James W. Nesmith, born in New Brunswick, Canada on July 23, 1820, was among the first emigrants to trek the Oregon Trail in 1843. He filed a land claim near present day Monmouth in 1844, and the following year took part in the formation of Oregon’s Provisional Government.

Nesmith was elected to the Territorial Legislature in 1847, and was instrumental in the formation of Polk County. In 1853, Nesmith was appointed U.S. Marshall for the Oregon Territory and between 1857-59 he served as the region’s Superintendent of Indian Affairs. 1861-67 found Nesmith in the U.S. Senate, and the year 1873 saw him again in Washington, D.C. as Oregon’s Representative to Congress. James W. Nesmith died at his home near this site on June 17, 1885. He is buried in the family plot in Nesmith Historical Park along Rickreall Creek.

Wallowa Valley, summer homeland of the Joseph Band Nez Perce, was part of the expansive Nez Perce reservation established by the treaty of 1855. Upon discovery of gold in the region, the U.S. eliminated the reservation in the Wallowas in 1863.

The Joseph Band held on until 1877 when, under pressure from increasing white settlement, they were ordered to abandon their ancestral homeland. Violent conflicts ensued as the Joseph Band joined other Nez Perce and Palouse bands on a historic 1,170 mile retreat.

After five months of elusive flight, with his people exhausted, freezing and heavily outnumbered, Joseph in dignified surrender proclaimed: ‘from where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.’ With promises made by the generals at their surrender broken, the Nez Perce were never allowed to return home though Chief Joseph pleaded their case until his death in 1904.