The Panther, the Mail Route and the Ox Team: A Frontier Preacher's Long Road to Walla Walla

Rev. A. W. Sweeney, one of the best known pioneers of the Walla Walla valley, died this morning at 4 o'clock, at the residence of his son, Samuel B. Sweeney. For some time the deceased had been afflicted with consumption, which was the ultimate cause of his death.

Mr. Sweeney was born January 25, 1825, at Savannah, Tenn., near where the famous battle of Shiloh, or Pittsburg Landing, was fought during the civil war. While he was yet under five years of age his parents moved across the Mississippi and settled where Fayetteville, Ark., is now situated, within a few miles of Indian Territory. Here he received his first lesson at the parental knee, schools not being convenient. His father designed that he should be educated for the legal profession. About 1833 his father, who had a contract to carry the United States mail, was stricken with illness and the boy, then eight years of age, took his place on a route about 100 miles in length, through a country infested by wild beasts, with one of which, a panther, the boy had an exciting and serious experience. He in turn was stricken with the fever. The father died, but the boy recovered to face the world as an orphan. In 1839 he came under the influence of a great religious awakening at a campmeeting held near his home and was there converted. From that time his life was marked by earnest and definite purposes. He worked on the farm a portion of the year and availed himself of the opportunities afforded by a school of high grade which had grown up in his locality. Here he prepared himself for the sophomore year in college and in 1848 entered Cumberland College, at Princeton, Ky., where he remained until 1850. Previous to this, when about 18 years of age, he had decided to enter the ministry in the Cumberland Presbyterian church and was licensed to preach on the frontier. After leaving college in 1850 he was ordained to the whole work of the ministry and at once started for the gold camps in California, coming across the plains with an ox team.

He arrived at Gold Camp on the American river August 26, 1850. He spent a year among the miners doing some labor in the mines and preaching usually on Sundays. In 1851 he came to the Willamette valley in Oregon and spent about seven years actively engaged in the ministry. July 15, 1852, he was united in marriage to Miss Evangeline Allen of Oregon, who, with their son, S. B. Sweeney, and their daughter, Mrs. John L. Sharpstein, both of this city, survives him.

In 1858 he returned to California hoping the change would benefit his health. While there he was engaged in teaching, first at Sonora, and later near Stockton. In 1862 he followed the "trek" of the miners to Idaho and spent about three years mining and preaching and then went again to the Willamette valley.

In 1870 he came to the Walla Walla country and located at Waitsburg. In this locality he did much pioneer evangelistic work, preaching often at Walla Walla, Waitsburg and Dayton, besides at many points in the schoolhouses of the early settlers. He was dignified but modest and unassuming. He gave thirty-five years fully to the ministry on the frontier and received much less than half a support for himself and family, his faithful wife earning the balance by unremitting toil at home while he ministered to the public good.