B
39015 00235 3392
University of Michigan BUHR
:trut:
冲
​- TNR
子
​...
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
St.QUERIS.PENINSULAMAMONAM
X
Pour Moving
1817
LUMUHUMI
SCIENTIA
ARTES
VERITAS
LIBRARY
OF THE
PLURIOUS
UNUA
th
LUXIOM
TIEBOR
7
wa
CIRCUMSPICE
LJI 13 W, 1.1
,,); $).JJ).
GAWIunik
ISHNI
Ditang
RECEIVED) Ix EXCIANGE
FROM
Denver Public
Library
Imam
876
929
LL,

At the age of seventy
ty nine,
Youro bathely
Norint Joseple Custom
OF
Fich
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY
OF
OREGON
1811-1912
BY
JOSEPH GASTON
[With notice of antecedent explorations]
ILLUSTRATED
VOLUME I
CHICAGO
THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING COMPANY
1912
522438
Fa 20 30
No longer property 01
of
or Prblio 11
EX
Lidie Lits.
22434
PREFACE
The author and publishers of this work having in 1910 brought out a history
of the City of Portland, entitled “Portland and its Builders,” which received
such a flattering support from the citizens of Portland, they were encouraged
thereby to undertake the greater and more important work of the History
of the State, including, as it does, the history of the “Qld Oregon Country.”
The decision to undertake such a work was not made, however, upon the sole
reason of the encouraging financial support offered. As a matter of practical
business it may be stated that no history of Oregon heretofore published has
ever returned to the publishers the first cost of the undertaking. But the Cen-
tennial celebration of the founding of the City of Astoria, coming on with the
delivery of the Portland book, punctuated the century of Oregon's develop-
ment with such a public-spirited, patriotic reason for a history coeval to, if not
coequal with, the first century of the most unique development of American char-
acter and institutions on the western hemisphere, that the publishers were in-
duced to take the risk of getting out a work equal to the great subject, and at a
cost far surpassing the combined cost of all other preceding histories of Ore-
gon. This is the first and only general history of Oregon to receive the aid and
illumination of expensive illustrations. In this respect the publishers have not
spared any expense to secure everything that would throw light upon the text
and prove interesting to the reader.
This book is the work of many minds and hands. The author desires to ex-
press here his great obligations to the many friends who have extended most
generous assistance. And first of all to that veteran pioneer laborer to preserve
the history of Oregon-George H. Himes. It is not saying too much to record
here that without the aid of Mr. Himes and the great foundation of facts and
material largely secured by him for the Oregon Historical Society, no complete
history of Oregon could be written. For forty years he has delved, digged,
traveled, collected, arranged, stored and studied every avenue and scrap of
Oregon history to be found or obtained until he is now a walking storehouse on
the great subject.
Other men and women have helped, and generously helped. From Cyrus H.
Walker, the oldest living white man born west of the Rocky Mountains, and chap-
lain of the Oregon State Grange, we have had very great assistance. To Rev. J.
Neilson Barry, of Baker, the history is indebted for the complete synopsis of the
tribes and families of Indians in old Oregon and their original homes in the state.
This required much study and investigation, and Mr. Barry has done the work
so carefully and completely that it will become the standard authority on that
subject. Mr. Barry also added much to what was known in Oregon heretofore
of the wanderings and sufferings of the Wilson Price Hunt party. To the old
veteran, Hon. Wm. H. Packwood, we are indebted for much of the history of
Eastern Oregon and Coos and Curry mining, and Indian war history. To Orvil
•
iii
iv
PREFACE
Dodge, of Curry county, and Binger Hermann, of Douglas county, the history is
under great obligations for many facts in the history of Coos and Curry, espe-
cially to Mr. Dodge for rare old photographs, which could not be had elsewhere.
To Major Lee Moorhouse, of Pendleton, the history is indebted for the Indian
illustrations, some history on the last Indian war, and many other favors. To
Capt. 0. C. Applegate, of Klamath Falls, we are indebted for the line of Fre-
mont's expedition through Oregon; for an original copy of Lindsay Applegate's
journal of the location of the Fort Hall and Southern Oregon Trail, now entirely
out of print, and which is a complete and conclusive justification of that route,
showing its value and practicability against all the petty fault-findings of such
tender feet as J. Quinn Thornton.
To Hon. Harrison R. Kincaid the history is indebted for a copy of the Con-
stitution of the Provisional Government of Oregon, not printed in the
“Archives," and never before printed except in Mr. Kincaid's collection of state
papers and political biographies. Also to Mr. Kincaid for the best collection of
the autographs of our public men-many of them the pioneer friends of Oregon
—that has ever been preserved.
To Ellen Condon McCornack, of Eugene, this history and every reader of it,
are under inexpressible obligations for the intensely interesting chapter on Ore-
gon geology, nearly all of which is the work of Mrs. McCornack. Such literary
work requires a degree of special study, preparation and care which few readers
comprehend, but who are all the more under obligations for the knowledge im-
parted. To Mr. D. W. Craig, of Salem, for scraps of history of Oregon's early
politics; to Dr. Cardwell for Horticultural reminiscences; to Mrs. Lischen Miller,
of Eugene, for history of Oregon magazine literature; to Miss Clara Munson, of
Warrenton, for Clatsop county history; to Valentine Brown for volumes of
poetry, proof reading and correction—to all these friends our thanks are due for
many favors. All have helped with a hearty good-will, and their names should
go down to the future with this book. And last but not least to the painstaking
overworked, ever-patient and always cheerful Miss Mabel Dudrow, who took up
the whole tangled mass of penciled, interlined, patched and tangled manuscript
and handed it back a neat, clean, readable and enjoyable book, the author's
thanks are especially returned.
JOSEPH GASTON.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
1492–1792
THE WORLD-ROUND WEST-BOUND MARCH OF MAN—WAS THE EARTH ROUND OR FLAT
THE PROPOSITION OF COLUMBUS-HOW AND WHY NAMED AMERICA-THE
DREAMS OF NAVIGATORS—THE FABLED STRAIT OF ANIAN-DE FUCA'S PRETENDED
DISCOVERY—MALDONADO's PRETENDED VOYAGE-LOW's REMARKABLE MAP-
VISCAINO AND AGUILAR REACH THE OREGON COAST IN 1603—-CALIFORNIA AN IS-
LAND-CAPTAIN COOK'S VOYAGE AND DEATH-BEGINNING OF THE FUR TRADE ON
THE PACIFIC-SPAIN DRIVES ENGLAND OUT OF NOOTKA SOUND AND THEN MAKES
A TREATY OF JOINT OCCUPATION—GRAY DISCOVERS THE COLUMBIA RIVER.... 1
CHAPTER II
16341834
THE LANDWARD MOVEMENT WEST—TWO DIFFERING MINDS OF CIVILIZATION AND IN-
DEPENDENT MOVEMENTS OF POPULATION MOVE WESTWARD—THE FRENCH CATH-
OLIC ON ONE SIDE, AND THE ENGLISH PROTESTANT ON THE OTHER—MARQUETTE,
1665-LA SALLE,
1679—HENNEPIN, 1680—JONATHAN CARVER,
1766—ALEX-
ANDER MACKENZIE, 1793—LEWIS AND CLARK, 1804—MAJOR ZEBULON PIKE, 1805
-SIMON FRASER, 1806—ANDREW HENRY, 1808—JONATHAN WINSHIP, 1809–
DAVID THOMPSON, 1810—WILSON PRICE HUNT, 1811–JEDEDIAH SMITH, 1826–
NATHANIEL J. WYETH, 1832—LIEUT. B. L. E. BONNEVILLE, 1833—AND JOHN C.
19
FREMONT, 1843
CHAPTER III
1792-1840
THE INDIANS, THEIR FAMILIES, TRIBES AND DISTRIBUTION—THEIR ANCIENT STONE
AGE DESCENT AND IMPLEMENTS—THEIR MYTHS, HABITS AND RELIGION-THEIR
NUMBERS AND WEAKNESS THE JARGON LANGUAGE-THE INDIAN IDEA OF LAND
TENURE
63
vi
CONTENTS
CHAPTER IT
1640_1824
THE PIONEERS OF THE FUR TRADE---GROSEILLIERS AND RADISSON-PRINCE RUPERT
SENDS OUT A SHIP- THE HUDSON BAY COMPANY—THE NORTHWEST COMPANY OF
CANADA-INDEPENDENT AMERICAN TRAPPERS—THE RENDEZVOUS—THE WAR BE-
TWEEN ENGLISHMEN AND SCOTCHMEN-FUR TRADING STARTS FROM ST. LOUIS-
THE MISSOURI FUR COMPANY—JOHN JACOB ASTOR ENTERS THE FIELD-ORGAN-
IZES THE PACIFIC FUR COMPANY-FOUNDS ASTORIA-DESTRUCTION OF ASTOR's
ENTERPRISE-TREATMENT OF THE INDIANS BY THE FUR TRADERS—THE SERVICES
OF THE FUR TRADERS TO CIVILIZATION.
91
CHAPTER V
1834-1845
THE ERA OF EVANGELISM—THE AGITATION OF HALL J. KELLEY-
THE AGITATION OF HALL J. KELLEY—THE QUEST OF THE
FLATHEADS FOR THE “BOOK OF HEAVEN”—THE COMING OF JASON LEE—THE
MARCUS WHITMAN PARTY—THE CATHOLIC MISSIONARIES--DE SMET, THE GREAT
APOSTLE TO THE INDIANS, ANSWERS THE CALL OF THE FLATHEADS-THE RIVAL-
RIES AND WORKS OF THESE MEN—THEIR SERVICES TO OREGON AND THE
NATION
.113
CHAPTER VI
0000—1862
WHAT DID THE FORELOPERS FIND HERE—THE FACE OF NATURE--THE GEOLOGY AND
EXTINCT ANIMAL LIFE-THE VAST WATER POWERSM-MADE VALUABLE BY APPLICA-
TION OF DISCOVERIES IN ELECTRICITY.
..131
CHAPTER VII
1774-1805
THE EVOLUTIONARY POLITICAL MOVEMENTS TOWARD OREGON--THE PIONEER AMERI-
CAN PUSHING WEST-GEORGE ROGERS CLARK AND OLD VINCENNES-WASHINGTON
AND JEFFERSON CO-OPERATING TO HOLD THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY-WASHING-
TON AND JEFFERSON PLANT STAKES TO HOLD OLD OREGON.
147
CHAPTER VIII
1834-1846
THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT-A COUNTRY WITHOUT LAWS OR CIVIL GOVERNORS-
THE SCHEMING OF RIVAL SECTS AND INTERESTS-THE GREAT WORK PERFORMED
BY THE PIONEERS—THE HEROIC GE OF OREGON.
159
CONTENTS
vii
CHAPTER IX
1792-1846
AMERICAN TITLE TO THE COUNTRY—THE SPANISH SEA COAST DISCOVERIES-THE
PAPER TITLES OF SPAIN, FRANCE AND ENGLAND-GRAY'S DISCOVERY OF THE
COLUMBIA RIVER-THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA-THE DOCTRINE OF CONTIGUOUS
SETTLEMENT-THE LEWIS AND CLARK EXPLORATION-THE PURCHASE OF THE
SPANISH TITLE THE CAMPAIGN OF "FIFTY-FOUR FORTY OR FIGHT'S. THE
TREACHERY OF PRESIDENT POLK—OREGON SAVED BY THE AMERICAN
SETTLERS
.207
CHAPTER X
1834-1844
OREGON IGNORED BY U. S. GOVERNMENT-TREATY OF NON-OCCUPATION-NO MAN'S
LAND-THE OREGON TRAIL OREGON IN CONGRESS FOR THE FIRST TIME--ROUTE
OF TRAIL LOCATED BY HUNT AND STUART-WHITMAN WITH THE FIRST WAGON
ON THE TRAIL-IMMIGRATION OF 1843—-PREPARATION FOR STARTING ON THE
TRAIL-CHARACTER OF THE IMMIGRANTS-BENEFITS OF THE PROVISIONAL GOV-
ERNMENT-THE RESULTS OF THE MISSIONS.
.231
CHAPTER XI
1834-1848
THE OREGON HALL OF FAME-WHO SAVED OREGON? THOMAS JEFFERSON? THOMAS
H. BENTON? HALL J. KELLEY? JASON LEE? MARCUS WHITMAN? JOHN M’LOUGH-
LIN? JOSEPH L. MEEK? FRANCOIS XAVIER MATTHIEU? GEORGE ABERNETHY?
-SAVED BY ALL SETTLERS PULLING TOGETHER.
.265
.
CHAPTER XII
1844 1848
1
THE COLONIAL PERIOD—WORKING OF THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT-RIVAL FACTIONS
SILENCED BY LAND CLAIMS—TOMAHAWK CLAIM DESCRIPTIONS-TITLES TO LAND
CLAIMS-PRICES, AND COST OF LIVING FOUNDING RIVAL CITIES, AND HOW THEY
STARTED—IMPORTATION OF HORSES, CATTLE, SHEEP AND GOATS-FOUNDATION OF
THE FRUIT GROWING INTEREST-ORGANIZATION OF AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES-COM-
MENCEMENT OF TRADE AND COMMERCE_DISCOVERY OF GOLD, AND THE OREGON
MINT-BRIEF SKETCHES OF EARLY PIONEERS.
..315
viii
CONTENTS
CHAPTER XIII
1844–1912
FOUNDING OF PORTLAND TOWNSITE PROPRIETORS FIRST TEACHERS, PREACHERS,
DOCTORS AND LAWYERS_FIRST STEAMBOATS AND THEIR BUILDERS.
.355
CHAPTER XIV
1847—1855
THE WHITMAN MASSACRE--THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT ARMY—THE CAYUSE IN-
—
DIAN WAR ROGUE RIVER INDIAN WARS BATTLES OF BATTLE ROCK AND BIG
MEADOWS- GENERAL LANE BLUFFS OUT 150 SAVAGES-CHIEF JOHN, THE LAST
"BRAVE'
TO SURRENDER-THE YAKIMA WAR-THE MODOC WAR-THE CANBY-
THOMAS MASSACRE
..375
CHAPTER XV.
1849—1858
THE EVOLUTION OF ORGANIZED GOVERNMENT_ORGANIZATION OF THE TERRITORIAL
GOVERNMENT-LOCATION OF THE STATE CAPITAL THE CONSTITUTIONAL CON-
VENTION AND ITS MEMBERS ORGANIZATION OF THE STATE GOVERNMENT-THE
GOVERNORS AND REPRESENTATIVES IN CONGRESS.
421
CHAPTER XVI
1843-1908
THE COUNTY ORGANIZATION OF THE STATE.
443
CHAPTER XVII
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES—THE STATE OF NATURE -GAME AND FISH-
PRAIRIE AND TIMBER-FREE LANDS AND LAND GRANTS
FREE LANDS AND LAND GRANTS-SOIL AND IRRIGATION-
FORESTS WEALTH, MOUNTAINS AND WATER POWERS.
.475
CHAPTER XVIII
1849-1910
GOLD AND SILVER IN ANCIENT TIMES—THE CHARACTER OF MINERS IN ANCIENT TIMES
MINING LAWS IN AMERICA DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN CALIFORNIA DISCOVERIES
IN OREGON-PRESENT CONDITIONS OF MINING IN OREGON-MINES OF OTHER VAL-
UABLE MINERAL DEPOSITS—THE INFLUENCE OF MINES ON THE STATE......487
CONTENTS
ix
CHAPTER XIX
1843-1911
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS- THE FIRST FERRY AND CANAL-THE FIRST MAIL CAR-
RIERS—THE FIRST STEAMBOATS—THE FIRST EXPRESS LINES—THE FIRST TELE-
GRAPH–THE FIRST RAILROADS..
...503
CHAPTER XX
1810–1911
AGRICULTURE HORTICULTURE ANIMAL INDUSTRIES — FARMS, FARM LANDS AND
VALUES-COMMERCE MANUFACTURES—THE STATE FAIR-THE LEWIS AND CLARK
EXPOSITION
..539
CHAPTER XXI
18341912
THE MORAL AND EDUCATIONAL AGENCIES BUILDING THE STATE--THE CHURCHES
AND CHURCH SCHOOLS-PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES-POETS, HISTORIANS AND
PIONEER EDITORS-AUTOGRAPHIC HISTORY-THE GRANGE-DIVORCES, VICE AND
CRIME
..573
CHAPTER XXII
1843-1912
THE EVOLUTION OF LAWS, CONSTITUTIONS AND POLITICS-THE UNDERLYING PRIN-
CIPLES AT STAKE AT OLD CHAMPOEG THE POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY DOCTRINE
THAT OVERRULED ALL OTHERS-TAXATION, PROHIBITION AND SLAVERY—THE RISE
OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY-THE CONTEST BETWEEN THE PROGRESSIVES AND CON-
SERVATIVES OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY-THE CIVIL WAR PERIOD-LEADERS,
BOSSES, AND CORRUPT PRACTICES FINALLY PRODUCING POPULISM, DIRECT
PRIMARY AND DIRECT LEGISLATION.
.639
t
1
INTRODUCTION
Prophecies: "Fixity of residence and thickening of population are the
prime requisites of civilization; and hence it will be found that, as in Egypt
where great civilization was developed in a narrow valley hemmed in by deserts,
and in Greece limited to a peninsula bounded by the sea on one side, and moun-
tains on the other, when the Caucasian race, starting from India and pursuing
its western course around the earth, shall reach the shores of the great Pacific
ocean, it will dam up in the strip of country between the Rocky Mountains and
the sea, and there in the most dense population, produce the greatest civilization
on the earth." (From the Vestiges of Creation, 1838, anonymous, but sup-
posed to be written by Robert Chambers, of Edinburgh, Scotland. It was in
fact written before the emigration wave started for Oregon.)
“I say the man is alive, full grown, and listening to what I say, who will yet
see the Asiatic commerce traversing the North Pacific ocean-entering the Oregon
river-climbing the western slope of the Rocky Mountains—issuing from its
gorges--and spreading its fertilizing streams over our wide extended Union!
“The steamboat and the steam car have not exhausted all their wonders. They
have not yet found their amplest and most appropriate theatres—the tranquil
surface of the North Pacific ocean, and the vast inclined plains which spread
east and west from the Rocky Mountains, the magic boat, and the flying car are
not yet seen upon the ocean, and upon the plain, but they will be seen there; and
St. Louis is yet to find herself as near Canton as she is now to London, with a
better and safer route by land and sea to China and Japan than she now has to
France and Great Britain." (Extract from an address by Thomas H. Benton,
U. S. Senator, at St. Louis, October 10, 1844, eighteen months after his fellow
citizens of Missouri had started to Oregon with their wives, children and ox
teams to take the country from the British.)
The settlement of Old Oregon, embracing all the territory west of the Rocky
Mountains, north of California and up to Alaska, being the result of a long series
of explorations by sea and land covering three hundred years from 1506 to 1806,
is the most interesting story of the entire settlement of North America. The his-
tory of this great territory is both national and local. Apparently the last
grand movement of the German Indo-European race of men in its all-conquering
march from farthest East to farthest West, the history of Oregon is not only na-
tional in its fundamentals but also finds its original root-graft in the oldest of
the virile tribes of men. The same Providence that cast the Mayflower on the
rockbound shores of New England to land the Pilgrim Fathers in a new world,
inspired the men and women and furnished them with the faith and courage to
overcome mountains, deserts and savage tribes and plant Christianity, civiliza-
tion and laws in the wilderness of Old Oregon.
And whatever of difference there may be in the local coloring which differ-
entiates Oregon from all other of the forty-eight states of the Grand Republic,
xi
xii
INTRODUCTION
it is entitled to its history, its origin, and its influence in moulding the general
mass. So that this book is written not only to inform the newcomer to Oregon,
but also to arouse an interest in the boys and girls in all the Oregon schools to
read and find in the history of their state a more exciting and instructive story
than they can find in any other country or in any creation of the most gifted
imagination.
For more than three hundred years the territory of Oregon was a prize for
which the most powerful nations in the world contended. And for this country
one after another, Spain, Russia, France and England played the rights of dis-
covery, the game of diplomacy and the bluff of threatened war; and all of them
to see in the end the final word and the rightful decision rendered, almost wholly
by half a hundred American farmers in the Willamette valley. Such a page of
exciting incident, unlooked for surprises, and far-reaching consequences cannot
be found in the history of any other state or nation.
Born to a conscious existence of its dignity as an organized community of
civilized men, and influenced by the antecedent dangers and trials through which
the community fought its way to recognition by congress, it is not singular that
there should be found here types of men and women, and a civil government with
laws and institutions out of the ordinary; and if not admitted to be superior it
has for originality and force challenged the attention and led the champions of
reform throughout the nation. A state isolated from the rest of the great body
of the American people by two thousand miles of mountains and arid plains that
can accomplish these results and secure this position among the states of the
Union is no ordinary community, and must have a history at once both unique
and forceful to an extraordinary degree.
To search out facts from twenty thousand pages of printed matter heretofore
issued to the world as veritable history of Oregon, a great deal of which is un-
certain, much of it romance and not a little of it in dispute, is the task set before
the author. In taking up this task no bias in favor of or against any person,
society, creed or party can be allowed to have any influence whatever. The truth
of history, and justice to all the actors in the great drama of life to be recorded,
must be the unwavering guide.
The history of Oregon has been so fruitful a field for writers of every descrip-
tion that it is safe to say that more pages, if not more books, have been written
about this region, its discovery, its name, its missionaries, Indians, the trials and
sufferings of its immigrants, its novel provisional government and its latter day
new laws and politics, than about all the other states west of the Ohio river. From
this vast storehouse of historical material it is plain that only so much as will
give the general story and controlling facts and movements, can be included in a
volume that the general reader will care to purchase.
In writing the history of a state a common plan has been to divide the whole
period into parts or epochs, each limited by distinctive dates. To the reader
desiring to know what took place at any given period this plan has its merits.
But it has appeared to the author that in the case of Oregon the more instruc-
tive plan, especially to the younger readers whom it is desired to interest in this
book, would be to divide the history into subjects, and then give all that is to be
said on that subject in one chapter. By pursuing this plan it is believed that
INTRODUCTION
xiii
there will be a relationship created between all parts of the narrative, so that
each part will be more readily apprehended, more easily understood and longer
remembered.
That the conditions of life and the environment of men and women-the in-
dividual merits of society-have at all times influenced and shaped the institu-
tions of society, cannot be denied. And the best illustration of this universal
principle can be found in the history of Oregon. The trials and dangers of the
long journey from the Missouri river to Oregon; the presence of the unfriendly
if not savage possessor of the land; the shadow of the foreign power in the back-
ground; all conspire to develop a people alert to assert and courageous to main-
tain their rights by organization, proclamation and defence. These character-
istics of the mass developed traits in the individual no less marked and distin-
guishable. The independent fur hunter in lonely mountains, the pioneer farmer
on the isolated prairies--all held themselves ready to defend the home or fly to
the common defence. These hard circumstances developed in Oregon a race of
men and women independent in thought and deed, courageous to insist on their
rights and careless of wealth or fame.
It has been urged by some writers that there is a unity in all history of the
human race. But if this were a uniform rule, there would not be the difference
between nations and peoples, between wild tribes, half civilized barbarians and
cultured races which is everywhere observable. That there is a unity in the
history of all the nations on certain facts of development there can be no doubt.
In fact no progress, or even existence, could be maintained without a unity of
purpose for self-preservation, common defence, and the control of nature's store-
house of food and clothing. The history of Oregon shows a unity in the great
trend of population to move westward—the American idea to organize govern-
ment for common defence in which all the individual units of society will stand
upon the same level and have the same voice in the compact. But this has no
similarity to the governments set up by Spain in Mexico and all the South Amer-
ican colonies; nor is it akin to the colonial charters from English kings to the
colonists on the Atlantic sea coast. The settlement of Oregon was exceptional
and extraordinary, made so by the conditions and surroundings of the time and
place; and its history cannot be judged by the rules and principles applicable to
the history of states in general.
The highest and most valuable purpose of history should be to teach by actual
example. If there is no lesson, no useful thought to the reader, then the history
is of no more value than the every-day novel. If those who come after can learn
nothing from those who have gone before, it is a waste of time to make up the
record for any other purpose than selling the story as any story of fiction might
be sold. But the historians of Oregon may justly point with pride to the illus-
trious history of the state, crowded with examples of the daring, courage, toils
and homely virtues of its pioneer settlers; and to the wisdom, patriotism and
heroism of its founders, state builders and law givers.
In the evolutionary race around the earth from east to west, the Oregonian
Americans were the first to reach the Pacific and establish permanent institu-
tions. The Spaniards came first, but their presence and influence was a blight
and a curse upon the country. The Russians came next, but left no impression
of any kind. The English came next, but their influence for the benefit of man-
xiv
INTRODUCTION
kind was practically limited to the life of a single man-John McLoughlin. The
Americans came last, and founded states. Recognizing the beginning of the end
of Spanish rule on the Pacific coast, Governor Pico, of California, said to his
people:
"We are threatened with hordes of Yankee immigrants. Already have the
wagons of that perfidious people scaled the almost inaccessible summits of the
Sierra Nevadas, crossed the entire continent and penetrated the fruitful valley
of Sacramento. What that astonishing people will next undertake, I cannot say;
but in whatever enterprise they embark they will be successful. Already these
adventurous voyagers, spreading themselves over the country that seems to suit
their tastes are cultivating farms, establishing vineyards, erecting sawmills, saw-
ing lumber and doing a thousand other things that seem perfectly natural to
them.”
Several volumes of biographies of Oregon men and women will accompany
this historical volume. Many persons assume that these personal biographies are
not valuable. But that is a mistake. All history is but the recital of the works
of the men and women of the past. These personal biographies will be the mine
from which will be drawn the facts for histories in the future. They are worth
reading and we commend them to all subscribers for this book. Now for the
story!
OREGON CHRONOLOGY
1542—It is said that Juan Rodrigues Cabrillo, a Spaniard, sailed up the
coast as far as 44 degrees, landed and returned south. This would be somewhere
in the neighborhood of Port Orford.
1578-Authorities differ as to the distance which Sir Francis Drake, an Eng-
lishman, sailed up the coast. There is no record of his having landed north of
San Francisco Bay.
1592—Is given as the date upon which Juan de Fuca, a Spaniard, discovered
the straits which now bear his name. It is doubted whether he ever saw them as
claimed by him.
1603—Sebastian Vizcaino, a Spaniard, named Cape Blanco, also reported a
snow-capped peak to the eastward, calling it San Sebastian (Mt. Shasta). He
also discovered a river, supposed to be the Umpqua. Capt. Aguilar, one of his
expedition, claimed to have discovered the Columbia river.
1742–Two sons of Chevalier de La Verendrye, of Montreal, led an overland
expedition to the Stony mountains (Rockies), coming as far west as the country
embracing Missoula, Deer Lodge and Silver Bow counties in Montana. On May
19, 1744, they set up a monument and christened the country “Beauharnois.
1744—Lieut. Juan Perez, a Spaniard, sailed as far north as 54 degrees. On
his return trip he discovered a mountain now called Mt. Olympus. He gave it
the name of Sierra de Santa Rosalia.
1763-Kodiak Island settled by the Russians.
1766—The river “Oregon" was conceived in the mind of Capt. Jonathan
Carver, of Connecticut, who made an expedition into the country adjacent to the
headwaters of the Mississippi in that year. This river has borne several differ-
ent names, among them being: Spanish-Esenada de Asuncion (Assumption In-
let), Esendada de Heceta (Heceta Inlet), Rio de San Roque (River of San
Roque), Rio de Aguilar (River of Aguilar), and Rio de Thegays. (River
of Thegays).
1775—Capt. Bruno Heceta, a Spaniard, planted a cross on July 14th, upon
a point to which he gave the name of Punta de Martinez (Martyr's Point), а.
location now known as Point Grenville. On the same day some of the crew of
one of his vessels went on shore for a supply of fresh water, and were massacred
by the Indians. This was the first recorded instance where the blood of the white
race was shed in the Pacific Northwest.
1778–On March 7th, Capt. James Cook named Cape Foulweather, and
Cape Flattery on March 22d. The latter had been previously (1774) called
Punta Martinez by Perez.
1785—Capt. James Hanna, an Englishman, arrived. Not for the purpose of
exploration, but to gather furs for the Oriental market. He was quite success-
+
ху
xvi
CHRONOLOGY
ful, selling his cargo in the Cantonese market for $20,000. This was the first
expedition coming to the North Pacific waters solely for trading purposes.
1787—Capt. Dixon, an Englishman, was the first to establish the fact that
Queen Charlotte Island was an island. He named it in honor of his vessel.
1788–The American sloop, Lady Washington, of Boston, arrived, at Nootka
on August 16. She was commanded by Capt. Robert Gray, who afterwards
discovered the Columbia river. On the voyage up the coast, the vessel was
run into Murderers' harbor, since known as Tillamook Bay. While here one of
the crew was murdered by the Indians, the first instance of the kind occurring
south of the Columbia river, so far as known.
1791---Capt. Robert Gray, who returned in the ship Columbia after making a
voyage to Canton and Boston, wintered in the harbor of Clayoquot, Queen Char-
lotte's Island. He there erected buildings and mounted guns, the first thing of
such a nature to be done by an American. During his stay there he built the
first American vessel to be built on the Pacific coast. This was the sloop Ad-
venturer. Robert Haswell, formerly mate with Capt. Gray, was the first master
of this vessel. She was sold to Capt. Cuadra, the Spanish commander in the
Pacific Northwest, in 1792, when she was taken south.
1792—In the spring of this year, Capt. Robert Gray left Queen Charlotte's
Island, where he had wintered, and coasted south. On May 7th he entered Bul-
finch harbor (now known as Gray's Harbor) naming it in honor of the owners of
his vessel. On the 11th he arrived off the Columbia river bar and successfully
crossed it, anchoring above Tongue Point in what is now known as Gray's bay.
He was the first to be certain that it was a river. Capt. Gray was the first
American to circumnavigate the globe.
1793—Alexander Mackenzie, a Scotchman, was the first white man to make
the trip across the continent to the Pacific ocean. He discovered the Fraser river,
while enroute, which he believed to be the Columbia. The Fraser river was so
called in later years for Simon Fraser, who established a trading post upon its
banks in 1807.
1805–Lewis and Clark expedition came across the plains. Followed down
the Columbia river and wintered at Fort Clatsop, a fort built by them at the
mouth of the river, the winter of 1805-6. They bestowed names upon many of the
tributaries of the Columbia, gave the Indians names of others and named prom-
inent points along the route.
Castle Rock they called Beacon rock; Hood river, Labiesche river; Klickitat
river, Cataract river; John Day river, Lepage river; Touchet river, White Sal-
mon river. This was subsequently named John Day for a Kentucky hunter
coming with the Hunt party in 1811. Sandy river, Quicksand river; Washougal
river, Seal river; White Salmon river, Canoe river; Sauvie's Island was Wapato
island; the Willamette was Multnomah river from the Columbia to the falls;
above the falls the stream was known as the Willamette; Tillamook was named
by Clark Killamuck Head. It had been called Cape Falcon by the Spanish
and Cape Lookout by Meares.
With this party came York, the first negro to come to the Pacific coast.
1807—Fraser river named for Simon Fraser, who established a trading post
on Fraser Lake adjacent to it.
CHRONOLOGY
xvii
::
1
1808-American Fur Company organized. Fort Henry established on Snake
river. The first American trading post.
1810—Capt. Jonathan Winship located at Oak Point, Oregon, opposite the
present place of that name in Washington. The floods washing away his houses,
and learning of Astor's plans, he deemed it inadvisable to try to compete with
Astor, and abandoned the undertaking.
1811–Astoria founded by Pacific Fur Company. Fort built on a point
called Point George, by Lieut. Broughton, in 1792. The first of this company to
arrive, came on the Tonquin. She anchored in Baker's bay, March 22, 1811.
This was the first vessel to be blown up on the coast, her ship’s clerk doing so to
kill a host of Indians on board who had murdered the crew two days before.
Alexander McKay, a partner of Astor, the first husband of the wife of Dr. Mc-
Loughlin, was among those whom the savages massacred. October 2, 1811, was
launched the first vessel, the Dolly, built here. She was afterwards called the
Columbia. Here the first marriages in the Pacific Northwest were celebrated,
and the first children born, one of whose parents were white; the first
river steamer, the Columbia, 1850, was built; the first custom house erected on
the coast, and one of the two (Oregon City) postoffices west of the Rockies.
Twelve potatoes planted at Astoria in May yielded 190 potatoes. Turnips and
radishes also raised.
Wm. Cannon was probably the first American to come to the Pacific North-
west and permanently reside here. He came in 1811 with the Hunt party, and
after years of employ as a trapper for the fur companies, finally settled in the
Willamette valley. He was a native of Pennsylvania. His death took place
at French Prairie, August 29, 1854. He was 99 years of age at that time.
1812-January 12th, the Hunt party arrived at Astoria.
In November, Robert Stewart of the Astor expedition, discovered the South
pass. This became the main gateway through the Rockies used by the pioneers.
John Clark, of the Astor expedition, hanged an Indian for stealing. The
first “neck-tie" party on the Pacific coast. Fort Boise established by Donald
McKenzie on Snake river.
1813—December 12th, Astoria rechristened Fort George by Capt. Black, a
British naval officer, and the Northwest Company succeeding the Pacific Fur
Company through the treachery of some of the Scotch partners.
Fifty bushels of potatoes from the start of 1811.
1814-Ship Isaac Todd arrives at Astoria. On her came Jane Barnes, the
first white woman to set foot on the Pacific Northwest. On this vessel also came
the pioneer physician, Dr. Swan, to the Pacific Northwest.
1818—Fort George again becomes Astoria on August 18. Old Fort Walla
Walla (originally Fort Nez Perce) established. The site was where the town
of Wallula, Wash., now stands.
1321_Dr. John Floyd, of Virginia, introduced an Oregon bill in congress.
This was the first bill introduced providing for the occupation of the Pacific
Northwest by the government.
1825—Fort Colville established by Hudson's Bay Company.
David Douglas, Scotch scientist, who found and named the Douglas spruce
of the Pacific coast, discovered the natives cultivating the indigenous tobacco
plant of the Columbia river.
xviii
CHRONOLOGY
1827—The first apple trees grown in the Pacific Northwest were planted at
Vancouver, Washington. They sprang from the seed of an apple eaten at a din-
ner party given in London, England. One of the ladies present, more in jest
than in earnest, took the seeds from an apple brought in with the dessert, and
gave them to Captain Simpson, of the Hudson's Bay Company's coast service,
who was also a guest, telling him to plant them on his arrival at Vancouver.
First sawmill west of Rocky Mountains built by Dr. John McLoughlin, six
miles east of Fort Vancouver, the Hudson's Bay Company's post on the Colum-
bia river.
1828--Massacre of the Smith party by the Rogue river Indians.
Hudson's Bay Company's ship, William and Ann, wrecked on the Columbia
river bar. Some twenty lives lost, said to have been murdered by the Clatsop
Indians, who plundered the vessel. Dr. McLoughlin caused their village to be
bombarded, during which many of them were killed, among the number two
chiefs, and since then their chiefs have been merely phantom rulers.
1829-James M. Bates, American, settled at Scappoose, Oregon.
Etienne Lucier, settled where Portland (east) now stands. He afterwards
moved to French Prairie. Was one of the fifty-two men who voted to form the
provisional government. Died March 6, 1853.
Dr. McLoughlin located Willamette Falls (Oregon City) and erected a saw-
mill there.
Captain Dominis of the brig Owybee, arrived from the Atlantic seaboard.
On the voyage out, he secured some peach trees at the Island of San Juan Fer-
nandez (Crusoe's Island), which he brought to Vancouver and presented to Dr.
McLoughlin, who had them planted. These were the first peach trees to come to
the Pacific Northwest. During his stay on the coast the captain went to Cali-
fornia and while there brought up a shipment of sheep, the pioneer shipment.
The captain was a good sailor, but a poor stock raiser. When the sheep were
landed they were all found to be wethers. On his return to Boston he took with
him a shipment of salmon in barrels. This was the first shipment of this kind
going to the eastern states.
Hogs arrived at Vancouver during this year from China and the Sandwich
Islands. Cattle came from Fort Ross, Red river, settlement.
1830—Nathaniel J. Wyeth's overland expedition arrived. Wyeth was the first
to export salmon, sending to market half a ship's load in barrels in 1835. He es-
tablished Fort William on Wapato (Sauvie's) Island, in 1834. Left in 1835.
.
1832–Hudson's Bay Company established an English fur trading post on
the Umpqua river. It was besieged in 1839 by Indians.
1833–First school taught in the Pacific Northwest at Vancouver by John
Ball, one of the Wyeth party of 1832. The scholars were all Indians.
Louis LaBonte settled in Yamhill county, Oregon. He was the first settler in
that section.
Fort Nisqually established.
1834–Revs. Jason and Daniel Lee, Methodist missionaries, arrive. They es-
tablish a mission on the Willamette river. In 1840 same was moved to Cheme-
teke plain, now Salem.
CHRONOLOGY
xix
Rev. Jason Lee preaches first sermon delivered in the Pacific Northwest on
Sunday, September 28th, at Vancouver, and the first in the Willamette valley on
September 28th.
Webley Hauxhurst erects a grist mill at Champoeg. He was the first white
person to become converted in the Pacific Northwest. (January, 1837.)
Hall J. Kelley and Ewing Young arrive in October. Kelley's plan for a
Pacific Northwest metropolis embraced all the land between the confluence of the
Columbia and Willamette rivers on the east bank of the Willamette and south of
the Columbia.
1835—Rev. Samuel Parker, a Congregational missionary, arrives at Van-
couver, coming across the plains. The next year he left via the Sandwich
Islands and did not return.
1835—Dr. W. J. Bailey, the first doctor to locate in the Willamette valley,
arrived. He died at Champoeg, February 5, 1876.
Ewing Young and Lawrence Carmichael set up a still and manufactured
whiskey.
Rev. Herbert Beaver and wife arrived by sailing vessel at Vancouver. He
was the first Episcopal divine to come to the Pacific Northwest. They left again
in 1838.
1836—Steamer Beaver arrived from Gravesend, England, the first steam
vessel to come into the Pacific Ocean. Came under sail. First ran under
steam in the Columbia, April 17th. Was wrecked in 1888 in Burrard's Inlet,
B. C.
Dr. Whitman and wife, Rev. H. H. Spalding and wife, and W. H. Gray
arrived and established a mission at Wai-il-at-pu. Mrs. Whitman and Mrs.
Spalding were the first white women to cross the plains and come to the Pacific
coast.
John Work explored the Umpqua.
1837—(Sir) James Douglas and Miss Nellie Connolley were married at Van-
couver. This was the first marriage ceremony performed in Washington. Miss
Connolley had Indian blood in her veins.
July 16th, occurred the first marriage among the white race on the Pacific
Rev. Jason Lee was married to Miss Anna M. Pittman, and Mr. Cyrus
Shepard to Miss Susan Downing. It was a double wedding. Rev. Daniel Lee
performed the first ceremony and Rev. Jason Lee the second.
Alice C., daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Whitman, born at Wail-il-at-pu, March
14, 1837, was the first white child born on the Pacific coast, and was drowned
in the Walla Walla river, June 22, 1838.
1838–The first step taken to secure a government for Oregon by Americans,
was made March 16, 1838. Thirty-six of the settlers in the Willamette valley sent
a memorial to congress setting forth the resources and conditions of the country,
petitioning occupation by the United States. This was presented in the senate
on January 28, 1839, and after its reading was laid on the table and neglected.
The first sawmill erected by Americans, built on the Chehalem, Yamhill
county, by Ewing Young.
The first paper, called the Oregonian, was published this year at Lynn,
Massachusetts.
XX
CHRONOLOGY
1839-(Vicar General) Blanchet and (Bishop) Demers, the pioneer Catholic
missionaries, arrived.
Rev. Demers rings the first church bell in the Pacific Northwest at the Cow-
litz Mission, Washington, October 14th.
Rev. Blanchet blesses the first church bell blessed in the Willamette valley on
French Prairie, December 23rd; also celebrates the first mass to be celebrated
in the valley at the same place in January, 1840.
Pioneer printing press of the Pacific coast brought from the Sandwich Is-
lands. Set up at Lapwai Mission. Booklets, etc., printed in the Spokane and Nez
Perce languages. It was brought here by E. O. Hall. He was the first printer to
work at his trade on the coast. This press and type is now in the custody of the
Oregon Historical Society.
Rev. J. S. Griffin arrives. He published the first paper issued in the Pacific
Northwest.
Peoria Party arrives. This was the first company of immigrants to come.
1840—Harvey Clarke independent missionary party arrives.
First American vessel, the Thomas H. Perkins, to enter the Columbia with
cargo, arrives.
Salem, Oregon, founded. First called "The Mill," called "Chemekete” by
the Indians. The latter name means “Here we rest” or “Place of Peace.'
“Salem" has also a similar meaning.
1841–Joseph Gale and others built the Star of Oregon, the first vessel built
by Americans in the Pacific Northwest. Mr. Gale was one of the first executive
committee of the provisional government. He died in Wallowa county, Decem-
ber 23, 1881, aged 92 years.
THE AUTHOR
Joseph Gaston, author of the history of Portland, and of this Centennial
History of Oregon, born in the village of Lloydsville, Belmont County, Ohio,
November 14, 1833, comes of French Huguenot ancestry, as do all of the Gas-
tons of the United States—the family being represented in all of the states,
and there being postoffices in twelve states, bearing the Gaston name.
The first person in history to choose and bear this name, born in 1250—was
the son of Roger Bernard III, of Foix, a town of France, situated in the gorge
of a narrow valley at the foot of the Pyrenees mountains, 44 miles south of
Toulouse. Roger Bernard, more famous as a poet than a warrior, got into a
war with Philip the Bold, was taken prisoner by Philip, and subsequently also
by Peter III of Aragon; and before his death in 1302, began the quarrel of the
house of Foix with that of Armagnac. Roger's son and successor, Gaston I, (the
first Gaston] continued the war, and was excommunicated in 1308 by Pope
Clement V, and imprisoned in the Chatelet, Paris, but regaining his freedom
shortly afterwards, joined Louis X, in 1315, in an expedition against Holland,
and died on the way home. This family name is followed in French history
without difficulty down to 1472, when the house of Foix, on the death of Gaston
IV, was merged in that of Navarre, to appear later on as the surname of many
families tracing their relationship back to the original families of Gaston de
Foix, or that of his father-in-law Jean II of Navarre.
The Protestant Reformation making such headway in France in the 16th
Century as induced King Henry IV (who was himself a Gaston] to issue a proc-
lamation (April 13, 1598) having the authority of a law, and known in history
as the “Edict of Nantes," the Protestants were thereby guaranteed the free
exercise of their religion, and equal political rights with Catholics. Under this
law many of the Gastons throughout the Kingdom became what was (at that
time) reproachfully termed "Huguenots.” The Huguenots were the Puritans of
France. After King Louis XIV had ascended the throne of France, in October,
1685, he proclaimed an edict revoking the former edict of Henry IV, and by
which the Protestants (Huguenots) were prohibited the free exercise of their
religion and denied equal political rights with Catholics. Rather than submit
to this great injustice, and risk burning at the stake, a great majority of the
Gastons, who had as a wide spread family, embraced the Protestant religion,
emigrated from their native land with over three hundred thousand other Prot-
estants—the Gastons settling first in Scotland, and soon after moving over to
the north counties of Ireland. From Ireland many of these expatriated Gas-
tons came over to America from the year 1690 to 1720, settling in North and
South Carolina, Virginia, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
These facts are interesting only as showing how families started in European
countries and through wars and religious persecution were forced to emigrate
xxi
xxii
THE AUTHOR
to America, and add their blood, education and influence—whatever it might
be—to the building of the new nation. From the north of Ireland settlement,
three brothers, John, William and Alexander Gaston, emigrated to America in
the year 1700, establishing their home in the Carolinas. From this Carolina
stock came Alexander Gaston, born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1769, and
who was the father of Dr. Joseph Gaston, who died at Lloydsville, Ohio, in
1833, and the grandfather of Joseph Gaston, of this review. Alexander Gaston
removed from Charleston to Washington County, Pennsylvania, in 1791, and
there met and married Rachel Perry, a daughter of John Perry, a neighbor and
friend of George Washington and under whom he served as a soldier throughout
the Revolutionary war as an officer of the Virginia Light Dragoons.
In the year 1800, Alexander Gaston and his family, with that of John Perry
and his family, removed from Pennsylvania to Belmont County, Ohio, settling
near Morristown, where Alexander Gaston and his wife (the first woman physi-
cian in regular practice in the United States) practiced medicine until the end
of their lives.
Dr. Joseph Gaston, aforenamed, was united in marriage to Miss Nancy
Fowler, April 16, 1830. Miss Fowler was the only daughter of John Fowler,
who fought with Commodore Perry in the battle of Lake Erie, and was one of
the six marines who rowed the commodore through the British line after Perry's
flag-ship had been disabled; and Perry himself was a relative of John Perry,
the great-grandfather of the author of this history.
Dr. Joseph Gaston dying prior to the birth of his son, he was reared in
the home of his grandmother, Mrs. Jean MacCormack-Fowler, in Morgan
County, Ohio; obtaining what education he could in the country log school
house of the times, in which a three months' winter session was held in each
year for five years. The remainder of the year was devoted to work on the
farm until he was sixteen years of age when he began life for himself, teach-
ing country schools and working on farms and sawmills until he was twenty-two
years of age, when he entered the law office of Daniel Peck of St. Clairsville,
Ohio, as clerk and law student. On being admitted to the bar he practiced law
for five years, and then removed to Oregon, reaching Jackson County, in April,
1862. Here he worked in the mines near Jacksonville for six months, and then
entered into law practice in Oregon in partnership with John H. Reed, who was
a member of the convention that framed the constitution of Oregon; and at the
same time edited the Jacksonville Sentinel, the first Republican party paper in
Southern Oregon.
In 1864 he took up the project of building a railroad from the Columbia
river to the southern boundary of Oregon; and in 1864-5 prosecuted surveys for
such a road from Jacksonville to Portland. In 1864 he removed from Jackson-
ville to Salem, Oregon, where he continued the practice of law, and edited the
Oregon Statesman to earn money to pay family living expenses, while still fol-
lowing up the railroad project by agitating the subject before the people of
Oregon and pressing it upon the attention of members of congress for a grant
of public lands in aid of the enterprise. He followed the business of promoting
and building railroads in the state from 1864 to 1880, an account of which will
be found in Chapter XIX of this history. On retiring from this railroad work
THE AUTHOR
xxiii
he settled on a farm at the town of Gaston in Washington County, and devoted
sixteen years to the work of draining and converting the disease breeding swamp
of Wapatoo Lake-a thousand acres-into a fruitful and beautiful farm. In
this work, as in all others, he was most efficiently supported by a faithful and
energetic wife, who in addition to the duties of home and household, devoted her
time and means to the improvement of the neighborhood. She established the
first Sunday school in the south part of Washington County, starting the school
in the first warehouse at Gaston railroad station; and subsequently, in company
with Mrs. Eunice Brock (still living) raised the money and means to erect the
Gaston Union church-the first church building on the railroad between Forest
Grove and McMinnville. (Mrs. Gaston's maiden name was Narcissa Doddridge
Jones, born at St. Clairsville, Ohio, in 1836, and passing away at the family
home in Portland, November 11, 1898.)
In 1896, Mr. Gaston disposed of his farm and returned to Portland where
he now resides on Portland Heights, devoting his time to a fruit farm on the
Columbia river opposite the town of Hood River, and to the management of a
great manufacturing enterprise in Lake County—the development of the soda-
borax deposits of Alkali Lake.
During his career, Mr. Gaston has been an editor, connected with a number
political and agricultural journals; notably the Daily and Weekly Bulletin of
Portland, a competitor of the Oregonian in the years 1870 to 1875; with several
agricultural journals, his taste for farming and country life leading him in that
direction; and also as editor and proprietor of "The Farmer's Journal," which
was substantially the founder and defender of the Populist political party in
Oregon. While always taking an interest in politics and public affairs, he has
never been an office holder, and only once a candidate for office, being the
Populist candidate for the office of justice of the supreme court in 1894; the
election resulting in 40,450 votes for the Republican candidate, 26,135 for the
Populist candidate, and 18,625 for the Democratic candidate. Outside of jour-
nalism and contributions to monthly magazines, Mr. Gaston's literary work is
limited to "Portland, its History and Builders, a volume of 700 pages and
two volumes of biographies of Portland builders, published in 1911, and this
present work, "The Centennial History of Oregon."' both issued by the same
publishers.
ܕܐ
to longer propony
honor rolle iba
CHAPTER ]
1492-1792
THE WORLD-ROUND WEST-BOUND MARCH OF MAN--WAS THE EARTH ROUND OR FLAT
--THE PROPOSITION OF COLUMBUSHOW AND WHY NAMED AMERICA-THE
DREAMS OF NAVIGATORS THE FABLED STRAIT OF ANIAN—DE FUCA'S PRETENDED
DISCOVERY-MALDONADO'S PRETENDED VOYAGE-LOW'S REMARKABLE MAP-
VISCAINO AND AGUILAR REACH THE OREGON COAST IN 1603-CALIFORNIA AN IS-
LAND-CAPTAIN COOK'S VOYAGE AND DEATH-BEGINNING OF THE FUR TRADE ON
THE PACIFIC-SPAIN DRIVES ENGLAND OUT OF NOOTKA SOUND AND THEN MAKES
A TREATY OF JOINT OCCUPATION-GRAY DISCOVERS THE COLUMBIA RIVER.
To connect Oregon with the greatest event in the world of science and discov-
ery—the grand achievement of Christopher Columbus—we must take a long look
backward and see that the train of events set in motion by that great man never
halted or turned aside from the day Columbus sighted Cat Island in the West
Indies until the Oregon pioneers organized the provisional government at Cham-
poeg. The settlement of this last and most distant portion of the United States
was clearly the result of that world-wide racial impulse to move west on isother-
mal lines, take possession of new lands and colonize the North American con-
tinent. That impulse already in existence before the American colonies declared
their independence of the Old World, was vastly accelerated by the surrender of
the British army at Yorktown.
As Columbus left no explanation of his studies of the great problem of sail-
ing westward from Europe to find the east coast of Asia the world is left to judge
him by contemporaneous events. That Columbus did ransack all possible sources
of geographical knowledge in his day to get a clue to the mystery of the great
western ocean there can be no doubt. It is known that he studied the works of
the Greek geographer Ptolemy who wrote about 150 years after Christ. Ptolemy
was the most learned man of his age; and the great problem with him and other
learned men at that time was to determine the size of the inhabited world. It
was the fixed belief at that age that the length of the inhabited world was not
only longer than it was wide but that the length was twice that of its width. All
the old Greek geographers, except Hipparchus, agreed on the proposition that
the inhabited world was a vast flat plain island in the midst of a boundless ocean.
Hipparchus flourished about 150 years before Christ, was the founder of the
science of astronomy, calculated eclipses, discovered the precession of the equi-
noxes, and seeing that the heavenly bodies must be spheres concluded that the
earth also was a globe. And it is a curious fact that all the calculations and spec-
ulations of those old geographers of eighteen hundred years ago continually kept
pushing the coast of Asia—what we know as China and Siberia—-farther and
farther eastward into the supposed boundless ocean. Columbus had read and
1
2
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
meditated on these imaginings of those ancient philosophers, and he was
no doubt perfectly familiar with the tradition handed down to his age of the
world that there was once a great island or continent occupying a portion of the
area covered by the Atlantic ocean, but which had been by an earthquake sub-
merged in the ocean. Plato, the most illustrious philosopher of all the ages, and
Strabo, the first of geographers, both believed in the existence of such an island
in the Atlantic ocean west of Europe, that had been submerged in the ocean by
some mighty cataclysm of the earth. The lost island of "Atlantis” gave the
name to the ocean. And this belief in an island or a continent being submerged
in the ocean was not an unreasonable proposition. For there can be no uplift of
the land in one place without a corresponding depression of land in some other
place. And we now know from the testimony of the rocks that the area of our
state of Oregon was once a part of the floor of the Pacific ocean. But what land
was submerged in the ocean as our land of Oregon came up out of the ocean there
is no record or tradition to tell. Columbus was familiar with all these theories
and beliefs about the formation of the earth; and from them all was evolved his
great proposition to sail west from Spain—and make some great discovery.
But what probably influenced his thoughts more than anything else was a
little book or parchment written by the Venetian traveler, Marco Polo, in the
year 1295 after his return from a long journey through the empire of Kublai
Khan, what we now know as China. Polo's published account of his travels was
the great sensation and wonder of that age, was discussed by learned men all over
Europe and formed the basis of many new conjectures about the size and shape
of the earth. Columbus read Polo's narrative, and was familiar with all the
various theories of the earth and with all the new ideas inspired by Polo's ex-
tensive travels. The great subject had taken possession of all his thoughts. And
of all the learned men of that age he alone seems to have been capable of the
great idea which he finally carried out. But with him it was no sudden impulse,
no scintillation of genius struck out of a reckless brain. He brooded over and
revolved the great concept in his mind for years. And when finally he put forth
the proposition that by sailing directly westward from Europe he could reach
the east coast of Asia in the latitude of Cipango (Japan) as it was then known,
he was so confident and assured of the correctness of his great idea that he never
hesitated or halted until he had raised his anchors and set the sails that carried
him to the New World.
The only man of any note of the age of Columbus who seems to have sup-
ported him in his views was the learned Italian, Toscanelli. And on hearing of
the proposition of Columbus Toscanelli wrote him a letter heartily endorsing the
views of Columbus; and to demonstrate to Columbus that he could reach the east
coast of Asia by sailing west from Europe, Toscanelli amended Ptolemy's map
of the world to make it correspond with the description of Asia by Marco Polo,
and sent the copy to Columbus. On this map the eastern coast of Asia was out-
lined in front of the western coasts of Africa and Europe, with a little ocean
flowing between them in which he placed the imaginary island of Cipango
(Japan) and Antilla.
In taking up this proposition, Columbus was met with a storm of opposition
and persecution which would have crushed any other man. The church
denounced the scheme as heresy, and for nearly twenty years the great man

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
(The greatest tribute paid to this greatest man is the following
from the pen of Oregon's poet-Joaquin Miller.)

Behind him lay the gray Azores,
Behind the Gates of Hercules ;
Behind him not the ghost of shores,
Behind him only shoreless seas.
The good mate said: "Now, we must pray,
For lo, the very stars are gone,
Brave Adm'r'l speak: What shall I say?"
"Why say, "Sail on! sail on! sail on! »
They sailed and sailed as the winds might blow,
Until at last the blanched mate said:
"Why, not even God would know
Should I and all my men fall dead.
These very winds forget their way,
For God from these dread seas is gone;
Now speak, brave Adm'r'l, speak, and say-
He said: "Sail on! sail on! sail on!"
"My men grow mutinous day by day;
My men grow ghastly wan and weak."
The stout mate thought of home; as spray
Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek.
“What shall I say, brave Adm'r'l, say,
If we sight naught but seas at dawn?”
"Sail on! sail on! sail on! sail on!”
They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the mate:
"This mad sea shows its teeth tonight.
He curls his lips, he lies in wait,
With lifted teeth as if to bite!
Brave Adm'r'l say but one good word:
What shall we do when hope is gone?”
The words leapt as a leaping sword:
"Sail on! sail on! sail on! sail on!”
Then, pale and worn, he kept his deck,
And peered through darkness. Ah, that night
Of all dark nights! And then a speck,
A light! A light! A light! A light!
It grew, a starlit flag unfurled!
It grew to be Time's burst of dawn.
He gained a world; he gave that world
Its grandest lesson: "On, sail on."
OF
Bicy
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
3
traveled, begged and toiled for recognition and favor from those who could give
aid, and at last found a good priest who sympathized with his grand idea, and
through whose influence, Queen Isabella of Spain was induced to recall a former
refusal of aid.
How Columbus finally induced Queen Isabella to support his enterprise with
money and two small ships, while a third ship was added by himself and friends,
and how on August 3, 1492, he sailed out of Palos harbor with one hundred and
twenty men in the three little ships—Santa Maria, Pinta and Nina—is an oft-told
story and familiar tale. This exploratory voyage, all things considered, is the
greatest enterprise ever planned and carried out by the genius and energy of a
single man. The voyage itself was not a great affair, the little vessels of still less
account, the use of the compass was then but little understood; the seamen were
all ignorant and superstitious to the limit; but when we consider the weakness
of such an outfit to venture out upon a vast and unknown ocean and brave all
the terrors pictured by the imagination in addition to the real dangers of the sea,
and then place over and against them all the glory and grandeur of the achieve-
ment in practically adding to the use and enjoyment of the race of man, a new
world as large, useful and beautiful as the one already enjoyed, our minds are
unable to grasp and no words can fully express the greatness of the achievement,
or the honor, praise and obligation which mankind owes to the name of Chris-
topher Columbus,
After seventy days' sailing westward, Columbus struck Cat Island in the
West Indies. It was inhabited by red men. The people of Hindostan (India)
were red. Columbus believed he had reached India—the east coast of Asia; and
he called the natives Indians. The name stuck, and thus all the natives of Amer-
ica came to be called Indians. Columbus made three subsequent voyages from
Spain to the West India islands, but never reached the mainland, and died in
ignorance of his great discovery of a continent equal to the old world and sepa-
rated from it by two great oceans.
It may seem irrelevant to go back over four hundred years to begin this nar-
rative about the state of Oregon; but it must be remembered that it was Chris-
topher Columbus who started and steered the tide of the Caucasian race across
the Atlantic which finally overran the American continent and never halted un-
til here on the Willamette to found a state. And believing that the readers of
this book will take a genuine interest in the man who discovered America, and
will be glad to have a lifelike, truthful portrait of his face, we have, at much
trouble and expense, procured from the Marine Museum, at Madrid, Spain, and
here print the best likeness ever made of the great man.
When we look into the books of geographical discovery, we find that Oregon
was for a long period of time the center of a great unknown region of myths and
mystery. To see how that idea got abroad in the world, it will be necessary to
go back to the opening of the Fifteenth century and follow the current of geo-
graphical exploration around the world.
The proposition of Columbus to find a short cut to Asia by sailing west from
Spain was not to perish with his death. It was the good fortune of the Italian
navigator, Americus Vespucius, who made four voyages to America and finally
to discover the mainland of the continent near the equator. And like Columbus,
he too returned to Spain and died poor at Seville in 1512, without knowing he
4
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
had discovered a separate continent. In his letter to the King of Portugal, in
whose service he had sailed to the new world, he writes July 18, 1500: "We
discovered a very large country of Asia.'
But the half discovered secret of all the ages was not to remain hidden from
the eyes of man. Other courageous spirits followed in the wake of Columbus and
Vespucius. Sebastian Cabot, an Englishman, discovered the coast of Labrador
in 1497, and on a third voyage, entered Hudson's bay in 1517 before Hudson
died. In 1498 Vasco de Gama, under the patronage of the king of Portugal,
doubled the Cape of Good Hope and opened a new route to the Indies. This
same king in 1501 sent Gasper Cortereal with two vessels to explore the north-
western ocean. In 1512 the Spanish navigator Juan Ponce de Leon discovered
the Gulf of Mexico. In 1513, Vasco Nunez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of
Panama where President Taft is now digging a canal, and discovered the mighty
Pacific ocean. It was a revelation second only to the discovery of Columbus.
What must have been the wonder of those wandering Spaniards as they looked
down from the mountain tops to the vast ocean glittering in the morning sun.
The discovery of the Pacific ocean was a great event and had been accom-
plished by the first land journey to the interior. It then began to dawn upon the
sea-rovers that there was another ocean to be crossed to reach the riches of In-
dia. And from this discovery all the country south of the Isthmus of Panama
was given up to the Spanish. And while the title to South America was thus
accorded to Spain, the Spaniards did not abate one jot or tittle of their claim to
North America also. And in the year 1539, Ferdinand de Soto, one of Spain's
most distinguished soldiers, gathered an army of six hundred men in the Island
of Cuba, and with two hundred horses and a herd of swine, sailed for the western
coast of Florida, where he arrived on the 30th of May, and on landing his men,
was attacked by the natives, being the first opposition made by the Indians to
the occupation of the new world by the white man. From this landing point, De
Soto forced his way westward against repeated attacks from the Indians until
he reached and discovered the Mississippi river at the point where the north
boundary line of the state of Mississippi intersects the river. Under this title
of discovery, Spain held the territory down to the year 1820.
It may be supposed that on account of this activity of the Spanish in the
south, the commercial and colonizing projects of the English were confined to
the North Atlantic sea coast. And consequently we find Martin Frobisher, an
English navigator, in 1576-8 making three voyages to America, giving his name
to Frobisher's strait, but not finding a northwest passage to Asia. Frobisher
was followed by another Englishman-John Davis, in 1587-9 in three voyages,
who gave his name to Davis strait. In 1570, Francis Drake, afterwards the great
Sir Francis, boldly following the route of Magellan around the south end of
South America, and pouncing upon the Spanish merchant vessels ladened with
gold and silver from the mines of Peru, attempted to get back to England by fol-
lowing up the Pacific coast up past California and Oregon and going through a
mythical northeast passage to the Atlantic ocean. All these navigators, and many
more that we have not time to notice, were trying to find the "Strait of Anian,'.
which was reputed to be the short cut through North America, connecting the
Atlantic and Pacific oceans on a straight route from Europe to Asia.
How this mythical strait idea ever got possession of the minds of the sea-


SERCS
1
THE MIR
CINE
detrelentikibat
THE HOUSE-STILL STANDING IN THE TOWN OF ST. DIE, FRANCE, WHERE THE
AMERICAN CONTINENT WAS NAMED IN 1507
OF
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
5
rovers of that age, has never been satisfactorily explained, and its real origin will
probably never be discovered. But that the idea did get possession of the minds
of many navigators, causing vast expenditures of money and the loss of many
lives, there is ample proof. Many of the old maps of that period show the strait,
connecting the two oceans, and one of these maps made by one Conrad Low in
1598, and printed in his Book of Six Heroes, is almost a perfect map of what all
the world now knows of Bering Strait, and even showing the Yukon river under
the name of Obila. And yet all these maps were purely imaginary; California
being platted close up to where our late hero Dr. Cook crossed hundreds of miles
of ice to reach the north pole. And to show how the mythical and mysterious
had taken possession of men's minds in that age, and finally located Oregon in
the very core of all this fanciful geography and imaginary wilderness of myths,
we may refer to a few examples of these grand stories of the bold sea-rovers. In
1592 one Juan de Fuca claiming to have been born a Greek in the Island of
Cephalonia, reported that while in the employ of the Spanish viceroy of Mexico,
he sailed north along the Oregon coast, and discovered an entrance into the land
between 47 and 48 degrees latitude; and entering therein with his ship, he sailed
through the strait for twenty days and came out on the Atlantic coast. Now,
when De Fuca's report was analyzed by subsequent navigators, a great majority
disbelieved the whole story, did not believe that he even found the Strait of
Fuca, as we know it; while those who admit that he might have found the strait
to which his name is attached, all concur that he simply sailed into the strait,
kept his course north and came out into the Pacific ocean again, having simply
sailed around Vancouver island. The British government had offered a reward
of one hundred thousand dollars to any ship that should discover and report a
navigable route for ships from the Atlantic through to the Pacific ocean. This
stimulated hundreds of sea captains to look for such a passage, and still believing
in the mythical Strait of Anian, the search was kept up for two hundred years,
and practically all the voyages to America for the first sixty years after its dis-
covery were to find the short route to Asia across North America. All sorts of
imaginary countries were reported; Cabot reported that the north of America is
all divided into islands. In 1610 the English navigator, Henry Hudson,
searched the whole Atlantic coast from the river that bears his name north to the
great inland sea of Hudson's bay, looking for the passage through the conti-
nent. And about the same time on the Pacific coast we get a first-class sensation
from Spanish sources. One Lorenzo Maldonado gave it out for a fact that he
had in 1588, actually sailed through the Strait of Anian from the Atlantic to
the Pacific ocean in thirty days, during the months of November and December,
starting in at latitude 78 north and coming out at 75 north. Such a voyage would
have started from the north end of Baffin's Bay, passed through Jones sound,
and come out on the Pacific side in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, which at thu
date named, would all have been solid immovable ice. On hearing this story,
and examining his maps, the Spanish authorities denounced Maldonado as an
embustero, which is doubtless where we get the name of our latter day "booster.”
Another one of the geographical myths of that age was the belief that Cali-
fornia was an island. A Spanish navigator by the name of Nicholas Cordoba,
investigated the subject in 1615, and after exploring the Gulf of California and
talking the matter over with his fellow sea captains, reported that California
6
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
was in fact an island, and printed a long document describing the country as a
far extended kingdom of which the end is only known by geographical conjec-
tures which make it an island stretching from the northwest to southeast, form-
ing a. Mediterranean sea, adjacent to the incognita contracosta de la Florida.
It is one of the richest lands in the world, with silver, gold, pearls, etc.”
In 1748, one Henry Ellis, published in London, a summary of the voyages
and explorations to find a northwest passage across America to China and in
which he gives the story of a Dutchman sailor who having been driven to the
coast of California, had found that country to be either an island or a peninsula,
according as the tide was high or low. Before 1750, the Russians had crossed
Asia and arrived on the coast of Bering strait, and made such discoveries as
proved the existence of our Alaskan possessions, and greatly narrowed the north-
ern mystery—they had discovered the real strait which separated America and
Asia. And as embodying the geographical knowledge of this region at that time,
we have printed Jeffrey's map of 1768, which shows the location of Oregon un-
der the name of New Albion, which was the name Drake gave the Oregon coast
in 1579. This is the first map to give any hint of the great river of Columbia,
which is here put down on imaginary lines by both French and Russians as
"River of the West.'
But as time passed on and explorers and navigators converged from north
to south and compared their observations, it was made plain that there was no
Strait of Anian or any other navigable strait or water passage across the con-
tinent. The east coast lines had been followed from Hudson's bay south to the
Straits of Magellan, and thence along the west coast north to the Bering sea, and
no strait found. The result of this conclusion was, to start explorations over-
land, first from Canada and afterward from Missouri territory, which finally
developed the emigration to Oregon. And as this fact became fixed in the minds
of men, we see the then ruling powers of the world taking steps to establish
claims to the country by more open and assertive action.
The first attempt to get on to the land north of California, was made by Bar-
tolome Ferrulo, sent out in two small vessels by the Spanish government in 1543.
It seems to be certain that Ferrulo did get north of 42° north latitude and near
enough to the Oregon coast to observe birds, driftwood and the outflow of a river.
But he made no landing, and did not see the land on account of the fogs during
the month of February. The next navigator on the Oregon coast was Francis
Drake in the year 1579. Drake's claims to be the discoverer of Oregon are cer-
tainly better than those of De Fuca, and may with good reason be accepted as
the fact. Drake had come around into the Pacific by way of Cape Horn, and
prepared for any feat or fortune, had captured and robbed a number of Spanish
merchant ships, returning from Peru and Mexico. He was to all intents, a pirate
on the high seas; and knowing full well that if any Spaniard able to capture
him fell in with his ship, he would get a short shrift and off the taffrail, he laid
his course north close to the coast, where there were neither ships nor men, hop-
ing to find a passage east across the continent to the Atlantic ocean; or failing in
that, to cross over to Asia and get back to England by the way of Good Hope,
clear of Spanish ships. In the first printed account of this voyage, it is claimed
Drake reached 42° north, which would be on the southern boundary of Oregon,
where it is claimed the ship got fresh water, and to get which, the ship and crew
AMERICA Y
RIO
DEL
MORTE
ASIA
GREEN
ANO
wa
VES
CALIFORNIA
REGTO
AGAMA
LOW'S MAP, 1598.
AMERICA
SEPTEN
TRIONALIS
PUEBLOS
O DE
MOQUI
CALIFORNIA
MEXICO
Z
O ST. FRANCISO
進​美
​DUTCH MAP
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
7
must have reached the main land. From here Drake again sailed northerly along
the coast until he reached 48° north, which is about the entrance to the Straits
of Fuca. From this point Drake turned back, keeping close in and finally
reached what we now know as Drake's bay on the coast of California. It is
claimed, and it may be true, that Drake thought he could find a passage across
the continent by water and get east to the Atlantic and England with his plun-
der without risking a fight with any Spanish ship. If that were so, Drake with
all his admitted great ability, must have believed in the Strait of Anian myth.
But Francis Fletcher, Drake's nephew, who accompanied those pirates as chap-
lain, piously praying for their success, published in 1628 an account of that voy-
age which shows that they must have been well up towards Alaska before they
turned back from the extreme cold.
It seems necessary to state these particulars of Drake's discovery, as they
throw light upon the claim the British government afterwards set up to Oregon.
If Drake, on that voyage, did actually reach Oregon, then according to the inter-
national law of that period, the English had a right to Oregon from discovery.
But the British government never claimed anything for Drake or that voyage.
Why, Drake was at that time a pirate, and outlaw, and no rights could
be founded on the acts of such. There can be but little doubt that the character
of Drake's expedition was well known to the British government. After winter-
ing at Drake's bay, Drake struck out across the Pacific ocean and reached Eng-
land by way of the Cape of Good Hope route in September, 1588, after an ab-
sence of two years, being the first Englishman to sail around the earth. His re-
turn to England created a great sensation. His sailors were reported to be
clothed in silks, his sails were damask, and his masts covered with cloth of gold.
Queen Elizabeth hesitated long before recognizing the really great exploration
of a freebooter. But finally she honored him with knighthood, and approved all
his acts.
Drake was the first explorer to give a name to the country_New Albion-
which may be found for the first time on the map of Honduis made in 1595.
The next exploring expedition to the Oregon coast was made by Sebastian
Viscaino and Martin Aguilar, who were sent out by the Spanish Viceroy in Mex-
ico, with two small vessels to explore the northwest coast of America. Leaving
Monterey, California, in January, 1603, they sailed northerly and falling in with
bad weather were separated in a gale. The scurvy broke out on both ships, and
many of the men died from the disease. But Aguilar's ship finally reached the
land near Cape Blanco, Oregon, and found a river thereabouts, either Coos bay
or the Coquille. Father Ascension, the chaplain of the ship, says in his account
of it, that they “found a very copious and soundable river on the banks of which
were very large ashes, brambles, and other trees of Castile; and wishing to enter
it the current would not permit it." The same priest obtained a report from the
pilot of the other ship that “having reached Cape Mendocino with most of the
inen sick, and it being mid-winter and the rigging cruelly cold and frozen so they
could not steer the ship, the current carried her slowly towards the land, run-
ning to the Strait of Anian, which here has its entrance, and in eight days we
had advanced more than one degree of latitude, reaching 43 degrees north in
sight of a point named San Sebastian near which enters a river named Santa
Anes." It seems to be clear that both these Spanish ship captains reached sub-
8
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
stantially the same point on the Oregon coast; and Viscaino named the point,
Cabo Blanco de San Sebastian, which name has remained as the name until this
day as our Cape Blanco, about half way between Coos bay and the mouth of the
Rogue river.
Thus we see that in 111 years after Columbus discovered land on the east
side of the continent, the coast of Oregon on the west side of the continent was
clearly made out and designated by names. And these discoveries of Drake,
Viscaino and Aguilar, practically closed the era of myths and mysteries so far
as the sea coast was considered. For while the belief of a Strait of Anian, or
some passage for ships across the continent, was for a period after that believed
in or hoped for, there were no further fabricated reports of the discovery of such
a passage.
And now we find a long lapse in the spirit of exploration and discovery on
the northwest coast of America. Not only Spain, but all other nations practi-
cally abandoned the coast of old Oregon for nearly one hundred and seventy
years. Every motive which had moved Spain to exploration in the fifteenth cen-
tury was still unsatisfied. The conversion of the souls of the natives was the
great proposition of the church—and the church was Spain—was still beckoning
the faithful missionaries to the unpenetrated forests of the far north. The tak-
ing possession of any possible inter-oceanic ship passage grew more important
as the commerce of Spain on the Pacific increased from year to year. And yet
Spain failed to move again until the year 1774, only two years prior to the Dec-
laration of Independence at Philadelphia. In that long interval of inertness,
which can only be explained by Spain's surfeit of gold and plunder from Mex-
ico and Peru, we find no more of other European powers to take advantage of the
opportunity. But in 1773 the Spanish Government, moved by the reports that
the Russians were not only making settlements on the east coast of Siberia, but
were taking possession of the seal islands on the west coast of America, organized
a strong expedition to set sail in 1774, with chaplains, missionaries to the
heathen, surgeons to battle with the scurvy, and eighty men to man the ship and
fight the enemies if necessary, with a year's supplies, left Monterey, California,
to take possession of the whole coast of North America, north of California clear
up to the point where the Russians might possibly have made an actual settle-
ment. This expedition was under the command of Juan Perez, who proved
himself an able seaman and capable commander. Perez was instructed by his
government to go north to the sixtieth degree of north latitude and take posses-
sion and explore the whole coast to that extent. It seems certain from his report
that he reached 55 degrees north before turning back, and at which point he
had friendly intercourse and much trade with the Indians. At one time there
were twenty-one canoes with over two hundred Indians around his ship with
dried fish and furs to barter for knives, iron, beads and other trinkets. This ex-
pedition practically surveyed the whole coast from what is now the southern
boundary of Alaska down to the California line; and as far as any rights can
attach to the mere finding or discovery of new lands Perez had made good the
title of Spain to the whole coast from the California line up to Alaska.
Determined to make strong the claim to the northwest coast, Spain followed
up the voyage of Perez with another, the next year under the command of Bruno
Heceta, with four vessels, chaplains, missionaries, one hundred and six men and
be 10 SU 19
R.OF THE WEST-RUSSIAN
Amor
NORTH
SE
BAFFINS
TARTARIAN SEA
HUDSONS
BAY
Millo
NEW SOUTH
WALES
e
MISSISSIPPIRE
དབུས་རྒྱུད་
ཀྱིp:
MISSOURI R.
N.EE
SOUTH SEA
FOU SANG
(IMAGINED)
R.OF THE WEST-FRENCH
(IMAGINED)
NEW
COLORADOR
RIO DEL NORTE R.
MEXICO
NEW
ALBION
JEFFREY’S MAP, 1768
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
9
.
supplies for a year. They left Monterey on May 21, 1775, coasted northerly
and made their first landing July 14, 1775, on the coast of what is now Jeffer-
son county in the state of Washington, about seventy-five miles south of the en-
trance to the Straits of Fuca. Here Heceta erected a cross and took possession
of the country in the name of the king of Spain. And this was the first time
European people had set foot on the coast of old Oregon, and made proclama-
tion and record of intent to hold the land. From this point Heceta coasted south-
ward and on August 17th, discovered a bay with strong currents and eddies in-
dicating the mouth of a great river or strait. The place was subsequently named
by the Spaniards, Ensenada de Heceta, and which has been identified as the
mouth of the Columbia river.
We have now given all of the Spanish exploration of the northwest coast as
is necessary to show the title by right of discovery. It must be admitted that it
was a right founded wholly on the consent of other nations, who were in the
same business of claiming everything in the real-estate line they could find that
had not already been appropriated by others. When we consider the character
of the ships those old mariners went to sea in, and braved all the dangers of the
deep, it would seem that they were entitled to something better than wild land
that had no appreciable value. One of the ships, not, however, entitled to be
dignified as a ship (with which Heceta made that voyage along the northwest
coast in 1775), was only thirty-six feet long, twelve feet wide and eight feet deep.
What would the sailors of today say if asked to go upon a voyage along an un-
charted coast for a year, where there was no help except from savage Indians in
case of misfortune. It was just about the time Heceta and his men were beat-
ing around among the rocks of Destruction Island and fighting the Indians of
Mount Olympus on the Washington coast, when General Warren and the conti-
nental militia were pouring hot shot into the British at Bunker Hill. There were
fighting men and heroes in those days on both sides of America.
And now we come down to a period one hundred and ninety-nine years
after Drake discovered the coast of Oregon and named it New Albion, and find
George III. of England taking decisive steps to claim this country, or as much
of it as was left unclaimed by the Spaniards. In 1776, the famous navigator,
Captain James Cook, was dispatched to the Pacific coast with instructions to
search for a passage eastwardly through North America to Europe, either by
Hudson's Bay, or by the Northern sea, then recently discovered by Captain
Hearne, or by the sea north of Asia; and in such search he was instructed to
explore all the northwestern regions of America. His instructions were to strike
the Coast of New Albion at 45 degrees north, which was supposed to be north of
any discoveries then made by the Spanish. This was Cook's third and last voy-
age around the world, and he had left England without knowing what the
Spanish navigators had accomplished before that time. And he was specially
instructed "to take possession, with the consent of the natives, in the name
of the king of Great Britain, of convenient situations, as you may discover, that
have not already been discovered, or visited by any other European power, and
to distribute among the inhabitants such things as will remain as traces and
testimonials. You are also on your way thither strictly enjoined not to touch
upon any part of the Spanish dominions on the western continent of America,
unless driven thither by unavoidable accident, in which case you are to stay no
10
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
longer than shall be absolutely necessary, and to be very careful not to give
any umbrage or offense to any of the inhabitants or subjects of his Catholic
majesty. And if in your further progress to the northward, as hereafter di-
rected, you find any subjects of any European prince or state upon any part of
the coast, you may think proper to visit, you are not to disturb them, or give
them any just cause of offense.
Now, it is clear from these instructions that Cook was bound to respect the
claims of Spain set up as prior discoveries of the Oregon coast, and the British
government was bound by these instructions--Cook was to take possession of
such lands as had not been discovered or visited by any other European power.
He had reached the Sandwich islands in February, 1778, and sailing from the
islands, came in sight of the Oregon coast on March 7, 1778. He speaks of the
coast as “New Albion” in his log, using the name given it by Drake nearly two
hundred years before. At noon on March 7, the ship's position was 44° 33'
north by 236° and 30' east from Greenwich, and Cook's orders were to strike
the coast at 45° north, so that he was showing good sailing qualities. The loca-
tion on the Oregon coast reached first thus by Cook, is practically about the en-
trance of Yaquina Bay. In his log, he describes the land fairly well as of "mod-
erate height, diversified with hill and valley, and almost everywhere covered
with trees." Cook laid his course north up the coast and after passing a head-
land, foul weather set in and he named the point Cape Foulweather, which
name has stayed with the headland to this day. Cook held to his course up the
coast with continued stormy weather, until March 29, passing both the mouth of
the Columbia river and the Straits of Fuca, without seeing either opening, and
then turned into what he named Hope bay on the west coast of Vancouver island,
and finding an extension of the bay into the land, gave it the Indian name of
Nootka sound. Here he explored the country and traded with the Indians.
Cook gave the names to Capes Foulweather, Perpetua and Gregory, all of which
have been permanent except the last, which is now known as Arago. He traded
with the same Indians as did Perez, and found silver spoons and other trinkets
of European origin among them, and rightly concluded that they had been vis-
ited by more than one navigator on the coast and did not pretend to take pos-
session of the country, although he remained at Nootka on the coast of Vancouver
island for a month, making repairs on his ship.
On April 26, Cook resumed his cruise northward surveying the coast line as
best he could keeping a sharp lookout for a ship passage eastwardly across the
continent, for the discovery of which the British government had offered a re-
ward of twenty thousand pounds. But he found no Strait of Anian, or any
other strait; and coasted around northwesternly reaching Bering sea, and finally
the coast of Asia, and after satisfying himself that there was no passage from
the Pacific eastwardly to the Atlantic, he sailed for the Sandwich islands, which
he reached February 8, 1779. Here he met with great trouble from the natives,
and in attempting to recover a small boat they had stolen from his ship, he was
violently attacked by a multitude on February 14, 1779, and brutally killed
with clubs before his men could rescue him, and carried away and eaten by the
cannibals. He had made three voyages of discovery around the globe, had
discovered the Sandwich islands and many other lands.
Captain James Cook was the greatest of all the navigators and explorers of
7
PARTS UNKNOWN
PARTS UNKNOWN
LAKE
OUINIPIQUE
RIVER OF
THE WEST
OF BRIGHT STONE
MOUNTAINS
RED
R
ASSINIBOIN
NEW
ALBION
Mississipo
2
CARVER'S MAP, 1778
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
11
unknown seas, and in every respect a very great man. His services to mankind
were so highly esteemed that when Franklin was in Paris as representative of
the United Colonies he was empowered to issue letters of marque against the
English, but in doing so, inserted an instruction that if any of the holders of
such letters should fall in with vessels commanded by Captain Cook, he was to
be shown every respect and be permitted to pass unattacked on account of the
benefits he had conferred on mankind, through his important discoveries.
Cook is described as over six feet high, thin and spare, small head, forehead
broad, dark brown hair, rolled back and tied behind, nose long and straight, high
cheek bones, small brown eyes, and quick and piercing, face long, chin round and
full with mouth firmly set-a striking, austere face, showing his Scotch descent,
and indicative of the man most remarkable for patience, resolution, persever-
ance and unfaltering courage.
The irony of fate which snuffed out the life of a great and good man, and
deprived him of the honor and credit of opening to the world a great region
filled with unexampled wealth, yet even in this last fateful voyage, gave to the
commercial world a clue to vast wealth which was eagerly snapped up by citizens
of four great nations. In Cook's brief stay at Nootka sound, he got in barter, a
small bale of very fine furs from the Indians. These furs reached China after
the death of Cook, and their extraordinary quality at once so caught the atten-
tion of all vessels trading to Canton, that the news of it spread rapidly to Eng-
land, Spain, Portugal, and the United States. In consequence of this informa-
tion there was a sort of gold mine stampede to the new-found El Dorado in the
fur-bearing haunts of the north Pacific, which set in toward the northwest seven
years after Cook had sailed away. This was the beginning of the great fur trade
from which the Hudson's Bay Company made so many royal millionaires in Eng-
land.
Following up this discovery of rich furs in the northwest we find Captain
James Hanna, an Englishman, coming over from China in a little brig of sixty
tons, with twenty men. He reached Nootka sound in August, 1785, and he had
no sooner anchored his little ship than the Indians attacked him. He gave them
a hot reception, drove them off, and they then obligingly turned around and of-
fered to trade. The sea-rover accommodated them, and in exchange for a lot of
cheap knives, shirts, beads and trinkets, the natives handed over five hundred
and sixty sea otter skins, which would be worth at this day a quarter of a million.
dollars. This was the beginning of the great fur trade in old Oregon, Alaska
and California.
The next navigator to visit this region after Hanna, was the famous French
explorer, La Perouse, who was sent out by the French king to examine such
parts of northwestern America as had not been explored by Captain Cook, to
seek an inter-oceanic passage, to make observations on the country, its people
and products, to obtain reliable information as to the fur trade, the extent of the
Spanish settlements, the region in which furs might be taken without giving of-
fense to Spain, and the inducements to French enterprise. But while the com-
mander of the expedition, like Cook, lost his life on this voyage, it was in many
respects one of the most valuable of all the exploring expeditions to this region.
La Perouse was accompanied by a corps of scientific observers able to report in
full the value of the country, and their observations and the report of the voyage
12
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
1
made
up
four volumes with a book of maps, and really gave to the world the first
scientific knowledge of this vast region. The expedition had also another very
decisive feature as showing at that time what other nations than England
thought of the ownership of the country. La Perouse was instructed to ascertain
the extent and limits of the rights of Spain, and no reference was made whatever
to any rights of England, clearly showing that in the estimation of other nations,
England had no rights on the Pacific coast as against Spain or any other power.
Following La Perouse in 1786, three fur-trading expeditions were dispatched
to the northwest coast. One of these under the command of Captains Meares and
Tipping, with the ships Nootka and Sea Otter, was fitted out in Bengal and
traded with the Indians in Prince Williams sound and the Alaskan coast. A
second expedition was fitted out by English merchants at Bombay, sailing under
the flag of the East India Company, reached Nootka sound in June, 1786, and
secured six hundred sea otter skins, not as many as they hoped for, because the
Indians had promised to save their skins for Captain Hanna who had given them
a thrashing, and who returned in August. This expedition from Bombay is re-
markable for more than its six hundred sea otter pelts. It left behind, at his
own request, the first white man to reside on the northwest coast of America
one John McKey--who being in bad health chose to take his chances with the
Indians, the chief promising him protection. McKey lived for over a year with
the Indians, taking a native woman for a wife, was well treated but endured
many hardships, kept a journal of his experiences, and gave to the world, through
Captain Barclay, who carried him away to China, the geographical fact that
Vancouver island was not a part of the mainland.
The third expedition of that year was two ships fitted out in England in 1785,
but did not reach the Pacific coast until 1786. It was sent out by what was
called King George's Sound Company, an association of British merchants act-
ing under licenses from the South Sea and East India monopolies, and was com-
manded by Nathaniel Portlock and George Dixon, both of whom had been with
Cook on his last voyage. They reached the coast of Alaska in July, 1786, then
drifted south intending to winter at Nootka, but from bad weather and other
causes failed to find harbors and sailed to the Sandwich islands, where they
wintered. They returned to the coast in 1787, and repeated their cruise of drift-
ing southward from Alaska. Portlock and Dixon named several points on the
coast on this cruise, secured two thousand five hundred and fifty sea otter skins
which they sold in China for $54,857, while the whole number of otter pelts
secured by the other fur traders-Hanna, Strange, Meares and Barclay down to
the end of 1787 was only 2,481: skins. Captain Barclay reached the coast at
Nootka in June, 1787, coming out as a commander of the ship Imperial Eagle,
which sailed from the Belgian port of Ostend under the flag of the Austrian
East India Company, making another nation engaging in the fur trade. Bar-
clay went no further north than Nootka, got eight hundred otter skins and then
sailed southward, discovering Barclay sound; continuing his voyage south, pass-
ing the Strait of Fuca without seeing it, he sent off a boat to enter a river, prob-
ably the Quillayute, with five men and a boatswain's mate, where they were at-
tacked by the Indians and all killed. These were probably the same savages that
gave Heceta and his men such a battle in 1775. Mrs. Barclay had accompanied

CAPTAIN JAMES COOK,
Greatest of English Navigators
UNIL
OF
3
BICH
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
13
the captain on his voyage, and is entitled to the distinction of being the first
white woman to land on the soil of old Oregon.
Following up Captain Barclay's careful survey of the coast, the Spanish
government sent north in 1788 another exploration to find out what the Rus
sians were doing on the coast; it had been reported that the Russians had four
settlements, coming down as far south as Nootka, and it was feared that the Rus-
sians might come still farther south, as probably they did. This Spanish expe-
dition consisted of two vessels, commanded by Martinez and De Haro, for each
of which important coast points have been named. This expedition shows clearly
enough that Spain was asserting her title to the coast against all the world as
far up as 60 degrees north.
And now we reach the date when citizens of the United States for the first
time show an interest in the country we write this book about. Here for the first
time do the "Bostons" and the "King George" men (as the Indians named
them) come in contact as explorers, traders and rivals for the great northwest.
For the year 1788 the history of this vast region is made up of the movements of
the American captains, Kendrick and Gray, in command of the ship Columbia
and the sloop Lady Washington, and the British captains, Meares in command of
the Felice, and Douglas in command of the Iphigenia. All these old sea captains
were exceedingly polite to each other, accepting various favors, the Americans
firing a salute on the launching of Meares' new schooner, but each man kept a
sharp lookout for “the main chance."
Captain Gray, the first American citizen to set eyes on the coast of Oregon,
hailed the land near the boundary between California and Oregon, August 2,
1788, and coasted north, keeping in close to the shore. Two days after sighting
land, ten natives came off in a canoe and gave the strangers a friendly greeting.
On the fourteenth of August, Gray crossed over the Tillamook bar and anchored
in thirteen feet of water near where the town of Bay City is now located. The
Indians appeared to be friendly, furnishing large quantities of fish and berries
without payment, and trading furs freely for iron implements, taking what was
offered in exchange, and also furnishing wood and water as desired. Gray
thought he had entered the mouth of the great "River of the West," which Jon-
athan Carver had figured out on his map of the northwest, made ten years prior,
from conversations he had with Indians on the Mississippi river, near where
St. Paul is located. But remaining a few days in the Tillamook Bay to recuper-
ate his men from scurvy, he got into a hot fight with the Indians about a cutlass
one of them had stolen from his servant, Lopez. Poor Lopez, a native of the
Cape Verde islands, was killed, three sailors badly beaten, barely escaping with
their lives, the captain had to drive the savages away with the swivel gun, killing
many of them, and naming the place "Murderers' Harbor.” The speculators who
are now so noisily "boosting" that beautiful sheet of water for a fashionable
summer resort, will hardly, adopt its first white man's name as an attractive his-
torical suggestion. Tillamook bay may be considered the first harbor on the
coast of Oregon entered by a white man's ship; and all the more appreciated
is the fact that the ship was American, and that its captain was the discoverer
of our grand river, Columbia.
Leaving Tillamook and proceeding north up the coast, the navigators found
nothing new in adventure or discovery. They did not even see the entrance to
14
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
the Straits of Fuca, although Haswell, the ship's second officer, wrote at the time,
“I am of the opinion that the Straits of Fuca do exist, though Captain Cook
positively asserts they do not, for at this point the coast takes a bend that may
be the entrance." It is surprising that so important a geographical feature of
the northwest coast should not have been discovered sooner than it was. And it
is a painful disappointment that the name of the discoverer, Captain James
Barclay, should not have been attached to the strait, instead of that of the Greek
impostor, De Fuca. It is some satisfaction, however, to know that the first man
to sail through the great strait was an American—Captain Robert Gray, and
making a remarkable and most happy coincidence, in that his vessel was named
Lady Washington in honor of the wife of the man who was at the date of that
memorable voyage through the strait inaugurated the first president of the
United States.
From this time on, the fur-trading vessels to the north Pacific rapidly in-
creased. The profits of the fur trade were so enormous that men and money
rushed into it from every maritime nation. It was typical of and the forerunner
of the California gold craze which came along about sixty years later. The only
difference being, so far as the argonauts were concerned, was that in the rush to
get furs all had to go in ships and brave the perils of the sea; while in the mad
rush to California tens of thousands made their way overland from the Missouri
river by ox team. But on reaching these two era-making El Doradoes, we see an-
other wholly dissimilar plan to get the gold. The fur-trading sea captains did
not hunt for any furs or descend to the menial labor of digging gold from mother
earth. They took the lordly and aristocratic way of working the heathen savage
to catch the furs on land and sea, and then trading him out of his pelts with bad
whiskey, shoddy shirts, and glass beads. But the California miner for gold had
to get in and dig for himself to get gold. Indians there were in plenty in Califor-
nia, but no lordly son of the forest would ever demean himself with the base work
of using a pick and shovel. And here we see the two races face to face, opposed.
One will hunt, and shoot, and fish, and kill, and starve before he will work. The
other will work and trade, and cheat and rob, before he will starve.
At the same time that Gray and Kendrick were out here from Boston, two
English ships, the Felice and Iphegenia, already noticed, were here for furs.
The English men had come prepared to build a small vessel on the coast and
making their headquarters at Nootka, erected there the first house built north of
California. This house, built 122 years ago, was two stories high with a de
fensive breastwork all around it, and a cannon mounted on top of it. Captain
Kendrick of the Columbia, also built a house, but whether before or after the
erection of the English house, the record does not show. Being inquired of, the
Indian chief, Maquinna, and all of his sub-chiefs, who were in native possession
of the land at Nootka, answered that they sold no land to the British captains,
and that the American captain, Kendrick, was the only man to whom they had
ever sold any land. So that so far as getting the Indian title to lands was con-
cerned, history shows that the Americans were the first and only people to rec-
ognize the Indian title to lands on the Pacific coast. The Englishmen who built
the house, above described, got in all the furs they could and prepared to leave
for China in September, 1788. They tore down the house they had erected, put
part of the materials on board the ships, and gave the balance to the Americans.


