Antoine Etienne and Entiat Peaches
- grannydalgas
- Feb 7
- 5 min read
We need a special story for this month of February. It has been so very overcast, and the dire news so very oppressive. I think we are all cognizant that we are living in a time of great change and great challenge. We can gain encouragement from those who have been through other times of darkness. Also, just the thought of summer peaches, which make an early appearance here in Entiat thanks to the protagonist in this story brings warmth and sunshine to dreary days.
In honor of Black History Month, I am sharing a story from Entiat's early history that has much left to piece together; that of Antoine Etienne, a black man who was mining, gardening and growing peaches in Entiat in 1868. His story is one of courage and resourcefulness during a time of intense hardship and overwhelming injustice for blacks in America. There are several references to Antoine Etienne in early accounts from various sources that contain elements that help to untangle the various threads of his life.
Much thanks to Phyllis Griffith for her research which I read with great interest.
A source that has the most well-researched information is this blog post written by Don Schaechtel in 2022 for the Washington Native Plant Society.
I am also including here a YouTube link from the WNPS that is an interview with Don Schaechtel about Antoine Etienne.
Because there are so few documents specifically detailing Antoine's life, I turned to AI (Microsoft's Copilot) to understand the conditions in the country at that time and what life might have been like for a young black multilingual man traveling west during the Gold Rush of 1849. Antoine eventually landed and lived in Entiat for a brief period, possibly between 3 to 5 years, around the mid-1860s. Here is the narrative for which I humbly admit I merely copied from AI after I made a number of pointed questions that I thought were relevant. I do find AI a very helpful resource in certain circumstances and I hope you will forgive me the shortcut and offer your thoughts and comments.
Antoine Etienne’s story begins far from the mountains of Washington State. Born on March 28, 1832, in Lincoln County, Missouri, he grew up in a slave state where even free Black families lived under harsh laws and constant threat. Missouri newspapers of the time warned that Black youth might be carrying forged “free papers,” and boys like Antoine could be stopped, questioned, or even kidnapped. For a mixed‑heritage child of African, Spanish, and French ancestry, the risks were especially high.
At seventeen, Antoine made a decision that would shape the rest of his life. In April 1849, he left Missouri “via the Plains,” joining the great westward migration. Like many young men of the time, he likely worked as a teamster or laborer on the Oregon Trail — one of the few roles open to Black travelers.
By the 1850s, Antoine was living near The Dalles in Oregon Territory. He worked as a miner and laborer and became known for his language skills and his ability to move comfortably among different cultural groups. In 1856, during the conflict known as the Cascade Attack, he warned settlers of danger and later served in Wilbur’s Company B of the Oregon Volunteers. He was 24 years old when he took part in this militia service.
Antoine next appears in the record in 1860, mining at Peshastin Creek, where he reportedly took out $1,100 in gold — a remarkable sum for the time. But it was in 1868 that he became part of the story of the Entiat Valley. That year, he was placer mining along the river and tending peach trees, showing both horticultural skill and access to irrigation. He lived near Chilcosahaskt, the chief of the Entiat Tribe, and according to a story preserved by the chief’s descendants, Antoine became a familiar figure in the community. The story goes that he “took too much interest” in the chief’s daughters, who were considered too young, and the chief eventually asked him to leave. This anecdote — humorous, human, and deeply local — shows that Antoine was woven into the daily life of the valley, not living on its margins.
When Antoine left Entiat, he did not take his peach trees with him. According to the WNPS article, Chief Chilcosahaskt may have continued to care for the trees after Antoine’s departure, tending the small orchard that Antoine had started along the river. This detail — quiet, tender, and rooted in community memory suggests respect, familiarity, and a shared connection to the land.
After leaving Entiat, Antoine moved upriver to a tributary of Peshastin Creek. That creek would eventually bear his name — but not until long after his lifetime. For decades, the stream was known by a racial slur, later softened to “Negro Creek” in the 1960s. In 2009, after research and advocacy by Washington Native Plant Society member David Douglas and the Washington State Committee on Geographic Names, the creek was officially renamed Etienne Creek to honor Antoine’s real identity rather than a label based on race. The renaming was part of a broader effort to recognize Black pioneers whose stories had been overlooked or distorted.
Antoine continued mining and working throughout central Washington and Oregon. By 1870, he was listed in the census as a farm laborer near The Dalles. In the decades that followed, he eventually settled near Prosser, where he planted another orchard. A Prosser pioneer later recalled seeing him walking miles to town with two buckets of peaches balanced on a yoke across his shoulders — a vivid image of a man who lived by his own labor, skill, and independence.
Antoine was also known for something quieter but equally revealing: his beautiful handwriting. According to the WNPS article, he kept journals throughout his life, recording his experiences, observations, and travels. Sadly, those journals were lost in a fire, leaving only the memories of those who had seen his elegant script and the stories preserved by others. The loss of his writings is one of the great gaps in his history — a reminder of how easily the lives of Black pioneers could vanish from the written record, even when they tried to preserve their own stories.
Antoine Etienne died in 1904 at the age of 72 and is buried in Tahoma Cemetery in Yakima. His life spanned slavery, westward expansion, frontier conflict, and the early settlement of central Washington. He lived among Native communities, worked alongside Chinese miners, served in a militia, planted orchards in places where few others had tried, and left a legacy that is still visible on the map today.
The creek that once carried a racial slur now carries his name — Etienne Creek — a small but meaningful recognition of a man whose story reflects courage, adaptability, and the diverse history of the Pacific Northwest.
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