneumonia and he died on Feb. 6 at the age of 44.