CAPTAIN ROBERT GRAY
ONIO
OF
3
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
15
In other respects, they were not so liberal. They strongly urged the Americans
not to remain on the coast and brave the winter storms, avoided carrying any
letters from the Americans to China, declared they had not got more than fifty
otter skins when they had, in fact, thousands. But the Americans stayed and
wintered at Nootka.
With the opening of the spring of 1789, the two American ships pushed their
work of exploration to new locations and other tribes of Indians, getting in large
lots of furs, before the English or Spanish ships could reach the coast, and dur-
ing the summer surveying the Straits of Fuca. By the middle of June, the Eng-
lishmen had returned from China, and immediately engaged in trade for furs.
But prior to the arrival of the English ships, two Spanish vessels reached Nootka
under the command of Lieutenant Martinez and Captain Haro, who came pre-
pared to assert and enforce the rights of Spain to the country. Finding the
English ships had two sets of papers, one English and one Portuguese, prepared
to sail under two different flags, the Spaniards promptly arrested the English-
men, and thereby hangs the tale of a good sized tempest in a teapot settlement at
Nootka sound. Back and under the whole trouble was the strife to get furs
from the Indians. The Spaniards had never made any settlement in the coun-
try or left a single priest to convert the heathen. Neither had the English. But
the Spaniards claimed the country by right of discovery, and if now by asserting
that right vigorously they could put the Englishmen out of the fur trade, it
would be good business. And so the Spaniards pushed their advantage by send-
ing the English captains down to San Blas as prisoners or pirates. Spain
claimed the right to found a settlement and build a fort. The English claimed
the same rights and it was clear there could not be two sovereignties in the same
territory. The upshot of the whole matter was a making of a compromise treaty
of which we will give a copy in the chapter on title to the country.
But as the Spaniards were very poor business men, they never got much out
of the fur trade. Besides that, otter pelts were not near so attractive as the
ingots of gold and silver they were squeezing out of the Mexicans and Peruvians.
And as a matter of fact, it is no more than justice to the priests and ought to be
said, that the church used its influence through the priests to protect the Indians
as far as possible from the evils of the rụm traffic and outrageous robbery by fur
traders in getting the fruits of their labor for mere trifles. A single example
may be given to show how ignorant the natives were of the value of otter skins
when they gave Captain Cook, on his survey of Queen Charlotte island, two hun-
dred sea otter skins, worth at that time eight thousand dollars for an old iron
chisel not worth a dollar.
The Americans had decided to send Gray with the Columbia back to Boston,
when the quarrel between the English and the Spaniards was at its height; and
to that end, with the furs taken by Kendrick and Gray, he (Gray) returned to
Boston at the close of 1789. The joint expedition of the two ships had not been
greatly profitable, but the Boston merchants were not discouraged, and resolved
to outfit the ship and send Gray out again.
Accordingly the Columbia sailed out of Boston harbor on the 28th of Sep-
tember, 1790, for its second voyage to the coast of old Oregon, and arrived at
Clayoquot on the west coast of Vancouver Island, on the 5th of June, 1791. After
a rest for a few days, the ship proceeded to the eastern side of Queen Charlotte
16
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
island, on which and the opposite mainland coast she remained until September,
exploring and trading with the Indians, going as far north as the present ex-
treme southern end of Alaska. Gray returned to Clayoquot on the 29th
of August, having had only indifferent success in getting furs, and then went
into winter quarters near an Indian village, and during the winter, built a small
sloop and lived on the ducks and geese so plentiful and fat. The next spring
(1792) brought a lot of traders from France, Portugal, England, and the United
States. There were twenty-eight vessels on the northwest coast in the spring of
1792 at one time. Five of them came expressly to make geographical explora-
tions. The others brought out government commissioners or supplies for gar-
rison and national vessels. But it is no part of our purpose to follow the move-
ments of any of these ships.
We return again to Captain Gray in winter quarters at Clayoquot. In Feb-
ruary, 1792, the Indians that had all along been so friendly to Gray, formed a
plot to seize the ship and kill' every man but a Kanaka servant boy. The plot
was detected and defeated by the mistake of the Indians in trying to bribe this
Kanaka to wet the powder in all the firearms on a certain night. By moving the
ship, preparing for defense, and firing the cannon into the woods, the attack
was prevented. On the 23d of February the sloop which Gray had built—the
first American ship built on the coast-was launched and named the Adventure,
and on April 2d both of Gray's ships sailed out for their spring harvest of furs.
The two vessels parted company at Clayoquot, Gray and the Columbia going
southward. On the 29th of April, Gray met the Englishman, Vancouver, just
below Cape Flattery, and gave him some account of his discoveries, and among
other things told him about having been off the mouth of a river in latitude 46
degrees north where the outgoing flow was so strong as to prevent him from en-
tering the river after nine days' effort. After meeting Vancouver, he ran into
what is now called Gray's Harbor, and remained there trading with the Indians,
and got into a fight with them, until the 10th of May, when he weighed anchor,
sailed out and southward to the point where he had struck the outflow of the
great river, and then on May 11, 1792, succeeded in sailing in over the bar and.
up the river for twenty-five miles, and on May 19th named the river after his
ship, "Columbia's River"--our great Columbia.
From the log book of the Columbia we take the following extracts: “At four
o'clock in the morning of the 11th we beheld our desired port, bearing east-
southeast, distant six leagues. At 8 a. m., being a little to the windward of the
entrance of the harbor, bore away, and ran in east-northeast, between the break-
ers, having from 5 to 7 fathoms of water. When we were over the bar, we found
this to be a large river of fresh water, up which we steered. Many canoes came
alongside. At 1 p. m. came to with the small bower, in ten fathoms, black and
white sand. The entrance between the bars bore west-southwest ten miles; the
north side of the river, distant a half mile from the ship, the south side of the
same, two and a half miles distant, a village on the north side of the river, west
by north, distant three quarters of a mile. Vast numbers of the natives came
alongside; people employed pumping the salt water out of our water-casks in
order to fill with fresh while the ship floated in. So ends."
"No, not so ends, Oh, modest Captain Gray of the ship Columbia (says Mrs.
Victor), the end is not yet, nor will it be, until all the vast territory, rich with


܀ ܀ ܀ ܀ ܀ ܀܀
CAPTAIN GRAY'S SHIP__"COLUMBIA”
UNIL
OF
4
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
17
every production of the earth, which is drained by the waters of the new-found
river, shall have yielded up its illimitable wealth to distant generations.'
And to this Yankee skipper from Boston, the American, Robert Gray, more
honors came in the exploration of the northwest than to any other man. He was
not only the first to sail a ship through the Straits of Fuca—the discoverer of the
Columbia river—but he was the first American to circumnavigate the globe un-
der the national flag, which he did in 1790, by the way of Good Hope, trading his
furs to the Chinese at Canton for a cargo of tea.
Here our record of the explorations of the northwest from the seacoast comes
to a close. We have given enough to enable the reader to follow the story and
see how these explorations gradually concentrated to the point of discovering the
river which drains the empire of old Oregon. The foundation of our title to the
whole northwest, clear up to the Alaskan boundary, and the diplomacy in set-
tling that title will be better understood when reading future chapters after
having read this chapter through.
We may pause here for a moment and contemplate the mischances of great
men—the greatest of men. While the world has accorded to Christopher Co-
lumbus the imperishable fame and honor of discovering the American continent,
there can be no doubt but that other European mariners had touched on the
continent of America before him. There is no doubt that the Scandinavians
under the lead of Leif Ericson had crossed over to the western hemisphere more
than a hundred years before Columbus was born. But they left no settlement,
and made but little if any record or comment of the matter. It was a matter of
no importance to them, and no one ever followed up their lead. It is conjectured
that Columbus had heard of this discovery from the Icelanders whom he visited
fifteen years before he sailed away from Palos into the unknown western ocean.
But if so, Columbus never mentioned the fact, and there is no evidence that he
had ever heard of the Scandinavian discovery.
Columbus was rightly entitled to name the land he had discovered, although
he had never reached the main land, but had only set up his banner on a neigh-
boring island. But sentiment, poetry and praise alike has for four hundred
years striven to undo the great wrong to the greatest hero. The ship that first
entered Oregon's great river bore his name; and the mighty river itself is a per-
petual memorial to the honor of Christopher Columbus.
To Americus Vespucius, who was born at Florence, Italy, on the 9th of March,
1451, was given the honor of naming the New World. Vespucius moved from
Italy to Spain in the year of 1490, and made the acquaintance of Columbus before
he sailed from Palos. And on the return of Columbus to Spain with the great
discovery Vespucius was one of the first to greet the great discoverer. But he
(Vespucius), then a merchant at Seville, made no effort to verify the report of
Columbus until 1499, when he accompanied Ojeda on his expedition to America
as an astronomer. Vespucius made four voyages to the New World, but he had
not the chief command of these expeditions; and like Columbus died without.
knowing he had reached a separate continent. In a letter to the King of Portu-
gal, in whose services he had sailed, July 18, 1500, he says: “We discovered a
very large country of Asia." And, like Columbus, after giving to the world all
the riches of America, he died a poor man, passing away at Seville in 1512.
But how came Vespucius to receive the great honor of naming the New
Vol. 1-2
18
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
World? The answer is: Vespucius wrote a book-an account of his voyages. If
Columbus ever wrote any report of his discovery voyage, it was buried under the
envy and malice that finally destroyed him, and was not given to the world at
that time.
The reader must now go with the historian to a little school at the little old
town of St. Die at the foot of the Vosgian Alps mountains in France. In the year
1507 this school was in the hands of some pious monks, as were all schools in
those days. The over-lord of this institution was Rene II., Duke of Lorraine;
who on one of his Ducal visits to the little school carried with him, being a patron
of arts and sciences, a Mss. book of French, which he had then recently received
from Italy, entitled “Quatre Navigations d'Amerique Vespuce.” But whether
Vespucius was the author of this book or not, there is no account. That incident
took place thirty-nine years after the death of Gutenberg, the inventor of print--
ing. At that date the monks and governors of the little school had just pur-
chased and set up the first printing press in that part of France; and were at that
time preparing to print a geography of the world, and which they entitled a "Cos-
mography.” Here then was a grand chance for the new book—a piece of up-to-
date geography; and so the manuscript brought by the Duke must go into the
new book. And it went in under the title
"THE LAND OF AMERICA
and the introduction to it on page 30 of the book reads: “There is a fourth quar-
ter of the world which America Vespuci has discovered, and which for this
reason we call ‘America, the land of Americ.'» And further along the book
says: “We do not see why the name of the man of genius, Americo, who has
discovered them, should not be given to these lands—the more so as Asia and
Europe bear the names of women. Alack ! and alas! The mighty deeds of the
great Columbus overlooked or forgotten within a year after his poor body was
laid in the grave! And this was the New World, named by the French who had
not then sent out a single voyage of discovery; and who by that book and print-
ing press were successful in giving to a man whose work had not been conspicu-
ous, the name which rightly belonged to the great Columbus. On another page
is given the picture of the building, yet standing, where America got its name.
CHAPTER 11
16341834
THE LANDWARD MOVEMENT WEST-TWO DIFFERING MINDS OF CIVILIZATION AND IN-
DEPENDENT MOVEMENTS OF POPULATION MOVE WESTWARD-THE FRENCH CATH-
OLIC ON ONE SIDE, AND THE ENGLISH PROTESTANT ON THE OTHÉR—MARQUETTE,
1665—LA SALLE, 1679—HENNEPIN, 1680—JONATHAN CARVER, 1766—ALEX-
ANDER MACKENZIE, 1793_LEWIS AND CLARK, 1804_MAJOR ZEBULON PIKE, 1805
-SIMON FRASER, 1806—ANDREW HENRY, 1808—JONATHAN WINSHIP, 1809-
DAVID THOMPSON, 1810—WILSON PRICE HUNT, 1811—JEDEDIAH SMITH, 1826–
NATHANIEL J. WYETH, 1832—LIEUT. B. L. E. BONNEVILLE, 1833—AND JOHN C.
FREMONT, 1843.
The settlement of the west, northwest and southwest, from the earliest time
proceeded from the Atlantic to the Pacific,on two separate and characteristically
different lines.
First: The French from the Canadas, succeeded by the English Canadians.
Second: The English from the colonies, succeeded by the American rebels of the
colonies. These currents of differing populations, ideas and ideals impinge one
against the other, first in the wilderness of old Fort Du Quesne, where the city
of Pittsburg now stands, resulting in war between France and England, and
finally on the Columbia, a half century later, between the United States and
England, for possession of old Oregon.
In this chapter will be sketched the men and movements which seem to have
been in their inception more devoted to fur trading or religious interests than
to the political aspect of permanent settlements. Having, in tracing the devel-
opment and conclusion of the seacoast exploration of the northwest, gone only
so far as that exploration resulted in locating and pointing out, as its final result,
the great interior water-way line across the continent, that was to locate and
build this state, this chapter will present the personalities of the great work of
civilization in the settlement of this vast region by the white race. From the
timid and tentative adventurings out from the Atlantic seacoast into the un-
known western wilderness, two distinct and diverse lines of thought and purpose
characterize two separate and independent movements of population to take pos-
session of the vast unknown West. And that these diverse lines of thought and
separated independent movements of people did as surely and definitely con-
verge upon, select and build up this Oregon, as did the many-sided sea-rovers'
exploration of unknown seas finally converge upon and select the great Columbia
river, will be the thought and conclusion of this chapter.
The French being in possession of Canada, were the first to make the plunge
into the boundless wilderness. And this final and successful effort to get into
the interior of the continent was made only after a long and bitter war with the
19
20
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Iroquois Indians, who had destroyed the previously established Catholic mis-
sions along Lake Huron, and driven back the French to the gates of Quebec.
Protection being finally guaranteed to the Jesuits, and a regiment of French sol-
diers being sent out to overcome the Indians, the five nations finally made a
peace which assured an end of further hostilities. Starting from Old Fort Fron-
tenac, at the outlet of Lake Ontario as early as 1665, we find the faithful priest,
Allouez, braving all the dreaded dangers of the unknown, and following up
through the chain of Great Lakes, and finally reaching Lake Superior, with Mar-
quette, establishing the mission of St. Mary, the first settlement of white men,
within the limits of our northwestern states. Following this, various other mis-
sions were established and explorations made. Fired by rumors of a great river
in the far distant west, Marquette was sent by the superintendent, Talon, to
find it. Marquette was accompanied on this exploration of the trackless wilder-
ness by Joliet, a merchant of Quebec, with five Frenchmen and two Indian
guides. Leaving the lakes by the way of Fox river, they ascended that stream
to the center of the present state of Wisconsin, where they carried their canoes
across a portage until they struck the Wisconsin river. Here the Indian guides,
fearful of unknown terrors in the wilderness beyond, refused to go farther, and
left the white men to make their own way alone. For seven days the Frenchmen
floated down the Wisconsin, and finally came out on the mighty flood of the Mis-
sissippi—the "Great River"-for such is the meaning of the name. With the
feelings of men who had discovered a new world, they floated down the great
river, charmed and delighted with the wondrous scene, passing through verdant
meadowland prairies, covered with uncounted herds of buffalo, with the un-
broken silence of ages they passed the outpouring floods of other rivers—the Des
Moines. the Illinois, the Missouri, the Ohio, and on down to the Arkansas. Here
they landed to visit the astonished natives on the shore, who received them with
the utmost kindness, and invited them to make their homes with them.
But leaving the Arkansas, Marquette and his companions floated on down
the Father of Waters, until greeted by a different climate, by cottonwood, pal-
mettoes, heat and mosquitoes. Marquette was satisfied that to follow the river
they must fall into the Gulf of Mexico; and fearful of falling into the hands of
the Spaniards, reluctantly turned the prows of their canoes up stream and made
their way back to Canada over the same route. Leaving Marquette at Green
bay on Lake Michigan, Joliet carried the news back to Quebec. Shortly after
this Marquette's health gave way, and while engaged in missionary work among
the Illinois Indians, he died May 18, 1675, at the age of thirty-eight. He had
fallen at his post, and his self-appointed work of enlightening and blessing the
benighted American savage, and unselfishly consecrated his life to the highest
and noblest impulses of the human soul.
And now we strike a different character, Robert Cavalier de La Salle, a dash-
ing young Frenchman, who had shown energy and enterprise in explorations of
Lakes Ontario and Erie, was roused to great interest and resolved at once that
he would explore the course of the great river to its outlet in the ocean, wherever
that might lead them. Leaving his Fort Frontenac, and his fur trade, he hur-
ried back to France to get a commission from the government to explore the Mis-
sissippi river. Nothing could be done in those days by the French, Spanish or
English without government license. It was different on the American Colonial

MERIWETHER LEWIS
Of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
UNIL
3
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
21
side of the line after the Battle of Bunker Hill. La Salle got his commission;
returning to Canada, accompanied by the Chevalier Tonti, an Italian veteran,
as his lieutenant, he made haste to build a small sloop with which he sailed up
the Niagara river to the foot of the rapids below the great falls. Transporting
his stores and material around the falls, he began the first rigged ship that ever
sailed the Great Lakes. In this ship of sixty tons, which he named the Griffin,
with a band of missionaries and fur traders, La Salle passed up Lake Erie,
through the strait at Detroit, across St. Clair and Lake Huron, through the
Straits of Mackinaw, into Lake Michigan, and finally came to anchor in Green
bay in the present state of Wisconsin, October, 1679. From this point, after
sending the ship back for fresh supplies, La Salle and his companions crossed
Lake Michigan, to the mouth of St. Joseph's river in the present state of Michi-
gan, where Father Allouez had established a mission with the Miami Indians,
and where La Salle now added a trading post which he called the Fort of the
Miamis. Here the party labored and waited in vain for a year the return of
their ship which had been wrecked and lost on its way back to Lake Erie. Tir-
ing of his troubles in camp, and vexatious of delay, with a few followers they
shouldered their muskets and packed their canoes and set out on foot from St.
Joseph in December, 1679, tramping around the southern end of Lake Michigan,
and across the frozen prairie to the head waters of the Illinois river, finding
which they floated down the river to Lake Peoria, where the city of Peoria now
stands. There they got into trouble with the Indians, large numbers of whom
inhabited that part of the country. They had every imaginable kind of trouble
with the Indians, with half-hearted followers and open deserters. But La Salle,
well named "the lion-hearted,” was equal to every danger and emergency, and
kept his grand ship of enterprise and exploration afloat under circumstances
that would have overwhelmed any other man. But receiving no news from St.
Joseph, and knowing nothing of the loss of his ship, and destitute of the tools,
implements or supplies to enable him to go forward and compass the great
scheme of exploration to the mouth of the great river, he resolved to return to
Canada with only three men, painfully and tediously making their way by land
across the vast wilderness from the heart of the present state of Illinois to Fron-
tenac, in Canada, where the city of Kingston now stands, taking sixty-five days
of foot-sore travel to accomplish the trip. But before leaving Peoria lake, La
Salle detached one of his men, Tonti, who had only one arm, and the priest,
Father Hennepin, to make further explorations of the country in his absence.
Hennepin was to explore the upper Mississippi, and Tonti the Illinois country.
Hennepin has always had credit of being the first white man to explore the up-
per portion of the river. He claimed to have gone up the Mississippi from the
mouth of the Illinois to the falls of St. Anthony, where St. Paul now stands; and
when he returned to France, he published an account of such explorations. But
the correctness of Father Hennepin's story has been disputed by the historian
Sparks, who, after receiving the report of Hennepin, says: "These facts, added
to others, are perfectly conclusive, and must convict Father Hennepin of having
palmed upon the world a pretended discovery and a fictitious narrative."
Leaving Father Hennepin, and coming back to his one-armed co-laborer,
Tonti, we find that the Illinois Indians promptly banished him on the departure
of La Salle, so that he had to take refuge at the old camp on Green bay,
22
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
from which point Tonti sent back to Canada a dismal report of all his troubles,
and the destruction of the fort at Peoria, and the probable death of La Salle at
the hands of Indians. But La Salle was not dead. The lion-hearted hero of
the great American wilderness was alive and equal to the great reverses of his
fortune. On reaching his old home and establishment at Frontenac, he found it
plundered and all his property wrecked, stolen, lost and ruined. But the daunt-
less man refused to be defeated. To raise money in a wilderness and outfit a
new expedition seemed an impossibility. There are a thousand promoters of all
sorts of schemes in this state today, where there is fifty million dollars of money.
But if all these thousand promoters were boiled down into one man (he) they
could not do in Oregon what La Salle did in the wilderness of Canada two hun-
dred and thirty years ago. With his eloquence of speech, his courage, his desper-
ate determination to succeed and his refusal to accept defeat, he gathered a new
party of men, he procured supplies for a year, he laid in arms and ammunition
to fight Indians, if fight he must, and again sallied forth to claim and conquer
the mightiest empire of rich land on the face of the earth, for his God and his
king. The grandeur and heroism of the man is simply paralyzing.
With his new company of men and ample supplies, he returned, collected
together his old men, went on to Peoria lake, to find his fort destroyed and
all the Indian camps in ruins, and the ground covered with the bones and corpses
of the slain Illinois who had been literally wiped out by the merciless Iroquois.
Then La Salle constructed a barge-not a ship with sails as he had told the In-
dians—but a barge like what may be seen in Portland harbor loaded with wood
or ties today, and with this comfortably outfitted, he floated down the Illinois
from Peoria lake to the “Father of Waters," and thence day after day on down,
down, down, until he came to the point where the great river divided into three
branches to discharge its vast flood into the Gulf of Mexico. The party divided.
La Salle followed down the Western outlet, D'Autray the East, and Tonti, the
Central. They came out on the great gulf where not a ship had ever disturbed
its waters, and where there was no sign of life. The three parties assembled, and
re-united, proceeded to make formal proclamation, April 9, 1682, of the right of
discovery of all the lands drained by the mighty river, and the ownership of the
same by the king of France. They erected a cross as a signal that the country
was devoted to the religion of the Holy Roman Catholic church; and buried a
tablet of lead with the arms of France, and erected a slab on which were en-
graved the arms of France and the inscription: Louis Le Grande, Roy De
France Et De Navarre, Regne; Le Neuvieme, Avril, 1682.
The Frenchmen fired a volley, sang the Te Deum and then La Salle raised his
sword and in the name of his king, claimed all the territory drained by the Mis-
sissippi. A region "watered by 1,000 rivers and ranged by 1,000 warlike tribes;
an empire greater than all Europe, passed that day beneath the sceptre of the
king of France by this feeble act of one man.” And now we can see on what
slight and trivial circumstances the titles to continental empires of land turned
in the easy-going times 230 years ago. When Columbus discovered America,
Pope Alexander VI., of bad repute, gave the whole of it to Spain, and that dis-
position of the continent was acquiesced in for a long time. When Hernando
De Soto discovered the Mississippi river in 1539, he claimed the river and all
the regions that it drained for the king of Spain. How the Holy Father ever
.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
23
settled the matter between the two loyal Catholic nations has probably never
been ascertained.
The sad fate of so great a man as La Salle should not be omitted from this
record. Gathering up his followers, being unable to take his barge back, he
turned his canoes up-stream and for many months paddled his way back, stop-
ping to build a fort at where the city of St. Louis now stands, and organizing the
Illinois Indians into an effective force to withstand the attacks of the Iroquois
and hold the country for France. Of all the explorers of the west, La Salle seems
to have been the only man who appreciated or tried to organize and utilize the
natives in reclaiming the wilderness for the purposes of civilization.
After thus rapidly bringing the Illinois Indians to his support and the de-
fence of the interests of France, he returned to Canada to find his friend and
supporter, Governor Frontenac, recalled to France and the weak and foolish
old man, La Barre, in his place. And this man, wholly unable to comprehend
the great work La Salle had accomplished, treated him with cruel ingrati-
tude, denouncing him as an impostor. He ridiculed the explorer's story of his
explorations as a base fiction, saying the country was utterly worthless even if
he had found such a country. Stung with mortification and exasperated by in-
sult, La Salle at once sailed for France to lay his case before the king in person.
The king met La Salle for the first time, and the great explorer made the speech
of his life, detailing with a passionate eloquence the grandeur of the great river,
the beauty of the great countries it passed through, the value of the forests, and
the future of its commerce, and captured the king and court of what was then
the most powerful government on the earth. Too much could not be done for
him. What did he want? He should have anything he asked for. He asked
for ships and men to found a colony at the mouth of the great river. They
were granted. The ships, the men, and women with them. The ships were
good enough, but their commander turned traitor to La Salle and the colonists
to found a new state were the scum of all France. They sailed for the Missis-
sippi, but on the way the Spanish captured one of the ships and the other
missed the mouth of the great river and landed at Matagorda bay in the terri-
tory of what is now Texas. The ships sailed away leaving La Salle and his
worthless colonists. They started a settlement where the town of Lavaca now
stands. Sickness broke out among them, and they died off like sheep. Of the
one hundred and eighty men and women who landed from the ship, one hundred
and thirty-five perished within six months. La Salle made two efforts to get
away from the doomed settlement and find the Mississippi, but failed. Then
made a third attempt and got as far as the Teche river in what is now St. Lan-
dry county in the state of Louisiana, where he was brutally murdered by the
mutiny and treason of three of his men, shooting him from ambush. And the
murderers, quarreling over the spoils of their leader, hastily suffered the same
retributive fate at the hands of their associates; while one Jontel, the narrator
of these bloody deeds, and only five others of all that ship's load of people, ever
lived to reach the great river. La Salle was killed on the 19th of March, 1687.
And the good priest, Antase, who had faithfully followed to the last sad end,
dug his grave, buried him, and erected a cross over the remains of the greatest
land explorer the world ever saw, at the place where the town of Washington,
in Louisiana, is now located.
24
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
La Salle had literally given his life to his king, to France, and to the ex-
tension of the Catholic religion. According to the supposed law of nations two
hundred years ago, La Salle had given France a good title to all the lands
drained by the Mississippi river. And as it turned out in the current of his-
torical and political events, that title was made good to France by the subse-
quent action of President Thomas Jefferson; thus showing what a great work
and a great gift La Salle had conferred on his country. From that territory,
and founded upon the title which the acts and labors of La Salle had given to
France, and for which the United States paid France fifteen million dollars
more than a hundred years ago, the following American states have been peopled
and organized: Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, Ne-
braska, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Indian Territory,
and parts of Montana and Colorado.
But we must not forget that this was not all of the empire which the dis-
coveries of La Salle conferred on France. La Salle had claimed all the lands
drained by the Mississippi. In addition to the states named above, this claim
covered Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and parts of
Wisconsin, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Mississippi. France had already
claimed the whole of lower and upper Canada, and for two hundred and thirty
years, running from 1524 down to 1760, had held exclusive possession of the
same, and from La Salle's advent on the Mississippi, had held a like exclusive
possession of the whole of the Mississippi Valley for more than seventy years.
The relation and connection of this state of Oregon with this chapter of the
life of the great La Salle consists of the influence which the acts of the explorer
gave to the extension of American settlements and exploration towards the Pa-
cific Northwest. It may be adverted to now, and enlarged upon hereafter, that
the French nation and the French people have always been, whenever occasion
offered, friends of American ideas and institutions on the American continent
as against other nations. And this friendship has more than once been effective
to confer great benefits not only on the United States, but also on the people of
Oregon.
In 1753, England, by virtue of the possession of the colonies on the Atlantic
coast, and especially the colony of Virginia, put forth a claim to all the ter-
ritory west of Virginia. The first public assertion of this claim by England was
when Dinwiddie, colonial governor of Virginia, on the 30th of October, 1753,
sent a young man named George Washington over the Alleghany mountains, to
the forks of the Ohio to find out what the French were doing in that region.
Young Washington, then only twenty-two years of age, took along with him
an old soldier that could speak French, engaged a pioneer guide and struck out
into the vast wilderness. Reaching an Indian camp twenty miles below where
the city of Pittsburg now stands, he held a pow-wow with the red men, and
they furnished him an escort and guides to go up the Alleghany river and find
the Frenchmen. This was then in the middle of a bad winter. But nothing
could stop Washington. He found the French prepared to hold the country
by military force if necessary. He got their reply to Dinwiddie's letter, and
returned to Williamsburgh, the then capital of Virginia. Washington Irving
has drawn out the story of this first expedition of George Washington in his
unsurpassed style and adds: “This expedition may be considered the founda-

WILLIAM CLARK
Of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
UNIL
3
OF
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
25
tion of Washington's fortunes; from that moment he was the rising hope of
Virginia.”
To make a long story short, this was the challenge to France, and the pre-
lude to the war which raged for six years on American soil to decide whether
France with the Catholic or England with the Protestant Episcopal faith should
rule America. It is one of the remarkable things of history that this war so de-
cisive and far-reaching in its results should have been begun under the leader-
ship of this young Virginian surveyor; and that it hardly had been closed by
a treaty which gave nearly all of America to the English, until the colonies
themselves, under the leadership of this same Virginian surveyor, should have
disputed the rights of England and successfully made good their claim by a
subsequent treaty which gave to Washington's work nearly everything the
English had wrested from the French, and thus verifying the prophecy of the
French statesman, Count Vergennes, “The colonies (said he) will no longer
need the protection of the English; England will call on them to contribute
toward supporting the burdens they have helped to bring on her, and they will
.answer by striking for independence."
By the treaty of Paris, made February 10, 1763, the whole of upper and
lower Canada and all of Louisiana claimed by La Salle, east of the Mississippi
river, had been ceded to England, and the island and city of New Orleans and
all of Louisiana west of the Mississippi had been ceded to Spain. By this treaty
French rule disappeared from America, but French influence remained active
by fomenting discord between the colonies and England.
LAND EXPLORATIONS TOWARDS OREGON—JONATHAN CARVER, FIRST, 1766
Tlaving thus traced out the impulse given to the exploration of the west by
the French, we turn to the American colonies and find that no sooner than the
treaty of Paris had been signed, that the hardy pioneers of the border poured
over the Alleghany mountains into western Pennsylvania, western Virginia,
Kentucky and Tennessee. The only Englishman we find in this flood of immi-
gration is Jonathan Carver, born in Connecticut, who left Boston in June, 1766,
intending to penetrate the western wilderness to the head of the Mississippi river.
It is true there are many accounts of explorations to the far west which do not
give any certain information, and which have a flavor of mystery if not fiction,
but which it is not necessary to notice here. Carver's trip to the headwaters of
the Mississippi is a veritable historical fact, and for many reasons, is of very great
importance in any history of Oregon or the North Pacific. Carver was a captain
in the British provincial army, and from necessity a man of education and ability
to comprehend the facts coming under his observance. His exploration extended
to a point about fifty miles west of where the city of St. Paul stands. Here he
met the Dacotah Indians, and lived with them for seven months, studying their
language and learning all he could from them about the country to the west-
ward. These Indians drew maps for him as best they could on birch bark,
which, though meagre and rude in drawing, Carver found to be correct when
he had an opportunity to explore for himself. These Indians told Carver of the
Rocky mountains; pointed to their location farther west, telling him they were
the highest land in all the world they knew, and told him that four great rivers
26
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
ran down from these mountains in every direction. This was true. From their
description, Carver made a map which we insert in this book.
On this map
Carver shows our Columbia as the River of the West, although the natives
gave him the name of Oregon in connection with the country or the river, and it
is not certain which. But it was from these Dacotah Indians, and through
Carver, we get the word Oregon as the name of the Old Oregon Country, and
the name of our state. Gallons of ink and reams of paper have been wasted
in trying to solve the origin and mystery of this name; and still it goes back
to those unlettered sons of the forest. Carver undoubtedly tried his best to
catch their meaning, and the true name of everything, and it is very probable
that he did, for he was with them for seven months, and certainly had their
utmost trust and confidence. It must be accepted as a mere designation, name
of a place or country without any known reason or signification for it, just as
thousands of other places have names without rhyme or reason.
Carver's idea in this exploration, besides studying the Indians, was to cross
the continent and ascertain its breadth from east to west between the forty-
third and forty-sixth parallels of latitude, after which he intended to have the
British government establish a post somewhere on the straits of Anian. In his
first expedition with promised support, the supplies never reached him; and
when afterwards he revived the scheme with a wealthy member of the British
parliament, their plans were upset by the breaking out of the American rebel-
lion and the war for independence. The British government had sanctioned
the Carver plan which was to take fifty men to ascend the Missouri river to its
headwaters, cross over the Rocky mountain divide and then descend the River
of the West to the Pacific ocean, and build a fort at some strategic point. And
it is perfectly clear from this chapter of Carver's report that the British did not
intend to respect the rights of Spain under the treaty of Paris to the country
west of the Mississippi. England was even then, within three years after sign-
ing the treaty of Paris, making plans and taking steps to drive Spain out of her
possessions west of the Mississippi, just as they had driven France out of Can-
ada. But now they were counting without their host. In driving France out
of Canada, they had Washington and the colonists to help; but now they were
to have Washington and the colonists to oppose them.
We cannot realize that at the opening of the nineteenth century the interior
of the North American continent, now so familiar to every reader of public
journals, was less known to the world than is the heart of Africa today. French
fur traders had penetrated its wilderness depths to the base of the Rocky moun-
tains; but what they found, or what they knew, they jealously kept to them-
selves, so that there could be no inducement to other venturesome spirits to go
searching for peltries and poaching on their preserves. In addition to this
trade reason, they had been able to make doubly sure the silence of the Indian,
as to what the rivers and forests contained. Of all the people brought in con-
tact with the American Indian, the French were the most successful in getting
and holding his good will.
Indians had no doubt crossed the continent from the Ohio river to the Pa-
cific ocean. M. La Page du Pratz, in his history of Louisiana, gives a long ac-
count of an Indian having become endued with a burning desire to find out
whence came the American Indians, crossed the continent from Natchez
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
27
on the Mississippi to the Pacific ocean and then returned. And there may have
been others. We have authentic history to prove that Sacajawea (the bird-
woman of the Lewis and Clark expedition) crossed the mountains from the
valley of the Snake river to the Mississippi, and remembered the country well
enough to guide that expedition back over the same route. . But explorations of
this kind prove nothing to our purpose—the development of the country.
ALEXANDER MACKENZIE, 1793
1
We now come to the first white man that ever crossed the Rocky mountains
from the east to the west for a great purpose, and set foot on the shores of the
Pacific ocean. He was neither French, English nor American-but Scotch, and
Alexander Mackenzie was his name. He was a native of Inverness, knighted
by George III. for distinguished services, migrated to Canada, and entered the
service of a fur trader in the year 1779, while yet a young man, and while the
British were in the midst of their fight with Washington and his rebels. This
Scotchman possessed every qualification to make him a successful leader and
governor of men; a fine mind, clear head, strong, muscular body, lithe and ac-
tive, great resolution, invincible courage, tireless and patient energy, with the
capacity to comprehend and manage all sorts and conditions of men. Remaining
in the fur trade for five years as a hired man, saving his wages, and, biding his
time, he cut loose for himself, and became a partner in the great Northwest
Company, which to distinguish it from others, was known as the Canada com-
pany, for many years the most prosperous and aggressive of all the fur traders.
The great interior of northwest America was at that time but little known.
In fact, nothing was known of this vast region beyond the incomprehensible
accounts of roving Indians and the meagre reports of adventuresome trappers.
It was just such a state of incomprehension and imperfect knowledge of a vast
country filled with great riches, as appealed to the keen apprehension and pro-
found mind of Alexander Mackenzie, and he resolved to find out the great
secrets which the boundless forests beyond Canada contained. To prepare him-
self for this self-appointed task, he studied astronomy enough to find his way
in untraveled regions by the guidance of the stars, and to take care of himself
and men in all sorts and conditions of circumstances in distant explorations
by land.
The trappers and fur traders had gradually worked west and north from
the upper end of Lake Superior until they had reached the western end of Lake
Athabasca, where Peace river, coming west from an opening in the Rocky moun-
tains, discharges its waters into channels which carry it to the Arctic ocean.
Mackenzie knew that up to that point, clear back to the Mississippi, there was
no Strait of Anian, or water course from the east side of the Rocky mountains
to the Pacific ocean, and that if he would follow that water, then running due
north, it would take him either into the great frozen sea of the north, in which
case he would find the Strait of Anian if there was one, or the water would turn
west at some point short of the Arctic sea, and carry him to the Pacific. So, that
with a birch bark canoe, four Canadians (two with their wives) and two smaller
canoes with English Chief, an Indian, and his family, and followers of Mac-
kenzie, set out on June 3, 1789, to float down with the current of Great Slave
28
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
river into Great Slave lake, and thence on down, down, north, wherever the
waters took them, until they had solved the great mystery of the unknown Arc-
tic. Passing from one lake to another, hunting, fishing, trapping as they went
the adventurous party finally in the month of July, found themselves in the
Arctic ocean, where they chased the whales and paddled around miles and
miles of icebergs, under a starless sky, and a never setting summer sun. This
expedition was one of the most important in the annals of discovery. Mac-
kenzie had proved the non-existence of the Strait of Anian, and established
the fact for all time that no such passageway across the continent existed, and
found that the watershed to the north was wholly separate from the watershed
to the west. They had suffered no hardships or hairbreadth escapes, and they
found a great waterway to the north in the same month that Captain Robert
Gray had sailed through the Straits of Fuca for the first time, two thousand
miles to the southwest.
After an absence of one hundred days, Mackenzie returned with his party
to his starting point, loaded with fine furs and having found both coal and iron
ore at Great Bear Lake. Mackenzie was not satisfied with his first venture,
regarding as something of a failure that which was in fact a great success. He
had penetrated the mystery to the north, and put an end to the quest for the
Strait of Anian which the sea captains had believed in and vainly sought to find
for nearly three hundred years. It was one more dark corner of the mystery
which enshrouded the Oregon country cleared up. And we see how the enlight-
ening agencies of exploration and discovery were gradually creeping in on the
core of the mysterious region, "Where rolls the Oregon.'
But Mackenzie was not satisfied. Such a man is never satisfied as long as
there are other regions to explore and other obstacles to overcome, and other
duties to be performed. Three years after this trip to the north we find him
again at the old starting point at the mouth of Peace river. But this time in-
stead of floating down with the water, he resolved to go up stream, follow the
river to its fountainhead and find, if possible, a pass through the Rocky moun-
tains, and a stream on the west side that would carry him down to the Pacific
ocean as had Peace river and his own Mackenzie carried him to the Arctic
ocean. And so on the 10th day of October, 1792, five months after Captain
Gray had found and entered the Columbia river. Mackenzie starts westward
for an exploration to find this river. In ten days Mackenzie had reached the
·most western post of the Northwest Company at the base of the Rocky
mountains. Here the natives and trappers received their big chief with great
eclat amidst the firing of guns and general rejoicing of the people; and many
was the bottle of good old Scotch emptied on that auspicious occasion. There
were three hundred natives and sixty professional trappers and hunters congre-
gated there. Mackenzie not only treated them liberally to rum and tobacco,
but he preached them a good sermon as to the proper manner they should de-
mean themselves for their own good and that of the white man. From this
point Mackenzie kept on west for sixty miles until he reached the point named
Fort York, and to which men had been sent the previous spring to prepare the
ground and timbers for a new post, which was to be their winter quarters previous
to their last plunge into the wilderness over the mountains and down to the Pa-
cific ocean the next spring. This Fort York came to be called York factory un-


PATRICK GASS OF THE LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION
UNIL
OF
10
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
29
der the Hudson's Bay Company ownership, and from which point all the travel,
messengers and officers as well as employes of the Hudson's Bay Company, came
over the mountains on their way to Vancouver on the Columbia. Ebberts was
an American independent trapper, and Otchin, Baldra, and all the old Hud-
son's Bay men of Washington county, Oregon, were perfectly familiar with
that route and could give many interesting tales of its surprises and dangers.
Here Mackenzie put in the winter of 1792-3, and by spring had all things
in readiness for the final advance to the Pacific. With one canoe, twenty-five
feet long, four and three-quarters feet beam, and twenty-six inches hold, seven
white men and two Indian hunters and interpreters with arms, ammunition,
provisions and goods for presents weighing in all about three thousand pounds,
these explorers started for the Pacific ocean on mountain streams. The canoe
was so perfectly made, and so light that two men could carry it over portages
for miles at a time without stopping to rest. Where is the white man boat
builder that could equal that canoe carved out of a great cedar tree by the un-
tutored red men ?
On the 9th of May, 1793, the little party left Fort York, pointed their little
vessel up stream and was off for the great Pacific. Before them everything was
in its native wildness; unpolluted streams, untouched forests, and verdant
prairies covered with buffalo, elk, deer and antelope. Nothing could have been
more exciting or entrancing to these lovers of the woods and waters of
our primeval forests. With paddle and pole they propelled their craft up the
swift flowing mountain stream day by day against every manner of obstruction
and difficulties. Rocks beset their way on every side, beavers dammed the
streams, perpendicular cliffs and impassable cataracts compelled them to take
boat, provisions and everything from the stream and carry all around obstruc-
tions for miles, to gain calm water on upper levels. Rain and thunder storms
were frequent and the men worn out by unexpected and exhaustive toils,
openly cursed the expedition with all the anathemas of the whole army in Flan-
ders or any other place. But the great soul of Mackenzie was unmoved. He,
reminded them of the promise to be faithful and remain with him to the end.
He patiently painted in glowing colors the glory of their success--and he
opened a fresh bottle and all went. merry again, merry as wedding bells.
On the 9th of June they were nearing the broad, flat top of the Rocky moun-
tains in that latitude. They were short of provisions, and had to eat porcupine
steaks and wild parsnip salads or starve. Here they found a tribe of wild In-
dians who had never seen white men before. They were now surely beyond the
limits of all previous explorations. Assured at length of the peaceful intentions
of the explorers, the Indians ventured near enough to talk to the interpreters.
They exhibited scraps of iron, and pointed to the west. Further efforts elic-
ited from them the fact that their iron had been purchased from Indians farther
west who lived on a great river, and who 'had obtained the iron from people
who lived in houses on the great sea—white men like these—and who got the
iron from ships large as islands that come in the sea. And now we see these
children of the forest beset by the white men behind and before, and there is
no longer any secret the white man does not find out, and the fateful terrors
of these white men have followed them to their land-locked mountain retreat.
Terror as it was to the Indian, it was a god-send to Mackenzie. He could now,
30
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
from these incoherent descriptions of places, rivers, mountains and marshes,
reckon that he could reach the great river, which he at once supposed to be
Carver's Oregon, in ten or twelve days, and from the great river reach the sea
coast in a month. Mackenzie got the Indian that told him the story to draw
a map on a piece of birch bark, which proved to be a very good map of the region
to be traversed. The Indian made the river run into an arm of the sea, and not
into the great ocean. Mackenzie was sure the Indian was either mistaken or
deceiving him. But he was doing neither. Mackenzie did not know of the ex-
istence of Fraser river. He did not know of Gray's discovery of the Columbia,
but he did know of Carver's reported account of the “Oregon River of the
West,” running directly into the ocean, and this was the only great river he
supposed could exist on the west slope of the Rocky mountains. He recalled
Carver's statement that he had "learned that the foremost capital rivers on
the continent of North America, viz. the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi, the
river Bourbon and the Oregon or the River of the West have their sources in
the same neighborhood. The waters of the three former are within thirty
miles of each other; the latter, however, is rather further west.” And thus from
these mere glimmerings of geography assuming what from this “Height of
Land” flowed four great rivers, one the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico,
another south into the California sea, another north into the icy sea, and the
fourth west into the Pacific. Mackenzie had been down the north river to the
icy sea, and he was sure he would now go west to the “Oregon River,” and
find his Indian map-maker mistaken.
On the 12th of June, 1793, MacKenzie crossed the narrow divide of the
Rocky mountains and found it only eight hundred and seventeen paces (about
half a mile) between the head waters of Peace river and the head waters of the
Fraser. From there on to the Fraser the stream was a succession of torrents,
cascades and little lakes, making traveling very bad. But not a word was said
about turning back. The voyagers had imbibed some of the spirit of the in-
trepid and irresistible leader as well as much of the spirit they carefully packed
from one portage to another as a most precious treasure; and on the 17th day
of June, 1793, after cutting a passage through driftwood and underbrush for
a mile, and dragging their canoe and goods through a swamp, they landed on
the margin of the Fraser river of British Columbia. Simon Fraser, for whom
the river was named, after this route had been opened by Mackenzie, after-
wards passed over it and pronounced it the worst piece of forest traveling in
North America. We here include a copy of the map the explorer made of this
region, which not only shows by the dotted line his course from the Fraser river
across to Salmon bay on the Straits of Georgia, but shows that Mackenzie did
not follow the Fraser to its mouth in the Straits of Georgia or he would not
have dotted in the lower course of the river as entering the ocean down by our
Saddle mountain near Astoria. But this mistake, arising wholly from making
a short cut across the land to the ocean instead of following the river to its
mouth, was confirmed by Lewis and Clark, who also supposed that Mackenzie
had been upon the upper waters of the Columbia. Simon Fraser made the
same mistake when he saw the Fraser, and remained thus mistaken until 1808,
when he followed the river down to its mouth in the Straits of Georgia, three
hundred miles north of the mouth of the Columbia.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
31
an
To conclude the narrative of Mackenzie's expedition across the Rocky
mountains to the Pacific ocean, it is sufficient to add here that the Pacific ocean
water which Mackenzie did reach is now known as “Bentinck North Arm,"
inlet from the ocean into which the Bella Coola river discharge about two
hundred miles north of the international boundary. After exploring the coun-
try sufficient to show that he had in fact reached the waters of the Pacific ocean,
Mackenzie mixed some vermilion in melted grease and painted in large letters
on the south side of a great rock under which his party had camped, the follow-
ing claim to the country: “Alexander Mackenzie, from Canada, by land, the
twenty-second day of July, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three.
LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION, 1804
At the next session of congress after the purchase of Louisiana from France,
President Jefferson sent a confidential message to congress containing a recom-
mendation for an exploring expedition to the west, and congress promptly
passed an act providing the necessary funds to make the exploration. The Pres-
ident lost no time in organizing the expedition known in all the histories as the
Lewis and Clark expedition, appointing his private secretary, Captain Meri-
wether Lewis, to the chief command and Captain Wm. Clark, a brother of Gen-
eral George Rogers Clark, as second in command. As a matter of historical
fact, the President had already, before he knew of the signing of the treaty of
session at Paris, perfected arrangements with Captain Lewis to go west and
organize a strong party to cross the continent to the mouth of the Columbia
river. This is proved by the fact that Lewis left Washington City within four
days after the news was received by the President that the treaty had finally
been executed. A large part of the year was spent in making preparations for
the journey, and the President was so anxious for the safety and success of the
men, that he prepared with his own 'hands the written instructions to show the
nature of them, and the great care the President was taking to have success
assured, and the natives treated with justice and consideration. "In all your
intercourse with the natives," says Jefferson, "treat them in the most friendly
and conciliatory manner which their own conduct will admit; allay all jealousies
as to the object of your journey; satisfy them of its innocence; make them ac-
quainted with the extent, position, character, peaceable and commercial dispo-
sitions of the United States; of our wish to be neighborly, friendly, and useful
to them, and of our disposition to hold commercial intercourse with them, and
to confer with them on the point most convenient for trade and the articles of
the most desirable interchange for them and for us."
The purchase of Louisiana and the great exploring expedition which fol-
lowed the purchase is unique and unexampled in the history of mankind. After
more than a century of enlightenment, consideration and development of this
vast region, the momentous influences and consequences of that great transac-
tion are not fully comprehended to this day. Vast regions and great nations,
even those with more or less of what we call civilization, have in the history of
the world, passed under the dominion of overwhelming military power, and
lingered in decay or gone down to oblivion. But here is an empire of natural
wealth in a vast region claimed and owned by the then foremost military power
32
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
cess.
on the globe, quietly, speedily and with a friendly hand, passing over to the
youngest member of the family of nations, to be by it, in its inexperience in
government, ruled and developed for the happiness and blessing of mankind.
Not only does this ruling military power of the world, led and ruled by the
most successful and brilliant soldier in the history of mankind, turn over this
empire of rich territory to the keeping of the young republic of the west, but
a greater power than the wealth and resources of the land goes with it—the
power to rule two great oceans and dictate the peace of the world. Of the two
master minds that wrought this great work, one has been denounced as an infi-
del, and everything that was dangerous to the well-being of his fellowman;
while the other condemned throughout the world as an unprincipled adventurer
to whom fickle fortune gave for an hour the evanescent glory of accidental suc-
Shall we dare say that these two men did not consider the welfare of
their fellowman in this great transaction? Shall we say they wrought wiser
than they knew? Or shall we concede that there is a Divinity that shapes
our ends?
So that in tracing the steps of this unorthodox President in the great task
of acquiring almost half the territory of the United States, and setting up
therein the ways, means and influences of education and civilization, we may
form some opinion of his real character and great work. Neither President
Jefferson nor anybody else outside of the native Indians knew anything about
the vast region which had been acquired. Exploration of it by competent ob-
servers was necessary to find out what the wilderness was worth. Captains
Lewis and Clark organized their party of forty-five persons in the winter of
1803, and made their start for Oregon in the following spring of 1804. There
were no steamboats in those days, and the ascent of the river from St. Louis
to the Mandan Indian villages on the Missouri river, almost one thousand miles
as the river runs, above St. Louis, paddling and poling their boats up stream,
occupied nearly five months' time. Of course the party stopped along the
river to hunt game for their subsistence. But as game was everywhere in
plenty, this could not have delayed them very much, which shows what a slow,
toilsome undertaking these men had entered upon. And it shows the vast
changes in the country in a hundred years, where now railroad trains running
on both sides of the river will whisk the traveler over an equal distance in one
day.
On this up-river trip, the volunteer explorers from Ohio and Kentucky
found many animals they had never seen before. The vast numbers of buffalo
the antelope, mule-deer, coyote, and prairie dog were all new to these men, and
excited the wonder of both leaders and privates. With all the Indian tribes
the explorers held councils, telling them of the changes of governors, and of
President Jefferson, who was so anxious for their welfare. The Indians pro-
fessed to be pleased with this news, and as the explorers distributed gifts, pur-
ported to come from the great Father at Washington, the natives agreed to
everything, as they always did when there was anything to be had by being
good. It is scarcely possible that the Indians at that day had any idea of a
government, or the exercise of control by one man over a vast population, trav-
eling as they did wherever they pleased.
As the cold weather of the approaching winter came on the party concluded

OF
SACAJAWEA
One Hundred and Five Years Ago Points the Way to the Site of the Future Great City of the Pacific Coast
IV.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
33
to stop at the Mandan villages and prepare for housing up until the spring of
1805, and here they built log huts and the usual stockade familiar to the pio-
neers of the Indian country in the west, and which they named Fort Mandan.
The Mandans proved to be good neighbors, and not only helped provide game
for the party, but invited them to their dances, which were numerous, fantastic
and devoid of lady partners. Gaine had to be hunted, and generally supplies
could be had within a day's pony ride, but sometimes the men had to go out
for several days at a time; but in all their hunting forays were never molested
by the Mandan Indians. Their journals show that in one of these hunting ex-
cursions they killed thirty-two deer, eleven elk and a buffalo; on another hunt
they killed forty deer, sixteen elk and a buffalo; showing that for winter quar-
ters that was a fine game country. But as snow came on, most of the game left
for the mountains, showing that the wild animals know that they are safer in
the rough mountains in the winter weather than out on the bleak plains.
In the spring of 1805, after sending back ten of the men who had enlisted
to go only to the first winter quarters, and who carried back with them the rec-
ord of their exploration thus far, with some specimens of pelts and plants,
Lewis and Clark broke camp and struck out through the boundless plains, due
west from Fort Mandan. The party now numbered thirty-three persons all told :
Sergeant Floyd had died on the way up river, and was buried on the bluffs
where Sioux City is now located. Three men had joined the party at Mandan,
including the French trapper, Charboneau, together with his Shoshone wife-
Sacajawea, now represented in the bronze statue in the Portland City Park.
They were now far beyond Jonathan Carver's explorations, and in a country
never before trod by the foot of a white man. But few Indians were seen, but
the whole country literally swarmed with wild game, vast flocks of sage hens,
prairie chickens, ducks of all kinds, cranes, geese and swan, and vast herds of
big game, buffalo, elk, antelope, white and black tail deer, big horn sheep, and
so unfamiliar with the race of men as to be easily approached; great herds of
elk would lie lazily in the sun on the sand bars until the party was within twenty
yards of them.
On the Yellowstone river Clark encountered on the return voyage a herd
of buffaloes wading and swimming across the stream where it was a mile wide,
and so many in the herd that the exploring party had to draw up in a safe
place and wait for an hour for the herd to pass before they could proceed. The
party, of course, had to live on meat as their main stay, and they got it fresh
every day without going out of their course to find it, and they generally ate
up one buffalo or an elk and one deer, or four deer, a day. And here for the
first time they struck that terror of the Rocky mountains, the grizzly bear. No
other traveler or explorer ever gave any account of this bear prior to what we
hear from Lewis and Clark. The grizzly was the terror of the Indians. They
had never been able to devise any means of trapping him, and they had no guns
to fight him with and their only safety from him was in flight. The first ac-
counts given to the people of the United States of this monster bear were
printed in the early school books, and were extracts from the journal of this
expedition. The summer trip up the Missouri in their little boats was very
pleasant. But the fall season of the year was rapidly approaching before they
had reached the Rocky mountains, and they were warned by early frosts that
Vol. I-3
31
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
great expedition was necessary to enable them to pass over the mountains and
strike some branch of the Columbia to float westward upon before the deep
snows shut them in or out for the winter. Lewis and Clark crossed the Rocky
mountains about three hundred miles north of the point where the Oregon trail
crosses, and here they found their salvation in the sturdy little Indian woman,
Sacajawea. They got to a point that their white man's reason could not guide
them, but Sacajawea had been there when a child, and she pointed the way"
to the Columbia's headwaters, to safety and success. And by her aid as an inter-
preter, and her kinship to the Shoshones, the party was enabled to procure
horses from a band of wandering Shoshones, and by "caching their boats and
packing their goods and blankets on the ponies, they got out of the labyrinth
of mountains, crossed over the great divide, struck the middle fork of the Clear-
water, and made their way down to where the city of Lewiston now stands.
Here they got canoes from the Nez Perce Indians, and floated down the
Snake river to the Columbia, and on down the Columbia to where Astoria now
stands, and paddled around Smith's point and crossed over Young's bay and
built log huts at a point named Fort Clatsop, where they went into winter quar-
ters until the spring of 1806.
With the troubles and experiences of the exploring party, during the long
rainy season of 1805 and 6 at Fort Clatsop, we have no concern. The men put
in their time hunting, fishing, mending their clothing, making moccasins for the
long tramp homeward in the spring, and in making salt by the seaside out of
the Pacific ocean water, some remains of the old furnace in which they placed
their kettles to evaporate the salt water being still in existence after the lapse
of one hundred and six years. As early in the spring of 1806 as it was prac-
ticable to travel, the party started on their return to the states. · Whether the
expedition, as a party, ever camped on the present site of the city of Portland,
is uncertain. The probability is very strong that they did camp on the river
flat in front of the town of St. Johns, which is a suburb of that city, and it is
certain that members of the party came up the river as far as Portland town-
site. On their return up the Columbia, the explorers camped at the mouth of
the White Salmon river on the north side of the Columbia, and there it was
that Timotsk (Jake Hunt), the Klickitat Indian, pictured on another page,
saw the explorers, the first white men he had ever seen, when he was a little boy
eleven years of age, making Timotsk one hundred and seventeen years old now,
and probably the oldest Indian on the Pacific coast.
The party pursued their way back over the mountains and down the Mis-
souri river without loss, or anything specially eventful, arriving at St. Louis
in September, 1806, having been absent from civilization for two years and four
months. Their safe return caused great rejoicing throughout the west.
“Never," says President Jefferson, "did a similar event excite more joy
a The name, spelling and pronunciation of this Indian woman, now in general use, is used
in this history, because of such general use. But the claim is here made for the first time
in history, that "Sacaja wea” is incorrect. When the Lewis and Clark Exposition was held
in Portland in 1905 Mr. George H. Himes interviewed William Shannon, an invited guest of
the Exposition Association and who was the son of George Shannon who was a member of
the Lewis and Clark expedition, as to the name of this heroine of the party. After reflecting
and testing his memory Mr. Shannon distinctly recalled his father's pronunciation of the name,
saying it was "Suh-ka-gowea”--the canoe-woman;—not the bird-woman. “Suh-ka-gowea,'
has the guttural sound which proves its Indian origin and correctness.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
35
throughout the United States. The humblest of its citizens had taken a lively
interest in the issue of this journey and looked forward with impatience to the
information it would bring.” The expedition had accomplished a great work,
for it opened the door not only into the far west, but to the shores of the great
Pacific, and laid the foundation of a just national claim to all the regions west
of the Rocky mountains, north of the California line, up to the Russian posses-
sions. There is no other expedition like it, or equal to it, in the history of civ-
ilization; and every member of it returned to their homes as heroes of a great
historical deed. The President promptly rewarded the two leaders with just
recognition, appointing Captain Lewis governor of Louisiana territory, and
making Captain Clark governor and Indian agent of Missouri territory. The
only regretable circumstances of the whole great work was the untimely death
of Sergeant Floyd, which took place, as before stated, before the expedition got
fairly started on the way. A great monument has been erected to his memory
at the location of his burial near Sioux City, Iowa. The only miscarriage of
justice was the neglect of the brave and patient little Indian heroine, Sacaja-
wea, who received no reward whatever. Both Lewis and Clark, so far as words
could go, recognized the great service of the woman to the fullest extent, but
gave no reward. The services of Sacajawea were equal to that of any of the
whole party, and much greater than those of most of the party.. She had not
only paddled the canoes, trudged where walking was necessary, and in every
event done as much as a man, and that, too, with her infant babe on her back,
but she had rendered that greater service which no one else could render-she
had made friends for the party when they were in dire straits in the mountains,
and secured from her tribe assistance in horses and provisions which no other per-
son could have commanded, and when in doubt as to what course they should
take to reach safety towards the headwaters of the Columbia, Sacajawea pointed
out the route through the mountain defiles. And it was left to the noble women
of Oregon-and to their great honor they nobly performed the duty-of raising
to this Indian benefactress of the great northwest the first and fitting monument
to perpetuate her name and unselfish labors—the heroic size bronze statue of
the woman at Lewis and Clark exposition, and now standing in the City Park
at Portland.
Many persons have entertained the idea, that, with the exception of the
leaders, who were educated, and came from dïstinguished families in old Vir-
ginia, the rank and file were rough and inconsequential characters, picked up
around St. Louis. This is a great mistake; for they were, nearly all of them,
men of great natural force and ability and selected by their leaders be-
cause of their inherent force of character. As the author of this history was per-
sonally acquainted with one member of the party, and with the family of an-
other member of the party, the following sketches of them are given as fair
samples of the whole force, and which will show the reader what character of
men it was that braved the dangers of the unknown wilderness, and risked
their lives in the most dangerous and arduous toils to navigate wild streams
and scale frowning mountain barriers to uncover and make known to the world
this old Oregon of ours.
Patrick Gass: This member of the Lewis and Clark expedition was un-
doubtedly the most vigorous and energetic character of the entire party; and
36
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
notwithstanding some excess in living, outlived all his compatriots. Gass was
the son of Irish parents, born near Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, in 1771, and
died at Wellsburgh, in the state of West Virginia, April 30, 1870, nearly one
hundred years old. The Gass family moved from Chambersburg when the
boy was a mere child, carried in a creel on the sides of a pack horse, and set-
tled near Pittsburgh. There were no schools in those days in the frontier set-
tlements, and Patrick Gass grew up as other boys of his day, schooled to hard-
ships and dangers, ready and eager for adventure of any sort. He was not long
in finding an opportunity, and joined a party of Indian fighters under the lead
of the celebrated Lewis Wetzel, and had his experience in Indian warfare in
Belmont county, Ohio, where the author of this book subsequently first saw the
light of day forty years afterwards. Like other young fellows at that time,
Gass made trips down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans in "flat
boats" in trading expeditions, returning home by ship to Philadelphia and
thence to Pittsburgh with freight teams.
Gass learned the carpenter's trade, but when war was threatened with
France in 1799, he joined the army and was ordered to Kaskaskia, Illinois, and
while at that station, met Captain Meriwether Lewis, who was hunting for vol-
unteers for the great expedition to the Pacific. With the aid of Lewis he man-
aged to be released from his enlistment in the army, and safely made the trip
from St. Louis to the mouth of the Columbia river and return to the Ohio. He
kept a journal of his great trip, which shows he had by his own efforts picked
up some book education, and his journal was the first account published of the
expedition. When the War of 1812 broke out, he again joined the army and
served along with the writer's grandfather at the battle of Lundy's Lane, where
he was severely wounded. The remainder of his life was spent at and near
Wellsburgh, West Virginia. In 1831, at sixty years of age, he was married and
lived a happy life thereafter, having seven children born to him. At ninety
years of age when the southern rebellion broke out, he volunteered to fight for
the union of the states, but of course his age precluded an acceptance of his
patriotic offer. Soon after this event he became converted to the Christian
(Campbellite) faith, and was baptized by immersion in the Ohio river in front
of the town of Wellsburgh, the entire population of the town turning out to
honor the event; and thereafter the soldier of three enlistments and two wars,
the hero of the great expedition across the continent, faithfully upheld the
banner of the cross. I am thus particular in making this record to preserve a
suitable account of two of the most important and capable subalterns of the
Lewis and Clark expedition, and not only because they were here before all the
rest of us, one hundred and seven years ago, rendering great services to their
country and to Oregon, but also because we were all from Ohio. The writer
was personally acquainted with Patrick Gass, having met the venerable old
patriot at Wellsburgh, Virginia, in 1857. He was then, at eighty-six years of
age, a very bright and interesting man, and gave me a brief account of his great
trip across the continent to the Pacific ocean, and of his trouble in preserving
his journal of that trip.
George Shannon: The writer was personally acquainted with the Shannon
family, whose name and fame is cherished as a part of the heritage of "Old Bel-
mont County," Ohio; and with Wilson Shannon, the youngest brother of

TIMOTSK
Hereditary Chief of the Klickitats--Still Living, 115 Years Old-Saw Lewis and Clark in 1806
OF
UNID
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
37
George Shannon, who was twice elected governor of Ohio, was minister to Mexico,
one of the argonauts to California in 1849, practicing law in San Francisco,
and territorial governor of Kansas. Like Gass, Shannon was Protestant Irish,
of splendid stock, his father a brave soldier of the Revolution, and a leader
among men. George, was sent to school in Pennsylvania and ran away from
school to join the Lewis and Clark expedition. After returning from the Pa-
cific coast, he entered the University at Lexington, Kentucky, graduated,
studied law in Philadelphia, married Ruth Snowden Price at Lexington in 1813,
was made a judge of the state circuit court at Lexington and rendered
honorable service as a judge for twelve years; removed from Lexington
to St. Charles, Missouri, where he was again placed on the judicial bench, and
died suddenly while holding court at Palmyra, Missouri, in 1836. He was
unquestionably the man of the most talent, culture and ability of all who made
that world-renowned trip across two thousand miles of unexplored mountains,
plains, deserts and wilderness. Several descendants of the Shannon family
recently resided in Portland.
Sacajawea: The last to be noticed in the Lewis and Clark expedition, but
by no means the least important nor the least deserving of notice, is the only
woman of the party-Sacajawea. And no words can better express the merits
of this Indian woman than those of Olin D. Wheeler, who has said: “There
were many heroes; there was but one heroine in this band of immortals. And
at the start I wish to take off my hat to the modest, womanly, unselfish, patient,
enduring little Shoshone squaw—the Bird Woman of the Minaterees—Sacaja-
wea, who uncomplainingly canoed, trudged, climbed and starved with the
strongest man of the party; and that, too, with a helpless papoose strapped on
her back. All honor to her! Her skin was the color of copper; her heart beat
as true as steel, and was pure gold. Through all the long, dreary racking
months of toil she bore her part like a Spartan. Captured when a child and
carried over the mountains from Idaho as a slave to the Mandan (Wyoming)
country, and there sold to Charboneau for a wife, she rose superior to her sad
lot; was the go-between in all dangers and trials with the Indians, a safeguard
by her tact and native wit; she interpreted all Indian dialects, made clear all
doubtful trails and pathways, guided the great party in safety to the great
Columbia, and was in every aspect of the great national achievement a mentor
to the wise men set to lead, and who thereby achieved almost immortal fame. No
words of praise can transcend her just dues; and her fame should be a cherished
and precious memory to every Oregon household.”
Lewis and Clark frankly acknowledged their debt to the woman so far as
mere words go, for her inestimable services. But these two leaders, and con-
gress as well, are open to the most severe and unsparing condemnation in fail-
ing to make, or recommending to congress to make suitable and liberal reward
in money, lands or a pension to this woman. And it is an ineffaceable blot on
the names of Lewis and Clark, and an everlasting disgrace to the congress of the
United States that this poor, lowly, humble Indian was requited with such neglect
for the priceless services she rendered to the great nation. And it is to the ever-
lasting honor and credit of the women of Oregon that they provided and reared
the first and most enduring monument to the honor of the heroic Indian woman
---Sacajawea. (The bronze monument in the City Park at Portland.)
i
38
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
The following poem by Bert Huffman, editor of the East Oregonian of Pen-
dleton, Oregon, widely published throughout the country, fittingly commem-
orates the just fame of that greatest heroine of her race, and the equal of her sex
in any race on the continent.
“Behind them toward the rising sun
The traversed wilderness lay-
About them gathered, one by one,
The baffling mysteries of their way!
To Westward, yonder, peak on peak
The glistening ranges rose and fell-
Ah, but among that hundred paths
Which led aright! Could any tell?
"Brave Lewis and Immortal Clark !
Bold spirits of that best Crusade,
You gave the waiting world the spark
That thronged the empire-paths you made!
But standing on that snowy height,
Where westward yon wild rivers whirl,
The guide who led your hosts aright
Was the barefoot Shoshone girl.'
"
EXPEDITION OF LIEUT. ZEBULON PIKE-1805
The next year after Lewis and Clark started with their world-renowned ex-
pedition to the Pacific coast, Lieutenant Zebulon Pike of the United States army
was ordered by the United States government to explore the sources of the
Mississippi river, and establish friendly relations with the Indians whose ter-
ritory had but lately been included within the boundaries of the new born Re-
public. Taking twenty men from his military camp near St. Louis, and a keel-
boat—no steamboats on the great river in those days-seventy feet in length,
Pike ascended the Mississippi to its sources and hoisted there the United States
flag. This exploration and this act of Pike's determined the point to which dis-
tance north the United States could, under treaty of peace with England, claim
and maintain the northern boundary of this nation east of the Rocky mountains.
Pike had not only settled that disputed point but he had made known the course
of the river itself from St. Louis to its fountain head. Pike made other impor-
tant explorations and discoveries among which is the mountain peak in Colorado.
which bears his name. He also mapped the sources of the Platte, the Kansas and
the upper reaches of the Arkansas rivers.
And now we reach a period when private enterprise enters the field, pri-
marily for furs and trade with the Indians, yet making important discoveries,
beneficial to the nation and useful to the western pioneers and especially to the
emigrants to Oregon.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
39
EXPEDITIONS OF SIMON FRASER-1806
In many respects the expeditions of Simon Fraser to the west side of the
Rocky mountains were more important than that of his more distinguished pred-
ecessor, Alexander Mackenzie; and for this reason he more than Mackenzie
was better entitled to the honor of naming the great river which his courage and
persistence explored and made known to the world.
The work of exploration by Fraser on the west side of the Rocky mountains
was assumed by him on his own initiative as a partner in and a commander of
the employes of the Northwest Company. He had taken the place of Mac-
kenzie in the Fur Company's general business of gathering furs, establishing
trading posts, and exploring the unknown western country. He, however, was
not the first Scotchman after Mackenzie to reach the west side of the Rocky
mountains. James Finlay, an employee of the Northwest Company had, soon
after Mackenzie's expedition, ascended Peace river and passed over the summit
of the Rocky mountains, made many important discoveries in the lay of the land
and gave his name to a branch of Peace river—as Finlay river.
Fraser's expedition to the west side of the Rocky mountains was in the Au-
tumn of 1805, when, following in the tracks of Mackenzie and Finlay he ascended
Peace river and its Parsnip river branch to the Height of Land. Here the voy-
ageurs were compelled to make a portage-take their canoes out of the waters
that ran eastward and north to the Arctic ocean, and carry them west across the
summit of the mountain until they could find a stream running westward to
Oregon and the Pacific ocean. Mackenzie describes this mountain pass as fol-
lows:-June 12, 1793:“We landed and unloaded, where we found a beaten path
over a low ridge of land of eight hundred and seventeen paces in length to an-
other small lake. The distance between the two mountains at this place (The
Pass) is about a quarter of a mile, rocky precipices presenting themselves on
both sides.' Fraser describes the Pass as follows: “We continued to the ex-
tremity of the lake about three miles, and there unloaded at the Height of Land,
which is one of the finest portages I ever saw, between six and seven hundred
yards long, and perhaps the shortest interval of any between the waters that
descend into the northern and southern oceans.
Fraser and his companions were so impressed with the grandeur and beauty
of the great mountains that they named the country of their first discoveries
west of the Rocky mountains "New Caledonia," in honor of what they chose to
call their native land of Scotland. Fraser himself was born in the United States
in 1776. just at the breaking out of the Rebellion against British rule; and his
father, choosing to remain loyal to the English King, was driven out of Vermont
as a Tory and traitor to the colonies.
At what date Fraser returned to the east side of the Rocky mountains in
1805 there seems to be no authentic information. But in January, 1806, we find
Fraser actively employed at the fort on Peace river called the "Rocky Mountain
House,” preparing for another expedition over the Rocky mountains. Having
been impressed by what he had discovered on his first trip, that the fur trade
possibilities on the west side of the mountains were very good, he determined
to make a permanent settlement there in the shape of a fort or trading station
with the Indians. And on May 20, 1806, we find Fraser taking an inventory of
40
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
all the property of the company at the Rocky Mountain House, writing letters
to his friends, turning over the command of the fort to McGillivray, and mak-
ing a start on his new venture into the Great Western Wilderness. And although
Fraser was far better equipped for the expedition than had Mackenzie been,
and although he had all the benefits of the discoveries, landmarks and reports
of both Mackenzie and Finlay who had preceded him, he was forty days on the
route from the Rocky Mountain House to the summit of the Rocky mountains,
a distance of about one hundred and fifty miles. During this trip Fraser's jour-
nal shows that he put in much of his time in abusing Alexander Mackenzie for
alleged misrepresentation of the route.
After reaching navigable water on the west side of the summit, and repair-
ing their canoes, Fraser and his men commenced the laborious and perilous de-
scent of the rapid stream forming the head of Fraser river on July 2, 1806.
These dates are given here for the purpose of showing their relation to the Brit-
ish claim of title to the Oregon country. Both Mackenzie and Fraser believed
at the dates of their explorations of the headwaters of the Fraser river that
they were in fact on the headwaters of the Columbia river. If such had been
the case, then the British government would have had a better claim to all the
country drained by the Columbia river than they were ever able to show.
Neither Mackenzie nor Fraser ever reached the watershed of the Columbia be-
fore Lewis and Clark; nor did Fraser reach the watershed of the Fraser river
before Lewis and Clark reached the headwaters of the Columbia. On the 18th.
of August, 1805, Capt. Lewis, of the Lewis and Clark expedition, reached the
headwaters of the Columbia river in what is now the state of Idaho. But put-
ting the most favorable interpretation on the journals of Fraser and his aid,
Stuart, Fraser did not cross the Rocky mountains into the New Caledonia coun-
try until the first of October, 1805.
.
Returning now to Fraser's second expedition across the Rocky mountains we
find him in August, 1806, establishing a trading post on Fraser lake in a com-
manding position, which in time came to be called Fort Fraser.' And in addi-
tion to this post Fraser commenced the erection of another fort at the conflu-
ence of the Stuart and Fraser rivers, which he named Fort George in honor of
the King, and which has remained an important trading post to this day
Fraser did not return back over the mountains to the headquarters of the
fur company at the end of 1806, as might be supposed; but he remained in New
Caledonia, not a large district, during the winter of 1806-7, and continued his
work for the company in gathering furs and in completing the building of the
forts. And by the spring of 1807 the British government had learned of the
successful expedition of Lewis and Clark to the mouth of the Columbia river as
a military expedition, and its safe return to the United States. This aroused the
British lion to action, and orders were dispatched to Canada to have Simon
Fraser complete the exploration of the Fraser (as they supposed the Columbia)
from Fort George to the Pacific ocean. For if Mackenzie or Fraser, either,
were upon the headwaters of the Columbia river prior to Lewis and Clark, Eng-
land intended to claim the whole entire Columbia river valley from the Rocky
mountains to the Pacific ocean as British territory by right of both discovery
and settlement. Accordingly orders were dispatched to Fraser in the autumn
of 1807, two years after he had crossed the Rocky mountains, to make all due
STONEY MOUNTAINS
SADRA & VANCOUVERS
WHALE !
Deserted Epcaipinents
70
THE SEA
Quarrellers
STHMU'S
A.Manitoe
KARE INDIANS
COPPERMINE
KILLS
Corporining
Small
140
COPPER
MOUNTAIN IND,
MATHANA
IND.
Buffüloe I.
Great Bear
INDIANS
R.
Great Bear L,
Cogead L.
Theye-Chcek z
65
Point L.
Mackenzies
STRONGBOW
Martin L.
R.
Methye I.
INDIANS
135
R. Of the
INLAND
ANDIANS
BEAVER
IND
R.
Stāve Lake
Cluwey
O!
Mountuins
60
Buffaloe
R.
Salt Springs
the
Mills
old'Establishment o
New Establishment
Fort Chipewyan
þr Peace K.
Finlay's Bra
Unjigant
Athabasca
Observatory Inlet
McLeods Fort The Furk
MOUND
ROCKY
IND.
Pelican R.
Fort york
Port la Loche
Sinnw'r
East
G Methy L.
Lesser
R.
Brunch
cascade
Canal.
Z, Vollaton
Slave L.
CUSS DENEES ..
OR IND.
Prinos L.
Black
Bear
Elk
Bufjaloe Z.
Idola Cros a Lii
Carrying Place
Height of Land
Deer La
55
NANSCUQ-DENEES OR IND!
Salmon
R.
Beaver
Rapid
- NAGALIER INDIANS
Filzhugh's
Sound
SLOVA
NACTUELE
Saskatchewin,
BLOOD IND.
ATNAH NATION
Manchester Ho.
BLACK FOOT
IND.
Hudsons
Columbia
Hoz
_001.)
FALL
IND.
Coul Creek
South
Askow )
OT
Bad R.
Branch
Vilins
C. Flattely
RE
CATTANAHOWES
50.
Queenslythe
L.
lleys Tarh
abrir
C Mizari
QuicksandeBay
SADDLE HILL
{
C:Foulweather
15.
120
1115
-
110
105.
MACKENZIE'S MAP
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
11
preparation for an early start in 1808, and explore the Fraser (their supposed
Columbia) from Fort George to its mouth at the ocean.
Fraser made preparations in pursuance of his orders, and about the last days
of May or the first days of June, 1808, set adrift in his canoes on the boisterous
river with twenty-one men and four large canoes. Within a few hours after
starting one of the canoes was wrecked and lost. Within three days from start-
ing Fraser had reached the point where Mackenzie had abandoned the river en-
tirely, and struck across the country on foot to reach the ocean. But Simon
Fraser never wavered at any danger or difficulty. With perils, dangers and ob-
stacles to overcome that would have paralyzed any ten thousand men standing
upon a line, Fraser pursued the course of the wild river with a courage that would
neither halt nor consider defeat. Time and again his men begged him to alter
his course and leave the river, and the Indians repeatedly warned him that it
was impossible to follow the river to the great sea. But the hero of the expedi-
tion was inexorable; he followed the river along its banks; he borrowed canoes
from the Indians and took to the river where it was possible; he packed his
goods and baggage around rapids, waterfalls and impassable canyons; he hired
horses and rode along the side of the seething waters; and he followed the river
until its troubled waters was lost in the boundless ocean by many mouths a few
miles above where the British Columbia city of Vancouver now stands. Simon
Fraser earned the honor of naming the second largest river emptying into the
Pacific ocean, and he proved to the British government that his river was not
the Columbia river.
Without any apparent reason or excuse the authors of Bancroft's history of
the Northwest has condemned Simon Fraser as "an illiterate, ill-bred, bickering,
fault-finding man, of jealous disposition, ambitious, energetic, with considerable
conscience, and in the main holding to honest intentions." However, these lit-
erary carpet knights of San Francisco are to be both pitied and excused for
their judgments of men and things. Never having seen anything worse than
the lions on Seal Rock at their Golden Gate, or charged down upon a greater
danger than a schooner of beer in the haunts of the Press Club, they knew noth-
ing of the perils, dangers and courage of the heroic men and women who rescued
the great Northwest from the barbarism and savagery of the wilderness, and
set up therein great states with all the glories of attendant civilization.
As has been stated, Simon Fraser's father, also named Simon Fraser, was a
Tory in the American Revolutionary war; joined the British army to fight the
American rebels, was captured by the Americans, and died in prison. Young
Fraser was taken by his mother to Montreal, Canada, and educated. At the age
of sixteen he joined the Northwest Company as a hired man. His energy,
industry and talents were soon noticed and appreciated, and his rise in the serv-
ice of the company was rapid. He lived to the age of eighty-six years and died
at St. Andrews, in Ontario Province, Canada.
ANDREW HENRY-1808
The next man to make a plunge into the great western wilderness was An-
drew Henry, who was born in Fayette county, Pennsylvania, came west to St.
Louis in 1807, went into the employ of Manuel Lisa, a Spaniard, who was en-
42
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
gaged in fur trading to the Rocky mountains under the name of the Missouri
Fur Company. Henry took charge of the trapping expedition of his company
to the Rocky mountains in 1808, and confined his operations to the upper Mis-
souri and Yellowstone rivers; but being attacked and harassed by the Black-
feet Indians, he passed over the Rocky mountains in the spring of 1809, and
built a cabin on the far-east branch of Snake river, which ever since has been
known as Fort Henry on Henry's river. This cabin was the first structure in
the shape of a house erected by white men in the great Columbia river valley.
Henry did not cross the mountains for the sole reason of getting away from the
Blackfeet. His original orders were to continue his explorations westward, and
see what he could do in the fur trade west of the Rocky mountains. Not suc-
ceeding in doing any business, Fort Henry was abandoned in 1810, and when
the Wilson Price Hunt party came along in 1811 and sought to rest and recruit
at the Henry cabin they found it abandoned and of no aid to them.
The next we hear of Henry is as Alexander Henry in company with Alex-
ander Stuart (whom we left last with Simon Fraser at the Rocky Mountain
House in 1807) now coming down the Columbia river to Astoria with two big
canoes and sixteen voyageurs in the employ of the Northwest Company, on
the 15th of November, 1813. Henry had left the service of the Americans some
time between 1810 and gone over to the British. By the time Henry and Stuart
reached Astoria the Northwest Company had concentrated a force of seventy-
five men at that point in addition to the sixteen in the Henry and Stuart flotilla.
The Northwest Company were then hotly and corruptly pressing their scheme
of buying out for a song all the property of Astor, while Hunt was absent, and
would very probably not have hesitated to have boldly robbed Astor if his Cana-
dian partners had not betrayed and sold him out.
The next we hear of Henry is at a post up on the Willamette river-Fran-
chere thought in his book somewhere near the present site of Corvallis--and to this
post the remnant of the Astor party went to spend the winter of 1814, probably
because Henry was an American. At all events, they lived on the fat of the
land, fish, deer and elk being too numerous to mention, and captured without
trouble. And so ends the Henry expedition to Old Oregon.
EXPEDITION OF JONATHAN WINSHIP-1809
The next year after Lisa's Henry venture, Captain Jonathan Winship, of
Brighton, Massachusetts, organized a trading expedition to the Columbia river
by the way of Cape Horn, and two ships were secured, one of which, the O'Cain,
was commanded by himself and the other, the Albatross, was commanded
by his brother, Nathan Winship. They sailed from Boston July 6, 1809,
and the Albatross reached the mouth of the Columbia river May 25, 1810,
being over ten months on the way. The ship was provided with a com-
plete outfit, and to her original company of twenty-five white men
added twenty-five Kanakas, picked up at the islands, and being the first of those
islanders imported into the United States. For want of charts, which did not
exist on the Columbia one hundred years ago, and from ignorance of the chan-
nel, and the stiff current of the spring floods, the passage up the Columbia was
beset with much trouble and delay. But after ten days' cruising around on the
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
13
broad river, Winship selected Oak Point on the south side of the river for a suit-
able place for a settlement. This was so called from the oak trees growing
there, and it is located opposite the place now called Oak Point landing in the
state of Washington. Here Winship cleared a tract of land, prepared it for a
garden, and planted it with a variety of seeds, and set his men to work cutting
logs for a house for a dwelling and trading post, and they had the structure well
up to the roof when the rising waters of the river overflowed their garden, house
location and all, and compelled their removal to a point farther down the Co-
lumbia. Here the party stayed in a temporary camp until July 18, 1810, when
they sailed from the Columbia river, and having learned at Drake's bay of
Astor's contemplated adventure to the river, gave up the project of making a
settlement on the Columbia. Winship's garden at Oak Point was the first culti-
vation of the soil in Oregon for garden or agricultural purposes, and his was the
first attempt to construct a house in Oregon by civilized men.
EXPEDITION OF DAVID THOMPSON-1810 :
The American fur trade was the first gold mine excitement experienced in
the United States. And its profits were so large in the opening of the 19th cen-
tury that many venturesome and energetic men were attracted to the business.
And by the year 1810, John Jacob Astor, of New York City, had succeeded so
well in the new industry, that he was contemplating not only a transcontinental
but also a world-around expansion of his activities. To carry out his ideas in
the then far west, he thought it advantageous to interest some of the fur traders
in Canada who were better informed of the regions of the Rocky mountains and
beyond. These Canadians were making money in the business, and on the first
mention of Astor's ambitious project they took alarm. They did not want any
competition in the west, and especially they did not want Astor to get a foothold
on the Pacific. And this for two reasons: They did not want Astor because he
was a very energetic man, with ample capital and he would divide up the busi-
ness; and also because he was a citizen of the United States. The Canadians
could see, if they had not already been informed by the British government,
that the location of an American trading post in Oregon could be made the foun-
dation of a claim to the country by the United States. And so, upon the first
mention of John Jacob Astor in connection with a new fur company to operate
in distant Oregon, the Canadians controlling the Northwest Company took
action and at once secretly dispatched their surveyor and scientific man, David
Thompson, to the Northwest, with instructions to make all possible speed and
get into Oregon before Astor or his men, and forestall all of Astor's plans.
Accordingly, in June, 1810, Surveyor Thompson organized a large and well
equipped party for this hasty expedition to Oregon, proceeding upon the usual
route up the Great Lakes, up the great Saskatchewan river and struck the
Rocky mountains and entered the mountains at what is now known as the Yel-
lowhead Pass. He ignored the discoveries of Mackenzie and Fraser and kept
farther south, relying largely on his own judgment of the rivers and mountains.
But surveyor and astronomer as he was, he got his party into such a labyrinth
of mountains, and where no white man had ever been before him, that he was
completely at sea without guide or compass. Here in the heart of the Rocky
44
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
mountains his party mutinied, and all but eight men deserted him, carrying off
all the goods, stores and food supplies they thought necessary for their preserva-
tion, and took the back track to Canada. It shows the character and capacity of
Thompson, that this mutiny did not disconcert him. It was now winter, Decem-
ber, 1810, and Thompson and his remaining eight faithful men set to work to
make themselves as comfortable as possible in that inhospitable region, building
a log hut and laying in supplies of fish and game.
Early in the spring of 1811, Thompson was again actively at work. His in-
structions from his principals were to build forts at all commanding points, make
a survey and map of the country and watch the expected expedition of Astor.
Examining the region about him, he became satisfied that he was in a country
not seen by either Mackenzie or Fraser; and determining to find out where he
was and how he could get farther west, he constructed a canoe and launched it
on an unknown river. Then caching all his goods he broke camp and bid good-
bye to the hoary mountains. He floated down the unknown stream to its mouth
and there to his great surprise he—the first British subject to see-discovered
the great Columbia river, six years after Lewis and Clark had descended the
Clearwater branch of the same stream nearly four hundred miles farther south.
Thompson struck the Columbia at the apex of the great northern bend of the
river just where it turns to run southward to the Arrow Lakes. He was over-
joyed at his discovery, and continued his course on down the great river with
his eight men and their canoes, through the Arrow Lakes, the Little Dalles, the
Great Dalles, the Cascades, on down, down, until he reached Astoria, July 15,
1811., being the first English subject to traverse the whole course of the Colum-
bia river. In his trip down the Columbia, Thompson faithfully complied with
his instructions, and at various points along the river stopped and built little
huts sufficient to house a few men, and raised flags over them in the name of the
King of England.
By the month of July, Thompson had reached the junction of the Columbia
and Snake rivers. Here he found at the abandoned site of the old town of Ains-
worth, a large Indian camp, and seeing the natural and strategic advantages of
the point, erected a pole, raised the British flag thereon and nailed the following
notice on the pole: “Know hereby that this country is claimed by Great Britain,
as part of its territories, and that the Northwest Company of Merchants from
Canada, finding the factory of this people inconvenient to them, do hereby in-
tend to erect ( factory in this place for the commerce of the country around."
And by posting these muniments of title it is seen that the Northwest Company
was quite as loyal to old England as the Hudson's Bay Company, although it
was itself a trespasser in this territory as against its rival, the Hudson's Bay
Company
His intention was unquestionably to take symbolic possession of the country
and to hold it by such rights of discovery or possession as could be set up by
the British government.
But he reached Astoria too late. The Tonquin, Astor's ship, sailed from
New York on September 8, 1810, and reached a landing inside the Columbia
river at Baker's Bay on March 24, 1811.
When Thompson reached Astoria, he was most politely received by Astor's
men, and assigned comfortable quarters inside the fort; but the Astorians fully

2
3
RAMSAY CROOKES
RUSSELL FARNHAM
WILSON PRICE HUNT
JOHN BAPTISTE CHARLES LUCAS
President Jefferson's Secret Agent at
St. Louis and New Orleans
UNIL
Bic
OF
M
H.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
15
comprehended his mission. They had already, on June 15, thirty days before
Thompson had reached Astoria, received a visit from two Indians (one of which
turned out to be a white woman in disguise), clothed in the dress of Indians of
the east side of the Rocky nountains, bearing a letter from Finnan McDonald,
a clerk of the Northwest Company at a post on the Spokane river. This
letter was addressed to John Stuart in New Caledonia ; but the bearers of the
letter, getting lost, wandered around among Indian tribes until they finally
turned up at Astoria, having learned from other Indians that there were white
men at that point. Defeated in the inain object of his expedition, Thompson
made the best excuse possible and proposed to Astor's representatives that he
would leave the fur trade west of the Rocky mountains to Astor's company, pro-
vided Astor would not interfere with the trade of the Northwest Company
on the east side of the mountains. And if this offer was declined then the North-
West Company could do nothing less than to press western occupation of the
whole region, and to that end had already dispatched a large force of men to the
new field, freely distributing the British flag to the natives along the route.
Right here the contest between England and the United States for the posses-
sion of old Oregon commenced in earnest. The English had sought through
the cloak of their fur company to seize the country by strategy. Thompson had
performed a wonderful feat crowded with perils, mishaps and treachery of his
own men. But he was nearly four months too late. The agents of Astor were
beforehand. They had built their fort, mounted their cannon and run up the
stars and stripes. The country and its great river was secured for the United
States for all time, with the added inestimable value of a foothold on the great
Pacific ocean. The services of these valiant Americans were worth more to the
nation than that of a thousand President James K. Polks.
A more extended notice of the building of this Astoria fort will be given in
connection with the chapter on fur companies.
THE ASTOR, PRICE HUNT EXPEDITION-1811
On the 23d of June, 1810, John Jacob Astor, the founder of the wealthy
Astor family of New York, a native of Heidelberg, Germany, and a citizen of
the United States, then residing at New York City, organized the Pacific Fur
Company; and while a private corporation in name, it was nothing more than
a general partnership. Astor had been very successful in the fur trade in the
legions east of the Rocky mountains, and this latest venture was planned on a
scale far more extensive than any other American enterprise. A ship was to be
dispatched from New York to the Columbia river at regular intervals with all
the necessary goods for the Indian trade and supplies for a fort and corps
of outfield trappers. And after discharging cargo at the fort and station to
be established at the mouth of the Columbia, the ship was to take in the furs
there on hand and then proceed up the northwest coast visiting all the stations
of the Russian Fur Company, cultivating their friendship, trading for their
furs, and after securing a ship's cargo, proceed to Canton, China, sell their furs,
and take in a cargo of tea and China goods for New York city. It was a grand
scheme, and here was the commencement of the present vast ocean-going com-
merce of the state whose history we are now recording. It is worth considering
16
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
that from this humble commencement of one or two ships, handling only the
pelts of fur-bearing animals, just one hundred years ago, when this paragraph
is written that commerce has developed into an importing and exporting trade
of fifty millions of dollars annually, and of which Astor's big item of pelts does
not now amount to more than one hundredth part of one per cent.
But the enterprising German was not to have easy sailing. Knowing full
well the great influence, wealth and success of the Northwest Company of
Canada, and that said company had no trading posts west of the Rocky moun-
tains, south of the headwaters of Fraser river, Astor made known to them his
plans and invited them to join him in his new enterprise, offering them a third
interest in his company. But instead of receiving this friendly offer in the
spirit in which it was tendered, the Canadians pretended to take the matter
under advisement in order to gain time, and then hastily sent out a party under
the lead of their surveyor, David Thompson, as stated above, with instruction to
occupy the mouth of the Columbia with a trading post of their own, and to ex-
plore the river to its headwaters, and seize all advantageous positions. But fully
aware of this treacherous return for his friendly offer, Astor prosecuted his en-
terprise with renewed vigor. He associated with him as partners Alexander
McKay, Duncan, MacDougal, Donald Mackenzie, David and Robert Stuart, and
Ramsay Crooks, all men of experience, taken from the Canadians, and with
them John Clarke of Canada, and Wilson Price Hunt and Robert McLellan, citi-
zens of the United States. The McKay named above had accompanied Alexander
Mackenzie in both of his previously described voyages of discovery.
The articles of co-partnership provided that Mr. Astor, as head of the com-
pany, should remain at New York and manage its affairs, and supply vessels,
goods, supplies, arms, ammunition and every other thing necessary to the success
of the enterprise at first cost, providing that such advances should not in any one
year require an outlay of more than four hundred thousand dollars. The stock
of the company was divided into one hundred shares of which Astor held fifty.
The business was to be carried on for twenty years, Astor to bear all the losses of
the first five years, after that, losses to be borne ratably by the partners; but if
not profitable for the first five years, it might be dissolved at the end of that
period. The chief agent of the company on the Columbia was to hold his posi-
tion for five years, and Wilson Price Hunt was selected for the first term. Four
of the partners, twelve clerks (among whom was Gabriel Franchere, who
wrote a narrative of the voyage), five mechanics and thirteen Canadian trap-
pers, were to go to the mouth of the Columbia by the way of Cape Horn and the
Sandwich Islands, as stated above, and commence work until Hunt, the chief
agent, with his party, should go overland to the same point. The ship, Tonquin,
two hundred and ninety tons burthen, commanded by Jonathan Thorn, a lieu-
tenant of the United States navy, on leave, was made ready for the trip and
sailed for the mouth of the Columbia on the 8th day of September, 1810. The
ship carried a full assortment of Indian trading goods, supplies of provisions,
timbers and naval stores for a schooner to be built on the Columbia for coast-
wise trading tools, garden seeds, and everything else to start a self-sustaining
settlement. And as England was then dogging the infant republic to pick a
quarrel for the War of 1812, and Mr. Astor had got an intimation that his ship,
designed for peaceful commerce and settlement in distant Oregon, might be
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
17
intercepted by a British privateer, the secretary of the navy sent Captain Isaac
Hull, with the United States frigate Constitution, to escort the Tonquin beyond
danger. The Tonquin reached the Columbia on the 24th day of March, 1811,
and anchored in Baker's Bay. This first ship had sad luck in getting into the
river on this first voyage to start the mighty current of commerce, for eight of
the crew were lost in examining the shores and bays of the river to mark out
its channel. On the 12th of April, the ship’s launch, with sixteen men and sup-
plies crossed over the river from Baker's Bay to Point George, and there and
then commenced a settlement on the present site of the city of Astoria, and gave
it the name it bears in honor of the projector of the enterprise. It was nine
months after the arrival of the Tonquin before Hunt, with a remnant of his
party, reached Astoria, having been harassed by the bitter opposition of the
Canadian Fur Company, which had contrived to send a party ahead of him and
arouse the opposition of the Indians to him, and which party under the lead of
Thompson, reached Astoria in a canoe, flying the British flag just ninety days
after the American flag had been hoisted on Point George.
The overland expedition of Wilson Price Hunt is one of the most remarkable
in the annals of pioneer adventure; and in its benefits to succeeding immigra-
tions to Oregon was the most beneficial of all the fur traders' contributions to
the settlement of this country. While Astor had but little difficulty in getting
his ship off from New York, he was harassed by bitter opposition to every step
of his effort to organize the overland party. While cruising the western towns
of Canada and the United States for suitable material to make up a party he
knew he would be beset with great trials. Hunt was harried by the bitter op-
position of both the Northwest Company of Canada and the Missouri Fur
Company of St. Louis. He finally gathered a party of sixty men together and
went into camp where the city of St. Joseph, in Missouri, now stands, on or
about the first of September, 1810. Here was completed all the details for the
journey to be accomplished in 1811. In this assemblage of bold border men
were four partners in Astor's new company. Donald Mackenzie, who had been
ten years in the service of the Northwest Company, accustomed to every phase
of border danger and trial, familiar with all the tactics of Indian warfare, and
a brave man. There was also a young Scotchman, Ramsay Crooks, formerly
with the Northwest Company, of great enterprise, and whose son, Colonel
William Crooks was for years a citizen of Oregon and assistant to A. L. Mohler,
president of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company. Also Joseph Miller, a
native of Baltimore, an army officer and a trapper; and the fourth man, Robert
McLellan, a fearless man, of large experience in fighting Indians and the hero
of many battles. There was also John Day, a powerful Virginia backwoodsman,
a giant in stature, and for whom John Day river of Eastern Oregon and John
Day in Clatsop county are named. Pierre Dorion, the Frenchman whose father
had accompanied Lewis and Clark as interpreter, was also in the party; together
with two scientists, John Bradbury and Nuttall, the botanist, both Englishmen.
Having everything in readiness the party broke camp on the 20th of April,
1811, and commenced poling their boats up the Missouri river ten years before
any steamboats were seen in that region. They had got only a few days' advance
up the river until the men commenced deserting on account of the fear of the
Indians. Hunt had planned to follow the route of Lewis and Clark as far as
18
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
possible; but learning of the hostility and numbers of the Blackfeet Indians who
had given notice that they would destroy the whole party, he decided to stop
with the Ricarees at their villages on the river, purchase an outfit of horses and
cross the mountains near the head of Platte river away south of the Lewis and
Clark trail, and thus avoid the hostile Blackfeet. Hunt must have left the
Missouri river about fifty or seventy-five miles above the site where the city of
Omaha now stands.
Having disposed of his boats and superfluous baggage, Hunt and his party
left the Missouri river on the 18th of July, 1811, and .struck out west into the
trackless, boundless prairies of Nebraska with forty-eight men, one Indian
woman and two children, and eighty-two pack horses loaded with luggage, goods
and all sorts of supplies to carry them from the Missouri river to Astoria, Ore-
gon; nearly all the men being on foot and carrying their arms ready for an
Indian fight at any time. When the party reached the country of the Cheyennes,
they obtained thirty-six more horses and divided up the packs and gave a horse
to ride and tie alternately to each two men. Here bearing to the north the party
skirted around the Black Hills in Wyoming and passed over the great coal and
gold region of that country without seeing anything but Indians and buffaloes,
and then struck westward along the dividing ridge between the watersheds of the
Missouri and Yellowstone rivers. By the end of August they had reached the
Big Horn mountains and were in the country of the Crow Indians. Continuing
on westward until they struck Wind river valley they followed up that stream
for five days. But finding no game and their food supplies running short, the
party changed its course to the southwest until it struck a branch of the Colo-
rado, now called Green river, and once called Spanish river, because of the fact
that the Spaniards lived far south at the mouth of the river. From a high ele-
vation in this vicinity from which Mr. Hunt made observations in all directions,
he discovered the Three Teton mountain peaks, and made out the guess that
these mountains were at the head of the Columbia river.
The party were now in the country of the Shoshone Indians; and turning
north from Green river they followed up a small branch of that stream to its
source and passed over the dividing ridge between the watershed of the great
Colorado of the south and the still greater Columbia of the north. Hunt had
no knowledge of this region save what he could gather from a straggling Indian
band, and the meagre facts gathered by Henry while he was on the Henry branch
of the Snake river in the summer of 1808; although Henry himself did not
know at that time that he was on a branch of the Columbia river.
The Hunt party had now, September, 1811, reached the south branch of the
Snake river, and finding it a rough stream for canoes, pushed on north over the
divide to the north branch called Henry river, and found it a beautiful stream
three hundred feet wide and apparently easy of navigation. They now thought
all their labors and trials at an end. For concluding that this stream ran
smoothly down to the Pacific ocean, although a thousand miles distant, all they
had to do was to build canoes, load in their baggage and float with the stream un-
til they landed at Astoria. Never were men more bitterly disappointed. They
had absolutely no knowledge of what was before them. No civilized man had
ever been through the region ahead of them and returned alive to tell the tale.
With high hopes and willing hands the whole party set to work to make

2.
C
4
No. 1–Nathaniel Wyeth
No. 3—Old Fort Hall
No. 2-Kit Carson
No. 4-Lieut. Bonneville
GNL
OF
ty
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON:
19
ready for what they fully believed the last and most pleasant part of their great
undertaking. Some were set to felling the big trees and making the canoes,
others were sent out in pairs to get furs and game for food, and still others to
mending their battered and torn clothing. There being, as they thought, no
further use for the pack horses, they were all turned over to the Shoshones to
look after, if perchance any of the party should ever return that way and need
a horse. By the 19th of October, fifteen canoes had been completed, and every-
thing being ready the whole merry party of adventurers embarked on the Snake
river and struck out for the Pacific ocean.
They had one good day's run, the loaded canoes gliding swiftly down
the placid river, passing the confluence of the two branches of the stream and
enabling the party to camp before night on the banks of the main river. But
the next day brought trouble and danger. From a broad unruffled stream the
river changed into a series of dangerous rapids in one of which one canoe was
wrecked and another filled with water and the goods damaged. The next day
the dangers multiplied; a laborious and dangerous portage was made, and later
on a waterfall of the whole river required another portage, and still farther on
another canoe was wrecked and one man lost his life. Dangers thus multiplying,
it was decided to send ahead scouts to examine the river before again trusting
their canoes and lives to the boiling whirlpools. Accordingly two parties were
sent out to examine the stream; one down the left-hand side and the other down
the right side, and at the end of four days, after examining the river for forty
miles, they returned and reported Snake river a succession of dangerous rapids,
whirlpools and waterfalls that no canoe could ever pass. Here was a misad-
venture calculated to appall the stoutest heart, and well nigh seemed to be a ca-
tastrophe that would wreck the whole undertaking. In the heart of what seemed a
boundless desert, on a wild stream that forbid even a crossing, without a single
pack horse, with rapidly vanishing supplies of food, at the near approach of
winter, and utterly ignorant of the country before them to be traversed before
reaching their goal, a more hopeless situation could hardly be imagined. That
they survived and overcame dangers and obstacles that could not be foreseen or
imagined, shows the fibre, courage and endurance of men whose like or equal has
never been seen in any other part of the world.
On reaching this jumping-off place on the river, a picture of which is given
on another page, it was called 'Caldron Linn,'' but on parting with it in disgust
they named it "The Devil's Scuttle Hole.” Bravely facing the inevitable, Hunt
and his men set to work to march a thousand miles to Astoria on foot, not calcu-
"lating on any aid from Indians or canoes. After concealing in caches the goods
they could not pack the men divided into four parties. Crooks with five men
should return to Fort Henry, over two hundred miles, get their horses and re-
turn as quickly as possible to relieve the situation. Mackenzie with five men
ghould strike northward and find another branch of the Columbia river; Reed
with three men, and McLellan with three men, should descend the river, one
party on each side, while Hunt with the balance of the party-thirty-one men
and the Indian wife and children of Pierre Dorion-would advance through the
sage brush desert of Idaho. But they had scarcely completed the arrangements
for their march when the Crooks party suddenly returned accounting it as ·
hopeless to recover the horses and return to the party before deep snow would
Vol. I-
50
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
set in. And soon Reed's men returned reporting it impossible to descend the
river by land or water. Then altering their plans it was agreed that Hunt, with
eighteen men, Dorion and his family, should follow down the right bank of the
river and Crooks and the remainder of the party should follow down the left
bank of the river, and in that way possibly get some food from Indians on either
side. The pack of each man to carry was now reduced to twenty pounds, with
not more than seven and a half pounds of food to the man, while yet a thousand
miles lay between them and Astoria.
The record of the trials and sufferings of these men slowly toiling along
through sage brush, over rocks, sand and a trackless desert without chart or
guide is one that can scarcely be considered possible. Often they suffered for
water, although the water in the boiling river lay below them behind perpendic-
ular walls of rock. Occasionally they could get a few dried fish from half
starved Indians, or a dog or skeleton horse. Anything and everything to sustain
life was food to them as they toiled along with torn moccasins and bleeding feet
making sometimes thirty miles and again only three miles a day—sleeping with-
out shelter on the bare ground under rocks or trees, anywhere—and to all this
was added the distress of the cold rains and snows of bleak December days. One
morning about a month after Crooks and Hunt had separated, Hunt heard
feeble cries across the river and looking up beheld the emaciated form of Crooks
on the other side of the river begging for food. Crooks and his men had been
reduced to the verge of cannibalism. They had lived on the carcass of one
beaver for days. On the carcass of a dog for other days. Had eaten all the
wild berries to be found and finally eaten their moccasins. A boat was hastily
improvised out of a horse hide stretched over willow sprouts and food was sent
across the river to the starving men. One of the men desired to return with the
boat and was taken in; but as he neared the shore the sight of cooking food upset
his mind and with a gibberish laugh and shout he toppled out of the boat and
was drowned. Crooks had gone down the Snake river canyon as far as it was
possible for men to go and had been compelled to retrace his steps when he was
thus discovered by Hunt. On hearing this report from Crooks, Hunt resolved
to turn back. This he did, Crooks still keeping on the west side of the river.
Both parties then returned up the river to a point afterwards known as “Olds
Ferry,” a picture of which is given on another page, and where many thousands
of immigrants in after years crossed over to Oregon. Here they found an In-
dian camp and set to work to get their aid to help or show the way to the Colum-
bia river. An Indian was found that could act as a guide, but he was loth to
make the venture. Every argument and inducement that could be thought of
was offered him for his services, but nothing seemed to move him. They would
furnish horses to carry the party over the first ridge of mountains, but no guide
would go. Finally Hunt offered a blanket full of trinkets, three knives, two
horses for the guide, a gun and a pistol. The guide was the poorest man in his
tribe. To accept this offer he would be at once the richest man in the tribe.
Filthy lucre was too great a temptation, and the barbarian yielded and became
the guide, led the famishing party of explorers through the valleys of what is
now Baker county, through the beautiful Grande Ronde valley, over the Blue
mountains, and reaching the grassy slopes of sunshine of the Umatillas on the
8th of January, 1812—and the Hunt party was saved-saved by the red man.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
51
The party of five led by Reed and Mackenzie had succeeded better than all
the others. By pushing down the east side of the Snake while they were fresh and
strong they got past the worst of the mountains before the snows fell on them;
crossed over Salmon river, and down the long ridge over the great Florence gold
mine deposits, on down to Camas prairie where the town of Grangeville now
flourishes, and on down to the towns of the Nez Perce Indians. Here they were
received as friends and all their wants for food freely and fully supplied; and
wlien rested and recuperated, were furnished with canoes on which they floated
down the Clearwater to the Snake, and down the Snake to the great Columbia,
and down the Columbia to Astoria where they were the first of the Hunt party
to report for duty, reaching Fort Astoria on the 18th of January, 1812.
Returning again to Hunt where he was left with the Indians on the Umatilla
on the Sth of January, we find him busy repairing damages and getting horses
and provisions to push on down the river. On January 20th, Hunt and his re-
maining men left the Umatilla on horses and pushed on to The Dalles, and there
getting canoes from the Indians at once dropped down the Columbia where they
all arrived on the 15th of February, 1812, having been ten months lacking five
days since they broke camp on the Missouri river for their world-renowned trip
across the western wilderness of America. Counting the crooks and bends of
their route they traveled over thirty-five hundred miles in ten months of hard-
ships and perils unparalleled in the history of the world. The two parties met
at Astoria with inexpressible joy, and the bronzed heroes of the mountains em-
braced each other with tears and kisses like children.
The War of 1812 with England breaking out soon after, and before any suf-
ficient effort could be made to prove the practical success of the enterprise, and
while Mr. Hunt was absent to Alaska on a trading expedition with the Beaver-
a second ship that Astor had sent out with supplies and men—two of Astor's
partners, Macdougall and MacTavish, turned traitor to the enterprise and sold
it out to the Canadian Company for fifty-eight thousand dollars, property which
had cost Astor over two hundred and fifty thousand, together with a large
amount of furs that had been accumulated. They had not only betrayed and
robbed their partner of his property in the absence of his American agent, but
they conspired to turn the fort and all its property and advantages over to the
British government, prohibiting the young American employees from raising
the stars and stripes over their own fort. The whole disgraceful chapter of
treachery and dishonesty to Astor and enmity to the United States ending with
the seizure of the fort by the British man-of-war Raccoon, on December 1, 1813.
This chapter of perfidy to Astor and seizure of an American fort and com-
mercial post, practically put an end to all American settlement in Oregon for
thirty years. There were independent American trappers who sold their furs to
the Hudson's Bay Company, which succeeded the Canadian Company, but there
was not a single American trading post, merchant or establishment in all Oregon
that dared fly the American flag until Joe Meek, led off at Champoeg, in an ap-
peal to "Rally around the flag, boys," in 1843.
After the ruin of the Astoria enterprise, Russell Farnham, one of Astor's
men, conferred with Wilson Price Hunt and it was agreed between them that
Farnham should undertake to get back to New York by crossing the Pacific ocean
and making his way across Siberia and Russia to Europe. This trip around the
52
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
earth Farnham undertook and safely carried out. He took passage on the ship
Pedlar and crossed over to Siberia. On entering Siberia, Farnham crossed the
eastern continent to St. Petersburgh, where the American minister to the Rus-
sian court presented him to Emperor Alexander as the bold American who had
traveled across his empire. The Emperor received him with great kindness and
consideration, and sent him on his way to Paris. After great exposures to dan-
gers, toils and sufferings, such as no other man voluntarily submitted himself
to for his countrymen, he reached New York, delivered his papers to Astor, ap-
prising him of his losses and the ruin at Astoria, and then made his way back to
St. Louis, where he was received as one risen from the dead.
INDEPENDENT TRAPPING EXPEDITIONS
But while the American enterprise was thus crushed out west of the Rocky
mountains, the hardy pioneers were pushing out from St. Louis, to the east side
of the Rocky mountains. In 1823 General William H. Ashley led an expedition
across the plains. He met with resistance from the Indians, and lost fourteen
men in battle. In 1824 Ashley discovered a southern route through the Rocky
mountains, led his expedition to Great Salt Lake, explored the Utah valley, and
built a fort. Two years later a six pounder cannon was hauled from the Mis-
souri river across the plains and over the mountains, twelve hundred miles to
Ashley's Fort. A trail was made; many loaded wagons passed over it, and
within three years Ashley's men gathered and shipped back to St. Louis over two
hundred thousand dollars worth of furs. Ashley was a native of Virginia, com-
menced selling goods and trading in the West before he was eighteen years of
age, and manufactured saltpeter for powder before he went into fur trading in
the West. The Indians in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company made war
on him, on the upper Missouri, and he gathered an army of border men and
drove the Indians, Hudson's Bay men and all over into Montana.
Jim Bridger—whose portrait we give on another page—is another St. Louis
contribution to the winning of the west by the fur trading route. Bridger was
another old Virginia boy, born in 1804. When ten years old, his father and
mother having died, the boy began earning a living for himself and sister by
working on a flat boat. Stories from the wilderness west stirred the lad, and
when he was eighteen he joined a party of trappers and took to the Rocky moun-
tains, and continued in a wandering, trapping, exploring life for twenty-five
years. He discovered Great Salt Lake in 1824; the south pass in 1827; visited
Yellowstone lake and the geysers in 1830; founded Fort Bridger in 1843; opened
the overland route by Bridger's pass to Great Salt Lake; a guide to the United
States exploring expedition under General Albert Sidney Johnston in 1857;
aided G. M. Dodge to locate the line of the Union Pacific Railroad, and acted
as guide to the army in the campaign against the Sioux Indians, 1865-6; and
received honorable burial at his death and a handsome monument over his re-
mains in Mount Washington Cemetery by the people of Kansas City. In every
respect Bridger was a typical pioneer American, plunging into the depths of the
wilderness for the excitement of it, and to gratify a curiosity to see what was in
the great beyond. He was the friend of the immigrants to Oregon, and wandered
far out of his way to warn them against marauding savages and guide them on
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
53
their course. He was never lost. Father DeSmet pronounced Bridger one of the
truest specimens of the real Rocky mountain trapper. Bridger's peak was named
in his honor; and in the capitol building of the state of Minnesota is the painting
of a trapper in full dress, of which Bridger was the original. He aided Dr.
Whitman on his first trip to Oregon, and in return, the Doctor cut an iron arrow-
head out of Bridger's shoulder, which had been fired into him by a Blackfoot
Indian. Nevertheless, the trapper retained no grudge against the red race, and
took a Shoshone woman for a wife.
There were many others engaged in pioneering into the western wilderness
toward Oregon for furs and Indian trade. There were the four Sublette Broth-
ers, all able, energetic men in their manner of life. Captain Sublette served
with Ashley and brought him out. He had a rare faculty of managing the In-
dians, but when he had to fight them, they always got the worst of it. Sublette
was the first man to tame the Blackfeet. After a desperate fight with them at
'Pierre's Hole,” renowned among the Rocky mountain: men as the greatest bat-
tle with the Indians, the Blackfeet submitted to Sublette and helped him cele-
brate a sort of Roman triumph on his return to St. Louis with a pack of Indian
ponies, a mile long, laden with peltries. One of the Sublettes drifted as far
west as California, as one of the forty-niners, and there got into a fight with a
grizzly bear, killed the bear, but died afterwards from the wounds inflicted by
the beast.
And about this time there were scores of adventurous spirits pushing out from
St. Louis to all points ranging from the headwaters of the Missouri down to
Santa Fe and on to California. Kit Carson was probably the most noted of
these hunters and Indian fighters.
EXPEDITION OF JEDEDIAH S. SMITH–1824-8
In the summer of 1824, Jedediah S. Smith, who was born in the state of
New York in 1804, went to St. Louis and found employment with Ashley and
Henry. And in the ensuing winter they made their headquarters and home at
the Hudson's Bay Company post among the Flathead Indians. In 1825 Smith
returned to St. Louis, and in the following year came back to Snake river with a
still larger company of trappers. Pushing his way west and south, trapping as
he went, passing probably down through the Harney Valley and Klamath Lake
regions to the head of the Sacramento river, he is found on San Francisco bay
in 1827. After sizing up the California region and not liking the rule of the
Spaniard and the priest, Smith with nineteen men left California, and pro-
ceeded along up the Pacific coast trapping as he went. This expedition is re-
markable in that, standing alone, it is the only expedition of a large company
that made the trip between Oregon and California along the sea coast, instead
of by the more open and far easier route by the Sacramento, Umpqua and
Willamette valleys.
This adventure of Smith proved a most disastrous affair to him and his men.
By the time the party had reached the Umpqua river they had taken furs to the
amount of twenty thousand dollars in value. But here they came in contact
with with a relentless foe—the Rogue River Indians. The Rogue Rivers, having
their home in the beautiful Rogue River valley in Jackson county, roved over
54
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
the whole region west to the Pacific ocean, and dominated all the lesser tribes of
the Umpqua, Coos Bay and the Coquille. Smith and his party were received
with outward signs of friendship, and spent one night on an island near the
mouth of the Umpqua river. The next morning after breakfast Smith and one
of his men left camp to find a fording place to cross the river, and no sooner
were they out of sight of the camp than an attack was made by a.concealed band
of Indians and fifteen men killed outright. Hearing the shouts and yells Smith
hastily returned to camp only to see his men killed and his furs seized by the
Indians. He could do nothing but seek safety in flight. He fled across the river
with his one man, and after many trials and great suffering they both reached
Fort Vancouver in safety. Two other men of the party, Arthur Black and a
man named Turner succeeded in getting away with their lives after a terrific
hand to hand fight with the savages. Turner killed four of the Indians with a
club, and Black, a physically powerful man, with bare hands knocked the sav-
ages right and left until he got into the forest and escaped. Both of these men
also succeeded in reaching Fort Vancouver nearly naked, having only shirt and
trousers on, and living for ten days on snails, toads and fern roots.
And now it is seen what sort of a man Dr. John McLoughlin was. When
poor Smith, a rival trapper to the Hudson's Bay Company, crept into the recep-
tion hall of Fort Vancouver bareheaded and barefooted, McLoughlin listened at-
tentively to his tale of woe. All sorts of stories have been given by Oregon histo-
rians, not only about this massacre of the Smith party, but also of the conduct
of the Hudson's Bay Company in relation thereto. Judgment can only be fairly
rendered upon known and indisputable facts. On hearing Smith's story, Mc-
Loughlin promptly ordered his field captain, Thos. McKay, to take fifty men
with twenty pack horses and go to the Umpqua river to the scene of the mas-
sacre with all possible haste and recover Smith's furs from the Indians. This
McKay did, notwithstanding Smith thought it useless because he thought it
would be impossible to recover the furs. McKay did as ordered, and within two
weeks was back again to Vancouver with nearly all the furs that had been stolen.
Now if McLoughlin had been so minded, it would have been easy for him to
have forced hard terms on poor Smith. But he took no advantage of the situa-
tion. But for the horses that were lost on the trip McLoughlin charged four
dollars each, and for the time of his men he charged at the rate of sixty dollars
a year, and gave Smith a draft on London for the market price of the furs in
Oregon. Mrs. Victor in her book entitled “The River of the West,” referring to
this experience of Smith with the Hudson's Bay Company, says (p. 35): "That
George Simpson, the governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, chanced to be
spending the winter at Vancouver, and offered to send Smith to London the fol-
lowing summer in the company's vessel, where he might dispose of his furs him-
self to advantage; but Smith declined this offer, sold the furs to McLoughlin,
and returned in the spring to the Rocky mountains." Joe Meek is undoubtedly
her authority for this statement; and Joe Meek was never a partisan of the
Hudson's Bay Company. Smith was a man of great energy and perseverance. No
sooner had he got paid for these furs seized by the Indian murderers, but he was
off again to distant St. Louis to organize another expedition. But Smith not re-
turning to St. Louis as his partners expected, a party was sent out to hunt him
up. The party proceeded to the head of Snake river where Smith and his men
ܕܕ

