01Biography
George Bush, often called George Washington Bush today, was born to a Black father and an Irish American mother. He served in the Army and worked in the fur trade, then became a successful farmer in Missouri, where as a free Black man he faced growing discrimination. In 1844 he and his friend Michael Simmons led five families west, and his money helped outfit some of the others.
In Oregon they learned that the provisional government had voted to bar Black settlers. The whole group refused to settle anywhere Bush could not. They spent the winter near Fort Vancouver, where John McLoughlin gave them work, and in the fall of 1845 they moved north to Puget Sound, the first American settlers there. Bush farmed at a place still called Bush Prairie.
02Why they matter
Helped lead the first American families to settle on Puget Sound after Oregon's exclusion law barred him from the Willamette Valley.
03How they died
When newcomers ran short of food in 1852, he shared his grain and told them to pay him back when they could. Because of his race he could not legally claim his land, so in 1854 the first Washington territorial legislature asked Congress to confirm the Bushes' title, and Congress did so in 1855. He died at his farm near Tumwater on April 5, 1863. His exact age is not known.
04Legacy
His son William Owen Bush served in Washington's first state legislature in 1889. Bush Middle School in Tumwater is named for him.