[4] Boring enlisted as a Union soldier during the American Civil War with the 33rd Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment, beginning in 1861 under Bvt.

[6][7] Boring sustained near-life-threatening injuries to his face and throat in the Siege of Vicksburg,[8] which led to his discharge.

[7][9] In the early 1870s, president Ulysses S. Grant began offering incentives to homesteaders in the Western United States, which attracted William Boring; he and his wife Sarah left Illinois for San Francisco, California, and then traveled north to Portland, Oregon.

[7] The settlement occupied by the Boring family came to be known as Boring, Oregon[12] after William donated land for a schoolhouse to be built in 1883,[13][7][14] By the turn of the twentieth century, the town had become a thriving logging community, and the construction of an interurban railroad to the town by the Portland Railway, Light and Power Company brought further residents and business.

Also living in the home was Thomas Field, a hired handyman from Minnesota, and Robert Bishop, a boarder from Maine.