Upper Man-PETER H. BURNETT, Provisional Supreme Judge of Oregon, and First
American Governor of California
Lower Left Hand-PIO PICO, Last Mexican Governor of California
Lower Right Hand-LIEUT. FREMONT, Who Overthrew the Mexican Governor and
Hoisted the American Flag in California
OF
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
55
a
were last heard from in 1827, and Smith was found alone in “Pierre's Hole,
deep mountain valley at the fountain head of Snake river. The redoubtable Joe
Meek, then a stripling, was one of the party to rescue Smith from the wilderness.
Smith returned to St. Louis and with his partners, Jackson and Sublette, or-
ganized and sent out the first train of wagons from the Missouri to the Rocky
mountains, July 16, 1829.
Jedediah Smith's contribution to the settlement of Oregon was not large,
but he unquestionably did add largely to the interest in Oregon by his knowl-
edge of the country given to fur traders and other business men at St. Louis.
Misfortune seemed to pursue him throughout his career. His last venture was
from St. Louis to Santa Fe, during which he got into a battle with the Comanche
Indians on the Cimmaron river and lost his life in 1831.
CAPTAIN N. J. WYETH'S EXPEDITIONS--1832
Another successful explorer was Captain Nathaniel J. Wyeth, of Massachu-
setts, who made two overland expeditions to Oregon. These were next to Astor's
the second purely commercial ventures to Oregon by American citizens. At the
same time he started his first party overland to Oregon, he dispatched a ship
from Boston ladened with goods, estimating that the ship would reach the
Columbia river about the time the overland party would reach the Willamette
valley. The ship was never heard from afterwards, and the overland party
reached Fort Vancouver on the 29th of October, 1832. It was Wyeth's plan to
take salmon from the Columbia, salt or dry them for the Boston market, trade
for all the furs he could get, and in that way get a return cargo for his ship and
do a profitable business. The loss of the ship defeated his first expedition. But
it brought out some men who took root and grew up with the country. John
Ball was one of them, and he is the man that opened the first school (at Van-
couver) in all the vast region of old Oregon November, 1832. The school was
not a success, but it was a starter. Then Solomon H. Smith, another one of the
Wyeth party, in March, 1833, opened a school at old Vancouver under an en-
gagement with Dr. McLoughlin, chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company, to
teach for six months. Smith expected to teach an English school, but found a
great confusion of tongues. The pupils came in, all speaking their native tongues
and each different from the other, Cree, Nez Perce, Chinook, Klickitat, etc.; and
the only boy who could understand the English of the teacher rebelled off-hand.
Dr. McLoughlin coming into the school in the midst of the difficulty proceeded
to enforce the law himself, and gave the little rebel such a thrashing as secured
perfect discipline thereafter. Smith taught this school of twenty-five Indian
boys for eighteen months in which time they learned to speak English well and
the rudiments of the primary branches of a common school education. They
had but one copy of an arithmetic in the whole school, and of this each pupil
made a complete copy which was used afterwards by other pupils. And so
education started in the land where there are now more colleges, high schools
and universities to the population than in any other region in the United States.
Wyeth's first expedition was a financial failure, but not disheartened, he
returned to Boston overland and renewed his efforts to establish direct trade
hetween the Columbia river and his home city. And having procured the ship
56
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
May Dacre and filled her up with all sorts of goods and supplies for this coun-
try, the ship sailed for the Coumbia via Cape Horn, while Wyeth again enlisted
a party of two hundred men and started overland from Independence, Missouri,
on April 24, 1834. With that party came the first missionaries to Oregon-
Jason and Daniel Lee. On his way across the continent, Wyeth stopped and
erected Fort Hall, in which lie stored his trading goods for the interior. He and
his party reached Fort Vancouver about the same time his ship came into the
Columbia and proceeding down to the lower end of the Wappatoo island (now
called Sauvies island), Wyeth established a salmon fishery and built a trading
house which he named Fort William. The salmon fishery was not much of a suc-
cess, but it was the commencement of salmon packing on the Columbia, an in-
dustry that now brings in many million dollars yearly.
In his journal of April 3, 1835, Wyeth writes: “On arriving here I set about
preparing for fishing. Have commenced a house-boat seventy feet long for con-
veyance about the different fisheries. Have finished a canoe sixty feet long,
three feet wide and two and a half feet deep, out of one tree which has not a
shake or knot in it; and this is by no means a large tree here. I think I could
find trees, free from shakes and knots, that would square four feet one hundred
feet long.
"This Wappatoo Island I have selected for our establishment is fifteen miles
long and three miles wide. It consists of woodlands and prairie, and on it many
deer, and those who could spare time to hunt might live well; but a sickness has
carried off to a man its inhabitants (Indians), and there is nothing to attest that
they ever existed here but their decaying houses, their graves, and their un-
buried bones of which there are piles and heaps.''
Wyeth proceeded to lay out a town with streets, blocks, parks, etc., which
was the first candidate for the great city of this region. A half a cargo of sal-
mon was caught, dried and salted, the ship sailed for Boston in 1838, and never
returned to the Columbia. Disheartened with disease on the island and his
cominercial failure, Wyeth returned to Massachusetts. While Wyeth's expedi-
tions were disastrous to himself financially, they were of immense value to the
United States. He prepared a memoir to Congress, setting forth the character
and resources of the country which secured the attention of the American people,
and from that day on it was but a question of time and courage upon the part of
the few settlers that here should be an American state and not a British province.
In his memoir to Congress, Wyeth says: “In conclusion, I will observe that
the measures of the Hudson's Bay Company have been conceived with wisdom,
steadily pursued, and have been well seconded by their government; and their
success has been complete; and without being able to charge upon them gross
violations of existing treaties, a few years will make the country west of the
mountains as English as they could desire. The Americans are unknown as a
Nation; and as individuals their power is despised by the natives. A population
is growing out of the occupancy of the country that is not with us; and before
many years they will decide to whom the country belongs, unless in the meantime
the American government shall make their power felt and seen to a greater degree
than has yet been the case.'
Wyeth could see no hope for American control but in the active intervention
of Congress; and yet within four years from the time he penned the above lines,
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
37
the few despised" Americans had met at Champoeg and organized an independ-
ent government flying the American flag-and saved the country. Yet Wyeth
rendered an immense service to the country. The island he located on was for
many years known as Wyeth's Island, and is so recorded in legal records in Wash-
ington county. And to Wyeth's energy, money and sacrifices, more than to all
others is due the opening of the Oregon trail. The large force of men he brought
out in 1834 did thorough work not only in exploring for the best route, but in
sinoothing down some of the worst places. Wyeth was never a fur trader. He
took a higher, nobler and farther look ahead; and to him also belongs part of the
honor of bringing the first Christian missionaries to the people on the west side of
the Rocky Mountains--Jason and Daniel Lee~in 1834.
CAPTAIN BONNEVILLE'S EXPEDITION-18:32
The most notable venture was made by Captain Bonneville of the U. S. army
on leave, who led a party of one hundred and ten men in 1832 into Utah, Nevada
and Oregon. Want of experience in the business he had undertaken resulted in
many errors and severe losses which were increased by the active and unrelenting
opposition of the Hudson's Bay Company, already established in this field.
Bonneville had projected his expedition on the basis of making scientific observa-
tions as much as for trade. And the government had given him a furlough for
two years on the condition that he should not only pay all the expenses of his ex-
pedition, but also that he must provide suitable maps and instruments, and that
he should be careful to find out how many warrior Indians there were in the
regions he might explore, and ascertain the nature and character of these na-
tives, whether warlike or disposed to peace, their manner of making war and
their instruments of warfare. Proceeding on this basis, Bonneville got as far
west as the present city of Walla Walla, with twenty wagons in the year 1832.
Bonneville found out a good deal about the country, all of which is most charm-
ingly written up by Washington Irving; but he lost his entire investment in
goods from the opposition and sharp practices of the Hudson's Bay Company.
THE WILKES' EXPEDITION—1842
In 1838, Capt. Charles Wilkes of the United States Navy was sent out by the
U. S. government for a cruise around the world in the interests of American com-
merce, and during which he visited Oregon in the year 1841, and made some
examination of the country and the condition of the American settlers in the
Willamette valley. This was practically the first sign of our government to
take official notice of the American settlements in Oregon; and although it was
inspired and directed by a genuine spirit and desire to promote the interests of
the nation and the welfare of the American settlers in Oregon, it was not at-
tended with marked success.
On reaching the Columbia river in June, 1841, Wilkes very naturally fell in
to the company of the Hudson's Bay Company whose agents were only too well
pleased to entertain a U. S. naval officer and make the most favorable impression
possible. And so in the wilderness of Oregon, Captain Wilkes found himself
most hospitably entertained by gentlemen accustomed to all the graces of polite
58
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
1
society. This, however, did not recommend him to the free-handed trapper and
pioneer, or the straight-coated missionary; but rather otherwise; and he was
subjected to groundless suspicions from the company he kept. Dr. McLoughlin,
head man of the Hudson's Bay Company furnished Wilkes and his party with
a comfortable boat, well provisioned and men to man and propel it, for a trip
up the Willamette river to see the great valley and its settlers and missions. At
the Willamette Falls the distinguished party was most hospitably entertained
by Rev. A. F. Waller (the man of the old gray hat and for long years agent of
the Willamette University) and his charming wife, who played the part of cook
and hostess equal to any city lady. After the dinner, all hands repaired to the
“Falls" then in all their natural beauty unmarred by the hideous work of paper
mill plutocrats in their rage for more money, and there witnessed the native
Indian spearing the salmon as he had done for uncounted centuries. Proceeding
up the Willamette the Wilkes party was entertained again at old Champoeg by
William Johnson, one of the Champoeg heroes of 1843. Johnson had an Indian
woman for a wife which Wilkes declared to be worth six civilized wives; and
notwithstanding everything was very raw and crude, Wilkes was soon on the
most familiar terms in Johnson's cabin, for Johnson himself had formerly been
a "Man of War's Man" in the U. S. navy, having fought on the Constitution-
“Old Ironsides —in the War of 1812. Here they left their boats and took to
horses, provided by the settlers eager to show Wilkes everything and proceeded
by land over the open prairies up the valley, and made their first stop at the Cath-
olic Mission of St. Paul, then presided over by Rev. Francis Norbert Blanchet,
afterwards the Catholic archbishop of Oregon City.
From the Catholic mission the Wilkes party extended its trip farther south
to the Methodist mission which was then located about twelve miles north of the
present city of Salem. Here the party was entertained by Abernethy, Babcock,
and other leading Methodists. Proceeding farther south the party visited the
flouring mill erected by the Methodists; and from this point they crossed over
the Willamette river, near the present village of Wheatland and returned back
to the Falls of the Willamette after visiting American settlers in the settlements
where now is found old Lafayette, Dayton, McMinnville, Yamhill and Newberg.
From the settlers at all these points, and from the Hudson's Bay Company em-
ployees, probably not more than forty or fifty white men all told, Wilkes gleaned
all the information he could about the country. And while he did not himself see
any of the country east of the Cascade mountains, he sent his subordinate, Dray-
ton, up the Columbia as far east as Dr. Whitman's mission, to gather all the in-
formation possible. Wilkes obtained from Peter Skene Ogden a full description
of all the Oregon country east of the Cascade mountains; and Ogden was at that
time the most reliable and best informed man in all the Oregon country as to all
its characteristics and resources. In addition to his trip up the Willamette valley,
Wilkes made an excursion into the valley of the Cowlitz, going as far as the Hud-
son's Bay Company's farms. The only other work done by Wilkes worthy of
mention was a survey of the Columbia river for navigation purposes. The survey
amounted to nothing in value, although the party had ample means to have charted
the river and rendered a great service to Oregon and the country. Beyond this
work was a trip into the Yakima country by Lieut. Johnson, and an overland trip
to California by Lieutenant Emmons. On all this there was a large sum of gov.


JOHN C. FREMONT
Oregon Explorer, and Republican Candidate for President in 1856
OF
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
59
ernment money expended, and nothing of value secured for the settlers or the
country.
But when it came to making a report to the government, Wilkes seemed to
feel the full force and responsibility of his mission, and says: "Having been well
aware of the little information in possession of the government relative to the
northern section of this (Oregon) country I thought it proper, from its vast im-
portance in the settlement of the boundary question, to devote a large portion of
my time to a thorough survey." The value and completeness of this survey may
be judged of from his report on the Columbia river, as to which he says: "The
entrance to the Columbia is impracticable two-thirds of the year; and the dif-
ficulty of leaving the river is equally great." His report as to the climate, soil,
crops, fisheries and timber is good. As to the Willamette valley, a region he actu-
ally examined, he reports it as the finest portion of the country with a settlement
of some sixty families that appear to be industrious and prosperous, and that a
man could earn three times as much by his labor here in a given time as he could
in the United States. As to the missionaries, Wilkes reports that little had been
effected by them in Christianizing the Indians. They (the missionaries) are prin-
cipally engaged in the cultivation of the mission farms, and in the care of their
own stock in order to obtain flocks and herds for themselves, most of them having
selected lands. And as far as my personal observation went, in the part of the
country where the missionaries reside, there are very few Indians, and they (the
missionaries) seem more occupied with the settlement of the country and in agri-
cultural pursuits than missionary labors." This is the testimony of an impartial
observer as to both Protestant and Catholic, and it is probably true and just.
Wilkes concluded his report on general conditions by saying: “That few por-
tions of the globe, in my opinion, are to be found so rich in soil, diversified in.
surface, or capable of being rendered the happy abode of an industrious and
civilized community."
FREMONT'S EXPEDITION-1843
On the 16th day of December, 1841, Lewis F. Linn, United States senator
from Missouri, introduced in congress a bill to take United States government
possession of Oregon. The preamble to this bill declared the title to the country
to be in the United States, that it ought not to be abandoned, that measures should
he adopted to take possession of and occupy the country, and that the laws of the
United States should be extended over it. On the 4th day of January, 1842, Sen-
ator Linn introduced in the senate a resolution requesting the President to give
notice to the British government of an intention to terminate the treaty of joint
occupancy of Oregon under the treaty of 1827.
Senator Linn's proposed act of congress furthermore authorized the President
to erect a line of forts from the Missouri river into "the best pass for entering the
valley of the Oregon," and also a fort at or near the mouth of the Columbia
river; and also granting six hundred and forty acres of land to every white male
inhabitant who was eighteen years of age and over who should settle in Oregon
and cultivate the same for five years. This bill of Senator Linn's never became a
law; but it was the excuse to send out a military government expedition under
Lieut. John C. Fremont in 1843.
60
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
This expedition of Fremont's never amounted to anything in Oregon; but it
had a vast circulation in the Eastern states. Fremont was the son-in-law of
Thomas H. Benton; Benton was United States senator from Missouri, and a great
and good friend of Oregon; and that excused Fremont's shortcomings to the Mis-
sourians in Oregon, and made him a national figure under the title of the “Path
Finder,” and upon which capital he was finally nominated the second candidate
of the republican party for the presidency of the United States. The writer of
this book cast his first vote for president for John C. Fremont.
Fremont's expedition to Oregon left the Missouri river at the point where
Kansas City is located on the 29th of May, 1843, and traveled along the Oregon
trail just behind the Oregon emigration of that year. At the big bend of Bear
river, Fremont turned south and visited Great Salt Lake, and after some examin-
ation of that salt sea returned again to the Oregon trail and followed along after
the Oregon immigrants until he reached the Dalles. There he left his party and
came down to Fort Vancouver in a canoe and purchased supplies for a southerly
extension of his travels from the Dalles to California. These supplies were sent
up to him at the Dalles by the Hudson's Bay Company. That Fremont's trip
across to Oregon from the Missouri river was wholly destitute of any merit and
without a single event to entitle him to any praise is evident from the oft-quoted
testimony of Oregon's distinguished pioneer and statesman, James W. Nesmith.
In his address to the Oregon Pioneer Association in 1875, Senator Nesmith says:
"I have often been asked in the Eastern states how long it was after Fremont
discovered Oregon that I emigrated to that country. It is true that in 1843, Fre-
mont, then a lieutenant in the engineer corps, did cross the plains, and brought
his party to the Dalles in the rear of our emigration. His outfit contained all the
conveniences and luxuries that a government appropriation could procure, while
he 'roughed it'in a covered carriage, surrounded by servants paid from the pub-
lic purse. The path he found was that made by the hardy frontiersman who pre-
ceded him to the Pacific, and who stood by their rifles and held the country
against hostile Indians and British threats without government aid or recogni-
tion until 1849, when the first government troops came to our relief."
Returning now to Fremont at the Dalles, with his larder well filled from the
stores of the Hudson's Bay Company, we find him on November 25, 1843, starting
south from the Dalles with twenty-five men, nearly all of whom were Canadian
French trappers, but among whom was the celebrated guide, explorer and Indian
fighter, Kit Carson. The party kept up the south side of the Des Chutes river.
passing through the points now known as Dufur, Tygh Valley, Wapanitia, Warı
Springs and on up to the point where the railroad junction is to be at the town
of Crescent. Fremont was following the old trappers' trail, and his object was
to explore the Klamath Lake region. Crossing the Des Chutes near Crescent he
kept on south until his carriage struck Klamath marsh, on December 10, 1843,
and was compelled to stop or turn aside.
At Klamath marsh the party turned east, exploring the country on both sides.
Fremont claims to have discovered and named in succession Summer, Abert and
Christmas lakes in Lake county; but while some of his men may have been at
Summer and Silver lakes, it is clear from his own map that Fremont never saw
either Summer, Silver or Christmas lake. The Fremont party struck the Che-
waucan river in the neighborhood of the site of Paisley, and kept on down the
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
61
river and its marsh until they rounded the south end of Abert lake. Thence pro-
ceeding north along the east side of Abert lake for about one-half its length, the
party ascended the ridge and passed over the divide between Abert lake and the
Warner lake valley, and then turned south and followed the Warner lake valley
lakes and marshes down into what is now the state of Nevada. That is substan-
tially the whole of Fremont's expedition to Oregon. It was of no value to the
immigrants, to the future state, or to the United States. And yet Fremont's al-
leged discoveries in Oregon were more talked about than that of all the other ex-
plorers who did in fact render great service to the country. And as Senator
Nesmith forcibly states the fact, for this trifling service Fremont achieved the
fame of “The Path Finder," and was rewarded thereafter with the nomination
for president of the United States.
It has always been claimed by his partisans that Fremont was entitled to
great credit in wresting California from the Mexicans in 1846. But a careful
examination of the history of that Mexican province will not support that claim.
The California Mexicans themselves had been prior to Fremont's advent, in a
state of chronic rebellion against the Mexican Republic on account of the deport-
ment of Mexican convicts to that province. Micheltorena, Castro and Pio Pico
had been competing rivals for supremacy, until the California settlers, mostly
American adventurers and hangers-on of the Swiss leader, John A. Sutter, were
incited and emboldened into an attempt to set up an independent government
under the name of "The California Republic.' At that time Mexico was in-
debted to England and English bondholders to the amount of fifty millions of
dollars, and Mexico was apparently willing to pay the debt by a transfer of Cali-
fornia to the English, and England was ready to jump at the offer. The Ameri-
can government was fully informed of the scheme, and on June 24, 1844, George
Bancroft, secretary of the navy, wrote Commodore Sloat, in command of the
American squadron in the Pacific, as follows:
“The Mexican ports on the Pacific are said to be open and defenceless. If
you ascertain with certainty that Mexico has declared war against the United
States, you will at once possess yourself of the port of San Francisco, and block-
ade or occupy such other ports as your force may permit.''
In pursuance of that order, on July 7, 1846, Commodore Sloat with his war
ships then in San Francisco bay, landed 250 marines, and issued the following
proclamation:
“We are about to land on the territory of Mexico with whom the United
States are at war. To strike her flag and to hoist our own in place of it is our
duty. It is not only our duty to take California, but to preserve it afterward as
a part of the United States at all hazards. To accomplish this, it is of the first
importance to cultivate the good opinion of the inhabitants, whom we must rec-
oncile."
Prior to this, on June 15, 1846, twenty-four American settlers, disgusted with
the anarchy and misrule of the Mexican population and their rival governors,
had gathered at Sonoma and seized the Mexican post at that point, issued a proc-
lamation of independence as stated above for a republic, and had made and raised
the celebrated “Bear Flag," with a lone star upon it, with William B. Ide as their
commander-in-chief. These twenty-four rebels had endeavored to get Fremont
and his party of explorers to join them; but Fremont held aloof from the move-
62
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
ment until Commodore Sloat had landed his marines and raised the American
flag. Then Fremont became the leader of the Ide rebels and rendered some as-
sistance in making California an American state.
To the men and women of this age the account of the Hunt party and others
will not appear as fairy stories, but rather as a hideous phrensy of a diseased or
intoxicated imagination. But few people can comprehend it, and not a few may
disbelieve it altogether. But only by such dangers, trials and privations of those
fearless, self-sacrificing heroes was Oregon saved to the United States. There is
now no more West; there is no inore wilderness; there is no more privation,
danger or heroism. The palace car glides swiftly from the Missouri to the great
Pacific ocean; the traveler reclines on luxurious couches; a colored porter attends
to every whim of a satiated appetite; instead of deserts, mountains, savages and
grizzlies, he sees but a procession of peaceful homes and bustling cities. There
is no other West, or desert, or mountains, savage beast or Indian foe to conquer
and reclaim and no more heroes.
We have given this much of the first expeditions to Oregon, and the fortunes
of the first commercial venture to open commerce with this country and the strug-
gles of the brave and invincible men who did this pioneering, so that those now
here in great prosperity from that feeble beginning of trade, and those who go
down to the sea in ships may see how the great work was started, and all the more
appreciate and honor the sturdy men who started it. Persons who would like to
read the whole story of Astor's venture to the Columbia and the betrayal and loss
of his property at Astoria, will find it most interesting reading and fully and
graphically portrayed in Franchere's narrative, and in Washington Irving's As-
toria. Mr. Elwood Evans, in his history of the northwest, fairly and justly sums
up the character of Astor's enterprise as follows:
“The scheme was grand in its aim, magnificent in its breadth of purpose and
area of operation. Its results were naturally feasible and not over-anticipated.
Astor made no miscalculation, no omission; neither did he permit a sanguine
hope to lead him into any wild or imaginary venture. He was practical, gener-
ous, broad. He executed what Sir Alexander Mackenzie urged as the policy of
British capital and enterprise. That one American citizen should have individu-
ally undertaken what two mammoth British companies had not the courage to
try, was but an additional cause which had intensified national prejudice into
embittered jealousy on the part of his British rivals.'
CHAPTER III
1792--1840
THE INDIANS, THEIR FAMILIES, TRIBES AND DISTRIBUTION-THEIR ANCIENT STONE
AGE DESCENT AND IMPLEMENTS- S—THEIR MYTHS, HABITS AND RELIGION—THEIR
NUMBERS AND WEAKNESS—THE JARGON LANGUAGE--THE INDIAN IDEA OF LAND
TENURE.
When the white man discovered Oregon he found a large population of In-
dians scattered in groups, families and tribes over the entire country from the
Rocky mountains to the Pacific ocean, and from California up to the Alaska line.
The first comers detected no differences among these people of the forest and
plain. They were all simply Indians. As time and experience brought the In-
dians more and more under the observation of traders and naturalists, marked
differences were discovered, and such distinction as the various tribes themselves
maintained and enforced. By the study of the language and dialects of these
families and tribes, and by investigation of their beliefs in the supernatural, and
their regulation of the social and family life, scientists versed in the principles of
ethnology were able to arrange and segregate this apparently heterogeneous popu-
lation of wild men into such a classification as would be intelligible to students
of Indian life. This has been accomplished for this history, and for the first time
given to the general reader not only in printed form but also on a map of the
location of all the Indian families described. For this invaluable service the
history is indebted to the Rev. J. Neilson Barry, of Baker, Oregon, and a mem-
ber of the Advisory Board of the History for the Inland Empire Section.
THE INDIANS OF THE OLD OREGON COUNTRY
There were fifteen groups or families of Indian tribes in that part of the Old
Oregon country which is now occupied by Oregon, Washington and Idaho.
I.
THE ATHAPASCAN FAMILY
(1) Kwal-hi-o-qua tribe, so called by the Chinooks, meaning "at a lonely
place in the woods ;” they lived on the Willopah river, Lewis county, Washing-
ton.
(2) Tlatskanai, lived on the Clatskanie river, Columbia county, Oregon; a
warlike tribe; the early Hudson's Bay trappers did not dare to pass their posses-
sions in less numbers than sixty armed men.
(3) Ump-qua, lived on the Umpqua river, Douglas county, Oregon.
63
64
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
(4) Coquille, or Mishi/chwutmetunne, lived on the Coquille river in Coos
county, Oregon.
(5) Tal-tush-tun-tude, lived on Galice creek, a tributary of Rogue river, in
· Josephine county, Oregon.
(6) Chas-ta-costa, lived on the north side of the Rogue river in Curry and
Josephine counties, Oregon.
(7) Tu-tut-ni, lived on Rogue river near its mouth in Curry county, Oregon.
(8) Chet-co., lived on the Chetco river, Curry county, Oregon. A number
of their villages were destroyed by the whites in 1853.
II.
CHIMAKUAN
(1) Quil-eute, on the Quillayute river in Clallam county, Washington.
(2) Chim-a-lum, occupied the peninsula between Hood's canal and Port
Townsend, Jefferson county, Washington.
III.
.
CHINOOKAN
This family of Indians occupied the shores of the Columbia from its mouth
to the Dalles, and the Willamette from Oregon City to its junction with the Co-
lumbia. They artificially deformed their heads.
A.-Lower Chinookan-
(1) Chin-ook, lived at the mouth of the Columbia in Pacific county, Wash-
ington. Their language formed the basis of the Chinook jargon and has given
the name for the Chinook wind.
(2) Clat-sop, the name means "dried salmon;" lived along the Columbia
from its mouth to Tongue Point and along the coast to Tillamook Head in Clat-
sop county, Oregon.
B.-Upper Chinookan—These were visited by an epidemic called ague fever
in 1829, which in a single summer swept away four-fifths of the people. (The
heaps of unburied bones of these people on Sauvie's island is mentioned by
Wyeth and by other early settlers on this island.)
(1) Cath-la-com-a-tup, resided on the south side of Sauvie's island in Mult-
nomah county, Oregon.
(2) Cath-la-cum-up, lived on the west bank of the lower mouth of the Wil-
lamette river, Columbia county, Oregon.
(3) Cath-la-ka-he-kit, lived at the Cascades of the Columbia in Hood River
county, Oregon, and Skamania county, Washington.
(4) Cath-la-met, on the lower Columbia from Tongue Point to Puget island
in Clatsop county, Oregon.
(5) Cath-la-nah-qui-ah, lived on the southwest side of Sauvie's island, Mult-
nomah county, Oregon.
(6) Cath-la-potle, lived in Clark county, Washington.
(7) Cath-lath-la-las, lived on the Columbia below the Cascades in Skamania
county, Washington, and Multnomah county, Oregon.
(8) Chal-way-al-ham, lived near Pillar Rock on the Columbia river, Clatsop
county: Oregon.
2
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
65
(9) Char-cow-a, lived on the Willamette river just above the falls in Clacka-
mas county, Oregon.
(10) Chil-luk-itte-quaw, lived along the Columbia river in Klickitat and
Skamania counties, Washington,
(11) Chit-pan-chick-chick, lived on the Columbia in Klickitat county, Wash-
ington, nearly opposite the Dalles.
(12) Clack-a-ma, lived on the Clackamas river, Clackamas county, Oregon.
(13) Clah-clel-lah, lived near the foot of the Cascades on the Columbia,
Oregon.
(14) Clah-na-quah, lived on Sauvie's island on the Columbia river, below
the upper mouth of the Willamette river, in Multnomah county, Oregon.
(15) Clan-in-na-tas, lived on the southwest side of Sauvies island, Multno-
mah county, Oregon.
(16) Clat-a-cut, lived in Klickitat county, Washington, ten miles below The
Dalles.
(17) Clow-we-wal-la, resided at the falls of the Willamette river, Clackamas
county, Oregon.
(18) Clonaic, lived on the Columbia river below the mouth of Cowlitz river
in Columbia county, Oregon.
(19) Cush-ook, lived on the east bank of the Willamette river, just below the
falls in Clackamas county, Oregon.
(20) Dalles, resided at The Dalles, Wasco county, Oregon, and on the op-
posite side of the Columbia river in Klickitat county, Washington.
(21) Ith-kye-ma-mit-is, lived in Klickitat county, Washington, nearly oppo-
site The Dalles.
(22) Kas-e-nos, lived at the junction of Scappoose creek with the Willamette
Slough in Columbia county, Oregon.
(23) Kat-lag-u-lak, lived on the Columbia river two miles below Rainier in
Columbia county, Oregon.
(24) Kat-la-min-i-min, occupied the south end of Sauvie's island in Multno-
mah county, Oregon.
(25) Kil-lax-tho-kle, lived on Shoal Water Bay in Pacific county, Washing-
ton.
(26) Kle-mi-ak-sac, lived near the present site of the city of Hood River.
(27) Know-il-a-mo-wan, a village twenty-five miles from the Dalles (care Lee
and Frost Ore. p. 176, 1844).
(28) Kt-l-aeshat-l-kik, lived at the present site of Cathlamet, Wahkiakum
county, Washington
(29) Kwul-kwul
(30) Lak-stak
Not determined, but probably on the Columbia river.
(31) Mult-no-mah, meaning "down river,” a tribe living on the upper end of
Sauvie's island, Multnomah county, Oregon. The term is also used to include all
the tribes living on or near the lower Willamette river.
(32) Na-mo-it, lived on the Columbia side of Sauvie's island near its lower
end, Columbia county, Oregon.
(33) Nay-ak-a-u-kaue, lived at the present site of St. Helens, Columbia
county, Oregon.
Vol. 1-
66
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
(34) Nech-a-co-kee, lived a short distance below the mouth of the Sandy
river, Multnomah county, Oregon,
(35) Ne-coot-z-meigh, lived at the Dalles (Ross, Fur Hunters I, p. 186,
1855).
(36) Neer-cho-ki-oon, lived on the Columbia river a few miles above Sauvie's
island, Multnomah county, Oregon.
(37) Ne-mal-quin-ner, lived at the falls of the Willamette river in Clackamas
county, Oregon, and also had a temporary house on the north end of Sauvie's
island in Multnomah county, Oregon, where they went occasionally to collect
wap-pa-too roots.
(38) Ne-Looth-lect, lived twenty-eight miles from The Dalles on the Colum-
bia river.
(39) Scal-tal-pe, lived a short distance above the Cascades on the Columbia
river, Oregon (Lee and Frost, Ore., p. 176, 1844).
(40) Sha-ha-la, lived on the Columbia river from the Cascades to Sauvie's
island
(41) Sho-to, lived in Clark county, Washington, nearly opposite the mouth
of the Willamette river.
(42) Skil-loot, lived on both sides of the Columbia river near the mouth of
the Cowlitz river in Cowlitz county, Washington, and Columbia county, Oregon.
(43) Smack-shop, lived on the Columbia river from Hood river to the Dalles.
(44) Te-i-ak-ho-choe, lived in Columbia county, Oregon, about three miles
above Oak Point.
(45) Thlak-a-lam-a, lived at the mouth of Kalama river, Cowlitz county,
Washington.
(46) Tlak-at-la-la, lived in Cowlitz county, Washington, about three miles
above Oak Point on the Columbia river.
(47) Tlak-luit, lived in Klickitat county, Washington, from about the pres-
ent site of Spedis to the White Salmon river, their most noted village near Spedis
was called Wishram, but properly Nix-lu-dix.
(48) Tla-le-gak, lived near Pillar Rock, on the Columbia river.
(49) Tlash-ge-ne-ma-ki, lived in Wahkiakum county, Washington, below
Skamokawa.
(50) Tle-gu-lak, lived rear the present site of Hudson, Columbia county,
Oregon.
(51) Wahe, lived at the head of the Cascades on the Columbia river.
(52) Wah-ki-a-cum, lived in Wahkiakum county, Washington. They were
originally a part of the Chinook tribe, but had separated and moved up the river
from the Chinook territory to Oak Point.
(53) Wak-a-na-si-si (or Ga-lak-a-na-si-si) lived in Clark county, Washing-
ton, opposite the mouth of the Willamette river.
(54) “Wap-pa-too" is a name given to the tribes on and around Sauvies
island.
(55) Was-co, or (Ga-las-go), means “cup or bowl,”' from a cup-shaped rock
near the main village near the Dalles, Wasco county, Oregon.
(56) Wat-la-la, lived near Hood river, Oregon.
(57) Will-o-pah, lived on the lower part of the Willopa river, Pacific county,
Washington.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
67
(58) Wilt-wil-luk, lived near Rainier, Columbia county, Oregon.
(59) Ye-huh, lived just above the Cascades on the Columbia river.
IV.
KALAPOOIAN
The Kalapooian families occupied the Willamette valley above the falls.
They practiced the flattening of the head, and lived on game and roots.
A. The following tribes are known to belong to this division:
(1) Ahant-chu-yuk, lived on Pudding river, a tributary of the Willamette
river. Oregon:
(2) At-fal-a-tu (or Tu-al-a-ti), on the Tualitin river and vicinity in Wash-
ington county, Oregon.
(3) Cal-a-poo-ya, occupied the watershed between the Umpqua and Willam-
ette rivers in Lane and Douglas counties, Oregon.
(4) Che-la-me-la, lived on Long Tom creek, a tributary of the Willamette
river, in Lane and Benton counties, Oregon.
(5) Che-pe-na-fa, lived at the forks of St. Mary's river near Corvallis, Ben-
ton county, Oregon.
(6) Lak-muit, lived on the Lakmuit (Luckiamute) river, a tributary of the
Willamette, in Polk county, Oregon.
(7) San-ti-am, lived on the Santiam river, Linn county, Oregon.
(8) Yam-el, lived on the Yamhill river, Yamhill county, Oregon.
(9) Yon-kal-la, lived on Elk creek and Calapooya creek in Douglas county,
Oregon.
B. The following tribes are supposed to have also belonged to the Kalapoo-
ian family:
(1) Che-ma-pho, is mentioned in the Dayton treaty of 1855 as a Kalapooian
band.
(2) Che-me-ke-tas, is supposed to have lived near Salem, Marion county,
Oregon.
(4) Chil-ly-Chan-dize, lived on the Willamette river (Ross' Adventures, p.
236, 1847).
(5) Lap-tam-bif, lived on the Mohawk river, Lane county, Oregon.
. (6) Leesh-te-losh, lived near the headwaters of the Willamette river, Ore-
gon.
(7) Pee-you, lived on the Willamette river, Oregon.
(8) Shee-hees, is mentioned by Ross (Adventures, p. 236, 1849).
(9) Shook-an-y, mentioned by Ross (Adventures, p. 236, 1849).
(10) Win-ne-fel-ly, tribe participated in the Dayton treaty of 1855.
V. KIT-U-N-A-HAN
(1) The upper Kute-nai (or Kit-o-naqua) (Kootenais).
(2) The Lower Ku-te-nai (or Ako-qti-at-l-go).
These tribes lived mostly in British Columbia, but also in Northern Idaho
and the Northwestern corner of Montana.
68
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
VI.
KU-SAN
A small family of Indian tribes residing in the neighborhood of Coos bay
and on the lower part of the Coquille river, Coos county, Oregon.
(1) Me-lu-kitz, on the north side of Coos bay.
(2) Mul-luk, on the north side of the Coquille river.
(3) Nah-su-mi, on the south side of the Coquille river.
+
VII.
TUT-UA-MIAN
This family claimed as their hunting ground all the Klamath county, and
part of Lake and Crook counties, and a strip of California along the Oregon
border.
(1) Klam-ath, resided chiefly on the Upper Klamath lake in Klamath county,
Oregon.
(2) Mo-doc, resided on the lakes along the border of Oregon and California;
in 1864 the Modocs joined with the Klamaths in ceding their territory to the
United States, and both divisions were put on the Klamath Indian reservation;
but in 1870 a chief named "Kintpuash,” but commonly called “Captain Jack,"
led a portion of the Modocs back to the California border, and the attempt to
bring them back brought on the Modoc war of 1872 and 3.
VIII.
SAL-ISH-AN
The name Salish was originally applied to the Flathead tribe in Montana, and
was afterwards applied to other tribes speaking their language. Those in Wash-
ington, Oregon and Idaho were:
A. · Okinagan group:
(1). O-kin-a-gan, occupied Okinagan county, Washington, west of the Okin-
agan river.
(2) Colville, lived in Stevens county, Washington, from Kettle falls to the
Spokane river.
(3) Nes-pe-lim, or San-poil, lived on the Sans-Poil river in Ferry county,
and across the Columbia river in Lincoln county, Washington.
(4) Sen-i-jex-tee, or Snai-chek-stik, lived on both sides of the Columbia river
from Kettle falls to the international boundary, in Ferry and Stevens counties,
Washington.
B. Flathead:
(1) Spo-kan, the name applied to several small bodies of Indians on and .
near the Spokane river in Stevens, Spokane and Lincoln counties, Washington.
(2) Kal-is-pel, or Pend d'Oreilles, lived in Bonner county, Idaho, and the
eastern part of Stevens county, Washington.
C. Skits-wish, or Coeur d'Alenes, lived in Kootenai county, Idaho. They are
known as the Coeur d'Alenes, the French word for "Awl Heart,” an expression
used by some chief to express the size of a trader's heart.
D. The Columbian Groups:
(1) Pis-quow, or We-nat-chi, lived on the Wenatchee river, in Kittitas and
Okinagan counties, Washington.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
69
(2) Sin-ki-use, lived on the east side of the Columbia river in Washington, .
from Fort Okinakane to Point Eaton.
(3) Me-thow, lived on the Methow river in Okinagan county, and around
Lake Chelan in Chelan county, Washington.
E. Son-gish Group:
(1) Clal-lam, lived on the south side of Puget Sound.
(2) Lum-mi, lived in Whatcom county, Washington.
(3) Sam-ish, lived on the Samish river, Skagit county, Washington.
(4) Sem-i-ah-moo, lived around Samiahmoo Bay, Whatcom county, Wash-
ington
F. Nis-qual-li Group:
(1) Nis-qual-li, lived on the Nisqualli river in Thurston and Pierce counties,
Washington.
(2) Dwam-ish, lived near Seattle, Washington, which was named from a
chief of this and the Suquamish tribes.
(3) Puy-al-lup, lived in Pierce county, Washington.
(4) Skag-it, lived in Skagit county, Washington.
(5) Sno-qual-mu, or Sno-quam-ish, occupied the upper branches of the Sno-
qualmie river, King county, Washington.
(6) Squax-on, lived on the peninsula between Hood's Canal and Case Inlet,
Mason county, Washington.
G. Twan-a Group:
The Twana lived along both sides of Hood's Canal, Mason county, Wash-
ington.
H. Che-ha-lis Group:
(1) Quin-ault, lived in Chehalis county, Washington.
(2) Quait-so, lived on the coast in Chehalis county, Washington.
(3) Hump-tu-lips, lived on the Humptulips river, in Chehalis county, Wash-
ington.
(4) Lower Che-na-lis, lived around Gray's harbor, Chehalis county, Wash-
ington.
(5) Sat-sop, lived on Satsop river, a tributary to the Chehalis.
(6) Upper Che-ha-lis (Kwa-i-a-ilk), on the upper courses of the Chehalis
river.
(7) Cow-litz, lived on the Cowlitz river in Lewis and Cowlitz counties, Wash-
ington.
1. Till-a-mook Group:
(1) Till-a-mook, lived in Tillamook county, Oregon.
(2) Si-letz, lived on the Siletz river, Lincoln county, Oregon.
IX.
SHAHAPTIAN FAMILY
also called the Sciatogas, or Sait-u-ka.
(1) Nez Perces (Sahaptin or Chopunnish), was the most prominent tribe
of which the following bands are most noted:
(a) Al-pow-a, in Garfield and Asotin counties, Washington.
(b) As-su-ti, living on Assuti creek (Asotin county, Washington) .
They joined Chief Joseph in the Nez Perce war of 1877.
70
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
(c) Ka-mi-ah, lived at the present site of Kamiah, Lewis county, Idaho.
(d) Lam-ta-ma, living on White Bird creek, a tributary of the Salmon river,
Idaho county, Idaho.
(e) Lap-wai, living on Lapwai creek, Nez Perce county, Idaho.
(f) Wil-le-wah, living in Wallowa county, Oregon, who under chief Joseph
were the leaders of the Nez Perce war of 1877.
(2) Klick-i-tat, lived in Klickitat and Skamania counties, Washington.
(3) Pa-loose, lived on the Palouse river and the northern side of the Snake
river in Whitman, Adams and Franklin counties, Washington, and Latah county,
Idaho.
(3) Ten-i-no, occupied the valley of the Des Chutes river in Wasco, Sher-
man, Crook, Gilliam and Morrow counties, Oregon.
(4) Ty-z-gh, occupied the Tygh river and its tributaries in Wasco county,
Oregon.
(5) Um-a-til-la, lived on the Umatilla river in Umatilla county, Oregon.
(6) Wal-la Wal-la, lived on the lower part of the Walla Walla river and on
the east side of the Columbia river in Walla Walla county, Washington.
(7) Yak-im-a (or Cut-sah-nim), lived along the Columbia river and on the
upper branches of the Yakima and the Wenatchee rivers in Benton, Grant, Doug-
las, Chelan, Kittitas and Yakima counties, Washington.
X.
SHOSHONEAN
This family was widely extended over several states.
(1) Sho-shone, occupied the entire central and southwestern part of Idaho.
(2) Ban-nocks: (a) occupied the eastern part of Idaho. Bannock, Bear,
Bingham, Bonneville, Fremont and Oneida counties. (b) Occupied the Salmon
river, these in 1878 revolted and caused a war.
(3) Snakes (“Pai-ute”), consisting chiefly of the Yahuskin and Wal-papi
bands who occupied Southeastern Oregon.
XI.
SHASTAN
This family of Indians extended from California into Jackson county, Ore-
gon, in the vicinity of Medford.
XII.
TA-KEL-MAN
A small family of Indian tribes, sometimes called the Upper Rogue River
Indiaus, living in Josephine county, and adjoining parts of Curry, Jackson and
Douglas counties, Oregon.
XIII.
WA-KAS-HAN
The name is derived from their word "good," which Captain Cook heard at
Friendly Cove, Nootka Sound, and supposed to be the name of the tribe. These
Indians pursued and killed the whale. Some of the tribes extended into the west-
ern part of Clallam county, Washington.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
71
XIV.
WAIILATPUAN
(1) Cay-use, lived on the headwaters of the Umatilla, Walla Walla and
Grande Ronde rivers in Umatilla and Union counties, Oregon, and Walla Walla
county, Washington. Their territory also extended from the Blue mountains to
the Des Chutes river. It was some of these Indians who murdered Dr. Whitman
in 1847.
(2) Mo-la-la, lived from Mount Hood to Mount Scott and on Molala river,
Clackamas county, Oregon.
XV.
YAKONAN
(1) Ya-quin-a, lived about Yaquina bay and river, Lincoln county, Oregon.
(2) Al-se-a, lived along the Alsea river in Lincoln county, Oregon.
(3) Si-u-slaw, lived along the Siuslaw river in Lane county, Oregon.
(4) Ku-z-tish, lived along the lower Umpqua river in Douglas county, Ore-
gon.
With the origin or advent of the Indians of Old Oregon this work is not
concerned. The first white man to appear in ships on the sea coast found the
Indians here before him. Lewis and Clark found them here everywhere when the
great expedition came over the Rocky mountains. How long the Indian had been
here before the white man put in an appearance there is no data from which to
make an estimate. The Indian of this region constructed no roads, built no mon-
uments and left no traces on the face of nature to mark his existence or indicate
the lapse of time. The temporary habitation he created, even when he had any,
might have been for one or a dozen years, but not for even the span of a single
life.
Yet, but only a superficial examination of the different tribes of Indians of
the Pacific coast shows that there were not only distinct but wide differences be-
tween the Indians of California, Oregon and Alaska; but also between the Indians
of the sea coast and those of the great interior basin of the Columbia river valley.
The Eskimo and some of the other tribes of Alaska show that they might be re-
lated to the Japanese ; and might have, as it were easily possible, at some time in
the distant past, come across from the east shores of Asia to west shores of North
America. The reverse might also have been the fact, as there is no positive
knowledge to the contrary. Since this chapter was written a Norwegian explorer
has found tribes of red-haired people in the far north on the Arctic ocean, show-
ing a connection with European peoples in the far distant past. The testimony
of the rocks, the ancient geology of Oregon, shows that the horse, the camel, the
rhinoceros and the mastodon were native to this part of the globe. Why not
man also ? Mankind is primarily an ethnological unit. There is only one specie
of men. Attempts which have been made to separate mankind into several species
of the genus Homo always failed. There being but one specie of man he could have
but one origin. There are different races of men which have been produced by
environment, and they each interbreed with the others. Different species of ani-
mals are not fertile with other species; and this proves the one single origin of all
men. And whether the Indians came over from Europe or Asia; or whether the
Asiatics and Europeans went over from America is not now important. The mi-
72
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
gration might have been from either side on the solid ice cap that once furnished
an unobstructed highway between Siberia and Alaska; or it might have been by
some primitive makeshift of a boat floating down a Siberian river and blown
across to the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. But on all the Indian population from
the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the Arctic to the Equator, the influence of
environment, of food, climate and shelter is plainly manifest. Where it was easy
to absorb a physical support from the bounties of nature the Indian was a lazy
vagabond. Whenever he had to fight or struggle to maintain an existence he was
a rugged, assertive savage. Where he got an easy living from fishing he paddled
around in a canoe; and where he had to capture the buffalo he rode a wild horse
and brought down his game with a spear. And everywhere in Old Oregon when
the white man came he found the Indian clad in the skins and furs of wild ani-
mals. It was not an unusual thing for the first fur traders to find Indians clad
in furs that would excite the envy of an European princess and sell for thou-
sands of dollars.
One hundred years ago the Indian owned the whole country. He might well
have sung with Robinson Crusoe:
"My right there is none to dispute;
From the center all round to the sea
I am Lord of the fowl and the brute."
The Indian was the stone age man.
The relics picked up all over Oregon,
or unearthed by deep mining operations, irrigation canal works and deep wells,
and sent to the Historical Society's rooms at Portland, contain the mute but in-
disputable story of the centuries of occupation of Oregon by our native Indians.
The stone axes, chisels, hammers, mortars, grinding mill stones, arrow points
and spear heads exhibit the patience, skill and perseverance with which the In-
dian had to contend for an existence against rival tribes, wild beasts and the in-
hospitality of the uncultivated earth. He was purely a child of nature, and
harbored no selfishness but the satisfaction of his immediate wants. He believed
in a Great Spirit who had made the stars and the earth, and who had given the
land and the water and all therein to all his children in common. The Indian
was the original socialist-the man who lived as a socialist, fought for his lands
as a socialist, divided the fruits of all his labors as a socialist, and died in the
conviction that the white man had robbed him of his God-given birthrights.
The Indian had no standard of values. He estimated everything he parted
with, or what he obtained by barter, by his desires for what he wanted and his
ability to replace what he parted with. In disposing of his rich furs—otter skins
now worth five hundred dollars each—he had no more idea of their money value
than a five-year-old child; as for example his giving in one instance to a sea cap-
tain fur trader otter skins worth eight thousand dollars for a chisel that cost in
England one dollar. In the grasp of his mind he could catch more otter and get
more skins, but he might never have another chance to get a chisel that would be
far more useful to him in carving a canoe out of a cedar log than the stone axe
he had made himself.
In addition to the primitive stone axe, hammer and grinding mill already
mentioned, the Indian had very little property outside of the skin clothing to
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
73
cover his body and the skins that formed his bed. The Indians that lived by the
river side and the ocean, possessed canoes on which they set great value. And in
the interior far from the navigable rivers, Indians possessed large numbers of
horses of the size of ponies. And on these they traveled from place to place,
frequently making long excursions where there was no danger of war. The In-
dians of the Snake river valley, Shoshones, would go east beyond the Rocky
mountains to hunt or trade for buffalo beef and skins. The Indians of the Rogue
river valley in Southern Oregon would come over into the Willamette valley, and
the Klickitats of White Salmon and the Yakima would range all over the coun-
try everywhere on horse trading expeditions, and when no favorable trades were
offered would not hesitate to steal. The word Klickitat is said to mean "ma-
rauder” or “robber.” The Indians of Southeastern Alaska would come down
to Puget Sound (as they do yet to pick hops) by the hundreds in the finest canoes
in the world, to trade and barter with the Puget Sound Indians. The Indian
women of all the tribes, and especially of those in Alaska, were skilled in making
baskets of willows and grasses, many of them water-tight, and that would last a
lifetime. They were also not only skillful, but also artistic in weaving feathers
and beads into ornaments to distinguish the “chief,” or add to their own per-
sonal charms. And some even had attained to the art of spinning in a rude way
the wool of the mountain sheep and weaving it into serviceable shawls and
blankets.
The idea of a “Great Spirit” that ruled all the universe that the Indian
could see or comprehend was universal with all the Indians from the Atlantic to
the Pacific ocean. And it must be conceded that this idea must have been evolved
from the inner consciousness of the Indian himself, or it must have come to him
from some foreign land so far back in the past that there is no history or dis-
tinction of the fact. This universal idea assumed different names and meanings
with different tribes, and in consequence thereof, there came to be a lot of petty
deities, or subsidiary gods, in the Indian theology. But over and above all these
petty deities the Indian recognized one God subordinate to the Great Spirit,
whose name was in some tribes Talipas, or Tullipas, and in others 'Coyote." In
relating the wonderful things performed by “Coyote" the Indian will go into
many fanciful details. And sometimes he will vary the particulars of the story
to suit what he may think is the fancy of his auditor. One story is as good as
another to show the trend of the Indian mind in reference to the supernatural.
Here is the most prevalent one as to how there came to be different tribes of In-
dians in this Old Oregon country.
A long time ago," said an old Klickitat chief and medicine man, 'when all
kinds of animals could talk like men, and before any of the present tribes of In-
dians lived on the earth, there was a mighty beaver, ‘Wish-poosh,' who lived in
Lake Cle-el-lum. This big beaver was the god of the lake, and claimed all the fish
in the lake and all the trees around about the lake. He lived in the bottom of the
lake and had eyes like balls of fire, and immense nails on his big claws as bright
as silver. But like some other gods of the Indians he was a bad character, and
killed many things, and made the lake a place of terror, because he had killed and
eaten everything that had come in his way. To the animals he could not kill he
denied the privilege of catching fish in the lake of which there was plenty for all.
All over the country the Indians were hungry for fish, but not a fish could they
74
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
get. And then along comes 'Coyote' and found the poor Indians in this bad fix,
and their condition moved him to do something for the poor people. Coyote
would kill Wish-poosh ; but as other gods had tried to destroy him Coyote knew he
had a big job on hand, and so he armed himself for the dangerous battle. He
procured a great spear with a long strong handle, and bound it to his wrist with
strong cords of Indian flax, and thus armed he went down to the lake and finding
old Wishpoosh drove the spear into his body. The wounded and maddened water
god plunged into the lake and down to the bottom; and the cord of the spear
handle being fast to Coyote's wrist he was dragged down to the bottom of the lake
and dragged around by the infuriated monster until the lake was churned up like
foam upon the ocean; and from the lake Wishpoosh whisked Coyote away to the
mountain side, and in the awful battle the two gods tore a hole through the moun-
tains making the Stampede pass where the railroad now goes through ; and from
the great gap in the mountain the fighting monsters rushed down into the sea
that covered the Yakima valley, and turning about rushed over towards the Co-
lumbia river making a channel for the White Salmon river to run down from
Mt. Adams. And still the mighty beaver god dragged poor Coyote along who
was now getting the worst of the battle. Coyote grabbed the trees as Wishpoosh
dragged him along and the trees were pulled up like stubble; he clawed at the
rocks and they tumbled down upon him. Nothing could stay the mighty power of
Wishpoosh. Exhausted and more dead than alive Coyote finally found himself
in the breakers of the ocean at the mouth of the Columbia river-and-and-
Wishpoosh was dead. Finally dragging himself to shore, and the dead body of
Wishpoosh with him, Coyote wiped the water from his face and eyes and decided
to cut up the beaver god's body and make it into different tribes of Indians. And
proceeding to do so he cut out the belly and of it made the Chinook Indians, say-
ing as he did so 'you shall always be short and fat and have great bellies.' Of
the legs he made the Cayuses, saying “you shall be fleet of foot and have strong
limbs.' Of the head and brains he made the Nez Perces, saying, you shall be
men of wisdom and strong in battle.' Of the ribs he made the Yakimas, saying,
'you shall be the protectors of the poor Indians.' Of the remainder of the
body of Wishpoosh—some scraps, blood and entrails, he made the Snake In-
dians, saying 'you shall always be the people of treachery, blood and violence.'"
The above is only one of twenty or more mythical stories which the Indians
have handed down from father to son for unknown generations past. As well
as the above story, which is “Speelyai, the Coyote,” they have Speelyai and his
wonderful dog, Amash the Owl, the Legend of the Lick, The Rabbit and the Sun,
the Frog and the Moon, the Origin of Fire, Wawa the Mosquito, Castiltah the
Crawfish, Wak-a-Poosh the Rattlesnake, the Tumwater Stone God, Coyote's Ride
to the Star, how the Coyote and the Eagle bring the dead back from the Spirit
Land, and the Island of the Dead.
Now here is a real true Indian story which the author of this book vouches for
himself. Four years ago as Mr. Maximilian Tuerck, who has a fruit farm on
Cook's Addition near the town of White Salmon in the state of Washington,
was driving home from town he had to pass along a road running through a for-
est for half a mile. As he drove along suddenly a coyote—the sneaking, chicken-
stealing, lamb-killing, little gray wolf of eastern Oregon-came out of the brush
and trotted alongside the team for a quarter of a mile. Mr. Tuerck had nothing
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
75
with which he could attack the animal and so took notice of all his movements.
Every few minutes the coyote would look up at the man apparently fearing
nothing and making no effort to part company. As the woods was passed and
the open field closed in the coyote left the highway and disappeared in the brush.
Before Mr. Tuerck reached his home he met on the road, Joe Hunt, an Indian
about seventy-five years of age, and the son of Timotsk, whose likeness appears
on another page of this book. Stopping his team Mr. Tuerck related his strange
experience with the coyote. Hunt immediately showed great anxiety and with
much excitement said to Tuerck, who had in many cases shown him friendship,
'“That is bad news, very bad news, the coyote knows, he brings you bad news,
Indian know the coyote no lie. Now you see some of your friend die, may be
now, may be tomorrow-you see, sure you see." Mr. Tuerck could only smile
at the simple minded faith of
The poor Indian! whose untutored mind.
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind,"
but on reaching his home was shocked and overwhelmed by a telephone message
from Portland announcing the sudden death of his mother a few hours previous.
But not all of the Indians believed in the grossness of the myths represented
by the foregoing. Some of them had ideas of more refinement if not of progress.
A few years ago Mr. Silas B. Smith, of Clatsop county, who was himself a half
blood Indian, arid an educated man-an attorney--prepared a statement of the
beliefs of the Indians which he had gathered from Indians personally. Speak-
ing generally of the Indians west of the Cascade mountains Mr. Smith said they
were slave holders; but that their slaves were obtained from the tribes north
of the Straits of Fuca, or from southern Oregon or northern California; and
that there were no flatheads among the slaves. From this fact it is concluded
that the flattening of the head was considered a mark of nobility-among the
Willamette and coast Indians. Another interesting fact Mr. Smith gives is that
the Indian men of the leading families always sought wives from tribes other
than their own. And this shows that the Oregon Indian understood the danger
of interbreeding with relatives, and in this respect they were more enlightened
than the British aristocracy.
The Oregon Indians, says Mr. Smith, believed in one Supreme Being, the
creator of all things, and they called him “E-cah-nie.” They have subordinate
gods, and the principal one is “Tal-i-pas. This divinity possessed some cre-
ative power, and he came among men to teach them ways of living, and in his
travels he would assume the form of the coyote, hence his name (Tal-i-pas, pro-
nounced by some tribes as “Tul-li-pas," being the name of the coyote). He taught
the people the art of building canoes and of navigation, of making nets and
seining for salmon, of building houses for their dwellings, and all the various
custorns and rites which they observed. On account of his creative qualities his
character is sometimes blended in with the Supreme Being, and at such times,
in referring to him, they award him the title of "E-cah-nie.”
And, again, they have divinities presiding over certain special interests, such
as the run of fish and the like. The heart of the salmon must never be given to
a dog to be eaten, as on account of his base nature it would be an act of im-
76
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
purity, which would provoke the disfavor of the god presiding over the des-
tinies of the salmon, and would cause a failure of the season's run of fish.
The “Ta-man-a-was” is a tutelary or guardian spirit or god who is supposed to
see to the welfare of its subject and to give warning of approaching events of a
portentious character. Every person having a tamanawas is not necessarily
a doctor or medicine man or woman, but every medicine man must have a ta-
manawas. These personal gods were not considered to possess equal attributes-
some were supposed to be endowed with greater qualities than others. Some
individuals claimed that their gods could disturb the elements of nature; that is,
could cause storms to arise, the lightnings to flash and the thunders to rumble;
and other disturbances as well.
These people believe in the immortality of the soul; they believe in a spirit
life and in a spirit land; they believe that the spirits of other animals go to the
spirit land as well as that of men. Their conception of the spirit land is quite
beautiful and pleasing. There it is always spring or summer; the fields are per-
petually green, flowers blooming; fruit ripening, and running waters diversify
the scenery of the beautiful landscapes, with always an abundant supply of
game, and of course the inhabitants are in a continuous state of felicity.
They believe that when a person becomes very sick the spirit leaves the body
and seeks the shores of the spirit land, and unless it is recaptured and returned
to its original tenement, the person will of course surely die. In such cases the
services of a skillful tamanawas doctor are engaged, and an assistant is fur-
nished him to accompany him on his journey of discovery to the land of the
dead. The assistant is given a baton, ornamented in the upper part with plumes
of birds and claws of beasts. The doctor manipulates his assistant until he has
him mesmerized; also the baton, which is in a continuous state of agitation; he
then places himself in a trance state, meanwhile keeping up a vigorous chant,
and they start on their excursion to the shadowy shores. If they should be for-
tunate enough to find the absconding spirit, the doctor secures it and brings it
back with him, oftentimes keeping it over night, and restoring it to the patient
next day. Should the patient recover it is proof of the great powers of the doc-
tor, but if on the contrary, the patient pass away, it is evidence that the spirit ran
away the second time. · And so strong is the regard of the Indian for the coyote
(wolf) that he will not kill one of them to this day.
Among all the Indians of the Old Oregon country, four tribes stand out with
distinguished prominence. The Flatheads of the Bitter Root valley in the Rocky
mountains were distinguished for their religious convictions and practice, and
continued peace with the white men. The Nez Perces were also remarkable for
their attachment to religious teaching, but were equally noted for their courage
and sense of justice. The Cayuses were as much noted for their dishonesty and
treachery as their neighbors were for good conduct. The Snakes (Shoshones)
were the irreclaimable vagabonds. If the white man got a favor from them he had
to first pay for it and then execute the contract by a demonstration of superior
force. Speaking of the moral character of the Flatheads and Nez Perces, Bonne-
ville says that they exhibited strong and peculiar feelings of natural religion ;
and that it was not a mere supposititious fear like that of most savages—they
evince abstract notions of morality, a deep reverence for an overruling spirit,
and a respect for the rights of their fellowmen. They (the Flatheads) hold that
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
77
the Great Spirit is displeased with all nations who wantonly engage in war; they
abstain from all aggressive hostilities. Wyeth gave the Flatheads equal, or even
greater praise, saying he had never known an instance of theft among them; and
neither quarreling or lying; and that they were brave when put to the test, and
more than a match for the Blackfeet in battle. And the same praise is due
equally to the Nez Perces. The Cayuses made loud pretentions to religion for
a while after the missionaries came but fell from grace with the murder of Dr.
Whitman by members of their tribe. With the exceptions of the Flatheads and
Nez Perces it is quite reasonable that the Indian's native idea of religion, or a
Great Spirit, arose from his inability to comprehend the forces of nature about
him on all sides. But the example of the Flathead and the Nez Perce shows what
might have been developed out of those tribes if they could have been handled
and taught by uniformly honest and just men. For these Indians had in them
the germs of a vigorous civilization which could have been so trained and ex-
panded as would have produced teachers and governors of all other tribes, and
saved the nation millions of dollars and thousands of valuable lives in suppress-
ing Indian wars.
So far as the British and their agent, the Hudson's Bay Company, was con-
cerned, the morals and religious teaching of the Indians was a matter of no im-
portance or concern of theirs unless it affected the fur trade. One religion was
just as good as another to them, and no religion was better than either. An In-
dian that would not go out and hunt for furs and come in and trade his pelts
for trinkets was to the fur company a very poor Indian. When the British
agents, Warre and Vavasour, visited Oregon in 1845, they reported the Indians
as a very superstitious race, and declared "that neither the Roman Catholic nor
the Methodist missions had done much toward reclaiming the Indian population,
who are an idle, dissolute race.
The Indian population of the Oregon country, according to estimates made
by the Hudson's Bay Company, was in the year 1842 as follows:
0
Fort Vancouver locality
Umpqua Valley locality
Cape Disappointment locality
Chinook Point locality
Coweeman on Columbia locality
Champoeg on Willamette locality
Nisqually Puget Sound locality
Cowlitz County Valley locality
Fort Colville, Upper Columbia locality
Pend d'Oreille, Idaho, locality
Flatheads, Bitter Root Valley locality.,
Kootenais-Kootenai river, Idaho, locality.
Okanogan, Upper Columbia locality.
Walla Wallas, Walla Walla Valley locality.
Fort Hall-Eastern Idaho locality
Fort Boise, Boise Valley locality
Fort Victoria, Vancouver Island locality
Fort Rupert, Vancouver Island locality
200
800
100
100
100
150
500
250
800
400
500
500
300
300
200
200
5,000
4,000
O
.
78
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Nanaimo, Vancouver Island locality
Fort Langley, Fraser River locality.
Fort Simpson, N. W. Coast locality
Kamloops, Upper Columbia, B. C., locality
3,000
4,000
.10,000
2,000
Total
33,400
In a population of this size there must have been five or six thousand fighting
men. But there was no organization, no co-operation, and scarcely sympathy of
one tribe with another. One tribe might rally a few hundred at one time for a
single battle to rob a party of white men or attack a ship. Their weakness was
pitiful. And so the white traders and trappers ranged the vast country over
with scarcely a noticeable resistence; the massacre of the Smith party on the
Umpqua and of the crew of the Tonquin at Clayoquot being the only example of
concerted action of the natives to destroy the white men. And after the Indian
had learned the use of firearms, combinations of tribes to resist the aggression
of the white man was formed, as in the case of the Rogue River Indian war, the
Yakima war, and the memorable resistence of Chief Joseph in his effort to retain
the ancient home of his family in the Wallowa Valley. (An account of the In-
dian wars will be given in the order of time of occurrence in another chapter.)
Probably the most effective agency to get access to the Indian mind, and to
unify their relations to the white settlers and promote trade, peace and good
fellowship with all the tribes was the invention and construction of the “Jar-
gon” or “Chinook” language. Of all the spoken languages in America or in
the world the "Jargon" is the most unique. Its origin is not definitely known.
When Lewis and Clark reached the mouth of the Columbia river in 1805, they
found the “Jargon” in use among the Indians at that point. It is supposed to
have been originated by the first voyagers to the Oregon coast in search of furs,
and was added to from time to time by Indians, travelers and fur traders. It
contains some real Indian words of the Wasco tribe, and some corrupted French
and English words, but most of it is pure fiction. Some of the words have gone
into general use among the pioneer Oregonians and have got into good company
with people who prefer forcible languages, for instance the word “cultus” mean-
ing utterly worthless, irreclaimably bad.
Below is given samples of the language, with definitions from Gill's standard
dictionary of the "Jargon."
CHINOOK JARGON
Conversational Phrases
Chinoolc
Klahowya, six ?
or
English
Good morning
Good evening
Good day.
How do you do?.
Come here
How are you?
Klahowyam.
.
Chahco yahwa.
Kahta mika!
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
79
0
•
Are you sick ?....
Mika sick?
Are you hungry?
Nah olo mika ?
How did you come ?
Kahta mika chahco ?
Are you thirsty ?
Nah, olo chuck mika?
What ails you?
. Kahtah mika ?
Would you like something to eat?..... Mika tikeh muckamuck?
Do you want work?..
.Mika Tikeh mamook?
To do what?
What do you want me to do?.
Iktah mika mamook ?
Cut some wood
Mamook stick?
Certainly
Nawitka.
How much do you want for cutting that Kansee dolla spose mika mamook kono-
lot of wood ?
way okoke stick?
That is too much. I will give half a Hyas mahkook, nika potlatch sitkum
dollar
dolla.
No! Give three quarters
Wake, six ! Potlatch klone quahtah.
Very well; get to work
Kloshe kahkwa; mamook alta.
Where is the axe?
Kah lahash?
There it is
Yah-wa.
Cut it small for the stove
. Mamook tenas, spose chickamin pah.
Give me a saw.
Potlatch lasee.
I have the saw; use the axe.
Halo lasee; is 'kum lahash.
All right
Nawitka.
Bring it inside
Lolo stick kopa house.
Where shall I put it?.
.Kah mika marsh okoka ?
There
Yahwa.
Here is something to eat
.Hahkwa mitlite mika muckamuck.
Here is some bread.
Hahkwa mitlite piah sapolil.
Now bring some water.
Klatawa iskum chuck.
Where shall I get it?
.Kah nitka iskum?
In the river there
.Kopa ikhol yahwa.
Make a fire.
.Mamook piah.
Boil the water
Mamook liplip chuck.
Cook the meat
Mamook piah ohoke itwillee.
Wash the dishes
Wash choke leplah.
What shall I wash them in ?.
.Kopa kah?
Kopa ohoke kettling.
Come again tomorrow
Chahco weght tomolla.
Good-bye
Klahowya.
Come here, friend
Chahco Yahkwya, six.
What do you want?
. . Iktah mika tikeh?
I want you to do a little job in the morn- Spose mika mamook tenas mamook tenas
ing
sun?
Come very early
Chahto elip sun.
At six o'clock ..
Chahco yahkwa tahkum tintin.
Oh, here you are!.
Alah! Mika chahco.
Carry this box to the steamer. .. Lolo okoko lecasset kopa piah ship.
Take this bag also
.Lolo weght lesac.
.
In that pan..
.
80
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
.
.
C
What will you pay ?..
.Iktah mika potlatch?
A quarter ?
Ikt Kwahtah ?
Very well, and something to eat?. ..Kloshe kahkwa; pee tenas muckamuck ?
It is pretty heavy.
Hyas till okoke.
Is that man your brother?.
Yahka nah mika kahpo okoke man?
He can help you, too...
Yahka lolo lecasset kopa mika.
I will give him something, too.
Nika potlatch weght yahka.
Can you carry it?..
.Nah skookum mika lolo okoke.
Is it very heavy!.
Hyas till okoke ?
Oh, no! We shall do it..
Wake! Nesika mamook.
Are you tired ?
Mika chahco till?
How far is it, this ship?..
.Koonsee siah, okoke ship?
Not much farther..
Wake siah alta.
That is all.
Kopet.
Do you understand English ?.
Kumtux, mika Boston wawa.
No, not very much...
.. Wake hiyu.
Will you sell that fish?.
Mika tikeh mahkook okoke pish?
Which of them?
Klaxta ?
That large one..
Okoke hyas.
What is the price of it?.
Konsee chickamin tikeh?
I'll give you two bits...
Nika potlatch mox bit.
I'll give you half a dollar.
Nika potlatch sitkum dolla.
No, that is not enough..
Wake, okoke hiyu.
Where did you catch that trout?... ..Kah mika klap okoke opalo?
In Skamokaway river....
Kopa Skamokaway Ikhol.
Are there many fish there?
Nah hiyu lepish yahwa!
Not many; too much logging... .Wake; klaska mamook hiyu stick alta.
Well, I won't buy it today.
.Abba, wake tikeh iskum okoke sun.
What do you think of this country?.... Iktah mika tumtum okoke illahee?
It is very pleasant when it does not rain. Hyas koshe yahkaw spose wake snass.
Not always; it is worse when it snows Wake kwonesum. Chahco weght peshak
and freezes
spose cole snass pee selipo.
How long have you lived here? (How
many years ?)
.Konsee cole mitlite yahkwa mika ?
Many years; I forget how many. Hiyu cole; kopet kumtux konsee.
I was born at Skipanon...
Chee tenas nika kopa Skipanan.
Did you get your wife there?.. .Nah, mika iskum nika kloochman yah-
kwa ?
No; she is a Tillamook woman. I mar- Wake; Tillamook kloochman, Yakha.
ried her at Nehalem.
Nika malleh yahka kopa Nehalem.
How many children have you?... Konsee tenas mika?
We have three boys and one little girl.. . Klone tenas man nesika pee ikt tenas
likp; ho.
I will send you some things for them Nika mamook chahco iktas Kimta nika ko
when I get home...
nika illahee.
KITUNAHAN
INDIANS
OF OREGON, IDAHO AND
WASHINGTON
From Map by J w Powell in
Bul 30 Bu of An Eih sm lns
By
d Nailson Barry
Baker Ore
CHIMAKGANS
SALISHAN
SHRATHAPE
AŞKAN
COLUM
The 15 Great Tribes of
Indians in old
Oregon weresplat
up into 150 famules
SHAHAPTIAN
[See text of History
CHANDOKAN
MASKAN
WABILATPUAN
ATP
NAKE RIVEIRA
3
SALISHAN
WAL
ILAT
PUAN
KALA POOJAN
YAKONAN
SHOS HONEAN
KUSAN
LUTUAMIAN
سلم
}
ATHAPASKAN
TA
KEL
MAN
SHAS TAN
शिम
ति
MAP OF INDIAN TRIBES
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
81
A GRACE AT TABLE
From Lee & Frost's "Ten Years in Oregon"
0 Sohole Isthumah, etokete mikah; toweah ekokete itlhullam Mikah
minchelute copa ensikah. Kadow quonesum minchtcameet ensikah, Uminshee-
tah conawa etoweta copa mikah, emehan. O God, good art Thou; this good food
Thou hast given to us. In like manner always look upon us, and give all good
things to us, for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen.
A HYMN IN JARGON
From Lee & Frost
Aka eglahlam Ensikah
Mika Ishtamah emeholew
Kupet mikam toketa mimah
Mika quonesim kadow
Mikah ekatlah gumohah
Mika dowah gumeoh
Konawa etoketa tenmah
Mika ankute gumtoh.
Translation
Here we now unite in singing
Glory, Lord unto thy name,
Only good, and worthy praising,
Thou are always, Lord, the same.
Of the sun, Thou are Creator,
And the light was made by thee;
And all things good, yea every creature,
At the first, Thou made'st to be.
THE LORD'S PRAYER
nem.
Nesika Papa klaxta mitlite kopa Sahalee, Kloshe kopa nesika tumtum mika
Nesika Hiyu Tikeh cahco mika ilahee; Mamook Mika kaloshe tumtum
kopa okoke ilahee Kahwa kopa Shalee. Potlatch konaway sun nesika mucka-
muck; pee Mahlee konaway nesika mesahchee, kahkawa nesika mamook kopa
· klaska spose Mamook mesachee kopa nesika. Wake lolo nesika kopa peshak, pee
marsh siah kopa nesika konaway mesahchee. Kloshe kahkwa.
Our Father who dwellest in the above, sacred in our hearts (be) Thy name.
We greatly long for the coming of Thy Kingdom. Do Thy good will with this
world, as also in the heaven. Give (us) day by day our bread, and remember
not all our wickedness, even as we do also with others if they do evil unto our.
selves. Not bring us into danger, but put far away from us all evil. So may
it be.
Vol. 1-6
82
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
A COMMON SIGN LANGUAGE
Intercourse by signs was universal among the Aborigines. The code of signals
was much the same from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
Major Lee M. House tells of being at Washington, D. C., with a party of
Indians from Oregon and Washington, attending a great council of represent-
atives from all parts of the country. Languages were different and the gather-
ing clans were cold and morose, until somebody made an attempt at an address
in the sign language, which put everybody at ease, for all understood.
Certain chants and songs are widely known also. The Omahas knew at once
the "stick-bone" gambling song of the Indians of Vancouver island, upon hear-
ing it sung by a student of Indian music. It was the same as their own.
While there has not been that general uplift in the character of the Indian,
or of his race as an element of the population, which was hoped for and labored
for by the first missionaries, yet there has been a vast improvement of his condi-
tion mentally, morally and financially. Civilization has not been advantageous
to the bodily vigor and strength of the red man. In his primitive condition he
had to put forth strenuous effort to take game for his subsistence, and this de-
veloped his limbs, his body, and his vital organs. The lazy life of the Indian
reservation, with government annuities to piece out slight efforts at labor to pro-
duce crops for foods, has enervated rather than developed his body. But worse
than all his natural and inherited shortcomings to hold the native down to bar-
barism has been the persistent and devilish pursuit of the Indian by the dishon-
est, corrupt and diseased white man. The worthless white man that hangs
around the reservation, that sneaks into its confines the bad whiskey, and de-
bauches the Indian family, that persistently fights and defeats every effort to
teach the Indian decent ways of living, is a thousand times a meaner, baser and
more destructive creature than any Indian could be. And this vile influence of
the depraved white man is unfortunately a part of the history of the Indian for
a hundred years—"a century of dishonor” it has been called; and it is also,
and severely just so, a part of the history of the educated and governing class
of the American citizens. In the history of the state of Oregon it can be pointed
out where an Indian agent at Grande Ronde agency, on a salary of fifteen hun-
dred dollars a year for four years, came out of office with money enough to pur-
chase two thousand acres of the richest land in the Yamhill valley. How much
of the annuities which the United States government issued to be paid by that
agent to the fifteen hundred ignorant Indian wards was stolen by the trusted
agent, and how little the poor Indians received, will never be known. At the
Umatilla reservation, not one agent but more than half a dozen, grew rich in
persistent thefts from the ignorant and impoverished wards of the government,
and which robbery was continued until the Christian churches of the nation
made reform of the Indian agencies the battle cry from Portland, Oregon, to
Portland, Maine.
In this battle to secure justice to the poor and despised Indian, who could
do nothing for himself or family, the names of Marcus Whitman, Jason Lee,
Elkanah Walker, Cushing Eells, H. H. Spalding, Bishop Blanchet, Peter John
De Smet, James H. Wilbur, George H. Atkinson, Joel Palmer, T. W. Davenport,
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
83
Lee Moorhouse and Aaron L. Lindsley will stand out in glorious renown as long
as the state of Oregon has a history.
But if the statements of the Nez Perces are to be believed the government
agents still consider it a safe and respectable business to rob an Indian-or a
thousand Indians. At the present session of Congress these Indians have pre-
sented a petition through Senator Borah, of Idaho, showing that the Nez Perce
Indians were a strong and powerful tribe of Indians occupying a large tract of
territory amounting to many millions of acres in the states of Oregon, Washing-
ton, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming; in 1855 they ceded over 12,000,000 acres of
their territory to the government, but retained the rights to game and fish there-
on, they say:
'Again in 1863 a further cession of land was made but our rights to the
game, fish, etc., were still retained ; finally in 1893, when we made the last ces-
sion of land, we were guaranteed all the treaty rights theretofore promised.
“We were not paid the full amounts promised to us in the treaties and
agreements and we were not protected in our hunting and fishing rights.
"The game, fish and herbs, the use of the streams, springs and fountains,
roads and highways, the use of the timber and camping privileges were consid-
ered by us of much greater value than the money promised to us for the cession
of the land.
"Our people are good, law-abiding, sober and industrious citizens and desire
fair and honest treatment at the hands of the United States government and at
the hands of the officers thereof.
“Many of our people are unjustly and wrongfully treated by the officers or
agents of the Interior Department in the forcible deposits of our moneys in
banks without our consent—the moneys that belong to individuals, derived from
the sale of inherited land, of the collection of rents from their personal lands-
and the withholding of the money from the individual, depriving him of the use
thereof and imposing on him many hardships at great cost."
Contrary to the general belief the Nez Perces and the Yakimas have actively
kept up their local church and school organizations, as well as sending delegates
to conferences and church conventions, and have liberally patronized the great
government school for Indians near Salem. This school has been of marked use-
fulness to thousands of Indian boys and girls who have attended it. One young
Indian man educated there-a full-blood Indian of the Puyallup tribe—is now
cashier of the First National Bank of North Yakima, and many instances of oth-
ers could be given who have succeeded in business, live stock, farming and trans-
portation lines.
THE INDIAN AND THE LAND QUESTION
The land question was at the bottom of all the troubles with the Indians. And
the land question will be at the bottom of all the trouble among the Americans.
The Hudson's Bay Company did not seek to monopolize land for cultivation or
sale. It only sought to preserve the wilderness as a vast fur-bearing game pre-
serve. This disposition of the land coincided exactly with the ideas of the In-
dians, and as the company brought goods and trinkets for exchange for his furs,
the Indian was happy and welcomed that sort of a white man to his tepee and his
84
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
confidence. But not so with the American. He came hunting new lands, for
farms and homes, clearing away the forest and driving away the game—the
natural food support of the Indians. With the single exception of Penn's ex-
periment in buying the lands of the Indians in Pennsylvania, the contest between
the white man and the Indian on the American continent has been one of oppo-
sition and violence, and the cause of the trouble, the possession of land.
All the Indians from the Atlantic to the Pacific were possessed with the same
socialistic idea of land ownership. And while neighboring tribes would war
with each other for favorite hunting grounds, yet to the white man all of them.
presented the same unyielding front on the land question. This view of the land
question was never more forcibly or clearly set forth than by the Indian Chief
Tecumseh, of the territory of Indiana. When General Harrison was appointed
governor of Indiana territory in 1801, he tried to secure a permanent peace
with the warlike Indians of that region, of which Tecumseh was the great war-
rior and leader. And to promote this end, he invited Tecumseh and other chiefs
to visit him at old Vincennes. Tecumseh accepted the invitation and was at-
tended by a number of other chiefs. The governor proposed to hold the con-
ference on the portico of his residence, but Tecumseh declined to meet there and
proposed a nearby grove, saying, “The earth is my mother, and on her bosom
will I repose." And in the speech following, Tecumseh said, "that the Great
Spirit had given this great island (America) to his red children and had put
the whites on the other side of the water. The whites, not contented with their
own, had taken that of the red men. They had driven the Indians from the sea
to the lakes, and the Indians could go no farther. The whites had taken upon
themselves to say that this land belongs to the Miamis, this to the Delaware, and
so on. The Great Spirit intended the land as the common property of all.
"Since the peace we formerly made," he continued, "you have killed some
Shawnees, Winnebagoes, Delawares, and Miamis, and you have taken our land
from us, and I do not see how we can remain at peace if you continue to do so.
You try to force the red people to do some injury. It is you that are pushing
them on to do mischief. You endeavor to make distinctions. You wish to pre-
vent the Indians from doing as they wish to-unite and to consider their land
as the common property of the whole. By your distinction of Indian tribes in
allotting to each a particular tract of land you want them to make war with one
another.
"Brother, this land that was sold to you was sold only by a few. If you
continue to purchase our lands this way, it will produce war among the different
tribes. Brother, you should take pity on the red people, and return to them a
little of the land of which they have been plundered. The Indian has been hon-
est in his dealings with you, but how can we have confidence in the white people ?
When Jesus Christ came on earth, you killed him and nailed him to the cross.
You thought he was dead, but you were mistaken. You have many religions,
and you persecute and ridicule those who do not agree with you. The Shakers
are good people. You have Shakers among you, but you laugh and make light of
their worship. You are counseled by bad birds. I speak nothing but the truth
to you.'
And as Tecumseh reflected the ideas of all the Indians east of the Rocky
.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
85
mountains, so we find also the same ideas pervading among those west of the
Rockies.
At the council with the Indians at Walla Walla, to secure a treaty for the
Indian title to their lands, several chiefs spoke freely, showing that they not only
well understood the position of the land question, but their great fear of giving
up their lands. Lawyer, the old Nez Perce chief, spoke first, describing how the
Indians in the eastern states were driven back before the white men, and then
went on as follows:
"The red man traveled away farther, and from that time they kept travel-
ing away farther, as the white people came up with them, and this man's people
(pointing to a Delaware Indian, who was one of the interpreters) are from that
people. They have come on from the Great Lakes where the sun rises, until they
are near us now, at the setting sun. And from that country, somewhere from
the center, came Lewis and Clark, and that is the way the white people traveled
and came here to my forefathers. They passed through our country, they became
acquainted with our country, and all our streams, and our forefathers used them
well, as well as they could, and from the time of Columbus, from the time of
Lewis and Clark, we have known you my friends; we poor people have known
you as brothers."
Governor Stevens said: “We have now the hearts of the Nez Perces through
their chiefs. Their hearts and our hearts are one. We want the hearts of the
other tribes through their chiefs."
Young Chief, of the Cayuses-(He was evidently opposed to the treaty but
grounded his objections on two arguments. The first was, they had no right to
sell the ground which God had given for their support unless for some good.
reasons): “I wonder if the ground has anything to say? I wonder if the ground
is listening to what is said? I wonder if the ground would come alive and what
is on it? Though I hear what the ground says. The ground says: 'It is the
Great Spirit that placed me here. The Great Spirit tells me to take care of the
Indians, to feed them aright. The Great Spirit appointed the roots to feed the
Indians on.' The water says the same thing. "The Great Spirit directs me.
Feed the Indians well.' The grass says the same thing. 'Feed the horses and
cattle.' The ground, water and grass say, 'The Spirit has given us our names.
We have these names and hold these names. Neither the Indians nor whites have
a right to change those names.' The ground says, "The Great Spirit has placed
me here to produce all that grows on me, trees and fruit.' The same way the
ground says, 'It was from me man was made.' The Great Spirit in placing men
on the earth desired to take good care of the ground and to do each other
no harm. The Great Spirit said, 'You Indians who take care certain portions
of the country, should not trade it off except you get a fair price.'
"The Indians are blind. This is the reason we do not see the country well.
Lawyer sees clear. This is the reason why I don't know anything about this
country. I do not see the offer you have made to us yet. If I had the money in
my hand I should see. I am, as it were, blind. I am blind and ignorant. I have
a heart, but cannot say much. This is the reason why the chiefs do not under-
stand each other right and stand apart. Although I see your offer before me
I do not understand it and do not take it. I walk as it were in the dark, and
cannot therefore take hold of what I do not see. Lawyer sees, and he takes hold.
86
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
When I come to understand your propositions, I will take hold. I do not know
when. This is all I have to say."
General Palmer: "I would enquire whether Pe-pe-mox-mox or Young Chief
has spoken for the Umatillas ! I wish to know farther, whether the Umatillas
are of the same heart?
Owhi, Umatilla Chief: “We are together and the Great Spirit hears all that
we say today. The Great Spirit gave us the land and measured the land to us;
this is the reason why I am afraid to say anything about the land. I am afraid
of the laws of the Great Spirit. This is the reason of my heart being sad. This
is the reason I cannot give you an answer. I am afraid of the Great Spirit. Shall
I steal this land and sell it, or what shall I do? This is the reason why my heart
is sad. The Great Spirit made our friends, but the Great Spirit made our bodies
from the earth, as if they were different from the whites. What shall I do?
Shall I give the land which is a part of my body and leave myself poor and des-
titute? Shall I say I will give you my land? I cannot say so. I am afraid of
the Great Spirit. I love my life. The reason why I do not give my land away
is, I am afraid I will be sent to hell. I love my friends. I love my life. This
is the reason why I do not give my land away. I have one more word to say.
My people are far away. They do not know your words. This is the reason I
cannot give you an answer. I show you my heart. This is all I have to say.''
As explanatory of the trouble which led to the Whitman massacre, and to
the wars with the Oregon Indians, Mrs. Victor in her history of the Indian wars
of Oregon says, page 29: “The real cause of ill feeling between the Indians
and their Protestant teachers was the continued misunderstanding concerning
the ownership of land and the accumulation of property. No one appeared to
purchase the lands occupied by the missions; nor had any ships arrived with
Indian goods and farming implements for their benefit, as had been promised."
Both the missionaries and the settlers had located in the Indian country and
proceeded to build houses and cultivate the land as if the Indian had no title.
That, indeed, was the way the white man had viewed the question from the first
settlement in America. They who came from civilized Europe in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries found the American continent peopled by tribes with-
out cultivation, literature and refinement, or fixed habitations. They considered
the Indians mere savages, having no rightful claim to the country of which they
were in possession. Every European nation had deemed it had secured a lawful
and just claim to any part of the American continent which any of its subjects had
discovered, without any regard to the prior occupation and claims of the Indians.
And even in much later times, and by the highest court, this view was affirmed
as good law by Chief Justice John Marshall in 1810, delivering the opinion of the
Supreme Court of the United States (Cranch’s Reports, vol. 6, page 142) held,
that the Indian title to the soil is not of such a character or validity as to inter-
fere with the possession in fee, of the disposal of the land as the state may see fit.
It takes a long time to correct an erroneous principle of fundamental law,
and a still longer time to beat down a race prejudice. The nation has had to
spend billions of dollars and sacrifice almost millions of lives to extinguish the
heresy that neither the black man nor the red man had any rights the white man
was bound to respect. And while our nation has finally arrived at the full stand-
ard of giving justice and equity to all men, without respect of persons, the great
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
87
.
nations of Europe are still enforcing their ideas of two hundred years ago upon
the weaker peoples of Asia and Africa to maintain privilege and power to taxa-
tion without representation. The decision of the Supreme Court in 1810 did not
pass unchallenged. Justice Story, in his exposition of the constitution, page
13, says: “As to countries in the possession of native tribes at the time of
the discovery, it seems difficult to perceive what right of title any discovery
could confer. It would seem strange to us, if, in the present times, the natives of
the South Sea Islands should by making a voyage to and discovery of the United
States, on that account set up a right to this country. The truth is, that the
European nations paid not the slightest regards to the rights of the native tribes.
They treated them as barbarians that they were at liberty to destroy. They
might convert them to Christianity, and if they refused to be converted, they
might drive them from their homes as unworthy to inhabit the country. Their
real object was to extend their own power and increase their own wealth, by
acquiring the treasures as well as the territory of the New World. Avarice and
ambition were at the bottom of all their enterprises."
Seventy-five years after this criticism by Justice Story, Theodore Roosevelt
in his Winning of the West, treats this question somewhat differently, saying:
“Looking back, it is easy to say that much of the wrong-doing (to the Indians)
could have been prevented, but if we examine the facts to find out the truth, we
are bound to admit that the struggle (between whites and Indians) was really
one that could not possibly have been avoided, unless we were willing to admit
that the whole continent west of the Alleghanies should remain an unpeopled
waste, the hunting grounds of savages, war was inevitable. And even had we
been willing and had refrained from encroaching on the Indians' lands, the war
would have come, nevertheless, for then the Indians themselves would have en-
croached on ours. The Indians had no ownership in the land as we understand
that term. Undoubtedly the Indians have often suffered terrible injustice at
our hands. The conduct of the Georgians towards the Cherokees, and the treat-
ment of Chief Joseph and Nez Perces in Oregon, may be mentioned as indelible
blots on our fair fame."
But what has all this to do with the history of Oregon? A very great deal.
It throws light on the great drama of settlement of this region of Old Oregon.
It explains the massacre of Dr. Marcus Whitman and family, about which more
has been written than any other one subject in the history of the Northwest.
The Americans made a great mistake in assuming when they came to this
country, that the Indians had no rights to the land which they ought to respect.
The missionaries who came professing to be the best friends to the Indians were
as much to blame as those who made no pretense of religion. It was a fatal mis-
take to think the Indians had no ideas on this first of all questions. They knew
nothing of the practice of European nations or of the decisions of courts; all the
guide they had was the light of nature, and that first and greatest of laws-self-
preservation. The Indian never troubled himself to inquire into what he could
not comprehend. He did not launch into conjecture or give reign to imagination.
His puerile mind followed the glimmering light which had led his forefathers.
He saw that he must, like the deer and the buffalo, live on the land; and that if
another man crowded him off it he must die Here he was where his ancestors
had lived untold ages. He knew no other place. He was familiar with the Hud-
88
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
son's Bay man, who wanted nothing but the furry skins of dead animals.
understood that proposition. The Hudson's Bay man deprived him of nothing, ,
but bought the pelt he had for sale, and that was a positive gain. But the Amer-
ican was a different man. He came preaching peace and good will to all men,
but he took up land, raised crops, built mills, bred domestic animals, sold the
produce of the land for money to put in his pocket. There was no gain to the
Indian in that, but a positive loss—the loss of land. And worse than this; where
there was one American in 1842, there were hundreds in 1843, and then hosts
more coming. He had heard from the wandering Iroquois how the white man
came as flocks of wild geese come and covered the prairies of Indiana, Illinois
and other states. The Indian was terrified at the thought of losing his land, his
home, his mother, and so he acted.
We are now able to give for the first time in history the first authentic account
of the first great Indian council held west of the Rocky mountains by the Indians
of Old Oregon. We print on another page the photograph of Timotsk, an aged
Indian, a chief of the Klickitats, who was a member of that council. This coun-
cil was held near where Fort Simcoe is located in the Yakima valley. Indian
messengers had been sent out by the Cayuses to all other tribes in the Columbia
river region and chiefs had come in from the Nez Perces, Spokanes, Shoshones,
Walla Wallas, Wascoes, Umatillas, Cayuses, Klickitats and Yakimas. Timotsk
says they were in council for a whole moon;'' that is about a month; and that
there were about fifty chiefs in attendance. They talked from day to day as to
what course they should pursue against the white men. The burden of all their
fears and complaints were against the Americans; and was summed up in the
belief that these white men would come more and more every year and finally
take all their lands and hunting grounds from them; that they were even
now killing and driving away all the deer, and that after a while the In-
dians would have nothing to eat and must die. The Yakima, Cayuses, Walla
Wallas, and some of the Spokanes advocated killing off all the Americans at once.
The Nez Perces, Wascoes, Umatillas and Klickitats opposed this course, saying
that the white men had good guns to fight with and would easily kill off the In-
dians who had but a few guns and must fight mostly with bows and arrows.
After this council broke up, Timotsk came down to Vancouver and got em-
ployment of Dr. McLoughlin as a boatman, in which work he continued for many
years. He speaks of McLoughlin as a good man, a father to everybody, whites
and Indians alike. As soon after this council had broken up and the measles
broke out among the Indians at the Whitman mission, Dr. Whitman and family
were massacred. Whitman would have been killed all the same if no sickness
had occurred, as he was blamed by the Indians for going back over the moun-
tains and bringing more white men out to Oregon. The Cayuses made it plain at
the council that they would go on the war path and kill all the whites they could.
And that is what they did do.
In some places the Indian population in the United States seems to be in-
creasing slightly, but in other places it is decreasing.
In 1910 the Indian population of the United States was 265,683, as compared
with 237,196 in 1900. According to these figures there was an increase in the
Indian population from 1900 to 1910 of 28,487, or 12 per cent, as compared with
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
89
a decrease from 1890 to 1900 of 11,057, or 4.5 per cent. For the twenty-year
period from 1890 to 1910 there was an increase of 17,430, or 7 per cent.
The last census shows that the Indian population of the Pacific coast is for
the state of Washington, 10,997; Oregon, 5,090; California, 16,371; Idaho, 3,488.
The Indians evidently live longer and do better in a warm climate than in a
cold one.
1
CHAPTER IV
1640–1824
THE PIONEERS OF THE FUR TRADE-GROSEILLIERS AND RADISSON-PRINCE RUPERT
SENDS OUT A SHIP-THE HUDSON BAY COMPANY—THE NORTHWEST COMPANY OF
CANADA-INDEPENDENT AMERICAN TRAPPERS-THE RENDEZVOUS-THE WAR BE-
TWEEN ENGLISHMEN AND SCOTCHMEN-FUR TRADING STARTS FROM ST. LOUIS--
THE MISSOURI FUR COMPANY--JOHN JACOB ASTOR ENTERS THE FIELD-ORGAN-
IZES THE PACIFIC FUR COMPANY-FOUNDS ASTORIA-DESTRUCTION OF ASTOR'S
ENTERPRISE-TREATMENT OF THE INDIANS BY THE FUR TRADERS—THE SERVICES
OF THE FUR TRADERS TO CIVILIZATION.
In opening the great Northwest region of North America to the settlement
and occupation by white men the catching of wild animals for the value of their
furry skins was the first business that promised trade and wealth. Wholly un-
like the experiences of the Spaniards in Mexico and Peru, where the invaders
found gold and silver beyond the dreams of avarice, and which they could seize
by robbery of the lawful owner and then torture him with flames to discover
the mines of the precious metals, the explorers of the great Northern wilderness
had to contend with all the forces of nature and tax their physical strength to
the utmost limit to secure success. And the remarkable contrast between the
ethical results of the fur trade pushed by hardy, vigorous and independent men
in the wilderness of the north, and the wholesale robbery of simple-minded Az-
tecs and Peruvians in the south by the armed freebooters of Spain, is one of the
most forcible and persistent lessons of civilization on the American continent.
On the one hand is seen the heroic examples of the pioneers of the northwest
conquering the wilderness by following a peaceful industry and opening the way
for great states that command the respect and dominate the forces of the New
World, while on the other hand, is beheld the cancer of unrestrained avarice as
the curse of feeble and unstable governments that are rent with bloody strife
and unceasing rebellion.
With no other object or ambition than to make large profits, the fur traders,
their ship captains and wilderness trappers, have been most effective agents in
opening new countries and extending the boundaries of civilization to organize
governments. When Captain Cook's ship carried over to China and exhibited to
the traders of the world the little pack of otter skins that had been picked up at
Vancouver's island, an impulse was given to the exploration of the Pacific coast
that never halted until Oregon was secured to the United States and gold dis-
covered in California. Not the Spanish, the French, the English, or the East
India Company's ships would have led the way to the settlement of the country
and the founding of states. This region was too far from their bases of sup-
91
92
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
plies. But the rich fur trade excited the interest of Boston merchants, and
Capt. Gray was sent out to see what he could get for his employers. He got his
share of the furs, and he discovered the Columbia river. The Boston merchants
sent other ships and the discovery of the Columbia river planted a germ in the
brain of a great American statesman (Jefferson) that grew and expanded until
expeditions were sent out two thousand miles through the wilderness to connect
the expanding nation with Gray's discovery of the great river; and the titanic
forces of American pioneering, settlements and Republicanism completed the
transcontinental bond of union and made Oregon the pioneer outpost and de-
fender of American commerce and civilization on the great Pacific.
The French founded the city of Quebec on the St. Lawrence in 1608. Two
years later, Henry Hudson discovered the great northern bay of the North At-
lantic ocean, which bears his name. Then commenced the conquest of the New
World on the line of settlement up the St. Lawrence, up the Great Lakes, north
to Hudson's Bay and west to the Rocky mountains. This projection of European
colonization, trade and laws into the heart of North America, commenced in 1640,
and its forerunner was the fur trade. In 1659 two French traders and trappers,
Groseilliers and Radisson, working their way up the Great Lakes in the employ
of the French Company of One Hundred Associates, reached the head of Lake
Superior, and there learned from the Indians that by traveling on northward
overland they could reach the shores of Hudson's Bay where there were vast num-
bers of fur-bearing animals. The success of these two adventurous Frenchmen in
getting so large a catch of rare and rich furs excited the cupidity of their supe-
riors, so that when the men who had braved the perils of the wilderness asked
for a concession from the French government to take furs in the Hudson's Bay
regions, they found they had been forestalled and the coveted privileges given
to another. Disappointed and indignant at the treatment he had received from
the Colonial grantees, Groseilliers returned to France and sought to undo the
wrong and injustice wrought upon him by an appeal to the king; and failing in
this he went over to England and submitted his proposed scheme to the English
court. In this he was successful, and under the protection and aid of Prince
Rupert, the cousin of King Charles II, Groseilliers was in 1668 outfitted with
a vessel, cargo and all necessary arms and supplies and sailed for the Hudson's
bay. And the success of this Frenchman led to the formation of the great trans-
continental monopoly of the fur trade known as the Hudson's Bay Company,
which was granted a royal charter on May 2, 1670. The royal patent reads as
follows:
"Whereas, our dear entirely beloved cousin, Prince Rupert, Count Palatine of
the Rhine, Duke of Bavaria and Cumberland; George Duke of Albermarle; Wil-
liam, earl of Craven; Henry, Lord Arlington; Anthony, Lord Ashley; Sir John
Robinson and Sir Robert Vyrner, knights and baronets, Sir Peter Colletón, baro-
net; Sir Edward Hungerford, knight of the bath; Sir Paul Neele, Sir John
Griffith, Sir Philip Carteet and Sir James Hayes, knights, and John Kirke, Fran-
cis Millington, William Prettyman and John Portman, citizen and goldsmith of
London, have, at their own great cost and charges, undertaken an expedition for
the Hudson's bay in the northwest parts of America for a discovery of a new
passage into the South Sea (Pacific Ocean), and for the finding of some trade
for furs, minerals and other commodities, and by such, their undertakings have


