1845: Simmons Party Settles in New Market

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The first American settlers in the area were a party led by Michael T. Simmons, who arrived by wagon train in October 1845 by way of the Columbia River.

The Simmons’ party included George Washington Bush, Simmons’ African American neighbor from Missouri.   The original intent of settling in the Willamette Valley in Oregon was altered because the populous in Oregon had passed a edict restricting settlement of "Persons of color" in the valley.  An act of racism allows for the settlement of the Puget Sound by Americans, and provides the basis for a US Claim to the territory some years later.

The migrants survived that first winter with help from the Hudson’s Bay Company outpost at Nisqually. 

Simmons built a sawmill and a grist mill at the falls of the Deschutes, which he called New Market to announce that there was an economic alternative to the Hudson’s Bay Company.

New Market became Tumwater, after the Native American name for the area, in the 1860s.