Anna B. (Sconce) Canfield
Sept. 14, 1908; Oregonian, p 5
"Death Ross in Northwest"
Hood River, Or., Sept. 13
 
   Mrs. Anna B. Canfield, one of Hood River's best-known residents and an Oregon pioneer of 1852, died at her residence here last night, after a long illness.  Mrs. Canfield was born in Danville, Ill., in 1850, and with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Sconce, crossed the plains in 1852.  Her first place of residence in Oregon was at The Dalles, where her father died in 1856.

   In 1858 her mother was married to Colonel Zeba, and accompanying him, they went to live on Whidby Island, near Olympia.  Shortly afterward their cabin was attacked by Indians and Colonel Zeba was murdered, her mother escaping with Mrs. Canfield into the woods, where they lived for several days until they were rescued.  They then returned to Oregon, where Mrs. Canfield's mother again married, taking as her husband an army surgeon named Dr. Bell, and for several years they lived at McMinnville.

   On the death of her mother Mrs. Canfield went to live with P. F. Bradford, of Portland, one of the first steamboat men to navigate the Upper Columbia river.  A few years later she went to Holyoke, Mass., where she was educated, and was afterward married to Henry G. Canfield in New York City.  On the death of her husband, which occurred in 1889, Mrs. Canfield returned to Portland, where she lived for two years and then came to Hood River.  Her association with many of the prominent early families of the state caused her to be well known in Oregon, as did also her long affiliation in church work.
 
 
Sept. 16, 1908; Oregonian, p 8
"Certain Pioneer Reminiscences"

   The memoir of Mrs. Anna B. Canfield, a pioneer of Oregon, who died at Hood River September 12, as published in The Oregonian of Monday last, contained an error which it is well to correct.  It was stated that Mrs. Canfield's mother, in 1858, married "Colonel Zeba," who was murdered by Indians "shortly afterwards" on Whidbey Island, in Puget Sound.  By "Colonel Zeba" Isaac N. Ebey was meant.  In the early time he was widely known in the Oregon Country as Colonel Ebey.  The mother of Mrs. Canfield was his second wife, who was a widow when Ebey married her.  Her first husband's name was John Sconce, who came to Oregon over the plains in 1852, and soon after died.  Ebey's first wife died in 1853.  She was the first white woman on Whidbey Island.  Ebey married Mrs. Sconce in Oregon and continued his residence on Whidbey Island, where he was murdered by Indians on the night of August 11, 1857 (not 1858).  This was a year after the close of the Indian war of 1855-56, in the Puget Sound country.  The murderers were believed to be a party of Indians from the north, who were marauding in the Lower Sound, and had been fired on in their canoes by the United States steamer Massachusetts and some of them killed.  For revenge, it is supposed, some of them landed on Whidbey Island, shot and killed Ebey, cut off his head, plundered the house and then fled.  The family escaped, but the murderers never were overtaken.

   Ebey came to Oregon in 1848, but next year went to the gold mines of California, where he was moderately successful, and whence he soon returned.  In company with him were Sylvester, who took for his "claim" the site of Olympia, and B. F Shaw, who recently died at Vancouver.  They came in the brig Orbit, from San Francisco to Puget Sound.  Ebey suggested to Sylvester the name Olympia for his town.  Washington had not yet been set off from Oregon, and Ebey was active in territorial politics.  He came to the capital, then Oregon City, and was elected by the Legislature, Prosecuting Attorney for the Puget Sound district.  Active among those who were pushing for the division of the territory, he took part in the celebration of the Fourth of July, 1851, at Olympia, where the chief feature was an effort in the direction of a new territory, and in the following month he participated actively in a convention held at Cowlitz Landing (August 29, 1851) to push the undertaking.  In 1852 he was member from Thurston County in the Oregon Legislature.  No county had as yet been organized in the country of the Lower Sound; but Pierce and King were created by this Legislature, which proposed to honor itself and the territory of Oregon by naming the new counties for the Democratic candidates for President and Vice-President, then just elected.  Thurston County had previously been named for the first Delegate in Congress from Oregon---Samuel R. Thurston---who had died (April 9, 1851) off Acapulco, Mexico, on his return journey to Oregon.  The bill for creation of this county first proposed the name of Simmons---for Michael T. Simmons, the most conspicuous perhaps of the first pioneers of that section; but the death of Thurston caused the county to be named as a memorial to him.

   Mrs. Canfield, then Emily Sconce, and her mother, Mrs. Ebey, escaped from the Indians who murdered Colonel Ebey---probably because the Indians did not desire to kill them, but were bent only on the murder of Ebey himself, through revenge; ---not indeed that he had harmed them, but because he was a conspicuous man and was sought as a victim of their retaliatory rage.  The Indians disappeared into the waters of British Columbia, and never were identified.

   Had Ebey lived he most probably would have borne an important part in the later affairs of the Territory and State of Washington.