JOHN JACOB ASTOR
Founder of Astoria
UNIL
OF
Bic
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
93
already made such discoveries as to encourage them to proceed farther in pur-
suance of their said design by means whereof there may probably arise great
advantage to us and our kingdom.
“And, whereas, The said undertakers, for their further encouragement to
the said design, have humbly besought us to incorporate them, and grant unto
them, and their successors, the whole trade and commerce of all those seas, straits
and bays,rivers, lakes, creeks and sounds in whatever latitude they shall be, that
lie within the entrance of the straits commonly called Hudson straits, together
with all the lands, countries and territories upon the coasts and confines of the
seas, straits, bays, lakes, rivers, creeks and sound aforesaid which are not now
actually possessed by any of our subjects, or the subjects of other Christian
prince or state.
“Now Know Ye. That we, being desirous to promote all endeavors that may
tend to the public good of our people, and to encourage the said undertaking,
have of our special grace, and mere motion, given, granted, ratified and con-
firmed unto our said cousin, Prince Rupert (and other nobilities and persons
named) all and singular the most extensive rights of a private corporation, and
also the sole trade and commerce of all those seas, straits, bays, rivers, lakes,
creeks and sounds, in whatsoever latitude they shall be, together with all the
lands and territories upon the countries, coasts and confines of the seas, bays,
lakes, rivers, creeks and sounds aforesaid, together with the fishing of all sorts
of fish, whales, sturgeons and other royal fishes in the seas, bays, rivers, within
the premises, and the fish therein taken together with the royalty of the sea, upon
the coasts, and all mines, royal as well discovered as not discovered, of gold,
silver, gems and precious stones, to be found or discovered with the territories,
limits and places aforesaid, and that the land be from henceforth reckoned and
reputed as one of our colonies in America, called Rupert's land. And also, not
only the whole, entire and only liberty, use and privilege of trading and traffic
to and from the territories, limits and places aforesaid, but also the whole and
entire trade and traffic, to and from all havens, bays, creeks, rivers, lakes and
seas into which they shall find entrance or passage by water or land out of the
territories, limits and places aforesaid, and to and with all the natives and peo-
ple, inhabitants or which shall inhabit within the territories, limits and places
aforesaid and to and with all other nations, inhabitants any of the coasts ad-
jacent to the said territories aforesaid. And do grant to the said company, that
neither the said territories, limits, and places hereby granted, nor any part there-
of, nor the islands, havens, ports, cities, towns, and places thereof or therein con-
tained shall ever be visited, frequented, or haunted by any of the subjects of us
contrary to the true meaning of this grant, and any and every such person or
persons who shall trade or traffic into any of such countries, territories, or limits
aforesaid other than the said company and their successors, shall incur our in-
dignation and the forfeiture and loss of all their goods, merchandise, and other
things, whatsoever which shall be so brought into this realm of England or any
dominion of the same country, to our said prohibition.
In all this monopoly of trade and commerce in all the vast region from Hud-
son bay west to the Pacific ocean, the charter conferred upon the company and
its governors and chief factors, the sovereign rights of civil and military govern-
ment of the region. Some people protest against the corporations and monopo-
94
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
1
lies in the United States at the present day, not one of which has the sanction or
support of the government, but every one of which is under the ban of the law.
But here was a monopoly of all the trade in a region a thousand times greater
in size than the country whose king created the monopoly, to which was given
the right over the lives and liberties of the natives and subordinates of the char-
tered corporation. And all this by the grace of his most Christian majesty,
King Charles II. The kings of England, two hundred and fifty years ago, had
little conception of the rights of the common people. The whole government was
run for the benefits of the king's favorites and relations; and it is no wonder that
Macaulay should have said of this king: "That honor and shame to him were
scarcely more than light and darkness to the blind."
Those who have not made some investigation of the subject have no idea of
the vast powers and dominions of this great English corporation. From the At-
lantic to the Pacific, three thousand miles, and from the Arctic ocean down to
where the southern boundary is now located-a full two thousand miles—the
undisputed sway of all living things for a half century, and over half of that
region for more than a century. We are now all of us accustomed to think of
organized governments with legislatures and laws, sworn officers and courts of
justice, in connection with territorial expansion. That has been the rule under
all the western extensions of American enterprise and settlement. But here in
this great fur company we see an English king and his cousin and courtiers or-
ganizing in a private room, a private company, with all the powers of a respon-
sible state government in America, and handing over to that private company
a region larger than all Europe, to be ruled and exploited for their own private
and exclusive use and profit for an unlimited period of time; and without any
limitations or restrictions in favor of any other people or person on the face of
the globe. Picture if you can this vast empire of natural wealth in land, and
all that the richest land will produce, six million square miles in extent, diversi-
fied with beautiful lakes, grand rivers, mountain ranges, fertile prairies, great
forests of matchless timber, millions of wild animals, and peopled by probably
one hundred thousand native Indians, and you may have some idea of the sort
of monopoly that was set down to exploit old Oregon and all the region east and
north of it except Alaska.
If we turn to Mitchell's geography, printed in 1842, we find Oregon territory
described as the most western part of the United States; and contains an area
greater than that of the whole of the southern states, with an Indian population
of eighty thousand. So that the dominions of the Hudson's Bay Company must
have been, all told, larger than the whole of the United States in 1842, with a
much larger Indian population than is here set down. These facts as to the vast
dominions and unrestricted sovereign powers of the Hudson's Bay Company are
given as an all-sufficient reason to explain the anxiety of the early pioneers of
Oregon as to the course of this great corporation towards these early settlers.
These pioneer families of civilization could not believe that any King Charles
could sell out this great country to a private corporation monopoly trading com-
pany to be held for all time as a game preserve to produce pelts for London prof-
its. And hence their early and unrestrainable resentmen
Considering time and circumstances the Hudson's Bay Company was the most
perfect commercial organization ever operated on the American continent. No
.?
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
95
phase of its vast business was neglected. No element of success, no matter how
small or questionable, was forgotten. There was a local governor residing in
America with headquarters at York factory, with jurisdiction over all the es-
tablishments of the company, together with sixteen chief factors, twenty-nine
chief traders, five surgeons, eighty-seven clerks, sixty-seven postmasters, five
hundred voyageurs, besides sailors on sea-going vessels, and over two thou-
sand common servants engaged in trapping, mechanic arts, and farming. And
besides this army of skilled white men, all armed for war, if war was neces-
sary, was the vast population of native Indians who were at all times subservient
to the company, furnished nearly the whole of its business in the furs caught
and traded for goods. No exact amount can of course be given of its wide ex-
tended business, reaching from Hudson bay to the Pacific ocean, but an account-
ing by the company to its stockholders for four years commencing with 1834
and ending 1838 is interesting, as showing the vast business, done as follows:
1834
1835
1836
1837
Total
79,908
61,005
15,487
910
8,710
1,111,616
4,127
46,063
52,749
8,432
471
1,924
160,906
1,715
92,927
156,118
15,934
2,147
822,086
738,549
8,763
Beaver ... 98,288
Martin
64,490
Otter
22,303
Silver Fox
1,063
Other Foxes. 8,876
Muskrat ..649,192
Bear
7,457
Ermine
491
Fisher".
5,296
Lynx
14,255
Mink
25,100
Wolf
8,484
Badger
1,000
Swan
7,918
Raccoon
713
307,186
334,362
62,156
4,592
342,361
2,660,263
22,062
491
15,117
50,894
82,277
10,544
2,662
10,233
1,191
2,479
9,990
17,809
3,722
698
4,703
522
1,327
3,762
12,218
307
201
12
99
6,115
31,887
27,150
7,301
754
6,660
585
O
Making a grand total of twenty-three million, four hundred and eighteen thou-
sand, one hundred and nine animals destroyed in four years. If we multiply
those figures by ten, we get an approximate estimate of the total destruction of
animal life by this great company in the forty years of its hey-day of prosperity.
Think of the great natural wealth of a region that could stand the destruction
of two hundred and thirty millions of wild creatures by a single fur company
in forty years.
As may be readily seen, the power and influence of this company over the con-
dition and future relations of the country it ruled over was absolute and invincible.
It was operated for profits solely. The young men were encouraged to take wives
from among native women for no other purpose than to give them power and in-
fluence with the Indians, to get their furs and prevent anybody else from getting
them. Alcoholic liquors were used to a certain extent, and by some factors more
than others. Chief Factor, Dr. McLoughlin of the Oregon department has a
record of great care and prudence not only in handling the natives, but in not
96
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
demoralizing them with stimulants. And when we consider the wide extended
power and influence of this company, the wonder is that the American immigra-
tion to this country ever got a foothold at all.
Such was the beginning of trade and commerce in the Columbia river valley.
Many people hastily conclude that such a trade was a trifling matter. But such
a conclusion is not based upon a consideration of the facts. The fur trade is now
foreign to the great mass of our people. But not so ninety years ago. It was a
great business then, and it is a great business yet. The city of St. Louis is now
the headquarters of the fur trade of the United States; and it will strike the
reader with surprise to learn that there are over five hundred thousand people
in the United States who now, today, make their living trapping and dressing
the furs and skins of wild animals.
And no matter how much we may condemn the Hudson's Bay Company for
holding the country solely for furs, and working the Indian to discourage Amer-
ican fur traders, there is a silver lining to even that cloud, as we shall see later
on. The Hudson's Bay men got along with the Indians, prevented bloody wars,
like those that ravaged the Ohio valley, by skillfully turning the sexual instinct
of the race to the work of peace with the savages, and profits to the corpora-
tion. The company encouraged its employees to take wives from among the
native women. There was little thought and less solemnity in but very few
ceremonials of that kind. But it served the purposes of the company, satisfied
the instincts of nature and formed a bond of confidence and peace between
the two races camping in the wilderness. To the phlegmatic John Jacob Astor,
or the more refined Wilson Price Hunt, or still more select Lieutenant Bonne-
ville, all of whom tried their fortunes at fur trading in this region, such a proposi-
tion as promiscuous marriages with the natives would have appeared as an im-
practicable proposition. In the settlement of the Ohio, and in fact of all the At-
lantic state regions, intermarriages with the natives as a custom was looked upon
with horror; notwithstanding the romantic unions of Pocahontas and others
equally well authenticated. When the Hudson's Bay traders organized their
company, they found the Canadian French already in the business of taking furs
from the St. Lawrence to the head of the great lakes. The Frenchmen set the
pace with the Indians. And whatever he might have been on the boulevards
of Paris, he was not at all fastidious in the wilds of America, when it came to
living with, camping with and managing wild Indians, to trap for furs and put
the good francs in his pocket. And we very soon see in the history of the French
in the fur trade of North America, that the trapper's wife was nearly always a
native woman. The custom worked well with the French. They profited in the
fur trade and in the main preserved the peace with the Indians; and the Hud-
son's Bay Company adopted the tactics of their rivals for a rich trade and event-
ually drove them from the field.
The Hudson's Bay Company produced many forceful, useful and distin-
guished men. They had not the culture of the colleges, or the polish of the so-
called polite society. But they accomplished far more for mankind and for civ-
ilization than all the college men who have walked in their steps since their day.
They governed a wilderness empire filled with more natural wealth than
any other equal territory in the world. They successfully managed a population
of two hundred thousand wild Indians, which but for their tact, perseverance,

1.
0
soo
2.
3.
4.
No. 1-Dr. John McLoughlin
No. 3 Dr. Tolmie
No. 2-Sir James Douglas
No. 4-Peter Skeen Ogden
B
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
97
and courage, would have been two hundred thousand murdering savages. And
while it is true they did not look forward to the fruits of labor which might
bestow upon them offices, honors and distinctions, which the wilderness could
not confer, they sacrificed self pride and ambition to faithfully and loyally serve
their employer, looking only to the present and to their salary for reward; and
still none the less, performed so great a work in moulding and controlling the
character and the natural bent of the Indians as to make the eventful settle-
ment of the country an easy conquest over native savagery. The gradual and
comparatively easy substitution of civilization in all the vast territory once ruled
by the Hudson's Bay Company, as compared with the stern and relentless war-
fare which greeted and decimated the Scotch-Irish and Virginian pioneers who
settled the Ohio valley sixty years prior is little less than a miracle in the develop-
ment of the West. If anyone will turn to the history of the settlement of the
states of Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee and see with what nameless horrors, inde-
scribable tortures and devilish savagery the Indians in that country fought the
white settlers, they will see that the old Oregon Indians were peaceful men, by
comparison. All the Indian wars of Oregon put together would not make three
years actual warfare. And in all of it, so far as can be learned, there were but
few prisoners put to torture by the Indians. But from the time Daniel Boone
crossed over the Alleghany mountains and settled in the lonely wilds of Kentucky
in 1769, down to the great battle with the Indians October 5, 1813, when their
great leader and hero Tecumseh was killed, over forty years, there was almost con-
tinuous warfare with the Indians of the Ohio valley.
Let the impartial reader contrast the settler's experience in the Ohio valley,
with the Indian wars of Oregon, and then thank such a man as John McLoughlin
and Peter Skene Ogden that our pioneer fathers and mothers of Oregon were
spared the trials and sufferings which their fathers and mothers passed through
in reclaiming Ohio, Missouri and other eastern states from their savage foes.
The Indians of the vast Hudson Bay provinces did not lack the courage or the
brains of the Indians of the Ohio valley. Neither did they lack natural resources
to make effective opposition to the advances of the white man. They were simply
managed and kept quiet until effective opposition was impracticable. The men
who did this great work for Oregon, no matter what their motives were, deserve
a large space in the history of this state. It cannot be pretended that they man-
aged the Indians for the purpose of making them accept the rule of the white
man in the establishment of civil society. It may be truly said they builded wiser
than they knew, but for all they performed, all they accomplished, and all their
labors to tame the red man, let us give them generous recognition and deserved
honors.
But the Royal British prerogative favorite of the King was not to have an un-
contested monopoly of the fur trade in half a continent. In the year 1783 Simon
McTavish, Benjamin and Joseph Frobisher, A. McGillivray, Rocheblave, Simon
Fraser and other wealthy and influential merchants of Montreal organized the
"Northwest Company of Montreal,” and afterwards admitted to the Company
Peter Pond and Peter Pangman, able and successful traders; and still later on
admitted Alexander Mackenzie in the Spring of 1785. The capital of this Com-
pany does not appear in any of the sources of history examined. The shares were
originally sixteen, and these were increased as new partners were taken, and as
Vol. 1-7
98
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
all were equal it follows that each partner had an equal interest no inatter what
the capital, or the profits. This Company was a voluntary organization without
charter or Royal patent to legalize it. But it was for the purposes in view a very
powerful organization. It was manned and managed by men who had themselves
threaded the forest and wilderness. It had the experience and energy of the great
explorers. Alexander Mackenzie and Simon Fraser, to guide it; and it was a foe-
man worthy of a princely competitor. The company was ably managed and
made enormous profits. The gross income was $200,000 in 1788, and on the same
capital, ran up to $600,000 in 1799.
It is but a faint idea the reader of history can get of the life of these fur
hunters in the Great Northern wilderness one hundred years ago. The men, the
times, the manners, the Indians, the wild animals, and the wilderness itself have
all passed away forever. Nowhere on the earth can that unique picture be again
reproduced. To the general reader, that fur hunter life and adventure was raw,
crude and barbarian. But it was only partly so. The trapper in the boundless
woods and plains must of necessity rough it. He lay upon the ground at night
under the shelter of some bushy tree or against the lea of a friendly rock. He
must get his life from the animals he killed. He could pack little or nothing to
eat in addition to his precious furs. Sometimes he had pack animals, or on a
stream å frail bark canoe; and then life was a holiday. But the rendezvous
brought to the full all the pleasures and happiness a fur hunter could conceive of.
It might be once, or even twice, in the year; but it was sure to come. The "Ren-
dezvous" saved the expense of building forts and keeping up an expensive estab-
lishment, and was appointed for different places and seasons to suit the conven-
ience of the trappers and the demands of the trade. The most noted rendezvous
on the American side of the boundary line was in the heart of the Rocky Moun-
tains in the North East corner of Utah, where Kit Carson, Ashley, Sublette, Lisa
and other famous fur hunters would meet the Bannocks, Shoshones, French Ca-
nadians, half breeds and other nondescripts, for barter and carousal. Here all
were free to eat, drink, fight and kill, each man looking out for himself and for
his own head. Free trappers, hired men, and Indians, all, here brought their
catch for the year and sold, or got their pay.
And here all had their chance to waste their earnings in a few days' riot of
man's three consuming passions-intoxicating drink, women and tobacco. Vile
whiskey was sold for four dollars a pint; tobacco five dollars a pound, and the
beauties of the forest came without persuasion to become the wives of the long
haired trappers forever, or for a day. The trading, gambling, horse racing,
dancing, courting and fighting was the limit of human endurance, and its like will
never be seen again.
And this was the American hell-raiser fandango in the wilderness. But across
the line at old Fort William north of the head of Lake Superior, was a model
of the same purpose rendezvous, but regulated by the sterner decrees of Scotch
business formality and controlled by frowning cannon in a palisaded fortress.
Fort William was in fact a palisaded village; within which was the great council
house, store buildings, fur packing houses, armories, soldiers, rifles, cannon, offi-
cers' quarters, servants' cottages, doctor's office, powder magazine, jail, work
shops, and a garden. And in the midst of it all the council house towered, contain-
ing a dining hall sixty by thirty feet, and the walls hung with the portraits of the
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
99
partners and managers of the Northwest Company. Here was magnificence in
the wilderness a thousand miles from an organized community. And here law and
discipline was enforced to promote profit under the rules of a great private cor-
poration. Here was in fact a petty sovereignty in the heart of a boundless forest,
with no limits upon its rule but its own measure of its profits and abilities to
exact them. Not one, but many such petty governments. The same thing existed
in nearly the same form under the rule of the Hudson's Bay Co., at York Factory,
Fort Churchill, Fort Garry, on the Assiniboine, Fort Edmonton on the Saskatche-
wan, and Fort Vancouver, on the Columbia. Here in all these establishments
petty governors tried men for their lives, and meted out punishment according to
their own ideas of justice, without any of the checks or restraints of courts, laws,
juries or legislatures.
But the old proposition that two bodies could not occupy the same space at the
same time finally precipitated a violent concussion between the Northwest Com-
pany and its British rival the Hudson's Bay Company. Slowly and finally after
the lapse of a hundred and thirty years the old Hudson's Bay Company awoke to
the fact that the untitled Scotchmen of Montreal were after all, formidable rivals
of a Corporation organized by a King. The Scotchmen must be driven out of the
fur trade—and the battle began. For every post the Scotchmen built, another
must be built alongside of it flying the H. B. C. flag. For every inducement offered
the Indians to trade, double should be offered by the H. B. C. And so the battle
began. No Highland Chieftain of Scotia's rock ribbed hills and glens ever ac-
cepted the challenge or fought an English army with keener zest than did these
fur trading clansmen and their ready allies--the half breed French voyageurs.
In vain did the Englishmen plead their Royal Grant, and its British Parliament
confirmation. The Northwest Co. cared not a fig for Royal Grants. This was un-
inhabited territory, and was as free to one robber as another. Reprisals were
frequent. The hunters of one company would break into the huts and carry off
the furs of the rival company. All went armed and ready for a fight wherever
they might meet. And the Indians, like the Irishman at the wake, seeing it was
a free fight stole furs from both sides, and hit a head whenever convenient. And
so the fighting went on in a desultory way for ten years—1805 to 1815. Men were
killed and forts captured on both sides; the Hudson's Bay Co. generally getting
the worst of it. The fur trade was ruined. Playing both sides, the Indians got more
for their furs than they would sell for in Montreal. In 1816 the fighting assumed
a desperate phase. Three hundred half breeds were armed, painted, mounted on
ponies, by the Northwest Co., and sent forth to seize everything they could get
hold of. The first H. B. Co. settlement they came to was destroyed root and
branch and the colonists driven into the forest. At Athabasca the Hudson's Bay
men were besieged, and after losing seventeen men by starvation the balance sur-
rendered. At Slave Lake the H. B. Co. men fared better, but lost thirteen men
by famine. Two of the Northwest forts were captured by H. B. Co. men, and
burned. At Fort Douglas, the Northwesters were proceeding to surround it
when Governor Semple with twenty-eight men sallied out to demand the object of
their approach. He was told the Northwesters were simply attending to their busi-
ness, and “what are you going to do about it?” The answer came sharp and
quick, and Semple's men fired on the Northwesters killing one man. The fire was
instantly returned by the Northwesters killing the Governor and seven of his
100
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
men; the balance all fled to the fort hotly pursued, and only four men reached
the fort alive; the Northwesters capturing the fort and all its supplies of food,
ammunition and stock of furs. At this crisis of affairs, Lord Selkirk (no relation
to Robinson Crusoe), a Scotchman who had obtained a grant of land from the
H. B. Co. for the purpose of founding a Scotch Colony as farmers, and not as
hunters, undertook to settle the trouble and started in to suppress the war, but
backed out at Fort William near the head of Lake Superior, thinking discretion
the better part of valor. Selkirk's land grant covered not only a large tract of
the Hudson's Bay Co.'s dominions, but ran down into the territory of the United
States, and his Lordship had just as much right to dictate to the citizens of this
country as to the citizens of Canada. At this juncture of affairs the Governor
General of Canada issued his proclamation threatening the peace breakers with
dire punishment, and had the cold comfort of seeing his commands treated by
the fur hunting fighters on both sides with supreme contempt. Commissioners
were then appointed by the Canadian Government to proceed to the Great North-
ern wilderness, investigate the murders and robberies and seize the offenders. This
looked like dangerous business for the Commissioners, and so they put off their mis-
sion to the Spring of 1817; and meantime the war continued with unabated vigor,
men being killed and forts captured on both sides. But all things, even war,
must have an end. The Canadian Courts took judicial notice of the violations of
the law in the wilderness. Some of the partners were arrested in Montreal; and
after ten years of bloody war the subject was worn threadbare in four years'
contention in the Courts, which cost each of the rival contesting fur companies
the sum of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars hard cash. The fur trade
had been ruined, each party got a Scotch verdict and had to compromise in the
end.
This much of the history of these two British Fur Companies operating mostly
on their own side of the national boundary line on the east side of the Rocky
Mountains, is given for the purpose of showing the reader what sort of people,
and what sort of a combination the American settlers of Oregon had to contend
with in coming into this region from 1811 down to 1846, when the title to the
country was finally settled.
There is not much to be added to the history of the fur trade in the Canadian
Northwest beyond what has been said of the two great rivals for a monopoly of
the business. There was another British Company, known as the Mackinaw Com-
pany, which made its headquarters on the Island of Michilimackicac at the con-
fluence of the waters of Lake Superior, Michigan and Huron, and being in fact
upon United States territory. The operations of this company were mostly
within the boundaries of the United States, and before our government had the
disposition or the ability to expel the poachers. And as it is well known that
after the Treaty of Peace that closed the Revolutionary War England persisted
in holding on to a great many military posts along the Great Lakes, and by their
influence over the Indians held back the American settlement and trade for more
than ten years after the Treaty of Peace was signed. And owing to this hostile
course of the British Cabinet, the fur trade on the American side of the boundary
line east of the Rocky Mountains started from St. Louis and under grants and
permits of the Spanish Governor of Louisiana. And under these Spanish fur
traders the business had been extended up the Missouri river hundreds of miles

OF
HES
Die
OLD HUDSON BAY COMPANY'S FORT VANCOUVER1827
IV.
522438
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
101
above St. Louis, and for a considerable distance out on the plains towards the
Rocky Mountains. In the order of time, the only exceptions to these sporadic
efforts to establish the fur trade on American territory was the fur trading ship
ventures from Boston to the Pacific Coast, and the Russian Fur Traders to Alaska.
The fur trade started the American commerce to the Pacific Coast. The fur trade
induced the Russians to cross over from Siberia to Alaska, and establish a colony
at Sitka and extend its operations down the coast as far as Puget Sound to catch
the sea otters—the finest furs the Russians had ever seen up to that date. And
all these elements in the fur trade were in active operation, and every single sailor
and trapper was striving to the utmost limit to obtain every pelt he could get
hold of down to the year President Jefferson purchased Louisiana from the French.
This greatest land deal in the history of the Nation made a new alignment of
fur trading interests, served notice on the British to stay on their own side of the
49th parallel on the east side of the Rocky mountains, and put new life, ambi-
tion and energy into the operations of Astor and all the rest of the American Fur
Traders.
John Jacob Astor, the founder of Astoria, Oregon was the greatest fur trader,
and one of the greatest and best business men America had ever produced.
Measured up by all the standards that go to make a really great and good man in
the ordinary citizen's life in the world of business, Astor stands at the head of
the long line of self-made men for sagacity, energy, comprehension, integrity and
patriotism. Let every American school boy read his record with deep thought
and profound respect. Astor was born in the village of Waldorf near Heide)-
berg, Germany, July 17th, 1763. When sixteen years of age he went to London
and joined an elder brother in the manufacture and sale of musical instruments.
After three years in London he resolved to see if he could not better his for-
tunes by going to America. He sailed from London in 1783 with a small stock
of musical instruments bound for the United States. Being detained at Chesa-
peake Bay en route to Baltimore, he fell in with a dealer in furs who advised
him to go to New York, sell out his musical wares and invest the proceeds in
furs. Astor took up the idea at once, and as soon as possible converted his goods
into a small stock of furs, returned to London with them and sold out to great
advantage. Right there the germ was planted that spread the fame of the young
man over America, founded Astoria, and helped mightily to save Oregon to the
United States. And so clear was his insight to the future, that on this first trip
to London, with his first pack of furs, and when he was only twenty-one years
of age, he said to his brother, that, “When the Canadian frontiers are surrendered
to the United States, I will make my fortune in the fur trade.'' And he did.
On his return from London in 1784, Astor at once engaged in the fur trade to
the Canadian border and out west through Ohio and Indiana to Lake Michigan,
and pushed his opportunities with all his energy. · And such was his foresight
and ability in managing the business that by the year 1800 he had amassed a for-
tune of half a million dollars in sixteen years. By this time both the Montreal
and St. Louis fur traders had come to regard him as a formidable competitor in
the trade. The purchase of Louisiana in 1803 opened up a world of opportuni-
ties for fortunes and fame to those who had the foresight to see them. Astor
beheld the great future of that great territory at a glance. He was more than a
match for any of the statesmen of that period in reading the future. What the
102
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
.
.
extent of the Louisiana purchase was hardly anybody knew. It was Astor's busi-
ness to find out; and he did so. He decided that the entire watershed of the Mis-
souri river was now open to Americans, and closed to the Canadians; and that
very likely the Americans had a good title clear through the continent to the Pa-
cific ocean. If this was the fact then a trading station at the mouth of the Co-
lumbia river would command the fur trade to China. With President Jefferson
he was in perfect accord for years; and when Astor founded Astoria, Jefferson
wrote him a letter from his home at Monticello, November 9, 1813, in which he
says:
“I view it (Astoria) as the germ of a great, free and independent empire on
that side of our continent; and that liberty and self-government spreading from
that as well as this side, will ensure their complete establishment over the whole.
It must be still more gratifying to yourself to foresee that your name will be
handed down with that of Columbus and Raleigh, as the father of the establish-
ment and founder of such an empire. It would be an afflicting thing indeed,
should the English be able to break up the settlement. Their bigotry to the
bastard liberty of their own country, and habitual hostility to every degree of
freedom in any other, will induce the attempt; they would not lose the sale of a
bale of furs for the freedom of the whole world."
And thus, through President Thomas Jefferson, John Jacob Astor and the
fur trade, Old Oregon is connected and brought into relations with the United
States in the year 1812–one hundred years ago—and the history of this country
from that year down to the present is the purpose of this book.
Astor was a dealer in furs, and never sent out trappers or trapping expedi-
tions after the manner of the Canadian companies, or the expeditions of the
French from St. Louis. The establishment at Astoria, if it had not been betrayed
and destroyed by the British, would have engaged in the fur business of sending
its own trappers into the wilderness as well as purchasing furs from the Indians
and independent trappers. But his plans were on a still greater scale than any.
thing ever attempted by any other American. He entered into correspondence
with the Russian government and had arranged all the details of a large business
with the Russian posts and people in Alaska, and through which, if he had not
been driven out by the British warships, he would have built up a great com-
merce and effectively kept the British out of the fur trade on the Pacific coast.
Returning again to Astor's operations on the Atlantic coast, he is found in
1808 endeavoring to form a business alliance of some sort with the independent
fur traders and trappers at St. Louis. A large number of St. Louis venturers
into the boundless west had been making money in the fur trade, the leading man
of whom was Manual Lisa, a Spaniard. The return of Lisa from the Rock
mountains in the summer of 1808 with very flattering reports on fur trading
prospects had induced the leading business men of St. Louis to go into a fur
trading enterprise under the name of the St. Louis, Missouri, Fur Company, but
commonly called the Missouri Fur Company. The partners in the company were
Benjamin Wilkinson, Pierre Chouteau, Sr., Manual Lisa, Augusta Chouteau, Jr.,
Reuben Lewis, William Clark (of the Lewis and Clark expedition), Sylvester
Labadie, all of St. Louis; and Pierre Menard and William Morrison, of Kaskas-
kia, Illinois; Andrew Henry, of Louisiana, Missouri, and Dennis Fitzhugh, of
Louisville, Ky. This company sent its first expedition into the Indian country
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
103
in the spring of 1809, numbering one hundred and fifty men with merchandise
to supply and equip five or six trading posts among the Indians. At first the
party was very successful in catching beaver, and great profits seemed to be en-
sured; but suddenly the Blackfeet Indians swooped down on the unsuspicious
trappers, killed a large number of men and stole all the furs. From this party,
Andrew Henry, who was a partner in the company and one of the leaders of this
expedition, took part of the men, after the expedition had been defeated by the
Indians, and crossed over the Rocky mountains and built Fort Henry on the north
fork of Snake river in 1809, being the first house erected in the territory of old
Oregon. The river was afterwards named the Henry Fork of Snake river. And
thus ended the Missouri Fur Company.
A number of independent fur trading expeditions were afterwards sent out to
the Rocky mountains from St. Louis; but the only parties of any importance to
reach Oregon was the party of Jedediah Smith, an account of which is given in
the chapter on Exploring Expeditions.
When Astor decided to go into the fur trade on the Pacific coast, he looked
around for suitable and capable men to manage such an important expedition.
He had been in the course of his business often at Montreal, was acquainted
with the Northwest Company proprietors, and had formed a high opinion
of their ability as business men; and in looking around for suitable persons to
join him in his venture to the Pacific he made propositions to some of these Mon-
treal Scotchmen that had been fighting the Hudson's Bay Company in the wilder-
ness. To the American reader it will appear quite singular that Astor should
have gone to Montreal for partners rather than to St. Louis, where there were
men of his own citizenship interested in the fur trade and who could never have
been a subject of embarrassment in case of trouble over the title to the fur trad-
ing country. But the explanation is, that Astor was at one time offered an in-
terest in a St. Louis company by a minority interest in its ownership; but that
the majority did not favor an Astor connection for some reason not explained,
and Astor was kept out. The explanation was, that the St. Louis merchants
wanted a Missouri fur company, with its trade and profit all to themselves and
were afraid of the leadership of such an ambitious, broad-minded, energetic man
as Astor.
But no sooner had Astor broached his grand scheme of a fur trading post at
the imouth of the Columbia river to control the trade of the great Columbia val-
ley, and the still greater Pacific coast and China trade, than the Northwest
Company of Montreal took alarm and secretly rushed David Thompson to the
Pacific coast to head off Astor and claim the country for England, as has already
been shown in the account of Thompson's expedition. And while this conduct
of the Montreal Scotchmen might be condoned as justified by their loyalty to the
British king, yet it was anything but honorable among business men. But when
Astor once determined upon a proposition there was no turning back. And when
he decided to establish a post at the mouth of the Columbia river it had to be done.
After a full survey of the fur trading interests, and their leading men, Astor
picked out Donald McKenzie, Duncan McDougal, David Stuart and Robert
Stuart, all of Canada, and all of whom had been more or less connected with the
Northwest Company; and to this coterie of very able men he added Alexander
McKay, who had been with Mackenzie on the first white man's expedition across
101
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
the Rocky mountains in 1793, and invited them into the new company. These
men were undoubtedly selected not only for their knowledge of the fur trade, but
also for their knowledge of all the schemes of the Northwest Company and their
acquaintance with Canadian trappers and hunters. In addition to these men,
Astor took into his new company Ramsay Crooks, formerly in the employ of the
Northwest Company, but then an independent trapper along the upper Missouri
river. Also Joseph Miller, of Baltimore, formerly an officer, but since engaged
in the fur trade; Robert McLellan, a fearless, energetic man with large experi-
ence in handling and fighting Indians; and lastly, his most important and faith-
ful man, Wilson Price Hunt, of New Jersey. Forty Canadian boatmen and
hunters were engaged, together with, as foremen, John Day, a Virginia back-
woodsman, John Colter, who had been over to Oregon with Lewis and Clark,
and Pierre Dorion, son of Lewis and Clark's interpreter; and with this mate-
rial the new Astor company was formally organized on June 23, 1810, and named
the Pacific Fur Company. It must be said, as any judge of human nature might
foresee, that Astor had risked a most dangerous experiment in taking into his
confidence and business control of his affairs a lot of misfits from his rivals in
business. It could hardly be otherwise but that former associations, diverse na-
tionality and clannish prejudices would lead to want of confidence and secret,
if not open treachery, whenever the temptation offered.
Astor had planned well to succeed if not betrayed or destroyed by superior
power. He organized two parties; one to proceed overland from St. Louis to the
mouth of the Columbia river, and the other to sail by the ocean around Cape Horn
in a well-provisioned ship. The rendezvous of the land party under the com-
mand of Wilson Price Hunt, was on the Missouri river in the autumn of 1810;
and all the trials and sufferings of that party to reach Oregon in 1811 have been
related in Hunt's expedition to Oregon in the chapter on Overland Expeditions.
For the ocean expedition, the Tonquin, a ship of two hundred and ninety tons
burden, Jonathan Thorn, commander, was provided with all necessary supplies,
tools, merchandise, guns, ammunition and equipment of every sort to establish
an armed fort and trading post in the Oregon wilderness. Thorn was a lieuten-
ant in the United States navy and was allowed to go on this expedition on leave
of absence, to favor Astor and help make a success of the great undertaking.
The Tonquin sailed for the Columbia river on the 8th day of September, 1810,
with a crew of twenty-one men and thirty-three passengers, all connected with
the Pacific Fur Company. And after an uneventful voyage of six months and
two weeks arrived off the mouth of the Columbia in a storm on March 22, 1811.
Capt. Thorn had made himself very disagreeable to his passengers and crew, and
now exhibited his real character as a heartless wretch and unmitigated brute.
He had taken a dislike to his first mate, Fox, and instead of standing out to sea
until the storm abated he ordered Fox to take a crew of inexperienced Kanakas
and an old leaky boat and make soundings of the Columbia bar. Feeling that
his life was being placed in jeopardy out of spite, Fox appealed to the captain
to give him sailors and a chance to save his life. This the captain refused. Fox
then appealed to the passengers, and they remonstrated with the captain upon
the danger of sending the men on to such a dangerous bar, but all to no purpose;
Fox and the poor Kanakas took the boat, headed for the bar, were soon lost to
sight and never heard of again. Within the next two days two other boats were

DR. JOHN MCLOUGHLIN
By many called the "Father of Oregon”; was Hudson Bay Company
Governor of Oregon for nineteen years, occupying Astoria under the
name of Fort George from 1824 to 1830
UNIO
OF
sic
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
105
sent out to sound the entrance, and two more white men were lost. Finally the
ship itself tried the bar, and as if by a miracle the Tonquin drifted in over the
Columbia bar and into Baker's bay on the 24th of March, 1811. Here the live
stock which had been purchased at the Sandwich Islands, was landed and con-
fined in pens of poles, and from this point an exploring party was sent out to find
and select a point to build a fort. This exploring party was composed of Captain
Thorn, Alexander McKay, David Stuart, three clerks and members of the crew
well armed, provisioned and manned for the occasion to fight if necessary. Five
days were occupied in examining the north bank of the river, when the party re-
turned to the ship without agreeing on a location. McDougal and Stuart deter-
mined to try the south bank, although Captain Thorn bitterly objected, saying
that it was nothing but a sporting excursion and he would land all the goods
right where they were on the south bank unless they returned in two days. Mc-
Dougal and Stuart encountered a heavy squall on the river, their boat was upset
and they were saved from drowning only by the timely succor of the Chinook
Indians who came to their rescue in canoes. But they finally agreed upon a
point for the fort, Point George, and on which the fort was built, which is now
the city of Astoria. To Duncan McDougal and David Stuart is the honor due
for founding the city of Astoria. And on the 12th day of April, 1811, twelve
men of the Tonquin Astor party landed on Point George with tools and provisions
and began the erection of the fort, a picture of which is given on another page.
Trading, fort building and ship building now commenced in earnest. The
Chinook Indians, under the chieftaincy of Concomly, were friendly and lent the
white men what assistance they could and supplied them with fish and game.
For this the white men were grateful, and especially McDougal, who in a few
weeks took a wife, a comely daughter of the hospitable chief, Concomly.
Turning now to the ship Tonquin that carried the adventuresome party around
the world and founded American civilization at the mouth of the great Columbia,
it is to be regretted that either damned by the evil eye and splenetic temper of
Commander Thorn, or doomed by the irony of fate, the ship sailed out of the
Columbia and north to Clayoquot on Nootka sound on the west coast of Vancouver
island, and here put in for trade with the Indians. Astor warned Thorn: before
he sailed from New York to beware of the Indians at this place, saying, "All
accidents which have as yet happened there arose out of too much confidence in
the Indians.'' The interpreter also warned Thorn, but all to no purpose. The
Indians came on board the ship with furs to trade in great numbers, unrestrained
by the precautions enforced by other ship masters of allowing only a few Indians
at one time on the ship. And Thorn being unable to trade with them on his own
terins, quarreled with them and drove them off the ship in anger, striking a chief
in the face with his own furs. This started the trouble. The next day the In-
dians came back in still greater numbers and with more furs, conducting them-
selves in most peaceable style. They would trade one roll of furs but keep back
another which they would not part with. They crowded the deck of the ship
fore and aft. Finally, to get rid of them, and now alarmed himself, Thorn or-
dered the sails unfurled and the anchor raised; then ordered the Indians to leave
the ship. Each Indian arose, picked up his roll of furs, thrust his hand within
it, and upon a prearranged signal out came knife and club, and with a demoniac
yell they fell upon the few white men-captain and crew-and killed every man
106
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
that could be reached in a few minutes. The five men who had been ordered into
the rigging to unfurl the sails, seeing the slaughter droppeì through the steerage
hatchway, one being stabbed to death as he dropped down; the other four closed
the hatches over their heads, then broke through into the cabin, seized fire arms
and attacked the Indians who fled from the ship in dismay. The next day the
four men took a ship’s boat and put out to sea and were never heard from after-
wards. Now all the men were dead or gone in this boat with the possible excep-
tion of James Lewis, who was supposed to have been the first man killed, but
who fell into the hold of the ship and might not have then died. At all events,
the Indians believed that all were gone or dead; and from the report of the in-
terpreter whom the squaws hid and protected when he jumped over the side of
the ship when the carnage commenced, and which report he made to Franchere
two years after, the Indians approached the ship next day with great caution,
sailing round and round to see if any man was alive; and finally encouraged by
increasing numbers they swarmed over the boat side until there were five hun-
dred Indians aboard. Then without premonition, with a terrible explosion the
ship blew all to pieces and two hundred Indians were killed and drowned in-
stantly. The powder magazine had been reached by fire in some way, and whether
it was the wounded man Lewis, having no hopes of his own life, and knowing he
would surely be killed if found alive, or whether it was spontaneous combustion
that fired the magazine will never be known.
Returning again to Astoria, and while the building of the fort was in progress,
faint rumors were carried in by the Indians that a company of white men were
building a fort far up the Columbia at a great waterfall. It was decided to find
out the truth of this story; but before a party could be spared to go up the river
any great distance, two strange Indians were brought to the fort by Concomly's
men, whose dress was that of the Indians on the east side of the Rocky mountains.
They said they had been sent to carry a letter from Finnan McDonald, a clerk
of the Northwest Company at a fort on the Spokane river, to John Stuart in New
Caledonia, and losing their way, and hearing from other Indians of the white men
at Astoria had come there thinking that was the place to go to. This gave the
Northwest Company away. They had rushed their men over into old Oregon
to forestall Astor. This was discouraging news to the Astor men, for they had
but slight resources to found their new posts in the interior. But they resolved
to accept the challenge, hold the country, and plant post for post alongside the
Northwesters as long as their means would hold out. David Stuart was selected
with men and Indians to start for the interior on July 15, 1811. But about noon
of that day, while loading their canoes to start, a large canoe with eight white
men flying the British flag swept around Tongue Point and made straight for
Astoria. The Astorians were thunderstruck; here was war and rumors of war.
As the canoe touched the little wharf a distinguished gentleman stepped ashore
and announced himself as David Thompson. He was politely received and hos .
pitably entertained, but distinctly informed that he could not raise his flag at
Astoria, for this was American territory. Thompson freely explained how he
had, with a large party, been rushed to the Rocky mountains, with instructions to
come over the mountains and down to the mouth of the Columbia and take pos-
session of the country; but having been snowed in at the mountains had failed to
get through to the mouth of the Columbia in 1810. How little things change the
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
107
A
course of empire! Had Thompson got through in 1810, Great Britain would
have made war on the United States before giving up the mouth of the Columbia
river.
But notwithstanding this threatened opposition from the Northwest Com-
pany, it was decided that Stuart with his party should go up the Columbia and
establish trading posts the same as if Thompson had made no appearance. And
accordingly on the 23d of July, 1811, David Stuart, with four clerks-Pellet,
Ross, Montigny and McLellan, with four boatmen, sailed out of the port of Astoria
and up the Columbia accompanied by Thompson and his crew, all in their light
canoes and under sail, making a party of thirteen men, with Indian goods, pro-
visions, arms and canoes, and being the first small germ of the present vast com-
merce on the great Columbia river. Stuart and Thompson kept company with
each other until they passed the Dalles, when Stuart dropped behind Thompson
and proceeded more leisurely that he might more carefully examine the country.
Proceeding up the Columbia to the mouth of what the Indians called the Okano-
gan river, Stuart here stopped and built a fort out of drift wood logs gathered
out of the river, and as a commencement erected a log house sixteen by twenty
feet in size, and here stored his goods. From this point he sent back Pellet and
McLellan to Astoria; and taking Montigny and two boatmen made a winter expe-
dition to the north, leaving Alexander Ross entirely alone to spend the winter by
himself as best he could. Here is courage and heroic character for history. Ross
lived alone for 188 days and traded with the Indians that winter until his stock
of goods was exhausted; and the net gain of his trading was 1,550 beaver skins
worth in China $11,250.00 and costing his company only $165.00 in Indian goods.
This was the first expedition of white men into the Okanogan country. The As-
torians were by no means idle; for the sum of their explorations in their first year
in Oregon amounted to over ten thousand miles of travel. But their very activi-
ties incurred opposition. The Chinooks that had been so friendly fell away and
tired of the novelty; and besides that they disliked to hunt beaver and otter and
give their skins for goods that it seemed they might take by force. So they con-
cocted a plan to murder all the Astorians and take their goods. Indians had
come over from Nootka and told about killing all the white men. McDougall's
royal father-in-law, Concomly, absented'himself from the fort; all the Indians dis-
appeared in the forests; no beaver were brought in and no fish were caught.
There was a Judas in the Indian camp, and for a red shirt he gave the grand
scheme away. The white men strengthened their defenses and mounted their
cannons, and kept guards on watch at night. But to put an end to the uprising
McDougal devised a stratagem. He sent word to the Indians that he had a great
secret to tell them, something nobody knew of, and it was for their benefit alone.
He knew the mortal terror the Indians had of the small-pox, and resolved to
make the most of it. The Indians came by their chiefs and were admitted to the
grand council chamber, Here McDougal craftily let out the secret which they
had been concocting to kill the white men, saying: “White men read the stars,
and hear the news in the winds, and it is dangerous to think though the white
men are few they can be easily killed. And although Indians killed twenty white
men at Nootka, dead white man blew up the ship and killed two hundred In-
dians. Then taking it from the interior of his vest with great ceremony he exhib-
ited a little bottle saying with a shudder: “You have all heard of the awful
108
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
small-pox. Listen to me now; I am the Small-pox Chief. I have the small-pox
here in this bottle. If I should pull out this cork, and send it forth among you,
you would all be dead men in a minute. But this is for my enemies and not for
my friends." The trick was a charm. The Indians begged that the cork be not
pulled; the threatened attack on the fort was not made, and beaver pelts came in
the next day in vast quantities.
And now is reached the last chapter in Astor's ill-fated venture to Astoria.
After planting trading posts at many available points in the interior and doing
a large and profitable business with the Indians for two years throughout much
of the territory of the present states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho, together
with a large trade with the Russians in Alaska, Astor's partners and managers
in Oregon were compelled to take the alternative to fight, fly or sell out to their
rival, the Northwest Company. The first overture came from John George
McTavish, who came down the Columbia river flying the British flag on April 11,
1813. War had already been declared by the Congress of the United States on
June 17, 1812, and several battles had been fought. The representatives of the
Northwest Company in Oregon had been promptly notified by express runner
from Canada, which information had been by them passed on to the Astorians.
It was impossible for Astor to send his company in Oregon any relief, and Hunt
and the other partners were compelled to act wholly on their own responsibility.
There can be no doubt that the Northwest Company were quite ready to drive
a hard bargain not only to get rid of the Astor competition in Oregon, but also get
the Astoria stock of furs at a big profit. But they had also to take their chances
in the game so far as getting the furs were concerned. The British government
had set afloat a fleet of privateers to prey on American commerce, and the cap-
ture of Astoria would have made a British privateer sea captain a very rich man.
Privateers were already on their way to the mouth of the Columbia river to seize
Astoria; and McTavish of the Northwest Company was aware of the fact. The
Astorians could not. stand out against a war vessel and must surrender if one
came; or they must ship all their goods away to the interior, hide and take the
chances of the Indians, led by white men, massacring their whole party to get
the rich plunder. The Scotchmen of the Northwest Company being subjects of
Great Britain, the British privateer could not take their property. So that the
Northwest Company was put to the test of making such an offer to the Astorians
as they would accept quickly, or see a British privateer capture the post and get
the Astoria plunder for nothing. Nothing worries the real genuine Scotch trader
so much as to have a chance to make a profit and then see another step in and
take it. Every time he will take a small profit on a sure thing rather than run
the risk of gaining a large profit on a gamble. The British war vessels may come
at any time; the chances are all in favor of their coming; if they do come they
will take everything as their lawful prize. These considerations laid heavy on
the hearts of the men on both sides of the bargain counter. Finally they agreed, ,
and the whole stock of goods, furs and equipment at Astoria, and at all interior
points belonging to the Pacific Fur Company was sold to the Northwest Com-
pany on October 16, 1813, for actual cost and ten per cent advance thereon. The
sale amounted to $80,500.00 and the Astor people got drafts on Canada for their
money. The Astor Company lost nothing but the profits on its furs, and the
breaking up of their business, but that was probably worth a million dollars.

OF
ra
6
HUDSON BAY COMPANY FORT, AND VILLAGE OF VANCOUVER-1854
Z
IV.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
109
This loss was not chargeable to the competing company, but to the war for which
the company was not responsible. The canny Scotchmen of the Northwest Com-
pany made a profit of about sixty thousand dollars on the purchase besides get-
ting rid of a competitor; and it can be easily imagined how they cracked their
dry jokes in every post from Astoria to Montreal as they quaffed the real old
Scotch whiskey and related how they got in ahead of the British privateer and
beat him out of a snug fortune. The British privateer, Raccoon, entered the Co-
lumbia river on the 29th of November, forty-three days after the sale to the
Scotchmen, but found not a rag of American property to seize, but contented
himself by running up the British flag over Fort Astoria.
When the American flag was hauled down at Astoria on December 12, 1813,
the name of the place was changed to Fort George, and John McDonald, a senior
partner in the Northwest Company, and who came in on the British privateer
as a passenger, was made governor of the post. He also at the same time as-
sumed general control of the affairs of the Northwest Company west of the Rocky
mountains. Governor McDonald did not approve of the location at Fort George,
and after making a survey of the river on both sides, decided to build a fort on
Tongue Point above Astoria, and immediately commenced work thereon, Gov-
ernor McDonald declaring that this Tongue Point should be made the Gibraltar
of the Pacific coast—a pointer which the Astorians of 1912 should keep in mind.
The governor proposed a great many other reforms in matters on the Columbia
river a hundred years ago; but not being approved by his company he returned
to Canada in the Spring of 1814. The whole country west of the Rocky moun-
tains from the California line up to Alaska was now, so far as the fur trade was
concerned, under the control of the Northwest Company of Canada, and so re-
mained until it was amalgamated with the Hudson's Bay Company on March 26,
1821. At that date an agreement of partnership was entered into between these
rival British companies whereby they should share equally the profits of the fur
trade in Oregon for twenty-one years, beginning with the combined capitals and
outfits of both companies then in hand in 1821. Each company was to furnish an
additional equal amount of capital, and profits were to be divided equally. Upon
this basis each company contributed one million dollars to the capital stock; and
all profits over ten per cent. annual dividends on the stock were to be added to the
capital until it should amount to two and a half million dollars. This capital was
divided into one hundred shares, forty of which were held by the chief factors
and traders, and the balance by shareholders in Canada and England. This com-
bination being consummated, the king of England by royal patent, dated Decem-
ber 21, 1821, granted to the united companies exclusive trade with the Indians
of North America according to the provisions of the Act of Parliament of July
2, 1821, which provides for and authorized this monopoly. And in addition to
this monopoly of trade, the agents of the company were commissioned as justices
of the peace, with the jurisdiction of the courts of upper Canada extended from
the head of Lake Superior to the Pacific ocean; and whereby every British sub-
ject west of the Rocky mountains was guaranteed the protection of the British
laws. As the boundary line between the United States and Great Britain had not
then been settled, the British officers under the above Parliamentary grant
claimed the rights to rule the country from the California line clear up to Alaska.
And under this law and authority Dr. John McLoughlin came to Oregon in 1824
110
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
as chief factor and governor of this Old Oregon country for and on behalf of the
Hudson's Bay Company. Under this royal grant the Hudson's Bay Company as-
sumed the control and monopoly of the fur trade in Oregon, and held it until
ousted by the treaty of 1846 which settled the boundary line. There were a few
independent trappers like Jedediah Smith, but they amounted to nothing, and
had to sell their furs to the Hudson's Bay Company.
This history of the fur trade, commencing in Canada and working across the
continent to the Pacific ocean, is thus given in detail of dates and acts of the
British government to show how securely and carefully the subjects and officials
of the king of England had proceeded to get and hold possession of this country
under the forms of law. Secretly, stealthily, cautiously, they proceeded year
by year, post by post, fort by fort, to occupy, surround, fortifiy, claim, nail up
and batter down every avenue of possible access to the country, so that no Ameri-
can citizen dare enter therein save at the risk of starvation or a violent death.
The only mistake they made was in the selection of a broad-minded, humane man
(John McLoughlin) to enforce their royal decrees. And when the tremendous
odds against them is considered, the heroic examples of Jason Lee, Marcus Whit-
man, Robert Newell, Joe Meek, W. H. Gray, Medorem Crawford, Le Breton and
the fifty-two immortals at Champoeg, in bearding the British lion in his Oregon
den, and successfully organizing an American government in the face of this
gigantic power, their acts and success seems to be more like the supernatural and
miraculous than sober history.
It remains, and deserves to be considered, what, if any, services the fur com-
panies have rendered to civilization and progress. The first and most patent
influence observable in the great Northwest which is traceable to the fur traders,
was their influence on the native races. There was some, but not a characteristic
greater difference between the Indians of the great valley of the St. Lawrence
reaching as it does far north of Lake Superior, and the Indians of the British and
Spanish colonial settlements of the present United States. Fur trading com-
menced in one section about as early as in the other. Furs were in fact about the
first thing that the hard-pressed colonists in America could sell for money. But
mark the difference which history must record in the management of the Indian
in these two great rival regions of North America. The French in the valley of
the St. Lawrence recognized the Indian as a man, not exactly their equal, but
worthy of and deserving humane consideration. And, although the French
woman would not marry an Indian, the French man would not hesitate to take
the Indian woman for a wife when a woman of his own race was not available.
And this practice of miscegenation of the French and Indian blood, commencing
at the first white settlement on the St. Lawrence, was carried far north over
upper Canada, west over the great valleys of Red river and the Saskatchewan,
over the Rocky mountains and into Oregon. And whether this proclivity of the
bourgeois Frenchman to intermarry with the native Indian can be ascribed to the
teachings of the early Catholic priests, to the necessities of the situation in a new
and unpopulated country, or to the selfish interests of his employer matter but
little in this review, the great fact stands out clear and incontrovertable that
it was the French voyageur and trapper—the husband of and with his squaw-
that traversed the wilderness in safety, that made and kept the peace between
the native savage and the fur-hunting trader, and who explored the vast areas
In the
an
anlabala
no
Kinlay
bluch an
of
my own
Alex? Octuarson
Aukid.Soonaca
مه
1
thony
were of the souderzaubithago
the same
the Houth Handsome Bay Company hate of
Scotland and
Columbia Reun do noluntainly
wall and anondtah. Sarah Julien og goes
Peki Leren Ozelene
langthen
lausul
the said Seat Jaha gelen
Zaha Oglen also wanting
mill and
e auhibe
wttila
As a my lausua
looks mittunter
to benean botambia Thin et
bedankie Mhin TurahTulia Gyden
hun
I
hloughin
é ho ho
ud
acent tahes
Lan
སྨན་
au
crea
Hurband
184 or
In
Pam
m.
E
رہ
• THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
111
of plains, forest and mountains and brought to the knowledge of civilized men
the wealth of a continent. It was the fur trade that produced this combination of
instinctive intelligences, and that used the same to promote its own selfish pur-
poses of gain, and which indirectly opened the whole of Northwest America to
the light and development of American civilization.
Now mark the difference. Fur trading was not yet confined to Canada aud
the British American possessions west thereof. There were fur traders from the
earliest times, trading with the Indians from Plymouth Rock, Hudson river,
Jamestown, St. Louis, and on west to the Rocky mountains. But these were men
of a different blood and lineage. The Puritan, the Hollander, the Cavalier and
the Spaniard could preach and pray the gospel of salvation to red, black and
white man alike; but marry an Indian squaw; never! The Indian was not the
native fool the conquering races took him to be. He was not slow to see that the
lordly superiority affected by the men of New England and the Ohio valley was
in world-wide contrast to the free and easy manners the Frenchman extended to
him on the St. Lawrence. The Englishman and the Spaniard made the Indian
feel that “between me and thee'' there is a great gulf fixed. So it was a fight
with the Indian on the south side of the Great Lakes from the beginning; while
peace and trade flourished on the north side of those inland seas. The same feel-
ing of ill-suppressed hatred for each other was carried west and over the Rocky
mountains into Oregon. The English, Americans and Spaniards had continual
wars with the Indians, while the Canadian, French and Scotch worked them for
all they were worth and could produce in the fur trade and had no wars at all.
Indian wars have cost the United States people thousands upon thousands of
lives, five hundred million dollars, and a century of dishonor. Trouble with the
Indians never cost the Canadians a thousand dollars, and scarcely a life.
That the fur trade has been a civilizer on the North American continent, can-
not be denied. While it carried fire-arms, and intoxicating liquors, and the
knowledge of these death-dealing instrumentalities to a benighted, simple-minded
and barbarian race, it carried also the knowledge of the power and superiority of
trade, education and religion over ignorance and barbarism.
And although the furry skins of wild animals were never an indispensable ne-
cessity to civilized man in four-fifths of the earth's inhabited area, yet the idea
that dress or trappings of fine furs were the distinguishing marks of wealth and
pobility, made a market for these coats of the wild animals roaming in distant and
almost impenetrable forests. The vanity of pride and position on one side, and
the love of gain upon the other, sent the trapper into far distant wilds, over
frowning cliffs and rock-ribbed mountains, traversing lonely marshes and pad-
dling his canoe upon torrential streams, even unto-
"The continuous woods, where rolls the Oregon,
And hears no sound, save its own dashings."
That the pride and vanity of the rich might be gratified on one side to the
gain of the trader and the subsistence of the trapper on the other side. And by
all this strife, labor and worry new lands were discovered, settlements made pos-
112
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
sible, commerce developed, schools and churches established, and what is called
civilization evolved.
It may be stated substantially as the truth of history, that otter skins and
beaver pelts opened Oregon to civilization, while the discovery of gold performed
a like service for California.
CHAPTER V
1834-1845
THE ERA OF EVANGELISM THE AGITATION OF HALL J. KELLEY—THE QUEST OF THE
FLATHEADS FOR THE “BOOK OF HEAVEN' THE COMING OF JASON LEE-THE
MARCUS WHITMAN PARTY- THE CATHOLIC MISSIONARIES--DE SMET, THE GREAT
APOSTLE TO THE INDIANS, ANSWERS THE CALL OF THE FLATHEADS—THE RIVAL-
RIES AND WORKS OF THESE MEN-THEIR SERVICES TO OREGON AND THE NATION.
It is now seventy-eight years since Jason and Daniel Lee (Methodists), the
first Christian missionaries to Oregon, entered the Oregon country to carry out
their unselfish work of Christianizing the native Indians. The Lees were fol-
lowed by Rev. Samuel Parker (Congregationalist) in 1835; by Dr. Marcus Whit-
man and wife, H. H. Spalding and wife, and W. H. Gray (all Presbyterians) in
1836; Rev. David Leslie and wife (Methodists) in 1837; Rev. Elkanah Walker
and wife and Cushing Eells and wife (Congregationalists) in 1838; Rev. Francis
Norbert Blanchet, vicar-general, and Rev. Modeste Demers (Catholic priests) in
1838; and Peter John De Smet in 1840. These were the pioneer missionaries.
Others came after them. The Methodists were specially active, the Methodist
general missionary board in the eastern states sending out in 1840 the ship
Lausanne, with a large and well equipped force, consisting of Rev. J. H. Frost
and wife; Rev. Gustavus Hines and wife; Rev. W. H. Kone and wife; Rev. A.
F. Waller and wife; Rev. J. P. Richmond, M. D., and wife; Dr. I. L. Babcock,
physician, and wife; George Abernethy (missionary steward) and wife; W. W.
Raymond (farmer) and wife; L. H. Judson, cabinet maker, and wife; J. L.
Parrish (blacksmith) and wife; James Olley (carpenter) and wife; Hamilton
Campbell (carpenter) and wife; Miss C. A. Clark, teacher; Miss Elmira Phelps,
teacher; Miss Orpha Lankton, stewardess; Miss A. Phillips, Thomas Adams, an
Indian boy and seventeen little children. Along with this company of preachers,
teachers, artisans and farmers were sent machinery for the erection of flouring
mills, saw mills and all necessary implements for agriculture and house building
in a new country, together with a large stock of miscellaneous merchandise.
Of this missionary expedition the Catholic bishop of Oregon, who was here
when the ship arrived, is said to have remarked: "No missionaries were ever
dispatched to represent the various sects in any land under more favorable
auspices than were the ladies and gentlemen of the Methodist Episcopal church
in the wilds of Oregon.” The total expense of the expedition cost the Metho-
dist missionary board in New York the sum of $42,000; and the good ship
sailed twenty thousand miles--nearly around the globe-to land its unexampled
cargo at its appointed destination. Nothing. equal to it was ever witnessed
before or since in the history of missions by any church. It is a fair illustration
to say that the Lausanne was to the Pacific coast in 1840 what the Mayflower
was to the Atlantic coast in 1620.
Vol. I--S
113
114
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
It is an interesting proposition to review the elementary facts and influences
which set on foot and on the high seas these expeditions to Oregon in the name
and for the propagation of the Christian religion. The history of the church
presents many remarkable examples of the lofty self-sacrifice of great men in
both the Catholic and Protestant divisions of its membership from the time of
Paul, the greatest of them all, down to this expedition to the wilderness of Oregon
seventy-two years ago. But with these Oregon missionary expeditions, either
by land or sea, no others can be compared. Paul did not go to preach to the bar-
barians of Scythia; to heathen in the wilderness two thousand miles distant from
the men of his own blood and education, but to men of education like himself.
The Puritans did not come to America to convert the heathen, but to get away
from their persecutors in another branch of the church. And they had not been
in America one year until Capt. Miles Standish was purging the evil from the
unappreciative red skins in a most irreverent manner. So much so that the good
pastor of the flock at Leyden on hearing of the slaughter of the Indians, wrote
the militant captain a letter in which he expressed the pious wish: “Oh how
happy a thing had it been, had you converted some, before you killed any."
We cannot for a moment compare the trials of the Oregon missionaries with
the awful persecution the Christians were subjected to in Rome when they were
enslaved and cast to the lions in circus arena to make a holiday for the worse
than barbarian savages; but when we consider the courage, toil, dangers and
sacrifices, such heroines as the wives of Whitman, Spalding, Leslie, Walker and
Eells were compelled to endure in riding horseback through an Indian country
over mountains, plains and desert for two thousand miles to make their homes
among savage tribes in a wilderness to teach the gospel and show the untutored
heathen a better way, plant the light of Christianity on the Pacific coast, and
lay the foundations for great states, when all this is taken into account, a far
greater feat of sacrifice and heroism, than the Lausanne voyage—where else in all
the wide world can anything equal to it be found.
It is something for an Oregonian to be proud of, especially an Oregonian who
takes an interest in the history of his state, that no matter what strife and bick-
erings the missionaries had between Protestant and Catholic, there is no instance
where either side did not as occasion offered, always act the part of the Good
Samaritan to the native red man. And it is furthermore something for every
citizen to remember with just pride in his state, that in every stage and phase
of its existence from the date of an organized society, Oregon has led the proces-
sion in the unique, the original and the progressive in missions, education, poli-
tics and state building.
How were these wonderful movements by land and sea to plant Christianity
on the Oregon country brought about? What was the exciting cause? Why
should these noble men and women, willing to sacrifice life and everything dear
to mankind go to far distant Oregon:
"And pierce the Barcan Wilderness"
to plant the banner of the cross! Why pass the tribes between the Missouri and
the Rocky mountains and go a thousand miles beyond the Blackfeet rascals that
needed Christianizing worse than any other equal number of murdering robbers
on the face of the earth? It is the duty of the historian to find out, if possible,
what was the moving cause.

Left Hand—ALEXANDER MACKENZIE, Copied from his book of travels
Right Hand-REV. WILBUR FISK, President of Wesleyan University

A GREAT PROCLAMATION
Who will respond to the call from beyond the Rocky Mountains ?
We are for having a mission established there at once. Let two suitable men, possessing
the spirit of the martyrs, throw themselves into the Flathead nation, live with them, learn
their language, and preach Christ to them. Money shall be forthcoming. I will be bondsman
for the Church. All we want is men. Who will go ?
WILBUR FISK.
Wesleyan University, March 9, 1833
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
115
Before action there must be knowledge. *Energy without understanding is
a waste of vital effort. A thousand million dollars has been expended by Chris-
tian men and women to enlighten and Christianize the people of Asia and Af-
rica, the most of which has been wasted for want of proper understanding. And
it is one of the forgivable weaknesses of mankind that he acts more from im-
pulse than reason. But enlightened by knowledge, it is the noblest praise of
fellowman that he will give his life for his country, or risk it for his fellowman
even a barbarian.
There were two moving influences or causes which set in motion the great
scheme of planting the gospel in the hearts of the Oregon Indians. The first
was a purely colonizing business proposition; but it furnished the knowledge on
which sentiment could found action. The second was an appeal for light which
far exceeded the Macedonian cry, "Come over and help us." It caught the
attention of Christian men and women as nothing had ever done before. It ex-
cited their imagination, aroused the dormant sympathies of their hearts and
inspired them to the most noble deeds of self-sacrifice the world has ever beheld.
The chief character in the first of these moving influences was Hall Jackson
Kelley, who was born at Orono, Maine, February 24, 1790. At the age of
sixteen he left the public schools and taught school for a time at Hallowell, Me.
He attended college at Middlebury, Vermont, and was given the degree of
A. M. in 1814, and by Haryard College in 1820. As early as 1817 he became
interested in the Oregon country from reading of the expeditions of Lewis and
Clark, Wilson Price Hunt and the founding of Astoria, and conceived the idea
of himself leading a colony for the exploration and settlement of Oregon.
And so fully and completely had this idea taken possession of all his thoughts
and ambition that he commenced writing and publishing letters to newspapers,
circulars, pamphlets and maps about Oregon and kept up the agitation of his Ore-
gon scheme in the New England states for sixteen years, when he started to Ore-
gon alone. A list of all of Kelley's printed publications about Oregon would
fill a page in this book. Some of the Oregon historians have been disposed to
belittle Kelley's work for Oregon; but they only expose their own want of knowl-
edge of the subject. The following indisputable evidence copied from the his-
tory of Palmer, Mass., where Kelley is buried, establishes the claim of Hall J.
Kelley to have been one of the prime movers of the missionary expeditions to
Oregon.
Boston, January 30, 1843.
"In the year 1831 I was editor of Zion's Herald, a religious paper sustaining
the faith of the Methodist Episcopal church. In the above year I published for
Hall J. Kelley a series of letters addressed to a member of Congress, developing
his plans for the settlement of the Oregon territory. At other times Mr. Kelley
made appeals through our paper, with a view to excite the minds of the Christian
community to the importance of founding religious institutions in that territory.
He was one of the first explorers of that region, and to his zeal and efforts is
largely due the establishment of missionary operations in that country.
“WM. C. BROWN.”
116
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Rev. David Greene, secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for
Foreign Missions,* bears similar testimony, and says:
"The welfare and improvement of the Indians of the territory (Oregon)
and the introduction there of the blessings of civilization and the useful arts,
with education and Christian knowledge, seemed to be his (Kelley's) leading
object. Much of the early interest felt in the Oregon country by New England
people was probably the result of Mr. Kelley's labors."
Here is the testimony of two men holding very important positions in the
church, one the secretary of the great missionary board, and the other editor of
the then leading Methodist journal of the United States, both of whom personally
knew Hall Kelley, and knew his work, and both certify to his good work done
three years before the first missionary started for Oregon. And yet there is
not a church history or a church document that has ever been printed that had
the justice to give Kelley what was due to him.
The second cause or influence that started the great missionary movement
to Oregon was purely sentimental, appealing powerfully to the imagination, and
to that religion the first and greatest element of which is self-sacrifice. In the
year 1831 the Flathead Indians living far up the watershed of Snake river, to-
gether with the Nez Perces, living on the Clearwater branch of the same river,
united in sending a commission of four Indians to St. Louis in search for "The
Book of Heaven," as it has passed into history. That is very likely to have been
the language the Indians used in seeking the object of their mission. General
Clark, of the Lewis and Clark expedition, had passed through the country of
both these tribes in both coming to and returning from Oregon, and had been
by them treated with all the kindness and assistance the Indians could render.
Clark was still alive and was then superintendent of Indian affairs west of the
Missouri river. Very naturally thiese Indians would go first to the man whose
acquaintance they had made, and whose friendship they had secured in their
own country. They found General Clark and explained to him their mission.
Clark was a Christian man, a member of the Catholic church, and fully sympa-
thized with the object and aspirations of those four Indians. It was one of the
most remarkable events in all history. Think of it! Native tribes of people
*Note.--The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, the foreign mis-
sionary society of the Congregational Churches of the United States, was organized at
Andover, Mass., in 1810, as a result of the efforts of a dozen young men-students of Wil-
liams College-led by Samuel J. Mills. The American Board was supported by the
Congregational Churches of the country until 1826, when the United Foreign Missionary
Society, in which the Presbyterian and Dutch Reformed churches had been co-operating,
was merged with the Board. The union of forces worked well until 1837 when the “old
School" Presbyterians withdrew from the American Board, and were followed by other
branches of the Presbyterian Church in 1839. The "New School” Presbyterian and Dutch
Reformed churches withdrew their support of the American Board about 1846. This note
is compiled from the "Story of the American Board during its First Hundred Years."
The names of the missionaries of the Board sent to Oregon were as follows: 1835—Rev.
Samuel Parker and Marcus Whitman, M. D. 1836–Dr. Marcus Whitman and wife, Rev.
Henry H. Spalding and wife, and William H. Gray, assistant missionary, often spoken of
as “secular agent.” 1838-Rev. Cushing Eells and wife, Rev. Elkanah Walker and wife,
Rev. A. B. Smith and wife, William H. Gray and wife (Mr. Gray, referred to as assistant
missionary, returned to New York in 1837, was married to Miss Mary A. Dix in Utica,
N. Y., in Tebruary, 1838, and returned to their work that year. Mr. Smith and wife were
sent to Sandwich Islands in 1841, and Mr. and Mrs. Gray were dismissed from the American
Board Mission in the spring of 1843.) With the massacre of Dr. Whitman, his wife and
twelve others on November 29-30, 1847, the work of the American Board ended in Oregon,
so far as its original plan was concerned.

Archbishop Blanchet, First Catholic
Bishop West of the Rocky Moun-
tains North of Old Mexico
Rev. Jason Lee, Methodist, and First Thomas Fielding Scott, First Protes-
Protestant Missionary and Preacher tant Episcopal Bishop of Oregon,
on the Pacific Coast, West of
Washington and Idaho
the Rocky Mountains
N
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
117
+
considered savages and barbarians sending out a commission of their members
who must travel three thousand miles through a wilderness and through the
country of their enemies, the Blackfeet, to complete their mission. Sitting in
the darkness of Paganism, these children of the forest send out their messen-
gers to seek the light and truth of Christianity. What a commentary on the
uninspired and lifeless professions of Christianity that expended millions to
confound the doctrines of Confucius and Buddha, and gave not a thought to
"Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutored mind
Sees God in Clouds, or hears him in the Wind.''
General Clark himself explained to the Indian messengers the history of man
-his creation, the advent of Christ, the moral precepts of the Bible, the death
and resurrection of Jesus, and the doctrine of his mediatorial service. But the
poor Indians could get no teachers to return with them. Two of them died and
were buried in St. Louis. One of the surviving messengers is reported to having
made a farewell speech to General Clark of which the following is given as a
version:
“Our people sent us to get the white man's Book of Heaven. You have
made our feet heavy with the burden of gifts, and our moccasins will grow old
carrying them, but the Book is not among them. We are going back over the
long, sad trail to our people. When we tell them in our great council after one
more snow that we did not bring the Book, no word will be spoken by our old
men, nor by our young braves. One by one they will rise up and go out in si-
lence. Our people will die in darkness, and they will go on the long trail to
other hunting grounds. No white man will go with them, and no Book of Heaven
to make the way plain. We have no more words-farewell.'
This speech of the unlettered Indian caught the attention of the United
States and stirred the hearts of Christian men as nothing else had ever before.
On March 22, 1833, Wilbur Fisk, president of the Wesleyan University, published
in the Methodist church paper an address from which the following extract is
taken:
"The appeal of the Flathead Indians to General Clark has excited intense
interest. We are for having a mission established among them at once. Let two
suitable men possessing the spirit of martyrs, throw themselves into that na-
tion, live with them, learn their language, preach Christ to them and as the way
opens, introduce schools, agriculture and the arts of civilized life. Money shall
be forthcoming. I will be bondsman for the church. All we want is the men.
Who will go ?”
From that Indian address, and from the appeal of Dr. Fisk, interest and
action was aroused far and wide. Meetings were held everywhere through New
York and New England by the Methodists, Congregationalists and Presbyterians,
and organizations formed to raise money and equip missionaries; and from that
beginning the missionaries were sent to far distant Oregon. The information
about Oregon dinned into the ears of the Christian community by Hall Kelley
for years had laid the foundation for thoughtful men to act upon; and the
appeal of the benighted Indian furnished the impulse, aroused men to action
and fired the train.
Not all the missionaries came to Oregon from this cause. Blanchet and De-
mers came in answer to a petition from the Catholic employees of the Hudson
>>
118
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Bay Company in Oregon. . They did not come specially to teach or preach to
Indians; but they did both teaching and preaching to the natives as occasion
offered, with great success, and baptized large numbers into the Catholic church.
The ceremonials, vestments and ordinances of the Catholic services appealed to
the eye and imagination of the Indian far more effectively than the plain preach-
ing and singing of the Protestant ministers.
The work of Father De Smet among the Oregon Indians is entitled to be
specially mentioned. He did not even come to the Oregon country through any
connection with the church or Catholic teachers in Oregon. Whatever influ-
ences operated to bring De Smet into the Oregon country were such as were set
in motion by the Iroquois Indians. These Indians were the most intelligent of
their race. They were great travelers; most of the men could speak the French
language, and in this way they were able to make their way easily enough from
tribe to tribe from the St. Lawrence entirely across the continent wherever they
could find French trappers or Indians friendly to such trappers. During the
Revolutionary war, the entire tribe to about ten thousand warriors fought with
the British, for the British, and were whipped and overthrown as an organized
tribe when the British were driven out of the American colonies. On this ac-
count they inherited and maintained a hostile disposition to all American people.
There were a large number of these roving Iroquois in Oregon at the time the
Protestant missionaries came here, most of them in the employ of the Hudson's
Bay Company as trappers or fighters of the native Indians. One of them by
the name of Oskononton, while in the employ of the company on the Cowlitz,
got into trouble for some outrage on a Cowlitz woman, and was killed by her
friends. His boon companions reporting this to Fort George as an unprovoked
murder, Peter Skene Ogden was sent out with thirty Iroquois to investigate the
trouble, and on arriving at the Cowlitz camp the Iroquois mercenaries opened
fire on the Cowlitz Indians without orders from Ogden, and twelve innocent
men, women and children were wantonly murdered in cold blood. Other in-
stances of the crụel, reckless and worthless character of these Iroquois could be
given in Oregon history. And when they went hunting religious teachers as
they did for a tribe they did not belong to and had no right to represent, they were
only carrying out their character as busy-bodies; and went to St. Louis because
they knew of the existence of French priests at that place with whom they could
readily explain the object of their visit. They knew all about the Black Robes
from the St. Lawrence to Oregon, and could on occasion preach and pray, and
like the devil “cite Scripture for his purpose. The Iroquois were trouble-
makers wherever they went; and there is no doubt that it was these old-time
enemies of the Americans, to gratify their ancient grudge, fomented and incited
the bloody conspiracy that ended in the murder of Dr. Whitman and all the
other, victims of the Whitman massacre.
Father De Smet answered the call of the Flatheads as carried to him or his
superior at St. Louis by the Iroquois, and not the call of the four Flathead
chiefs who visited General Clark at St. Louis eight years prior to the visit of
the Iroquois. But no matter for that, De Smet went, and he is first heard of on
his way to Oregon at the fur traders rendezvous, already described, on Green
river in Utah. Here he preached and held services for the first time on his great.
mission to Oregon on July 5, 1840. Here he was met by large numbers of the
Š
#it!!
JASON LEE'S MISSION-1834
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
119
Flatheads who had come to the rendezvous for sale of their furs, and was by
them escorted back to their own country in Oregon. He was received by the
Flatheads with genuine friendship, hearty good feeling, if not great rejoicing;
and within two weeks from his advent among them, if the account of his work
is to be credited, he had taught two thousand Indians some of the prayers of the
Church, and admitted six hundred to the rite of baptism. From the Flatheads
De Smet went to the Coeur d'Alenes, the Pend d'Oreilles, the Kalispells, the
Kootenais, and the Colvilles. With all these tribes De Smet had wonderful
success in securing their confidence and nominal acceptance of Christianity. His
converts numbered many thousands, and his influence over them for many years
was the wonder and admiration of all good citizens. Twenty years ago the
author of this book met a number of aged Indians on the Kootenai river in
Idaho who were proud to refer to their baptism by Father De Smet and spoke
of him in the most affectionate terms.
Returning now to the work of sending missionaries overland to Oregon, it
is seen that as a consequence of all this agitation, the Missionary Board of the
Methodist Episcopal church was importuned to establish a mission among the
Flathead Indians at once. A call was issued for volunteer missionaries for this
work in distant Oregon. In answer to that call, Jason Lee, formerly of Stan-
stead, Canada, and his nephew, Daniel Lee, appeared and offered themselves for
this work. Jason Lee had formerly been engaged in this line of work in the
British provinces. He had all the qualifications for the labors, trials and dan-
gers for such a field of missionary effort. In fact, no man could have been found
probably who was as well prepared for such a trying and responsible trust. Lee
was accepted by the Methodist board and later on made a member of the con-
l'erence in 1833. He was now thirty years of age, tall, powerfully built, rather
slow and awkward in his movements, prominent nose, strong jaws, pure blue
eyes, with a vast store of reliable common sense. Such was the first man sent
out to old Oregon to preach the gospel to the heathen.
By October 10, 1833, three thousand dollars had been provided for an outfit,
and in March, 1834, Lee left New York for the west, lecturing on his way, and
taking with him his nephew, Daniel, together with two laymen, Cyrus Shepard,
of Lynn, Mass., and Philip L. Edwards, and adding Courtney M. Walker, of
Richmond, Mo. At Independence, Mo., the missionary party fell in with Nathan-
iel J. Wyeth, then starting on his second trading expedition to the Columbia
river, and were afterwards joined by the fur trader, Sublette, going to Cali-
fornia, and his party; and as they filed out westward on the 28th day of April,
1834, the party numbered all told seventy men and two hundred and fifty horses.
Such was the first missionary expedition to old Oregon.
The missionary party reached old Fort Hall, which was some forty miles
north of the present town of Pocatello, Idaho, on the 26th day of July, and held
there the next day, being Sunday, the first public service of the Protestant
churches ever held west of the state of Missouri and Missouri river. Jason Lee
ronducted this service and preached to a congregation made up of Wyeth's men,
Hudson Bay fur hunters, half breeds and Indians, all of whom conducted them-
selves in a most respectful and devotional manner. It was a wonderful sight,
a grand and solemn sight; the rough and reckless children of the forest, of vari-
ous tongues and customs, gathered from the four quarters of the globe, a thou-
120
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
sand miles distant from any civilized habitation, in the heart of the great Ameri-
can wilderness, listening to the message of Christ from this young man, and
reverentially bowing their heads in prayer to the Almighty Maker and Preserver
of all men and things.
From Fort Hall (then only in process of construction by Capt. Wyeth) the
party proceeded on to the Columbia river, being assisted by the Indians sent
along with them by Thomas McKay, a fur trading captain in the employ of the
Hudson's Bay Company. On coming down the river in boats and canoes, most of
which were wrecked, the missionary party lost nearly all of their personal effects.
Rev. Lee reached Fort Vancouver in September in a bedraggled condition, and
was very kindly received by Chief Factor McLoughlin, who promptly supplied
all his personal wants. The Lees had carefully noted all the conditions of the
upper Columbia river country as they passed through it, and having heard much
of the beauty of the Willamette valley, came on west to see it as probably the
best location for a mission. After resting a few days with Dr. McLoughlin, the
mission party proceeded down the river in boats furnished by McLoughlin to
the ship May Dacre, which had arrived from New York with the household
goods of the party, and was then tied up at the bank of Sauvie's island (then
called Wappato island), about twelve miles below the city of Portland. From
Wappato island, and with horses and men to assist them, the Lees proceeded to
hunt a location in the Willamette valley, and taking the trail made by the fur
hunters, crossed the hills back of the city of Portland, into what is now Wash-
ington county, passing out into Tualatin plains by the point where Hillsboro
is now located, and on by where the town of Cornelius is located, crossing over
the Tualatin river at Rocky Point where the first flouring mill in Washington
county was constructed; from thence ascending the northwest end of the Che-
halem mountain ridge and following the ridge five miles eastwardly, they
found themselves on Bald Peak from which point they could see the great Wil-
lamette valley spread out before them for sixty miles south. Oregon was then
all a wild wilderness country. Elk and deer were everywhere as tame almost
as sheep.
From the Chehalem mountains the party descended into the Chehalem val-
ley, and passing along by the little prairie where the prosperous town of New-
berg and its Friends' College is now located, the party swam their horses across
the Willamette river, and crossing in a canoe kept on south to the farm of
Joseph Gervais, where they stayed all night with the hospitable Frenchman, and
for whom the town of Gervais has been named. The next day they selected a
tract of land two miles above the Gervais farm on the east side of the river
and sixty miles south of Portland for the site of their mission; and where they
built their first mission house. Returning to Vancouver, Dr. McLoughlin fur-
nished a boat and boatmen to move the household goods from the ship and trans-
port them up the Willamette river to the mission point; seven oxen were loaned
with which to haul timbers to build houses at the mission, eight cows with calves
were furnished to supply milk and start stock; and by the 6th of October, 1834,
Jason Lee and his party were all safely landed in their mission home in the Wil-
lamette valley—the first Protestant mission in the United States, west of the
Rocky mountains from the North Pole down to the Isthmus of Panama.
It will be asked by the reader, why did not Lee answer the pathetic call of

[From an old Geograpuy
JASON LEE PREACHING TO INDIANS, AND TRADERS BUYING THEIR
FURS ON WILLAMETTE, 1834
OF
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
121
the Flathead Indians and establish a mission among them. If Lee had been
moved wholly by sentimental consideration he would have gone to the Flatheads.
But while Jason Lee was first, last, and all the time an evangelist and servant of
his God, he was at the sanie time eminently a man of safe practical common sense.
With nothing but his own light and resources to guide him, he inust shoulder
all the responsibility of his position, and take that course which would secure
success in this great experiment, or be blamed for a failure. He had noted care-
fully the conditions of an experiment with the Flatheads, six hundred miles from
sea coast transportation, surrounded by unfriendly Indians, and exhausted by
continuous wars with vengeful Blackfeet. The outlook was not inviting. And
the very fact that he had become the friend of the Flatheads, if he had decided
to locate there, would have aroused the enmity of the Blackfeet and other tribes,
and not only cut off from him the friendship and access to other tribes, but might
have resulted in the destruction of himself, supporters and innocent victims he
had sought to help. More than that, the Willamette was the wider field, with the
greater outlook to the future. Lee saw, then, as we see now, that the Willamette
valley was more important to the future than all the valleys of the Rocky moun-
tains. His decision was based upon practical common sense, and the great in-
terests he had come to serve, and has been a thousand times over vindicated by
the development of the country, and by the vast results of his work.
Let us now look in on this young missionary to the Oregon Indians as he builds
his first log cabin, three thousand miles distant from the comfortable and luxuri-
ous homes of the people who sent him out here from the state of New York. As
he stood there on the virgin prairie alongside the beautiful Willamette the hills,
the waving grass, and silent woods, with native men, all innocent of the great
work of civilization ahead, he was facing the great responsibility, and he must
commence his work with the humblest means. Before a sheltering house could be
raised, he must sharpen his axes, his saws, and break his half wild oxen to the
services of the yoke and the discipline of a driver. Napoleon might easily win
the greatest battles, but he would have failed utterly to make a wild ox pull in a
yoke, as Jason Lee did. But the great work had to be done; and these men reso-
lutely went at it and built a house in thirty days from the standing trees. Logs
were cut, squared and laid up, a puncheon floor from split logs put in, doors were
hewn from fir logs, and hung on wooden hinges, window sashes whittled out of
split pieces with a pocket knife, a chimney built of sticks, clay and wild grass
mixed; two rooms, four little windows, and tables, stools and chairs added little
by little from the work of patient hands. And thus was started the first Christian
mission west of the Rocky Mountains.
While the Methodists were first in the Oregon missionary field, the officers of
the American Board were not idle spectators of the movement. On the con-
trary, they were deeply moved by the story of the four Flatheads; but having
no funds in hand at the time to send out any number of missionaries, and in
order to proceed wisely, they decided to send two men to “spy out the land.”
Accordingly Rev. Samuel Parker, of Ithaca, N. Y., fifty-six years old, formerly
a pastor in Congregational churches, of that State and Massachusetts, the latter
of which was his native state, and Marcus Whitman, M. D., a native of Rush-
ville, N. Y., thirty-three years old, a graduate of the Berkshire Medical School
at Pittsfield, Mass., were chosen. The object of the Board in appointing them
122
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
was to ascertain by personal observation the condition of the country, the
character of the Indian nations and tribes, and the facilities for introducing the
gospel and civilization among them." Parker proposed to go to Oregon in 1834
and left Ithaca in May. On arriving at St. Louis he found that he was too
late to join the annual caravan of fur traders, hence he returned home and
spent the remainder of the year in going through the country and arousing
increased interest in the proposed enterprise. He finally started on March
14, 1835, and arrived at St. Louis on April 4th, and found Dr. Whitman already
there. They proceeded at once by steamboat from St. Louis to Liberty which
was then the frontier town of Missouri from which the Rocky mountain fur
trading expeditions then started. The caravan made up of the trappers and
hangers-on of Fontenelle, the captain, and capitalist of the expedition, got off
on the 15th of May, and reached Laramie in the Black Hills on the 1st of August.
And here at Laramie, Dr. Whitman, made a showing of the reserve force and
ready ability which great exigencies might bring out. Hearing that he was a
doctor and near to a man of God, both natives and trappers flocked to see him.
and secure his favor and services. From the back of Captain Jim Bridger, who
afterward discovered Salt Lake, and built Fort Bridger, Dr. Whitman cut out an
iron arrow head three inches in length which a Blackfeet Indian had planted ·
there; and from the shoulder of another hunter he extracted an arrow imbedded
in the flesh which the man had carried there for two years. This exhibition
of his skill excited the wonder of the Flatheads and Nez Perces gathered there,
and all joined in clamorous pleadings that Whitman or other men like him be sent
to their tribes to teach and preach.
At this juncture of affairs, it appears that there must have been some sort of
friction between the Rev. Parker and the successful Doctor. For without any
very good reason ever given to the public, Dr. Whitman left the missionary
party and returned to the States for the purpose of obtaining other assistants and
joining the overland train of fur traders in the spring of 1836. Mr. Gray in his
history of Oregon (p. 108) states the reason for Whitman leaving Parker and re-
turning to the states (to be) the fact that Parker could not abide the frontier ways
and manners of Whitman who evidently believed in doing in Rome as the Ro-
mans did;" while Rev. Parker -carried the etiquette of his cultured home town to
the rough ways of the Rocky mountaineers. And as Gray is something of a par-
tisan for Whitman, there is doubtless a foundation for this explanation; that
Whitman went back to New York to get rid of Parker and make a new start with
more congenial associates.
However, Parker went on with the natives. Flatheads and Nez Perces, being
on the same route with Bridger's party of sixty men for eight days. As they
proceeded, Parker studied the Indians and taught them the ten commandments
and in due time, reached Walla Walla, October 6, where he was feasted by the
Hudson's Bay agent with roast duck, bread, butter and milk, the first he had seen
after leaving the Missouri river. From Walla Walla Parker proceeded to Fort
Vancouver where he arrived on October 16, and was welcomed and hospita-
bly entertainer by Dr. John McLoughlin. Parker visited the mouth of the
Columbia, the Willamette valley, and many points in the upper Columbia, go-
ing as far north as Fort Colville, and making a careful study of the Indians and
selecting eligible sites for missions. He selected the site of Wai-il-at-pa (six

PETER JOHN DE SMET
Great Apostle to the Indians
UNL
OF
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
123
miles west of the present city of Walla Walla) for a mission, and which Dr.
Whitman settled and improved; and where he lost his life and sacrificed his noble
wife. Parker was in many respects a level headed, sensible man. But he like all
the rest erred in their judgment of the Indian character. Parker summed up his
observations, declaring that the "unabused, uncontaminated Indians would not
suffer by comparison with any other nation that could be named, and that the only
material difference between man and man, was that produced by the knowledge
and practice of the Christian religion.” But he thought there was a great differ-
ence between the Indians along the Columbia river, and those inhabiting the Rocky
: Mountains. The former would load their visitors with presents, while the latter
would beg the shirt off a man's back. Parker returned to the states by sea voyage
by the way of the Sandwich Islands, reaching Ithaca, New York, May 23, 1837,
having traveled twenty-eight thousand miles.
We return now to Dr. Whitman. His separation from Parker and return to
the states must not only be explained to the satisfaction of the American board,
but he must vindicate his course to his friends and maintain a reputation by re-
newed zeal and energy in the cause in which he had enlisted. And so we find him
organizing forces to establish two missions beyond the Rocky Mountains; one
among the long neglected Flatheads who were the prime movers of the whole
missionary movement to Oregon, and one to the Nez Perces, wlio it seems, were in
all the investigations found to be a very interesting people for a missionary field.
And the more effectually to arouse interest in the Indians, Whitman resorted to
the expedients of Columbus and Pizarro, and carried back from the mountains
two likely Indian boys to show the conservative American Missionary Board the
inviting material he would have to begin work upon. And with what he had
seen, and from common sense suggestions, he decided that it was families he must
take to Oregon, and not single men; if he was to make a success of his missions.
And so he set the example by taking a good woman for a wife, to accompany him
to the wilderness, the fateful fortune as it turned out to be, fell to the lot of Miss
Narcissa Prentiss, of Prattsburg, New York, whom he married in February, 1836.
Mrs. Whitman is described as a person of good figure, pleasant voice, blue eyes, and
unusually attractive in person, and manner, well educated and refined. Having
secured one attractive and engaging woman for the Mission to the wilderness, it
was easier to secure another, and so Dr. Whitman speedily enlisted the Rev. H. H.
Spalding, a young Presbyterian minister, who had then recently married Miss
Eliza Hart, a farmer's daughter of Oneida County, New York. Mrs. Spalding
had accomplishments, too, if not so well educated, she could be eminently useful
as it was; for she had been taught to spin, weave cloth, make up clothing as well
as an accomplished cook and housekeeper. Both of these ladies might have stood
for models for all that was noble, good and of good report in any community, and
were thoroughly imbued with that spirit of self-sacrifice which must come to
any person who undertakes to teach and serve the ignorant and benighted natives
of any race. Spalding, the man and preacher, hesitated to commit himself to
the dangerous enterprise, pleading the delicate health of his wife; but the wife,
the greater hero of the twain, asked only for twenty-four hours of prayerful con-
sideration, and then went into the expedition with all her heart, without even
returning from Ohio to see her parents. To this party, Whitman, was able to
enlist the services of William H. Gray of Utica, New York, a bright, active, ener-
124
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
getic young man of some education, and large natural abilities with great courage
and forceful purposes in life. Mr. Gray wrote a history of Oregon after he had
spent most of his life out here that must not be overlooked by any student who
wants to know the whole history of the prominent actors in the Northwest.
Dr. Whitman was furnished by the Missionary Board with necessary tools, im-
plements, seeds, grains, and clothing for two years. At Liberty, Missouri, he
bought teams, wagons, some pack animals, riding horses and sixteen milk cows,
and these were all under the charge of Gray, and the two Indian boys who were
now going back to their homes with Whitman. By hard work and energetic push-
ing the party got across the Missouri, and out on the plains in time to join the
party of one Fitzpatrick for company and mutual protection.
Here then was the first attempt of white women to cross the great American
desert, as the plains of Kansas, Nebraska and Wyoming were then called; and
scaled the Rocky mountains and penetrate the wilderness of old Oregon. It was,
indeed, on the part of these two women an act of the greatest heroism, requiring
more than ordinary courage and self-sacrifice. While thousands of women and
children followed after them, it was these two women who pointed the way, set
the pace, and showed the world that women could accomplish the great and haz-
ardous trip. Presbyterian writers and historians have seized upon these facts
to show that these two young Presbyterian women from the state of New York,
were the real pioneers of civilization in old Oregon; and well they might so claim,
for it may be set down as a fact that no country is ever civilized until it has re-
ceived the humanizing touch and gracious benediction of the love and self-sacrifice
of consecrated women.
Other men and their wives braved the terrors of the wilderness, the plains,
mountains and Indians, and came to Oregon, to teach and uplift the Indian. Rev.
H. H. Spalding and wife, together with Wm. H. Gray of Utica, New York, accom-
panied Dr. Whitman and wife in 1836; Mrs. Whitman and Mrs. Spalding being
the first American white women to cross the Continent to Oregon. (The first
white woman to cross the Continent to Oregon was Eloisa McLoughlin, the daugh-
ter of Dr. John McLoughlin, who was born at Fort William at the North end of
Lake Superior, February 13, 1817, and came with her father to Oregon in 1824.)
Rev. Elkanah Walker and wife, and the Rev. Cushing Eells and wife (Congre-
gationalists) came out in 1838, and started a mission on the Spokane river or a
branch thereof. Rev. John Smith Griffin and wife (Congregationalists) came
out in 1839. Mr. Griffin made two unsuccessful attempts to establish a mission
among the Snake Indians in Idaho, and then settled on the Tualatin Plains of
Washington county, where Mrs. Griffin, the first white woman in the county,
taught the first Indian school west of the Willamette river. Dr. Wm. Geiger,
came out as a missionary in 1839 to teach the Indians, took charge of Dr. Whit-
man's mission while Whitman made his memorable trip back to the States on
horseback in the winter of 1842. Rev. Harvey Clarke and wife, Congregation.
alists, came out as independent missionaries in 1840, taught school one year at
the Methodist mission on French Prairie, then moved to Washington County,
continued teaching as Independents, took up land and settled at Forest Grove.
Mr. Clarke gave many years service to the building of Pacific University. The
only ones of these families having children yet living is Rev. Walker, one of whose
sons is the Hon. Cyrus H. Walker, of Linn county, the oldest living white man

