From Battlefield to Builder

How the town of Gifford was born

by Liv Stecker

James Oscar Gifford was born in Linden Michigan in 1843. Before his 20th birthday he was drafted into the Union Army to fight in the civil war. On November 29th, during the Battle of Mine Run in Orange County, Virginia, Gifford took a musket ball to the left thigh that shattered his femur. His leg was amputated above the knee in a field hospital in the fog and rain of late November and Gifford was discharged from the army after his recuperation the following spring.  

After the death of his first wife, James O. Gifford married Sarah Elizabeth Williams, and soon following the birth of their fifth child, only three of which were living, they loaded the family up into a covered wagon and moved west. In 1884, James and Sarah settled near Moscow, Idaho, where they remained until 1888. As they moved west, James drove a herd of horses along with them to sell in in the burgeoning communities where they were headed.

After a short time in Pullman and Hartline, Washington, the family once again moved in their wagons up the Columbia River to settle up north on the east side of the river along with two of James’ brothers. They built a homestead and began to farm the land, and in 1896, the first Gifford post office was established. James’ wife Sarah was the first postmistress in the mail room that they operated out of the mercantile store that James built.

During their time in Idaho and the Palouse, James and Sarah had had two more children. Their five children farmed with them, and as more families arrived in the picturesque setting along the river, fruit orchards were established. In 1891, the first school began a few miles outside of the town of Gifford, but it wasn’t until 1921 that a school was built in town. In 1898 the Gifford ferry was established for shuttling passengers across the Columbia river to Inchelium on the Colville Indian Reservation.

The family run mercantile was a social hub as the community grew up around it. James and Sarah gave away commemorative china plates to customers with dates and ornate images in the early 1900s. The first mail route in the area came in from Harvey, which was known as the Chalk Grade between Rice and Kettle Falls. Eventually, routes between Addy and Inchelium, as well as Davenport and Kettle Falls were established. The ferry service kept a steady stream of traffic through the little community, including miners and fruit growers.

Before James retired in 1916 from running his mercantile, he saw Gifford blossom into a bustling community with a hardware store, church, blacksmith shop, an IOOF (Independent Order of Odd Fellows) Hall, a pool hall, hotel, service station, and the ferry service. Three of his five children had married and settled in the area or nearby. His oldest son Elmer and wife Lula took over the mercantile when James retired, Lula replacing Sarah as the postmistress. Sarah passed away in 1918.

Ira and Lizzie, two of James and Sarah’s children, lived in Gifford with their parents but never married. The oldest of the Gifford’s daughters, Lutie, married a man named Francis Ward who was drowned accidentally when he came off his horse during a cattle drive across the winter. In 1929, the youngest of James and Sarah’s sons, David, was murdered by an unstable neighbor who was poisoning the creek with arsenic.  Elmer and Lula never had children, but David had two children, and daughter Lutie had four daughters with Francis Ward before his death.

David’s son Roland married Mary Anderson Gifford who became postmistress after Lula Gifford and retired from the Gifford post office in 1986. Several generations of James and Sarah’s grandchildren still live in around Washington state, many still near the Gifford area in Northeastern Washington.

James sold the property where he had constructed the IOOF Hall for $15.00 in 1925, one year before his death in 1926 at the age of 83. The civil war veteran was a member of the Grand Army of the Republic and attending regional gatherings, as well as his involvement in the IOOF.

In 1939, as work began on the Grand Coulee Dam, the town of Gifford was relocated to higher ground. At this time the remaining establishments that were moved included the store, post office and service station. The IOOF hall was moved and consolidated with the Rebekah Lodge and the Rice Lodge after the move, and it stands near the Gifford store still today. The Gifford Cemetery was also moved to Kettle Falls before the dam was completed.

For a man who lost a leg on a bloody Civil War battlefield before he was 21, James O. Gifford was a mover and shaker of his time, leaving behind a legacy of perseverance and tenacity. After suffering the loss of his leg, his first wife and two infants with his wife Sarah in Michigan, Gifford was a man on a mission. Leaving his excuses behind him, he took on  a cross country trek, driving horses and leading a covered wagon with a wife and three young children, including a new baby, to start a new life in the west. He planted the seeds for generations of pioneers in Stevens County, hard working families who have built our communities into what they are today.