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George Washington Hinkle was my great-grandfather. He came West, we have been told, when he was about 12 years old and lost his parents to cholera on the trip. It is said that he was raised by another family, names unknown. It is recorded in the annals of the Yakima Valley Chapter, No. 8 of the Daughters of the Pioneers of Washington that George did plant a fruit orchard in the Ahtanum Valley during 1868. We also know that he married a Sarah Emaline Cary, born in Marion County, Oregon and that they had eleven children, one of whom was my grandfather, Jay Gould Hinkle. A now deceased cousin, Florence R. Smith, did a great deal of this research. But she was not terribly successful in locating information on George Washington Hinkle, either in Washington state, the Morman records, the National Archives or Tennessee. It is my guess that George was probably in his 30s when he married Sarah in 1869 or 1870. It is the belief that he came West sometime in 1844-1848. He died in 1896 and Sarah married Arthur Hussey in 1900. My uncle, Jay Hinkle, who passed away June 2002, was also searching for information about George Washington Hinkle. It seems that the only time any portion of the family gets together these days is for funerals or remembrances of those who recently left us. It is also known that George and Sarah had 11 children and that at least four of them never had children. At least two of those also never married and it is possible that they died in California.
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