2
3
4
Nos. 1 and 2-REV. ELKANAH WALKER and wife, missionaries to the Indians
in Eastern Washington-1838 to 1848
Nos. 3 and 4-REV. FRANK L. YOUNG and wife, missionaries to the white settlers
in same region—1880 to 1890
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
125
born west of the Rocky Mountains, and now Grand Chaplain to the State Grange
of Oregon. Another son is a missionary stationed in China. Dr. Geiger left a son
now a practicing physician in Forest Grove. Mr. Gray left a forceful family of
children. One son was county judge of Clatsop county for many years. An-
other son is prominent in business and has had large transportation interests on
the upper Columbia; while Mrs. Jacob Kamm of Portland, Oregon, is known far
and wide for her support of charitable and religious work both in and outside of
the Presbyterian church.
It is not within the purview of this history, or the object of this chapter to
follow out the movements and settlements of this little party of devoted mission-
aries. It is enough to our purpose to say, that after a long toilsome and tedious
journey, full of dangers and trials of every description, they reached their prom-
ised land, that they founded a mission at Wai-il-at-pu, near the city of Walla
Walla, where Whitman college is now located, that they labored and toiled, taught
and prayed for the Indians, as no others had ever done, before or since, and that
they were rewarded in the end by the base treachery of those they sought to save
and bless, and finally murdered by the infuriated savages they had fed, clothed and
taught the lessons of love and affection of the founder of Christianity. We give this
picture of these devoted men and women to show by contrast and example, the
characters of these teachers and the native inborn weakness and barbarism of
those they sought to lift up in the human scale. We will let the characters of Lee
and Whitman stand as substantial representatives of the whole Protestant mis-
sionary effort to the Indians of this country; and from their experience and good
or ill success draw what conclusions seem to be reasonable as to the real char-
acter of these Oregon Indians. And to throw further light upon the picture,
and enable the reader to more perfectly understand the Indian character, we
will give the experience of the Catholic Priest and missionaries in dealing with
and teaching these same Indians, although they may have labored with other
and different tribes.
The first efforts to introduce the services of the Catholic religion into the
regions of old Oregon, were put forth by the French Canadians of the Wil-
lamette Valley in July, 1834, just about the time Jason Lee was holding the
first Protestant church services in the territory of old Oregon, at old Fort Hall.
There is no evidence of any relation between these two competing, if not op-
posing, religious movements. Nobody in all the Oregon region, so far as the his-
torical record shows, knew that Jason Lee was on his way out here to preach
the gospel and organize Protestant Episcopal institutions. The movement
of the French Canadians seems to have been purely local, and originated from
the natural desire of those people to have once more the religious services
of the church in which they were born and reared in at distant Montreal.
These Canadians at that time, sent a request to J. N. Provencher, Catholic
Bishop of the Red River settlements, asking that religious teachers be sent
to Oregon. The arrival of Lee a few months afterward increased the anxiety
of these faithful Catholics, and in February, 1835, a second letter was dis-
patched to Bishop Provencher for religious instructors. To these letters, Pro-
vencher replied sending the reply to Chief Factor McLoughlin, regretting that
no priests could at that time be spared from the work in the east, but that an
effort would be made to secure priests from Europe. And as early as the matter
126
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
could be brought about, the Hudson's Bay Company was asked for passage for
two Catholic priests from Montreal to Oregon. To this mission, the Archbishop
of Quebec appointed Rev. Francis Norbet Blanchet, whose portrait appears on
another page, and gave him as an assistant, Rev. Modeste Demers, from the Red
River settlernent. The trip to Oregon was uneventful, until the party reached
the Little Falls of the Columbia, where in descending the rapids, one of the boats
was wrecked and nearly half the company drowned. The priests were received
at Fort Colville with the same friendliness as had greeted the Protestant mis-
sionaries in eastern Oregon; and during a stay of four days, nineteen natives
were baptized, mass was said and much interest taken in the services. The ap-
pearance of the priests in their dark robes, the mythical signs of reverence,
and unconcern for secular affairs, undoubtedly impressed the savages. Blanchet
summed up his labors for the winter of 1838-9, at one hundred and thirty-four
baptisms, nine funerals, and forty-nine marriages. He not only married the
unmarried Indians, but he re-married those that the Protestant ministers had
united, to the great disgust of the Methodists; and withdrew many from the
temperance society and prayer meetings, organized by the Methodists—and
right there the religious war commenced. During the year 1840, the rivalry
between the Catholics and Methodists was pushed with bitterness on both
sides.
Here now is the proposition. What permanent good did these men accom-
plish for the Indian ? Two Protestants—Jason Lee and Marcus Whitman, and
two Catholics, Francis N. Blanchet and Peter John De Smet. They each gave
the entire influence of their respective creeds and churches. And each and
all of them, were singularly and remarkably well qualified for the work they
had undertaken; and each man, put his whole soul, mind and body into the
work he had freely devoted his life to serve. And what effect has it had upon
the mind and condition of the Indian? The Indian is here yet subsisting
partly upon the bounty of the government, and partly by the shiftless, pre-
carious labor of his hands. One in a hundred rises above his fellows in mental,
moral and financial acquirements. But the general average of listless inactivity
of mind and body is about the same. Religious teaching is still patiently pressed
upon the Indian; but with the exception of Father Wilbur's work among the
Yakimas, the results are insignificant. And yet very much the same might
be said of religious teaching among the whites. But what has been the uplift
to the Indian? We are presenting a question of evolution. This book is pre-
senting that question in various ways.
When the missionaries came to Oregon, the Indian that could,
"Find tongues in trees, books in running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything,'
accepted them as ministers of the Great Spirit, keepers of the Book of Heaven”
and superior beings. He took the white man as a friend, but found him too
often to be a despoiler of his wives, a trader in fire water, that robbed him of
his peltries and appropriated his hunting grounds. And although the minis-
ters of religion treated him kindly and justly as far as their personal intercourse
went, they did not and could not stay the tide of immigration which overran


CYRUS H. WALKER
Chaplain of Oregon State Grange and oldest living white man born west
of the Rocky Mountains
OF
3
Siche
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
127
1
the country, seized his lands and drove away the wild animals that had fur-
nished him food and raiment. He had gained a little knowledge, but had lost
his freedom in the forest and his home on the earth the Great Spirit had given
him in common with all his children.
The reasoning power of the Indian was limited to what he saw or felt. The
novelty of the sacred rites and mystical signs, the commands of virtue and the
teachings of the missionaries were good enough as long as there were no more
white men coming; no fears of being driven from the land, and no fears but that
they would possess the country in the future as their fathers had in the past.
They had learned from the Iroquois and the Blackfeet how the white men had
swarmed into the Mississippi river valley, and driven the Indians back from the
beautiful Ohio and the rich lands of Illinois. And it took no reasoning power to
satisfy them that if the white man was not stopped from coming over the moun-
tains to Oregon, they, too, must give up their lands and homes, or die.' They
appealed directly to Whitman and other Protestant missionaries to stop the
white man from coming, and were told that more and more white men would
come with their wives and children, cattle and horses. They saw that the
priests did not bring men to take up more farms, and for that reason were more
friendly to the Catholics. They had held their councils, and resolved to kill
all the whites and drive back the human tide. And if they had possessed a
leader like Pontiac or Tecumseh, or like Joseph who arose as a great leader
after the country was settled, they could have exterminated the white settlers,
and would have done so as mercilessly as they massacred Whitman and his
family.
And when they resolved to fight the white man they threw away his l'e-
ligion, and all his teachings of morality. And now, today, seventy years after
the great Indian revivals wrought by De Smet, there are fewer professed
Christians among the Indians of old Oregon than ever before. But by com-
parison with the white man this is not much to the discredit of the Indian. The
number of professing Christians among the white people of Oregon today are
much less in proportion to population than seventy years ago. This was prac-
tically a prohibition community seventy years ago, but now Oregon has eighteen
hundred retail liquor shops, spends thousands of dollars on prize fights, and kills
a man every few days with automobiles.
The substantial uplift of any community is a slow and tedious work; and
of a race a still slower and more tedious task-a work of evolution in which
a thousand seen and unseen elements of change must take part. The factors
undermining the strength of the men, community or race, are innate and al-
ways at work; while the forces that demoralize, or openly oppose the develop-
ment of man's faculties and the uplift of the social fabric, are always present
in some form ready to be set in motion. The Rev. Elkanah Walker, who was
one of the first Protestant missionaries among the Oregon Indians, and who
faithfully labored for their improvement for many years, in the last sermon
he preached in his life, in the little Union church at the town of Gaston, dis-
cussed this matter from his experience with both the white and red men; and
summed up the whole matter in this sententious sentence: “It takes a very,
very long time to make a white man out of an Indian, but the descent of the
white man into an Indian is short and swift."
128
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
In all the contentions between Protestants and Catholics in this Indian
country, and between the partisans of American Colonization and the occu-
pancy of the Hudson Bay Company, the Whitman massacre has ever been
a subject of most bitter crimination. And no person of humane feeling can
read the record of the horrible butchery of Whitman and his wife, children and
others killed, without being wrought up to an intense bitterness, not only against
the savages, but against the white men who may have known of the possibility
of murder, and took no step to prevent it. It seems clear that the chiefs of the
Hudson's Bay Company did warn Whitman of his danger at the distant and
unprotected station. Whitman was himself recklessly careless of the safety
of himself and family. The Indians were permitted free access to all his prem-
ises, and no preparation for protection or defense from harm was provided.
The Hudson's Bay people did not trust the Indians. They had substantial bar-
ricades and stockade forts well supplied with arms for defense; and at all
times required the Indians to remain on the outside of protective defenses.
McLoughlin never forgot the native ferocity of the savage when aroused. To
the careless observer the Indians about the trading stations and missionary
stations were peaceful and harmless; yet behind all this was the racial instinct
of the savage, developed by ages of contention with wild beasts in the contest
for existence. And with the first blow of the tomahawk on the head of the un-
suspecting victim-Marcus Whitman-and the sight of blood, the savage gave
tongue to demoniac yells that harked back a hundred thousand years when the
naked savage man fought with clubs, the savage beast.
We here finally reach our bearings in the quest for the rightful ownership
of the wilderness of Oregon. Whether it suits our wishes or our preconceived
views or not, we are compelled to face the proposition that the white man,
black man, red man and yellow man are all on this globe on equal land tenures.
That they have all sprung from a single original pair and though now found in
divers races, they have fought for and conquered their positions on the face
of the globe, not only in competition with wild beasts, but also wild men. That
this tremendous evolutionary program, so far as it has related to the posses-
sion of land on which to live and grow, has never been settled in any other
way than
"The good old rule, the simple plan,
That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep, who can.
>>
The coming of the white man was inevitable, and the subjection of the
Indian equally so. Our pioneers but followed nature's impulse justified by the
entire history of mankind. And if the inspiration of a higher humanity, and
the precepts of Christianity can be used to enforce justice and inculcate
charity to the poor benighted children of the forests that we found in the
possession of this beautiful land, it is our bounden duty to see that while we
enjoy all the beauty and glory of these grand rivers and gorgeous mountains
that the remnant of the native race be made as comfortable and enlightened
as their mental and moral development will permit.
It would be a useless and unprofitable task to go into the rivalries and con-
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
129
tentions that arose out of the Whitman massacre and the management of the
Indians. It would have been far better for the Indians, and for the white peo-
ple, and the cause for which both Protestants and Catholics claimed they were
the champions, to have left the Indians wholly to one sect or the other.
But the evil that was wrought has long since passed, leaving nothing but the
lesson that peace and harmony is more profitable than contention and discord.
The cause of Christianity was not promoted. What services then, if any, can
be discovered outside the cause of religion which these sectarians may have
rendered the country? Before the Protestant missionaries came, the white
population was practically all males, and almost wholly subjects of Great
Britain, and members of the Catholic church. If any action or influence was
to be expected or might be exerted, it would have been in favor of delivering
Oregon to the British monarchy. The record is made up, and there can be no
successful denial of this proposition. What then were American citizens, if
they were even men of God and disposed to peace, to do? It did not take Jason
Lee long to decide. Although born in Canada under the British flag, he was
United States American to the core. Marcus Whitman, born in the United
States, was first of all things in his character as a citizen, a champion of Amer-
ican ideas and laws. And the same was to be said of Gray, Griffin, Walker,
Eells and all the rest of the American missionaries. Were they to keep silence
on political rights for fear public speech might offend Briton or Catholic ?
Self preservation being the first law of nature, they must act; and they did
act.
The great fur company had an eye single to the coining of profits out of the
skins of wild animals. Its interest was first to hold Oregon as a game preserve
for the pelts it might produce. But if civil government must come, then let it
be the government that gave the country over to the Fur Company, and the
great monopoly would still control the country. To make good this scheme sub-
jects of Great Britain alone must be encouraged to come to Oregon; and they
must be such as would take orders from the Catholic Vicar General. Protestant
Episcopal priests from England would not do, although their salaries were pro-
vided by law, because they could not receive the confession of the Roman
Catholic French trappers of the Hudson's Bay Company, and could not control
such employees in any political movement instigated by the Protestant preach-
The line of cleavage was plainly discernible when the American independ-
ent trappers and employees of the Protestant missions sought to unite with
themselves the Catholic Frenchmen on French Prairie, in a movement for
civil government to protect life and property. Under the lead of the Vicar
General, the H. B. Co., and every member of the Catholic church but two op-
posed any organization whatever, and put their protest on record. And while
waiting patiently for two years to persuade the Catholics to join in an organi-
zation to protect the rights of all persons without distinction of creed or na-
tionality, Jason Lee, Marcus Whitman and their co-laborers, worked with
might and inain to bring the government of the United States to support and
defend the infant colony. Letters, petitions and memorials were sent to Con-
gress and Cabinet, and eastern journals were plied with facts and arguments
to save Oregon. Jason Lee went in person; and Marcus Whitman took his life
in his hands and made a mid-winter ride across the continent to forestall the
ers.
Vol. 1-9
130
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
action of a timid, if not cowardly, secretary of state in a possible agreement
to give up all of Oregon north of the Columbia river. While there is no direct
or record proof of this statement, the whole history of the diplomacy with Eng-
land about Oregon during the Harrison-Tyler and Polk administrations, goes
to show that the weakness and imbecility of our foreign policy was held back
from giving Oregon away only by the appeals from Oregon and the threaten-
ing speeches of Senators Benton and Linn in Congress. These appeals from
Oregon were mainly from the Protestant missionaries, and in the main drafted
and forwarded by them. But these brave men did not stop with appeals on
paper. On October 3, 1842, accompanied only by A. L. Lovejoy, Marcus Whit-
man bid good bye to his wife and all he held dear in life and made the most
wonderful trip on record—a two thousand mile dash across the continent in the
winter season, over trails traveled only by wild Indians on horseback, picking
up food for horse and man as occasion offered in a wilderness, covered up and
snowed in by storms for weeks, fording mountain torrents in icy water, and
breaking ice, and finally winning the goal of his endeavors and rushing on to
Washington city before congress could adjourn in 1843.
And what for?
There is nothing in all history so dramatic and forceful as this four months'
winter storm ride of Marcus Whitman. And at the very time he was risking
his life, his everything for Oregon, Daniel Webster, Secretary of State of
President Tyler's administration, was writing to the American minister in
London, that the Columbia river at its mouth was not navigable for nine months
in the year, and that there were not more than seven hundred white people in
the whole of the country, and that it had been suggested, "That the line of
boundary might begin at the sea, or the entrance of the straits of San Juan De
Fuca, follow up these straits, give us a harbor at the southwest corner of these
inland waters and then continue south, striking the (Columbia) river below
Vancouver, and then following the river to its intersection with the forty-ninth
degree of latitude North."
What was that but giving up the Puget Sound and all of the State of Wash-
ington except a narrow strip along the coast, and a triangle adjoining Idaho.
What influence Whitman exerted or representation he made to the Presi-
dent or his Secretary was not known. He was not a boaster. It was not a mat-
ter to be given to the press after the style of the modern politician. It is suffi-
cient to say that Daniel Webster's map of Oregon was not adopted. And
Jason Lee was as active, and as faithful in his labors to save Oregon as was
Whitman. And in the historical light of that great contest for the possession
of this country, the services of these two Protestant missionaries rise to the
dignity of a great service to humanity and to their country.
CHAPTER VI
0000—1862
WHAT DID THE FORELOPERS FIND HERE—THE FACE OF NATURE- THE GEOLOGY AND
EXTINCT ANIMAL LIFE-THE VAST WATER POWERS-MADE VALUABLE BY APPLICA-
TION OF DISCOVERIES IN ELECTRICITY.
When the missionaries and first settlers came over the Rocky mountains down
into the Snake river valley, they found a region wholly unlike anything they had
ever beheld before. The Three Tetons, the vast lava sage brush plain, the great
river coming from some mysterious distance nobody knew just where, the tower-
ing snow-capped mountains, the mighty water falls and the deep and trackless
forests. It was a panoramic picture never to be forgotten; majestic and awe-
inspiring rather than beautiful. The great mountain ranges, wide extended
plains and gloomy forests seemed rather to forbid than invite examination. It
was all natural enough and to be expected from the silent-going Indian, and
necessary to the venturesome trapper; but for preachers and farmers, nature's
wilderness required time to conquer. And for these reasons it was a whole gen-
eration of men from the time Jason Lee drove down his tent pegs in the Willam-
ette valley until farmers and herdsmen ventured to build permanent homes on
the wide extended areas of Central Oregon.
The Willamette valley was the first place settled in old Oregon. And it was
by all visitors acclaimed the beauty spot of Oregon-another Garden of Eden.
The only picture of the country extant made by one who knew its every nook and
corner before the settlers came, and who had chased the elk and deer with his
pony and rifle from Oregon City to Umpqua valley, and left a life-like descrip-
tion of the valley, was David McLoughlin, son of Dr. John McLoughlin. It was,
he said, a natural park on a grand scale that could not have been improved by
artificial culture. It was in its natural state of beauty, romantic and grand be-
yond the power of words to express, with prairies, streams and groves of trees
filled with animal life. Herds of elk and deer could be seen everywhere feeding
fearless of men. And from this valley the snow-capped peaks of both the Coast
and Cascade ranges of mountains could be seen towering above the plains. This
was the open book, the enchanting scene to every eye. But what was the underly-
ing foundation !
Everything in nature, says Emerson, is engaged in writing its own history;
the planet and the pebbles are attended by their shadows, the rolling rock leaves
its furrows on the mountain side, the river its channel in the soil, the animal its
bones in the stratum, the fern and the leaf their epitaphs in the coal, and the
falling rain drops sculptures their story on the sand and on the stone. Nearly
everything that is known about the geological formation of Oregon is due to the
unselfish labors of one man. The boy that grew up to be that one man was born
131
132
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
in the south of Ireland ninety years ago, came to America with his parents when
a boy, hunted rabbits in Central Park, New York, when it was waste wild land,
worked hard with his own hands to pay for his own education, studied Theology
and came around Cape Horn in a clipper ship with his young wife to labor in
Oregon as a missionary, finally settled at the Dalles to preach the gospel where it
was much needed, became interested in fossils and fossil rocks that the army of-
ficers brought in from the frontier posts in Harney valley, and in this way took
up the study of Oregon geology, and in his book, "The Two Islands," edited and
revised by his daughter, Ellen Condon McCornack, and published as "Oregon
Geology,” has told us how the Creator of the world built up that part of it called
Oregon. It is a wonderfully interesting work, and no boy or girl in any high
school or college in Oregon, or who hungers for an education, ought to think the
know anything if they have not read and mastered Condon's Geology. This life
work of Thomas Condon is monumental. Like Oregon's history and pioneer
state builders, there is nothing like it, or equal to it to be found elsewhere; and
the name of Thomas Condon will live to enlighten the world and honor the state
when all its millionaires are wholly forgotten. (The biography of Prof. Condon
may be found in the biographical volumes of this work.)
The geological history contained herein is largely the work of Mrs. McCornack,
for which, as for many other suggestions, in connection with this work, hearty
acknowledgment is made here. The engraved geological map printed herein is
all the work of Mrs. McCornack. That young readers may more readily compre-
hend how the crust of the earth has been built up in all the millions of years
that have passed since it became material substance condensed from gaseous
vapor, a diagram of the different and succeeding layers of rock is also given which
was taken from Dana's Geology.
THE PRE-CRETACEOUS AGE
If the reader will turn to the geological map he will find the oldest parts of
Oregon represented by two areas indicated in the legend as Pre-Cretaceous. The
one in southwestern Oregon and extending into California is Professor Con-
don's Siskiyou island. The other in the northeastern section of the state, follow-
ing the outline of the Blue mountains, represents his Shoshone region.
These oldest parts of the state each contain within itself several different
geological ages.
Lindgren tells us: "The oldest rocks of the Blue mountains are represented
by the relatively small area of gneiss northwest of Sumpter and just north of
Bald mountain. This rare spot of ancient Oregon history takes us back to a most
ancient period in the earth's history, to the very dawn of plant and animal life
and perhaps even before the vital spark of life had been kindled upon the earth.
All through the paleozoic or most ancient life period, the ocean covered the
Blue mountain region, but a portion of this deep sea bed with its fine mud of
clay and quartz material reached the sunlight above the surface of the ocean at
the close of the carboniferous or coal period, for the argillite series of rocks into
which it was changed is found from the head of the John Day valley southeast
nearly to Huntington on the Snake river. These rocks contain but few fossils.
The same watery waste covered most of Oregon through the next or Triassic

THOMAS CONDON
UNIL
Pic
OF
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
133
ages of the earth. But Lindgren tells us that the great amount of surface lava
.
and other volcanic material mingled with the lime stones and shales of its sea
bed indicate that in the region of the Blue mountains the Triassic ocean was
comparatively shallow with land masses not far distant.
During this Triassic age the seas were full of great lizard-like reptiles or
saurians, and as they were world-wide in their distribution they must have lived
in Oregon waters. In fact, Dr. Merriam, of Berkeley, reports several species
from the Triassic limestones of the eastern part of the Siskiyou region, now part
of northern California, and from the location of the fossils, Dr. Merriam has
called these marine reptiles shastasaurus.
At the close of the Triassic period, or later, there came a time of great up-
heaval in the Blue mountain region. The low lying land and adjacent sea bed
became what was probably Oregon's first high mountain.
The clay and quartz sediment which had been part of the deep Paleozoic sea
bed, became the mountains round about Baker, of which the Elkhorns are
the most typical and the most conspicuous; while a portion of the shallower Tri-
assic sea bed with its lime, its shales and its abundance of volcanic rocks, became
the Eagle Creek or Powder River mountains.
The elevation of these older portions of the Blue mountains was not a steady,
gentle long-continued process that only required time for its completion, but
was accompanied by great violence.
The Paleozoic rocks of silicious clay and the coarser limestones, shales and
tuffs of the Triassic sea were both subject to the same violence. Both were thrust
upward into lofty mountains. The once horizontal sedimentary rocks were
folded, compressed, crumpled and fused until the rocks themselves were greatly
altered. Later deep fissures were opened, through which poured heated vapors
laden with their precious burden of gold, silver and copper, and these old moun-
tains became a rich treasure house of Oregon's wealth.
There are mountains in the Siskiyou region made of the same fine granited
argillite rocks that tell of the same deep paleozoic sea; the marbles and limestone
of the Eagle Creek or Powder River mountains are repeated in the more south-
ern land, while the Blue mountain mines of gold, silver and copper are rivaled
by those of the Siskiyou region. In fact, in his Two Islands, Prof. Condon has
greatly emphasized the intimate relationship of these two regions of Shoshone
and Siskiyou.
Still another period, the Jurassic, is hidden within the area on map marked
Pre-Cretaceous, for Jurassic sea shells are found at Burns and Silvies and other
localities showing that much of the lower part of the Blue mountain region was
still beneath the ocean, but after referring to the great erosion that had taken
place in the older portions of the range, Lindgren writes: “The Blue mountains
in Jurassic and early Cretaceous times must have been a range of imposing
height.
The Olalla creek beds of the Siskiyou region give us a glimpse into the beauty
of Oregon's Jurassic forests.
Near Olalla creek in Douglas county there was an old lake into whose depths
drifted the leaves and fruits of the Jurassic forests. It was then too early in
plant evolution to look for oaks or maples and other hardwood trees, and there
were as yet no true palms; but there were conifers, ferns and many and beauti-
!
134
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
ful cycads, which combine some of the characteristics of both conifers and ferns
with perhaps a still greater likeness to the palms.
If you go to a greenhouse and ask for a cycad palm, they will show you not
a true palm, but a diminutive specimen of the beautiful cycad tree of Jurassic
days. Its terminal bud unrolls like a fern, the wood and fruit are of the conifer
type, but the foliage and general aspect of the tree foreshadowed the palm. Then,
too, there grew near the Olalla lake the graceful gingko or maiden hair tree, now
a native of Japan and China where its coniferous-like seeds are sold for food.
This same Oregon flora flourished on the northern Sierra of California, where
have been found three different genera of conifers, ten species of cycads and per-
haps a dozen species of ferns. If this flora grew in northern Sierras and in the
Siskiyou region of Oregon, it is but reasonable to suppose that at least the lower
slopes of the then majestic Elkhorn and Wallowa mountains, formerly known
as Eagle Creek or Powder River mountains, were clothed with the same verdure.
The Jurassic fossils of the Blue mountain region thus far discovered are con-
fined to the marine shells living along its sea shore. But there must have been
many turtles and great sea lizards or saurians.
There seems to be no reason why the students of Baker or Union or Canyon
or some other Blue mountain town may not discover cycads, Japanese gingkos and
ferns in the sediment of an old Jurassic lake among the Blue mountains or un-
earth the fossil bones of a great saurian-like reptile that ruled the seas in Jurassic
days.
THE CRETACEOUS AGE
The next, or Cretaceous age, is indicated on our map by narrow winding bands
of seabeach. A portion of this beach line has been indicated by Professor Condon
and Dr. Diller as entirely surrounding the Siskiyou region, passing up through
northern California over the present site of Mount Shasta, north past Jackson-
ville into Douglas county and finding the main ocean again near the mouth of the
Coquille river. This same Cretaceous sea thrust its long arms in among the moun-
tains of the Siskiyou island, leaving its record in fossil shells now found in the
older valleys.
Still studying the map we find the Cretaceous rocks skirting the Blue moun-
tains on the south and west. This border land has been so covered by later vol-
canic floods of lava that it is difficult to determine the eastward extension of the
Cretaceous sea, but its shells are found at Mitchell, on Rock creek and in the
Crooked river country, and these are considered the last relics of the ocean in
Eastern Oregon.
It seems well established among geologists that the great mass of the Cascade
mountains within the state of Oregon is built up by volcanic lava. But if it
were possible to remove these thousands of feet of later eruptic rock and to ex-
amine the fossils in the old sea floor beneath it all, geologists would expect to find
shells common in Cretaceous seas.
The Cascade range may have been represented within our state by older
islands, but at the close of the Cretaceous a low, broad dome of land was suf-
ficiently elevated to exclude the ocean from eastern Oregon, and the bands on
our map following the borders of these mountains simply bear récord to the
.
sedotteet
tiles
&A
SKETCH OF THE WILLAMETTE VALLEY BEFORE THE WHITE MAN TOOK IT UP
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
135
fact that this basement rock of our Oregon Cascade range was once Cretaceous
sea bed. This age is, so far as yet discovered, only represented in Oregon by
shells and corals, but the possibilities of its fossils are by no means exhausted.
This period gave the world its first palm trees and its first hardwood trees,
as the oak, maple, hickory and walnut. It was during the Cretaceous that rep-
tiles reached their greatest development. And it is supposed to be the age in
which the small inferior type of earlier mammals evolved into the multitude of
higher forms with which the next period opens.
Its climatic conditions were such that a very even temperature prevailed over
the earth, so that zones of plant and animal life seem almost unknown. Dana
says: "During the Cretaceous a warm climate still prevailed over the earth even
to the poles." So that cycads flourished in Greenland, Spitzbergen, Alaska,
British America, Montana, Siberia, Sweden, China and India; and the sequoia,
the family of the California big trees and redwoods, was represented by many
species throughout the north polar regions.
It is not at all impossible that some young geologist may find remains of Cre-
taceous forests in Oregon, or while wandering through some water-worn ravine,
may come across an old Cretaceous bone bed, proving that Oregon, too, had her
great, clumsy small-brained dinosaurs; or he may find the bones of the long, bat-
like finger of the pterodactyl, the large flying reptile that flitted from crag to
peak. And why should the Rocky mountain region monopolize the Cretaceous
birds with their rows of sharp, recurved, reptile-like teeth? For these Cretaceous
fossils we would look among the mountains or along the foothills of the regions
of Shoshone and Siskiyou.
THE EOCENE AGE
In this age the ocean was excluded from eastern Oregon and Washington.
The Eocene age dawned upon a region of lakes. Whether there were many or
few of great extent, has not yet been determined and perhaps we may never know,
for such large areas have since been covered by sheets of lava and later sediments
that the older records have, in some regions been hopelessly buried and in others
entirely destroyed. Eastern Oregon and Washington and southern Idaho must
have been very beautiful in the early Eocene, for the Blue mountains were far
grander then than now, they were much nearer the rugged vigor of their "topo-
graphical youth" before erosion had worn down their lofty summits, and before
lava floods had filled their valleys and transformed their foothills into a high ta-
ble land of volcanic rock. Lindgren has said in his Gold Belt of the Blue Moun-
tains:
“Take away the lava flows which cover the flanks of the Blue mountains and
you would see rising to imposing heights almost from sea level, and separated by
a lower gap, two great, roughly circular mountain groups—the Eagle Creek
mountains and the Blue mountains proper.” From these imposing mountains
large lakes stretched out in every direction. The climate was damp and warm,
well fitted to stimulate the growth of vegetation. The grand old coniferous trees
were well represented and the hardwood trees as the oak, ash, elm and maple were
increasing in numbers and variety. Palm trees were never again so scattered
over the whole earth as in the Eocene age, and the Northwest had its share. The
136
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Cascade hills and Blue mountain valleys must have been very beautiful with their
grand forests and many flowering shrubs; for Knowlton tells us the magnolia
and cinnamon and fig trees were there, and before the close of the Eocene he adds
the sycamore and sweet gum tree, the walnut, the dogwood and seven species of
oak. There were sequoias to which genus the California redwood belongs, and
our state flower, the Oregon grape, was then here, almost the same in species as
the tall shrub, with which we are so familiar, there were also climbing ferns and
sweet mountain ferns, all flourishing in the Blue mountains or Shoshone region
on the borders of a large lake that filled the John Day Valley.
During at least part of this time Payette lake covered the greater part of
southern Idaho and the adjacent region of southeastern Oregon.
In the distant background of Payette lake was the majestic Wasatch range
and the Owyhee mountains formed a conspicuous island in its vast expanse of
waters, while on the shores grew the same rich forests that clothed the Blue
mountain country.
. Western Oregon was represented during the Eocene age by a few low-lying
islands in the line of the present Coast mountains, but sea shells of the period are
scattered from the northern border of Siskiyou region through the valley of the
Umpqua, the Willamette valley and on northward through the Puget sound
country, proving that most of western Oregon was still a waste of ocean.
THE EOCENE COAL AGE
The coal-producing period in the United States east of the Mississippi river
was the Carboniferous. The Rocky Mountain region looks to the Cretaceous for
its supply of coal, while we of the Pacific coast are thankful for the later coal of
the Eocene.
The most important field so far discovered was formed on the northern shore
of our old Siskiyou region. Prof. Diller, who has made a careful study of this
field, reports the land as gradually sinking during the Eocene period although
with long intervals of rest. At times the field would be covered by fresh water or
brackish swamps on which flourished a rank growth of vegetation destined to
become a seam of glistening coal.
Then for a time the sea would gain upon the land, leaving a deposit of sand
and mud which later formed a layer of sandstone and shale containing Eocene
shells.
Then another interval of rest and filling in of sediment would produce the
broad expanse of rich swamp vegetation, which in time contributed its seam of
coal. This same process repeated again and again through a long period of time
gave us our Coos Bay coal. Later the old level lines of deposit became tilted and
broken into endless confusion of outline.
The Tillamook and Nehalem coal was formed on an Eocene island, which like
the other coal fields, experienced many quiet changes of level, sometimes covered
by the life of the sea, then by the verdure of coal-producing swamps.
Prof. Diller suggests that Oregon has probably many undiscovered coal de-
posits hidden away in our coast mountains and on the western side of the Cas-
cades, covered now perhaps by a dense growth of forest trees.
The Eocene indicated on the map is found in the southwestern part of the
Camil.
TUTO
WILLAMETTE FALLS AS WHEN FIRST SEEN BY THE WHITE MAN
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
137
state including the Coos Bay country and the valley of the Umpqua; also an
island extending northwest from Monroe to Albany, and the Nehalem and Tilla-
mook coal fields.
THE MIOCENE AGE
The Oregon Eocene age drifted into Miocene time without striking topograph-
ical changes. The broad, low basement of the Cascade mountains must have
been growing for in addition to other evidence it is said that a large part of the
deposits in which our Eocene age leaves were buried is fine volcanic ash, probably
drifted from the volcanoes among the Cascade hills. If these fine particles fell in
distant lakes of Oregon, Washington and Idaho, the “Cascade Barrier" must
have already commenced that long period of vulcanism that slowly piled up
ashes, cinders, bombs and lava into the grand mountain range of the future.
The land in the line of the Coast mountains was also becoming more elevated
and of greater extent. A strip of Eocene sea bed was elevated into an island
extending from near Monroe northward and including the hills west of Corvallis
and Albany, where many characteristic Eocene shells are found.
The valley of the Umpqua was elevated above the sea level and the Calapooya
mountains were probably connected with the present coast line by land of suf-
ficient height to exclude the ocean from southwestern Oregon; for Eocene shells
are the latest positively identified in that region, except those found along the
present ocean beaches. But the Miocene ocean still filled the Willamette valley
with marine life, there were not only a great variety of shell fish, but seals must
have been at home in these sheltered waters. The primitive seal of this period
was quite different from modern forms and was perhaps an ancestral type from
which the common seal, the sea lion, the walrus, and fur seal have since diverged.
But life for these seals was not all sheltered peace, for there were sharks in these
same waters, some of their teeth have been taken from the old Miocene sea bed,
now quarried for building stone, both in Polk county and at Eugene.
Eastern Oregon, Washington and Idaho was still a country of beautiful lakes
with a warm, moist climate and luxuriant vegetation. One of the mysteries of
our western geology is the sudden appearance in eastern Oregon of a most inter-
esting and extensive fauna. By consulting a map of the Northwest it will be seen
that the northern extension of the Wasatch mountains is the only barrier between
Idaho and Wyoming. Now all through the Eocene there lived in Wyoming great
numbers of strangely interesting Mammalian animals, while just west of these
mountains in Idaho and the adjacent states of Oregon and Washington no Eo-
cene mammals have been found. But the Miocene age dawns upon the descend-
ants of these animals making themselves perfectly at home on the hills and
marshy meadows that surrounded the large Miocene lake that filled the John Day
Valley. Many books might be written of these old “Oregon pioneers.
There was a primitive camel, the Poebrotherium; and they tell us the camel
was originally a purely North American bred animal. One of the most formid-
able animals to be seen in those old Miocene woods was the Elotherium or Entelo-
don. Of it Dr. Merriam, of Berkeley, writes: “Probably few animals ever ex-
isted better able to protect themselves than those huge Miocene boars. While
138
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
y 'tis no
Dr Leidy said of one of them: “It actually bears more resemblance to the great
felines, lions and tigers, than to its natural ally, the hog."
There were also over a dozen species of the dog family, including the ances-
tors of the wolves and foxes and that ancient line of dogs that was slowly evolv-
ing into the modern bear.
There were many animals of the cat tribe with long, serrated sword-like teeth
more destructive of life than the modern lion or tiger. With the great wolves
the savage elotheres and the fierce flesh-tearing “saber-toothed tigers,
wonder the slow, shambling little horses learned to strain up on their tiptoes and
run for their lives.
There was, too, a small deer no larger than a rabbit, the leptomeryx. It was
allied to the musk-deer and was without antlers. This evolution of antlers in the
deer is typical of the increasing struggle of life. In order to protect themselves
some animals grew horns and antlers, some highly specialized teeth and claws,
and some learned to increase their speed and run from their enemies.
A few of these early Miocene animals, as the rhinoceros, were much like the
modern types, while the diminutive horses could barely be recognized as the pro-
genitors of our modern steeds. Others, as the very common Oreodon, which must
have roamed over the hills in herds, was a strange blending of forms now so
remote as the hog and the deer." The lake sediments, in which these animals of
the early Miocene were buried, are called the John Day Beds. This chapter of
early Miocene history was followed by one of the greatest periods of vulcanism
the world has ever known.
There are two distinct types of vulcanism, the one manifested by an active
volcano where clouds of smoke and steam are forced from a volcanic vent, with
showers of ashes, cinders, bombs, electrical displays and great streams of molten
lava pour out of the crater down the sides of the volcano. Of this type are Mount
Pele and Mount Vesuvius. But the other type of vulcanism is much quieter and
less spectacular. A great crack opens in the surface of the earth and from its
depths wide streams of lava pour out over the land 'as water pours from a crack
in the ice." Both types of vulcanism must have existed in Oregon during this
middle Miocene age; but geologists attribute the greater part of this wonderful
outpouring of molten stone to cracks or "fissure eruptions." The valleys were
filled, the hills and sometimes even the mountains were buried out of sight, and
only a high plateau remained to indicate where mountain, hill and valley had
been. This great outpouring of basalt covered much of eastern Oregon and
Washington. A fine example of its magnitude is found in southeastern Washing-
ton on Snake river at Buffalo rock, where an old mountain of schist stood at least
2,000 feet high when the lava began to flow. Of its history Russell says: "The
river has cut its gorge across a buried mountain so as to expose the rocks com-
posing it for about a mile on each side of the stream. The horizontal layers of
basalt abut against the steep sides of the older mountain and show no evidence
of disturbance at the contact. It is evident that the lower rocks have not been
forced up into the basalt but that the latter was poured out in successive sheets
and flowed around about a mountain of schist, and finally overtopped its summit
and buried it from sight. Additional overflows of the same character were spread
over the site of the buried mountain and reached a thickness of fully 1,000 to
1,500 feet above its summit before Snake river began to excavate its canyon.”

ASTORIA
piece
pa
KALAMA
STLINS
WOOD *
THE DALLES
VANCOUVER
302
RELAND
LLAMOON
PERDLETON
Low CY
LIN
SALE
BAKER CITY
CORVALDS
HIGILAN
CINTOS
HUNTINGTON
GEOLOGICAL MAP OF OREGON
ELEN
ONTADO
VAD
FLORENCE
EMPIRE
PO: ERR
45
SU
En
V.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
139
The highest portions of our Blue mountains, as the Eagle Creek or Wallowa
mountains and the Elkhorn mountains, stand out as islands of limestone or marble
and slate completely surrounded and partially submerged by those great lava
flows. As Lindgren says of them: “The lower water courses became filled with
basalt, damning its headwaters and creating lakes. The sharp slopes became
sloping plateaus, and finally the Blue mountains stood like islands in a basaltic
sea." The great lava flows through which the Des Chutes has worn its way, have
been vividly described by Professor Condon in The Two Islands. While Rus-
sell, of the United States Geological Survey, gives us a most interesting picture
of Stein mountain with its thousands of feet of old basaltic lava. Here it can be
studied in vertical sections, by reason of a fault which has left the highest part
of this mountain block tilted up 5,000 feet above the Alvord valley at its steep
eastern face.
Some of this lava flood in the northwest may have taken place as early as the
Eocene age and some in much later times, but the greater part is believed to be
the work of the Middle Miocene.
UPPER MIOCENE AGE
When this period of vulcanism had passed and sufficient time had elapsed for
the making of new soil by the crumbling and disintegration of volcanic rock;
when shallow lakes had formed in the depressions above the lava flood, and herb-
age and forests had again covered the vast expanse of dreary lava beds; when at
last mammals were again at home in eastern Oregon, we find that time had
wrought many changes. We miss the herds of oreodons for they had become al-
most extinct. Even the fierce elotherium which was so well equipped for the
struggle of life had disappeared. The rhinoceros, so common on the older Ore-
gon lake shores, was seen no more. The three-toed horses were more numerous
than before, but they were quite different from the earlier horses, being now as
large as an average Shetland pony and in every way more like the modern horse.
There were several new types in the camel family. And Dr. Merriam reports
the first of Oregon mastodons as found in the Upper Miocene rocks. The stream
of life had not diminished, but on the contrary, at no period in geological history
of the northwest has it seemed so rich and full.
During the Upper Miocene the forests of Oregon and Washington seemed to
have reached the climax of their glory. In the John Day valley alone Knowlton,
the Paleobotanist, reports eighty different forms, including the fig tree, magnolia,
acacia, butternut, walnut, hickorynut, birch, alder, bald cypress, Japanese cedar,
three species of the sequoia family, to which the California big tree and redwood
belong, seven species of oak, eight of maple, nine of willow, two of elm, three of
sycamore, four of liquid-amber, the persimmon, horse chestnut, laurel and the
maiden hair tree, or Japanese gingko.
Dr. Diller, in speaking of northern California during the Upper Miocene
epoch, says: “No doubt the Sierra Nevada existed at that time, but its height
was very low, at least in the northern part as compared with its present altitude.
The same might be said of the Cascade mountains of Oregon, so that the warm
moisture-laden winds swept unhindered over this whole fertile region of the
140
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
northwest, giving it a fine climate and a semi-tropical flora that for richness and
variety has never since been equaled on the coast.
We have seen that all through the Eocene and Miocene periods the Willamette
valley was covered by the ocean, with only off-shore islands to mark the western
boundary of the future Oregon. At the close of the Miocene age these detached
sections became the United Coast range, and the ocean was shut out not only, but
the valley was elevated above sea level, so that all fossils and sea shells com-
mon in the quarries of the valley represent either Eocene or Miocene life. If the
student is in search of Eocene shells, they can be found near Monroe, Albany
and Corvallis, in the range of hills elevated into an island at the close of the
Eocene. If he wishes to collect Miocene fossils they can be found throughout the
valley, not only a few feet below the surface of the level prairies, but most of
the lower hills and isolated buttes were once old Miocene sea beds. Also in the
South Yamhill valley above Sheridan and in the hills back of Clatskanie in Co-
lumbia county. Chehalem mountains, the Eola or Polk county hills, the Waldo
hills, the Linn county buttes and most of the buttes of Lane county, were ele-
vated about this time. In some of these elevations the eruptive force was only
strong enough to leave a dome-shaped hill, over which the sandstone of the
Miocene sea-bed remains unbroken; but with others the strain was great enough
to tear open the top of the dome, and the lava which poured out covered the sum-
mit and flowed down the sides, perhaps leaving hexagonal blocks of basalt to
speak of those days of violence.
The Pliocene age was a time of elevation all over the Western United States
and as the land was elevated the sea beach naturally moved farther westward
until Oregon became much wider east and west than it is today; and the Pliocene
sea beach with its fossil fish, shells, sharks and seals, must now lie buried in an
off-shore line, perhaps far out at sea.
The lakes of Eastern Oregon and Washington had been filled up and drained
off until only a remnant remained of their once great expanse of waters. But
there seems to have been an extensive lake at this time in southeastern Oregon,
the dimensions of which have not been accurately determined, but it may have
covered the same area as the later Pleistocene lake, indicated on our geological
map as covering the Silver lake region. The name Fossil Lake has been applied
to a part of this basin, but we will here use the name as including the whole of
the Pliocene lake. This fossil field was discovered many years ago by the late
Governor Whiteaker and through his kindness explored by Professor Condon
and later by Professor Cope, the Paleontologist. Here Professor Condon made a
collection of beautifully preserved bird bones which he sent east to be identified,
but which seemed too valuable to be returned and were finally lost to the rightful
owner. Here at Fossil lake lived five species of gulls, two of terns, eleven species
of ducks, four of geese and one of which "must have been nearly as large again
as our common wild Canada goose. There was also a large species of swan
named for Governor Whiteaker-Vitikeri. There were great horned owls, black
birds, coots, herons, crows, eagles, grouse, prairie hens and a great cormorant.
“But the strangest figure upon the scene among the birds was a true Flamingo."
Perhaps some Klamath high school student while spending his summer vaca-
tion, working on a new railroad survey or an irrigating ditch, may come across
some of those rare fossils now covered by a few inches of desert sand, or perhaps
>>


Permian.
Upper Coal Measures.
CARBONIFEROUS AGE.
2000-3000 feet.
Lower Coal Measures.
Coal Measures.
Millstone Grit.
ACE OP MAN.
Upper.
Lower.
Post-tertiary.
Pleistocene,
BORSE
Plioceno.
Chemung.
MAMMALIAY AGE.
Miocene.
Portage.
Genesee.
Tertiary.
Eocene.
.
DEVONIAN AGE, or AGE OP FISAES.
Hamilton.
Marcellus.
OOOOL O O
O
O
5 OOOO
Upper Cretaceous
Upper Helderberg.
Schoharie.
Cauda-Galli.
Oriskany.
Lower Helderberg
Cretaceous.
Middle Crefaceous
Lower Cretaceous
Wealden.
Upper Oollte.
Wealden E.
Saliferous.
Niagara.
Upper Silurian.
REPTILIAN AGE.
Jurassic.
Oolitic
Epocb.
Middle Oolite.
Clinton.
Medina.
SILURIAN AGz, or AGE OF MOLLUSKS.
Liassic
Epoch.
Lower Oolite.
Upper Lias.
Marlstone.
Lower Lias.
Keuper.
Oneida.
Hudson River
Utica.
Tronton.
Black River
Birdseye.
Chazy.
Calciferous.
Potsdam
Lower Silurian.
Muschelkalk.
Triassic.
Bunter-sandstein.
Azoic.
Azoic.
FORMATION OF THE CRUST OF THE EARTH
ONIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
141
even this thin covering has been blown away, leaving the bones exposed to the
summer sun or winter snow. They will be highly prized as a nucleus for a high
school museum or gladly received at the State University, for the dishonest greed
of an Eastern scientist has left Oregon without any collection of bird bones, which
are so rare among fossils that an eminent paleontologist has spoken of these from
Fossil lake and the Cretaceous birds of Kansas, as being the only fine collections
of fossil birds in the United States.
In this Fossil lake region many mammal bones have also been found, includ-
ing three species of the modern one-toed horse and a great sloth-like animal as
large as the grizzly bear, called the mylodon. There were also bears, coyotes,
rabbits, gophers, otters, beavers, a mammoth elephant and at least four kinds of
camel, ranging in size from a modern camel to the smaller auchenia. Most of
these animals have also been found in a narrow lake in the Upper John Day val-
ley, although bird bones are there extremely rare.
During the Pliocene age, especially near its close there was great activity
in mountain building on our coast, not in the elevation of new ranges, for the Cas-
cades and Sierra and the Coast mountains were all in place, but upon the broad
dome-shaped basement story of the Cascades a grand super-structure was now
built up, for it is to the Pliocene we owe much of the grandeur of the Cascades
and High Sierra mountains. For their lofty summits, their towering peaks and
castles, their volcanoes and grand snow peaks we are largely indebted to the Plio-
cene and the following Pleistocene period.
We have noted the great outpouring of lava from cracks or fissure eruptions
and that the fine ashy sediments in which the Eocene and Miocene leaves were
buried is proof that volcanoes then existed, probably in the Cascade and Cali-
pooya mountains; but the Oregon portion of the Cascade range was then not of
sufficient elevation to obstruct the ocean breeze in its progress toward eastern
Oregon. The moisture-laden clouds had kept the lake shores and hillsides green
with rich and luxuriant forest even to the close of the Miocene. But during the
Pliocene all this was changing, the Cascade mountains were becoming a lofty
mountain range, the climate was cooler, eastern Oregon and Washington were
being transformed into a high table land and a fine grazing country, over which
roamed herds of wild horses and camels. But the luxuriant forests were slowly
retreating toward the south. For the whole North Temperate Zone was being
elevated and the cold of the glacial period was gradually creeping over the land.
THE PLEISTOCENE AGE
When finally the Pliocene had passed and the Pleistocene with its glacial pe-
riod had covered most of our northern states with a sheet of ice and snow, “Ore-
gon was not under a continuous mantle of ice but had many independent glaciers
of its own." Remnants of these still remain in place and the previous existence
of others is proven by ice scratches, terminal moraines and other evidence of gla-
cial action found in many of our mountain valleys. The glaciers of Rainier,
Adams, Hood, Jefferson, Three Sisters and Mount Mazama were much greater
than now. Lindgren tells us the Eagle Creek mountains and the Elkhorn and
Greenhorn mountains all had their glaciers. Russell writes of glaciers in the Stein
mountains. A glacier was plowing its way over the hills just back of The Dalles.
142
..
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
There were glaciers in the McKenzie valley and Mohawk valley. The Willam-
ette valley was high table land with glaciers reaching to its borders. Puget
sound was dry, with glaciers plowing across its valley near the present cities of
Seattle and Tacoma. Dana tells us: “The river channels off the California coast
indicate two or three thousand feet of added height to the coast, probably during
the glacial period.” The Straits of Fuca and the Columbia were then wearing
deep channels now twenty miles out at sea.” Coos bay has its off-shore channel,
giving added evidence of the coast during the Glacial age.
Dr. Diller tells us that during the Glacial period a grand snow peak towered
above the present Crater lake. This mountain has been christened Mount Mazama,
and once rivaled Shasta and Rainier in grandeur; it was not only a snow peak,
but was also an active volcano during the Glacial age. Some of the lava that
rolled down the sides of the mountain and cooled into volcanic rock, were later
scratched and scarred by the ice streams or glaciers that crept slowly toward the
valleys. Finally Dr. Diller tells us that the whole summit of the mountain fell
into the chasm beneath, a chasm left by the outpouring of molten material from
within. This chasm is one of the wonders of our state; for after engulfing the
whole upper part of the mountain there still remains a crater six miles wide and
four thousand feet deep. If man was living in Oregon as he was in Europe at
this time the shock that accompanied the engulfing of this grand snow peak and
volcano must have been to the poor superstitious savages a most frightful expe-
rience.
How long, how continuous or severe was this Glacial age upon our coast is not
accurately known, but it must have been of great duration. Most of the animals
probably migrated southward, not alone on account of cold, but to an even
greater extent because the forests and green herbage had moved toward the south,
and the herb-eating animals must follow vegetation, and if the herbiverous ani-
mals migrated the flesh eaters must follow their prey. So there were very few
animals that could have remained during the Glacial age.
When at last after the long period of cold had passed and the glaciers of Ore-
gon had slowly retreated toward their glistening snow peaks, and the more tender
herbage, shrubs and trees had crept northward, neither the animal nor vegetable
life that returned to Oregon was the same. The great lapse of time, hundreds of
thousands of years, and the increasing struggle for existence had worked through
the laws of evolution to produce different animals and a different vegetation.
The camel seems to have disappeared, and the herds of wild horses to have re-
turned no more. The mammoth elephant, judging from the frequency of its
fossil remains, must have been a very common sight during this post-glacial
time in Oregon and Washington.
The forests had lost much in richness and variety of forms. Many genera
that flourished so luxuriantly in the upper Miocene or Mascal Flora have never
returned to our Pacific Northwest.
We have seen that the Pliocene and Glacial were times of great elevation,
but with the coming on of the post Glacial time, there was a gradual sink-
ing of the northern part of the United States. Not only did the Pacific
States lose much of their western border, recently acquired from the ocean,
but the sea gained upon the land until the water stood several hundred feet
higher upon the coast than it does today. If the reader wishes to follow this


faltas
bund
NATIVE ANIMALS
Upper-Saber-toothed tiger
Middle_Three-toed horse
Lower-Ancient camel
OF
Bicy
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
143
latest period of geological history, he will find it fully considered in the Chap-
ter on “The Willamette Sound” in the Two Islands, by Prof. Condon.
On our map you will find his Willamette Sound represented by the Pleis-
tocene dots. The islands of that grand body of water as shown on the map are
largely the Miocene hills, as Chehalem, the Eola Hills, the Waldo Hills, and
the Buttes of Linn and Lane counties. Perhaps at times the lowest of these
hills were covered by the waters of the Sound. Lindgren tells us Baker Val-
ley, too, was a lake during this Pleistocene age. He believes the valley is the
result of a fault at the eastern border of the Elkhorn mountains. If you turn to
the map you will find the elevated beachés described in the Two Islands indicated
by a Pleistocene border along the whole coast line of Oregon. As will be seen
by the map the lakes in Oregon were very much larger then than now.
A portion of southeastern Oregon is of peculiar interest as belonging to
the northern part of the “Great Basin" of Western America. The Oregon
section of this great basin lies approximately between Stein Mountain on the
east and Walker Range on the west, while the most northern portion of its
boundary reaches Strawberry Range near Canyon.
The Great Basin is an area with no outer drainage and any excess of
moisture which falls is soon evaporated into the dry atmosphere, so that its
lakes rarely overflow and ofter during the summer months become changed
into dry alkali flats or playas.
Russell tells us that the boundary line of the Oregon portion of the Great
Basin is changeable. For example the Klamath basin used to be covered in
the Pleistocene times by a long, narrow lake, “Probably including Klamath
Marsh, Upper and Lower Klamath Lakes and Rhett Lake with much of their
adjacent shores," and as this lake has an outlet the whole Klamath basin be-
longed to the Great Basin structure which then extended to the Cascade
mountains. But during some wet season this lake filled its basin and a trick-
ling stream began wearing an outlet, first as a small brook then a larger stream,
it finally grew into the Klamath, river, with force enough to cut its way
through the mountains to the sea.
On the other hand we are told that during the Pleistocene the Malheur
and Harney Basin was filled with a great lake which was drained by the
Malheur river, but a later outflow of molten lava ran across the outlet form-
ing a dam of volcanic rock through which it can not break and over which it
can not flow. Thus, having no outlet, Harney and Malheur Lakes and Basins
are now added to the Oregon section of the Great Basin.
Since so much has been written of faults in connection with the cause
of the earthquake in California we may find fresh interest in studying the
faults so common in this portion of Oregon.
Russell tells us this region has been cracked and broken by faults into
long, narrow blocks running nearly north and south. Some of these "Oro-
graphic Blocks” have been pushed up, others dropped down, but most of them
have been tilted up on edge, the top of the block forming a gentle slope away
from the uplifted side. A fine example of this “Block Mountain” type is
found in Stein mountain in southern Harney county. Its precipitous eastern
face stands five or six thousand feet above Alvord lake and valley at its base.
This lake is deepest next the face of the precipice for the Alvord valley itself
147
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
is only the top of another faulted block which slopes gradually upward toward
the east.
If a small displacement along old fault lines could cause such a disastrous
earthquake as recently visited California, what a terrible shaking Oregon
must have experienced when five or six thousand feet of Eocene and Miocene
strata sediment and columnar basalt were fractured, dislocated and heaved
upward into a great lonely-looking mountain. But it seems most probable
that this was accomplished by many successive faultings along the same line of
fracture, rather than by one mighty upthrow. But Stein mountain is not the only
block mountain in this region. Russell tells us that most of the lakes of Lake
County lie at the base of the precipitous face of a faulted mountain. Summer and
Abert lakes, as well as the dried up Alkali lake, (now owned and worked for soda
by the American Soda Products Co.) are good samples of these huge faults.
America has been designated as the Cradle of the Camels by Professor
William B. Scott, of Princeton University.
“Camels have been found in almost every part of the world," he says,
"but I believe they originated on this continent and passed into the Old World
at one of the times when this and other continents were joined by the filling
up of Bering Straits."
This theory of the filling up of Bering Straits has been used by the profes-
sor also in explaining the similarity of structure in animals which would seem
to have been at one time or other indigenous both to the far north and the
far south. Bears at one time were supposed to have originated here, but scien-
tists say now they lived first in the old countries and migrated here in one of
the distant ages when the straits were closed and made a natural passageway
into the country. The disappearance of the great prehistoric creatures which
once roamed the earth the professor attributes to the introduction of new dis-
eases rather than to an exhaustion or devolution of type.
Probably the most interesting part of the work of geologists and paleontolo-
gists is the tracing out the similarity between the animals that lived on the earth
millions of years ago and the animals on the earth now. The ancient horse
looked more like a goat than the horse now in use. Some of them had three
toes, and some four, with a long head and round ears. The ancient camel
was a sort of a cross between the camel and giraffe that now exists. All these
differences and peculiarities have to be studied out from the remains of the ani-
mals found in the rocks. Many of the animals of ancient geologic times were
far larger than anything on the globe now. There were Mastodons here in
Oregon, fifteen feet in height; with tusks three times as long as the present day
elephant. There were huge unwieldy lizard like beasts called Dinosaurs, thirty
feet in length, and sabre toothed panthers or tigers, the most savage beast the
earth ever produced. The numbers, variety and size of land animals, sea ser-
pents, lizards and bird-life of ancient times far exceeded anything known to
the age of man.
THE AGE OF MAN
In the order of their creation, or evolution, or how they got on the Earth,
the reptiles and fishes came first; then the land animals, and birds; and finally



DINASAUR LIZARD30 FEET IN LENGTH
MASTODON, 15 FEET HIGH
OREGON RHINOCEROS
OF
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
145
MAN. It has taken millions of years, nobody can guess within a million years
how long it has taken, to work out the grand scheme of creation as it now exists,
before the eyes of living men. After all the animal life whose bony remains
are locked up in solid rock or buried thousands of feet deep under deposits of
earth and grave) had passed away, the area of Oregon was covered over with an
ice cap thousands of feet deep. What change in the Earth, or the heavens,
changed ancient Oregon from the balmy climate producing figs and palm trees
to that of a frigid region of continental ice can never be known. That the
glacial age lasting for thousands, possibly a million years, did exist, is amply
proved by the testimony of the rocks on all our mountain peaks. After the
ice age then came Man.
Probably the most important discoveries ever announced in the field of
American archaeology are contained in the newly published fifth volume of the
reports of the Peabody museum, Harvard University.
In this volume Ernest Volk, of Trenton, New Jersey, published the evidence
he has discovered showing the existence of man at the time of the glacial
epoch in the Delaware valley, state of Delaware. This means that man existed
in America at a prehistoric period which has been placed by geologists as far
back as 400,000 years. It means that the early American was among the first
men on earth, instead of being a comparatively late comer, as the majority of
scientists have maintained.
During the last twenty-five years Mr. Volk has explored hundreds of excava-
tions made by himself and others on the banks of the Delaware river, which in
prehistoric ages was two or three times its present width. He points out that
the characteristic soil formation of this region consists of (1) a layer of black
soil on top of which lived the Indians who were here when white men first
came; (2) below this the yellow drift deposited by argillite; tools six inches
down in the yellow drift, and beneath another 18 inches of black soil.
“It contained,” he says, "under a flat slab of argillite, a beautiful slender
argillite spear head; also several chipped argillite boulders, argillite chips and a
number of quartzite pebbles broken by fracturing. No charcoal, burnt stone
or traces of fire were found. The yellow soil was not disturbed below the work-
shop, nor was there any connection between the workshop and the black soil."
Then came the finding of human bones in the yellow dirt drift on Abbot's
farm.
"On April 21, 1899," says Volk's report, "two distinct heaps of human
bones were found. They were six feet below the present surface, and rested
upon a stratum of whitish sand, coarse, clean and sharp, six inches thick."
The implements he found in the yellow drift were all of argillite, a kind of
slate, and of two kinds only, one for penetrating, the other for cutting and scrap-
ing. They are entirely different from the Indian stone implements, which are
made of chert, jasper and many other materials, and show a high degree of
workmanship.
ECONOMIC GEOLOGY
Nature's great work in the geological up-building of this region has given
to Oregon its different climates and soils, its mines of gold, silver, copper, iron,
Vol. 1-10)
146
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
coal, soda, cement and building materials, its grand forests, its navigable
rivers, and last but not least, its incalculable water power-greater than that
of all the states east of the Missouri river. The Oregon mountain peaks, with
their connected ranges, now conserved by government control, lofty, 'grand and
forbidding, will furnish wealth and comfort beyond estimate or comprehension.
They take from the clouds and storms of winter and store up in the in-
calculable millions of tons of snow and ice, the water, which being released,
by summer heat, will not only irrigate and fructify the vast arid plateaus of
central Oregon, producing as long as the race of man shall exist, the bread,
fruit, and meat on which he must live, but also furnish the electric energy to
plow the land, harvest the crops, transport the goods and produce, turn the
wheels of thousands of manufacturing establishments, and lastly but not least,
heat and light the homes of millions of Oregon's future population. For a hun-
dred years these grand Oregon mountains have been condemned by traveler,
historian and economist as frowning forbidding mountain wilds of use only
to sportsmen and mountain climbers. But the Creator of the Earth builds
wiser than men; and the truth is just dawning upon the minds of men, that in
the conservation of their forests of timber, their incalculable capacity to pro-
duce electric energy and a health giving climate the Oregon mountain peaks
and ranges is Oregon's greatest asset of wealth and health.
CHAPTER VII
1774-1805
THE EVOLUTIONARY POLITICAL MOVEMENTS TOWARD OREGON—THE PIONEER AMERI-
CAN PUSHING WEST-GEORGE ROGERS CLARK AND OLD VINCENNES-WASHINGTON
AND JEFFERSON CO-OPERATING TO HOLD THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY-WASHING-
TON AND JEFFERSON PLANT STAKES TO HOLD OLD OREGON.
If the reader cares to go back into history far enough to find out how our
people got started west, he will find that the same blood which moved out of and
west from the dark forests of Germany, crossed over the North sea from
Schleswig to the shores of Britain and over-run the country we now call Eng-
land, and then crossed over the North Atlantic during the fifteenth and six-
teenth centuries to the poverty-stricken soil of the east coast of America, there
began over again the same development, more or less warlike, to capture the
Continent of North America, as their ancestors had utilized in the conquest of
the British island. Do not imagine for a moment that this is a far-fetched
suggestion, having no connection with the Oregon of the twentieth century.
The blood and brains which planted civilization in England, just as surely
planted the same forces in the wilds of America and then pushed on westward
to the Alleghanies, to the Ohio, to the Mississippi, to the Rocky mountains,
and finally to Oregon. And as the new life and surroundings of old Eng-
land developed out of the Teutonic blood which came to its shores as robbers-
new laws, customs and a higher civilization, so likewise did the new world of
America develop out of these descendants from ancient Germany, still newer
laws, higher ideals, and a more perfect civilization which over-run the wil-
derness west and conferred upon Oregon, the perfect flower and fruit of all the
trials, struggles, sacrifices and labors of the race from its cradle in the Black
Forest of Germany to its favored home by the sundown seas.
And as the Englishman was different from his German ancestors, and as the
German pushed across seas westward, and the Englishman pushed across the
seas westward, so also the American pushed on, and on, until he reached a
west that is merged with the east, and they, each, carried their laws and their
civilization, such as it was, with them. It was part of their blood, love and
spirit. The Roman historian, Tacitus, who wrote about eighteen hundred years
ago, and who was celebrated for his profound insight into the motives of human
conduct the main spring of character, described the ancient German ances-
tors of the English as a nation of farmers, pasturing their cattle on the forest
glades around their villages and plowing their village fields. They loved the
land and freedom; and freedom was associated with the ownership of land.
147
148
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
They hated the cities, and lived apart, each family by itself, as woodside,
plain or fresh spring attracts him.” That description written only a hundred
years after the birth of Christ, would be a good description of the American
pioneer from the Atlantic to the Pacific; and of thousands of families in Oregon
today.
And so we follow up the heart and core of this great movement of a con-
quering race to find it building here between the mountains and the mighty
ocean the grandest foundation history in all the western world. A history our
readers should not only know themselves, but one they should delight to teach
to their children,
For these reasons this narrative will now take up those movements of popu-
lation westward which have more of the political and governmental interest
and direction than the commercial enterprises described in other chapters.
Even before the Revolutionary war began, from 1774 to 1776, the pioneers
of Pennsylvania, Virginia and North Carolina commenced drifting over the
Allegheny mountains into what is now West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee.
And during that war, these pioneers in the Ohio valley rendered a great service
to their brethren who, under the lead of Washington, was making heroic
resistance to the British soldiers. But during the war, as a matter of necessity,
all emigration to the west ceased. Nobody knew what the outcome would be.
Washington could spare no able-bodied men to go west as long as he had a vin-
dictive foe in his front. And the pioneers already in the west had all they
could do to maintain their homes and position against the Indian savages, set
on by the Canadian British.
But even then the leaven was working in the minds of the great leaders
of the people, who were to lay the foundations of this mighty nation, to take
and hold the valley of the Mississippi. More than once the question was put
to Washington as to what he would do if he was finally defeated and driven
back by the British army; and more than once he pointed to the Alleghenies
as a sure defense behind which he could lead his veterans, and there forever
defy all the hosts of King George and build up an army and a people which
would swarm back over the mountains and drive the hated English into the
Atlantic ocean. It was to the west, the west, the vast wilderness west, the ex-
hausted, starved, tattered and torn veterans of the Continental army turned
their waning hopes to find a haven of peace and safety from taxation without
representation. Fortunate it was for America, and for humanity, that our
colonial ancestors had for their leaders the three greatest men ever produced in
any one age of the world.
Washington, the all-wise leader, whose great soul could not be moved by
great success or still greater defeat; Franklin, the diplomat, whose profound
wisdom and humanity moved the whole civilized world, and whose genius com-
pelled even his enemies to serve his cause; and Thomas Jefferson, the statesman,
seer, and greatest colonizer of all the world. With the three men, supported
by the self-sacrificing and invincible soldiers of the Continental army, success
of the king was an utter impossibility. Our forefathers had right, justice, the
sea and the land, yea, also the mountains on their side. They would not fail.

2.
4.
3.
No.1-ROBERT CAVALIER DE LA SALLE, explorer and colonist, who in 1682 hoisted
the flag of France in Louisiana, claiming the country of a thousand rivers for his King
No. 2-THOMAS JEFFERSON, who as second President of the United States purchased
the country from France
No. 3º-GENERAL GEORGE ROGERS CLARK, who with a handful of brave Kentucky
pioneers, captured the Mississippi Valley from the British and held it
No. 4-ALEXANDER MACKENZIE, first white man to reach the Pacific ocean over-
land, July, 1793
UNIL
VICH
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
149
No! as well the tall and pillared Alleghenies fall—as well Ohio's giant tide
roll backward on its mighty track.
“For freedom's battle once begun,
Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son,
Is ever won.'
agree.
The idea of a great western movement to hold an empire of rich land for
the teeming millions of men that were to come after them, was the idea of
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. These two men did not always
And at least one of them was a little jealous of Washington's great
name and fame. But on the western movement they did agree. Of all the
great leaders of the rebellion against the British king, Washington only had
been west of the Alleghenies and knew something of the great possibilities of
the Ohio valley. Jefferson knew of it only from pioneer reports and French
newspapers which he could read and translate for himself. But he was con-
tinually reading and thinking, and dreaming of the vast illimitable west, away
west, west, west to the Pacific ocean. At that time, while Washington was lead-
ing the Continental soldiers and straining every nerve to beat back the Brit-
ish arms, Jefferson was stirring up trouble for the British by inciting the Vir-
ginians to support George Rogers Clark in his plans against the British in the
Ohio valley. In driving the French out of Canada, the British had come into
possession of old Vincennes on the Wabash and other fur trading stations and
French forts south of the great lakes. The British general, Hamilton (known
in Western Indian war literature as the “hair buyer,” from his alleged practice of
buying the scalps of murdered pioneers from the Indians), was in possession
of the fort at Vincennes with a garrison of eighty British soldiers and a con-
tingent of Indian allies. Clark was then, November, 1778, in Kentucky, as
a pioneer Indian fighter, and hearing through one Francis Vigo, an Italian
fur trader, that in the next spring Hamilton intended to attack the Ameri-
can settlers in Kentucky, he (Clark) resolved to forestall his foe and set to
work enlisting a force of men to march upon Vincennes during the winter, and
surprise and capture Hamilton and his whole outfit. To carry out this dare-
devil exploit, Clark had to rely wholly on his own resources, which were prac-
tically summed up in the individual person of George Rogers Clark, and his
brains, courage and energy. He had not heard from or received any aid from
his friends and abettors in Virginia for a year; and there was but a scant sup-
ply of powder and lead in all the settlements in Kentucky for any purpose.
But with Clark, to resolve was to act; and so he set to work enlisting men and
building boats and soon had a little army on its way down the Ohio with their
trusty rifles. Leaving a part of his force to patrol the river and look out for
an attack in his rear, he marched the rest of his men overland to the old French
fort at Kaskaskia, Illinois. Here his polite demeanor and address cap-
tured the French and half-breeds, and especially the Creole girls, and all
united to secure additional recruits to his banner—the banner of George Rogers
Clark, for there was not at that time, a single American flag in all America,
west of the Alleghany mountains. After a few days rest, and by these means,
Clark had gathered together a motley band of one hundred and seventy Ken-
150
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
tuckians, half-breed French, Creoles and stragglers that looked anything else
than a military force to attack a fort defended by trained soldiers, amply sup-
plied with cannon of that period, and full supplies of muskets and ammuni-
tion. O the 7th of February, 1779, Clark marched his little army out of old
Kaskaskia, the whole village escorting and encouraging the men, and the good
Jesuit priest, Gibault, adding his blessing and absolution on all those brave
volunteers. It was in the depth of winter and icy cold, in addition to which a con-
tinued downpour of rain flooded the whole country and made an inland sea of the
Wabash river, which they had to cross at one place with only a few canoes,
most of the men wading in ice cold water up to their arm-pits and carrying
their guns and powder horns over their heads. But they finally reached their
goal. To such men, nothing was impossible. Clark reached Vincennes with-
out informing the town or fort of his approach. He surrounded the town in
the night and after a short, sharp and decisive attack in the morning, the
British general, Hamilton surrendered. Clark paroled the men, but sent Ham-
ilton under guard, to Virginia, where he was kept in jail at Richmond for two
years. Taken altogether, this exploit of George Rogers Clark was the most
reckless, daring, dangerous and successful military expedition in the whole
course of the revolutionary war, or of any war.
And in its results it accom-
plished more for the United States than any other one military movement or
battle in the war.
For without this successful venture of Clark's, the British
would have held the Mississippi valley until the end of the war, and by the treaty
of peace, England would have most surely secured everything west of the Al-
leghany mountains. The success of Clark enabled our peace commissioners,
Franklin, Jay and Adams, to claim that Clark had driven the British out of
the Mississippi valley and successfully held it. So that the boundary line be-
tween the American possessions and the English was established on the line of
the great lakes west to the headwaters of the Mississippi river, instead of at
the Alleghany mountains. By this grand coup in the western wilderness,
Clark added to the United States all the territory out of which has been carved
and populated the seven great states of Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana,
Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and half of Minnesota. This was the first great
advance of the American flag from the inhabited portions of the original col-
onies, moving westward. And it was wholly and purely a movement to secure
more territory, and wholly based on political reasons and not influenced by
any commercial motive or interest.
It has been the puzzle of historical writers for more than a century to account
for the attitude of Washington to George Rogers Clark. Washington was per-
sonally acquainted with Clark and his family, of which none stood higher in old
Virginia. Washington must have known and did know the splendid military
abilities of Clark: No man was a better judge of what other men could accom--
plish than Washington. With the exception of Greene, Washington had not a
single general under his command that equaled George Rogers Clark; and no one
of all his major generals, Greene not excepted, accomplished as much for his
country as Clark. Then why did Washington keep him in the western wilderness
with a mere handful of riflemen to be called out as the desperate straits of de-
fense against Indians or British might require! The only answer to that long un-
answered question is, that of all men possible to be sent or kept in the west to hold
V
ao longor property 01
hovor Publio bibim
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
151
in check the British and their Indian allies, and hold the valley of the Mis-
sissippi for any possible result of the war, George Rogers Clark was the firsi
choice—the man that could be trusted and who was equal to the momentous im-
portance of the position. Clark amply vindicated the confidence of Washington;
he discharged the great trust and responsibility on him with such distinguished
ability as to immortalize his name in American history, and in the annals of those
who have covered their names with glory in defense of liberty and just laws. And
the pity of it all is, that his great service to his country, and to his nation, were
never appreciated, recognized, rewarded or honored; and that one of the grand-
est of our national heroes, and one of the nation's greatest benefactors should
have died in poverty and neglect.
On the 4th day of March, 1801, Thomas Jefferson was inaugurated as the
third President of the United States. Jefferson had not taken a prominent part
in the successful rebellion which had severed the colonies from the mother coun-
try. He had not taken a part in making the constitution under which the people
were organized into a nation of free men; and he had been anything but a har-
monious prime minister of Washington's cabinet. It looked to the historian as
if Jefferson's fame would be limited to his leading part in drafting the immortal
Declaration of Independence. But there was seething in his active brain a great
idea; the idea of extending the nation's boundaries from ocean to ocean. Having
a natural taste for scientific studies, he longed to know what the great unfath-
omed west of the Rocky mountains might contain. He had endeavored to organ-
ize a geographical society to explore the western wilderness in the interest of
scientific discovery, but received but little encouragement from Americans. But
as soon as the independence of the colonies was secured he endeavored to enlist
General George Rogers Clark in an exploring expedition to the Pacific coast, and
on December 4, 1783, wrote to General Clark, saying:
“I find they have subscribed a very large sum of money in England for ex-
ploring the country from the Mississippi to California. They pretend it is only
to promote knowledge. I am afraid they have thoughts of colonizing in that
quarter. Some of us have been talking here in a feeble way (the Geographical
Society) of making the attempt to search that country; but I doubt whether we
have enough of that kind of spirit to raise the money. How would you like to
lead such a party? Though I am afraid our prospect is not worth asking the
question.
But the first opportunity he got to set anything in motion that might bring
him any knowledge upon the subject came to him while he was representing the
United States at Paris in 1786. Jefferson gives an account of it in his autobiog-
raphy as follows:
“While in Paris in 1786, I became acquainted with John Ledyard, of Con-
necticut, a man of genius, some science, and of fearless courage and enterprise.
He had accompanied Captain Cook in his voyage to the Pacific, had distinguished
himself on several occasions by an unrivaled intrepidity and published an ac-
count of that voyage with details unfavorable to Cook's deportment towards the
savages and lessening our regrets at his fate. Ledyard had come to Paris in the
hope of forming a company to engage in the fur trade on the western coast of
America. He was disappointed in this, and being out of business, and of a roam-
ing, restless character, I suggested to him the enterprise of exploring the western
152
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
part of our continent by passing through St. Petersburg to the Pacific coast of
Siberia, and procuring a passage thence in some of the Russian vessels to Nootka
sound, from whence he might work his way across the continent to the United
States; and I undertook to have the permission of the Empress of Russia solicited.
He eagerly embraced the proposition, and Baron Grimm, special correspondent
of the Empress, solicited her permission for him to pass through her dominions
to the western coast of America. But this favor the Empress refused considering
the enterprise entirely chimerical. But Ledyard would not relinquish it, per-
suading himself that by proceeding to St. Petersburg he could satisfy the Em-
press of its practicability and obtain her permission. He went accordingly, but
she being absent on a visit to some distant part of her dominions, he pursued his
course across Russia to within two hundred miles of the Pacific coast, when he was
overtaken by an arrest from the Empress, brought back to Poland and there
dismissed."
This shows how much farther ahead in the outlook towards Oregon Jefferson
was, compared with all others. He had started Ledyard to cross the American
continent six years before Gray had discovered the Columbia river, and seven
years before Mackenzie had crossed the Rocky mountains. It is not only a mat-
ter of intense interest to go back and see the men who were racking their brains
and exploiting their ideas about this Oregon of ours before anybody knew there
was such a place; but it is also due from us to render just honors to those men
who not only took the long look ahead. but followed up their great thoughts by
practical statesmanship to secure this country to this nation and for our habita-
tion and use.
When Jefferson became president on March 4, 1801, he supposed that the vast
territory known as Louisiana belonged to Spain. The Pope had given it to Spain,
De Soto had claimed it for Spain, La Salle had claimed it for France and France
had ceded all its rights to the country to Spain. And upon this presumption,
Jefferson had planned to open negotiations as early as practicable after becoming
president to purchase, or in some other way obtain the title to Louisiana for the
United States. And he did not go about this great business in a hap-hazard way.
He knew perfectly well the excited state of feeling that existed throughout the
whole country west of the Alleghany mountains. Irritated by the exactions of
the Spanish traders at New Orleans, and feeling their whole future depended on
the conditions on which they could ship their produce to market by the great
rivers, the pioneers of the west were ready to volunteer and drive the Spaniards
out of the country by force of arms, just as they had been ready to follow George
Rogers Clark in 1793-4 to drive out the Spaniards and turn Louisiana over to the
French. Therefore, to prepare himself as President of the United States, to meet
and control any emergency which might arise in this delicate and great national
business, as soon as he became president he sent a secret agent to old St. Louis
to find out the state of feel among the Spanish at that frontier town. Jefferson
desired to know the political sentiments of those old world pioneers at St. Louis,
and especially their feelings towards the people of the United States. Trouble
must come sooner or later from that foreign flag flying in the heart of the great
Mississippi valley. For just as certain as George Rogers. Clark with one hun-
dred and seventy men had captured the British General Hamilton and his fort
and forces at old Vincennes, that surely would some other western filibustering
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
153
1
Clark arise and gather an army and drive the Spaniards out of St. Louis. The
man selected for this secret mission to St. Louis was John Baptiste Charles Lucas.
Lucas was a Frenchman that had studied law in Paris; had some acquaintance
there with Franklin and Adams while they were representing America during
the Revolutionary war, and having come to America after the war made the ac-
quaintance of Albert Gallatin, Jefferson's secretary of the treasury, who intro-
duced him (Lucas) to the president. Lucas was an ardent supporter of repub-
lican principles, he could speak the Spanish as well as the French language, and
everything pointed him out as the man capable of serving Jefferson and his
adopted country. Lucas undertook the confidential mission to St. Louis, and af-
ter sounding the drift of personal and political feeling at that point, proceeded
to New Orleans on the same mission, making his confidential reports to the presi-
dent only. Upon this information the president was prepared to act, and did act,
as the sequel showed. He was prepared for war if the French had not backed
down and offered to sell out before he had even time to submit an ultimatum.
That the services of Lucas in this national crisis were of great value and
highly appreciated by the president, is shown from the facts that when Lucas
became a candidate for Congress in Pennsylvania in 1803, the Jefferson admin-
istration most heartily supported him and secured his election; and after Louis-
iana was formally ceded to the United States and a territorial government estab-
lished in Missouri, the president appointed Lucas a United States district judge
in that territory where he was heartily welcomed by the people. For although
old St. Louis had a Spanish governor and Spanish soldiers, the majority of the
townspeople were French and under the influences of the great fur traders, Pierre
Laclede, August Chouteau and others, and already disposed to support an Ameri-
can president and American principles.
It is not, therefore, surprising that after all this careful preparation to deal
diplomatically with the Spanish King for the purchase of Louisiana, that the
president, and the whole country with him, should have been alarmed beyond ex-
pression to find that Spain did not in fact own Louisiana; but that the great
province had been secretly ceded to France two years before the publication of
the event. This discovery produced intense excitement throughout the whole
country, and especially to President Jefferson. It could not be divined what
purpose France had in view in taking back Louisiana by a secret treaty, and
everybody assumed that sooner or later the nation would be forced into a war
with an old friend. Writing to Livingston, the American minister to Paris,
April 18, 1802, Jefferson says: “Every eye in the United States is now fixed on
the affairs of Louisiana. Perhaps nothing since the Revolutionary war has pro-
duced more uneasiness throughout the nation and in spite of our temporary
bickerings with France, she still has a strong hold on our affections. The cession
of Louisiana to France completely reverses all the political relations of the United
States, and will form a new epoch in our political course. There is on the globe
one single spot, the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. That
spot is New Orleans, through which the produce of three-eighths of our territory
must pass to market, and from its fertility it will ere long yield more than half
of our whole produce, and contain more than half of our inhabitants. France
placing herself in that door assumes to us the attitude of defiance."
Jefferson read the future as if by inspiration. The great waterways pouring
154
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
1
their traffic down to New Orleans at the least possible expense were building up
in the great valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers an empire of population.
He thought, as everybody else then thought, that the trade of even Pittsburgh,
only four hundred miles west of the Atlantic port of Philadelphia, must of neces-
sity float down the Ohio and Mississippi, and go out to the world by way of New
Orleans. And also all the traffic west and south of Pittsburgh must go the same
way. We of this day cannot comprehend the consternation with which that view
struck the president and all of the people of the west. We could understand it
if England or Japan should now in our day capture Astoria and the mouth of the
Columbia, and proceed to levy import and export taxes on every pound of Orc-
gon produce or goods which goes out or comes in over the Columbia river bar.
The steam railroad had not been invented at that day, and no one could then ses
any future for the great west except through nature's outlet by the great river
to the Gulf of Mexico.
Jefferson has been by many rated as a philosopher, a scientist, a dreamer or
schemer rather than a practical statesman; but the facts show that when the
great occasion came he was always equal to it. He met this secret treatv move
between Spain and France with both energy and wisdom. He instructed his
minister to Paris, Robert Livingston, to ascertain at the earliest moment what
France proposed to do with the island of New Orleans, as the city was then called.
And as matters developed, in January following his letter to Livingston, he av-
pointed James Monroe, minister extraordinary to France, with instructions to
push the French court to a decision. And in his letter of instructions to Monroe,
he reminds him that the French are hard pressed for money to complete the con-
quest of St. Domingo, and that these circumstances have prevented the French
from taking possession of Louisiana. Everything seems to have been considered
fair in love or war in those days as well as now, and Thomas Jefferson proposed
to make the most of it for his country.
On February 3, 1803, Jefferson writes again to Livingston: “We must know
at once whether we can acquire New Orleans or not. The westerners were clam-
oring for New Orleans and for war. The same sort of people that rallied to the
appeal of Andrew Jackson ten years later and gave the British such a terrible
thrashing below New Orleans, were now ready to fight the French if they dared
to come and take the country they had bought from Spain.
So anxious and so terribly was Jefferson wrought up over the condition of
affairs that he tells Monroe in the letter quoted: "On the event of your mission
depends the future destinies of this republic. If we cannot by a purchase of
Louisiana insure ourselves a course of perpetual peace, then as war cannot be dis-
tant, we must prepare for it." The future destiny and ownership of this Oregon
country was dangling in the balance right then and there.
There can be no doubt that Napoleon (then ruling France) purposed to take
possession of Louisiana. A military force of twenty thousand men was on the
eve of embarking; and Napoleon had decided to plant this force as a colony at
the mouth of the Mississippi river; the strategic point to wield at his pleasure
the commerce and civilization of the Atlantic Ocean. A petty quarrel with
England about the Island of Malta in the Mediterranean sea deranged his
plans, and he formed another chain-lightning-resolve-he would rival Julius
Caesar by the invasion and conquest of England. But to do this he dared not
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
155
send his veterans to New Orleans; for England, mistress of the seas, might cap-
ture his men, and ships afloat and wrest New Orleans from France. The great
Napoleon dropped his scheme as quickly as he formed it; and as he badly
needed money for other schemes, he turned around and offered Louisiana
for sale to the American minister. "Never in the fortunes of mankind,"
says John Quincy Adams, "was there a more sudden, complete and pro-
pitious turn in the tide of events than this change in the purposes of Napoleon
proved to the administration of President Jefferson." So convinced was Liy-
ingston of the bad faith of France at that time, that when Monroe reached
Paris, Livingston declared that nothing but force would do; “We must seize
New Orleans by military force, and negotiate afterwards." What then was
his surprise and astonishment when he proposed to purchase the trading post
of New Orleans, to find the French minister offering to sell him the vast terri-
tory of Louisiana, New Orleans, the great rivers and everything else that
France claimed in America. The whole tone of France was changed at once,
and the bargaining for an empire of land went merrily as a marriage bell. Fif-
teen million dollars was the price agreed upon for Louisiana territory; the
largest real estate transaction in the world from the beginning of the human
race. It conveyed all the lands in the states of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri,
Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, three-fourths of Wyoming, North Dakota, South
Dakota, half of Colorado, Oklahoma, Indian Territory, Utah, half of Minnesota
and most of Montana; five hundred and sixty-five million acres at a price of
about one dollar and a half per square mile of land. Napoleon was greatly
pleased with the sale he had made, and said to the American minister. “This
accession of territory strengthens forever the power of the United States; and
I have given to England a maritime rival that will sooner or later humble
her pride." And the most curious thing in the whole transaction was that
President Jefferson borrowed the money from English bankers to pay France,
when it was perfectly plain that Napoleon would use the whole sum fighting
England, taking a most outrageous advantage of the stupidity of the English
ministry. On the 20th of December following formal possession of the
Province of Louisiana, was taken by the American Commissioners, Wm. C.
Claiborne and General James Wilkinson, and the tri-colored flag was pulled
down to wave no more forever over American soil.
President Jefferson was now free to pursue his life long desire to know
what was in the Far West. He had now cleared away all obstacles; he had
added to the national domain territory enough to make thirteen more great
states;
he had opened the way now to find out what was in the far-off Oregon
country. Oregon had been in his mind ever since he had started Ledyard
across Asia to reach and explore it. And that is the reason this history of the
Louisiana purchase is pertinent to the history of Oregon. Without Louisiana,
the United States could never reach Oregon and without Oregon, there would
be no American port on the Pacific Ocean.
Here we connect George Washington and Thomas Jefferson with Oregon.
While Washington was fighting the British in the Atlantic coast colonies, he did
not neglect the rear; but kept George Rogers Clark in the Ohio valley to hold the
Indians in check and watch the British who were in actual possession of the great
Valley. Jefferson succeeded Patrick Henry as Governor of Virginia and held
156
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
that office during all the darkest hours of the Revolution; as such Governor he
succeeded in sending to Clark such limited supplies of powder and lead as would
keep the Ohio valley pioneers in ammunition to defend themselves. With this
slight aid Clark exceeds all his instructions organizes his "hunting shirt” army,
captures old Vincennes, and drives the British out of the Ohio valley, and holds
it until the Treaty of Peace with England gives all the great valley east of the
Mississippi river and north of the Florida line to the American Colonies. Both
Washington and Jefferson were working together to hold the west-Washington
as General in Chief of the armies, and Jefferson as Governor of Virginia Wash-
ington captures the British army; peace is declared and the Treaty gives the
Ohio valley clear to the Mississippi to the United States. Washington is elected
President, and while in that office sent out the Boston Skipper, Capt. Robert
Gray, under the Stars and Stripes armed with the following authority :
"To All Emporers, Kings, Sovereign Princes, State and Regents to their Respcc-
tive Officers, Civil and Military, and to All Others Whom It May Concern:
"I, George Washington, President of the United States of America, do make
known that Robert Gray, Captain of a ship called the Columbia, of the burden of
about 230 tons, is a citizen of the United States, and that the said ship which he
commands belongs to the citizens of the United States; and as I wish that the said
Robert Gray may prosper in his lawful affairs, I do request all the before-men-
tioned, and of each of them separately, when the said Robert Gray shall arrive
with his vessel and cargo, that they will be pleased to receive him with kindness
and treat him in a becoming manner, &c., and thereby I shall consider nyself
obliged.
"September 16, 1790–New York City.
"Seal U. s.
GEORGE WASHINGTON,
"Thomas Jefferson,
President."
"Secretary of State."
Under that authority Capt. Gray discovers the Columbia river, sails in over
its stormy bar and raises the American Flag for the first time in Old Oregon.
Time passes on and Thomas Jefferson succeeds Washington in the Presi-
dential office. Now armed with the National authority he pushes his long cher-
ished plan of getting control of the mouth of the Mississippi river. He succeeds
beyond his greatest expectations, and gets the whole of Louisiana. The great
transaction is scarcely completed than his ambition to get to the Pacific Ocean
comes foremost in his thought; and we find him writing on August 12, 1803, a
letter to John Breckinridge, who was Attorney General in President Jefferson's
Cabinet from 1805 to 1806, from which is taken the following extract:
"Our information about the country (Louisiana) is very incomplete. We
have taken measures to obtain a full report as to the settled part. The boundaries
are the high lands on the western side of the Mississippi, enclosing all its waters,
and terminating in the line drawn from the northwestern point of the Lake of the
Woods to the nearest source of the Mississippi, as lately settled between Great
Britain and the United States. We have some claims to extend on the sea coast
(on the Gulf of Mexico) westwardly to the Rio Norte or Bravo, and later to go
eastwardly to the Rio Perdido, between Mobile and Pensacola, the ancient
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
157
boundary of Louisiana. These claims will be the subject of negotiations with
Spain, and if, as soon as she is at war we push them strongly with one hand,
holding out a price in the other, we shall obtain the Floridas, and all in good time.
In the meanwhile, without waiting for permission, we shall enter into the exercise
of the natural right we have always insisted on with Spain, to-wit: That of a
nation holding the upper part of streams, having a right of innocent passage
through them to the Ocean. We shall prepare her to see us practice on this,
and she will not oppose it by force."
And under the doctrine announced in that letter, Jefferson immediately
organized the Lewis and Clark Expedition which made its way across Spanish
territory to Old Oregon, and connected with Gray's discovery under Washing-
ton's authority at the mouth of the Columbia river, thus raising under the au-
thority of these two great Presidents the American flag from Ocean to Ocean-
and planting the stakes for the American Title to Old Oregon.
CHAPTER VIII
1834-1846
THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT-A COUNTRY WITHOUT LAWS OR CIVIL GOVERNORS-
THE SCHEMING OF RIVAL SECTS AND INTERESTS—THE GREAT WORK PERFORMED
BY THE PIONEERS—THE HEROIC AGE OF OREGON.
The organization of the Provisional Government at Champoeg on May 2nd,
1843, has come to be regarded in Oregon very much as the Declaration of Inde-
pendence adopted on July 4th, 1776, is regarded throughout the Nation. For
fifty years this remarkable event received no public recognition although its or-
ganization was a part of the records of the State ; and was known only to the
oldest pioneers as a veritable fact, and to others as a matter of history.
By the passage of a resolution at a meeting of its board of directors on
December 16, 1899, the Oregon Historical Society authorized its Committee on
Memorials to identify and mark with a stone monument the site of the organiza-
tion of the Provisional Government at Champoeg. Gov. T. T. Geer, at the
request of Lewis B. Cox, Chairman of the Committee on Memorials of this
Society, secured an appropriation of three hundred dollars at the session of the
legislature in 1900, with which to defray the expense of a small stone monument.
On May 3d, 1900, accompanied by Francois Xavier Matthieu, the only survivor
of the notable meeting of fifty-seven years before, Gov. Geer, with the aid of
Mr. Matthieu and George H. Himes, Secretary of the Oregon Pioneer Association,
identified the site and marked it. Afterwards the owners of the premises deeded
a small piece of ground to the Oregon Historical Society in trust for the State,
a contract for the monument was made, and on May 2, 1901, it was unveiled in
the presence of several thousand people. Judge Charles B. Bellinger, vice-
president of the Oregon Historical Society, presided. Gov. Geer made an intro-
duetory address, Harvey W. Scott delivered an historical address, Rev. Harvey
K. Hines, D. D., made an address on the “Missionary Element in the Making
of Oregon," and Hon. John Minto, a pioneer of 1844, gave an address on "The
Relation of the American Settlers and Mountain Men to the Provisional Govern-
ment."
Since 1901 there has been an annual celebration at Champoeg, and with each
recurrence of the event a number of persons became deeply impressed with its
historical importance and imbued with the determination to secure sufficient
ground adjoining the monument for a state park. Through the personal efforts
of Mr. Joseph Buchtel, beginning six years ago, aided by Mr. Matthieu and
others, this has finally eventuated in the purchase of the land to be held in
perpetuity by the state as a memorial of the founding of American principles
159
160
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
zen.
and policies on the Pacific coast. For these reasons it is deemed worthy and
appropriate to devote a separate chapter of this book to an examination of the
circumstances and reasons that led up to this unique pioneer government—the
only one of its kind in American history.
There can be no civil government anywhere without resolute, independent,
thinking, self-reliant men. When Hall J. Kelley who had advertised the coun.
try more than all other persons or agencies combined, reached Oregon in 1834,
and found here the Methodist Missionary, Jason Lee, there were already in the
country about twenty-five American mountaineers, who had drifted into the Wil-
lamette Valley as trappers, and in other ways not necessary to mention-most of
whom had Indian wives. These men had decided to stay here and make their
homes here. Up to this time the Hudson's Bay Company had discouraged all per-
manent settlements, even of their own retired trappers and servants, for the rea-
son that the company wished to preserve Oregon as a great game preserve—mere
hunting grounds. Dr. McLoughlin had set aside this rule in the case of Etienne
Lucier, who wanted to go to farming and even proffered help to Lucier; but did
so with the express understanding that Lucier should be kept on the Fur Com-
pany's books as one of their servants—and not as an independent settler or citi-
And that rule was to apply to all Hudson's Bay Company employees. So
that it was plain that if there was to be any government for protection of politi-
cal rights outside of the control of the Hudson's Bay Company (no matter what
McLoughlin's private opinions were), such government must originate with and
be organized and maintained by the Americans, independent of, if not in open
opposition to, the influence of the Great Fur Company monopoly.
Naturally enough the first question that came up among these Americans
would be, whose country is this? And under what flag and government are we
to live? They could see, and were made to feel that the Hudson's Bay Company
represented the British Government, the historical and implacable enemy of the
government they preferred; and that it had a thousand times greater ability to
prevent, suppress, and destroy any organization they might attempt than they
had to build it up. Any organization seemed hopeless. And yet the desire for,
and an impulse towards, an organization was manifested among these rough moun-
taineers as early as 1834 when they found an educated American citizen who
might become a leader had come into the Willamette Valley. These rough unedu-
cated mountaineers were not destitute of the natural alertness and shrewdness
which comes to the relief of men in desperate circumstances. But on the con-
trary their trials and dangers on the frontier, and with the Indians had developed
and quickened their perception so that they were prompt to discover their true
position in the country. They were not interested in maintaining Oregon as a
game preserve for the Hudson's Bay Company. They could see nothing in that
for the future of an American who had a desire to live as his fathers had. There
was nothing in trapping beaver for the Company but the bare living which the
Company employees from Canada got at sixty dollars a year. That did not
appeal to Americans. And so the line of cleavage started. The Americans look-
ing forward to a settled country devoted to agriculture, with schools, towns,
churches, civilization and commerce. The H. B. Co. and the Canadians under the
influence of the Company, contented and determined to keep the country in its
then unsettled condition until the British Government should otherwise decide.

