102 Rhodora [Jurv, 
Ronde River past Union, where he spent his last days. From there 
they followed the “Oregon Trail" through the Blue Mountains to 
Walla Walla, then down the south bank of the Columbia River. They 
settled near Kingston, Linn County, Oregon. 
In this new home, he continued his schooling. When he was 20 
years old he went to the Lacreole Academy at Dallas in Polk County, 
where he continued his studies for a year and a half. Then for two 
years young Cusick himself taught school. The succeeding year he 
returned to the same academy. In 1864 he went to Willamette 
University where he was enrolled as a Junior. Here he studied mathe- 
matics, higher algebra, physics, and geology. After finishing this 
year at college, he enlisted as a volunteer in the Union Army. He 
was assigned to the Quartermaster Corps, and was stationed at Fort 
Lapwai, Idaho. Later he was transferred to a camp near Ukiah, 
Umatilla County, Oregon, and then to Camp Polk, near Sisters, 
Crook County, Oregon. “In *65 (summer of) I was “soldiering” in 
those (Blue) Mt'ns and we found these onions (A. Geyer?) a valuable 
addition to our stock of ‘Bacon + beans'." Mr. Cusick told the 
writer about this part of his life. There was httle for a soldier to do 
at this isolated fort, and time hung heavy on his hands. 
Through a friend in Portland, Oregon, he obtained a copy of Dr. 
Asa Gray's “First Lessons in Botany." “I > . . studied it 
pretty carefully one winter. Since then I have got most of Dr. 
Gray’s works and the most I have learned from books I have got 
from them." This little book supplied the stimulus. By explaining 
their morphology it opened to him the study of the taxonomy of the 
hundreds of plants flowering on every side. He was one of that best 
type of botanists, the kind that is born, not made. When only 
eleven years old he had begun to notice the flowers, but at no time 
in his schooling did he have any instruction in botany. Born with 
the love of botany, his extensive knowledge of it was self-taught. 
Obtaining his discharge from the army in 1866, he returned to 
western Oregon and settled near Salem. He again turned to teaching, 
but at the same time busied himself with market gardening. 
In the fall of 1872, with his brother Frank, he returned to eastern 
Oregon. Together they acquired a ranch on the Powder River, 
where they lived and worked jointly. At this time, William began 
to pay more attention to his botanical work. As he wrote, “I did 
little in studying or collecting till coming to eastern Oregon in 1872, 
