Orting Soldiers' Home intake papers give John's middle name as Maurice; the source for Marion is unclear. I am leaving it as Marion on this memorial because that is what his descendants are likely to search for.

John Marion Armstrong was born 19 February 1827 in Sinclair, Morgan County, Illinois (father's land patent for this township dated Dec 1826). He was 5th child of Andrew Jackson Armstrong Sr and Mary Ann Roberts. The Armstrongs were a Scots-Irish Presbyterian family, many of whom served in the Revolutionary War.

John married Mary Emeline Brown on 11 June 1848 in Jerseyville, Illinois. They had five children:

Almira J. (1849-1917)

Leonard W. (1852-1916/1917)

Leo Cornelius (1860-1927)

Florence Wanita (1865-1942)

John Howard (1871-1937)

John accompanied his parents and many of his 14 siblings on the Oregon Trail in 1852. His mother died of cholera along the way, and his father died a month after reaching Oregon, leaving several young children to be raised by their older siblings.

John mustered with Company D of the Oregon 1st Mounted Volunteers under T. R. Cornelius during the Yakima Indian War in 1855 and 1856, before returning to his wife and children in Illinois. He brought his family back to Washington in 1861, and settled in the Walla Walla Valley.

John worked as a farmer, cooper, brick mason (the Armstrong family trade), and freighter for the Orofino Mining Company. During one freighting run, the ore wagon hit a hole tipped over, falling on his arm. John held the mules all night until help came, so that they couldn't pull the wagon over and kill him. His right arm was wired rather than set in a cast, and was crippled for the rest of his life. The 1880 census mentions his broken arm.

John was a tall man, well over 6 feet. His daughter-in-law Molly (wife of Leo) said John was the meanest man in the world. Once when John was at a saloon in Orofino with two of his friends, one of them pulled a gun on the other, and fired. The bullet grazed across John's chest. John took the two men by the backs of their necks and cracked their heads together. His grandson Albert remembered seeing the shirt with the burn mark on the front.

John rode with General Miles as a scout and interpreter when he pursued Chief Joseph in 1877. He wore a uniform when he visited his son Leo's family in Prescott, Washington.

Two of John's sons, Leonard and John Howard, married women from the Colville Tribe, and went to live on the reservation. His daughters, Almira and Florence, lived in Walla Walla. His son Leo was a mail carrier out of Prescott.

John and his wife Mary divorced sometime between 1880 and 1885. John remarried to Sarah Ann McClure in 1891. They lived on the Okanogan River, near the present-day town of Okanogan. Sarah died in 1902.

By the time John applied for a place at the State Soldiers Home in Orting, Washington in 1903, he was unable to care for himself. On his intake form, dated 30 July 1903, he stated, "I am 76 years old past my right arm is useles for labor I am decrepit hardly able to walk." He died of influenza the following January, and was buried at the Soldiers Home Cemetery.

The preceding information was provided by Rowan Leinart, based on their research.