OF
ha
Caughey
JOE MEEK APPEALS FOR THE AMERICAN FLAG, AT CHAMPOEG, MAY 2, 1843
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
161
They
And here at this juncture arose the contest between the Protestants and the
Catholics. The Protestant missionaries were first in the Oregon field
had come out to save the Indians, and especially the Indians that had been hunt-
ing for the “Book of Heaven.” The record does not show at any point, in meet-
ings back in the States, or in any wise here in Oregon, that the Protestant mis-
sionaries had at any time considered the spiritual salvation of the American
mountaineers like Meek, Newell, Doughty and their companions. But on the con-
trary, as these mountaineers had a very low opinion of Indians in general, the
Protestant missionaries rather avoided or at least ignored them as God-forsaken
sinners, whose example would militate against the conversion of the heathen.
But the Catholic priests, in their object and purpose of coming to Oregon, occu-
pied a position directly opposed to that of the Protestant missionaries. The
Catholics had answered a call from their fellow religionists, settled in the Wil-
lamette Valley. They were brought out from Canada to Oregon by the Hudson's
Bay Company to minister to the Catholic employees of the Company and their
discharged employees settled in Oregon-all white men, or half white men-
members and communicants of the Catholic church. That the Catholic priests
did preach to and teach Indians was quite true; but that was not their motive in
coming to Oregon. Father De Smet was the Catholic who came to Oregon to con-
vert the Indians. He had no connection with the Hudson's Bay Company, and
was an ardent American citizen who followed the American flag and defended
the principles, constitution and laws of the American government under all
circumstances.
Here, then, was the line of cleavage between the Americans and Protestant
missionaries on one side, and the Hudson's Bay Company (Englishmen) and the
Catholics on the other. The Catholic priests must perforce support the British
side, because they were themselves, as also all their membership, subjects of
Great Britain. The American mountaineers having no religious associations
must perforce support the Protestant missionaries because they were all Ameri-
cans in favor of holding the country against England and the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany. From the time Jason Lee came over the mountains in 1834 until the time
Vicar General Blanchet came in 1838, the question of a government, provisional
organization, or preferably territorial organization by Congress, was talked of in
a general way as a desirable movement to be accomplished sometime. But the
settlers were all friendly with each other and no lines were drawn until the
Catholic leader came to the front. He was at once discovered to be a man of
force and ability, and a great organizer. If Blanchet had not come to Oregon
there would not have been a contest about an organization. For no matter how
much the Fur Company, or the British Government might have been opposed to
a Provisional Government, there was no man on the ground to organize the forces
against it but Blanchet. McLoughlin was at the head of the Fur Company and
had all the ability, and all the resources, and far more than Blanchet to organize
opposition to an American organization but he had no disposition to do so. Why
he did not do so has always been a puzzle to historians. He was condemned by
his employers and lost his position and a salary of twelve thousand dollars a
year because he befriended Americans who were in want for food and clothing.
But he might have humanely assisted every naked starving American immigrant,
as he did, and yet effectively opposed the organization of a Provisional govern-
Vol. I-11
162
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
.
ment. But he did not oppose it. And his course was such, that when the Brit-
ish officers, Warre and Vavasour, made their military reconnoissance in 1845,
they say in their report to the British Government:
"In conclusion we must beg to be allowed to observe, with an unbiased opin-
ion, that whatever may have been the orders, or the motives of the gentlemen in
charge of the Hudson's Bay Company's posts on the west of the Rocky Moun-
tains their policy has tended to the introduction of the American settlers into
the country.
The only explanation of McLoughlin's course consistent with common sense,
and his honor as a man, is that he did not regard himself as the Agent of the
British Government to oppose settlements by the Americans, although he was a
British subject. And in the light of what McLoughlin did in apparent opposi-
tion to British claims to the country, and his subsequent course in becoming a
citizen of the United States, there should be no doubt that he thought that the
United States had a just right to the country, and that settlement and organiza-
tion under American laws and ideas would be best for the country and for the
people. But other subjects of Great Britain and especially the Catholic settlers
under the tutelage of their religious teachers, took a different view and a different
attitude from that of McLoughlin. But that there was opposition open or con-
cealed to an American government cannot be doubted. In Wyeth's memorial
to Congress made after his retum from Oregon in 1838, he says: "A population
is growing out of the occupancy of the country that is not with us; and before
many years they will decide to whom the country belongs, unless in the mean-
time the American government shall make their power felt and seen to a greater
degree than has yet been the case."
The first semblance of authority of government in Oregon came from the
Hudson's Bay Company, and through the initiative of John McLoughlin. Prior
to the settlement of Americans in the Willamette Valley the authority of Mc-
Loughlin was absolute, and whatever he ordered to be done that was the law,
and no Hudson's Bay Company man thought of disputing it. Under the British
Charter the Governor and Council of the Company had authority to try its own
employees for any crimes committed on the Company's plantation, forts, fac-
tories, or places of trade, or make war on any unchristianized nation. But as
the Americans could not be ranked within this category McLoughlin procured
an act of Parliament to be passed providing for the appointment of Justices of
the Peace in different parts of the country, and under which James Douglas was
appointed Justice of the Peace at Vancouver, with authority to try minor of-
fenses, and to arrest persons charged with serious crimes and send them over the
mountains to Canada for trial. But as the Americans could not be subjected to
these officials of the Hudson's Bay Company, the Methodist missionaries in 1839
attempted to set up some sort of authority to maintain public order and protect
life, and thereupon appointed two persons to act as magistrates. This was done
without co-operation of the settlers but was tactily approved and acquiesced in.
Under this authority David Leslie was appointed a justice of the peace; and
afterwards when T. J. Hubbard was arrested and tried for killing a man who at-
tempted to enter his (Hubbard's) cabin through the window, Leslie called a jury
of the settlers, took the evidence and Hubbard was tried and acquitted being the
first trial by jury in Old Oregon.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
163
Meanwhile these tentative efforts to establish some sort of rule or authority in
the country to protect life and property were going on, other efforts were being
quitly pushed forward to secure some recognition if not protection from Con-
gress. The first step in this direction was taken in March, 1838, when a memor-
ial was prepared, signed and sent to Senator Linn of Missouri who presented the
document to the United States Senate on January 28th, 1839. This memorial
set forth to some extent the natural resources and social condition of the coun-
try. Himes and Lang's history says that this memorial was signed by “J. L.
Whitcomb and thirty-five other settlers," while Bancroft's history recites that
"it was signed by ten preachers and laymen, Ewing Young and ten other col-
onists, and nine French Canadians.” It was the first appeal to the Congress of
the United States for recognition and protection, and for that reason alone is
of great historical interest. It was doubtless the work of Jason Lee, who before
the memorial was drawn up and signed made a trip to Umpqua Valley to see
what was there, and on his return called a meeting of the settlers to consider the
subject of the memorial. Bancroft's history, citing Edward's sketches of Oregon
MSS. says that P. L. Edwards was Lee's instrument in drafting the memorial.”ı
As that memorial was important historically and otherwise, the following
paragraph is copied: "We are anxious when we imagine what will be, what must
be, the condition of so mixed a community, free from all legal restraint and su-
perior to that moral influence which has hitherto been the pledge of our safety.
We flatter ourselves THAT WE ARE THE GERM OF A GREAT STATE and
are anxious to give an early tone to the moral and intellectual character of our
citizens—the destinies of our posterity will be intimately affected by the char-
acter of those who immigrate. The territory must populate—the Congress of the
United States must say by whom. The natural resources of the country, with a
well-judged civil code, will invite a good community; but a good community will
hardly immigrate to a country which promises no protection to life or property.
We can boast of no civil code. We can promise no protection but the
ulterior resort of self defense.
We have thus briefly shown that the
security of our persons and our property, the hopes and destinies of our children,
are involved in the subject of our petition. We do not presume to suggest the
manner in which the country should be occupied by the government, nor the
extent to which our settlement should be encouraged. We confide in the wisdom
of our legislators, and leave the subject to their candid deliberations." This first
petition to Congress for protection to the infant Colony in Oregon was read in
the United States Senate, laid on the table. But prior to the receipt of this
memorial, Senator Linn had on his own initiative introduced a bill in the Senate,
authorizing “The occupation of the Columbia or Oregon river; organizing a ter-
ritory north of latitude 42° and west of the Rocky Mountains, to be called Ore-
gon Territory; providing for the establishment of a fort on the Columbia, and
the occupation of the country by a military force, establishing a port of entry,
*
1 Philip L. Edwards was a layman who came to Oregon with Jason Lee, in 1834, on a
salary to help establish the Methodist Mission among the Indians. He was a Kentuckian by
birth, twenty-three years of age when he reached Oregon, a lover of order and refinement;
but knew well how to accommodate himself to the crudities of frontier life and manners.
He never considered himself a missionary; and afterwards returned to Missouri, studied
law, and did military duty; against the Mormons in 1841. In 1850 he emigrated to Cali-
fornia, settled in Nevada County, engaged in politics 'as a Whig, afterwards as a Repub-
lican, and died May 1st, 1869.
164
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
and requiring that the country should be held subject to the revenue laws of the
United States. Congress took no action on this bill.”
In June, 1840, Senator Linn presented another memorial from Oregon, signed
by seventy Americans, from which is taken the following extract:
“Your petitioners represent that they are residents in Oregon Territory, and
citizens of the United States or persons desiring to become such. They further
represent that they have settled themselves in said Territory under the belief that
it was a portion of the public domain of the United States, and that they might
rely on the Government thereof for the blessings of free institutions and the pro-
tection of its arms. But your petitioners further represent that they are unin-
formed of any acts of said Government by which its institutions and protection
are extended to them; in consequence whereof, themselves and families are ex-
posed to be destroyed by the savages AND OTHERS THAT WOULD DO THEM
HARM. And your petitioners would further represent that they have no means
of protecting their own and the lives of their families, other than self-constituted
tribunals, organized and sustained by the power of an ill-instructed public opin-
ion, and the resort to force and arms. And your petitioners represent these
means of safety to be an insufficient safeguard of life and property. Your
petitioners therefore pray the Congress of the United States to establish a ter-
ritorial government in Oregon Territory.'
The above memorial is supposed to have been drafted by Rev. David Leslie,
who was also the first justice of the peace. The words "and others that would
do them harm" in the memorial was intended for the Hudson's Bay Company,
and from all the surrounding facts, were wholly unjustified. The Hudson's Bay
Company in Oregon was then under the control of Dr. John McLoughlin, whose
kindness and humanity had been so often and widely extended to starving immi-
grants that no denial of the false accusation was necessary. If McLoughlin, or
his Company, had desired to destroy or drive out the American settlers all that
was necessary was for them, for such bloody work, was to give an intimation to
the Indians, and every American settler would have been murdered within a
week. At the time this last memorial was sent to Congress, thirty-five years after
Lewis and Clark was here, the population of Oregon, exclusive of Hudson's Bay
employees, was about two hundred men and women adults. Of these about one-
sixth were Canadians French; nine-tenths of them lived west of the Cascade
mountains, and nearly all of that number in the Willamette Valley.
Having by these memorials made known their necessities and desires to Con-
gress the people patiently waited for action. But the American Congress was
too busily engaged in schemes down in the region of the Lone Star of Texas.
The extension of slavery, and the balance of power between the free and the
slave states was already then affecting and coloring every political movement
very much as the tariff and the trusts are at this day controlling the political
and industrial life of the Nation. And thus matters dragged along in the far
distant uneventful silence of Old Oregon until one of those sad dispensations of
Providence that must come to all, fell upon the little American community on
the Willamette—the death of Ewing Young. Young had come to Oregon from
California with Hall J. Kelley in the same year that Rev. Jason Lee arrived
overland from the Atlantic states. But instead of carrying a commission to
preach the gospel as Lee had, it was his misfortune to be denounced by the
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
165
Mexican governor of California as a horse-thief, and Dr. John McLoughlin had
posted up the letter on a sign post in the Willamette Valley. Young was not a
horse-thief, or a cattle rustler, as can be found in certain parts of Oregon in
1912; but he was an energetic horse trader, and during the seven years he had
claimed his home in Old Oregon he had accumulated more property than any
other American citizen. But now he was dead, February 15th, 1841, leaving no
known heirs, and a large property. The entire American population about
Champoeg and the Missions attended his funeral; and the fact of his property
and the absence of heirs to claim it forced the necessity of some sort of a govern-
ment so vividly upon the attention of the people that a temporary meeting was
then and there held at this funeral of the man who had been denounced as a
thief, to take steps to organize a government for Oregon. Himes and Lang's
History states that “A meeting of some of the inhabitants” was held on the
7th of February, eight days before Young's death, “for the purpose of consult-
ing upon steps necessary to be taken for the formation of laws, and the election
of officers to execute them.” Jason Lee presided over this meeting, and ad-
dressed the same advising the appointment of a committee to draft a Constitu-
tion and laws for the government of that portion of the territory south of the
Columbia. A committee was doubtless appointed, but no names are given. At
Young's funeral on February 17th, a public meeeting was held by the persons
attending that funeral, of which meeting Jason Lee was made chairman and
Gustavus Hines, another Methodist missionary, was chosen secretary, and an-
other person was added to the Committee of arrangement, chosen at a previous
meeting." George W. Le Breton was made the additional committeman. Then
follows these proceedings:
“Resolved—That it be recommended that there be a committee of seven
elected for the purpose of drafting a constitution and code of laws, for the
government of the settlements, south of the Columbia River."
It was then
‘Resolved—That all settlers, north of the Columbia River, not connected
with the Hudson's Bay Company, be admitted to the protection of our laws, on
making application to that affect."
The meeting then proceeded to advise the committee of arrangements, to
propose the making of certain officers, to-wit:-
A Governor; a Supreme Judge, with probate powers; three Justices of the
Peace; three Constables; three Road Commissioners; an Attorney-General; a
Clerk of the Courts, and Public Recorder; one Treasurer; two Overseers of the
Poor.
It was recommended to nominate persons to fill the several offices, and that
they be chosen viva voce.
The meeting then resolved itself into committee of the whole, for the pur-
pose of choosing candidates for the several offices, and after having nominated
persons to fill the various offices, it was
“Resolved—that the doings of the committee of the whole be deposited in
the hands of the chairman, to be presented to the meeting tomorrow.
On motion, the meeting then adjourned, to meet at eight o'clock to-morrow.
1
1
166
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
February 18, 1841.
At a full meeting of the inhabitants of Willamette Valley, at the American
Mission House,
David Leslie was elected chairman, and Sidney Smith, and Gustavus Hines
were chosen secretaries.
The doings of the previous meeting were presented to the assembly, and were
accepted, in part; viz:-
That a committee be chosen for framing a constitution, and drafting a code
of laws; and that the following persons compose the committee, to-wit:-
Rev. F. N. Blanchet, Rev. Jason Lee, David Donpierre, Gustavus Hines, Mr.
Charlevon, Robt. Moore, J. L. Parrish, Etienne Lucier and Wm. Johnson.
I. L. Babcock was appointed to fill the office of supreme judge with probate
powers.
Geo. W. Le Breton was chosen to fill the office of clerk of courts, and public
recorder.
Wm. Johnson was chosen to fill the office of high sheriff.
Xavier Laderaut, Pierre Billique, and Wm. McCarty, were chosen constables.
“Resowed—That, until a code of laws be adopted by this community, Dr.
Babcock be instructed to act, according to the laws of the State of New York.
“Resolved-That this meeting now adjourn, to meet on the first Tuesday of
June, at the new building, near the Catholic church."
TUESDAY, June 1, 1841.
An adjourned meeting of the inhabitants of the Willamette Valley, at the
new building near the Catholic church, was called to order by the chairman.
On motion, the doings of the former meeting was read.
The report of the committee, for drafting a constitution and code of laws,
was called for, and responded to by the Chairman and others, that no meeting
of the committee had been held, consequently no report had been prepared.
Rev. F. N. Blanchet requested to be excused from serving further upon the
committee to draft a constitution and code of laws, and was excused.
On motion,
"Resolved—That one person be chosen to make up the number of said com-
mittee.'
Dr. Bailey was chosen.
On motion,
“Resolved. That this committee be instructed to meet on the first Monday
in August, next.”
On motion,
“Resolved-That this committee be instructed to report to an adjourned
meeting on the first Tuesday in October, next."
"On motion,
"ResolvedThat the committee, for drafting constitution and laws, be in-
structed to confer with the Commodore of the American Squadron, and John
McLoughlin, chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company, with regard to forming
a constitution, and code of laws, for this community.
“Resolved—That the motion, to adopt the report of the nominating com-
mittee, presented at a former meeting, be reconsidered.

FRANCOIS XAVIER MATTHIEU
Sole survivor of Champoeg meeting, now 94 years of age—1912. The man whose vote
to organize the provisional government of 1843, under the American flag, most probably
gave the territory of Old Oregon to the United States instead of Great Britain
OF
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
167
"Resolved that the committee to draft a constitution, etc., be instructed
to take into consideration, the number and kind of offices it will be necessary
to create, in accordance with their constitution and code of laws, and report the
same to the next meeting, and that the report of the nominating committee be
referred to said committee.
“Moved and carried, that this meeting adjourn, to meet at the American
Mission House, at eleven o'clock, on the first Tuesday in October next.
« (Signed) SIDNEY SMITH,
"GUSTAVUS HINES,
“Secretaries."
There is no record of any meeting having been held on the first Tuesday in
October of 1841, as was provided for in the adjournment of the meeting of June
1st, 1841.
The next meting of which there is any record of was held at the Oregon In-
stitute (Salem) February 2, 1843, of which the following is the record:
‘A public meeting, of a number of the citizens of this colony, was called, in
order to take into consideration the propriety of adopting some measures, for the
protection of our herds, &c., in this country.
“On motion,
“Dr. I. L. Babcoek was called to the chair, who proceeded to state the objects
of the meeting, and the necessity of acting.
"Mr. W. H. Gray moved, and Mr. Torn seconded the motion,-That'a commit-
tee of six be appointed to notify a general meeting, and report business, &c.,
which motion was carried, and Messrs. Gray, Beers, Gervais, Willson, Barnaby
and Lucier, were appointed said committee.
“Mr. Beers moved, that a general meeting be called, at the house of Mr. Jos.
Gervais, on the first Monday in March next, at ten o'clock A. M., which motion
was carried.
"W. H. WILLSON,
I. L. BABCOCK,
Secretary
Chairman."
The next meeting was held according to the above adjournment, and has passed
into history as, “The Wolf Meeting,” and the following are the proceedings:
WOLF MEETING
“Journal
"Of a meeting at the house of J. Gervais 1st Monday in March, 1843.
"In pursuance of a resolution of a previous meeting, the citizens of Willamette
Valley met, and the meeting being called to order,
"Mr. James O'Neil was chosen chairman.
"Mr. Mantine was chosen as secretary, but declining to serve,
"Mr. Le Breton was chosen.
"The doings of the former meeting were read.
“The committee, appointed to notify a general meeting and report business,
made the following report, to-wit:-
“Your committee beg leave to report as follows:
"It being admitted by all, that bears, wolves, panthers, &c., &c., are destruc-
168
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
tive to the useful animals, owned by the settlers of this colony, your committee
would respectfully submit the following resolutions, as the sense of this meeting,
by which the community may be governed in carrying on a defensive and destruc-
tive War against all such animals:
“ 'Resolved—1st. That we deem it expedient for this community, to take im-
mediate measures for the destruction of all wolves, bears, and panthers, and such
other animals as are known to be destructive to cattle, horses, sheep, and hogs.
"'2nd. That a treasurer be appointed, who shall receive all funds and dis-
pense the same, in accordance with drafts drawn on him, by the committee ap-
pointed to receive the evidences of the destruction of the above-named animals;
and that he report the state of the treasury, by posting up public notices, once in
three months, in the vicinity of each of the committee.
"'3rd. That a standing committee of eight be appointed, whose duty it shall
be, together with the treasurer, to receive proofs or evidences of the animals,
for which a bounty is claimed, having been killed in the Willamette Valley.
"'4th. That a bounty of fifty cents be paid for the destruction of a small
wolf; $3.00, for a large wolf; $1.50, for a lynx; $2.00 for the bear; and $5.00 for
the panther.
• '5th. That no bounty be paid, unless the individual claiming said bounty
give satisfactory evidence, or by presenting the skin of the head with the ears, of
all animals for which he claims a bounty.
"'6th. That the committee and treasurer form a board of advice to call pub-
lic meetings, whenever they may deem it expedient, to promote and encourage all
persons to use their vigilance in destroying all the animals named in the 4th
resolution
*7th. That the bounties, specified in the 4th resolution, be limited to whites
and their descendants.
"'8th. That the proceedings of this meeting be signed by the chairman, and
Secretary, and a copy thereof be presented to the recorder of this colony.
"On motion, the report was accepted.
“It was then moved and seconded, that the report be laid on the table, which
was carried.
"It was moved and seconded, that the first resolution, in the report of the
committee, be adopted, which was carried.
"It was moved and seconded, that a sum be raised, by contribution, for the
protection of our animals, which was carried.
"It was moved and seconded, that the third resolution, as amended be adopted,
which was carried.
"It was moved and seconded, that two collectors be appointed to receive all
subscriptions, retaining five per cent, for collecting the same, and pay the amount
over to the treasurer, taking his receipt for the same, which was carried.
“On motion, the fifth resolution was adopted.
“On motion, the sixth resolution, as amended, was adopted.
"On motion, it was
"Resolved–That no one receive a bounty (except Indians) unless he pay a
subscription of $5.00.
"On motion the seventh resolution was adopted.
“On motion, the eighth and ninth resolutions were adopted.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
169
“It was moved and seconded, that the Indians receive one-half as much as the
whites.
"It was moved and seconded that all claims, for bounties, be presented within
ten days from the time of becoming entitled to said bounties, and, if there should
be any doubts, the individual claiming a bounty shall give his oath to the various
circumstances, which was carried.
'On motion, W. H. Gray was chosen treasurer.
"It was moved, that Messrs. McRoy, Gervais, Mantine, S. Smith, Doughty,
O'Neil, Shortess, and Lucier, be the standing committee, which motion was
carried
“It was moved, that G. W. Le Breton and Mr. Bridges be the collectors,
carried.
"On motion, the first resolution was adopted.
" 'Resolved–That no money be paid to any white, or his descendants, previ-
ous to the time of his subscription.
"'Resolved—That the bounty of a minor child be paid to a parent or
guardian.
"Resolved–That the draft for receiving subscriptions, be drawn by Mr.
Gray and Mr. Le Breton.
'Resolved–That drafts on Fort Vancouver, the mission, and the milling
company, be received on subscriptions, as payment.
"'Resolved–That a committee be appointed to take into consideration the
propriety of taking measures for the civil and military protection of this colony.
'Resolved–That said committee consist of twelve persons :
Messrs. Dr. Ira L. Babcock, Dr. E. L. White, James O'Neil, Robert Shortess,
Robert Newell, Etienne Lucier, Joseph Gervais, Thomas Jefferson Hubbard, Wil-
liam H. Gray, Solomon H. Smith, Charles McRoy and George Gay.'
"On motion the meeting adjourned.
"G. W. Le Breton,
James O'Neil,
"Secretary
President.''
This record shows that up to this point, when the whole question of the or-
ganization of a government was placed in the hands of a committee of twelve rep-
resentative settlers, there was no discrimination in favor of the Protestant mission-
aries, or against the Catholics or Canadian French. The Americans were in the
majority, at all these preliminary meetings, and instead of ignoring or discrimin-
ating against any class or religion, they carefully recognized all classes and relig-
ions as fully entitled to participate in any proposed organization. Vicar General
Blanchet was chairman of the committee of February 18, 1841, while Donpierre,
Charlevon, Lucier, Laderaut, Billique and Le Breton, all members of the Catholic
church, were on the committee with him or appointed to other important po-
sitions. Yet, notwithstanding this, Blanchet resigned his trust in June, 1841.
And although the meeting of March 1, 1843, was appointed for and held at the
house of a Catholic Frenchman--Joseph Gervais--who was also appointed a mem-
ber of the final committee of twelve on organization-yet Blanchet was able to
pull out every Catholic and Frenchman from the meeting of March 1, 1843, except
Le Breton and Lucier. And to fully understand this movement in the wilderness
of Oregon, attention is called to the fact that the public meeting at the house of
170
OR
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Joseph Gervais on March 1, 1843, had itself assumed to act as a government, had
fixed bounties for the destruction of wild animals, that collectors be appointed,
a standing committee appointed, oaths must be taken, drafts for money orders
made, and a committee appointed to consider measures for the civil and military
protection of a colony. The rugged issue was now to be faced and decided
whether there should be a government to protect life and property, or whether
there should be a condition of anarchy—and every man must show on which side
of the line he stood.
The “Wolf Meeting" was held on March 1, 1843, and within four days there-
after an address of the Canadian citizens of Oregon, and signed by fifty persons,
was delivered to the foregoing committee of twelve.
It is evident from this address, which was said to have been drafted by Blan-
chet, that the Catholics and French felt that they were being forced into an em-
barrassing position, and that they should give the reasons for not uniting with
the Americans to organize a government. But these Canadians were not desti-
tute of apologists and supporters among influential Americans. George Aber-
nethy, who afterwards became governor under the Provisional Government, at a
debating society at "The Falls" (Oregon City) during the winter of 1842-3,
offered a resolution to the effect that it would not be expedient to form an inde-
pendent government, if the United States would within four years extend its
jurisdiction over Oregon." And William Johnson, the only member of the first
committee appointed to draft a constitution and laws who was not a Frenchman
or a missionary, declared there was not yet any necessity for laws, lawyers or
magistrates." And when Capt. Wilkes, of the U. S. Exploring Expedition, was
applied to for his support of the proposition to organize a government, he prompt-
ly condemned the scheme for the reason that only a small minority of the in-
habitants desired to establish a government, that laws were not necessary,
and
would be a poor substitute for the moral code the people had followed this year."
Nevertheless, the Americans had put their hands to the plow, and they refused
to turn back.
Below follows the address of the Canadians :
“March 4, 1843.
“We, the Canadian citizens of the Willamette, considering, with interest and
reflection, the subject which unites the people at the present meeting, present to
the American citizens, and particularly to the gentlemen who called said meeting,
the unanimous expression of our sentiments of cordiality, desire of union and in-
exhaustible peace between all the people, in view of our duty and the interest of
the new colony, and declare,
“1st. That we wish for laws, or regulations, for the welfare of our persons,
and the security of our property and labors.
"2nd. That we do not intend to rebel against the measures of that kind
taken last year, by a part of the people; although we do not approve of certain
regulations, nor certain modes of laws, let those magistrates finish their time.
"3rd. That we will not address a new petition to the Government of the
United States, because we have our reasons, till the line be decided, and the fron-
tiers of the states fixed.
"4th. That we are opposed to the regulations anticipated, and exposed to
consequences for the quantity, direction, &c., of lands, and whatsoever expense
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
171
for the same lands, because we have no direct guarantee from the government to
come, and, perhaps, tomorrow, all those measures may be broken.
“5th. That we do not wish a provisional mode of government, too self in-
terested, and full of degrees, useless to our power, and overloading the colony in-
stead of improving it; besides, men of laws and science are too scarce, and have
too much to do in such a new country.
"6th. That we wish either the mode of senate or council, to judge the diffi-
culties, punish the crimes, (except capital penalties,) and make the regulations
suitable for the people.
*7th. That the same council be elected and composed of members from all
parts of the country, and should act in body, on the plan of civilized countries
in parliament, or as a jury, and to be represented, for example, by the president
of said council, and another member, as judge of peace, in each county, allowing
the principle of recalling to the whole senate.
“8th. That the members should be influenced to interest themselves to their
own welfare, and that of the public, by the love of doing good, rather than by
the hope of gain, in order to take off from the esteem of the people all suspicions
of interest in the persons of their representatives.
"9th. That they must avoid every law loading, and inexpedient to the
people, especially to the new arrivals. Unnecessary taxes, and whatever records
are of that kind, we do not want them.
“10th. That the militia is useless at present, and rather a danger of bad
suspicion to the Indians, and a delay for the necessary labors; in the same time,
it is a load; we do not want it, either, at present.
“11th. That we consider the country free, at present, to all nations, till gov-
ernment shall have decided; open to every individual wishing to settle, without
any distinction of origin, and without asking him anything, either to become an
English, Spanish, or American citizen.
"12th. So we, English subjects, proclaim to be free, as well as those who
came from France, California, United States, or even natives of this country;
and we desire unison with all the respectable citizens who wish to settle in this
country; or, we ask to be recognized as free amongst ourselves, to make such
regulations as appear suitable to our wants, save the general interest of having
justice from all strangers who might injure us, and that our reasonable customs
and pretensions be respected.
"13th. That we are willing to submit to any lawful government, when it
comes.
"14th. That we do not forget that we must make laws only for necessary
circumstances. The more laws there are, the more opportunities for roguery,
for those who make a practice of it; and, perhaps the more alterations there
will be some day.
"15th. That we do not forget in a trial, that before all fraud on fulfilling of
isome points of the law, the ordinary proofs of the certainty of the fact ought
to be duly weighed, so that justice may be done, and no shame give for fraud.
“16th. In a new country, the more men employed and paid by the public
the less remains for industry.
“17th. That no one can be more desirous than we are for the prosperity,
ameliorations, and general peace of the country, and especially for the guar-
172
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
1
anty of our rights and liberties; and such is the wish we make for all those
who are, or may become, our fellow countrymen, etc., for long years of peace.
"Signed by
Xavier Laderout,
Pierre Depot,
Jean B. Aubichon,
Antoine Bonenfant, Moyse Lore,
Antoine Felice,
Andre La Chapelle,
Pierre Le Course, Michel La Framboise,
Pierre Papin,
Gideon Sencalle,
Joseph Gervais,
Louis B. VanDalle,
Thomas Moisan,
Jean B. Papin,
Jean B. Ducharme,
Pierre Gauthier,
Olivier Briscbois,
Fabien Maloin,
X. Laderaut,
Thomas Roi,
Luc Pagnon,
F. N. Blanchet,
Louis Boivers,
Etienne Gregoire, Joseph Bernabe,
Andre Longtain,
Amable Arquoit,
Baptiste Deguire,
Alexis La Pratte,
Pierre Delard,
Adolphe Chamberlain, Pierre Beleque,
Louis A. Van Dalle, Jean Gingras,
Augustin Remon,
Andre Sanders,
Alexis Aubichon,
Joseph Matte,
Pierre Pariseau,
Jean Servans,
Francois Bernier,
Charles Rondeau,
Michelle Laferte,
M. Charlevon,
Andre Dubois,
Jean B. Dalcourse, M. Maitune."
David Donpierre,
Louis Osent,
After receiving the address of the Canadians, the Committee of Twelve ap-
pointed at the meeting of March 1st, 1843, called a public meeting of all the
citizens of the valley without regard to their nationality or religion to meet at
“Champooick” on May 2nd, 1843, to finally decide the momentous question,
whether there should be a government in Oregon or not. Rev. John S. Griffin, ,
a Congregational minister, familiarly known in later life as "Father Griffin,"
rode all over the Willamette Valley to personally deliver the call of the Commit-
tee to every settler and urge them to attend the meeting. And they came, both
sides,-not all the Americans, however-honest, determined men. The day, and
the hour for meeting arrives. The address of the Canadian citizens given on the
preceding page was first read to the meeting; and then the report of the Com-
mittee of Twelve on organization. The issues between the contending parties
were thus fairly shown. The feeling was intense.
Behold the picture; the Bishop of his flock, with centuries of training and
culture in his face, holds the volatile children of the distant St. Lawrence on one
side with steady poise, while over against them were many sturdy spirits
thirty-three from ten States of the North, four from four States of the South,
nine from the United Kingdom, including Canada, and six from localities un-
known-plainsmen, trappers-men inured to dangers and trials from boyhood
to manhood—and missionaries of the Cross; and surrounding all, the sullen red
men swathed in their fiery blankets, silently beholding the strange scene in
wondering awe as to which of these must be his future master. To portray
the scene demands the genius of a Michael Angelo, and when it is done true
to history, the canvas will immortalize the painter.
We get a glimpse of the contending forces as they rally in coon skin caps
and buckskin trousers on the banks of the Willamette May 2nd, 1843, to try out
the momentous issue. The leaders of the rival forces are rallying every man for

1
JENSEN
MATTHIEU AT THE MONUMENT
The names of the fifty-two men voting for organization are engraved thereon
OF
BIG
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
173
the fray, enthusing them with the patriotic maintenance of their principles,
and with courage to maintain their rights. Dr. I. L. Babcock is chosen chair-
man of the meeting, and Wm. H. Gray, George W. LeBreton and W. H. Willson,
secretaries. The report of the Committee of Twelve is read proposing a plan
for the organization of a Provisional Government. The fateful hour has come;
the chairman calls for order; the ayes and noes are called for and against a gov-
ernment; the Americans vote scatteringly, hesitatingly and ineffectually. Then
comes the vote against a government, and the Hudson's Bay Company men trained
for the occasion, fire a solid shot, voting loudly and as one man :-everything
seems lost for the Americans. A few brave spirits refuse to be beaten, will not
admit defeat, and call for a division and polling the men. The division is or-
dered by the chairman; and pandemonium breaks loose. The Hudson's Bay men
and Catholic Canadians rapidly mingle with the Americans to prevent division
and bitterly remonstrate against any government organization. Neighborhood
friendships, peace of the community, every consideration is recalled to prevent
any action; when suddenly, as if leaping out of the earth, springs forth the stal-
wart form of Joseph L. Meek, and shouts above the din of contending voices :
DIVIDE! DIVIDE! WHO'S FOR A DIVIDE!
All in favor of the American Flag, follow me
Instantly the commotion is silenced. The Americans line up after the natural
born leader of men, and as the lines lead out to the banks of the beautiful river,
the decision hangs in the balance. The secretaries go down the lines of deter-
mined men, resolutely facing each other with that grim courage which betokens
the real heroes of a great cause; and it looks fearfully like a drawn battle. Sud-
denly a Frenchman-(the Frenchman has always helped Americans out when
they most needed him) a Frenchman steps out from the ranks of those of his
native land, conquers the greatest trial of his life, and Francois Xavier Matthieu
slowly crosses over to the American side and takes rank with his fellow-country-
man, Etienne Lucier—and Oregon is saved to the nation-fifty-two votes for or-
ganizing the Provisional Government of Oregon, and fifty votes against.
“It was then moved and carried, that the report of the committee be taken up,
and disposed of article by article.
“A motion was made and carried, that a supreme judge, with probate powers,
be chosen to officiate in this community.
“Moved and carried, that a clerk of the court, or recorder, be chosen.
"Moved and carried, that a sheriff be chosen.
“Moved and carried, that three magistrates be chosen.
“Moved and carried, that three constables be chosen.
“Moved and carried, that a committee of nine persons be chosen, for the pur-
pose of drafting a code of laws, for the government of this community, to be
presented to a public meeting to be hereafter called by them, on the fifth day
of July, next, for their acceptance.
“A motion was made and carried, that a treasurer be chosen.
“Moved and carried, that a major and three captains be chosen.
“Moved and carried that we now proceed to choose the persons to fill the vari-
ous offices, by ballot.
"W. H. Willson was chosen to act as supreme judge, with probate powers.
174
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
"G. W. Le Breton was chosen to act as clerk of court, or recorder.
"J. L. Meek was chosen to fill the office of sheriff.
"W. H. Willson was chosen treasurer.
“Moved and carried, that the remainder of the officers be chosen by hand
ballot, and nominations from the floor.
"Messrs. David Hill, Robert Shortess, Robert Newell, Alanson Beers, Thomas
J. Hubbard, Wm. H. Gray, James O'Neil, Robert Moore, Wm. M. Doughty were
chosen to act as the legislative committee.
"Messrs. Burns, Judson and A. T. Smith, were chosen to act as magistrates.
"Messrs. Ebbert, Bridges, and Lewis, were chosen to act as constables.
"Mr. John Howard was chosen mayor.
"'Messrs. Wm. McCarty, C. McRoy, and S. Smith, were chosen captains.'
“Moved and carried, that the legislative committee make their report on the
5th day of July next, at Champooick.
“Moved and carried, that the services of the legislative committee be paid for,
at $1.25, per day, and that the money be raised by subscription.
“Moved and carried, that the mayor and captains be instructed to enlist men
to form companies of mounted riflemen.
“Moved and carried, that an additional magistrate and constable be chosen.
"Mr. Campo was chosen as an additional magistrate.
“Mr. Matthieu was chosen as an additional constable.
"Moved and carried, that the legislative committee shall not sit over six days.
"The meeting was then adjourned.
"The question having arisen, with regard to what time the newly-appointed
officers shall commence their duties, the meeting was again called to order, when
"It was moved and carried, that the old officers remain in office till the laws
are made and accepted, or until the next public meeting.
'ATTEST:
G. W. LE BRETON.
The following account of what took place at the time the vote was taken to
decide whether there should be an organization or not, was given to the author
of this book by Col. Meek himself at the county fair in Washington county in
September, 1867, and then in Meek's presence written down in a memorandum
hook. Says Meek:
“When the ayes and noes were called for adopting the report of the com-
mittee, the ayes voted weak and scattering, and the noes voted solid and loud,
as if trained and prepared. It looked as if we were beaten, but the chairman
being an American did not want to decide that way, and said he was not sure
how it was, and proposed a division and counting the men. The British all op-
posed division, and mixed up with the Americans arguing against any organiza
tion. This confusion continued for fifteen or twenty minutes when Le Breton
and Lucier came to me and said, 'Joe, we must do something to get this thing
decided; you must lead off and get the men separated.' I then stepped out,
clear outside of the crowd, swung my hat in the air, sounded the war whoop and
yelled at the top of my voice:
a-
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
175
"'DIVIDE! DIVIDE! WHO'S FOR A DIVIDE!
««
"All in favor of the American Flag, follow me!'
"I thought the appeal to the flag would catch them, and it did, and every
American lined up after me. The secretaries then acted as tellers and com-
menced counting the men. As I looked down the line it was awful close. Before
the counting was half done, 'Matthieu who had lined up with the Canadians,
left them and walked over to our side, and took a position alongside of Lucier.
Matthieu's vote decided it, for we only had two majority. The British then
mounted their horses and rode away, and we went on and completed our
organization."
And so was born the first American government west of the Rocky Mountains.
The following are the names of the “immortals” who saved the day for
American institutions on May 2nd, 1843. The fifty-two persons voting for the
adoption of the committee's report were as follows:
Armstrong, Pleasant M.; place of birth, New York; born, 1815; church prefer-
ence, Presbyterian; arrived in Oregon, 1840.
Babcock, Dr. I. L.; place of birth, New York; church preference, Methodist;
arrived in Oregon, 1840.
Bailey, Dr. W. J.; place of birth, Ireland; born, 1804; church preference,
Episcopalian; arrived in Oregon, 1835.
Beers, Alanson; place of birth, Connecticut; born, 1800; church preference,
Methodist; arrived in Oregon, 1837.
Bridges, J. C.; church preference, unknown.
Burns, Hugh; church preference, Presbyterian; arrived in Oregon, 1842.
Campo, Charles; church preference, unknown.
Cannon, William; place of birth, Pennsylvania; born, 1755; church prefer-
ence, unknown; arrived in Oregon, 1812.
Clark, Rev. Harvey; place of birth, Vermont; born, 1807; church preference,
Congregationalist; arrived in Oregon, 1840.
Crawford, Medorem; place of birth, New York; born, 1819; church prefer-
ence, no choice; arrived in Oregon, 1842.
Cook, Amos; place of birth, Maine; born, 1818; church preference, Methodist;
arrived in Oregon, 1840.
Davie, Allen J.; place of birth, Alabama; born, 1816; church preference,
Baptist; arrived in Oregon, 1842.
Doughty, William M.; place of birth, North Carolina; born, 1812; church
preference, no choice; arrived in Oregon, 1841.
Ebberts, George W.; place of birth, Kentucky; born, 1810; church preference,
Baptist; arrived in Oregon, 1833.
Fletcher, Francis; place of birth, England; born, 1815; church preference,
Episcopalian; arrived in Oregon, 1840.
Gay, George; place of birth, England; born, 1810; church preference, Episco-
palian; arrived in Oregon, 1835.
Gale, Joseph; place of birth, District of Columbia ; born, 1800; church prefer-
ence, Episcopalian; arrived in Oregon, 1834,
Gray, William H.; place of birth, New York; born, 1810; church preference,
Presbyterian; arrived in Oregon, 1836.
176
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Griffin, Rev. John S.; place of birth, Vermont; born, 1807; church preference,
Congregationalist; arrived in Oregon, 1839.
Hauxhurst, Webley; place of birth, New York; born, 1809; church prefer-
ence, Methodist; arrived in Oregon, 1834.
Hill, David; place of birth, Connecticut; born, 1809; church preference,
Congregationalist; arrived in Oregon, 1842. .
Howard, John; church preference, Presbyterian.
Holman, Joseph; place of birth, England; born, 1815; church preference,
Methodist; arrived in Oregon, 1840.
Hines, Rev. Gustavus; place of birth, New York; born, 1809; church prefer-
ence, Methodist; arrived in Oregon, 1840.
Hubbard, T. J.; place of birth, Massachusetts; born, 1806; church preference,
unknown; arrived in Oregon, 1834.
Johnson, William; place of birth, England; born, 1784; church preference,
Episcopalian; arrived in Oregon, 1835.
Judson, Rev. L. H.; place of birth, Connecticut; born, 1802; church prefer-
ence, Methodist; arrived in Oregon, 1840.
Le Breton, Geo. W.; place of birth, Massachusetts; born, 1810; church prefer-
ence, Catholic; arrived in Oregon, 1840.
Leslie, Rev. David; place of birth, New Hampshire; born, 1797; church
preference, Methodist; arrived in Oregon, 1837.
Lewis, Reuben; place of birth, New York; born, 1814; church preference,
Presbyterian; arrived in Oregon, 1842.
Lucier, Etienne; place of birth, Canada; born, 1783; church preference,
Catholic; arrived in Oregon, 1812.
*Matthieu, Francois X.; place of birth, Canada; born, 1818; church prefer-
ence, Catholic; arrived in Oregon, 1842.
Meek, Joseph L.; place of birth, Virginia; born, 1810; church preference,
Methodist; arrived in Oregon, 1829.
McCarty, William ; church preference, Catholic; arrived in Oregon, 1834.
McKay, Charles; place of birth, at sea (Scotch); born, 1808; church prefer-
ence, Presbyterian; arrived in Oregon, 1841.
Moore, Robert; place of birth, Pennsylvania ; born, 1781; church preference,
Presbyterian; arrived in Oregon, 1840.
Morrison, John L.; place of birth, Scotland; born, 1793; church preference,
Presbyterian; arrived in Oregon, 1842.
Newell, Dr. Robert; place of birth, Ohio; born, 1804; church preference,
Episcopalian; arrived in Oregon, 1840.
O'Neil, James A.; place of birth, New York; church preference, Methodist ;
arrived in Oregon, 1834.
Parrish, Rev. J. L. ; place of birth, New York; born, 1806; church preference,
Methodist; arrived in Oregon, 1840.
Pickernell, John E.; place of birth, England; church preference, Episco-
palian.
Robb, James R. ; place of birth, Pennsylvania; born, 1816; church preference,
Methodist; arrived in Oregon, 1842.,
*Only one now alive.

JOSEPH BUCHTEL
The pioneer who raised the money to erect the monument and preserve
the site of the Champoeg meeting
OF
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
177
Russell, Osborn; place of birth, Ohio; born, 1809; church preference, un-
known; arrived in Oregon, 1842.
Shortess, Robert; place of birth, Pennsylvania; born, 1804; church prefer-
ence, Methodist; arrived in Oregon, 1840.
Smith, Alvin T.; place of birth, Connecticut; born, 1802; church preference,
Congregationalist; arrived in Oregon, 1840.
Smith, Sidney; place of birth, New York; born, 1809; church preference,
unknown; arrived in Oregon, 1839.
Smith, Solomon H.; place of birth, New Hampshire; born, 1809; church
preference, Congregationalist; arrived in Oregon, 1832.
Tibbetts, Calvin; place of birth, Massachusetts; church preference, Congre-
gationalist; arrived in Oregon, 1832.
Weston, David; place of birth, Indiana; born, 1820; church preference, un-
known; arrived in Oregon, 1842.
Wilkins, Caleb; place of birth, Ohio; born, 1810; church preference, Baptist;
arrived in Oregon, 1835.
Wilson, A. E.; place of birth, Massachusetts; church preference, unknown;
arrived in Oregon, 1842.
Willson, Dr. W. H.; place of birth, New Hampshire; born, 1805; church
preference, Methodist; arrived in Oregon, 1837.
STATES OR COUNTRIES REPRESENTED
Alabama, 1; Canada, 2; Connecticut 4; District of Columbia, 1; England, 5;
Indiana, 1; Ireland, 1; Kentucky, 1; Maine, 1; Massachusetts, 4; New Hamp-
shire, 3; New York, 10; North Carolina, 1; Ohio, 3; Pennsylvania, 4; Vermont,
2; Virginia, 1; Scotland, 1; Unspecified, 6. Total, 52.
Church preference: Baptists, 3; Catholics, 4; Congregationalists, 6; Episco-
palians, 7; Methodists, 14; Presbyterians, 8; unknown, 10. Total, 52.
FRENCH SETTLERS WHO VOTED AGAINST THE ORGANIZATION OF THE PROVISIONAL
GOVERNMENT AT CHAMPOEG, MAY 2, 1843
lubichon, Alexis; Aubichon, Jean B.; Ausant, Louis; Arquoit, Amable;
Bargeau, Cyfois; Beleque, Pierre; Biscornais, Pascal; Boivers, Louis; Bonenfant,
Antoine; Briscbois, Alexis; Briscbois, Olivier; Brunelle, Joseph; Chalifoux,
Andre; Chamberlain, Adolph ; Cornoyer, Joseph; Delard, Joseph ; Depot, Pierre;
Despart, Joseph ; Donpierre, David; Dubois, Andre; Ducharme, Jean B.; Felice,
Antoine; Forcier, Louis; Gagnon, Luc; Gauthier, Pierre; Gervais, Joseph ; Gin-
gras, Jean; Gregoire, Etienne; La Chapelle, Andre; La Bonte, Louis; Laderout,
Xavier; Laferte, Michelle; La Framboise, Michelle; Lalcoure, Jean B.; Lambert
Augustin; La Pratte, Alexis; Longtain, Andre; Lore, Moyse; Matte, Joseph;
Maloin, Fabien ; Mongrain, David; Papin, Pierre; Pariseau, Pierre; Remon,
Augustin; Roi, Thomas; Rondeau, Charles; Sanders, Andre; Senecalle, Gideon:
Servant, Jaques; Van Dalle, Louis B.
* All Catholics. After permanent organization, the majority of these men acted the
part of good citizens by supporting the Provisional Government; and all became naturalized
as soon as possible after the United States extended its jurisdiction over the “Oregon
Country," March 3, 1849.
Vol. 1-12
178
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
The above list was compiled by George H. Himes, secretary of the Oregon
Pioneer Association for the past twenty-eight years, and assistant secretary of
the Oregon Historical Society since the date of its organization, December 17,
1898. It is the result of careful investigation for over twenty-five years, and
the information indicated was secured largely by personal intercourse with a
number of the persons named.
By comparing the list of these who voted against organization with the list
of those signing Bishop Blanchet's address against an organization, it will be
seen that twenty-one Catholic Canadians including the Bishop himself, signed the
address but did not attend the public meeting to vote against the Provisional
Government.
The names of the French settlers were secured from Hon. F. X. Matthieu,
who, as a merchant at Butteville for more than thirty years, had their names
upon his books.
There has been much discussion of what did actually take place at the Cham-
poeg meeting. It is evident upon the face of it, that what has been printed as
the proceedings of that meeting is an imperfect report. The Hon. L. F. Grover
was authorized by the territorial legislature of 1849, to collect all the papers
and records of the provisional government for publication; and in a note ap-
pended to the work says: “Within the proper depository of the public papers,
he has not been able to find entire and satisfactory records of all that he is sat-
isfied has transpired in Oregon of a public general nature, and which would be
of eminent historic importance." The fact that the three secretaries of that
meeting were active partisans of the purpose to form a government, and were
actively advocating such purpose at the meeting, will explain why a fuller ac-
count of the proceedings was not made. The most striking and important event
of the meeting was Meek's dramatic appeal for a "division,” and yet that is
not mentioned in the "Archives" but that it actually took place there can be
no doubt. The following persons told the writer of this book substantially what
Meek told him, viz.: Rev. J. S. Griffin, Medorem Crawford, Robert Shortess, Wil-
liam M. Doughty, George W. Ebberts and F. X. Matthieu.
But while much may have been lost of interesting history, there is the printed
record of 335 octavo pages to show the minds, thoughts, sentiments, and prin-
ciples of the pioneers as "state builders;'' and the state of Oregon is the glorious
monument to their memory.
In organizing this provisional government, the Americans did not seek to ex-
clude the Canadians from any part in the work; but on the contrary used all their
influence to have them co-operate. At the meeting of February 2nd, 1843, they
adjourned to meet at the house of Joseph Gervais, a Canadian, who voted against
organization; and at the “Wolf Meeting," Gervais and Maitune were appointed
on the standing committee—both Canadians.
That the Americans long and earnestly sought to have the Canadians unite
with them in organizing a Provisional Government is proved by the statements
of John McLoughlin. In a statement prepared by McLoughlin evidently to
make clear his record, but not published in his lifetime, a copy of which was
published by Mrs. F. F. Victor in the Quarterly of the Oregon Historical So-
ciety, June, 1900, Dr. McLoughlin says:
"In the spring of 1842 the Americans invited the Canadians to unite with
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
179
them and organize a temporary government, but the Canadians apprehensive it
might interfere with their allegiance, declined, and the project, which originated
with the (Methodist) Mission, failed.
In 1843 the Americans again
proposed to the Canadians to join and form a temporary government, but the
Canadians declined for the same reason as before."
But after thus twice refusing to join with the Americans, and after the or-
ganization had been completed, and declared that joining the Provisional Gov-
ernment would not require any person to abjure their allegiance to any other
government or king, Dr. McLoughlin gave his support to the Provisional Gov-
ernment and asked favors and franchises of it.
The legislative committee appointed on May 2nd, went to work on May 16,
1843, as a legislative body, electing Robert Moore, chairman, and G. W. Le
Breton, secretary; and held sessions with prayers. On July 5th, 1843, a public
meeting of all the inhabitants of “Oregon Territory” was held, pursuant to ad-
journment to hear the report of the legislative committee, and transact such
other business as might come before them. The following proceedings were had:
"The chairman of the meeting being absent, the meeting was called to order
by G. W. Le Breton.
“On motion, Rev. G. Hines, was called to the chair.
“Mr. Moore, chairman, of the legislative committee, presented his report,
which was read and accepted.
“Moved, by L. H. Judson, the report upon ways and means be accepted.
"Carried.
"Moved by J. McLoughlin, that the first article of judiciary report be
adopted.
"Carried.
“Moved, by L. H. Judson, second article be adopted.
"Carried.
“Moved, by C. McRoy, that the third article be adopted
"Carried.
“Moved, by J. Holman, that the fourth article be adopted.
"Carried.
"Section second. Organic laws.
"The first, second, third, and fourth articles adopted.
"The fifth article amended, as recorded, adopted.
"The sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh articles, adopted.
"The twelfth article amended, as recorded, adopted.
"The thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth articles, adopted.
"The seventeenth article amended, by inserting the word 'one' for 'three,
adopted.
"The eighteenth article, and nineteenth resolution, adopted.
"Moved and carried, that the committee, for carrying into effect the nine-
teenth resolution, be chosen, by nomination, from the floor.
“Messrs. Lee, Hines, and Walker, were chosen.
"Moved and carried, that the members of the executive committee be now
chosen, by ballot.
“Moved and carried, that the highest number of votes decide the choice.
“Moved and carried, that the votes be taken to the table, to be counted.
180
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
"Messrs. Hill, Beers, and Gale, were chosen to be the members of the executive
committee.
“Moved and carried, that we proceed to elect a justice of the peace in place
of Mr. Burns, resigned.
"Robert Moore was chosen justice of the peace.
“Moved and carried, to adopt the remainder of the judiciary report; viz. :—to
adopt the laws of Iowa, as recorded, by amending them so far as to retain the
fees of New York, for jurors and witnesses, instead of those of Oregon Territory.
“Moved and carried, to adopt the military laws. Amended so as to continue
the officers in command during good behavior.
“Moved and carried, to adopt the report of the districting committee.
“Moved and carried, that no person be allowed to speak more than twice to
any one resolution.
"Moved and carried, to proceed to appoint a justice of the peace, for Yamhill
district.
“On motion, James O'Neil, Esq., was chosen.
“On motion, A. Cook was appointed constable.
"On motion, Joel Turnham was chosen constable for Champooick district,
in place of Mr. Bridges, left the country.
"The report of committee, upon ways and means, was adopted as amended
and recorded.
“The report of committee, upon land claims, was adopted, with the proviso,
as recorded.
“Moved and carried, to purchase several law books, of Jas. O'Neil, to be the
property of this community.
“Moved and carried, to adopt the report of legislative committee, as a whole.
“Moved and carried to excuse the legislative committee from further serv-
ices.
“Moved and carried, that the committee chosen to carry into effect the nine-
teenth resolution, have access to all public records, and also to have authority
to call upon any individual for information, necessary to carry out their instruc-
tions.
“Resolved. That the chairman of this meeting, assisted by the Rev. Messrs.
Lee, Clarke, and Leslie, be a committee to draft, and administer the oath of office,
to the civil officers, elected on the second of May, 1843; and that said officers be
required to subscribe to the same, and administer the oath to the supreme judge,
who shall hereafter qualify all civil and military officers, to be elected by the
people.
"Moved and carried, that the committee, to qualify officers, proceed to their
duty, as far as practicable, this evening.
"On motion, adjourned.
“A true copy from original papers.
G. W. LE BRETON,
"Recorder."
"ATTEST.
“The legislative committee recommended that the territory be divided into
districts, as follows:
“First district, to be called the Twality district, comprising all the country
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
181
south of the northern boundary line of the United States, west of the Willam-
ette, or Multnomah, river, north of the Yamhill river, and east of the Pacific
ocean.
"Second district, to be called the Yamhill district, embracing all the country
west of the Willamette, or Multnomah, river, and a supposed line running north
and south from said river, south of the Yamhill river, to the parallel of 42° north
latitude, or the boundary line of the United States and California, and east of
the Pacific ocean.
“Third district, to be called the Clackamas district, comprehending all the
territory not included in the other three districts.
“Fourth district, to be called the Champooick district, and bounded on the
north by a supposed line drawn from the north of the Anchiyoke (Mollala)
river, running due east to the Rocky mountains, west by the Willamette or Mult-
nomah river, and a supposed line running due south from said river to the par-
allel of 42° north latitude; south by the boundary line of the United States and
California, and east by the summit of the Rocky mountains.
“The legislative committee also recommend that the above districts be desig-
nated as Oregon Territory.
“Approved by the people, July 5, 1843.
REPORT OF THE LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS
The legislative committee report that a subscription paper as follows be put
in circulation to collect funds for defraying the expenses of the government:
We, the subscribers, pledge ourselves to pay, annually, to the treasurer of
Oregon territory the sums affixed to our respective names for the purpose of
defraying the expenses of government-provided that, in all cases, each indi-
vidual subscriber may, at any time, withdraw his name from said subscription
upon paying up all arrearages and notifying the treasurer of the colony of such
desire to withdraw.
The following are the principal provisions of the original constitution, ap-
proved by the people, July 5, 1843 :
Sec. 1. We, the people of Oregon territory, for purposes of mutual pro-
tection, and to secure peace and prosperity among ourselves, agree to adopt the
following laws and regulations, until such time as the United States of America
extend their jurisdiction over us.
Art. 1. No person, demeaning himself in a peaceable and orderly manner,
shall ever be molested on account of his mode of worship or religious sentiments.
Art. 2. The inhabitants of said territory shall always be entitled to the
benefits of the writ of habeas corpus and trial by jury; of a proportionate rep-
resentation of the people in the legislature, and of judicial proceedings, accord.
ing to the course of common law. All persons shall be bailable, unless for capi-
tal offences, where the proof shall be evident or the presumption great. All
fines shall be moderate and no cruel or unusual punishments inflicted. No man
shall be deprived of his liberty but by the judgment of his peers or the law of
the land; and should the public exigencies make it necessary for the common
preservation to take any person's property, or to demand his particular services,
full compensation shall be made for the same. And, in the just preservation of
182
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
rights and property, it is understood and declared that no law ought ever to be
made, or have force, in said territory, that shall in manner whatever, interfere
with or affect private contracts or engagements, bona fide, and without fraud,
previously formed.
Art. 3. Religion, morality and knowledge, being necessary to good gov-
ernment, and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education
shall forever be encouraged.
The utmost good faith shall always be observed towards the Indians. Their
lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent, and
in their property rights and liberty they shall never be invaded or disturbed,
unless in just and lawful wars, authorized by the representatives of the people;
but laws, founded in justice and humanity, shall, from time to time, be made
for preventing injustice being done to them, and for preserving peace and
friendship with them.
Art. 4. There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in said ter-
ritory otherwise than for the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have
been duly convicted.
Sec. 2, Art. 1. Be it enacted by the authority aforesaid that the officers
elected on the 2d of May, inst., shall continue in office until the 2d Tuesday in
May, 1844, and until others are elected and qualified.
Art. 2. Be it further enacted, that an election of civil and military officers
shall be held annually on the second Tuesday in May in the several districts at
such places as shall be designated by law.
Art. 3. Each officer heretofore elected, or hereafter to be elected, shall, be-
fore entering upon the duties of his office, take an oath or affirmation to sup-
port the laws of the territory and faithfully to discharge the duties of his office.
Art. 5. The executive power shall be vested in a committee of three per-
sons, elected by the qualified voters at the annual election, who shall have power
to grant pardons and reprieves for offences against the laws of the territory, to
call out the military force of the territory to repel invasion or suppress insurrec-
tion, to take care that the laws are faithfully executed and to recommend such
laws as they may consider necessary to the representatives of the people for their
action. Two members of the committee shall constitute a quorum to transact
business.
Art. 6. The legislative power shall be vested in a committee of nine persons,
who shall be elected by the qualified electors at the annual election, giving to
each district a representation in ratio of its population, excluding Indians; and
the said members of the committee shall reside in the district for which they
shall be chosen.
Art. 7. The judicial power shall be vested in a supreme court, consisting
of a supreme judge and two justices of the peace, a probate court; and in jus-
tices of the peace. The jurisdiction of the supreme court shall be both appellate
and original. That of the probate court and justices of the peace, as limited by
law-provided, that individual justices of the peace shall not have jurisdiction
of any matter of controversy when the title or boundary of land may be in dis-
pute, or where the sum claimed exceeds fifty dollars.
Art. 12. The laws of Iowa Territory shall be the law of this territory, in
civil, military and criminal cases, where not otherwise provided for, and where
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
183
no statute of Iowa Territory applies, the principles of common law and equity
shall govern.
Art. 17. All male persons of the age of sixteen years and upwards, and all
females of the age of fourteen and upwards, shall have the right of engaging in
marriage—provided that where either of the parties shall be under the age of
twenty-one, the consent of the parents or guardians of such minors shall be
necessary to the validity of such matrimonial engagement. Every ordained minis-
ter of the gospel of any religious denomination, the supreme judge, and all jus-
tices of the peace, are hereby authorized to solemnize marriages, according to
law, to have the same recorded, and pay the recorder's fee. All marriages shall
be recorded by the territorial recorder within one month from the time of such
marriage taking place and being made known to him officially. The legal fee
for marriage shall be one dollar and for recording the same fifty cents.
Art. 19. Resolved. That a committee of three be appointed to draw up a
digest of the doings of the people of this territory, with regard to an organiza-
tion, and transmit the same to the United States government, for their informa-
tion
THE MILITIA
Art. 1. Any person now holding, or hereafter wishing to establish a claim
consisting of three or more companies of mounted riflemen.
THE LAW OF LAND CLAIMS
Art. 1. Any person now holding, or hereafter wishing to establish a claim
to land in this territory, shall designate the extent of his claim by natural
boundaries, or by marks at the corners, and on the lines of such claim, and have
the extent and boundaries of said claim recorded in the office of the territorial
recorder, in a book to be kept by him for that purpose, within twenty days from
the time of making said claim-provided, that those who shall already be in pos-
session of land shall be allowed one year from the passage of this act to file a de-
scription of his claim in the recorder's office.
Art. 3. No individual shall be allowed to hold a claim of more than one
square mile or six hundred and forty acres in a square or oblong form, accord-
ing to the natural situation of the premises; nor shall any individual be allowed
to hold more than one clain at the same time. Any person complying with the
provisions of these ordinances shall be entitled to the same recourse against
trespass as in other cases by law provided.
Art. 4. No person shall be entitled to hold such a claim upon city or town
sites, extensive water privileges, or other situations necessary for the transaction
of mercantile or manufacturing operations, and to the detriment of the commun-
ity-provided, that nothing in these laws shall be so constructed as to affect any
claim of any mission of a religious character made previous to this time of an
extent not more than six miles square.
Approved by the people, July 5, 1843.
The legislative committee met again at Willamette Falls, June 18, 1844, and
daily transacted legislative business until June 27, when it adjourned to meet
again on the third Monday of December, 1844. The enacting clause of every law
184
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
1
was: “Be it enacted by the house of representatives of Oregon territory.'
Among the laws passed at this session was an act to authorize John McLoughlin
to operate a ferry at Willamette Falls; an act to prevent the introduction, sale
or manufacture of ardent spirits in Oregon; an act to prevent slavery in Ore-
gon. N. H. King applied for a divorce from his wife to this legislature, and it
was not granted. John McLoughlin was authorized to construct a canal at Wil-
lamette Falls. F. Ermatinger and others sent in a petition to incorporate Ore-
gon City, which was unfavorably reported upon by A. L. Lovejoy, the only law-
yer in the legislature.
The second Executive Committee, composed of Peter Grant Stewart, Osborn
Russell and Dr. William J. Bailey, elected May 14, 1844, presented to the
adjourned meeting of the legislature on December 17, 1844, the following mes-
sage. This is the first executive document in connection with the new govern-
ment as far as now known:
To the Honorable the Legislative Committee of Oregon,
GENTLEMEN :- As the expectation of receiving some information from the
United States, relative to the adjustment of the claims of that government and
of Great Britain, upon this country, was the principal cause of the adjournment
of this assembly from June last to this day, we feel it our duty to communicate
such information as we have been able to collect on the subject, and likewise to
recommend the adoption of further measures for the promotion and security of
the interests of Oregon.
The lines, defining the limits of the separate claims of the United States and
Great Britain, to this portion of the country, had not been agreed upon when
our latest advices left the United States—and, as far as we can learn, the ques-
tion now stands in the same position as before the convention in London, in
1818. At that time, the United States government proposed to draw the division
line, on the 49th parallel of north latitude, from the Lake of the Woods to the
Pacific ocean. To this Great Britain would only consent in part, that the line
should run on the 49th parallel, from the Lake of the Woods to the dividing
ridge of the Rocky mountains; and it was finally agreed upon between the par-
ties, that all the country lying west of the Rocky mountains, and on the Pacific
ocean, should, with its harbors, bays, and rivers, remain open for ten years, to
the vessels, subjects, or citizens, of both countries. But it was, at the same time,
expressly understood, that the said agreement, was not to be construed to affect,
or prejudice, the claims of either party, or any other power, to any portion of
said country. Before this agreement expired another convention was held in
London, in 1827, by the two contracting powers; by which the former treaty
was extended, with the provision, that when either of the parties thought fit, after
the 20th of October, 1828, to abrogate the convention, they were at liberty to
do so, by giving twelve months' notice to the other contracting party; but noth-
ing contained in the treaty of 1827, was to be construed, so as to affect in any
manner the claims which either of the contracting parties, or any other power,
might have to any of the country lying west of the Rocky mountains.
The subject has again been called up for investigation by the two powers,
and a negotiation was begun at Washington in the early part of the present year,
but was for the time being suspended on account of a disagreement between the

GEORGE ABERNETHY
Governor of the Oregon Provisional Government, 1845 to 1849
OF
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGOV
185
parties; and notice of the abrogation of the convention of 1827, had not been
given by either party, when our last information left the United States. And
we find that after all the negotiations that have been carried on, between the
United States and Great Britain relative to settling their claims to this country
from October, 1818, up to May, 1844, a period of nearly twenty-six years, the ques-
tion remains in the following unsettled position, viz.: Neither of the parties
in question claim exclusive right to the country lying west of the Rocky moun-
tains between the parallels of 42 degrees, and 54 degrees, 40 minutes north
latitude, and bordering on the Pacific ocean. But one claims as much right as the
other, and both claim the right of joint occupancy of the whole, without prejudice
to the claims of any other state or power to any part of said country.
We have submitted to you this information, gentlemen of the assembly, for
two particular reasons :
1st. To correct an error that occurred in our last communication to this
body, relative to the claims of the United States and Great Britain to this
country
2nd. That you may bear in mind, while legislating for the people of Ore-
gon the position in which this country stands, with regard to those claims.
We would advise that provision be made by this body, for the framing and
adoption of a constitution for Oregon, previous to the next annual election,
which may serve as a more thorough guide to her officers, and a more firm basis
of her laws. It should be constructed in such a manner as would best suit the
local situation of the country, and promote the general interests of the citi-
zens, without interfering with the real or pretended rights of the United
States or Great Britain ; except when the protection of life and property ac-
tually require it.
We would suggest, for your information, that this government has now in
possession notes given by different individuals residing in the country, amount-
ing to $3,734.26, most of which are already due. These notes are a balance in
favor of the estate of Ewing Young, of Oregon, deceased, intestate, A. D.
1841, after all legal dues, debts and damages are paid, that have come to the
knowledge of the administrator, or probate courts of Oregon up to this date.
We would therefore advise that those demands should be collected, and appro-
priated to the benefit of the country; the government being at all times re-
sponsible for the payment of them, to those who may hereafter appear to have
a legal right to the same.
We would again call your attention to a measure recommended in our last
communication, to-wit: The expediency of making provision for the erec-
tion of a public jail in this country. Although the community has suffered
very little as yet, for the want of such a building, and perhaps another year
might pass without its being occupied, which it is hoped might be the case;
yet we are assured that it is better policy to have the building standing without
a tenant, than a tenant without the building. And, in order to promote industry,
and the peace and welfare of the citizens of Oregon, this government must be pre-
pared to discontinue indolence and check vice in the bud.
We recommend to your consideration the propriety of making provision
for filling public offices which are now, or may become vacant, by resignation
or otherwise, previous to the next annual election.
186
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
We would recommend that the act passed by this assembly, in June last,
relative to blacks and mulattoes, to be so amended as to exclude corporeal
punishment, and require bonds for good behavior in the stead.
We consider it a highly important subject that the executive of this govern-
ment should have laws which may direct them in settling matters relative to
lands reserved by Indians, which have been, or hereafter may be, settled upon
by whites.
We would also recommend that provisions be made for the support of luna-
tics and insane persons in Oregon.
With regard to the state of the treasury, we would refer you to the treas-
urer's report to this assembly.
We are informed that the number of emigrants who have come from the
United States to this country, during the present year, amounts to upwards of
750 persons.
We would recommend that the act passed last June, defining the northern
boundaries of Twality and Clatsop counties be so explained as not to conflict with
the act passed in this assembly in June, 1843, extending the limits of Oregon to
54 degrees, 40 minutes north latitude.
And we would suggest, in conclusion, that to preserve the peace, good order,
and kind feelings which have hitherto existed among the inhabitants of this coun-
try, depends very much upon the calm and deliberate judgment of this assembly.
And we sincerely hope that Oregon, by the special aid of Divine Providence,
may set an unprecedented example to the world, of industry, morality and virtue.
And, although, we may now be unknown, as a state or power, yet we have the
advantages by united efforts of our increasing population, in a diligent atten-
tion to agriculture, arts, and literature, of attaining, at no distant day, to as con-
spicuous an elevation as any state or power on the continent of America.
But, in order to carry this important measure, and arise to that distinguished
station, it becomes the duty of every citizen of this country, to take a deep in
est in its present and future welfare.
As descendants of the United States, and of Great Britain, we would honor
and respect the countries which gave us birth; and, as citizens of Oregon, we
should, by a uniform course or proceeding, and a strict observance of the rules
of justice, equity, and republican principles, without party distinction, use our
best endeavors to cultivate the kind feeling, not only of our native countries,
but of all the powers or states with whom we may have intercourse.
(Signed)
OSBORN RUSSELL,
P. G. STEWART,
Executive Committee of Oregon.
TREASURER'S REPORT
(Dated)
Willamette Falls, December 16, 1844.
At this meeting of the legislature the territorial treasurer, W. H. Willson,
presented the first report on the treasury as follows:
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
187
REPORT
Received of collector, in taxes
For licenses for two ferries
One fine
$313.31
40.00
5.00
Total .
$358.31
Expended for stationery
Mr. Hathaway's house
Judge Babcock's salary
Services of secretary in house
$ 20.38
15.00
60.00
20.00
Total ..
..$115.38
Balance remaining in treasury
$242.93
On December 20, 1844, Representative Lovejoy reports to the legislature that
John McLoughlin had donated a lot in Oregon City on which to build a jail.
The bill to incorporate Oregon City was read a third time and passed on
December 24, 1844, making Oregon City the oldest incorporated town on the
Pacific coast, and the only town holding its charter from the provisional govern-
ment.
The next session of the legislature was held at Oregon City beginning June
24, 1845. New men now began to appear in the government, among them Jesse
Applegate, a native of Kentucky, but who came across the plains from Missouri
in 1843, and for the first time the members of the legislature took an oath of office
as follows, which oath was prepared by Mr. Applegate:
“I do solemnly swear that I will support the organic laws of the Provisional
government of Oregon, so far as the said organic laws are consistent with my du-
ties as a citizen of the United States, or a subject of Great Britain, and faithfully
demean myself in office, so help me God."
One of the first resolutions at this session was offered by W. H. Gray, author-
izing the appointment of a committee of five to draft a memorial and petition,
to the congress of the United States, setting forth the condition, situation, rela-
tion, and wants of this country.
The name of J. W. Nesmith appears in connection with government matters
for the first time and before the legislature as "judge of Oregon.” There is,
however, no official record of his appointment or election. Nevertheless it is
certain that he was appointed supreme judge of Oregon in December, 1844, to
fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Dr. Ira L. Babcock, and that on the
first Tuesday in June, 1845, he was unanimously elected to the position of circuit
judge, his name being on all the tickets-printed tickets, too—the first in Oregon
two copies of which he sent back to a relative living near Cincinnati, Ohio.
This statement is based upon a letter written by Nesmith on June 27, 1845.
On June 28, 1845, Representative Garrison offered the following resolutions :
Resolved, That whereas, the people of Oregon assembled en masse, did on
the 2nd day of May, 1843, resolve that no tax should be levied upon this people,
188
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
>>
confirming the same by the adoption of the report of the committee of ways and
means, adopted by the legislative committee, and referred to the people en masse,
and by them enacted July 5, 1843, therefore,
Resolved, That this house has no right to levy a tax of any kind without the
consent of the free voters of this territory previously obtained.
*Resolved, That all acts and parts of acts on that subject, passed by the legis-
lative committee, were contrary to the express resolution and action of the
people."
So we see that Oregon started out in favor of the referendum on taxation.
And on the same day the memorial to congress was presented by W. H. Gray,
and signed by Osborn Russell and P. G. Stewart, two members of the Execu-
tive Committee, by Judge Nesmith, Mr. Speaker, and all the members of the legis-
lature, and then delivered to Dr. White, Indian agent, to be conveyed to congress
at Washington, D. C.
On July 5, 1845, the legislature passed a resolution that the members should
receive two dollars a day for their services, and then adjourned to meet again at
Oregon City, on August 5, 1845.
The legislature met again at Oregon City, August 5, 1845, the following mem-
bers being present: Applegate, Foisy, Garrison, H. A. G. Lee, B. Lee, W. H. Gray,
Robert Newell, David Hill, Sidney Smith, M. M. McCarver, McClure and Straight.
An election being taken to select a speaker-Gray received 8 votes; H. A. G. Lee,
2; and McCarver 1. McCarver then questioned the propriety of electing Gray,
claiming to be himself still the speaker. Whereupon the legislative body requested
Mr. McCarver to resign. But McCarver did not resign and proceeded to appoint
a committee on ways and means, claims, judiciary, private land claims, roads,
Indian affairs and education.
Mr. Gray now inquired if in the opinion of the speaker, the house was properly
organized; and the chair” decided in the affirmative. Whereupon, Gray ap-
pealed from the decision of the speaker to the house when the decision of the
" chair” was reversed, and a resolution passed to remove McCarver from the
office of speaker, and Robert Newell was elected chairman in his place.
So the reader can see that this was a real flesh and blood legislature, the strife
for public station starting early in Oregon and as trifling as this incident was,
it, with other resolutions copied hereafter decided the future course of an able
and energetic man, and impelled Mr. McCarver to leave Oregon and cast in his
fortunes with Puget Sound.
By the 9th of August, 1845, Meek had secured more offices than any other
citizen, having been appointed by the legislature sheriff, marshal and collector
of the revenue.
On the 9th of August the legislature passed resolutions declaring that it had
not the power to set aside or annul contracts made and entered into by the officers
of the government.
And also a resolution calling upon Joseph L. Meek to report the amount of
revenue he had collected in the year 1844, and how he had disbursed the same.
On this day, J. W. Nesmith resigned the office of “Judge of Oregon,” and the
legislature proceeded to elect a successor in the office. The choice resulting in the
election of Nineveh Ford, of Yamhill county, which then included what is now
Polk. Ford declined the office. And Ford is hardly to be regarded as a public
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
189
benefactor, as it is related of him, that, when he and his good wife were about
starting from Missouri to Oregon, Nineveh remarked that it was likely there was
nothing growing in that country that was good for "greens," and that as they
could not get along without "hog's jowl and greens," they had better take some
seed and roots with them, which they did, by bringing the “dandelion” to this
country, where it did not exist before, and planting it in the virgin soil of Oregon,
turned loose an unmitigated pest to all pastures, lawns, gardens and orchards.
On August 15th, the legislative assembly shows its pronounced sentiment on
two subjects by resolutions as follows:
"Resolved, That M. M. McCarver has been opposed to the organic law, as
adopted by the people of Oregon, and contrary to the voice of this house in regu-
lar session, clandestinely, and in a manner unworthy the confidence reposed in him,
placed his name to a copy of those laws transmitted to the United States, thereby
conveying a false impression, and did, also, sign his name to two resolutions con-
trary to a direct vote of this house; therefore,
"It is further resolved, That we disapprove of the course he has pursued,
and feel ourselves under the humiliating necessity of signifying the same to the
United States government by causing a copy of this resolution to accompany those
documents.
Mr. Hill introduced the following:
“Resolved, That no person belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company, or in
their service, shall ever be considered as citizens of the government of Oregon,
nor have the right of elective franchise;" which resolution was rejected.
From these proceedings it can be seen that the pioneer lawmakers could not
only deal with a stern hand with those who trifled with the interests of the people,
but they could also be just and magnanimous to those who did not support the
Provisional government.
On August 16th a bill was reported to prevent litigation,” If such a meas-
ure was proposed to the legislature of the present day, the lawyers and judges
would be paralyzed.
On August 18th the house went into secret session to fill the office of supreme
judge for Oregon, which resulted in choosing Peter H. Burnett for that position.
Mr. Burnett accepted the office and so far as is known, discharged its duties
to the satisfaction of the people and credit to himself. After the United States
assumed control and organized the territorial government, Mr. Burnett was ap-
pointed one of the district judges, but declined the office, removed to California
and became the first governor of that state.
The following are some of the proceedings for the ensuing session of the legis-
lature for August 19, 1845 :
**On motion of Mr. Barton Lee,
"Resolved, That when this house adjourns tomorrow night, it adjourns sine
die.
On motion of Mr. Hill,
“Resolved, That all resolutions and other proceedings of this house calculated
to cast censure upon the speaker, be expunged from the journals, and the clerk is
hereby authorized to erase the same; which, after some discussion, was laid upon
the table.
"The house proceeded to the election of district judges, for the Clackamas
190
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
district which resulted in the choice of P. G. Stewart for district judge for three
years; Fred Prigg for two years, and F. W. Pettygrove for one year; and William
Holmes was elected sheriff for Clackamas county.
“The house then proceeded to the election of district judges for Clatsop dis-
trict, which resulted in the choice of W. T. Perry for three years; Robert Shortess
for two years and Calvin Tibbetts for one year; and Thomas Owens was duly
elected sheriff for Clatsop county.
“The house proceeded to the election of district judges for the district of
Vancouver, which resulted in the choice of James Douglas for three years; M. T.
Simmons for two years, and Charles Forrest for one year. John R. Jackson was
elected sheriff for Vancouver district. The house adjourned to 9 o'clock tomorrow
>>
morning.”
Governor Abernethy sent in his annual message but it has been lost, as well as
his first message. So far in this history of the legislature bills on all sorts of sub-
jects had been proposed, but very few of them adopted; and very few of these
old provisional laws can now be found. To determine the character of the legis-
lation, we have to depend on the journal of the legislature printed in the
"Archives."
It is to the honor of W. H. Gray, whose daughter, Mrs. Jacob Kamm, resides
in Portland, and other descendants at Astoria, that he prepared and introduced,
December 13, 1845, into the first legislative body west of the Rocky mountains,
the first law to provide for the education of all children by common public
schools.
On December 16th, Mr. McClure introduced a bill to provide for postoffices
and post roads. On the same day the committee of the whole reported a bill
to authorize Samuel K. Barlow to construct the wagon road over the mountains
south of Mt. Hood, and which is the same road the Portland automobilists are
now using for “joy rides" to the mountains. A large part of the immigration
to Oregon passed over the road to reach Portland and Oregon City.
On Friday, December 19, W. G. T’Vault was elected postmaster-general
of Oregon. T'Vault, “Old T” as everybody called him, was a rare gem.
Being a native of Kentucky, and coming from Arkansas, he had all the vernacular
of the colored population, with an odd cargo of miscellaneous information and a
limited amount of book education. Dryden might have had “Old T” in mind
when he wrote:
'A man so various that he seemed to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome!
Stiff in opinion, always in the wrong,
Everything by starts, and nothing long.
He had an ambition to be an editor, and did conduct several newspaper en-
terprises, which were more entertaining to his fellow craftsmen even than to
his patrons. Punctuation of his editorials was one of his strong points. And
in a brilliant description of a gorgeous sunset in Rogue river valley, he at-
tempted to tell his readers that he was seated on the hill back of the old town
of Jacksonville, and made the opening sentence read: “Seated on the emi-
nence of an evening, etc.” All his exchanges copied the line with ribald remarks
about the "Eminence of that evening," but fortunate for the comfort of Ore-
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
191
gon's first and last postmaster-general, he did not see what the boys were
laughing about.
At the next annual session of the legislature, commenced and held at Ore-
gon City, December 1, 1846, we get hold of the first governor's message to any
legislature west of the Rocky mountains. George Abernethy, whose portrait
appears on another page, had been elected governor at the previous election.
We give below the proceedings introducing the message and the document
itself:
“The speaker announced a communication from the governor. The reading
of the communication was called for, when Mr. Newell moved that the secre-
tary of the territory read the communication. The speaker decided the motion
out of order; whereupon Mr. Newell appealed from the decision of the chair,
The house sustained the decision of the speaker. Mr. Newell moved that the
rules be suspended. Mr. T'Vault demanded the yeas and nays, which were as
follows: Ayes-Messrs. Chamberlain, Looney, McDonald, Newell, Peers,
Straight and Tolmie, 7. Nays-Messrs Hall, Hembree, Lownsdale, Meek, Sum-
mers, T'Vault and Mr. Speaker, 7. So the rules were not suspended.”
The communication from the governor was then read as follows:
"To the Honorable the Legislative Assembly of Oregon,
"Fellow Citizens : The duty of addressing you at the opening of your ses-
sion again presents itself.
"The duty of legislating, for the welfare and happiness of the community,
again devolves upon you.
“May we be guided and directed by that wisdom which never errs.
"The boundary question—a question of great importance to us as a people
--there is every reason to believe, is finally settled. The following is an ex-
tract from the Polynesian, a paper published at the Sandwich Islands, of
the 29th of August, last:
"The senate ratified the treaty upon the Oregon question, by a vote of
41 to 14.'
"This the Polynesian credits to the New York Gazette, and Times, of the
10th of June; showing that a treaty had been entered into, and probably con-
cluded, between the two governments. The provisions of the treaty are not
yet known to us in Oregon, farther than what we can gather from the letter
of Mr. George Seymour, the British commander-in-chief in the Pacific, to the
agents of the Hudson's Bay Company at the Sandwich Islands, being an extract
of a private letter from A. Forbes, Esq., consul at Tepic, to George Seymour:
"'I send you an American newspaper, which Mr. Bankhead has requested
may be forwarded to you, and which shows that the Oregon question is entirely
settled; the 49th degree is to run on to the Straits of Fuca; the whole Island of
Vancouver being left in possession of England; and the said Straits of Fuca,
Puget Sound, &c., remaining free to both parties. The Columbia river is also
to remain free to both parties, until the expiration of the charter of the Hudson's
Bay Company, when the whole to the south of the 49th degree, is to belong to
America with the exceptions mentioned.'
Should this information prove correct, we may shortly expect officers
from the United States government, to take formal possession of Oregon, and
extend over us the protection we have longed and anxiously looked for.
192
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
"The notice that the joint occupancy of Oregon would cease, after twelve
months, was given, by the president of the United States, to the government of
Great Britain
“The president in his message of 1845, before the notice was given, speak-
ing of Oregon, says:
"'As yet, we have not been made acquainted with any action of congress,
that would extend the jurisdiction of the United States over us, but from the
feeling which prevailed in congress, with regard to this country, and the senti-
ments set forth by the president, previous to the notice being given, there can be
no doubt that now the notice being given, the boundary line is, in all probability,
finally settled.
"We shall, in a few months at the farthest, be again living under, and en-
joying the protection of, the Stars and Stripes of our loved country, and, ere
long, we may reasonably hope, be added to the brilliant constellation of states.
"The law establishing the postoffice department needs altering, very ma-
terially. It was found, after being in operation but a very short time, that the
rates of postage were altogether too high, amounting to a prohibition. Very
few letters passed through the office; the revenue arose almost entirely from
the postage on the newspapers, but fell so far short of the expenses, that the
postmaster-general, at the close of the third quarter, stopped sending the mails.
I would recommend that the rates of postage be reduced to five cents on each
single letter, double letters and packages in proportion, and one cent on each
newspaper. A mail route should be kept up between the principal sections of
the territory; and I have no doubt, if the postage is reduced, the revenue, aris-
ing from the receipts of the office, will nearly or quite pay the expenses.
“There will be several proposals laid before you in regard to locating the
seat of government, but under the present aspect of affairs I think it best to post-
pone the subject for the present.
"A subject of great importance to us, as a people, presents itself in our com-
mercial regulations. That this will be a commercial nation there can be no
doubt in the mind of any person acquainted with our location; it therefore is our
duty to commence preparing the way for shipping to enter our harbors.
"The first requisite for the mouth of the Columbia river is a good pilot or
pilots. Many ships employed in the whale fishery would, no doubt, enter our
river and remain with us during the winter if they were sire of obtaining a
good pilot to bring them safely over the bar and conduct them out when ready
Vessels can, without doubt, enter and depart from the mouth of the
Columbia river with as much safety as they can the majority of the seaports in
the United States; and it needs only a careful pilot well acquainted with the
currents, landmarks and shoals to make it perfectly safe for vessels to enter our
port. I, therefore, recommend that a branch be established at the mouth of the
Columbia river, and that a board of commissioners be appointed, whose duty it
shall be to examine all persons applying for a license to act as pilots, as to their
capability so to act.
“Connected with this is the means to prevent seamen from deserting. If
seamen are at liberty to leave their vessels and secrete themselves among the in-
habitants, or be provided for and be protected by them until their vessels leave,
we can never hope to see vessels frequent our ports for the purpose of refitting
for sea.

2
GOVERNOR ABERNETHY
JOSEPH L. MEEK,
Marshal
4
3
SAMUEL R. THURSTON,
Delegate to Congress
W. G. TÄVAULT,
Postmaster General
OFFICIALS OF PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT
UNIL
OF
Bich
3
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
193
and obtaining supplies. I, therefore, recommend that a heavy penalty be im-
posed on any person who shall entice a seaman to leave his ship, or who shall
harbor, secrete or employ, or in any wise assist a deserter.
This may appear severe, but when, on reflection, we consider that these
men voluntarily entered into a contract to perform certain duties, and that the
safety of the vessel they belong to and the lives and property on board, depend
on their faithfully filling their contract, the severity vanishes at once. We should
consider that a vessel lightly manned (which must be the case if part of the
ship's crew desert, as there are no seamen here to supply their places), runs great
risks in working out of our harbor, a risk that shipmates and shipowners will not
be likely to run. Unless regulations be made that will prevent desertion, owners
of vessels will avoid our ports, and without vessels, the produce of the farmer
must remain on his hands, and in this way work an injury all around, and one
that will be felt by all classes in the community.
'Our courts, as at present regulated, have not answered the expectations of
the framers of the law; but, as the jurisdictions of our courts will soon cease,
it will probably be not worth while to enter into any new arrangements.
"I regret to be compelled to inform you that the jail erected in Oregon City,
and the property of the territory, was destroyed by fire on the night of the 18th
of August last, the work no doubt of an incendiary. A reward of $100.00 was
immediately offered, but as yet the offender has not been discovered. Should
you think it best to erect another jail, I would suggest the propriety of building
it of large stones, clamped together. We have but little use for a jail, and a
small building would answer all purposes for many years, I have no doubt, if
we should be successful in keeping ardent spirits out of the territory.
"There is one subject which I would lay before you, in reference to the In-
dian population, and that is the extent the law intends to allow the whites in
their villages. Complaints are made by Indians that they are encroached upon
by the whites. Cannot some method be devised by which their villages can be
surveyed, and stakes set, inside of which the whites may not be permitted to en-
ter and build? The Indians inhabited their villages previous to our arrival,
and should be protected by us. The time is no doubt near at hand when the
agent of the United States government will be here and these matters will be
arranged by him; but until he arrives I deem it necessary that some pro-
vision be made by you, as it may save trouble and difficulty.
“Another emigration has crossed the Rocky mountains, and most of the party
has arrived in the settlements. About 152 wagons reached this place very early
in the season, via Barlow's road, for which a charter was granted him at your
last session. About 100 wagons are on their way, if they have not already
reached the upper settlements by a southern route. They have, no doubt, been
detained by traveling a new route. The difficulties attending the opening of a
wagon road are very great, and probably will account in some measure for their
detention. The emigration falls very far short of last year, probably not num-
bering over one thousand souls. This is accounted for by a great part of the
emigration turning off to California.
“We trust that those coming among us may have no cause to regret the de-
cision that brought them to Oregon. I would call your attention to the subject
of education, without which no country can be prosperous; it, therefore, becomes
Vol. 1-13
194
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
:
the duty of the legislature to provide liberally for the education of the rising
generation. I am happy to say that the past year has amply repaid the tiller's
toil. Our harvest has been abundant, and the season for gathering in the crops
was dry, enabling the farmer to secure the reward of his labor free from injury.
During the past season we have enjoyed throughout the territory, the blessings
of health; these blessings and mercies call for our gratitude. May we ever feel
our dependence on the Divine Being, through whom we receive them, and our
prayers continually ascend to him for wisdom to guide is in the important duties,
to which we are called.
GEORGE ABERNETHY.
“Oregon City, December 1, 1846.''
On motion of Mr. T'Vault, the governor's message and accompanying docu-
ments were referred to committee of the whole, and made the special order of
the day for tomorrow.
This pioneer governor's message not only shows the character of the ques-
tions which the pioneer law-makers and state builders had to wrestle with, but it
shows also the common sense, great responsibility and patriotic conscience which
these men brought to the discharge of their duties.
On December 5, 1846, Representative T'Vault reported from the judiciary
committee a bill to regulate the writ ad quod damnum; which was sufficientlv
learned and profane to suit the most fastidious member of the Oregon Bar As-
sociation.
On December 9 the legislature passed the following resolution :
“Resolved, That the select committee on the national railroad be instructed
to memorialize the congress of the United States on that suject." There was
at that time not a mile of railroad within three thousand miles of Oregon City;
but Oregon was not to be behind on this subject, and got its first railroad con-
nection across the continent thirty-seven years later by the hands of Henry Vil-
lard, via the Columbia river, Spokane and St. Paul.
On December 17, 1846, Governor Abernethy vetoed a bill to regulate the
manufacture and sale of wine and distilled liquors," and as this is a live issue in
Oregon politics today, we give the message in full:
"Oregon City, December 17, 1846.
"GENTLEMEN: I return to your honorable body the act entitled 'An act to
regulate the manufacture and sale of wine and distilled spirituous liquors, with
my objections to the same.
“Previous to our organization as a provisional government public sentiment
kept liquor from being manufactured or sold in this territory. Heretofore,
every act of the legislature has been, as far as ardent spirits were concerned,
prohibitory in character. The act before me is the first act that has in any man-
ner attempted to legalize the manufacture and sale of ardent spirits. At the
session of the legislature in June, 1844, an act was passed to prevent the intro-
duction, sale and distillation of ardent spirits in Oregon; and as far as my knowl-
edge extends, the passage of that act gave satisfaction to the great majority of
the people throughout the territory. At the session of December, 1845, several
amendments were proposed to the old law and passed. The new features given
to the bill by those amendments did not accord with the views of the people; the
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
195
1
use
insertion of the words 'give' and 'gift' in the first and second sections of the
bill, they thought, was taking away their rights, as it was considered that a man
had a right to give away his property if he chose. There were several objections
to the bill, which I set forth to your honorable body in my message. I would
recommend that the amendments passed at the December session of 1845 be re-
pealed; and that the law passed on the 25th of June, 1844, with such alterations
as will make it agree with the organic law, if it does not agree with it, be again
made the law of the land. It is said by many that the legislature has no right to
prohibit the introduction or sale of liquor, and this is probably the strongest
argument used in the defense of your bill. But do you not as effectually prohibit
every person who has not the sum of one, two or three hundred dollars to pay for
his license, as does the law now on the statute book? Are not your proposed fines
and penalties as great or greater than those of the old law? Where, then, is the
benefit to the people? There is no doubt in my mind but that the law will be
evaded as easily and as often under the new law as it was under the old, and, in
addition to this, there will be the legal manufacturers, importers and sellers who
will be able, under the sanction of law, to scatter all the evils attendant upon the
of alcoholic drinks. We are in an Indian country; men will be found who will
supply them with liquor as long as they have beaver, blankets and horses to pay
for it. If a quantity should be introduced among the Walla Wallas and other
tribes in the upper country who can foretell the consequences—there we have
families exposed, cut off from the protection of the settlements, and perhaps at
the first drunken frolic of the Indians in that region they may be cut off from
the face of the earth. But we need not go so far; we are exposed in every part
of our frontier, and when difficulties once commence, we cannot tell where they
will cease.
“It has been proved before the house of commons that one-half of the insan-
ity, two-thirds of the pauperism and three-fourths of the crimes of Great Brit-
ain, may be directly traced to the use of alcoholic drink. The testimony of our
most eminent judges in the United States, shows that the same proportion of
crime is attributable to ardent spirits in that country. Statistics might be pro-
duced showing the enormous evil and expense of an indiscriminate use of liquor.
“As to revenue, the small amount received for licenses, instead of being rev-
enue, would be swallowed up in the expenses attending trials for crimes, etc.,
caused by the crime of these licenses.
“But leaving all other countries out of view, let us consider our own state.
Surrounded by Indians, no military force to aid the executive and other officers
in the discharge of their duties, not a solitary prison in the land in which to
confine offenders against the laws, and consequently no way of enforcing the
penalties of the law. I think these things should call for calm and serious re-
flection, before passing your final vote on this bill. My opinion is, the people
are opposed to legalizing the introduction and sale of liquor in this land. I may
be mistaken, and therefore should be in favor of the old law, or something sim-
ilar should be adopted, of referring the whole matter to the polls at the next
general election. If the people say “no liquor,' continue to prohibit; if they say,
through the ballot box, 'we wish liquor,' then let it come free, the same as dry
goods, or any other article imported or manufactured; but, until the people say
they want it, I hope you will use your influence to keep it out of the territory.
196
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
“It is with regret that I return any bill unsigned, but I feel that we both
have duties to perform and when we think duty points out the way, I trust we
may always be found willing to follow it.
"GEORGE ABERNETHY.
TREASURER'S REPORT
State of the Treasury, December, 1846
Funds in hand
Amount due by George Abernethy, per account
Amount due by John H. Couch
· Amount due by F. W. Pettygrove
Amount due by H. B. Comp (Fort Vancouver)
81.54
16.92
11.27
16.42
$ 126.15
LIABILITIES
Amount due H. B. Comp (Oregon City)
Amount collected of estate of Ewing Young
Scrip outstanding at this date, not paid
$ 140.94
2,815.00
1,879.64
$4,835.59
Receipts since December 1, 1846, to date.
Taxes from John R. Jackson, sheriff Lewis county
Taxes from John R. Jackson, sheriff Vancouver county
Taxes from Wm. Holmes, sheriff Clackamas county.
License paid by R. K. Payne
License paid by H. N. Winslow
Absentee tax, paid by John R. Jackson (Vancouver)
... $
.$ 24.48
57.73
115.00
100.00
100.00
10.00
$ 407.31
Taxes from John R. Jackson (error).
The receipts since December 1, 1846, have been paid me wholly in scrip. -
Interest paid on scrip, December 9
3.59
Balance liabilities
$ 403.72
$4,431.86
JOHN P. BROOKS, Deputy Treasurer.
Décember 9, 1846.
MESSAGE
Of the Governor of Oregon Territory, December 7, 1847.
“To the Honorable the Legislative Assembly of Oregon Territory,
“FELLOW CITIZENS: Contrary to the expectation of all who reside in this
territory, you are again convened under the provisional government of Oregon.
After learning that the boundary line question was settled, there was hardly a
doubt resting in the mind of any individual with regard to the extension of the
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
197
jurisdiction of the United States over this territory. We have been sadly dis-
appointed, and hope, which was so fondly cherished, begins to sink into despair
in the hearts of many.
"Our situation is not a pleasant one, on account of the uncertainty of it. We
may be in less than six months under the laws and government of the United
States; and we may, on the other hand, exist in our present state several years.
This uncertainty will, no doubt, embarrass you in your proceedings. If we re-
main as we are for any length of time, ways and means must be devised for rais-
ing a more extensive revenue. The laws should be published in a convenient
form; a fund set apart for treating with Indians, and many other things pro-
vided for that we have thus far dispensed with, but which must be attended to in
order that we may carry out the principles under which we have associated.
"This being the first session of the present congress, they will have more time
to devote to the formation of a government for this territory than at the last ses-
sion. The probability is that peace between the United States and Mexico will
have been restored, and relieve congress from the care, and anxieties attendant
upon a war, and also relieve the government from the very heavy expense which
must necessarily attend the carrying on of a war. These things lead to the hope
that among the first acts of congress will be the passage of an act to establish a
territorial government in Oregon.
“This will release us from our present embarrassments and place us under
a permanent form of government. Hoping that this may be the case, I will call
your attention to such subjects as are most pressing in their character, and
which cannot well be dispensed with. The judiciary, has now regulated,
answers every purpose required of it, and proves to be a far better system than the
old one. There is one thing, however, needed very much in connection with it,
and that is a prison. Should an offender be sentenced to imprisonment by the
judge, there is no place in the territory to confine him, and consequently he
escapes the punishment his crimes justly merit. This should not be so, and I
hope you will provide means during your present session for the erection of
a jail.
"In my message of 1845, I recommended that in addition to gold and silver,
wheat should be the only article used in the country as legal tender. The
legislature added treasury drafts and orders on solvent merchants. I would rec-
ommend the repeal of that part of the act which makes treasury drafts and
orders on solvent merchants a lawful tender-receiving treasury drafts, how-
ever, in payment of taxes and debts due the government. Gold and silver are
much more plentiful in the territory now than two years ago, and could be made
the only lawful tender without detriment to the community; still, I think wheat
had better remain in connection with gold and silver; it is a staple article, and
can always be disposed of to merchants and others.
"I would recommend an alteration in the law relating to the recording of
land claims. The organic law requires that claims be recorded in the office of
the territorial recorder. This answered very well while our population was
small and nearly all living in one district, but our population is increasing rap-
idly and spreading over a large extent of country; new counties have been
formed, and probably in a short time others will be set off and lands taken up
still further from the territorial recorder's office than at the present time. In
198
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
view of this, I think it advisable that you propose an amendment to the organic
law, making the clerk of the county court recorder of all land claims located
within his county, and dispense with the office of territorial recorder.
The act entitled “An act to regulate the manufacture and sale of wine and
distilled spirituous liquors," passed at the last session of the legislature, I would
recommend for revision. An act to prevent the introduction, manufacture, and
sale of ardent spirits in Oregon, would be far more preferable to a majority
of the people of this territory. In our early history ardent spirits were unknown
among us; every effort was made to keep it out of the territory, and, to a great
extent, successfully, until 1846, when, owing to the defects in the law passed
at the session of 1845, some persons violated the statutes, and liquor was made
and sold in the territory; but it was not done openly, nor carried on to any
great extent. The last legislature licensed the manufacture and sale of ardent
spirits. I hope the present legislature will repeal the license law. Would
it not be better to have the law opposed to ardent spirits, than to have the manu-
facture and sale of it legalized by the statute? It is argued by some persons that
you have not the right to put it down, and by others, that it is interfering
with the liberties of the people, and depriving them of their rights. I think
you have the right to prevent its introduction; no one can dispute your right
to regulate it down to the medical profession. With regard to taking away the
liberties of the people, prohibitory laws are passed by all legislatures. I will
simply give one instance. In a law of Massachusetts, passed March 23, 1833,
it is declared that any person who shall, in violation of the law, sell a lottery
ticket, or knowingly suffer one to be sold, in any building owned or rented by
him, within the commonwealth, he shall forfeit and pay a sum not less than one
hundred, nor more than two thousand dollars; and that if any person, after con-
viction, shall repeat the offense, he shall be sentenced for every subsequent
offence, to labor in the house of correction, or in the common jail, for a term of
time not less than three months, nor more than twelve months. This was not
considered by the people as taking away their liberties, though it deprives some
of the liberty of ruining themselves, and others from making money out of their
ruin. And is not this statute founded in the true principles of legislation, not
to license evil, but to defend the community from it! Other states have passed
similar laws. When a crime is committed by any person when under the
influence of liquor, where does the responsibility rest? The individual, when
sober, informs us he did not know what he was doing; the seller says, I have a
license to sell liquor, and sold it to him according to law. Would it not be for
the interest of the territory to take away this plea from the seller? The license
system throws a bulwark around the dealer in ardent spirits, behind which he
entrenches himself. Remove this bulwark, place the law against him, and
public sentiment will put him down. The temperance cause is an onward one;
we hear of state after state deciding through the ballot box, that no license to
sell liquor shall be granted within its bounds; and the supreme court at Wash-
ington, to which several cases had been carried from the circuit courts arising
from the liquor question, decided at the last term of the court that the states
have a right to regulate the trade in, and the licensing of, the sale of ardent
spirits.
Our organic law says that the legislature shall have the power to regulate the
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
199
introduction, manufacture, or sale, of ardent spirits. In the United States,
some of the states prohibit the granting of licenses. The supreme court says
the states have the right to regulate the licensing of the sale of ardent spirits,
and, under the right to regulate, the states prohibit and the court upholds them
in it.
The question, shall the license system be continued, or shall the introduction,
manufacture, and sale of ardent spirits, be prohibited ? is in your hands; and,
I hope, in deciding upon it, you will take the happiness and future prosperity
of the territory into your consideration. You are well aware of our situation,
with regard to the Indian population, and have seen the effect liquor has upon
them. You may have heard them say, if the "Boston people would not furnish
us liquor, we would not become such fools!” I leave the question with you,
sincerely hoping that, should we come under the jurisdiction of the United
States, the coming year, we may be found with a law on our statute books
prohibiting the sale of ardent spirits in this territory.
“Our relations with the Indians become every year more embarrassing.
They see the white man occupying their land, rapidly filling up the country,
and they put in a claim for pay. They have been told that a chief would come
out from the United States and treat with them for their lands; they have been
told this so often that they begin to doubt the truth of it; at all events, they say
he will not come till we are all dead, and then what good will blankets do us?
We want something now. This leads to trouble between the settler and the In-
dians about him. Some plan should be devised by which a fund can be raised
and presents made to the Indians of sufficient value to keep them quiet until an
agent arrives from the United States. A number of robberies have been com-
mitted by the Indians in the upper country upon the emigrants, as they were
passing through their territory. This should not be allowed to pass. An ap-
propriation should be made by you sufficient to enable the superintendent of
Indian affairs to take a small party in the spring, and demand restitution of the
property or its equivalent in horses. Without an appropriation a sufficient party
could not be induced to go up there, as the trip is an expensive one.
"The emigration the past season has been much larger than any preceding
one, amounting to between four and five thousand souls. They have all arrived
in the settlements, unless a few families should still be at the Dalles and Cas-
cades, and scattered themselves over the territory. The most of them are farm-
ers and mechanics; they will add much to the future welfare and prosperity of
Oregon.
"During the past year we have been visited by a number of vessels, some of
them drawing more water than the vessels which have usually visited us.
happy to say they received full cargoes on board and crossed the bar in safety.
The provisions of the pilot law have been carried out, and its good effects are al
ready visible. The able pilot at the mouth of the river has made himself thor-
oughly acquainted with the channels and currents, thus diminishing the dangers
formerly attending vessels coming into the river. The time is not far distant
when our river will be entered with more ease and facility than many of the
ports in the United States on the Atlantic coast, and captains will wonder why
the entrance was so much dreaded, forgetting that they are reaping the benefits
of experience.
i
I am
200
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
"The cause of education demands your attention. School districts should
be formed in the several counties, and school houses built. Teachers would be
employed by the people, I have no doubt, and thus pave the way for more ad-
vanced institutions.
"In closing, allow me to unite with you in expressions of gratitude to that
Being who has preserved us during the past year and granted us the blessings of
health, peace and prosperity. May we continue to merit His mercies by ac-
knowledging our dependence on Him and keeping His law before us.
"GEO. ABERNETHY.
“Oregon City, December 7, 1847."
On December 17, 1847, Joseph L. Meek was appointed messenger to carry
the news of the Whitman massacre to Washington City, and lay it before con-
gress, and resigned his seat in the legislature and made that remarkable trip by
horseback across the continent in the middle of the winter of 1847-8.
The following extract from the letter of Hugh Burns, commissioner of the
currency, to the legislature, dated Oregon City, February 8, 1849, will show the
troubles of that officer in financing the treasury of Oregon, in fighting the In-
dians at that date.
"On the 28th of March last, or near that time, the commissary general told
me that when he was at The Dalles, it became necessary for him to take wagons
and oxen, the property of Phelaster and Philemon Lee, to the amount of $250.00.
I consented to give bonds to that amount and did so, but in a few days I was
called upon by different persons for bonds for a very large amount. I refused
to execute bonds to them until I could see the other two commissioners, and when
we met together it was thought best not to give any more bonds for any prop-
erty, as we knew nothing about it; so, for these reasons we refused to give bonds
for any more of the property taken at The Dalles by the commissary general.
“There is another matter I wish to explain; it is this: When I commenced to
collect funds, I was not able to obtain any money except orders on the stores in
Oregon City; in consequence of this, it was impossible for the commissary general
to obtain articles for the use of the army.
“He told me he could get axes and spades, and these articles were very much
wanted to make roads for wagons to pass up the Columbia river. Philip Foster
had subscribed $50.00 to be paid on the stores, and John B. Price, $25.00, to be
paid also on the stores. These gentlemen told me if I would give them twenty-
five per cent. premium, they would let me have cash, and I told them I would do
SO. Mr. Foster gave me $37.50, and I gave him a bond for $50.00. Mr. Price
gave me $18.75, and I gave him a bond for $25.00. This I did for the best. But
should your honorable body think otherwise, I am ready to pay to this govern-
ment out of my own funds, the amount of premium that I found at that time
necessary to allow. I bring this to your particular notice, because it was noticed
at the time by one of the presses of Oregon City. Whatever your decision on this
point may be, I alone am responsible, as my associates know nothing of the mat-
ter. The commissary general or his agent, A. J. Hembree, Esq., obtained a loan
of $196.50, or thereabouts, from Thomas Justins, for which they agreed to get
him a bond for $216.33. I first refused to give the bond for that amount, but
the commissary general being very much in want of cash, and upon considera-
5.1.1.4. W.R.G.
T.R
NGE
OBAN
M
*
TERRITORY
RY OF
u
10, D. 20.G.
NATIVE.
GOLD
TEN, D
VOLAT
PROPA
ά που
হg 40
OREG
OF THE
AUS
ON
O.T.
1849
ANY
SEAL
OREGON
TER DOLLARS.
LANG
مان
E
ESCOLA
130 G.
E NATIVE
GOLD
5 D.
24
RODI
Seal of the
Territory of Oregon
Seal of the
Provisional Government
called the
“Salmon Seal”
FF
O.T.
1849
PANTES
FIVE DOLLARA.
The Beaver Money, Gold-Minted
at Oregon City in 1849
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
201
tion, sooner than the money should be returned, I executed the bond to Thomas
Justins for $216.35. All bonds issued by us bear interest at the rate of 10 per
cent. per annum, and all signed by the governor and countersigned by the secre-
tary of this territory. All the books and papers belonging are hereby trans-
mitted for your examination.
"Owing to the resignation of Gen. A. L. Lovejoy as one of the commissioners,
and the absence of Dr. W. H. Willson, this document will appear with but one
signature.
(Signed) HUGH BURNS, Commissioner.
“Oregon City, February 8, 1849.”
On February 10, 1849, some enterprising real estate agent applied to the
legislature for a "charter" to enable him to get into the real estate business in
the great northwest “on the ground floor.” The legislature turned him down
in the following resolution:
"Resolved, That it is not in the power of this house to grant a charter to any
individual or company for treating for wild lands in this territory, or for holding
treaties with the Indian tribes for the purchasing of lands."
On February 14, 1849, the legislature amended the oath of office of the pro-
visional government from the form set out on a preceding page to the following:
“I do solemnly swear that I will support the constitution of the United
States and the organic laws of the provisional government of Oregon, and faith-
fully demean myself in office, so help me God." Thus after recognizing the citi-
zenship of the British subjects in the government for six years, they shut the
doors to any further courtesies in that direction. It is probable that that action
was taken through the influence of Samuel R. Thurston.
The last acts of the legislature and of officials of the provisional government
are dated February 16, 1849. On that day the legislature divorced John P.
Brooks from his wife, Mary Ann; passed an act for the relief of Jason Wheeler ;
an act providing for weighing, assaying, melting and stamping gold coin;
against which last act Representative W. J. Martin filed a protest “because the
act was a violation of the constitution of the United States," and made this ter-
ritory a shaving machine by only allowing $16.50 for an ounce of gold dust.
The legislature then adjourned sine die, and passed into history as the first
and only state forming and successfully carrying on a provisional government
on the American continent. And having during its existence of six years, two
months and twenty-eight days, established courts, administered justice, pun-,
ished crime, coined money, raised military forces and made war on the Indians,
granted titles to land and made laws which all obeyed, provided for common.
schools, education, religion and the public welfare, and all other things that any
American state could do.
That the Americans long and earnestly sought to have the Canadians unite
with them in organizing a provisional government is proved by the statements
of John McLoughlin. In a statement prepared by McLoughlin, evidently to
make clear his record, but not published in his lifetime, a copy of which was
published by Mrs. F. F. Victor in the Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society,
June, 1900, Dr. McLoughlin says:
"In the spring of 1842 the Americans invited the Canadians to unite with
202
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
!
**
them and organize a temporary government, but the Canadians, apprehensive it
might interfere with their allegiance, declined, and the project, which origi-
nated with the (Methodist) mission, failed.
In 1843 the Americans
again proposed to the Canadians to join and form a temporary government, but
the Canadians declined for the same reason as before."
But after thus twice refusing to join with the Americans and after the or-
ganization had been completed and declared that joining the provisional govern-
ment would not require any person to abjure their allegiance to any other gov-
ernment or king, Dr. McLoughlin gave his support to the provisional govern-
ment and asked favors and franchises of it.
The record now given of this pioneer legislature seems sufficient to show the
character of the men and measures of the pioneer provisional government of
Oregon, every session of which was held within the territory this history is to
cover.
Especial attention is called to the fact that this "Independent" govern-
ment, called "The Provisional Government,” was organized by the plain, com-
mon people of the western states in a wilderness two thousand miles distant from
an American state or British colony. So far as is known, not a single man tak-
ing part in the movement had ever had any experience in legislative or state con-
cerns before. While it is possible that there were fifty or more men in the Wil-
lamette valley who did not participate in the primary organization, yet as the
record stands there were practically as many men opposed to the organization
as favored it. There were quite a number of Americans about Oregon City (then
called “The Falls”) who did not take interest in the matter or were afraid to
incur the displeasure of the fur company, and did not attend the Champoeg
meeting
The real pioneers were the men and women who came here before 1846. They
did not know from any act of the United States whether this would be American
or British territory. But they came to make it American. Those who came after
1846 took no chances. It was then decided to be United States territory. They
came to reap where others had sown. They wanted security before they would
move. The real pioneers put up all the security and ran all the risks of the in-
vestment. The rooms of the Oregon Historical Society furnish mute but incon-
testable evidence of the plain and simple lives of our pioneers. The ancient
wagon, the primitive spinning wheel, and the rude weaving loom, all testify
stronger than words, the slow advance from purely hand work to that of the
hand-made machine, taking the place of the hands.
The pioneers took little thought of wealth and station. They passed over mil-
lions of gold in Baker, Union and Grant counties, and on to the Willamette val-
ley, to found a state on just laws that should honor and bless mankind after all
the gold has been worn to impalpable dust.
When the King of Spain was anxious to found a state in the new world, of
which Oregon was then an unknown fraction, he dispatched a royal decree in
1778 to his governor, Don Pedro Pierns, at old St. Louis, as follows:
"The source and origin of all empires has been the refuge and kind usage
which men find in the gentleness of the laws. The evil administration of them
is the greatest impediment to the building of a government; for not only are
those who are present and exposed to them exasperated, but others are prevented
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
203
from coming. Hence as our laws are extremely mild, they ought not to be ob-
scured by ambition and self-interest."
Had our illustrious pioneers who set up a government at Champoeg on May
2, 1843, had a copy of this royal message before them, they could not have pro-
ceeded with more thought and consideration for that piece of kingly wisdom,
than they did.
All the actors in this temporary government were unpretentious plain men,
men who were busily engaged in opening farms or establishing pioneer business
interests. Not a single man from first to last in the whole six years' existence of
the provisional government, was found to be actuated by selfish motives or aspi-
rations for power and place. The welfare of each and all of the little state was
the ambition of every man who served the state. It is but a natural desire to
praise the work of unselfish men. But a careful examination of their whole rec-
ord, in comparison with the state governments we have had since the provisional
government passed into history, will show that the pioneer government was, all
things considered, the best government that ever ruled the destinies of Oregon.
From his longer service to the provisional government, the governor, George
Abernethy, was the most prominent member of it, and his name will go down to
future ages as the best governor Oregon has had to this date. A plain, unpre-
tentious citizen, with common sense for talent, and unswerving integrity for mo-
tive power, he faithfully, steadily, courageously and conscientiously steered the
little craft through all the dangerous rocks and shoals and buffeting storms of
rival sectarianism, Indian wars, British intrigues and opposition, until the in-
fant state was safely housed within the aegis of the great republic.
The greatness of these brave pioneers and the grandeur of their great achieve-
ment has been yet scarcely recognized or appreciated. But as time rolls on the
genius and justice of the laws and institutions, which these men founded, will
be seen to be far greater than any possible material prosperity, and then the
lengthening shadows of their colossal work and fame will cover the whole land,
and place their names among the greatest and best of mankind.
"O strange new state, that yet was never young,
Whose youth from thee by gripping need was wrung;
Brown foundling of the woods, whose baby bed
Was prowled round by Injuns' crackling tread.
And who grew strong through shifts and wants and pains-
Nursed, defended by men with empires in their brains,
Who saw in vision more states in their train;
With every hand upon a vassal ocean's mane;
Thou, skilled by freedom, and by great events,
To pitch new states, as old world men pitch tents;
Thou taught by fate to know Jehovah's plan,
That man's device can't unmake the real man.
Of the forty Americans that came over the mountains and settled in the Wil-
lamette valley in 1842, only six-Hugh Burns, Medorem Crawford, Allen Davie,
Reuben Lewis, John L. Morrison and J. R. Robb-attended and took part in the
meeting for organization. And those who opposed the organization—the Hud-
son's Bay Company-could have destroyed it at any time. John McLoughlin
.
204
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
was practically the governor of Oregon at that time; and yet he raised neither
voice or hand to defeat the American organization; and soon after the little
ship of state was launched he applied to it for a franchise to operate a ferry
below the Falls of the Willamette.
The Americans did not forget his consideration for them, and when a bill
was proposed in the provisional legislature on August 15, 1845, to disfranchise
all the Hudson's Bay Company men, it was promptly voted down; and the legisla-
ture went farther and amended the oath of membership in the provisional gov-
ernment so as to make it read: "That I will support the organic laws of the pro-
visional government of Oregon so far as they are consistent with my duties as a
citizen of the United States, or subject of Great Britain.” When the British
Agents Warre and Vavasour visited Oregon in 1845, they reported that although
the British and Canadian population had protested against the formation of the
provisional government, yet in their opinion it was the judicious course for all
parties to preserve the peace and promote the prosperity of the community at
large.
It would be intensely interesting if the men who formed this wexampled
government on the American continent could be called before the reader for
his personal acquaintance. It is safe to say that it was formed by a motley non-
descript, unconformable lot of men who could not have worked harmoniously
together for any other purpose. Self-preservation brought them together and
compelled them to work together for a common and noble object. That they
could bury their personal peculiarities and prejudices and risk everything for
the common good of all, and work with might and main to carry out a great
patriotic work and purpose, shows that the founders of the provisional govern-
ment were the real heroes, and theirs "The Heroic Age of Oregon.'
The independent element was made up of mountain men like Joseph L. Meek
and Robert Newell, with whom were co-operating the sea-rovers, independent
trappers and adventurers of all sorts who had drifted into the Willamette valley
as a haven of rest from life's failures and troubles in other quarters of the world,
But few of them had any book knowledge, but all had a wide experience on the
border, before the mast, or in life's struggles everywhere. They had courage, in-
dependence and confidence born of dangers and desperation. They would launch
the ship of state while others talked and parleyed. And co-operating with these
trappers and sailors, was a man from the missionary side who was the most
active and irrepressible of the whole community, and while not always politic
or judicious, was always an agitator-William H. Gray. Gray wanted a gov-
ernment that would oppose the Catholics. Newell and Meek wanted a govern-
ment that would be independent of all sects and religions. Jason Lee, the prime
mover of the whole business, wanted a government with a Protestant, if not a
Methodist control. It is intensely interesting to trace out all the diplomatic move-
ments of the rival factions in this little community of a hundred men 2000 miles
distant from any organized county or state. That the Americans earnestly de-
sired the Canadians to go in with them for organization is too plain to dispute.
For at the outset the Canadians were freely appointed in the preliminary com-
mittees, and meetings were held at the houses of the Canadians. But the Cana-
dians, being Catholics, accepted and trusted the leadership of their religious
teacher, Blanchet. Blanchet was a subject of Great Britain, and a stipendiary
of the Hudson's Bay Company. He was therefore legally and in honor bound to
:
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
205
support the interests that were opposed to a possible American organization.
And the address prepared by#him, and signed by all the Canadians, was the most
adroit and diplomatic document that could have been constructed for that
occasion. It was full of fair dealing, patriotism and good-fellowship—yet it
was clearly against an American organization. And the harmonious acceptance
of the final result showed that Blanchet was a good citizen, and for peace, no
matter who ruled.
The conduct of Jason Lee has been to many persons a puzzle. After inspir-
ing and leading the movement for organization up to a certain point, he suddenly
dropped out, and does not appear at all at the Champoeg meeting. There is
nothing difficult about this. Lee was himself a native of Canada, and knew bet-
ter than any other man in Oregon whom he had to deal with. We are warranted
in believing that as Blanchet and Lee were the acknowledged leaders of rival,
if not hostile religious movements, it was poor politics for the man, who of all
others most desired an American organization, to appear at a meeting where his
mere presence would provoke unfriendly opposition. Lee absented himself
from the Champoeg meeting for the real purpose of misleading, if possible,
the Canadiansor at least to avoid drawing their fire. The Methodist preachers,
Hines, Leslie and Parrish, and the Congregationalists, Griffin and Clark, were
there, but Blanchet did not fear them. How far the absence of Lee abated the
activity of the Canadians cannot be known.
The course of another man at that meeting was puzzling to some people.
F. X. Matthieu's vote decided the result; and yet Matthieu was the last man
to line up with the Americans; although he had fled from British intolerance
in his native land, and had advocated American organization to his Canadian
countrymen. His course at Champoeg was dictated by the hope that by staying
with his own people to the last, he might in the end, take over with him to the
American side one or more wavering Canadians who were halting between two
opinions. If there were any such, and there doubtless was, they had been
braced up against just such a crisis, and did not dare to incur the displeasure
of their leader.
THE HISTORIC SITE
To preserve for all time the historic site of the birth place of the first Ameri-
can government on the Pacific coast, and all the glorious memories that cluster
around it, Joseph Buchtel, of Portland, one of the patriotic pioneers of 1852,
has devoted much time to raising the means to secure a tract of 12 acres of land
at Champoeg, adjoining the monument erected there in 1901 to honor the
memory of the provisional government convention of May 2, 1843; the additional
ground to be used as a state park for celebrations and pioneer gatherings. The
purchase of this land has been effected by Mr. Buchtel aided by a number of
friends, and the deed is being held in escrow until the state makes an appropria-
tion to cover the cost.
“No event in the history of the Northwest was so important as the convention
at Champoeg in 1843,” says Mr. Buchtel, “which saved all this country to the
United States. The ground ought to be secured, and will be secured, in com-
memoration of the event and the men who voted to retain the country under the
jurisdiction of the United States Government."
1 The movement for the monument and park commenced with a few members of the
Oregon Historical Society–F. V. Holmon, M. C. George.
CHAPTER IX
1792–1846
AMERICAN TITLE TO THE COUNTRY—THE SPANISH SEA COAST DISCOVERIES—THE
PAPER TITLES OF SPAIN, FRANCE AND ENGLAND-GRAY'S DISCOVERY OF THE
COLUMBIA RIVER-THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA-THE DOCTRINE OF CONTIGUOUS
SETTLEMENT-THE LEWIS AND CLARK EXPLORATION-THE PURCHASE OF THE
SPANISH TITLE—THE CAMPAIGN OF "FIFTY-FOUR FORTY OR FIGHT”—THE
TREACHERY OF PRESIDENT POLK-OREGON SAVED BY THE AMERICAN SETTLERS.
The vast region west of the Rocky mountains fronting on the Pacific ocean
from the northern boundary of California up to Alaska became known to the
world under the name of "Oregon," about the year 1770. And the first tangi-
ble acts to obtain title to this vast territory date back to the voyages of Spanish
explorers in 1774; followed by the English navigator, Cook, in 1776, the year
the American colonists declared themselves independent of Great Britain. Six-
teen years after the Englishmen filed a discovery claim to the country, Captain
Robert Gray, the American trader, discovered the Columbia river, which prac-
tically drains the whole region and laid the foundation for the claim of the United
States.
Here then are the claims of the three nations Spain, England and the United
States—mere paper titles, founded on the trifling incidents of landing on the
sea coast of a vast country of then unknown extent. Neither of these parties
had contributed anything whatever to the value of the country, or to any ex-
tent worth mentioning, made known to the world its resources, population or
boundaries. The law or custoin, upon which any shadow of title to the country
could be founded by either of these parties, was nothing more than the comity
of courtesy conceded among the maritime nations of the world down to that
period; a right, comity, or courtesy which was always ignored and repudiated by
the strongest, whenever it was their interest to do so.
The Indians were the original possessors of the country, and held their title
from occupancy for unknown thousands of years. But all three of these so-
called civilized nations united to deny and overthrow the title of the native
barbarian. To deny the title of the Indian, because he was ignorant, super-
stitious and a barbarian or savage, was to found rights on educational oppor-
tunities rather than upon the foundation set forth by the American Declaration
of Independence. To deny the rights of the Indian, and then concede his hu-
manity by offering him the teachings of the Bible, was an inconsistency too
absurd for argument. And so the moralist and publicists were forced to take
grounds with the defenders of African slavery and boldly proclaim the doctrine
that neither the red man nor the black man had any rights which the white
man was bound to respect.
207
208
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
And so this conclusion gives a clear field to consider what nation had the
title to the vast region of old Oregon under the facts hereinafter stated.
On the 25th of January, 1774, about two and a half years before the
American Declaration of Independence, the Spanish sloop of war, Santiago,
sailed from San Blas, Mexico, under command of Lieut. Juan Perez. The
Spanish viceroy in Mexico directed Perez to sail northward along the Ore-
gon coast up to sixty degrees of north latitude; which would be a few miles
above the extreme southern limit of the present United States territory of
Alaska. And from that point Perez was directed to survey the coast southward
to Monterey (now in California), and landing at convenient places take pos-
session of the same in the name of the King of Spain. Under these orders
Perez sailed with the king's ship, and the king's men on June 16th, 1774. On
the 13th of July, he made the land in fifty-four degrees north (now known as
Queen Charlotte's Island), and named the point Cape Santa Margarita—the
Cape North of our geography-then rounded the north point of the island and
sailed into Dixon's Channel. From this point Perez turned south, coasting
along the shore and trading with the natives. On the 9th of August he made
the land on the west coast of Vancouver Island at the point known as Nootika
Sound. From Nootka Sound again coasting southward, the pilot claimed to
have seen what is recognized now as the opening to the Straits of Fuca, and
still further south made out, and named Mount Olympus, passed Cape Men-
docino and the Oregon coast August 21st, and reached Monterey on August
27, 1774.
On the return of Perez, the Mexican viceroy decided to send another expedi-
tion to the north, and made preparations to send the schooner Senora along with
the Santiago, giving to Captain Bruno Heceta the command of the Santiago,
and to Angala the command of the little schooner. This expedition saiied from
San Blas for the north, and on June 10, 1775, made a landing on the coast in an
open roadstead at forty-one degrees, ten minutes north, a little below the present
south boundary of Oregon. Here they spent nine days and claimed the country
for Spain. Again sailing north, the expedition made land the second time at
forty-eight degrees, twenty-six minutes north, which is a little south of the en-
trance to the Straits of Fuca. From this point they cruised southward looking
for the straits. On the 14th of July, in latitude forty-seven degrees, twenty min-
utes north, which is a little north of Gray's Harbor in the state of Washington,
seven men of the crew of the Senora in their only boat landed on the mainland
to get fresh water and were overpowered by the natives and all killed; and the
schooner itself was surrounded by hundreds of Indians in canoes who made un-
successful attempts to board her. Here Heceta desired to return to California,
but was overruled by Perez, Bodega and Maurelle, and the expedition again
sailed northward, making their next landing at forty-nine degrees, and thirty
minutes north, which is thirty miles north of the present north boundary of the
United States, but being on the west side of Vancouver Island, is still on Brit-
ish territory. From this point Heceta turned southward, and at about forty-six
degrees and ten minutes, discovered a great bay, July 17, 1775. On account of
the currents and eddies, setting out seaward, he could not enter it with his ship,
but recorded the event in his log book as "The mouth of some great river, or a
passage to another sea. This was the mouth of the Columbia river, and we see

