Cassandra Arrasmith: Wife, Mother, Pioneer

In ancestry research, it can be very difficult to learn about your various grandmothers. Sometimes, you can’t even find a woman’s name- first and/or last. So, it can be particularly exciting when you find information that provides at least some view of the women in your family.

My fifth great grandmother, Cassandra Arrasmith (Crumpacker Wooley Tewalt) was a very strong and impressive woman, as far as I can tell. Born in Kentucky in 1823, her family moved to Missouri where she married William Crumpacker. In April 1862, William died at 44 years-old, leaving Cassandra with eight children (daughter Elizabeth had died by 1860) and pregnant with twin girls- Mary and Martha, who were born in July. I descend from Martha.

In the spring of 1864 Cassandra, with ten children ranging from 20 to 1.5, drove her own wagon west, to settle in the Walla Walla, Washington area. If you know of the labor involved in such an undertaking, (driving the wagon, cooking, sewing, laundry, protecting the animals, etc.) with no husband and toddlers, you’ll understand the degree to which this demonstrates that Cassandra was quite a remarkable woman. But knowing the state of Missouri in 1864 was not the place to be, with the Civil War raging on, so it’s understandable why she took the chance and brought her children to Washington Territory.

There are stories that Cassandra was killed by Indians on the wagon trail west, and I am not sure if she was attacked or what happened regarding any Indians, (yet, stay tuned) however she most certainly survived and made it to Washington Territory, first to the Walla Walla area, then Pomeroy. This is corroborated by Census records from 1870, 1880, records for Cassandra’s next two marriages, some of her children’s marriage records, and cemetery records. Some family information is also in a biography about Isaac Tewalt, contained in “An Illustrated History of Washington State,” by Harvey K. Hines.

Incidentally, Cassandra’s third husband was fellow two-time widower John Lewis Tewalt. His son Isaac married Cassandra’s daughter Martha October 8, 1878. Thus, John Lewis is my fifth great-grandfather and his second wife Celia Cox is another fifth great-grandmother. All of the ancestors mentioned here were laid to rest at the Pataha Flat Cemetery in Pomeroy, Washington.