Ross arrived in the Oregon Country in 1845, part of a train of 200 wagons that branched off of the Oregon Trail via the Meek Cutoff.[2][3] Ross filed a provisional land claim in 1846 on a parcel of roughly 400 acres surrounded by the Willamette River, a location later known as Ross Island.[4]
In 1851 Ross married Rebecca Deardorff, an 1850 immigrant to the Oregon Territory.[5][6]
Ross operated a dairy farm on Ross Island[7] and was listed as a livery stable owner at 165 First Street in early Portland.[8]
^"Ross, Sherry". Early Oregonian Search. Oregon State Archives. Retrieved January 15, 2015.
^Ross was counted among the immigrants of 1845 by Hubert Howe Bancroft, see footnote 30, Bancroft, Hubert Howe (1890). History of Oregon. Vol. I. San Francisco: The History Company. p. 526.
^In 1938, an oral history project sponsored by the Works Progress Administration recorded a conversation with Cyrus B. Woodworth, grandson of the Rosses. He believed the marriage occurred because Deardorff wanted to own an island and Ross already had the claim. See Wrenn, Sara B. (December 30, 1938). "Cyrus B. Woodworth". Oregon Folklore Studies. Federal Writers' Project, Works Progress Administration. Retrieved January 15, 2015.