OF
SEIZURE OF CAPTAIN COLNETT OF THE BRITISH SHIP ARGONAUT, BY DON ESTEBAN MARTINEZ, SPANISH
COMMANDANT, 1789; ASSERTING THE SPANISH TITLE TO "OLD OREGON;" AND WHICH THE
UNITED STATES PURCHASED FROM SPAIN.
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
209
how close the Spaniard came to making the discovery which has made Robert
Gray famous. The Spaniard kept on south and made Monterey on August 30,
1775, a few days after the never-to-be-forgotten battle of Bunker Hill.
We have been thus particular to set out the facts constituting the rights of
Spain to claim the Old Oregon country from the California line clear up to
Alaska. According to the theories of the European nations in vogue one hun-
dred and fifty years ago, the King of Spain had done everything necessary to
give his nation a good title to the Oregon country; for according to this histori-
cal record, the Spanish naval officer and ships flying the flag of Spain, in lawful
exploration of the high seas, were the first discoverers of the Oregon country.
It was doubtless the fact that Captain Francis Drake had been on the Oregon
coast before the Spaniard. But he was here, as has been before stated, as a
freebooter or pirate, plundering Spanish merchant vessels, and as such his acts
could not confer any title on the English government; and for that reason his
government never took advantage of any discoveries he made.
And, notwithstanding the fact that the Spaniards were the first discoverers
of the Oregon coast, for some reason, never explained, they did not make these
discoveries known to the world at that time; but waited until after Captain
James Cook, as the representative of Great Britain, made his famous voyage to
the Oregon coast in 1778. Cook sailed from Plymouth, England, eight days after
the American Declaration of Independence had been signed up by the Conti
nental Congress, a fact which could not have been at that time known in Eng-
land. These dates are given to show that the new-born nation of the United
States had not, at the time the Spanish and English claims to Oregon were set
up, yet achieved a national organization, existence of recognition before the
world; and was not, therefore, bound by the comity laws of nations which gave
away great countries on rights of discovery.
But Captain Cook saw no part of the coast of America on this voyage, which
had not been previously seen by the Spanish navigators, Perez, Heceta and
Bodega.
The question was raised later on by England that Spain had negotiated away
its rights to Oregon by a treaty entered into October, 1790, which provides that
Spain should restore to Great Britain the possession of property and ships taken
from the British by force at Nootka Sound by the Spanish Captain Martinez, in
May, 1779. And as this incident has figured prominently not only in the history
of those times, but also in the diplomacy and treaty rights of the United States
and England, a resume of the facts therewith connected will now be given.
From a triffling incident of Captain Cook's voyage to the west coast of Ore-
gon in 1778 the attention of all the trading nations was attracted to this coun-
try. Cook got from the Indians, and carried away to China, a small bale of furs,
which, on being offered for sale, at once dazzled the eyes of all traders in Chinese
ports for their superiority to anything of the kind ever seen before and the vast
fur trade of Northwest America started right there.
But when the British sea-rovers and independent traders sought to start into
the fur trade they were handicapped by the regulations and franchise grants
of their own country. In pursuance of its immemorial policy of granting special
privileges to royal favorites, the British government had divided up the earth
between two chartered companies, and had granted to the South Sea Company
Vol. I-14
210
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
the sole right to trade in all seas and countries westward of Cape Horn; and to
the British East India Company the sole right to trade in all seas and countries
east of the Cape of Good Hope; and by these grants all British subjects not con-
nected with either one of these great monopolies, were prohibited from trading
in all seas, territories and islands in that vast portion of the world lying between
the Cape of Good Hope eastward to a line drawn north and south through Cape
Horn, or vice versa, westward from the meridian of Cape Horn to the meridian
passing through the Cape of Good Hope; and British subjects desiring to en-
gage in Pacific ocean commerce or Pacific coast fur trade in America, or in China
or East India trade, were obliged to obtain permission of one of these great
companies and fly their flag, or not trade at all. If old England has not set the
pace for monopolies, where did they begin?
Of course, these monopolies could not prevent the Chinese, as an independent
nation, from trading here, or from granting ships rights to trade. But old China
was not slow at a bargain, and put up the price of grants and port charges to
excessive prices on everybody except the Portuguese.
To evade these exactions of the Chinese, and the prohibitions of these British
charters, several British merchants residing in India, desiring to engage in the
rich fur trade on the west coast of America, associated themselves together under
the name of a Portuguese merchant and procured from the Portuguese govern-
ment of Macao a license for two ships--the Felice and Iphigenia--to sail under
the Portuguese flag to the northwest coast of America. To further carry out
their enterprise, these British merchants procured Lieut. John Meares, of the
British navy, on leave, to command this fur-trading expedition. Meares' char-
acter in the venture was further complicated by the fact that he was at that time
in the British East India Company service as an English subject, which company
held the sole right to trade in these parts, and which company had given Meares
the license of its company to make a trade venture to the Oregon coast on his
own account. To further complicate matters, the adventuring merchants took
out the papers of the two ships in the Portuguese language, and in the name of
Portuguese captains, who were to go along as figureheads, and who were referred
to in Meares' reports as "second captains."
And in the letter of instructions issued to Lieut. Meares by these merchants,
they tell him: “That if any Russian, English or Spanish vessel attempt to seize
him or his ships, or to carry him out of his way, you must prevent it by every
means in your power and repel force by force; and should you, in such conflict,
have the superiority, you will then take possession of the vessel that attacked,
as also her cargo, and bring both, with the officers and crew, to China, that they
may be condemned as legal prizes, and their crews punished as pirates."
And thus officered and authorized, the two ships-Iphigenia and Felice-
sailed for the Oregon coast and reached Nootka Sound on the west coast of Van-
couver Island, May 13, 1788. A few days after their arrival, the Indian Chief
Maquinna, who claimed the island as his real estate, granted to Meares "a spot
of ground in his territory whereon a house might be built for the accommoda-
tion of the people intended to be left there, and promised also the assistance of
his Indians in building houses, and the protection of the Indians for the people
who were to remain during the absence of the ships. In return for this permis-
sion to build the house, Meares presented Maquinna with a pair of pistols; and
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
211
to secure the further attachment and protection of Maquinna, he was promised
that when the people of those ships finally left the coast, he should enter into the
full possession of the house and all the goods belonging therewith."
This was the first house built in all the vast region of old Oregon, and these
were the circumstances under which it was erected. It was a mere temporary
shelter from the weather, with some stockade defense against an attack from
the Indians.
Hearing of these operations of the fur traders, great uneasiness was aroused
in Spain. And in 1789 the Spanish viceroy in Mexico dispatched two ships to
the north with instructions to proclaim and enforce the rights of Spain to the
country. These ships—the Princess and San Carlos-commanded by Lieut.
Martinez, reached Nootka Sound, May 5th, 1789, and found there the American
ship Columbia, and the ships Iphigenia and the Felice, with Captain Meares,
arriving a few days afterward.
The Spaniard promptly announced his business, and the Americans as
promptly recognized the rights of Spain to the country. The captain of the Iphi-
genia gave an evasive and untruthful reply, saying he had put in there in dis-
tress to await the arrival of Captain Meares. But the Spaniard hearing that
the Iphigenia carried orders to capture any Russian, Spanish or English vessel,
he seized the ship, and subsequently the Northwest America, another ship in the
same service as the Iphigenia.
Captain Meares, not returning on account of a reorganization of the ad-
venturing merchants, which has not replaced Meares, with Captain Colnett, also
holding a commission in the British navy, now off on leave, events dragged until
Colnett came into Nootka off the ship Princess Royal. Colnett's instructions di-
rected him "to establish a factory to be called Fort Pitt for the purpose of
permanent settlement, and as a center of trade around which other stations may
be established." And he informed the Spanish captain, Martinez, that he should
take possession of Nootka Sound in the name of Great Britain and hoist the Brit-
ish flag. The Spaniard replied that possession had already been taken in the
name of Spain, and that he would resist any attempts to take possession in the
name of Great Britain. The Englishmen inquired if the Spaniard would object
to building a house; the Spaniard: "Certain, I will object; you can erect a
tent to get wood and water, but no house." The Englishman replied that he
would build a block house; whereupon the Spaniard arrested the British cap-
tain and all his crew, and seized the ships—Princess Royal and Argonaut-and
sent them down to San Blas, Mexico, as prizes.
Here, then, was a veritable "tempest in a teapot.” Consider for a moment
the surroundings of these men and the future weight given to their acts. Here
they were in a little pocket of a bay on Vancouver island; the Americans twenty
thousand miles from their home port; the English-Portuguese merchant ad-
venturers no better than pirates, as they were sailing under false colors, six
thousand miles from their base of operations, and the Spaniard three thousand
miles from his governor ; with an onlooking audience of hundreds of savages
and not a single civilized man within thousands of miles. The Spaniard bravely
asserts the rights and authority of his king, and the bluffing British captain
tamely submits to arrest.
It was ten months after the capture of the British ships before the news
212
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
reached Europe; whereupon England demanded of Spain immediate repara-
tion for the insult to her flag, and thus assuming responsibility for all the
crookedness which had set afloat the so-called Portuguese merchant fur trad-
ing ships. To the outburst of England the king of Spain issued a proclama-
tion to all other nations on June 4, 1790, temperately reciting the rights of
Spain to the continents and islands of the South sea, concluding with: "Al-
though Spain may not have establishments or colonies planted upon the
coasts or in the ports in dispute, it does not follow that such coast or port does
not belong to her. If this rule were to be followed, one nation might estab-
lish colonies on the coast of another nation--in America, Asia, Africa and
Europe-by which means there would be no fixed boundaries—a circumstance
evidently absurd.” Such were the hard facts of the case down to the begin-
ning of the dispute between Spain and England, as to the title of Old Oregon.
And now we reach the chapter of diplomatic negotiations between these two
nations to settle that dispute. Spain opened the negotiations with a proposi-
tion to refer the dispute about the insult to the British flag to the sovereign of
some European nation, and England declined the proposition. Then Spain ap-
pealed to France for assistance in resisting the power of England should war
ensue out of these matters. But France declined to commit her government
to any assistance. Down to this period, England had not set up any claim to
or ownership of Vancouver island covering the spot where Captain Martinez
seized the ships. Hope of assistance from France being abandoned, Spain was
forced to a treaty with England, October 28, 1790, whereby the buildings and
tracts of land on the northwest coast of America, of which British subjects
had been dispossessed in 1789 by Martinez, were to be restored to the British
subjects; and the ships and other property of British subjects were to be re-
turned with compensation for any losses sustained by reason of the acts of
the Spanish officer. In addition to these provisions, a right in common with
Spain was to be enjoyed by the subjects of both Spain and England to navi-
gate the Pacific ocean and the South seas; and to land on places on the coast
thereof not already occupied; to carry on commerce with the natives, and to
make settlements with the following restrictions: "The King of Great Britain
agreed to prevent navigation or fishery in those seas being made the pretext for
unlawful trade with the Spanish settlements. No British subject was to navigate
or carry on a fishery in said oceans within ten leagues of any part of the coast
occupied by Spain. When settlements were made by subjects of either power,
free access to, and full privilege to trade, were confirmed without molestation."
Such was the treaty between Spain and England about Old Oregon. At the
very most, it was only a treaty of joint occupancy for trade; no provisions having
been made by either party for the policing or government of the country. Spain
did not renounce the sovereignty of the country, and neither of the parties or
both combining could make an effective treaty to bar out other nations while
themselves pretending to hold the country in common. It is a fundamental
principle of the law of nations, that the territorial boundaries and limits of
sovereignties shall be definite and fixed, so that the nation claiming jurisdiction
over any country can be held to accountability for conduct within or proceeding
from such country. Joint occupancy defeats that principle of law, and is, there-
fore, absurd and nugatory.
of RCTIC
OCEAN
Siwand
K A
N
L A
Teriri
inTAI
V
o
w
LA
CANADA
Titit .
..
4
Lu
R
Pacific
pa
o
FUNITED
STATES
TERRITORY
oce An
0
य
il
SPANISH
TERRITORY
MAP OF "OLD OREGON”
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
213
And to show that Spain never intended to surrender the sovereignty of the
country, the reader has only to follow the history of that treaty and see how
its provisions were carried out.
The British government appointed Captain George Vancouver commis-
sioner to receive the personal property seized by the Spaniards, and carry out
the provisions of the treaty on the part of England; and Spain appointed as
Spanish commissioner Senor Bodega y Cuadra and the two representatives
of their respective countries met at Nootka Sound on August 28, 1792. After
haggling and negotiating over the matter for two weeks, the Spaniard re-
fused absolutely to deliver possession of any land except the ground on which
the British house had been erected, probably about an acre. The ships and
personal property had been returned to the Englishmen more than a year be-
fore, and the Spanish commissioner now refused to give up more land than
what was used with the one temporary house, and would not permit the Eng-
lish commissioner to raise the British flag over even that. This, the English
commissioner refused, and sailed away. The English were never put in posses-
sion of a foot of the Pacific coast by Spain, and its territory was never sur-
rendered to England in any manner whatever.
There was, after the disagreements of Cuadra and Vancouver a subsequent
effort to settle the matter at Nootka, in which, according to the British ver-
sion, General Alva, on the part of Spain surrendered the ground on which
the British buildings stood to Lieut. Pierce of the British navy. But the
English never took possession or occupied the place. And commenting on
these facts, the British historian, William Belsham, says:
“But though England, at the expense of three millions, extorted from the
Spaniards a promise of restoration and reparation, it is well ascertained
First, that the settlement in question was never restored by Spain, nor the
Spanish flag at Nootka ever struck; and, secondly--that no settlement had
been subsequently attempted by England on the Oregon coast. The claim
of right set up by the court of London, it is therefore plain, has been virtually
abandoned."
Spain's title to Old Oregon by the right of prior discovery, whatever that
amounts to, and continuous possession and assertion of that right, as against
England, is therefore found to be perfect and indefeasible.
But this was not all of Spain's title. In the year 1763, thirteen years be-
fore the American colonies threw off their allegiance to Great Britain, Eng-
land entered into a treaty with Spain, defining the boundaries of the respec-
tive territorial rights and possessions in North America. And by that treaty,
the Mississippi river, flowing from north to south in a direct course for fifteen
hundred miles, was declared to be the perpetual boundary between the pos-
session of Spain, and the possessions of Great Britain in America; and the en-
tire country west of that river was declared to be the territory of Spain.
And now having set out the historical facts which conclusively show that
Spain had, according to the law of nations, a good and sufficient title to the
whole of Oregon, from Mexico clear up to the Russian possessions of Alaska, at
fifty-four degrees and forty minutes north latitude, we will give the record
showing Spain's transfer of that title to the United States.
On February 22, 1819, the United States made a treaty of amity, settlement
214
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
and limits with Spain in which the king of Spain ceded to the United States all
the rights of Spain to all the territory on the American continent east of the Ar-
kansas river, and all north of the forty-second parallel of north latitude; and the
United States ceded to Spain all claims and pretensions to territory west of the
Arkansas river and south of said parallel of north latitude. This gave to the
United States all of Spain's rights to old Oregon; being all the territory west of
the Rocky mountains lying north of said parallel of latitude and up to fifty-four
degrees and forty minutes north.
In a treaty with the Russian empire signed at St. Petersburg, April 17, 1824,
Russia recognized this right of the United States in the third article of said
treaty, which reads:
Article 3. It is, moreover, agreed that hereafter there shall not be formed
by the citizens of the United States, or under the authority of the said states,
any establishment on the northwest coast of America, nor in any of the islands
adjacent to the north of fifty-four degrees and forty minutes of north latitude;
and that in the same manner, there shall be none formed by Russian subjects
or under the authority of Russia south of the same parallel.
No nation has ever been more careful of its treaty obligations or better in-
formed of the boundary rights of other nations than the empire of Russia; and it
is not to be thought of for a moment, that Russia would in this manner recognize
the rights of the United States to make settlements up to its own south boundary
on the Pacific, if we did not possess such right.
In addition to the grant from Spain, the United States had the further grant
from France in the sale of Louisiana in 1803. By that purchase from France the
United States acquired the rights founded on the doctrine of continuity, the
right arising from holding contiguous unclaimed lands. In the treaty of Utrecht,
made between England and France in 1713, France was confirmed in all the
territory from the Mississippi line westward to the Pacific ocean. By that treaty
England received Canada and Illinois, and renounced to France all west of the
Mississippi AND FROM THE HEADS OF ALL STREAMS EMPTYING
INTO HUDSON'S BAY CLEAR OVER TO THE PACIFIC OCEAN,
subject, of course, to any claims of Spain. For the integrity of this
principle of continuity of territorial rights, Great Britain waged the war of
1763 against France, and by the treaty which ended that war, Great Britain
transferred to France whatever rights or benefits that might accrue from
the recognized doctrine of continuity, and forever barred England from assert-
ing any claims to anything west of the north and south Mississippi line. And
when the United States made the treaty with England, in 1783, at the close of
the Revolutionary war, this country became the successor of Great Britain to all
territorial rights west of the Mississippi line, and in purchasing out the rights
of France in 1803, in the Louisiana purchase, this country furthermore became
the sole owner of all rights of both England and France to all the region west
of the Mississippi. So that the only tract of territory that there could be any
possible dispute about so far as discovery titles could settle it, was that part of
Old Oregon west of the Rocky mountains, north of the 19th parallel of north lati-
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
215
tude up to Alaska. And that, as we have shown clearly belonged to Spain and
was transferred to the United States by Spain in the Florida treaty of 1819.
But notwithstanding this clear record title, when our government came to
deal with the actual possession of the country, when American citizens wanted
to come in for settlement and trade, it made a sorry mess of the business. When
President Thomas Jefferson purchased Louisiana of France, and hastily sent
out Lewis and Clark to explore the country, he unquestionably believed the
United States had a right to colonize the country. As has been stated before,
his mind had for a long time been studying the future of the Far West." Cap-
tain Gray had discovered the great "River of the West" in 1792, and his dis-
covery had been hailed by our people as settling the title to a vast and important
territory. And the same spirit which had taken possession of, and held the Ohio
and Mississippi valleys, was ready to move on to the Pacific when the advance
was necessary. The report of the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1805, had electri-
fied the whole nation with the wonders of the far west they had made known to
the world. The Napoleonic commercial spirit of John Jacob Astor leaped across
a continent, and without national recognition or protection, founded the semi-
military post at the mouth of the great river, and fung the Stars and Stripes to
the world in claiming for his adopted country its most valuable and grandest
national outpost.
And while England made a pretense that Captain Gray did not really enter
the Columbia river, but had only sailed into a bay into which the river emptied,
and that an English ship, had, subsequent to Gray, sailed up the Columbia a
hundred miles, and therefore the English discovered the river, yet that pretense
had to be abandoned when actual sea-faring men proved that the Columbia was
a real irresistible river clear down to the ocean bar.
And England never disputed the right of Lewis and Clark as a government
expedition to explore this region in 1805, nor did the British ohject to the found-
ing of Astoria until the war of 1812 gave them an excuse to rob American citi-
zens of their property wherever they could find them; and so they robbed Astor
of what his treacherous partners had not already stolen. But this gave Eng-
land nothing but a robber's title to Astoria, which they surrendered after the
close of the war.
President Jefferson attempted to get the northern boundary line settled with
England in 1807, and because the English negotiators attempted to insert a
paragraph in the treaty that would make Spain believe that the United States
and England intended to claim Spanish territory west of the Rocky Mountains,
Jefferson rejected the whole business as an unfriendly intimation to Spain.
In 1814, after the close of the war of 1812, President Madison renewed the
effort to have the northern boundary line settled, and offered the proposition of
1807, to-wit: that the boundary should run west from the most northern point
of the Lake of the Woods (at the head of the Mississippi river) to the summit of
the Rocky Mountains, but "that nothing in the present article be construed to
extend to the northwest coast of America, or to the territory claimed by either
party westward of the Rocky Mountains."
The British ministry offered to accept this article, provided, England was
granted the right of navigation of the Mississippi river from British America to
the Gulf of Mexico. And this, of course, was rejected by the Americans.
216
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
In 1815 our government notified the British that immediate possession would
be taken of Astoria and the mouth of the Columbia river, and ordered the sloop
of war, Captain James Biddle, to make ready to sail for the Columbia. The
British minister at Washington objected and remonstrated, but finally agreed
to the unconditional surrender of Astoria by the British, and that the status quo
before the war should be restored; and that in treating about the title to Old
Oregon, the United States should be in possession.
And again for the third time, 1817, negotiations were renewed to establish
the boundary line, President Madison offering to extend the 49th parallel of
north latitude boundary from the Lake of the Woods through to the Pacific
ocean, but without prejudice to the rights or claims of Spain. But to this propo-
sition, the British would not agree unless they could have free navigation of
the Mississippi river. And this was again rejected by the Americans.
And again, for the fourth time, 1818, negotiations were renewed to settle the
northern boundary, James Monroe having become President, he appointed the
two able statesmen, Albert Gallatin, and Richard Rush to manage the business.
The whole history of the discovery and exploration of the North Pacific coast
was again gone over, and every argument and consideration that could be pro-
duced or invented was brought forward. Agreement was impossible and the
negotiations brought to an end by the treaty of October 20, 1818, which deter-
mined the boundary line of the United States westward to the Rocky mountains,
but no further; and then adopting the following third article of the treaty: “It
is agreed that any country that may be claimed by either party on the north-
west coast of America, westward of the Stony (Rocky) mountains, shall, to-
gether with its harbors, bays and creeks, and the navigation of all rivers within
the same, be free and open for the term of ten years from the date of this treaty
to the vessels, citizens and subjects of the two powers. It being well understood
that this agreement is not to be construed to the prejudice of any claim, which
either of the two high contracting parties may have to any part of said coun-
try.” This is the treaty of joint occupancy.
Immediately after the treaty of joint occupancy with England, President Mon-
roe renewed negotiations with Spain, and on February 22, 1819, concluded the
treaty by which the 42nd parallel of north latitude from the meridian north of
the head of the Arkansas river, west to the Pacific ocean, was made the boundary
line between Spain and the United States, and in this treaty Spain ceded to the
United States "all rights, claims and pretensions to any country north of the
said forty-second parallel.” And this gave to the United States all the rights
of prior discovery to all the country west of the Rocky Mountains and north of
California, clear up to the Arctic ocean AND MADE PERFECT THE TITLE
OF THE UNITED STATES TO THE WHOLE OF OLD OREGON.
Thus far the question of title had been left to the executive department of
the Government. But in the winter of 1820-21 the matter was called up in Con-
gress for the first time by John Floyd, who was an officer in the army in the war
of 1812, and a member of Congress from Virginia in 1820. Floyd had met Ram-
say Crooks and Russell Farnham of the Astor Expedition to Astoria, and be-
came imbued with the great value of the Oregon country. He moved the ap-
pointment of a committee to report on the subject. The committee was granted
more out of courtesy to a patriotic man than an interest in the subject. The com-

HCGU
MONROE, MARBOIS AND LIVINGSTON SIGNING THE TREATY FOR THE PURCHASE
OF LOUISIANA AT PARIS IN 1803
UNIL
OF
3, с
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
217
ary, 1819.
mittee was composed of Floyd, Thomas, Metcalf of Kentucky and Thomas V.
Swearingen of Virginia, all ardent western men. Within six days they reported
a bill to authorize the immediate occupation of the Columbia River valley, and
to regulate trade with the Indians therein. But no action was taken on their
report.
The ten years of joint occupancy expiring in 1828, the effort was renewed by
our government to secure a settlement of the boundary line west of the Rocky
mountains. The Russian government had by treaty, conceded the rights of the
United States up to fifty-four degrees and forty minutes north. John Quinvy
Adams had become president and made Henry Clay secretary of state. Clay now
renewed the negotiations for a settlement of the northern boundary line with
England, being the fifth attempt by the United States to get the vexed question
settled.
In an able letter to the American minister at London, Richard Rush, Mr.
Clay points out that, “Our title to the whole of the coast up to the Russian Pos-
sessions is derived from prior discovery and settlement at the mouth of the Col-
umbia river, and from the treaty which Spain concluded on the 22nd of Febru-
. The argument on this point is believed to have conclusively estab-
lished our title on both grounds. Nor is it conceived that Great Britain has or
can make out, even a colorless title to any portion of the northern coast. By
the renunciation and transfer contained in the treaty with Spain of 1819, our
rights extended to the sixtieth degree of north latitude.''
No conclusion having been reached by these negotiations, the joint occupancy
treaty was extended indefinitely, with a proviso that it might be terminated by
either party on giving twelve months' notice to the other party to the treaty.
On this indefinite, uncertain position Oregon was left by our government from
October 28th, 1828, to April 28th, 1846, when by direction of Congress, Presi-
dent James K. Polk was instructed to notify the government of Great Britain
that the treaty of joint occupancy would be terminated in twelve months from
that date. And thus we see that for twenty-eight years the legal position and
sovereignty of Oregon was up in the air; and the people did not know to whom,
or to what government their allegiance was due, or what government, if any,
would protect their rights.
The vacillation and feeling of uncertainty with which Congress, presidents
and cabinets had well nigh smothered and buried the first claims of the United
States to Old Oregon was in marked contrast to the vigorous efforts of the hand
ful of brave pioneers who sought to hold the country for their native land.
It does not appear that either the executive department of the government,
or the Congress of the United States, ever took any official notice of the great
achievement of Captain Robert Gray in the discovery of the Columbia river.
The action of President Jefferson in sending the Lewis and Clark expedition to
the Pacific coast in 1805 was very largely the act of Jefferson himself. And
while Congress did make an appropriation of $2,500 for the expedition, it never
otherwise sought to secure to the country any positive or immediate benefits there-
from. It was assumed by American business men-Astor, Wyeth, Winship and
Bonneville—that because of Gray's discovery, and the Lewis and Clark explora-
tion, that Old Oregon must of right belong to the United States, and therefore it
was open to American settlement. And even after Astor's unfortunate adven-
218
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
ture, and the loss of his property and the capture of his fort by the British, our
Congress took no action to assert its paramount rights to this country.
In the treaty with Great Britain made by Secretary of State, John Quincy
Adams, in 1818, in the third article of said treaty: “It is agreed that any coun-
try that may be claimed by either party on the northwest coast of America west-
ward of the Stony (Rocky) mountains, shall together, with its harbors, bays and
creeks, and the navigation of all rivers within the same, be free and open for the
term of ten years from the date of this signature of the present convention, to the
vessels, citizens and subjects of both powers. It being well understood that this
agreement is not to be construed to the prejudice of any claim which either of
the two high contracting parties may have to any part of the said country; nor
shall it be taken to affect the claim of any power or state to any part of said coun-
try; the only object of the high contracting parties in that respect being to pre-
vent disputes and differences."
The provisions of the above article were renewed between the two nations in
1827, and continued in force down to the 28th day of April, 1846, three years
after the formation of our Provisional Government at Champoeg, when, in per-
suance of a resolution of Congress, President James K. Polk notified the British
government that the period of joint occupancy of the Oregon territory had been
terminated.
When the venerable Adams, who had, as Secretary of State under President
James Monroe, negotiated the treaty of 1818, and afterwards as President of the
United States in 1827, renewed that treaty, was called on as a member of Con-
gress in 1846 to explain the treaty, said: (February 9, 1846) “There is a very
great misapprehension of the real merits of this case, founded on the misnomer
which declared that treaty to be a treaty of joint occupation. It is not a con-
vention of joint occupation. It is a convention of non-occupation—a promise on
the part of both parties that either of the parties will occupy the territory for
an indefinite period; first, for ten years; then until the notice should be given by
the one party or the other that the convention shall be terminated, that is to say,
that the restrictions, the fetters upon our hands, shall be thrown off, which pre-
vents occupation."
Here, then, is a treaty that deliberately renounced the right of the American
emigrants to come here and establish homes. They might come and catch fish,
trap wild animals for furs, and trade with the Indians, but they must not hoist
the American flag, they must not open farms, they must not build homes or school
houses, or do anything to establish a settlement; Oregon was a country for free
trade, but not for free settlement. England, Spain, France, Russia, and every-
body else had the same rights in Oregon as the Americans. Oregon is thus dis-
tinguished as the first and only free trade country that now belongs to the Union
of States.
And while this treaty of 1818 tied the hands of the respective governments,
it did not provide for the arrest of independent movements of traders or settlers.
It left the question of occupancy and final disposition of the country right where
Daniel Webster, Secretary of State, under President Tyler, predicted it would
be when he wrote to the American minister at London (Edward Everett) in 1840,
saying: "The ownership of Oregon is likely to follow the greater settlement and
the larger population."
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
219
We are thus particular to point out the facts showing the exact legal and po-
litical status of the country, so that the reader may get a clear idea of the mag-
nitude of the work achieved by the early Oregon Pioneers. Oregon was from
1818 down to 1846 practically and substantially in the position of being the
first and only instance in the United States of an absolutely free trade country;
no custom houses, no tax collectors, no officials, no laws and a
NO MAN'S LAND
and open to the application of
The good old rule, the simple plan,
That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can.
And now we reach the point when the pioneers coming in from Iowa and Mis-
souri commenced to drive stakes, and settle down to hold fast to something. A
little band coming in the Autumn of 1842 found here Robert Newell, Joseph L.
Meek and a few other Americans scattered around, less than a hundred all told,
and twenty-five or thirty Missouri people. This was the nucleus of the Ameri-
can state to be. There was no law except what the Hudson's Bay Company chose
to enforce through the justices of the peace, appointed by the British govern-
ment in Canada, and their jurisdiction extended no further than enforcing pen-
alties for violation of criminal laws.
These lonely settlers in the far distant wilderness of Oregon were loth to as-
sume the great responsibility of establishing a government to govern themselves;
especially when they were opposed by an equal number of Canadians opposed to
government, which opposition was backed up by the all-powerful Hudson's Bay
Company with unlimited resources for effective opposition.
The Americans in Oregon had now reached a point where they were com-
pelled to act. To retreat they could not. To go forward and establish a govern-
ment of their own for mutual protection was the only alternative of common
sense and brave men. They had sent their petitions to the American Congress
as the colonists of the Atlantic coast had sent theirs in 1775 to "The King's most
Excellent Majesty." And like the King, the Congress had been deaf to the
voice of justice and of consanguinity.” And here we see the self-reliant, inde-
pendent dignity of character, and the heroic courage of the pioneer of 1843.
They would organize a government of their own, “appealing to the supreme.
judge of the world for the rectitude of their intentions." They did organize it,
and carried it on for five years and ten months, protecting the lives and prop-
erty of all the people without distinction of nationality, administering justice,
preserving order, promoting education and morality, and attracting and receiv-
ing the good name it deserved both in the United States and in foreign lands.
And by this act of organizing and maintaining a government by American citi-
zens, the pioneer Oregonians did more to settle the title to the country, and save
Oregon to the United States than all other acts in the history of his region.
The title to Oregon was carried into the political arena of 1844. The national
Democratic convention meeting at Baltimore on the 27th of May, 1844, adopted
the following resolution:
220
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
>>
"Resolved—That our title to the whole territory of Oregon is clear and un-
questionable, that no portion of the same ought to be ceded to England or any
other power; and that the re-occupation of Oregon and the re-annexation of
Texas, at the earliest practicable period, are great American measures which the
convention recommends to the cordial support of the Democracy of the Union."
Upon that platform, James K. Polk was nominated for president, and ac-
cepted the nomination, promised if elected, to make good the claim to Oregon as
set forth in the platform. He was elected over the Whig candidate, Henry Clay,
by a majority of sixty-five votes in the electoral college. Before Polk's nomina-
tion or election, the Oregon question came up in the United States Senate for dis.
cussion, and on January 4th, 1844, James Buchanan, afterwards president, de-
clared in the Senate: “I will never agree to relinquish one foot of Oregon. If
we rested our claims on discovery, it would not extend beyond the valley of the
Oregon. But our claim is good as this book shows (referring to Greenhow's His-
tory) for it rests on the old Spanish claim. Here in this book are translated
copies of old Spanish voyages and documents, proving their title; and thus also
ours, by abundant testimony up to fifty-four degrees and forty minutes to a
certainty.'
Senator Thomas H. Benton speaking at the same time said: “As to the char-
acter of our title to Oregon, there was a much broader and clearer claim than
any mentioned by Senator Buchanan. We settled that territory. The settlement
of it was the basis of our claim. The British never saw or heard of Oregon till
we discovered it and put a badge of our sovereignty on it. Then Great Britain
jumped down on Oregon, and now she was going to fight us for it. He would
assure the gentlemen that we are not going to have another Massachusetts and
Maine boundary question. There was to be no trembling and yielding in this
case, as there was in the former one. No trembling hearts were to be found in the
West. This was a western question, and the west had a regard for the National
honor."
Much more could be given of the same quality showing the temper of the
western people, and the right of the nation to the whole of Oregon. . The presi-
dential campaign of 1844 was fought out on the Democratic cry of
ܕܕ
97
FIFTY-FOUR, FORTY, OR FIGHT.
The writer of this book remembers distinctly seeing those words emblazoned
on the Democratic banners; and the hue and cry of the campaign orators de-
nouncing the British in their attempt to steal a part of old Oregon, and appeal-
ing to the voters to rally to the support of Polk and drive the British out of the
Oregon wilderness, root and branch.
And after Polk was elected, and in his inaugural address on March 4th, 1845,
he repeated the declaration of his party that nominated him in the very words
of the platform on which he was elected. And then after being thus overwhelm-
ingly elected on this very issue, on a direct referendum to the people, he hauled
down the national colors, and made the treaty of June 15, 1846, which gave away
to the British all the territory now included in British Columbia. And here is
what the United States lost by Polk's treachery.
The British Columbia Year Book gives the area of the several political divis-
ions of that Province as follows:

3
No. 1-DANIEL WEBSTER, Secretary of State under President Tyler—did not want
any more territory for new states—did not want Oregon
No. 2-PRESIDENT POLK, elected on the platform of “54°, 40' north or fight”—but
backed down and wouldn't fight
No. 3–GENERAL JOE LANE, the "Marion of the Mexican War;" first U. S. Governor
of Oregon; first U. S. Senator from Oregon; last candidate of the pro-slavery democracy for
Vice-President, and would fight any time for what he considered a good cause.
OF
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
221
.
Kootenay
Yale
Lillooet ..
Cariboo
Westminster
Cassiar
Comax
Vancouver Island
23,500 square miles
24,300 square miles
16,100 square miles
150,000 square miles
7,600 square miles
164,300 square miles
7,100 square miles
16,400 square miles
Total ....
409,300 square miles
The territory which the Oregon pioneers with their Provisional Government
saved to the United States is as follows:
.
Oregon
Washington
Idaho
Western Montana
Northwestern Wyoming
96,030 square miles
69,180 square miles
84,600 square miles
28,000 square miles
.13,000 square miles
Total ...
290,810 square miles
This tabular statement shows, that the British secured, by bluffing President
Polk, 119,100 square miles more of the Old Oregon Territory than did the United
States, when in fact England was not in law or equity entitled to a single acre
of it.
The surrender of the northwest Oregon territory to the British was the most
humiliating piece of diplomacy that ever disgraced our country. Fortunate that
it is, it stands alone in the history of the Republic. Cowardly, truckling, and
damaging, alike to national interests and national honor, the reason and excuse
for it was even more infamous. The whole north and west was so outraged and
incensed beyond any words to describe the public sentiment that Robert J.
Walker, Secretary of the Treasury under President Polk, was compelled to give
an excuse for the great wrong; and in doing so admitted that the southern slave
state president and senators (with, of course, their northern dough-faced sup-
porters) had given up northwest Oregon to England, for the reason, it might at
some future time come into the Union as an anti-slavery state.
We can have no conception now of the bitterness of the fight against Oregon,
by the slave holders on one hand, and the British on the other; and of the tre-
mendous odds and forces the friends of Oregon in Congress and the pioneers on
the trail had to overcome. As a sample of the public sentiment in large portions
of the eastern states we give two extracts from speeches of United States Sena-
tors. Senator W. L. Dayton, of New Jersey in the Senate on February 23rd,
1844, said:
"What there is in the territory of Oregon to tempt our national cupidity, no
one can tell. Of all the countries on the face of the earth, it is one of the least
favored of heaven. It is the mere riddling of creation. It is almost as barren as
the desert of Africa, and quite as unhealthy as the Campania of Italy. We would
not be subjected to all the innumerable and indescribable tortures of a journey to
222
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
>>
Oregon for all the soil its savage hunters ever wandered over. All the writers
and travelers agree in representing Oregon as a vast extent of mountains and val-
leys of sand dotted over with green, and cultivable spots. Russia has her Siberia,
and England has her Botany Bay, and if the United States should ever need a
country to which to banish its rogues and scoundrels, the utility of such a region
as Oregon will be demonstrated."
And then the wise Senator from Jersey ventilates his wisdom on the possi-
bility of a railroad to this "riddling of creation," and says:
“The power of steam to reach that country has been suggested. Talk of
steam communication—a railroad to the mouth of the Columbia! A railroad
across twenty-five hundred miles of desert prairie and mountains! The smoke
of an engine through these terrible fissures of that great rocky ledge, where the
smoke of the volcano has rolled before! Who is to make this vast internal
rather external improvement? All the mines of Mexico and Perii, disembowelled
would scarcely pay a penny of the cost."
Dayton lived long enough to become the candidate for Vice-President on the
ticket with Fremont in 1856, and died in Paris in 1864, after the railroad had
started across the deserts of Kansas and Nebraska towards Oregon; and if he
could arise from his grave and see the two railroads on the Columnbia river daily
carrying more freight than is produced in the state of New Jersey in a year,
he would give up the delusion that Oregon was a desert.
But Dayton was not alone in the opposition, from the northern states to se-
curing the territory of Oregon. As great a man as Daniel Webster made open as
well as secret opposition to the acquisition of Oregon. In a public address on
November 7, 1845, at Faneuil Hall, in Boston, in discussing the Oregon question,
said: “That the vast importance of peace with England, he took for granted; but
the question that now threatened that peace and was causing a great alarm, was
of forty years' standing, and was now coming to a crisis. It is a question that is a
fit subject for a compromise and amicable adjustment, but one which in my opin-
ion can be settled on an honorable basis by taking the forty-ninth parallel of
north latitude as the boundary line; the two countries would then keep abreast
on that line to the Pacific Ocean."
Later on Mr. Webster declared that the title and government of Oregon would
go to the people which had the greatest population in the territory. And still
later on, in the United States Senate, as showing his position generally, he de-
clared in a speech on March 1st, 1847:
"In the judgment of the Whig party, it is due to the best interests of the
country, to declare at once, and proclaim now, that we want no new states or ter-
ritory to form new states out of us, as the end of conquest. For one, I enter into
this declaration with all my heart. We want no extension of territory, we want
no accessions of new states. The country is already large enough.”
This shows why Dr. Whitman could not move Webster, while Secretary of
State, to help Oregon, and shows the under current of apathy, not to say dis-
loyalty to the West, with which Benton, Linn, Semple and other western states-
men had to contend to save Oregon to the nation.
And after all these declarations of Webster has become settled history, Dr.
John Fiske, a historian of Yale University attends the Gray Centennial at
Astoria in 1892 and puts forward the following excuse for Webster:
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
223
In 1841, our foreign relations were in a very critical condition. Daniel Webster was
Secretary of State. Wise, practical statesman that he was, he saw that the only way
to a peaceful adjustment was by the balancing of equivalents; that is, by giving and taking
on both sides. To this end he reduced the related issues to the fewest number, and these
to their vital points. He found the Oregon boundary among questions at issue. He saw
that this was an issue wholly unrelated to the other and more pressing ones, that it
could afford to wait until its consideration could be taken up entirely independent of other
issues and settled on its own merits; that its introduction alongside the older and more
pressing ones would inevitably lead to some unfavorable compromise on the Oregon issue
itself, or compel an unfavorable compromise on the other issues in its behalf. He there-
fore rejected it entirely from consideration, and subsequent events fully justified his
action in doing so. He was completely successful in adjusting the other issues in the
memorable treaty of 1842; and four years later, when the Oregon Treaty came before
the Senate, amicably proposing the forty-ninth parallel as the boundary line of the two
governments in the territory, Mr. Webster was there as Senator from Massachusetts to
give the treaty his hearty support. The history of the diplomatic negotiations between
England and the United States over the Oregon boundary question shows that our govern-
ment from the beginning maintained that the forty-ninth parallel was the proper boundary
line, and that the key-note of Mr. Webster's policy was this line and nothing else. The
people of the region of the Columbia, therefore, owe a special debt of gratitude to Mr.
Webster for his wisdom in keeping the Oregon question distinct from the unrelated issues
with which he had to deal in the perplexing negotiations of 1842.
The plain, incontrovertible historical facts were, that Webster was preferring
to settle the dispute about the codfisheries on the New Foundland coast before
he took up the Oregon question. And when Fiske says, "that our government
from the beginning maintained that the forty-ninth parallel was the proper
boundary line," he ought to have said that our government as represented by
Daniel Webster held that view. For when the question was referred to the
voters of the United States in the Polk campaign, the people overwhelmingly
decided, that the position of Daniel Webster on the Oregon boundary line was
not the position of the people of the United States.
Now, sixty years after that disgraceful surrender to England, the commer-
cial interests, and all the people of this state, and the Pacific Coast, can see the
damage wrought to national interests by having a British state sandwiched in
between the state of Washington and our territory of Alaska. Here is our old
inveterate and historical enemy with all its forts, and harbors and battleships,
and transcontinental railroads, ready to harbor the Japanese and combine against
American interests, and Oregon commerce, and do us more damage from these
advantages cowardly given away by the Polk administration, than any army of
a hundred thousand men could do attacking us from any point east of the Rocky
mountains. If our government had courageously held on to all of Oregon, as the
people told them to do in the presidential election of 1844, and as Senators Benton
and Linn vainly besought them to do, we would have had all of old Oregon today,
and the Pacific ocean with all its vast commercial advantages would be practically
an American lake. And for just retribution of this great wrong, some day the
American people will rise up and place another Andrew Jackson in the presi-
dential chair, and then look out, if the British flag is not pulled down from New-
foundland to Vancouver Island, and the Canadians told to go it alone or come in
under the Stars and Stripes.
And now, after reviewing the history of the country for over sixty years, and
considering the desperate and horrible course of the slave states in plunging the
nation into all the horrors of the civil war, and putting the life and existence of
the nation at stake, there can be but little doubt that had it not been for the
American settlements in the Willamette Valley, and the organization of the Pro-
2:24
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
visional Government, which had declared against slavery, the pro-slavery Presi-
dent and his supporters would have given up the whole of Oregon to England to
prevent the addition of another free state to the Union.
THE MERITORIOUS FACTS
1
Putting aside all quibbles and technicalities in the international diplomacy
which disposed of the greatest question of the nineteenth century, four real and
great national facts tower above all others.
First. The discovery and entrance of the Columbia river by Captain Robert
Gray on the 11th day of May, 1792. The great significance of this fact consists in
the importance of first a landing on the main land of the old Oregon region, and
secondly, in the fact that the river drains nearly all the territory in dispute.
Neither the Spanish, English or French ships or navigators had ever landed on
the main land of Old Oregon. They had all been at Nootka Sound on Vancouver
Island and upon Queen Charlotte Island. But Capt. Gray had been there as
well. Gray's discovery makes Oregon the only territory held by the United
States under the right by discovery.
Second. The exploration of the Oregon territory by Lewis and Clark before
any other nation ever attempted to explore it. And both the discovery of the
river by Gray and the exploration by Lewis and Clark had been done under writ-
ten authority of the presidents of the United States.
Third. A bonafide settlement of the country by American citizens for the
purpose of peopling and occupying the country for permanent settlements, and
not for temporary trade purposes with the Indians. These three facts, making
plain to the country had all been executed openly before the whole civilized and
commercial world, before Great Britain had a shadow of a claim under the occu-
pation by its fur companies.
Fourth. Lastly, and strongest of all the claims, American settlers had, with
public notice, called all persons, settlers and citizens to meet and organize a gov-
ernment to protect life and property; the meeting had been publicly held, and
at which all persons, including subjects of Great Britain, had been given full and
free opportunity to express their will, and at which meeting the subjects of Great
Britain did take a part, and at which a majority had decided in favor of, and had
organized a government that had all the powers of any government in any civ-
ilized nation-officers, courts, legislature, laws and military authority and power
to defend its existence and protect its citizen members from private wrongs and
public enemies and no citizen, subject or government had denied the authen-
ticity, legitimacy, legality or authority of such government. There never was a
stronger case upon which to base a right to jurisdiction and sovereignty over
territory. And yet it all went for nothing when weighed in the scales of justice
held and manipulated by a president and congress already tainted and cor-
rupted with the virus of pro-slavery disunionism.
It may seem to many that these are hard words to apply to a president and
congress of the United States.
But considering the character of England's
claim to Oregon, the course of President Polk and his cabinet can be explained
only by his subserviency to the slaveholding interests of the South, or his cow-
ardice in the presence of British threats. What shadow of right had England
Do you think
Chirk Reds in are,
Courg.sion President
noez au corsa
duo him ont
Gobly
Puding
au
نہر سے
WILLE
}
ſº
AME
Wind
OREOON
A THE
THACKERAY'S CARTOONS IN LONDON PUNCH, 1845, SHOWING:
No. 1—The British Prime Minister (in the foreground) ready to fight; and in the rear
President Polk as a southern farmer, saying: “Do you think he's in earnest ?” While King
Louis Philippe of France offers Polk a gun and urges him to fight for Oregon.
No. 2-President Polk is represented as offering Oregon, as an egg, to England, repre-
sented with the trident as Mistress of the Seas.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
225
to the country? That nation got absolutely nothing by the bullying of its pirat-
ical fur trading ship at Nootka Sound. The record shows that the Spaniard was
the first discoverer of the North Pacific Coast, that he never surrendered his claim
in the least, and whatever it was by right of discovery and actual occupation of
Vancouver Island he held it intact until it was turned over to the United States
by the treaty of February 22, 1819. Then what other right had England? ?
Mackenzie, a British subject, with an exploring party came over the Rocky Moun-
tains in 1793, floated down part of the Fraser river, and reached the Pacific
Ocean in July, 1793, more than one year after Gray had sailed into the mouth of
the Columbia. If there was anything in that sort of discovery Capt. Gray with
the American flag was more than a year ahead of the British claim. What else,
then? When Astor's party under Wilson Price Hunt started for the Pacific
Coast in 1811, the British Northwest Company started a rival expedition
across the continent to seize and hold Oregon as against the Astor (Pacific)
Fur Company. But before Thompson, the British agent got over the Rocky
mountains and put up his notice claiming the country for England, the Astor
party had built a fort at Astoria, mounted cannon, run up the American flag, and
Hunt with the overland party had got into the Snake river valley, and Lewis
and Clark had been over here up and down the Columbia six years before the
Thompson party had posted their notices. So that England could claim nothing
on that acount. How then did England get British Columbia, a part of old
Oregon, and as much the territory of the United States as was Utah and Kan-
sas? How? Simply by bluffing a weak-kneed president, and pulling the slave-
holding interests of the South into a surrender of the just rights of the United
States to a territory as large as the three states of Oregon, Washington and
Idaho, and giving the traditional enemy of this country a foothold on the Pacific
Ocean where they can annoy this country and cripple and demoralize its com-
merce for all time. That this position is correct, and that the English govern-
ment well knew that it had no just claims to Oregon, is manifest from what came
to the surface in 1818 when the treaty of joint occupancy was agreed to. In
that negotiation Richard Rush and Albert Gallatin represented the United States
and John Quincy Adams was Secretary of State to President James Monroe.
Neither of these men had any love for old England. Mr. Adams was very
careful in his instructions to Rush and Gallatin; in the course of which he says:
'From the earnestness with which the British government now returns to the
object of fixing this boundary (The Oregon boundary) there is reason to believe
that they have some other purpose connected with it, which they do not avow,
but which in their estimation gives it an importance not belonging to it, considered
in itself."
What was that other purpose" which the British government would not
avow? What was it that our traditional enemy was concealing from President
Monroe? We don't have far to look to find it. President Monroe was the author
of what is called “The Monroe Doctrine,” and which was authoritatively an-
nounced to the world in 1823; Monroe had negotiated the purchase of Louisiana
from Napoleon for Jefferson. His secretary of state, Adams, had been the
United States ambassador to Russia and had negotiated the treaties with that
country which had secured its friendship to the United States for a hundred
years. These two men, then working together, had learned the secret aims and
Vol. 1-15
226
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
objects of old England, and were prepared to check them. And they clearly
foresaw that England was scheming to get Oregon, or all of it that they could
get by hook or crook," not for the sake of the land, or the furs, or the timber, or
the mines, but for a great naval position on the Pacific coast, where, with its
largest fleet of war ships in the world, it could dominate the commerce of the
Pacific, and dictate terms to Russia, China and Japan, and to American interests
on the west coast of America. But when the British agents met Rush and Gal-
latin in 1818, they soon discovered that they had statesmen to deal with who could
not be deceived or over-reached. Then commenced the play for time, and a more
favorable opportunity. They gave up Astoria, they kept the peace at Van-
couver, they let the pioneers organize at Champoeg, putting in only a mild ob-
jection. But when they saw the North and South of the American States divid-
ing on the question of slavery they saw their long sought for opportunity,
and encouraged the breach between the free and the slaveholding states. Eng-
land had tried to purchase Texas from Mexico, and after Texas had declared its
independence of Mexico, England had been the first nation to recognize the in-
dependence of Texas and make a treaty with that state before it had a settled
government. Texas was annexed to the United States by the Tyler administra-
tion and pro-slavery votes in congress for the express purpose of adding slave-
holding territory to the Union. Giving voice to the southern sentiment on this
subject, Henry A. Wise, a member of Congress from Virginia, said in the House
of Representatives January 26, 1842:
"True, if Iowa be added on the one side, Florida will be added on the other.
But there the equation must stop. Let one more Northern state be admitted, and
the equilibrium is gone—gone forever. The balance of interests is gone—the safe-
guard of American property—of the American Constitution--of the American
Union vanished into thin air. This must be the inevitable result, unless by a
treaty with Mexico the South can add more weight to her end of the lever. Let
the South stop at the Sabine river while the North may spread unchecked beyond
the Rocky Mountains, and the Southern scale must kick thc beam."
JACKSON LETTER:
The opinion of Ex-President Andrew Jackson was called out on this subject;
and his reply to a letter of Congressman Aaron V. Brown of Tennessee is here
published to show how the Southern statesmen were looking far ahead to protect
the institution of slavery, and how clearly they saw the intrigues of England to
checkmate the advance of the United States to the Pacific. Here follows Jack-
son's letter never before printed outside of the Southern Confederacy:
"HERMITAGE, February 13, 1843.
“MY DEAR SIR-Yours of the 23d ultimo has been received, and with it the
Madisonian, containing Gov. Gilmer's letter on the subject of the annexation of
Texas to the United States.
"You are not mistaken in supposing that I have formed an opinion on this
interesting subject. It occupied much of my time during my presidency, and, I
am sure, has lost none of its importance by what has since transpired.
“Soon after my election in 1829, it was made known to me by Mr. Erwin,
formerly our minister to the Court of Madrid, that, whilst at that Court, he had
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
227
laid the foundation of a treaty with Spain for the cession of the Floridas and the
settlement of the boundary of Louisiana, fixing the western limit of the latter at
Rio Grande, agreeably to the understanding of France; that he had written
home to our government for powers to complete and sign this negotiation; but
that, instead of receiving such authority, the negotiation was taken out of his
hands and transferred to Washington, and a new treaty was there concluded by
which the Sabine, and not the Rio Grande, was recognized and established as
the boundary of Louisiana.
"Finding that these statements were true and that our Governinent did really
give up that important territory, when it was at its option to retain it, I was filled
with astonishment. The right of the territory was obtained from France; Spain
stood ready to acknowledge it to the Rio Grande; and yet the authority asked by
our minister to insert the true boundary was not only withheld, but, in lieu of it,
a limit was adopted which stripped us of the whole of the vast country lying be-
tween the two rivers.
"On such a subject, I thought, with the ancient Romans, that it was right
never to cede any land or boundary of the republic, but always to add to it by
honorable treaty, thus extending the area of freedom; and it was in accordance
with this feeling that I gave our minister in Mexico instructions to enter upon a
negotiation for the retrocession of Texas to the United States.
"This negotiation failed; and I shall ever regret it as a misfortune both to
Mexico and the United States. Mr. Gilmer's letter presents many of the con-
siderations which, in my judgment, rendered the step necessary to the peace and
harmony of the two countries; but the point in it, at that time, which most
strongly impelled me to the course I pursued, was the injustice done to us by the
surrender of the territory, when it was obvious that it could have been retained,
without increasing the consideration afterward given for the Floridas. I could
not but feel that the surrender of so vast and important a territory was attributed
to an erroneous estimate of the tendency of our institutions, in which there was
mingled somewhat of jealousy as to the rising greatness of the South and West.
“But I forbear to dwell on this part of the history of this question. It is past,
and cannot now be undone. We can now only look at it as one of annexation, if
Texas presents it to us; and, if she does, I do not hesitate to say that the welfare
and happiness of our Union requires that it should be accepted.
“If, in a military point of view alone, the question be examined, it will be
found to be most important to the United States to be in possession of the ter-
ritory.
"Great Britain has already made treaties with Texas; and we know that far-
seeing nation never omits a circumstance, in her extensive intercourse with the
world, which can be turned to account in increasing her military resources. May
she not enter into an alliance with Texas? And, reseruing, as she doubtless will,
the northwestern boundary question as the cause of war with us whenever she
chooses to declare it, let us suppose that, as an ally with Texas, we are to fight
her! Preparatory to such a movement, she sends her 20,000 or 30,000 men to
Texas; organizes them on the Sabine, where supplies and arms can be concen-
trated before we have even notice of her intentions; makes a lodgment on the
Mississippi; excites the negroes to insurrection; the lower country falls, and with
it New Orleans; and a servile war rages through the whole South and West.
228
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
“In the meantime, she is also moving an army along the western frontier
from Canada, which, in co-operation with the army from Texas, spreads ruin
and havoc from the lakes to the gulf of Mexico.
“Who can estimate the national loss we may sustain, before such a movement
could be repelled with such forces as we could organize on short notice?
"I return you my thanks for your kind letter on this subject, and subscribe
myself, with great sincerity, your friend and obedient servant,
ANDREW JACKSON.
"HON. A. V. BROWN."
This question was also brought before the legislatures of the slaveholding
states for expression of opinion. A committee of the state of Mississippi re-
porting thereon, said, “Your committee are fully persuaded that this protection
to her (slaveholding) interests will be afforded by the annexation of Texas; an
equipoise of influence in the halls of congress will be secured which will furnislı
us a permanent guarantee of protection.
And so by one subterfuge after another the settlement of the Oregon boundary
line was held back until after Texas was admitted to the Union as slave ter-
ritory, and upon the express provision of Congress that four slave states might
be carved out of Texas. The annexation of Texas and its proposed division into
four slaveholding states was mainly the work of John C. Calhoun who had
served as secretary of state in the Harrison-Tyler administration from 1841 to
1844. Calhoun saw nothing wrong in the institution of slavery. In his eyes it
was not only good, but a positive good to both the white and the black race. He
regarded slavery as a perfectly natural relation; and that if the abolition move-
ment then in 1840 being first agitated, should ever succeed, the fate of the
southern people would be worse than that of the native Indians. Calhoun was
an Irish Presbyterian of the most rigid, arbitrary and unyielding faith, and be
believed in his pro-slavery sentiments with his whole soul. He was a bold,
brave leader of men of great ability, and of an uncompromising disposition.
He swayed the Harrison Tyler administration to his purposes, forced the annex-
ation of Texas, brought on the war against Mexico to seize more slave territory
and used neglected Old Oregon as a pawn on the international chess board to
keep the British from seizing Texas or California. The annexation of Texas was
formally completed on the 1st day of March, 1845, three days before James K.
Polk was inaugurated the eleventh president of the United States. The ques-
tion had been carefully nursed along during the entire administration of Tyler
and Calhoun. Tyler, a very common-place man, had been extremely anxious to
hasten the annexation of Texas as a matter of great moment to distinguish his
administration; but Calhoun had been as equally anxious to hold the project
back to the last minute, shrewdly seeing that it might arouse such a bitter anti-
slavery sentiment in all the northern states as to endanger the election of a
southern man to succeed Tyler. And to forestall any such a political revulsion,
Calhoun cooked up the war-cry of “Fifty-Four Forty or Fight,” as a platform
for James K. Polk to run on to succeed Tyler. It was a great game, shrewdly
and successfully played—“A good enough Morgan until after the election."
And in all this double-dealing and duplicity the British agents had played into
the hands of the slaveholders; as they always did, believing that sooner or later
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
229
the slavery question would divide the country and break up the Union of the
States. Warre and Vavasour had been out here to Oregon surveying the country,
pickiug out suitable sites for British forts and making recommendations as to the
number of soldiers and cannon needed to seize and hold the country. And follow-
ing up this recommendation, Her Majesty's government ordered a regiment of
the Royal Sappers and Miners to report from different parts of England to the
Woolwich Arsenal in readiness to proceed to America and go to Oregon territory
for active service. And all this time Calhoun, on the part of the South, and the
Northern “doughfaces” under the lead of Dayton, of New Jersey, was de-
nouncing Oregon as the "riddlings of creation," and not worth fighting about.
The slave states had now got Texas, and forced Mexico into a war that in
the end would add New Mexico and Arizona and a large slice of California
south of the Mason-Dixon line of division between free and slave territory.
Sloat had seized upper California; and there was no reason to longer hold back
the settlement of the Oregon boundary line with England. If there ever was
a fair referendum of a political question to the people of the United States, it
was the Oregon question. The people had passed on the question, and elected
James K. Polk to carry out their sovereign will. It was to be the whole of Ore-
gon-or fight. But no sooner is Polk safely seated in the presidential chair
than he presents a compromise boundary line-a line that had been repudiated
by every president and every treaty that had preceded him.
His secretary
of state, James Buchanan, could ill conceal the disgust and humiliation he felt
in making such an offer, and when England declined it he made haste to with-
draw it. If Buchanan had now stood firmly by Oregon, he might have forced
Polk to keep his pledges to the people, for the secretary of the treasury, Robt.
J. Walker, a Southern man, hotly opposed giving up an inch of Oregon to Eng-
land. But Buchanan was wheedled into yielding with Polk on a promise of the
presidency by the slave power, which he got in 1856, and thus betrayed Oregon,
just as he betrayed the Nation of 1860. The offer to give up half of Old Oregon,
had been thus dishonorably made. Polk's administration was committed to it,
and England took time to see what was best to do. An English representative
was sent to Oregon in the person of a titled lady in disguise; and then it was
discovered that the preachers, mountaineers and missionaries had organized a
formidable government of their own, and were holding the fort under the Stars
and Stripes; and that they were not good material to make British "subjects".
And then it was that England accepted the line offered by President Polk, know-
ing that Polk was giving away one-half the territory the United States was
justly entitled to. That the United States lost one-half of the Oregon territory,
and gave our traditional and historical enemy a foothold to annoy us for all time
on t'ie Pacific is to be charged up to John C. Calhoun, President Polk and the
slaveholders of the South. And that this History is fully justified in making
this statement the reader is asked to consider the following letter written by
Robert J. Walker, who was secretary of the treasury in President Polk's cab-
inet. When the purchase of Alaska was before Congress after the Civil war
was over and twenty-three years after the settlement of the Oregon boundary,
and after Polk was dead and buried and the institution of slavery abolished,
Mr. Walker, in his old age, wrote a letter to the Washington City Daily Chronicle,
published January 28, 1868, in which he says:
230
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
“We own now the whole western Pacific Coast from lower California to
the Arctic Sea, except British Columbia, which (against my earnest protest in
the cabinet) was ceded to England in 1846. I say ceded, for our title to the
whole of Oregon from the forty-second parallel northward to Russian America
was in truth clear and unquestionable. British Columbia was lost to us by the
most unfortunate diplomacy extending through a long period of time.
The opposition to the acquisition of Louisiana was geographical and anti-slavery.
In 1821, Texas was relinquished partly from geographical, but mainly from
anti-slavery opposition. In 1845 the opposition to the annexation of Texas was
based mainly on anti-slavery grounds. In 1846, in connection with the unfor-
tunate action of preceding administrations, Oregon, north of the forty-ninth
parallel, was lost to the Union. While the history of annexation in the United
States shows various obstacles by which it has been retarded, yet the chief among
these was the discordant element of slavery. Thus it was that, while the free
states to a great extent opposed the acquisition of slave territory, the slave-
states opposed the acquisition of free territory. But for these opposing prin-
ciples, our area would be far greater than it is now. On extinguishing slavery,
we have removed the principal cause which retarded annexation. We see already
the good effects of the disappearance of this institution in the almost unanimous
vote of the senate by which the Alaska treaty was ratified. Before the extinc-
tion of slavery, that treaty would have been defeated, upon the same principle
that Oregon north of the forty-ninth parallel was ceded to England." That is
the testimony of a statesman, and a southern man, too, who was on the ground
in the cabinet, and knew all about the whole base betrayal of the rights of the
United States to the whole coast up to Alaska ;—and that settles the question.
That the United States saved anything of the Old Oregon, and gave the nation
a foothold on the Pacific ocean, and an open roadway on American territory
across the continent is to be credited to the Oregon Pioneers and their provi-
sional government. The Oregon that was saved to the Nation, is the Oregon
that was organized and claimed by the provisional government that was organ-
ized by the fifty-two heroes at old Champoeg. on May 2nd, 1843. And no
words, or monuments can ever express or manifest the honor and respect due
to those men from the people of Oregon.
CHAPTER X
1834-1844.
OREGON IGNORED BY U. S. GOVERNMENT-
TREATY OF NON-OCCUPATION-NO MAN'S
LAND THE OREGON TRAIL
OREGON IN CONGRESS FOR THE FIRST TIME ROUTE
OF TRAIL LOCATED BY HUNT AND STUART-WHITMAN WITH THE FIRST WAGON
ON THE TRAIL-IMMIGRATION OF 1843-PREPARATION FOR STARTING-ON THE
TRAIL-CHARACTER OF THE IMMIGRANTS-BENEFITS OF THE PROVISIONAL GOV-
ERNMENT- THE RESULTS OF THE MISSIONS.
14
It will be seen from the preceding Chapter that there was nobody in the Ore-
gon country inviting settlement; no real estate agents; no boom towns; no get-
rich-quick schemes; no colonization schemes, and no government agents of any
kind. The country was two thousand miles from the nearest American settlement
on the Missouri river; and separated from it by thousands of miles of trackless
plains, rugged mountains, inhospitable deserts, and savage tribes of Indians.
Why should any. American citizen with a family go to such a country as that?
About all that anybody knew about Oregon that could be relied on before the
emigration started, was to be found in the following brief notice of the country,
in Mitchell's Common School Geography, of 1842, as follows:
Oregon Territory is the most western part of the United States. It extends
from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, and contains an area greater
than that of the whole southern states. Though claimed by the United States,
the territory is at present actually in possession of Great Britain. The Hudson's
Bay Company have established forts at various points and exercise an unlimited
control over the native Indians reckoned to amount to a population of eighty
thousand.'
Woodbridge's Geography, published by Oliver Cook and Co. of Hartford,
Conn., in 1829, has no mention of Oregon; but classes the territory of Old Ore-
gon in with and as a part of “Missouri Territory.'
The emigration to Oregon actually commencing in the year 1843, was one
of the most remarkable movements in all history. Neither the pioneers who
wrought the great work, or their descendants who have lived to see its great re-
sults, have ever comprehended the full force of the great achievement. Moved
by an impulse which they did not detect the origin of, and over which they
seemed to have had no control or ability to foresee its possible failure
or success, the pioneers of 1843 accomplished a result equal to the found-
ing of ancient Rome or the colonization of the Atlantic coast by the Puri-
tans of the North and the Cavaliers of the South. The goal to be obtained
was neither wealth, power, selfish isolation, a new faith, cult, government, or
destruction of enemies. And neither time, toils, distance, hardships, savage
tribes and enemies, or deadly pestilence could stay or defeat it. The poet Whit-
231
232
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
tier has immortalized the pioneers from the Ohio valley states who rushed to
Kansas to make that free territory; but they suffered no hardships to be com-
pared with those who came to Oregon fifteen years before the battles in Kansas.
The immigrants to Kansas traveled through a settled country, and could sleep
in a comfortable farm house every night if they chose. But the Oregon pioneers
trudged alongside their oxen for two thousand miles through trackless plains,
burning deserts and frowning mountains without a single friendly roof to pro-
tect them or their wives and little children. The colonizers of Kansas are not to
be mentioned in the same generation with the pioneers of Oregon; and the glow-
ing lines of Whittier belong to the Oregonians, for they, indeed, and in truth
'Crossed the desert as of old,
Their fathers crossed the sea;
To make the West, as they the East,
The homestead of the free.'
WHAT STARTED THE IMMIGRATION TO OREGON?
The first known and recorded tangible effort to induce immigration to Ore-
gon started in the year 1817; and the author of it was Hall Jackson Kelley of
Boston, Mass., a digger into unusual and out-of-the-way places for knowledge
and information on many subjects. Kelley will appear in several places in this
History as he well deserves to appear. At that date (1817) Wilson Price Hunt,
Ramsay Crooks and Russell Farnham, of Astor's unfortunate venture to As-
toria, had all got safely back to the States and given their experiences to the
public. To Kelley's fruitful imagination their accounts of Oregon was like the
discovery of a new world; and he at once plunged into the “Oregon Question'
with his whole soul. He read everything on the subject; and then organized a
society in 1829, and had it incorporated by the legislature of the state of Mas-
sachusetts as "The American Society for the settlement of the Oregon Terri-
tory. And through this organization, and as Secretary, and manager of it,
Kelley carried on his work of promoting the interests of Oregon. He was in
truth and fact the first great Oregon promoter. Kelley was indefatigable in
promoting his grand scheme; and in 1831, after gathering all the information
obtainable, he drafted and presented to Congress in the name of his society,
a memorial reciting that the society was "engaged in the work of opening to a
civilized and virtuous population that part of Western America called Oregon.
And among other statements in the memorial is, that they, the memorialists, "are
convinced that if the country should be settled under the auspices of the United
States from such of her worthy sons who have drunk the spirit of those civil
and religious institutions which constitute the living fountain and the very
perennial source of her national prosperity, great benefits must result to man-
kind. They believe that there, the skillful and persevering hand of industry
might be employed with unparalleled advantage; that there science and the arts,
the invaluable privilege of a free and liberal government, and the refinement and
ordinances of Christianity, diffusing each its blessing, would harmoniously unite
in ameliorating the moral condition of the Indians, in promoting the comfort
and happiness of the settlers, and in augmenting the wealth and power of the
Republic.
The country in question is the most valuable of all the
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
233
unoccupied portions of the earth, and designed by Providence to be the resi-
dence of a people whose singular advantages will give them unexampled power
and prosperity.
That these things have settled in the policy of the
British nation the determined purpose of possessing and enjoying the country
as their own, and which has induced their parliament to confer on the Hudson's
Bay Company authority to settle and occupy the fertile banks of the Colum-
bia. ^ )
Here was an appeal for settlers a long ways ahead of the boom literature to
sell sage brush and town lots in Oregon, Washington or Idaho in the year 1912;
-ahead, because the promoters are not planning to make money for themselves,
but to save Oregon to the United States.
Kelley followed up this appeal to Congress with circulars and pamphlets
circulated all over the New England states to create a public sentiment that
might influence the action of Congress. But nothing was effected in that direc-
tion beyond filling senators and congressmen up with material to make bun-
combe speeches on the Oregon question. One of Kelley's circulars was entitled
“A general circular to all persons of good character who wish to emigrate to
the Oregon Territory, enbracing some account of the character and advantages
of the country; the right and the means and operations by which it is to be set-
tled, and all necessary directions for becoming an emigrant. Hall J. Kelley,
general agent." That this work did start the first commercial expedition to
Oregon, after the disastrous failures of Winship and Astor, there can be no
doubt. Nathaniel J. Wyeth's expedition overland to Oregon in 1832, was, as
Wyeth says in his account of it, "roused to it by the writings of Hall J. Kelley."
In addition to this, the information that Kelley had gathered up was the basis
on which Methodist and American Board churches acted when they decided to
send missionaries to Oregon to convert the heathen. Kelley's information about
Oregon, and his appeal for settlers to come here had been before the churches, and
before everybody in the New England states for ten years before the churches
took steps to send missionaries to Oregon. But when the four Indian chiefs went
from Oregon to St. Louis to find the “White Man's Book of Heaven” in 1831,
it was such a pathetic appeal and dramatic incident that it caught the attention
and inspired the action of the churches immediately. And although Kelley was
then on his way to Oregon across Mexico, his old pamphlets and circulars were
hunted up for information about Oregon and as a result the first missionary
party to Oregon (The Methodist) composed of Jason Lee, his cousin, Daniel
Lee, Cyrus Shepard and P. L. Edwards came out with Wyeth on his second
expedition in 1834, he (Wyeth) having been made a convert to Oregon coloniza-
tion by Hall J. Kelley. Along with Wyeth came a large party of employees, and
some of them settled in the country. Hall J. Kelley came himself in 1834, com-
ing through Mexico and California. The Rev. Samuel Parker as advance agent
of the American Board missions came out in 1835. Dr. Marcus Whitman and wife,
Rev. H. H. Spalding and wife, and W. H. Gray came out as American Board mis-
sionaries in 1836. Stragglers'came in after this from time to time. The Catholic
missionaries Blanchet and Demers came in 1838. Employees of the Hudson's
Bay Co., and independent trappers came in annually, but none of these could be
considered a part of the emigration to Oregon that settled the status of the
country.
1
234
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
At the close of 1837, the independent population of Oregon consisted of forty-
nine souls, about equally divided between missionary attaches and settlers. With
but few exceptions the arrivals during the next two years were solely of persons
connected with the various missions, whose advent has already been noted.
Those coming in 1839 were, Rev. J. S. Griffin and wife, and Mr. Asahel Munger
and wife, who made an unsuccessful effort to found an independent mission on
Snake river, and Rev. Ben. Wright, Robert Shortess, Sidney Smith, Lawson,
Keizer, Geiger, and John Edmunds Pickernell. By adding the following list of
arrivals in 1840, to those previously mentioned, the population of Oregon at that
time will be quite accurately listed. Mr. Gray thus summarizes the arrivals of
that season:-
“In 1840—-Methodist Episcopal Protestant Mission-Mrs. Lee, second wife
of Rev. Jason Lee; Rev. J. H. Frost and wife; Rev. A. F. Waller, wife and two
children; Rev. W. W. Kone and wife; Rev. Gustavus Hines, wife and sister; Rev.
L. H. Judson, wife and two children; Rev. J. L. Parrish, wife and three children;
Rev. J. P. Richmond, wife and three children; Rev. A. P. Olley and wife. Lay.
men-Mr. Geo. Abernethy, wife and two children; Mr. Hamilton Campbell, wife
and one child; Mr. W. W. Raymond and wife; Mr. H. B. Brewer and wife; Dr.
Ira L. Babcock, wife and one child; Miss Maria T. Ware, Miss Orpha Lankton,
Miss Almira Phelps, and Miss E. Phillips. Independent Protestant Missions-
Rev. Harvey Clark and wife; Rev. P. B. Littlejohn and wife; Robert Moore, James
Cook, and James (Travers according to Judge Deady) Fletcher, settlers. Jesuit
Priests--P. J. De Smet, Flathead Mission. Rocky mountain men with native
wives-- William Craig, Doctor Robert Newell, Joseph L. Meek, George W. Eb-
berts, William M. Doughty, John Larison, George Wilkinson, a Mr. Nicholson, and
Mr. Algear, and William Johnson, author of the novel, “Leni Leoti, or The Prairie
Flower.” The subject was first written and read before the Lyceum at Oregon
City, in 1843.
Gray classifies the population as follows: American settlers, twenty-five of
them with Indian wives, 36; American women, 33; children, 32; lay members,
Protestant Missions, 13; Methodist Ministers, 13; Congregational, 6; American
Physicians, 3; English Physicians, 1; Jesuit priests, including De Smet, 3;
Canadian French, 60. Total Americans, 137; total Canadians, including priests,
63; total population, not including Hudson's Bay Company operatives, within
what is now all of Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and a part of Montana, was 200.
In 1842 an addition of about fifty Americans over the age of eighteen came in
of which a complete list will be given hereafter in this chapter.
The condition of the valley and the settlers, when these emigrants arrived, is
thus described by Medorem Crawford :-
'On the fifth day of October our little party, tired, ragged and hungry, ar-
rived at the Falls, now Oregon City, where we found the first habitations west of
the Cascade mountains. Here several members of the Methodist Mission were
located, and a saw mill was being erected on the island. Our gratification on ar-
riving safely after so long and perilous a journey , was shared by these hospitable
people, each of whom seemed anxious to give us a hearty welcome and render us
every assistance in their power. From the Falls to Vancouver was a trackless
wilderness, communication being only by the river in small boats and canoes.
Toward Salem no sign of civilization existed until we reached the French prairie,

2.
4.
3
SOME MEN WHO BACKED THE EMIGRANTS TO OREGON IN 1843
No. 1-Abraham Lincoln as he looked in 1843
No. 2—Thomas H. Benton, who fought for Oregon, first, last and all the time
No. 3—The "Little Giant," Stephen A. Douglas, who stood shoulder to shoulder with
Benton, and prepared the law to give Oregon a territorial government
No. 4-Peter Cartwright, the great Methodist Evangelist of Kentucky, and the West, who
fought for the Oregon pioneers before the common people of the West
Pich
OF
M
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
235
where a few farms near the river were cultivated by former employees of the
Hudson's Bay Company. West of the Falls some fifteen miles was Tualatin
plains, where a few settlers, mostly from Red River, had located. Within the
present limits of Yamhill County, the only settlers I can remember were Sidney
Smith, Amos Cook, Francis Fletcher, James O'Neil, Joseph McLoughlin,-
Williams, Louis La Bonte, and George Gay.
The emigration to Oregon had not yet started. These few men could only be
considered the "scouts” looking out a country in the hands of their enemies.
And according to the well settled English belief at that time the country never
could be settled by the ox team fellows. John Dunn, a clerk in the employ of
the Hudson's Bay Company, wrote a book about Oregon at that time in which he
says: “None but the wild and fearless free-trapers can clamber over those moun-
tain precipices and tread these deserts with security. It is true that there have
been published more favorable accounts within the last year or two by parties who
have made the journey safely, and who encourage others to make a similar ex-
periment, but these accounts are mere bravado.” In 1843, the Edinburgh Re-
view (British) said: “However the political question between England and the
United States, as to the ownership of Oregon may be decided, Oregon will never be
colonized overland from the United States. The world must assume a new phase
before the American wagons will make plain the road to Columbia, as they have
done to the Ohio." And at the same time the British were ridiculing the efforts
to get American settlers into Oregon, a precious little squad of United States
senators were burning up the country in the halls of Congress. Says Senator
Dayton, of New Jersey :
"I trust I may be pardoned here for reading an extract from a western paper
of recent date-Louisville Journal-republished in the National Intelligencer,
of this city. Here it is:“What there is in the territory of Oregon to tempt our
national cupidity, no one can tell. Of all the countries on the face of the eartb,
it is one of the least favored of heaven. It is the mere riddling of creation.
It is almost as barren as the desert of Africa, and quite as unhealthy as the Cam-
pania of Italy. To leave the fertile and salubrious lands on this side of the
Rocky mountains and to go beyond their snowy summits a thousand miles, to be
exiled from law and society, and to endeavor to extort food from the unwilling
sand heaps which are there called earth, is the maddest enterprise that has ever
deluded foolish men. We would not be subjcted to the innumerable and indescrib-
able torture of a journey to Oregon for all the soil its savage hunters ever wan-
dered over. The journey thither, from all accounts, is horrible enough, but it is
paradise when contrasted with the wasting miseries which beset the wretched
emigrant when he has reached a point where he fancied his unutterable woes were
to cease, but where he finds they are to be increased beyond all endurance. Of
the last party of emigrants that left Missouri for Oregon, eight died of star-
vation before reaching Fort Hall, which is half-way to the country that is
reckoned inhabitable by those who are afflicted with the Oregon mania.
"All the writers and travelers agree in representing Oregon as a vast extent
of mountains and valleys of sand dotted over with green and cultivable spots.
This is the representation given by Cox, Bonneville, Farnham and Hinds. Now
that such a wretched territory should excite the hopes and the cupidity of citizens
of the United States, inducing them to leave comfortable homes for the heaps of
236
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
sand is, indeed, passing strange. Russia has her Siberia, and England has her
Botany Bay, and if the United States should ever use a country to which to banish
its rogues and scoundrels, the utility of such a region as Oregon will be demon-
strated.” Mr. Dayton said: "I read the extract without adopting the sentiments
as to the character of the country in the full extent; but this description in a
paper of the west so widely circulated as the Louisville Journal, is evident to my
mind that public sentiment there in behalf of the settlement of Oregon is not so
universal as some gentlemen have presented it.''
In the face of all this the emigration did start for Oregon. And it will be a
most interesting question to find out if we can what it was that induced the
pioneers to undertake so long, so toilsome, and so dangerous a pilgrimage.
It would be a mistake to conclude that the people of the western states in the
years of 1842, 3 and 4 did not know anything about Oregon because there w
mail route to Oregon in those days, and no telegraph lines anywhere, and no boom
land companies or daily papers to scatter the news. What little news that did
get back to the States from the missionaries and straggling adventurers once in
a year, came as if from “wonderland” and was read and passed from house to
house and printed in all the western pioneer papers. The writer of this book
remembers reading in the county paper in 1844 a letter from Oregon, that every-
body else read and talked about, because there was a statement by the writer of
the letter that the air in the Willamette valley was so pure and clear that he had
seen distinctly a tree at a distance of twenty-five miles. Few, if any, believed the
tree story; but that same reader of that letter after coming to Oregon fifty years
ago verified the truth of that letter by seeing himself that same tree distinctly
at a distance of twenty-five miles—the tree being on the top of the ridge east of
the town of Amity and the observer (along with Ben. Branson) being on the high
bare hill in the Grand Ronde Indian Reservation. This is mentioned to show
how facts about Oregon took hold of the imagination of the people of the western
states and fixed their attention upon this country.
The effort of Congressman John Floyd, of Virginia, to secure action of our
government in Oregon has already been referred to on the subject of the Title.
But there is another aspect to Floyd's work. To move the government to act on
the title to the country, Floyd must show Congress that Oregon was worth fight-
ing for. The history of Floyd's labors for this country shows that he was a far-
seeing statesman. He originated problems then that have been verified by time.
Floyd argued that the country was worth saving to the nation because of the rich
trade that could be developed out of the furs and fisheries; and out of the wealth
of timber, citing the fact that at that early day a cargo of spars had been shipped
from the Columbia river to Valparaiso. That was probably the first shipment
of timber or lumber from Oregon. Floyd went on in his report to show that by
settling this country we could control the trade to China, Japan and the Orient;
and that a whaling fishery station at the mouth of the Columbia river would con-
trol the whale fisheries off the Pacific which would increase the trade of the
country a million dollars a year. Floyd's bill to carry out his patriotic efforts
for Oregon finally came to a vote in 1829, and was defeated in the House of Rep-
resentatives—yeas seventy-five, nays, ninety-nine. But Floyd's agitation brought
to the surface several private schemes. Three thousand persons in Massachu-
setts, members of Hall J. Kelley's Company, had petitioned Congress for grants
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
237
of land; Albert Town and others in the State of Ohio had asked for a large tract
to settle upon; and John M. Bradford and others of Louisiana had asked for a
grant of one million and twenty-four thousand acres of Oregon land in which to
found a colony. These propositions were all voted down by Congress as being
incompatible with Republican principles to make special grants to anybody.
Floyd's term expired in 1829, and thus ended the efforts of Oregon's first friend
in Congress to help this country.
Nothing more is heard in Congress about the settlement of Oregon until Sen-
ator Lewis F. Linn, introduces his first bill in 1838; which proposed to organize
"The Oregon Territory;" occupy the Columbia Valley; erect a fort on the Co-
lumbia river with a military force; establish a port of entry; and hold the coun-
try for the United States.
In his report to support his proposition Linn advanced all the arguments put
forth by Floyd ten years before, and then added another which shows he was
just about seventy-five years ahead of the statesmen of our day. He dwelt on
the importance of a harbor on the northwest coast of America where the whaling
fleet of the Pacific might refit, just as Floyd had, and then prophesied “That
direct communication between the Atlantic and the Pacific would soon be opened
by a canal across the isthmus of Darien, by which the whole trade of the Eastern
Hemisphere would be changed in its course, which would be then toward the
shores of North America." But the Congress of the United States was not yet
awake and Linn's bill was defeated in the Senate. But Linn's work had brought
before the country a mass of information about Oregon, which was readily picked
up by ambitious and adventurous men throughout the west who saw visions and
dreamed dreams of founding an empire on the Pacific as their forefathers had
on the Atlantic. And about this same time Caleb Cushing, a very able and dis-
tinguished man in his time and a member of Congress from Massachusetts, as the
chairman of the committee on foreign affairs, to which had been referred the
Jason Lee Memorial of 1839, and other documents about Oregon, made a lengthy
and exhaustive report on the Oregon question, of which report ten thousand
copies were printed in addition to five thousand copies of Senator Linn's speech,
and all scattered over the country. It is said that this report educated the
people to an exalted idea of the value of Oregon, and at the same time incited a
hatred of the British traders who had kept the Americans out of the fur trade in
that country. Here then is found the foundation of the wide spread interest in
Old Oregon which prevailed throughtout the Eastern States, and specially in
the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. Only one thing more was necessary to fire the
train, and set it in motion towards Oregon. And we soon find that.
On the 31st of March, 1840, Senator Linn reported back to the Senate a sub-
stitute for his former proposition, asserting the title of the United States to
Oregon, authorizing the President to take such measures as was necessary to pro-
tect the persons and property of American citizens in Oregon, to erect a line of
military posts from the Missouri river to the Rocky Mountains, and granting to
each white male inhabitant over eighteen years of age one thousand acres of land.
This proposition was followed up by a petition from Elizabethtown, Kentucky,
asking Congress to plant a colony in Oregon and give the colonists lands; and by
another petition from forty-four citizens from Indiana asking for a grant of lands
within a strip of ten miles on each side of the Willamette River, so the settlers
238
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
could have the benefit of free transportation on the river, and in the same peti-
tion they protested against cutting the Isthmus canal, evidently thinking it a
short job that might be slipped through before they could stop it. And while
they opposed the canal, they wanted Congress to build a great national road to
the Pacific.” Another memorial came from the Missouri asking for a grant of
lands to settlers in Oregon. But one thing more was necessary, and Senator Linn
soon supplied that in a new bill he introduced into the Senate on December 16,
1841, in which it was declared most emphatically that the United States would
never give up Oregon to the British, that Joint Occupancy must be terminated at
once, and measures taken to occupy and settle the country under the laws of the
United States and that six hundred and forty acres of land must be given to
every white American settler over eighteen years of age who would go to Oregon
and settle and stay on the land for five years.
WHY DID THE MISSOURIANS COME TO OREGON?
Here, then, is found in the reports of Cushing and Linn, the three motives
that put the Missourians and other westerners on the Trail to Oregon: First, That
Oregon was the best country in the world ; second, that the British were trying to
steal it from the lawful owners—The Americans; and third, a gift of a square
mile of land to each settler. The Oregonians of 1912 cannot comprehend the in-
fluences that so powerfully affected their forefathers. There were yet in 1840
throughout the west, old Revolutionary soldiers, bent with age, but full of the
fire that carried them through the seven years war to achieve American Inde-
pendence. There were also the heroes, all through the west, who had fought
with Jackson, at New Orleans and hurled back the British red coats in the most
decisive battle ever fought on the American continent. The sons and daughters
of these old soldiers had inherited their courage and their ambition to strike a
blow at "Old England” whenever the excuse could be found. The gift of 640
acres of rich land—that was the wonder. Up to that time every settler in the
west had bought his land from the Government and paid for it in hard cash; the
only exception being the lands given to the revolutionary soldiers for military
services, and the land warrants to the soldiers in the war of 1812. The home-
stead law giving 160 acres to actual settlers for five years settlement and cultiva-
tion was not passed by Congress until twenty years after the great rush to Oregon.
The free land and the chance to drive the British out of Oregon were the moving
causes that settled Oregon before the title to it was settled. It is said that Jesse
Applegate declared in starting to Oregon in 1843, "That he was going to Oregon
to drive out the British.” It may be that "Uncle Jesse” never said that. But
if he did say it, he knew he was only voicing the wishes of all the people in the
Ohio and Mississippi valleys. It has been suggested by some historians, that the
great financial panic of 1837 which broke all the banks in the west and financially
ruined many thousands of men, was the cause of many persons coming to Oregon.
This supposition is not entitled to any credit. For while that financial trouble
compelled thousands of good men to make a new start in life, and gave them the
opportunity to go anywhere to do so, it could hardly have sent many to Oregon.
There were plenty of opportunities in the new territories of Iowa, Wisconsin,
Minnesota, and Kansas next door to Missouri, with land just as good as any in
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
239
Oregon. The Oregon field offered adventure, the gratification of a national pre-
judice, and free land, and set on foot one of the most unique and far-reaching
in influence movements of population the world has seen since the discovery of
America
WHAT SORT OF PEOPLE STARTED FOR OREGON ?
What were the qualifications of person or property which selected or limited
the emigrants to Oregon? The movement was not a land speculation, although
every family expected to get free land as a homestead. There was no corpora-
tion, capital or investment at the bottom of or back of the movement.
There were
no rich men in the caravan, and no helpless poor. In those days on the pioneer
border the distinctions of wealth or social position had no place. Some men had
more personal gear in horses and oxen than others, but very few had any money.
There might have been a few, yet there is no evidence that there was, men who
were burdened with debts they could not pay. One of the most honored of the
pioneers, and who, after serving Oregon most acceptably in its pioneer govern-
ment, became governor of California, frankly stated that he went to the California
gold mines to get the means to pay his debts, and which he did pay to the utmost
farthing. He had left Missouri with the consent and approval of creditors who
wished him well in his venture to Oregon. So far as wealth was concerned, the
pioneers were practically all on the same level. Some of them had to sell every-
thing to square with the world before they could make the move. Mr. G. C. Rob-
bins, for a long time, a prominent citizen in Oregon and Idaho gives the case of
his father and the pathetic parting with faithful servants as follows:
"The Black Hawk Indian war ruined my father's trade, a merchant, which
was mostly with the Indians. My father was in debt and was compelled to sell
his property to pay his debts. Most of his property consisted of his negro
slaves. Aunt Morning, her husband, Uncle Dave, and their daughter, Charity,
who were our house servants, were taken with our field hands and placed on the
block in front of the court house in St. Louis, and auctioned off to the highest
bidder. This was my first knowledge of the darker side of slavery, and when I
saw Aunt Morning, whom I loved as much as I did my mother, sold under the
hammer, and then taken to the slave pen, I was inconsolable. I hung around the
slave pen all day peeking through the palings to get a glimpse of Aunt Morning
and Uncle Dave. Finally the pen-keeper warned me to stay away, and when I
returned, he struck at me with his long black-snake, and Aunt Morning begged
me not to come back. When I saw her with the rest of our servants and about
fifty other slaves, handcuffed to a chain and marched, in charge of a guard
armed with guns and whips, aboard a steamer bound for New Orleans and con-
signed to a speculator to be sold to the sugar planters, my cup of woe was full
and I took a dislike for slavery which I never was able to overcome.”
Inasmuch as there has been a great deal of discussion in time past about
where the early settlers of Oregon were born the following statement is made
by George H. Himes, secretary of the Oregon Pioneer Association for twenty-
eight years, and assistant secretary of the Oregon Historical Society since its
organization in December, 1898: From information secured in person from
pioneers of Oregon during the past twenty-eight years, and now checked up for
the first time, I find that out of 7,444 pioneers who came to Oregon before
>>
240
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
1859, ninety-five per cent of whom came before 1854, fifty-six per cent were
born in the northern states, thirty-three per cent in the southern states, and
eleven per cent in twenty-one foreign countries. It is my belief that the above
ratio will hold good, substantially, in respect to the population of 52,465 which
Oregon is credited with by the U. S. census of 1860. It is true that more
persons came from Missouri to Oregon than from any other one state, but a
large proportion of them were born in other states, and began moving west-
ward by easy stages, until at length Missouri was reached, and then final prepara-
tions were made to cover the last stretch of territory that must be crossed before
reaching the Pacific ocean.
The emigrants were nearly all from pioneer farms; they knew how to 'rough
it,” knew how to make the best and the most of what little of this world's goods
they possessed. And they were not miserable and unhappy because they were
not rich. They were hopeful, cheerful, and happy in the prospect of better things,
and full of courage to make the herculean effort to get to Oregon. They were
also a hardy, vigorous lot of men and women, with children that could ride horses,
run races, and take a part in the strenuous life of a pioneer settlement. The
great labor, trial and long. continued exertion for a two thousand mile trip which
must face exhausting toil day after day for six months, that must submit to thirst,
heat, dust, sleep in the open and push ahead every day and all day rain or shine,
naturally and effectually debarred the weak, infirm or diseased from attempt-
ing the trip. They all had more or less of the three R's of a log school house edu-
cation—“Reading, 'Riting and 'Rithmetic."
What they lacked in book learning was made up in strong common sense and
practical experience in life. The first big train of emigrants contained one
lawyer, one surveyor, and one doctor, and half a dozen country exhorters and
preachers. The schoolmaster was conspicuous by his absence. It was now force,
power, push, courage, endurance to the last-or wretched failure. The pioneers
on the Oregon trail risked everything—and won. One of them, only a boy that
witnessed the motley throng, later in life sketched those heroic figures in forceful
lines:
“What strong, uncommon men were these-
These settlers hewing to the seas!
Great horny-handed men, and tan-
Their wretchedness held in the van,
Yet every man among them stood
Alone, along that sounding wood,
And every man--somehow a Man,
They pushed the matted wood aside,
They tossed the forest like a toy;
That grand, forgotten race of men-
The boldest band that yet has been
Together, since the siege of Troy!
WHAT WAS THE OUTFIT ?
The following were the requirements of emigrants who came to Oregon in
1843, driving ox teams, as specified by Peter H. Burnett, one of the men who
made the trip, writing back to a friend, says:
/ދހ/ / ހރ ހ
MINNES
INDIANA
ATLANTIC
St LAWRENCE RIVER
s
C
사
​C
P
FRANCISCO
o
SAN
-PHOLSY
E
t
1843
Ma
N
M
COVER
}
COLORE
1846
min
****
RTV
TVER
codule
at
spalis
Rocky
OIU
Z
Mou
ins
C
RA
1843
LAN
Prima
lanossiw
t
RIVĚ KL
ય 3 AT.
1805
Doorna
Z
7
AS
xxt-
-- T
Вт
PARKANSAS
GULF OF
| QWA
SEO
QUO
Τον R
Nisconsi
VISCOMSIN
M
LOISIANA
ILLINVIS
MISSISSIPPI
BALABAMA
MEXICO
TENNESSE
KENTUCKY
H
A
Z
PEL
OIHO
السر
QEORGHE
WEST
Virginia
N A
CAROLIN
SOUTH
CAROLINA
NORTH
HOLD
PENNSYLVANIA
NEW
Marya
IRGINIĄ
x180cm
New
i Jerry
A
Evermout
conno
MASS
ocean2
New Hom
xxxx Oregontrail
min
0.00 Route of Lewis and Clark
**= Applegate Trail:
cm. Fremont's Route from the Dalles.to Sanfomcisco Bay
MAINE
MAP OF UNITED STATES IN 1843
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
241
"The wagons for this trip should be two-horse wagons, plain yankee beds,
the running gear made of good materials, and fine workmanship, with falling
tongues; and all in a state of good repair. A few extra iron bolts, linch pins,
skeins, paint bands, for the axle, one cold chisel, a few pounds of wrought nails,
,
assorted, several papers of cut tacks, and some hoop iron, and a punch for mak-
ing holes in the hoop iron, a few chisels, handsaw, drawing knife, axes, and tools
generally; it would be well to bring, especially, augers, as they may be needed on
the way for repairing: All light tools that a man has, that do not weigh too much,
he ought to bring. Falling tongues are greatly superior to others, though both
will do. You frequently pass across hollows that have very steep, but short banks,
where falling tongues are preferable, and there are no trees on the way to break
them. The wagon sheets should be double and not painted, as that makes them
break. The wagon bows should be well made and strong, and it is best to have
sideboards, and have the upper edge of the wagon body beveled outward, so that
the water running down the wagon sheet, when it strikes the body, may run down
on the outside; and it is well to have the bottom of the bed beveled in the same
way, that the water may not run inside the wagon. Having your wagons well
prepared, they are as secure, almost, as a house. Tents and wagon sheets are best
made of heavy brown cotton drilling, and will last well all the way.
“Beware of heavy.wagons, as they break down your teams for no purpose, and
you will not need them. Light wagons will carry all you want, as there is nothing
to break them down, no logs, no stumps, no rock, until you get more than half
way, when your load is so much reduced, that there is then no danger. You see no
stumps on the road until you get to Burnt River, and very few there, no rock
until you get into the Black Hills, and only there for a short distance, and not
bad, and then you see none until you reach the Great Soda Spring, on Bear River
—at least none of any consequence. If an individual should have several wagons,
some good and some ordinary, he might start with all of them; and his ordinary
wagons will go to the mountains, where his load will be so reduced that his other
wagons will do. It is not necessary to bring along an extra axletree, as you will
rarely break one. A few pieces of well seasoned hickory, for the wedges and the
like, you ought to bring.
"Teams :--The best teams for this trip are ox teams. Let the oxen be from
three to five years old, well set and compactly built; just such oxen as are best
for uses at home. They should not be too heavy; as their feet will not bear the
trip so well; but oxen six, seven and eight years old, some of them very large,
stood the trip last year very well, but not so well in general as the younger and
lighter ones. Young cows make just as good a team as any. It is the travel and
not the pulling that tires your team, until after you reach Fort Hall. If you have
cows for a team, it requires more of them in bad roads, but they stand the trip
equally as well, if not better, than oxen. We fully tested the ox and mule teams,
and we found the ox teams greatly superior. One ox will pull as much as two
mules, and, in mud, as much as four. They are more easily managed, are not so
subject to be lost or broken down on the way, cost less at the start, and are worth
about four times as much here. The ox is a most noble animal, patient, thrifty,
durable, gentle, and easily driven, and does not run off. Those who come to this
country will be in love with their oxen by the time they reach here. The ox will
Vol. 1-16
242
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
plunge through the mud, swim over streams, dive into thickets, and climb moun-
tains to get at the grass, and he will eat almost anything.
"Milch cows on the road are exceedingly useful, as they give an abundance of
milk all the way, though less toward the close of it. By making what is called
thickened milk on the way, a great saving of flour is effected, and it is a most
rich and delicious food, especially for the children.
"Provisions:-One hundred and forty pounds of flour, forty pounds of bacon
to each person. Besides this, as much dried fruit, rice, corn meal, parched corn,
meal, and raw corn, peas, sugar, tea, coffee, and such like articles as you can well
bring. Flour will keep sweet the whole trip, corn meal to the mountains, and
parched corn meal all the way. The flour and meal ought to be put in sacks or
light barrels; and what they call shorts are just as good as the finest flour, and
will perhaps keep better; but I do not remember of any flour being spoiled on the
way. The parched corn meal is excellent to make soup. Dried fruit is excellent.
A few beef cattle to kill on the way, or fat calves, are very useful, as you need
fresh meat.
"The loading should consist mostly of provisions. Emigrants should not
burden themselves with furniture, or many beds; and a few light trunks, or very
light boxes, might be brought to pack clothes in. Trunks are best, but they should
be light. All heavy articles should be left, except a few cooking vessels, one
shovel, and a pair of pot hooks. Clothes enough to last a year, and several pair of
strong, heavy shoes to each person, it will be well to bring. If you are heavily
loaded let the quantity of sugar and coffee be small, as milk is preferable and does
not have to be hauled. You should have a water keg, and a tin canister made like
a powder canister to hold your milk in; a few tin cups, tin plates, tin saucers, and
butcher knives; and there should be a small grindstone in company, as the tools
become dull on the way. Many other articles may be useful. Rifles and shot-
guns, pistols, powder, lead and shot, I need hardly say are useful, and some of
them necessary on the road, and sell well here. A rifle that would cost $20.00 in
the States is worth $50.00 here, and shotguns in proportion.
Companies of from forty to fifty wagons are large enough. Americans are
prone to differ in opinion, and large companies become unwieldy, and the stock
become more troublesome. In driving stock to this country, about one in ten is
lost, not more. Having started, the best way to save the teams is to drive a rea-
sonable distance every day, and stop about an hour before sundown. This gives
time for arranging the camp, and for the teams to rest and eat before it is dark.
About eight hours' drive is long days-resting one hour at noon—I think is
enough. Never drive irregularly, if you can avoid it. On Platte River, Bear
River, and Boise River, and in many other places, you can camp at any point you
please; but at other places on the way you will be compelled to drive hard some
days to get water and range. When you reach the buffalo country never stop your
wagons to hunt, as you will eat up more provisions than you will save. It is
true, you can kill buffalo, but they are always far from camp, and the weather
is too warm to save much of it. When you reach the country of game, those who
have good horses can keep the company in fresh meat. If an individual wishes to
have great amusement hunting the buffalo, he had better have an extra horse, and
not use him until he reaches the buffalo region. Buffalo hunting is very hard
upon horses, and emigrants had better be cautious how they unnecessarily break
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
243
down their horses. A prudent care should be taken of horses, teams and pro-
visions, from the start. Nothing should be wasted or thrown away that can be
eaten. If a prudent course is taken, the trip can be made, in ordinary seasons,
in four months. It took us longer; but we lost a great deal of time on the road,
and had the way to break."
A mountain man known to travelers as Major Harris, and to the plainsmen as
“Black Harris”' in company with another Missouri warrior known to fame as
Major Adams, gives the following list for an outfit to Oregon:
"Every man should be provided at least with a good rifle, six pounds of
powder and twelve pounds of lead. The best size bore for a rifle is forty to the
pound. This size will easily kill buffalo, but a smaller calibre will be better suited
for the game west of the mountains. Each person should have at least one hun-
dred and forty pounds of bacon, one hundred and fifty pounds of flour, ten pounds
of salt, twenty pounds coffee, twenty pounds sugar. It would do well for several
persons to constitute a mess, each mess to be provided with a small tent and cook-
ing utensils. Mules are much better to endure this trip than horses, though a
horse is very useful in running buffalo. A horse, to be of use in hunting, might
be kept for that express purpose.
Medorem Crawford who came across the plains in 1842, and was one of the
men who formed the Provisional Government, gives a list of goods and trinkets
he brought along to trade with the Indians as follows:
PACK NO. 1
Pr. Blankets, Tobacco, 1 Bunch Glass Beads, 1 Bunch Fancy White, 1
Bunch Garnishing White, 2 Doz. Butcher Knives, 1 Bunch Blue Agate Beads, 1
Bunch Garnishing Blue, 1 Bunch Fish Hooks, 1 Piece Blue Cloth, Tobacco,
Powder, Glass Beads, Fancy White B. Garnishing, B. White, Butcher Knives,
Blue Agate Beads, 1 Blue Garnishing Beads, Fish Hooks, Blue Cloth, Crawford's
Clothes, 2 Bunch Bells, Rice, Flints, 2 Gross Rings, 2 Doz. Looking Glasses, 1
Blue Garnishing Beads, Crocker's Clothes, Red Cloth, Lead.
PACK NO. 2
Crawford's Clothes, Crocker's Clothes, 1 Blanket, 2 Bunches Bells, Rice and
Flints, 2 Gross Rings, 2 Doz. Looking Glasses, 1 Doz. Garnishing Beads, 1 Piece
Red Cloth, Bar Lead.
S. M. Gilmore, who came across in 1843, and after the experience of that trip
wrote back to friends in Missouri from Vancouver under date of November 11th,
1843, his advice to those planning to move to Oregon, as follows:
“Your wagons should be light, yet substantial and strong, and a plenty of good
oxen. Though I wrote while on the Sweetwater that mules were preferable, but
after seeing them thoroughly tried I have become convinced that oxen are more
preferable—they are the least trouble and stand traveling much the best-are
worth a great deal more when here. Load your wagons light and put one-third
more team to them than is necessary to pull the load. Bring nothing with you ex-
cept provisions and a plenty of clothes to do you for one year from the time you
leave. They can all be had on as good terms as in Missouri, and even better;
244
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
bring but few bedclothes, for they will be worn out when they arrive here—they
can be had here on good terms. Your oxen will not require shoeing. Bring a
plenty of loose cattle, cows, and heifers, particularly, as they are but little trouble,
and are worth a great deal. Bring mules to drive your loose stock. Bring a few
good American mares, but use them very tenderly, or you will not get them here.
American horses are worth considerable in this country. Horses can not get here
except they are well used, and you should have two or three pairs of shoes and
nails for them and your mules. You should bring 200 pounds of flour, 100 pounds
of bacon, for every member of the family that can eat, besides other provisions.
Make no calculation on getting buffalo or other wild meat, for you are only wast-
ing time and killing horses and mules to get it. Have your wagon beds made in
such a manner that they can be used for boats; you will find them of great service
in crossing streams-have your wagons well covered, so that they will not leak,
or your provisions and clothes will spoil. Have your tents made water tight; start
as early as possible; let your teams and stock all be in good order. Start as soon
as your stock can get grass enough to travel on, for the grass will be getting better
every day until you arrive at Fort Hall; after that you will find the grass bad in
places until you get to the Blue Mountains. You will find plenty of grass from
there to the Willamette Valley. Our cattle are in better order than they were
one month ago. Large flintlock guns are good to traffic with the Snake Indians.
Bring a plenty of cheap cotton shirts to trade to the Indians on this side of the
mountains. You might start with calves and kill them on the way, before they get
poor for fresh eating. You will find some beans, rice, and dried fruit of great use
on the road. You should travel in companies of forty wagons, and continue to-
gether the whole route. You will find some ship biscuit to be of great use at times
when you can not find fuel sufficient to cook with.
"Be sure and bring nothing except what will be of material use to you on your
journey, for, depend upon it, if you overload you will lose your team, wagon and
goods. You will find good, stout, young cows to answer in place of oxen, in case
you should not have sufficient; let them be about middle size; let them be good,
sound oxen, that have never been injured. I am satisfied from the products of the
country that a man can live easier here than he can in any part of the United
States. If he raises any produce he is sure of getting a good price for it in any-
thing he may call for, money excepted. There is very little money in this country,
though it is very little use when a man can get anything he wants without it. The
merchants here will sell their goods cheaper for produce or labor than they will
sell for cash, because they make a profit on the commodities they purchase, while
there is no profit on cash. In fact, business is done here altogether by exchanging
commodities. We can purchase anything of the Hudson's Bay Company cheaper
by promising wheat next year than we can for cash in hand. Cows are worth
(that is, American), from $30.00 to $50.00; American horses from $60.00 to
$100.00; oxen $60.00 to $80.00; wheat, $1.00 per bushel ; oats, 40 cents; potatoes,
40 cents; peas the same; beef, 6 cents; pork, 10 cents; butter, 20 cents; common
labor, $1.50; mechanics, $2.00 to $3.00.
"The next emigration will get their cattle and wagons through quite easy, if
they will start early and travel constantly, though slow; they must not push.”
Porn
KANSAS CITY IN 1843, AS THE OREGON EMIGRANTS LEFT IT
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
245
"ALL ABOARD FOR OREGON'S
The following notice was printed in the Western (Missouri) Journal, March
15, 1845 :
“Mr. Editor: I wish to give notice, through your paper, to all those parties
who intend to emigrate to Oregon, that arrangements have been made to cross
the Missouri river at two different points, the one in Andrew, the other in Bu-
chanan county. Some of the citizens of Andrew have made arrangements with
the Sac Indians for the privilege of range, wood and water, opposite Elizabeth-
town.
“They have promised the Indians six two-year-old beeves, to be paid by that
portion of the Oregon company which may cross at Elizabethtown. This point
is very suitable for crossing the Missouri river. The rates are only about half
what is usual at the common ferries on the Missouri.
“The company expect to rendezvous in the Indian country opposite Eliza-
bethtown, between the first and tenth of April. A number of excellent citizens
expect to cross at this place. This is the point from which a portion of the Ore-
gon company started last spring. Taking all things into consideration, this is
probably the best route to cross the Missouri at Elizabethtown (where there is
an excellent large ferry-boat) and fall on the Platte, opposite the Pawnee
village, and thence pass along up the south side of the Platte river.
"A MEMBER OF THE OREGON COMPANY'S
THE RENDEZVOUS
Col. James W. Nesmith has given an account of the gathering of the clans at
Fitzhugh's mill near Independence, Missouri, and this is copied as the best des-
cription possible.
“Without orders from any quarter, and without preconcert, promptly as the
grass began to start, the emigrants began to assemble near Independence, at a
place called Fitzhugh's Mill. On the seventeenth day of May, 1843, notices were
circulated through the different encampments that on the succeeding day, those
who contemplated emigrating to Oregon, would meet at a designated point to
organize. Promptly at the appointed hour the motley groups assembled. They
consisted of people from all the States and Territories, and nearly all nation-
alities; the most, however, from Arkansas, Illinois, Missouri, and Iowa, and all
strangers to one another, but impressed with some crude idea that there existed
an imperative necessity for some kind of an organization for mutual protection
against the hostile Indians inhabiting the great unknown wilderness stretching
away to the shores of the Pacific, and which they were about to traverse, with
their wives and children, household goods, and all their earthly possessions.
Many of the emigrants were from the western tier of counties of Missouri,
known as the Platte Purchase, and among them was Peter H. Burnett, a former
merchant who had abandoned the yard-stick and become a lawyer of some celeb-
rity for his ability as a smooth-tongued advocate. He subsequently emigrated
to California, and was elected the first governor of the Golden State, was after-
ward chief justice and still an honored resident of that State. Mr. Burnett, or
as he was familiarly designated “Pete," was called upon for a speech. Mount-
246
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
ing a log, the glib-tongued orator delivered a glowing, florid address. He com-
menced by showing his audience that the then western tier of states and terri-
tories was over-crowded with a redundant population, who had not sufficient
elbow room for the expansion of their enterprise and genius, and it was a duty
they owed to themselves and posterity to strike out in search of a more expanded
field and more genial climate, where the soil yielded the richest return for the
slightest amount of cultivation, where the trees were loaded with perennial fruit,
and where a good substitute for bread, called lacamas, grew in the ground,
salmon and other fish crowded the streams, and where the principal labor of
the settler would be confined to keeping their gardens free from the inroads of
buffalo, elk, deer, and wild turkeys. He appealed to our patriotism by pictur-
ing forth the glorious empire we would establish on the shores of the Pacific.
How, with our trusty rifles, we would drive out the British usurpers who claimed
the soil, and defend the country from the avarice and pretensions of the British
lion, and how posterity would honor us for placing the fairest portion of our
land under the dominion of the Stars and Stripes. He concluded with a slight
allusion to the trials and hardships incident to the trip, and dangers to be en-
countered from hostile Indians, on the route, and those inhabiting the country
whither we were bound. He furthermore intimated a desire to look upon the
tribe of noble “red men” that the valiant and well-armed crowd around could
not vanquish in a single encounter.
Other speeches were made, full of glowing descriptions of the fair land of
promise, the far-away-Oregon, which no one in the assemblage had even seen,
and of which not more than half a dozen had ever read any account. After the
election of Mr. Burnett as captain, and other necessary officers, the meeting, as
motley and primitive as one ever assembled, adjourned, with "three cheers” for
Captain Burnett and Oregon. On the 20th day of May, 1843, after a pretty thor-
ough military organization, we took up our line of march; with Captain John
Gantt, an old army officer, who combined the character of trapper and moun-
taipeer, as our guide. Gantt had in his wanderings been as far as Green River,
and assured us of the practicability of a wagon road thus far. Green River, the
extent of our guide's knowledge in that direction, was not half-way to the Wil-
lamette valley, the then only inhabited portion of Oregon. Beyond that we had
not the slightest conjecture of the condition of the country. We went forth
trusting to the future, and would doubtless have encountered more difficulties
than we experienced had not Dr. Whitman overtaken us before we reached the
terminus of our guide's knowledge. He was familiar with the whole route and
was confident that wagons could pass through the canyons and gorges of Snake
River and over the Blue Mountains, which the mountaineers in the vicinity of
Fort Hall declared to be a physical impossibility.
“Captain Grant, then in charge of the Hudson's Bay Company, at Fort Hall,
endeavored to dissuade us from proceeding further with our wagons, and showed
us the wagons that the emigrants of the preceding year had abandoned as an
evidence of the impracticability of our determination. Dr. Whitman was per-
sistent in his assertions that wagons could proceed as far as the Grand Dalles
of the Columbia River, from which point he asserted they could be taken down
by rafts or batteaux to the Willamette Valley, while our stock could be driven
by an Indian trail over the Cascade Mountains, near Mount Hood. Happily


IV.
OF
2
M
INDIANS CHASJNG BUFFALOES, SCOTT'S BLUFFS
FIRST NIGHT ON THE PLAINS
Puused by J. M. HUTOHINGS, Plasarrillo. Copyright soured.
DRIVING STOCK ACROSS THE PLAINS
(lon drawn from Nature to 1853 by George L Baker
STUCK FIST
CALIFORNIA
KIEL
ਝੜਦੇ
EMIGRANT TRAIN PASSING WIND RIVEN MOUNTAINS
OHTIVE ROCK
EMIGRANTS ON THE TRAIL TO OREGON
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
247
Whitman's advice prevailed, and a large number of the wagons with a portion
of the stock, did reach Walla Walla and The Dalles, from which points they
were taken to the Willamette the following year. Had we followed Grant's ad-
vice and abandoned the cattle and wagons at Fort Hall, much suffering must
have ensued, as a sufficient number of horses to carry the women and children
of the party could not have been obtained, besides wagons, and cattle were in-
dispensable to men expecting to live by farming in a country destitute of such
articles.
“At Fort Hall we fell in with some Cayuse and Nez Perce Indians re-
turning from the buffalo country, and as it was necessary for Dr. Whitman to
precede us to Walla Walla, he recommended to us a guide in the person of an
old Cayuse Indian called “Sticcus.” He was a faithful old fellow, perfectly
familiar with all the trails and topography of the country from Fort Hall to The
Dalles, and although not speaking a word of English, and no one in our party
a word of Cayuse, he succeeded by pantomime in taking us over the roughest
wagon route I ever saw."
THE CARAVAN STARTS
*
There is no account of the work of the Pioneers so satisfactory as that of
those who took part in it, the actual witnesses of the movement. Jesse Apple-
gate, affectionately styled “Uncle Jesse,” has written an account of the Immi-
grant Train of 1843, of which he was a member, that is remarkable for its force
and brevity. And from that account is taken the following extract:
"The migrating body numbered over one thousand souls, with about 120
wagons, drawn by six ox teams åveraging about six yokes (12 oxen) to the team,
and several thousand loose horses and cattle. The emigrants first organized and
attempted to travel in one body, but it was soon found that no progress could be
made with a body, so cumbrous, and as yet so averse to all discipline. At the
crossing of the Big Blue River (in Kansas) the train divided into two columns,
traveling within supporting distance of each other, in case of an attack by In-
dians.
"It is four o'clock A. M., the sentinels on duty have discharged their rifles-
the signal that the hours of sleep are over--and every wagon and tent is pour-
ing forth its night tenants, and slow-kindling smokes begin largely to rise and
float away in the morning air. Sixty men start from the corral, spreading as
they make through the vast herd of cattle and horses, that form a semicircle
around the encampment, the most distant perhaps two miles away.
"The herders pass to the extreme verge and carefully examine for trails be-
yond, to see that none of the animals have strayed or been stolen during the
night. This morning no trails led beyond the outside animals in sight, and by
5 o'clock the herders begin to contract the great moving circle, and the well-
trained animals move slowly towards camp, clipping here and there a thistle
or a tempting bunch of grass on the way. In about an hour five thousand ani-
mals are close up to the encampment, and the teamsters are busy selecting their
teams and driving them inside the corral to be yoked. The corral is a circle one
hundred yards deep, formed with wagons connected strongly with each other;
the wagon in the rear being connected with the wagon in front by its tongue and
248
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
ox chains. It is a strong barrier that the most vicious ox cannot break, and in
case of an attack of the Sioux would be no contemptible entrenchment.
"From 6 to 7 o'clock is a busy time; breakfast is to be eaten, the tents struck, ,
the wagons loaded and the teams yoked and brought up in readiness to be at-
tached to their respective wagons. All know when, at 7 o'clock, the signal to
march sounds, that those not ready to take their proper places in the line of
march, must fall into the dusty rear for the day.
There are sixty wagons. They have been divided into fifteen divisions or
platoons of four wagons each, and each platoon is entitled to lead in its turn.
The leading platoon today will be the rear one tomorrow, and will bring up the
rear unless some teamster, through indolence or negligence, has lost his place
in the line, and is condemned to that uncomfortable post. It is within ten min-
utes of seven, the corral but now a strong barricade is everywhere broken, the
teams being attached to the wagons. The women and children have taken their
places in them. The pilot (a borderer who has passed his life on the verge of
civilization and has been chosen to the post of leader from his knowledge of the
savage and his experience in travel through roadless wastes), stands ready in
the midst of his pioneers and aids, to mount and lead the way. Ten or fifteen
young men, not today on duty, form another cluster. They are ready to start on
a buffalo hunt, are well mounted and well armed, as they need be, for the un-
friendly Sioux have driven the buffalo out of the Platte, and the hunters must
ride fifteen or twenty miles to reach them. The cow drivers are hastening, as
they get ready, to the rear of their charges, to collect and prepare them for the
day's march.
"It is on the stroke of seven; the rush to and fro, the cracking of whips, the
loud command to oxen, and what seemed to be the inextricable confusion of the
last ten minutes, has ceased. Fortunately every one has been found and every
teamster is at his post. The clear notes of a trumpet sound in the front; the
pilot and his guards mount their horses; the leading division of the wagons move
out of the encampment, and take up the line of march; the rest fall into their
places with the precision of clock work, until the spot so lately full of life sinks
back into that solitude that seems to reign over the broad plain and rushing
river as the caravan draws its lazy length towards the distant El Dorado. *
"They (the wagons) form a line three-quarters of a mile in length; some
of the teamsters ride upon the front of their wagons; some march beside their
teams; scattered along the line companies of women and children are taking exer-
cise on foot; they gather bouquets of rare and beautiful flowers that line the way;
near them stalks a stately greyhound, or an Irish wolf dog, apparently proud of
keeping watch and ward over his master's wife and children. Next comes a band
of horses; two or three men or boys follow them, the docile and sagacious animals
scarce needing this attention, for they have learned to follow in the rear of the
the wagons, and know that at noon they will be allowed to graze and rest. Their
knowledge of time seems as accurate as of the place they are to occupy in the
line, and even a full-blown thistle will scarce tempt to straggle or halt until
the dinner hour has arrived. Not so with the large herd of horned beasts that
bring up the rear; lazy, selfish and unsocial, it has been a task to get them in
motion, the strong always ready to domineer over the weak, halt in the front
and forbid the weak to pass them. They seem to move only in the fear of the
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
249
driver's whip; though in the morning, full to repletion, they have not been
driven an hour before their hunger and thirst seem to indicate a fast of days'
duration. Through all the long day their greed is never sated, nor their
thirst quenched; nor is there a moment of relaxation of the tedious and vexa-
tious labors of their drivers, although to all others the march furnishes some
season of relaxation or enjoyment. For the cow-drivers there is none.
“But the picture in its granduer, its wonderful mingling colors and dis-
tinctness of detail, is forgotten in contemplation of the singular people who
give it life and animation. No other race of men with the means at their com-
mand would undertake so great a journey, none save these could successfully
perform it, with no previous preparation, relying only on the fertility of their
invention to devise the means to overcome each danger and difficulty as
it arose. They had undertaken to perform with slow-moving oxen a journey
two thousand miles. The way lies over trackless wastes, wide and deep rivers,
rugged and lofty mountains, and is beset with hostile savages. Yet, whether
it were a deep river with no tree upon its banks, a rugged defile where even a
loose horse could not pass, a hill too steep for him to climb, or a threatened
attack of an enemy, they are always found ready and equal to the occasion, and
always conquerors. May we not call them men of destiny? They are people
changed in no essential particulars from their ancestors, who have followed
closely on the footsteps of the receding savage, from the Atlantic seaboard to
the great valley of the Mississippi.''
Of the Emigration in 1852, Ezra Meeker (The Trail Marker) who, with his
family was a part of that long train, gives the following account:
"There were hundreds of noble men trudging up the Platte valley at that
time in an army Over Five Hundred Miles Long, many of whom 'laid down a
sacrifice to duty, or maybe to inherent weakness of body. While it is true
that such an experience brings out the worst features of individual characters,
yet it is also true that the shining virtues come to the front likewise."
This great movement which was to save Oregon to the Nation, and which
was started primarily by a few religious enthusiasts to convert the Indians to
Christianity, was regarded by the educated and well to do classes of the eastern
states as the height of folly. Horace Greeley was the personification of the
Western states "booster," continually urging young men to “Go west and
grow up with the country.” But of the movement to Oregon, this modern Ben.
Franklin, and in the New York Tribune of July 22, 1843, gives the Emigrants
the following notice:
“For what do they brave the desert, the wilderness, the savages, the snowy
precipices of the Rocky Mountains, the weary summer march, the storm-drenched
bivouac, and the gnawing of famine! This emigration of more than one thou-
sand persons in one body to Oregon wears an aspect of insanity.'
And that is what it did look like to the great mass of the people of the United
States.
THE HEROIC PIONEER WOMAN
“Of the fortitude of the women one can not say too much. Embarrassed at
the start by the follies of fashion (and long dresses which were quickly discarded
and the bloomer donned), they soon rose to the occasion and cast false modesty
250
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
aside. Could we but have had the camera (of course not then in existence) on
one of those typical camps, what a picture there would be. Elderly matrons
dressed almost as like the little sprite miss of tender years of today. The younger
women more shy of accepting the inevitable, but finally fell into the procession,
and we had a community of women wearing bloomers without invidious comment,
or in fact of any comment at all. Some of them soon went barefoot, partly from
choice and in other cases from necessity. The same could be said of the men,
as shoe leather began to grind out from the sand and dry heat. Of all the fan-
tastic costumes it is safe to say the like before was never seen nor equaled. The
scene beggars description. Patches became visible upon the clothing of preachers
as well as laymen; the situation brooked no respect of persons. The grand-
mother's cap was soon displaced by a handkerchief or perhaps a bit of cloth.
Grandfather's high crowned hat disappeared as if by magic. Hatless and boot-
less men became a common sight. Bonnetless women were to be seen on all sides
They wore what they had left or could get without question of the fitness of things.
Rich dresses were worn by some ladies because they had no others left; the gentle-
men drew on their wardrobes till scarcely a fine unsoiled suit was left.
HARDSHIPS
“The dust has been spoken of as intolerable. The word hardly expresses the
situation; in fact, I can not say the English language contains the word to de-
fine it. Here was a moving mass of humanity and dumb brutes at times mixed in
inextricable confusion a hundred feet wide or more. At times two columns of
wagons traveling on parallel lines and near each other served as a barrier to
prevent loose stock from crossing, but usually there would be an almost inex-
tricable mass of cows, young cattle, horses, and footmen moving along the out-
skirts. Here and there would be drivers of loose stock, some on foot and some
on horseback; a young girl may be riding astride with a younger child, going
here and there after an intractable cow, while the mother could be seen in
confusion lending a helping hand. As in a thronged city street, no one seemed
to look to the right or to the left, or pay much if any attention to others, bent
alone on accomplishment of their task in hand. Over all, in calm weather at
times, the dust would settle so thick that the lead team of oxen could not be seen
from the wagon; like a London fog, so thick one might almost cut it. Then again,
that steady flow of wind up to and through the South Pass would hurl the dust
and sand in one's face sometimes with force enough to sting from the impact
upon the face and hands.
THE GREAT CHOLERA PANIC
"The scourge of cholera on the Platte in 1852 is far beyond my power of de-
scription. In later years I have witnessed panics on shipboard; have experienced
the horrors of the flight of a whole population from the grasp of the Indians,
but never before nor since such scenes as those in the thickest of the ravages
of cholera. It did seem that people lost all control of themselves and of others.
Whole trains could be seen contending for the mastery of the road by day, and
the power of endurance tested to the utmost both men and beast at night. The

PREPARING FOR AN INDIAN ATTACK
OLDS' FERRY ON SNAKE RIVER
THE DEVIL'S GATE-ROCKY MOUNTAINS
OF
3
Mio
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
251
1
'scourge came from the south, as we met the trains that crossed the Platte and con-
gested the trail, one might almost say, both day and night. And small wonder
when such scenes occurred as is related. Mrs. M. E. Jones now of North Yakima,
relates that forty people of their train died in one day and two nights before
reaching the crossing of the Platte. Martin Cook, of Newberg, Oregon, is my au-
thority for the following: A family of seven persons, the father known as Dad
Friels,'' from Hartford, Warren county, Iowa, all died of cholera and were buried
in one grave. He could not tell me the locality nor the exact date, but it would be
useless to search for the graves, as all such have long ago been leveled by the
passing of the hoofs of the buffalo or domestic stock, or met the fate of hun-
dreds of shallow graves, desecrated by the hungry wolves. While camped with
a sick brother four days a short distance above Grand island, by actual count of
one day and estimate for three, sixteen hundred wagons passed by, and a neigh-
boring burial place grew from five to fifty-two fresh graves. With unusual
opportunities for gathering information upon this subject, through personal
acquaintance with pioneers throughout the Pacific northwest, all of whom came
to that region prior to 1860, it is his judgment that from twenty-five to thirty
thousand men, women and children were buried in nameless graves between the
Missouri river and the Columbia river, as a part of the price paid for the early
settlement of Oregon.
All sorts of incidents of human life break the monotony of the march. Sud-
denly a wagon is seen to pull out of the train and off to the wayside. The only
doctor in the train (Marcus Whitman) goes off with it. Many are the
inquiries of the unusual event; and grave fears expressed of the danger of leaving
a lone wagon behind in an Indian country. The lumbering caravan moves slowly
on, passes behind the bluffs and out of sight, and the anxiety and fears for the
lone wagon left behind increase. The train balts for the night, forms its defensive
circle, fires are lighted for the evening meal and the shadows of the night are
creeping down upon the camp-when, behold, the lone wagon rolls into camp,
the doctor smiling and happy-it was a newborn boy-mother and child all
right and ready for the continued journey.
Applegate, in the article mentioned, speaking of Dr. Whitman, who had
been over the trail once before, says his constant advice was "travel, travel,
travel; nothing else will take you to the end of your journey; nothing is wise
that does not help you along; nothing is good for you that causes a moment's
delay.” And Applegate adds his testimonial as follows: “It is no disparage-
ment to others to say that to no other individual are the emigrants of 1843 so
much indebted for the successful conclusion of their journey as to Dr. Whit-
>>
man."
The watch for the night is set; the flute and violin have ceased their sooth-
ing notes, the enamored swain has whispered his last good night, or stolen the
last kiss from his blushing sweetheart, and all is hushed in the slumber of the
camp of one thousand persons in the heart of the great mountains a thousand
miles from any white man's habitation, with savage Indians in all directions.
What a picture of American ideas, push, enterprise, courage and empire build-
ing. Risking everything, braving every danger, and conquering every diffi-
culty and obstruction. We are a vain, conceited, bumptious people, boasting
of our good deeds and utterly ignoring our bad ones. But where is the people
252
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
that have accomplished such work as these Missourians and their neighbors
from Jowa, did in literally picking up a commonwealth in pieces, on the other
side of the continent and transporting it two thousand miles to the Pacific coast
and setting it down here around and about this Willamette valley, and starting
it off in good working order at Champoeg, with all the state machinery to pro-
tect life and property and promote the peace and happiness of all concerned,
and all others who might join in the society. It is something to be proud of.
Mrs. Victor, in her work on the Indian Wars of Oregon, sums up the trials
and sufferings of the emigrants of 1844-45.
"The immigration of 1845 numbered about three thousand persons and al-
most doubled the white population of Oregon; that of 1844 having been about
seven hundred and fifty. But if their numbers were small, their patriotism
was large, and they made no secret of the fact that some of them had come all
the way from Missouri to burn Fort Vancouver. So many threats of a similar
nature had found utterance ever since the first large party of 1843, that the
officers of the British company had thought it only prudent to strengthen their
defenses and keep a sloop of war lying in the Columbia. What the company
simply did for defense the settlers constructed into offense, and both parties
were on the alert for the first overt act."
The passage down the Columbia was one of excessive hardship and danger,
each immigration having endured incredible suffering, and also loss, in coming
from The Dalles to the Willamette valley; families and wagons being shipped
on rafts to the Cascades, where a portage had to be made of several miles, and
whence another voyage had to be undertaken in such poor craft as could be
constructed or hired, taking weeks to complete this portion of the long journey
from the states, in the late and rainy months of the year; the oxen and herds
being driven down to Vancouver on the north side of the river, or being left
the upper country to be herded by the Indians. The rear of the immigra-
tion of 1844, remained at Whitman's mission over the winter, and several fam-
ilies at The Dalles. The larger body of 1845 divided, some coming down the
river and others crossing the Cascade mountains by two routes, but each en-
during the extreme of misery. John Minto, then a young man, says of 1844:
"I found men in the prime of life lying among the rocks (at the Cascades)
seeming ready to die. I found there mothers with their families, whose hus-
bands were snowbound in the Cascade mountains without provisions, and obliged
to kill and eat their game dogs.
There was scarcely a dry day,
and the snow line was nearly down to the river." The scenes were repeated in
1845 with a greater number of sufferers, one wing of the long column taking
a cut-off by following which they became lost, and had all but perished in a
desert country. "Despair settled upon the people; old men and children wept
together, and the strongest could not speak hopefully. "Only the women,
says one narrator, "continued to show firmness and courage."
The perils and pains of the Plymouth Rock pilgrims were not greater than
those of the pioneers of Oregon, and there are few incidents in history more pro-
foundly sad than the narratives of hardships undergone in the settlement of
this country. The names of the men who pioneered the wagon road around the
base of Mount Hood are worthy of all remembrance. They were Joel Palmer,
Henry M. Knighton, W. H. Rector and Samuel K. Barlow, in particular; but


JAMES BRIDGER
Explorer and Friend of Oregon Pioneers
OF
UNIO
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
253
there were many others, even women, who crossed the mountains late in the year
of 1845 on pack horses, barely escaping starvation through the exertions of
Barlow and Rector in getting through to Oregon City and forwarding to them
a pack-train with provisions. The wagons, which it was impossible to move be-
yond Rock creek, were abandoned, the goods cached, except such necessaries
as could be packed on half starved oxen, the men walking in the snow and all
often soaked with rain. Children with feet almost bare endured this terrible
journey, the like of which can never again occur on this continent.
Some of the more thoughful men of the colony, taking into consideration
the peculiar inaccessibilty of western Oregon from the east and the possibility
of war with England, asked themselves how United States troops were to come
to their assistance in such a case. The natural obstacles of the Columbia river
pass were so great as to be almost positively exclusive in the absence of the
usual means of transportation, and the stationing of but a small force of a single
battery, at the Cascades, would effectually exclude an army.
The colonists were still expecting the passage of Linn's bill, and with it the
long promised military protection; but there was the possibility that the very
moment of greatest need, they might be left at the mercy of an invading foe, and
its savage allies, while the troops sent to their relief were fenced out and left to
starve east of the mountains, or to die exhausted with their long march and the
effort to force the passage of the Cascades.
And such were the hardships of the brave men and women who came to
Oregon with ox teams; who blazed the way for civilization and everything
that goes with it; who made it possible for their descendants, and 1912 immi-
grants, to ride to Oregon in palace cars, with dining cars, comfortable couches,
and colored servants; and greater than all other things—saved Oregon to the
United States.
HOW MANY CAME BY THE OX TEAM TRAIN?.
Professor F. G. Young, secretary of the Oregon Historical Society, and Mr.
Elwood Evans, author of the “History of the Northwest,'' substantially agree
on the following estimates :
The estimate given below for 1842 and 1843, are well founded, but the
others, especially from 1847 on, are from no very tangible basis.
At the close of 1841, the Americans in Oregon numbered possibly four hun-
dred.
The Immigration of 1842 estimated from
105 to 137
The Immigration of 1843 estimated from
...875 to 1000
The Immigration of 1844 estimated about
700
The Immigration of 1845 estimated about
3000
The Immigration of 1846 estimated about
1350
The above figures are taken quite closely from those given by Elwood Evans
in his address before the Pioneer Association in 1877. I (Young) make the Im-
migration of 1844, however, seven hundred, instead of four hundred and sev-
enty-five as he gives it.
The Immigration of 1847 between
.4000 and 5000
The Immigration of 1848 about
700
254
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
The Immigration of 1849 about
The Immigration of 1850 about
The Immigration of 1851 about
The Immigration of 1852 about
400
2000
1500
2500
Making a total of about twenty thousand persons in ten years.
THE GREAT TRAIL
+
The Oregon trail, or as the Indians termed it—"The Big Medicine Road”?
is entitled to consideration in this connection. The great mass of people not
familiar with Oregon history have the idea that the Lewis and Clark Expedi-
tion of 1805 opened the trail to Oregon. As a matter of fact and history, that
expedition did not locate any part of the Oregon trail. Lewis and Clark pro-
ceeded west on the proposition of ascending the Missouri river as far as possi-
ble with boats and canoes, and then crossing over the Rocky mountains to the
nearest branch of the Columbia river, and then descending that branch in
canoes to the ocean. That plan carried them to a crossing of the mountains
three hundred miles north of the route pursued by the Hunt party six years
later. The Hunt party went as far north as they dared to for fear of trouble
with the Blackfeet Indians; and did not commence to locate any part of the
Oregon trail until they reached "Fort Henry” on the south branch or Henry
branch of Snake river. But from that point on to the Columbia river the route
of the Trail was located by Hunt and members of his party. The reader will
remember that in describing Hunt's troubles in the Snake river valley that after
he found the Snake river was not navigable he sent out three parties-McKenzie
to go north and find another branch of the Columbia river; Crooks to go down
the west side of the Snake river, and Hunt, himself, with the balance of the
party, to go down the east side of the Snake river. These parties determined
the fact that the Snake river could not be navigated through its great canyon,
nor traveled on land through that canyon. This discovery forced Hunt and
Crooks to return to the route which nature had made through the Blue moun-
tains, where Baker and La Grande are now located, and where the Indian guide
piloted them through to the Umatilla river. That experience selected the route
of the Trail that far. Then, in five months after Hunt reached Astoria in
January, 1812, he dispatched a party under the lead of Robert Stuart to carry
a report back to Astor as to the condition of affairs at Astoria. Stuart had
six men and on this return trip had the benefit of the experience and observa-
tions of Hunt on his trip form the Missouri to the Columbia.
And profiting by such experience and advice crossed the Rocky mountains
going eastward through the celebrated "South Pass." From that point to the
Missouri river, down the Platte valley, it was plain sailing, for that part of the
route had been traveled by trappers for years. It is historicaaly correct to
say that the route of the Oregon Trail was located by Wilson Price Hunt and
Robert Stuart. But they traveled with Indian ponies and left few marks or
traces of their route except at camping places.
They found and followed the route marked out by the maker of rivers, plains
and mountains.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
255
THE FIRST WAGON ON THE TRAIL
Finding a practicable route for a wagon way is one thing, but getting the
first wagon over that route is another matter, and making a highway for thou-
sands of wagons a still greater. To Marcus Whitman belongs the honor of at-
tempting the first wagon haul from Missouri to Oregon. If one could transfer
their personality back seventy-six years to the May morning in 1836, when Dr.
Whitman and his young bride, Rev. Spalding and his bride, the invincible W. H.
Gray and the two Nez Perce Indian boys, all and each with light hearts and
high hopes, seated themselves in that first wagon to test all the unknown and
unforseeable toils and dangers of a two-thousand-mile ride over plains, deserts,
mountains and unbroken forests, they might get some idea of the courage, hero-
ism and self-sacrifice which animated that first wagon party on its holy mission
to Oregon. These two cultured women were the first white women to attempt
that unequaled exploit in the history of mankind. And these two women have
been well named “The Real Pioneers of Civilization in the Oregon Territory."
The American Board of Missions provided for Whitman a generous outfit-
blacksmith tools, plows, seed grain, clothing for two years and other necessaries,
pack animals, riding horses, sixteen cows and two wagons, making in itself quite
a train, and which was driven and managed by W. H. Gray and the two Indian
boys. Soon after starting, the Whitman party overtook the Fitzpatrick fur
traders with their carts, and then making up altogether a caravan of nineteen
carts, one light wagon and two heavy wagons. On reaching Fort Laramie, at
the junction of the North Platte and Laramie rivers, in what is now Laramie
county, Wyoming, the fur traders' carts stopped, that being as far as it was
then deemed practicable for wheeled vehicles, but on account of the enfeebled
condition of Mrs. Spalding, Whitman decided to retain the lighter of his two wag-
ons and leave the others behind. In this way Mrs. Spalding was carried on safely
and comfortably through the South Pass of the Rocky mountains, following a
natural highway. At Green river, Whitman met the annual rendezvous of the fur
traders, and also Captain Wyeth, returinig from his second expedition to Oregon.
Here both the fur traders and Wyeth united in advising Whitman not to attempt
to go on with his wagon, which they assured him would not only give him great
trouble, but dangerously delay his trip. Nevertheless, the courageous Whitman
resolved to take his wagon along, and did so successfully, reaching Fort Hall
in what is now Bingham county, Idaho, July 24, 1836. Here Whitman and his
party had to stop for rest and repairs, and here he was again warned that he
could not travel through that country with his wagon. Loth to give up the
wagon enterprise, the Doctor resolved on a compromise-he would convert the
wagon into a cart, proceeding with the front axle, fore wheels and tongue, and
put the hind axle and wheels on top as cargo; and in that shape the wagon was
drawn down through the Snake river valley, over lava rocks, sand plains and
sage brush a distance of two hundred and fifty miles to old Fort Boise. And
there the old historical wagon—the first to pass the Rocky mountains—was left
because the horses and the whole party had become so tired out with the labor of
the long journey, it was not safe to try to drag it through to the Columbia river.
But Whitman's wagon did not make a wagon road. It had followed the
route found by Hunt and Stuart, and had blazed the way, and that was honor
256
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
enough. Three years later, Dr. Robert Newell and others concluding to leave
the Rocky mountain region and come to Oregon, came through by Fort Boise,
and picked up the remains of Whitman's wagon, and brought it safely through
with their wagons, and delivered it up to the Doctor at Wailatpu Mission.
The experience of Dr. Whitman showed that it was not an impossible under-
taking to bring wagons from the Missouri river through the South Pass of the
Rocky mountains to Fort Hall. And six years later, that party of emigrants
coming into Oregon with Dr. White, United States Indian agent, brought nine-
teen wagons as far as Fort Hall and then traded or sold them to the agent of The
Hudson's Bay Company, and came on to Oregon with horses. That was a very
valuable addition to the population of Oregon, bringing in some very good men
who were active in organizing the provisional government.
Their names are as follows: Thos. Boggs, Gabriel Brown, Wm. Brown, James
Brown, Hugh Burns, G. W. Bellamy, Barnum, Winston, Bennett, Vandeman
Bennett, Bailey, Bridges, Nathaniel Crocker, Nathan Coombs, Patrick Clark, Alex-
ander Copeland, Medorem Crawford, A. N. Coats, Jas. Coats, John Dearum,
John Daubenbiss, Samuel Davis, Allen Davie, John Force, Jas. Force, Foster,
Jos. Gibbs, Girtman, Lansford W. Hastings, John Hofstetter, J. M. Hudspeth,
Hardin Jones, Columbia Lancaster, Reuben Allen, A. L. Lovejoy, S. W. Moss,
J. L. Morrison, John McKay, Alexander McKay, Dutch Paul, Walter Pomeroy,
J. H. Perry, Dwight Pomeroy, J. R. Robb, T. J. Shadden, Owen Sumner, An-
drew Smith, A. D. Smith, Darling Smith, A. Towner, Joel Turnham, David Wes-
ton, Elijah White. Of these, ten had families, as follows: Gabriel Brown, Mr.
Bennett, Jas. Force, Mr. Girtman, Columbia Lancaster, Walter Pomeroy, J. W.
Perry, T. J. Shadden, Owen Sumner and Andrew Smith. But Hastings gives
the force of armed men as eighty, and Fremont as sixty-four. Crawford says
the whole number of emigrants was one hundred and five. The largest number
given by any authority is one hundred and sixty. Lovejoy says about seventy
were able to stand guard. White's statement that there were one hundred and
twelve persons in the company when it organized, and that this number was
augmented on the road until it reached one hundred and twenty-five, is probably
the most reliable, and agrees with the account given in Lee and Frost's Oregon.
Now the "Trail is made, and Whitman made the Trail;" but there is yet no
wagon road. The emigration of 1843 made the wagon road, now immortalized
by the travelers thereon, and by its great results as "The Oregon Trail.” When
the wagon train of 1843 pulled out from Fitzhugh's Mill, near Independence,
Missouri, the members of that train soon found that there must be an advance
guard to clear the way. Then at the next camp they organized a party of fifteen
or twenty men varying from day to day as needed, who were placed under the
lead and command of a captain. These men rode horseback ahead of the train,
each armed with a rifle and carrying axes, picks and shovels, to fight Indians if
necessary, but to be sure to make a road the ox teams could draw the wagons
over. This party of men made the road-The Oregon Trail—from day to day;
and they were "The Royal Sappers and Miners" that made the way across the
two thousand miles of plains, deserts, sage, brush and mountains from the Mis-
souri to the Columbia. And when the grand caravan of ox teams, loose cattle,
horses and wagons passed over it, they left behind them a great wide road that
all subsequent travelers and emigrations followed for more than twenty years

UNIO
N
BATTLE WITH THE BLACKFEET INDIANS IN PIERRE'S HOLE IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, JULY 18, 1832; WHERE 26 INDIANS
AND SIX OF N. J. WYETH'S MEN WERE KILLED
2
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
257
and until the Union Pacific Railroad was opened. And that grand highway
of enterprise, heroism and civilization left its impress wide and deep, not only on
the soil, the rocks and the mountains, but on all the institutions of men to make
mankind better, and extend and exalt the principles and glory of the great Re-
public.
The following list contains the names of every male member of that great
train over the age of sixteen years. It was prepared by J. W. Nesmith when the
train was organized, and was preserved among his papers for a third century
before given for publication. All reached the Willamette valley except a few,
the exceptions being designated by marks and foot notes:
Applegate, Chas.
Applegate, Jesse.
Applegate, Lindsey.
Athey, James.
Athey, William.
Atkinson, John.
Arthur, David.
Arthur, Robert.
Arthur, William.
Baker, Andrew. .
Baker, John G.
Baker, William.
Baldridge, Wm.
Bane, Layton.
Beadle, George.
Beagle, William.
Beale, George.
Biddle, Nicholas.
Bird, David.
Black, J. P.
Blevins, Alexander.
Boardman, —
Boyd, Levi.
Braidy, James.
Brookė, George.
Brooks, John P.
Brown, Martin.
Brown, Orus.
Brown, Thos. A.
Burnett, Peter H.
Butler, Amon.
Campbell, John G.
Cary, Miles.
Cason, F. C.
Cason, James.
Caton, J. H.
Champ, Jacob.
Chapman,
Chapman, William.
Chappel, Alfred.
Chase, James.
Childers, Moses.
Childs, Joseph.
Clymour, L.
Cochran, Thomas.
Cone, James.
Constable, Benedict.
Cooper, L. C.
Copenhaver, John.
Cox, John.
Cozine, Samuel
Cronin, Daniel
Dailey, George.
Davis, Burrell.
Davis, J. H.
Davis, Thomas.
Dawson, --
Day, William.
Delany, Daniel.
Delany, Daniel, Jr.
Delany, Wm.
Dement, Wm. C.
Doherty, John.
Dodd, Solomon.
Doke, Wm.
Dorin, Jacob.
Dougherty, W. P.
Duncan, James.
Eaker, John W.
East, John W.
Eaton, Chas.
Eaton, Nathan.
Edson, E. G.
Emerick, Solomon.
Etchell, Jas.
Everman, Ninian.
Eyres, Miles.
Fairly, Stephen.
Fendall, Charles.
Ford, Ephraim.
Ford, John.
Ford, Nimrod.
Ford, Nineveh.
Fowler, Henry.
Fowler, Wm.
Fowler, Wm. J.
Francis, Alexander.
Frazier, Abner.
Frazier, Wm.
Gantt, John.
Gardner, Samuel.
Gardner, Wm.
Garrison, Enoch.
Garrison, J. W.
Garrison, W. J.
Gilmore, Matthew C.
Gilpin, Major.
Goodman, Richard.
Gray, Chiley B.
Gray, —
Haggard, B.
Hall, Samuel B.
Hargrove, Wm.
Harrigas, B.
Haun, Jacob.
Hays, James.
Hembree, Andrew.
Hembree, A. J.
Hembree, James.
Hembree, J. J.
Hendricks, Abijah.
Vol. I-17
258
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Hensley, Thos. J.
Hess, Joseph.
Hewett, Henry.
Hide, H. H.
Hill, Almoran.
Hill, Henry.
Hill, William
Hobson, Wm.
Hobson, John.
Holderness, S. M.
Holley, B.
Holman, Daniel.
Holman, John.
Holmes, Riley A.
Holmes, Wm.
Houk, James.
Howell, G. W.
Howell, John.
Howell, Thos. E.
Howell, Wesley.
Howell, Wm.
Hoyt, A
Hughes, Wm. P.
Hunt, Henry.
Husted, A.
Hutchins, Isaac.
Jackson, John B.
James, Calvin.
Johnson, Overton.
Jones, John.
Keizur, J. B.
Keizur, Pleasant.
Keizur, Thomas D.
Kelley,
Kelsey,
Laswell, Isaac.
Lauderdale, John.
Layson, Aaron
Lee, H. A. G
Lenox, David.
Lenox, E.
Linebarger, John.
Linebarger, Lew.
Little, Milton.
Long, John E.
Looney, Jesse
Loughborough, J.
Lovejoy, A. L.
Lugur, F.
Luther, —
Malone, Madison.
Manning, James.
Manning, John.
Martin, James.
Martin, Julius.
Martin, Wm. J.
Mastire, A. J.
Matheny, Adam.
Matheny, Daniel.
Matheny, Henry.
Matheny, Josiah.
Matheny, J. N.
Matney, W.J.
Mauzee, William.
Mays, William.
McCarver, M. M.
McClelland, F.
McClelland, —
McCorkle, George.
McDaniel, William.
McGarey, G. W.
McGee,
McHaley, John.
McIntire, John.
McKissic, D.
Millican, Elijah.
Mills, Isaac.
Mills, John D.
Mills, Owen.
Mills, Wm. A.
Mondon, Gilbert.
Moore, Jackson.
Myers, Jacob.
Naylor, Thomas.
Nesmith, J. W.
Newby, W. T.
Newman, Noah.
O'Brien, Thomas A.
O'Bryant, Hugh D.
Olinger, A.
O'Neill, Olinger.
Osborn, Neil.
Otie, E. W.
Otie, M. B.
Owen, Thomas.
Paine, Clayborn.
Parker, Jesse.
Parker, William.
Patterson, J. R.
Paynter, Samuel.
Pennington, J. B.
Pickett, Chas. E.
Poe, R. H.
Prigg, Frederick.
Reading, P.B
Reid, Jacob.
Rice, G. W.
Richardson, Daniel.
Richardson, John.
Ricord, John.
Rivers, Thomas.
Roberts, Emseley.
Roberts, James.
Roberts, Solomon.
Rodgers, G. W.
Rodgers, S. P.
Roe, John.
Rossin, Joseph.
Ruby, Philip.
Russell, William.
Sewell, Henry.
Sharp, C.
Sheldon, William.
Shirley, Samuel.
Shively, John M.
Smith, Ahi.
Smith, Anderson.
Smith, Eli.
Smith, Isaac W.
Smith, Robert.
Smith, Thomas.
Smith, Thomas H.
Spencer, Chauncey.
Sterling, George.
Stevenson, —
Stewart, P. G.
Stimmerman, C.
Story, James.
Stoughton, Alexander.
Stout, Henry.
Stout,
Straight, Hiram.
Stringer, Cornelius.
Stringer, C. W.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
259
Summers, George.
Summers, W. C.
Sutton, Nathaniel.
Swift, —
Tarbox, Stephen.
Teller, Jeremiah
Tharp, Lindsey.
Thompson, John.
Trainor, D.
Umnicker, John.
Vance, Samuel.
Vaughan, William.
Vernon, George.
Wagoner, John.
Wair, J. W.
Waldo, Daniel.
Waldo, David
Waldo, William
Ward, T. B.
Waters, James.
Watson, Jno. (Betty)
Wheeler, H.
White, James .
Williams, Benjamin.
Williams, David.
Williams, Edward.
Williams, Isaac.
Williams, James.
Williams, John.
Williams, Squire.
Wilmont, James.
Wilson, Wm.
Wilson, Wm. H.
Winkle, Archibald.
Winter, Wm .
Zachary, Alexander
Zachary, John.
There were in Oregon at the time the train arrived, the following individuals,
a few names, possibly, having been omitted from the list :
Armstrong, Pleasant.
Girtman,
Bailey, Dr. William J. Hall, David.
Baldra,
Hatch, Peter H
Balis, James.
Hathaway, Felix.
Black, J. M.
Hauxhurst, Webly.
Brainard, —
Hewitt, Adam.
Brown,
Holman, Joseph.
Brown, -
Horegon, Jeremiah.
Brown, William. Hubbard, Thomas J.
Burns, Hugh.
Hutchinson, —
Campbell, Jack
Johnson, William.
Campbell, Samuel.
Kelsey, —
Cannon, William.
King,
Carter, David.
Larrison, Jack .
Connor,
Le Breton, G. W.
Cook, Aaron
Lewis, Reuben.
Cook, Amos
Mack, J. W.
Craig, Wm.
Matthieu, F. X.
Crawford, Medorem. McCarthy, William. .
Davy, Allen.
McClure, John,
Doughty, William. McFadden, —
Eakin, Richard. McKay, Charles.
Ebbetts, George W. McKay, Thomas.
Edwards, John, McKay, William C.
Fletcher, Francis. Meek, Joseph L.
Force, James.
Moore, Robert
Force, John.
Morrison, J. L.
Foster, Philip.
Moss, S. W.
Gale, Joseph.
Newbanks, -
Gay, George.
Newell, Robert.
O'Neill, James A.
Perry, —.
Pettygrove, F. W.
Pomeroy, Dwight.
Pomeroy, Walter.
Rimmick, -
Robb, J. R.
Russell, Osborn.
Sailor, Jack
Shortess, Robert.
Smith, Alvin T.
Smith, Andrew.
Smith, Andrew, Jr.
Smith, Darling
Smith, Sidney.
Spence,
Taylor, Hiram.
Tibbetts, Calvin.
Trask, -
Turner, John.
Turnham, Joel .
Walker, C. M.
Warner, Jack
Wilkins, Caleb.
Williams, B.
Wilson, A. E.
Winslow, David.
Wood, Henry.
260
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
In addition to the above were the following gentlemen connected with the
various Protestant Missions :
Abernethy, George.
Babcock, Dr. Ira L.
Beers, Alanson.
Brewer, H. B.
Campbell, Hamilton.
Clarke, Harvey.
Eells, Cushing.
Gray, W. H.
Hines, Gustavus.
Judson, L. H
Lee, Jason.
Leslie, David.
Parrish, J. L.
Perkins, H. K. W.
Raymond, W. W.
Spalding, H. H.
Walker, E.
Waller, A. F
White, Dr. Elijah.
Whitman, Dr. M.
Willson, Wm. H.
In addition to these were some fifty former employees of the Hudson's Bay
Company, nearly all of whom had settled on French Prairie, and a number of
priests, connected with the Catholic mission, making a total male population
at the close of the year 1843 of about four hundred and thirty, exclusive of
the officers and actual servants of the Hudson's Bay Company.
THE VALUE OF THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT
And now is seen the great value of the Provisional Government. The great
body of the emigration of 1843 reached the Oregon City terminus about the
last days of October of that year. Suppose, then, that there had been no govern-
ment, no person or authority to give direction to affairs, to give information,
or maintain the orderly progress of society or the public peace? They all came
for land; and suddenly without notice, 320 families are dropped down at Oregon
City. They know nothing of the country, nothing of what land has been claimed,
or where they can go to get a homestead, without trespassing on the rights of a
prior locator. In such a case if there had not been anarchy, confusion, and vio-
lence, it would have been a wonder. If anarchy and violence had resulted from
indiscriminate land grabbing, or land claim jumping, where there could be no
United States or English title promised, the Hudson's Bay Company by its Cana-
dian officials, would have been compelled to interpose to maintain peace and
order; and that interposition would have set up and put in operation a British,
instead of an American Government, in Oregon. That would have made the
country British in fact and deed; and there would not have been one chance in
a hundred for the United States to have ever recovered any part of Oregon.
But the heroes of Champoeg had wisely forestalled such a calamity by the or-
ganization of May 2, 1843. And when the great caravan reached Oregon City
six months afterwards, it found an American Government in operation, with
officials to give directions, with records of lands already taken up, and with
laws authorizing the new-comers to go out and select their homesites and have
them duly recorded and protected. The infant Provisional Government was
literally a god-send to the settlers, the incoming immigrants, and to the Cana-
dians as well; and too much honor can never be given the men who organized
that government.
And what was the position of the Hudson's Bay Company all this time? All
of its interests lay in the direction of an unsettled country. It was here to trap
fur-bearing animals, and to trade with the Indians for furs. It did not want

maken
Passed over old Trail with an ox-team the second time in 1906, setting
up markers along the Trail
ONIO
OF
hing
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
261
the country settled by either Americans or any other people. As long as there
were no settlers, the Indians would obey their orders and would be happy and
content in the forests with their ways of living. To bring settlers that would
convert the country into farms, build towns, start saw mills and establish herds
of domestic animals, would destroy the business of the fur company and drive
it out. It was but natural that the company should oppose emigration and
settlements. And in doing so, it became the ally of the first American settlers.
Whether consciously or unconsciously, cannot now be determined. With its
power and influence with the Indians, its wealth and organization, and its
knowledge of the country and means for bringing colonists from either Canada
or the home country, it could have quickly and easily throttled all attempts to
establish American settlements by an organization devoted to the support of
the British claim to the country. But to do so would have put in jeopardy the
profits and future existence of the company as a business paying institution.
The managers of the company in England undoubtedly expected and relied
upon Chief Factor, John McLoughlin and others to discourage settlements in
Oregon; believing that without business support and encouragement The Ameri-
cans Would Be Starved out. Fortunate for the Americans, John McLoughlin
was not built on the narrow gauge pattern of his employers in London. His
great heart and humane sympathies would not permit him to view with cold
blooded indifference the suffering and destitution of men and women who had
risked their lives and everything else in the great struggle to reach Oregon. He
helped them as much as he could, and not be unceremoniously kicked out before
the first few Americans had secured a foothold in the Willamette valley. As
it was, for this open-handed aid to the Americans, he lost his position and a sal-
ary of twelve thousand dollars a year. With the most hopeful view of the case
the Americans had the narrowest chance in the world to secure a foothold and
establish an American settlement. Had they not succeeded Oregon would cer-
tainly have become a British province. With McLoughlin's opposition exerted
against them, as his British employers desired it to be exerted, the Americans
unsupported by Congress as they were, might not have succeeded. The tacit
support of John McLoughlin given in the name of humanity, undoubtedly
greatly aided in deciding the fate of Oregon in favor of the American settlers.
THE COLONIAL PERIOD
Assuming that the Colonial Period commenced with the immigration of
1842, in which none of the Missions had any part or parcel, and continued down
to 1848 when the United States organized a territorial government, an idea
can be formed of the respective influences which conspired to mould the for-
tunes and character of the Oregon settlers.
Of the missionary forces, Jason Lee, Daniel Lee, Cyrus Shepard, and P.
L. Edwards of the Methodist church came overland to Oregon in 1834, and
founded the mission in the Willamette valley. Rev. Samuel Parker on behalf of
American Board missions, came overland to Oregon in 1835, but not to labor as a
missionary but as an agent of the Missionary Board to examine the country
and locate missionary stations. And next year, 1836, in pursuance of Parker's
plans and locations, Dr. Marcus Whitman, and Rev. H. H. Spalding, with their
262
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
wives, and Wm. H. Gray, came out and commenced work in Eastern Oregon
among the Nez Perces and Cayuse Indians. And it may be remarked here that
Whitman did not select the location among the Cayuse who afterward massacred
himself, family and attendants. If he had been left to his own judgment he
would most likely have located among the Flatheads who had appealed to the
Eastern States Christians for the "Book of Heaven." Rev. Asa B. Smith, and
wife, also on behalf of the Presbyterians came overland and settled among the
Nez Perces, at a station on the Clearwater river in 1839, and which he was
compelled to abandon on account of the hostility of the Indians in 1841. Mr.
Smith was the first person to make up a vocabulary and grammar of the Nez
Perce language.
Revs. Elkanah Walker and Cushing Eells, with their wives, missionaries of
the American Board, came overland in 1838, and established a mission on the
Chemakane branch of the Spokane river, and there taught and labored among
the Indians for ten years, having served in that work longer than any other mis-
sionary to the Oregon Indians, except Dr. Whitman. Rev. John S. Griffin and
wife and Asahel Munger and wife, independent Congregational missionaries,
came overland in 1839, and after making two efforts to establish schools and
missions among the Snake Indians, both came on down to the Willamette valley,
Griffin and wife settling on a donation claim on Tualatin Plains, and Munger
and wife going to Salem and working for the Methodists until his mind failed
and where he put an end to his life. To Mrs. Griffin belongs the honor of being
the first white woman to teach school west of the Rocky Mountains. In 1840
came another missionary party overland of the Congregational church, com-
posed of Rev. Harvey Clarke, Rev. P. B. Littlejohn, and Rev. A. T. Smith,
each with his wife. These people came out independent of the Board of Missions,
intending to support themselves by their own efforts; and after spending a year
in the Indian mission field in Eastern Oregon, came on down to the Willamette
valley and settled on Tualatin Plains, teaching and preaching to the white
people. And with this Clarke party came out from the States the first family
of avowed immigrants of American settlers that came to Oregon-Joel P. Walker,
wife and five children.
And in all human probability the great-hearted Harvey Clarke and wife
are entitled to much credit in bringing in close after them, two men who were
not missionaries, but who made a large figure in the future of Oregon; and
for this Clark should have credit here. At Fort Hall, Rev. Clark made the
acquaintances of Joseph L. Meek, Robert Newell, C. M. Walker, William Craig,
Caleb Wilkins, William M. Doughty and John Larison, who were each and
all stranded at Fort Hall, and penniless on account of the American Fur
Company abandoning the fur trade on the Pacific to the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany. These men, like all mountain men, were of improvident habits, and
had saved nothing. They were destitute and without occupation. They must
go somewhere and do something or starve; and they decided to follow Clarke.
Their combined stock of worldly goods was the clothes on their backs, two
wagons which Clarke had given Newell for guiding him from Green river
to Fort Hall, and another wagon abandoned by Joel Walker. Frank Er-
matinger (The H. B. Co. Agt. at Fort Hall) took an interest in the unfor-
tunates and purchased one of Newell's wagons. This gave them bread and
coffee for the trip, and their trusty rifles could provide the meat. And they

OF
Share
Alla
AL
When
HOW THE PIONEERS GOT HERE
Nearing the end of the two thousand mile, six months' journey, from the Missouri river to Portland, Oregon, sixty-four years ago.
"None started but the brave,
None got through but the strong."
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
263
.
then followed up.Clarke and finally landed at Wailatpu, bringing in and deliver-
ing up to Dr. Whitman the wheels and running gears of the historical wagon
he had left at Fort Boise. That Clarke influenced these men to come and settle
in Oregon, the author of this book has the testimony of Doughty, Meek and
Wilkins, who were his neighbors in Washington county for years, and gave him
an account of this trip.
The same year that the Clarke party reached the Nez Perces country the
ship Lausanne arrived in the Columbia river with the great missionary party
of fifty-three persons which included seven preachers, and five teachers, farmers,
mechanics, etc., sent out by the Board of Methodist Missions. Now in addi-
tion to these Protestant mission laborers, the Catholic Church of Canada had
sent out four priests under the control of Vicar General Blanchet; and all
these preachers and teachers were here in this country to teach and convert
the heathen Indians; no intention ever having been held to teach or preach to
American citizens, as none were expected to ever come here. Here was an
evangelizing force of twenty preachers and priests and a dozen teachers; all
intent on converting and educating the native Indians. But what was the
outcome? The Methodists kept up a failing effort to teach the Indians at the
Willamette Mission for a few years and until the first large immigration came
from the states. Then the Indians abandoned the Willamette valley and took
their children with them. The effort was continued in a desultory way at the
mission at The Dalles until the Whitman Massacre in 1847. That ended all
efforts to teach or convert the Indians under the regime of the missionaries.
And whatever of influence or benefit had been thus far exerted by the mission-
aries over the Indians was by that appalling murder of Whitman practically
dissipated forever. With the coming of the vigorous assertive immigration
of 1843 the missionaries were practically reduced, so far as influences on the
colony was concerned, to the common level with all other citizens. They had
lost the distinction of leadership in the little community; but they did not
lose their identity as a vital force. To Jason Lee more than to any other one
person, was due the movement to organize the Provisional Government. He
inspired the plan, Gray and Griffin did the proselyting to support it and
called out the reserves to put the column in motion, while Meek and his moun-
taineers led the assault. But not only did the missionaries inspire the organi-
zation of civil government, they followed that up by laying the foundation
for education. The “Oregon Institute,” which developed into “The Willam-
ette University," was organized by the Methodist missionaries in 1842 for
the purpose of educating white children; and the first Board of Trustees
were, Jason Lee, David Leslie, Gustavus Hines, J. L. Parrish, L. H. Judson,
George Abernethy, Alanson Beers, Hamilton Campbell, and J. L. Babcock. For
the Congregationalists, Rev. Harvey Clarke did a similar work in giving his
time, labor and land to lay the foundations of the Pacific University at Forest
Grove. And while McMinnville does not trace its foundation to missionaries,
or to the missionary era, yet it can go back to William T. Newby, who came
overland in 1843, and find in him the enterprise and forethought to devote
his first property in Oregon to the foundation of a noble institution that rep-
resents the missionary spirt and the conservative teaching of "John the Bap-
tizer,” greatest of the twelve disciples. And while the religious teaching of
264
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
t
the Indians was greatly dissipated by the wars between whites and Indians,
yet the seed planted by the missionaries survived not only that bitter and bloody
strife and the corruption of and robbery of the Indians by a whole generation,
of rascally 'thieving Indian agents, but lived to bear good fruit in later times
under the leadership of native preachers and honest government agents. The
Eastern Missionary Boards of former times, as well as the immigrants to
Oregon of recent years, have never comprehended or appreciated the value of
the labors of Lee, Whitman, Walker, Eells, and their associates. The eastern
men looked only at the expenditure of money; and the new-comers to Oregon
could not see any Indian converts. But the priceless services of the early
missionaries to Oregon is not to be measured by dollars and cents or tolled off
by church membership. The Rev. Wm Warren, in his little book on Indian
missions, tersely states the case for Oregon.
"Indian missions brought the first white women overland to Oregon, opened
the first immigrant road to the Columbia river; gave the first governor to the
territory; established the first permanent American settlement; and aided es-
sentially in the establishment of the Provisional Government, five years before
the United States formed a Territorial Government; brought the first American
cattle to the Willamette valley, and saved the country, or at least an important
part of it, to the United States.
!
CHAPTER XI
1834-1848
THE OREGON HALL OF FAME-WHO SAVED OREGON? THOMAS JEFFERSON? THOMAS
H. BENTON? HALL J. KELLEY? JASON LEE? MARCUS WHITMAN? JOHN M'LOUGH-
LIN? JOSEPH L. MEEK? FRANCOIS XAVIER MATTHIEU? GEORGE ABERNETHY?
-SAVED BY ALL SETTLERS PULLING TOGETHER.
The first great name naturally associated with the Oregon country is that
of Thomas Jefferson. His place in the history of the United States, in the esti-
mation of the great mass of the people, is next to that of Washington. But
had it not been for his far-seeing statesmanship which added the Louisiana Ter-
ritory to that of the thirteen original states, his position would have taken rank
after that of Franklin, Hamilton and Madison. His fortunate connection with
the Declaration of Independence, while no special evidence of statesmanship,
secured for him early recognition, and kept his name to the front at the annual
celebration of the great event throughout the length and breadth of the whole
country. His part in the actual struggle with the foreign king for national in-
dependence, amounts to very little. In the making of the Constitution, where
Washington, Hamilton and Madison each towered above all the statesmen of
their day, Jefferson took no part. And while recognized as a man of versatile
talents, of genius and ability, he barely held the place he achieved in the Con-
tinental convention by his persistent advocacy of popular rights. He became
early known as the advocate of a democratic as distinguished from constitu-
tional government. And it is a sharp commentary on the weakness of his orig-
inal propositions of government, that almost the very first of his acts as presi-
dent of the United States, was admitted by himself to be an infraction of the
letter of the Constitution he had sworn to support, and of his own ideas of the
proper mission of the Republic. In a letter to John Breckenridge, August 12,
1803, speaking of the purchase of Louisiana, Jefferson says:
"The treaty, of course, must be laid before both houses. They, I presume,
will see their duty to their country in ratifying and paying for it (Louisiana),
so as to secure a good which would otherwise probably be never again in their
power. The Constitution has made no provision for our holding foreign terri-
tory, still less for incorporating foreign nations into our Union. The Executive,
in seizing the fugitive occurrence which so much advances the good of their
country, has done an act beyond the Constitution. The Legislature in casting
behind metaphysical subleties, and risking themselves like faithful servants,
must ratify and pay for it, and throw themselves on their country for doing for
them unauthorized, what we know they would have done for themselves, had
they been in a situation to do it."
And to show further the hazy ideas of this remarkable statesman, when it
265
266
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
comes to forming a concrete and persistent nation, take another extract from
the same letter:
"The future inhabitants of the Atlantic and Mississippi states, will be our
sons. We leave them in distinct, but bordering establishments. We think we
see their happiness in their Union, and we wish it. Events may prove it other-
wise, and if they see their interest in separation, why should we take sides with
our Atlantic rather than our Mississippi descendants. God bless them both,
and keep them in union, if it be for their good, but separate them if it be
better."
And when the great Jefferson comes to consider the Pacific coast sons of the
Republic, he wanders still farther way from a union which must for all time
make us a homogeneous nation. In a letter to John Jacob Astor, May 2, 1812:
“I considered as a great public acquisition the commencement of a settle-
ment on that point (Astoria) of the western coast of America, and looked for-
ward with gratification to the time when its descendants should have spread
themselves through the whole length of that coast, covering it with free and
independent Americans, unconnected with us by the ties of blood and inter-
est, and employing, like us, the rights of self-government.
And in another letter to Mr. Astor, November 9, 1813, Jefferson says:
“I learn with great pleasure the progress you have made towards an estab-
lishment of the Columbia river. I view it as the germ of a great free and inde-
pendent empire on that site of our continent, and that liberty and self-govern-
ment spreading from that as well as this side, will insure their complete es-
tablishment over the whole. It must be still more gratifying to yourself to
foresee that your name will be handed down with that of Columbus, and Ral-
eigh, as the father of the establishment and founder of such an empire. It
would be an afflicting thing indeed should the English be able to break up the
settlement. The bigotry to the bastard liberty of their own country, and habit-
ual hostility to every degree of freedom in any other will induce the attempt.
They would not lose the sale of a bale of furs for the freedom of the whole
world."
This letter shows vividly the three predominant characteristics of Jefferson's
public life; intense devotion to personal liberty, expansion of the American
idea of popular government, and intense hostility to everything British. Had
Jefferson lived to read of the formation of the Oregon Provisional Government,
he would have hailed it as the embodiment of his life-long principles. As it
was, he was emphatically the father of Oregon. Although admitting he vio-
lated the Constitution to get control of this vast region, and carry out his long
cherished desire to explore the depths of its wilderness and show to the world
its vast riches, he put the stamp of his genius and love of liberty on its original
government through the brains and labor of the pioneers who had imbibed Jef-
fersonian principles with their mother's milk. Slavery, he considered a
moral and political evil, and declared in reference to it that "he trembled for
his country when he remembered that God was just." And one of the first
acts of the legislature of the Provisional Government of Oregon was to declare
that slavery should never have a foothold in this state.
Thomas Jefferson was as accessible to the plain every day farmers, as to the
highest dignitary of his own or any foreign government. All titles of honor
22
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
267
were distasteful to him, and he lived and died as the popular incarnation of
cquality, justice and democracy. And it is to Jefferson that the country is in-
debted for that necessary enterprise in sending out the Lewis and Clark ex-
pedition to explore the unknown region of Oregon, and place the stamp of
American title on its whole extent, from the mountains to the sea. Judging
from the history of the country, there is not a president since the days of Wash-
ington that had the push and enterprise, as well as the American spirit, to ex-
pand the nation's boundaries as did Jefferson; and if it had not been for his
action in seizing what he termed the “fugitive opportunity," the United States
would have been, in its western expansion, limited to the boundary of the Miss-
issippi, and Oregon would have been as British as Canada. It is therefore,
justly due that the name of Thomas Jefferson should top the scroll of Oregon's
Hall of Fame.
The next prominent character in the long contest for the American title
to Oregon was Senator Thomas H. Benton, of Missouri. Benton was not alone
in the battle, but was ably supported by his colleague, Senator Lewis F. Linn.
Linn was a physician by profession, and a forceful, aggressive man, serving two
terms in the senate, but Benton was there for thirty years. Always a com-
manding figure, resolute and courageous, far beyond the great majority of
men who had risen to that high position. Benton, next to Jefferson, early com-
prehended the great importance of the West to the nation. Living at St. Louis,
which was in his day the great gate-way not only to the South and Southwest,
but also to the real West beyond the mountains, he saw the national necessity
to seize every point of vantage and hold on for the future. And although rep-
resenting a slave state in the Senate, he was far too large a man not to see that
free territory to the west was a thousand times more important to St. Louis
and to the nation than more slave states. And when the issue came, whether
there should be territory added on that would make free states beyond the
mountains, and thus disturb the equilibrium between slave and free states, he
promptly cast in the whole force of his great influence in the Senate and with
the people on the side of the free territory of Oregon. For this act for jus-
tice and humanity, for national honor and defense, he was discredited by the
slave-holding leaders of the South.
No man understood better the wants and aspirations of the pioneer settlers
of Oregon. And no man comprehended as well the future national importance
of taking and holding the whole of Old Oregon for settlement by American citi-
His prophetic words, picturing the future greatness of this country, and
the great commerce which would ebb and flow through this state, and the
Columbia gateway, has been given in the introductory chapter of this book,
and we have lived to see it a veritable reality. For long years, and through good
and evil report, and in the face of all sorts of misrepresentations of the value
of this country by the pigmy men who had gotten into the Senate by some sort
of accident, he stood the lion of the west,' making the battle for Oregon. And
some day, when this state or some of its merchant princes shall fully compre-
hend the great work which Thomas H. Benton did to "save Oregon' to the
naition, and make Oregon an American state, and the imperial commercial
metropolis of the great Pacific, there will arise on some commanding point in
the state, the heroic statue in bronze of "old Bullion,” friend of Oregon,
zens.
.
268
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
with that uplifted right arm of his commanding figure pointing to the west to
emphasize the apothegm that made him famous, "there's India, there's the
East!"
And now we come to a man who "saved Oregon,” who is wholly unlike
every other man connected with Oregon history. Unappreciated and misunder-
stood, by some called a fanatic, by others a crank, and by the Hudson's Bay
Company treated as a horse-thief, the ghost of Hall J. Kelley appears and dis-
appears through the shifting scenery of Oregon's strenuous history with such
kaleidoscopic presentment as almost utterly bafies description.
Hall Jackson Kelley was born at Northwood, New Hampshire, February 24,
1790. At the age of sixteen the boy left home and taught school at Hallowell,
Maine. He studied the classics and graduated with honor at Middlebury Col-
lege in 1814, and married the daughter of the Rev. Thomas Baldwin, April 17,
1822. After leaving college, Mr. Kelley devoted his time to teaching, the prepar-
ation of elementary school books, the introduction of black boards in public
schools, the study of the higher mathematics, and making a discovery of an
improved method of topographical and geographical surveying which Presi-
dent Jackson promised to introduce in government work.
As early as 1817, while teaching in one of the grammar schools of Boston,
Kelley conceived the idea of leading a colony for the exploration and settlement
of Oregon, then practically an unknown country. In his memoir he says: “I
began first to converse with friends about Oregon, then to lecture and write
books and tracts in order to give the widest publicity to my plans and pur-
poses." In 1824, he publicly announced his intentions to settle Oregon and
propagate Christianity beyond the Rocky mountains. Here is a definite and in-
disputable statement that Hall J. Kelley's missionary enterprise antedated that
of Jason Lee by ten years, and that of Marcus Whitman by twelve years, and
that of the Catholic priests by fourteen years.
And while it is true that Kelley never did come to Oregon to preach the gos-
pel, it is also true that he, more than all others, by his public lectures, letters,
pamphlets and circulars, informed and enlightened the people of the Atlantic
states as to the character and value of the territory of Oregon. And it was on
the public sentiment created and built up by Kelley that the Methodists and
Presbyterians were enabled to organize their missionary expeditions to Ore-
gon and to get the first money to pay their expenses. And on this point the fol-
lowing statements are quite satisfactory proof:
“BOSTON, January 30, 1833.
"In the year 1831, I was editor of Zion's Herald, a religious paper, sus-
taining the faith of the Methodist Episcopal church. In the above year I pub-
lished for Mr. H. J. Kelley a series of letters addressed to a member of Congress
developing his plans for the settlement of Oregon territory. At other times
Mr. Kelley made appeals through our paper, with a view to excite the minds
of the Christian community to the importance of founding religious institu-
tions in that territory. He was one of the first explorers of that region, and to
his zeal and efforts is largely due the establishment of missionary operations in
that country
"WILLIAM C. BROWN.'
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
269
>>
Rev. David Green, secretary of the American Board of Foreign Missions,
bears similar testimony, and says: "The welfare and improvement of the In-
dians of that territory, and the introduction there of the blessings of civiliza-
tion, and the useful arts, with education and Christian knowledge, seemed to
be his leading object. Much of the early interest felt in the Oregon country
by the New England people was probably the result of Mr. Kelley's labors.
In 1829 Kelley procured from the legislature of Massachusetts an Act to in-
corporate “The American Society for Encouraging the Settlement of the Ore-
gon Territory,” and in 1830 he published a "Geographical Memoir of Oregon,"
accompanied by a: map of Oregon, drawn by himself, and also a Manual of
the Oregon Expedition,” for the information and guidance of emigrants to
Oregon.
Then Kelley went to Washington city and spent the winters of 1830 and 1831
in explaining his scheme to members of Congress and high government offi-
cials with a view of securing the action of the government and aiding or en
couraging emigration to Oregon.
And that after many rebuffs and disappointments he left Boston for Oregon
in 1832, two years before Jason Lee started for Oregon; and on his way west
stopped at Washington city, where he was the recipient of many favors, as he says,
and encouraged by public officers to go west and explore the country. Leaving
Washington, he traveled by the way of the Cumberland wagon road to the
Ohio river, and thence down the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans, and from
thence by sailing vessel to Vera Cruz in Mexico and from thence by stages to
Jalapa and the City of Mexico. From the capital of Mexico by mule team pack
trains he made his way to San Blas, and from thence up the coast in a little
schooner to Monterey, California. Here he offered his services to the Mex-
ican governor of California to make a survey of the Sacramento valley,
which being declined, he made a reconnoisance of the valley on his own ac-
count and made a map of the valley. Here he fell in with Ewing Young,
whose estate, without heirs, was afterward urged as a reason for organizing
a Provisional Government in Oregon. Young was an American trader from
New Mexico, and Kelley persuaded him to undertake a trading venture up to
Oregon with horses. And gathering up a party of adventurers and deserting
sailors, with a lot of cheap horses, one hundred and fifty or more, they all started
for Oregon. Getting as far as the mountains of southern Oregon, Kelley was
taken sick. And here he fell in with the Frenchman fur trader, Michael La
Framboise, who seeing Kelley's unfortunate condition in the grasp of a rack-
ing ague fit, at once proceeded to alleviate his distress with quinine and
hot venison broth. Kelley remained with and traveled with the Frenchman for
several days, until overtaken by the Young party, when they all came down to
Fort Vancouver. Here, weary and worn out, sick from a relapse, he finds the
gates of Vancouver closed against him. He is informed that the Mexican
governor of California had sent word to Dr. McLoughlin that Young and his
party were a gang of horse thieves, and cautioning McLoughlin against the
whole company. In vain does the sick man, a scholar and educated gentleman,
and a Christian, protest his innocence. McLoughlin says: "When Kelley ar-
rived he was very ill, and out of humanity I placed him in a house, and put a
man to nurse him, the surgeon of the establishment attended him, and his vic-
270
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
tuals were sent him every meal until he left in 1836.” But the facts were that
Kelley while remaining at Vancouver was housed in a hut outside the fort,
and treated as a mendicant or worse, and debarred the recognition on an honest
man, or a gentleman, in the country he had done so much to advertise to the
world.
Kelley was undoubtedly greatly embittered against the Americans he found
in Oregon, and, as he said, induced to come here by his representations of the
country. He did not hesitate to charge the trader Wyeth with having gone over
to the support of the Hudson's Bay Company. Wyeth personally knew that
Kelley was an educated man in good standing in Boston, and not to be thought
of an instant as as a horse thief; and the neglect of Wyeth to assist a fellow
countryman in such straits shows him to have been a coward and an ingrate.
And neither did the Methodist missionaries come to the rescue of the man who
had so largely contributed to their undertaking their noble work in Oregon.
But as McLoughlin had posted the letter of the Mexican governor up in the
Willamette valley, and was all-powerful against everybody at that early day,
the missionaries evidently concluded that "prudence was the better part of
valor," and left their fellow Christian patriot to sink or swim as best he could.
But after all his pains and heart-aches, he staggered once more to his feet,
and in a most wretched, ragged and dilapidated condition he commenced to
look around on the land he had so extensively advertised as the best in the
world. He had brought some surveying instruments with him, and on the
peninsula between the Willamette and the Columbia rivers, where we have
in our day seen but little but burnt out dead trees and stumps, and impassa-
ble scrub underbrush, Kelley walked under the magnificent groves of tall firs,
and made a survey of the site for the great city he had proposed and which is
noticed on the plat thereof on another page. This plat of Kelley's city was sur-
veyed and located in about 1835 about where Francis I. McKenna's University
Park addition to Portland is now located, and was the first surveyed location of
a town north of California west of the Rocky mountains. After surveying out
his town site Kelley proceeded to make a survey of the Columbia river from
Vancouver down to Astoria, and when he returned to the Eastern states turned
his survey over to the United States Navy department. The Englishman,
Lieutenant Broughton, had made a survey of the river prior to Kelley's sur-
vey, but the Americans got no benefit of that as it was given only to the Hudson's
Bay Company, and British war ships. That town site and river survey, con-
nects for all time the name of Hall J. Kelley with the history of Oregon.
After completing this work, Kelley left the country in March, 1836, on trans-
portation via the Sandwich Islands, furnished by Dr. McLoughlin, and which
was acknowledged by Kelley in his narrative of his journey. to Oregon, saying
McLoughlin kindly furnished him comforts to start home with, and some
money, which he felt very grateful for. On his return to Boston by a whale
ship from the islands, Kelley published the first satisfactory report of the Willam-
ette and Columbia river valleys ever made, giving far more information about
the climate, soil, timber and other natural resources of wealth upon which to
found a prosperous state than was given by Lewis and Clark. And notwith-
standing his failure to enlist public support of his colonization schemes, or to
get aid from Congress, or even decent treatment in the wilds of Oregon, Kelley
1
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
271
continued his agitation of the Oregon question, and advocacy of congressional
aid, and settlement of the country as long as he had financial means to do so.
He had gone through trials, disappointments and severe labors in traveling
through foreign countries to reach Oregon to be received not only with distrust,
but with slander and persecution, such as would have crushed most men. Yet
his hopeful and unwavering spirit of promotion and adventure did not desert
him, and on his return to his old home, he immediately engaged with others in
erecting a cotton mill at Three Rivers, Massachusetts. And after losing the last
remnant of his fortune in this venture, he retired to private life, and lived and
was known as "The Hermit” of Three Rivers, finally passing away at the ad-
vanced age of eighty-five years.
The work that Hall Kelley did to save Oregon to the United States was that
of an educator and agitator. He wrote and published more about Oregon than
all others put together prior to the formation of the provisional government.
His writings were all characterized by noble thoughts and directed to the promo-
tion of the uplift and welfare of his fellowman. Not a line can be found in all
his voluminous writings that is not educational and reformatory. His labors
for spreading knowledge and interest about Oregon were not fitful and spas-
modic, but were persistently and energetically carried on for more than forty
years. And the result of it all was to secure and hold the attention of men in
Congress, in public stations and in the newspaper world, so that a public senti-
ment was created in favor of holding on to Oregon as a Pacific outpost for na-
tional development and defense. But for Kelley's labors, the whole of the New
England states, New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia, would have been prac-
tically without any information about Oregon further than the report of Lewis
and Clark. And that this labor of Kelley's was effective and of great service,
the letter of United States Senator John Davis, of Massachusetts, is here given.
Davis was a man of such great integrity and high character that he achieved
the distinction of being known as "Honest John Davis.'
"JUNE 6, 1848 .
“Hall J. Kelley:
"DEAR SIR-Having learned that you are about to leave Washington City for
your home without having obtained an act of Congress in your behalf, the sub-
ject not having been acted upon, I beg leave to say that I consider you as en-
titled, in equity and good conscience, to a liberal grant of land from the gov-
ernment for your meritorious services in promoting the settlement of Oregon,
and I by no means despair of obtaining such a grant.
“Respectfully yours,
“JOHN DAVIS.'
And among the many distinguished supporters of Kelley's claim for recogni-
tion by Congress was the eminent historian, George Bancroft. And in addition
to his work in creating public opinion in Congress and the Eastern states in fa-
vor of holding Oregon, he is entitled to no small amount of credit in sending the
first missionaries to Oregon. Prior to the movement that sent them out here,
Kelley had collected and published all the facts and information about Oregon
that was then available, and had laid the foundation for practical efforts, and
proved that Oregon was a good country to settle and people with American citi-
272
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
zens. It was from Kelley's labors that the Missionary Boards got their facts
which justified them in sending Lee and Whitman to Oregon.
Besides his work for Oregon, Kelley surveyed and planned a canal from the
Charles river to the Connecticut, and for a ship canal from Barnstable to Buz-
zard's Bay, Massachusetts, and located and engineered the construction of sev-
eral railroads in the state of Maine. He never made any money for himself, but
he did much to make fortunes for other people. He was not a cracked-brained
theorist, pursuing unsubstantial chimeras, as some writers have sought to make
out, but a clear-headed, far-seeing enthusiast, patriotically seeking the honor and
prosperity of his country. And, if like Jefferson and Benton, he could see in the
future the great importance of this great country of the Pacific slope, when the
timid great men and cowardly little men of the United States Senate could not,
or would not see it, it is to his honor and not his discredit. And for these reasons,
Hall J. Kelley is justly entitled to have his name enrolled among those who
saved Oregon to the people of the United States.
And now, in the order of their acts in point of time, following down the line
is found another man of entirely different character from any that has preceded
him, that at the “psychological moment” (to use a modern expression).rendered
a service which seemed to be an inspiration, and that turned apparent defeat
into glorious victory.
When all the circumstances of the settlement and occupation of Oregon are
considered in the light of the strength and facilities of the contending and com-
peting powers, the success of the handful of scattered Americans seems little
short of a miracle. On one side was the perfectly organized, and for the purpose
of settlement and holding the country, the most powerful commercial organiza-
tion then in North America. Possessed of all the money necessary for any ven-
ture or enterprise, equipped with ships for immigration as well as commerce,
semi-military in its organization with trained and perfectly obedient servants,
ready to obey any order, with forts and military supplies defended by light
cannon located at every strategic point, and able to call to its assistance ten thou-
sand Indian warriors, and backed by the whole power of the British government
if necessary, the Hudson's Bay Company was able to crush at any moment the
feeble efforts of the Americans to protect themselves by any kind of an organi-
zation. Was it divine prophecy, or common-sense reliance on the courage and
happy luck of the men who had sent him to Congress, that inspired Senator
Benton to say in the United States Senate: “Mere adventurers may enter upon
it (Oregon) as Aeneas entered upon the Tiber, and as our forefathers entered
upon the Potomac, the Delaware and the Hudson, and renew the phenomenon of
individuals laying the foundation of a future empire.” And on the other side,
,
pitted against this powerful company and the imperial power of Great Britain,
were what Benton has intimated, "mere adventurers," recklessly proclaiming
their intention to found a new state. Two opposed ideas—monarchy and special
privileges on one side, and republicanism and equal rights to all, meet and clash
Neither Bunker Hill nor New Orleans is forgotten, but here at a
lonely cabin on the banks of a peaceful river, two thousand miles from the out-
post of all civil government, 102 men meet to decide whether the Union Jack of
old England or the Stars and Stripes of young America shall float over the four
great states to be.
once more.

THOMAS JEFFERSON
OF
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
273
Behold the picture;' the bishop of his flock, with centuries of training and
culture in his face, holds the volatile children of the distant St. Lawrence on one
side, with steady poise, while over against them are turbulent spirits from Ken-
tucky, Tennessee, Missouri, the plains and the rovers of the sea, men inured to
dangers and trials from boyhood to manhood, and ranged behind them mission-
aries of the cross, who, like the great Puritan, could “trust God and keep the
powder dry." And surrounding all the sullen red man, swathed in his fiery
blanket, silently beholding the strange scene in wondering awe as to which of
these must be his future master. To portray the scene demands the genius of
a Michael Angelo, and when it is done true to history, the canvas will immortalize
the painter.
We get a glimpse of the contending forces as they rally in coonskin caps and
buckskin trousers on the banks of the Willamette, May 3, 1843, to try out the
momentous issue. The leaders of the rival forces are rallying every man for the
fray, enthusing them with the patriotic maintenance of their principles, and
with courage to maintain their rights. The fateful hour has come; the chairman
calls for order; the committee reports a plan of organization; the ayes and noes
are called for and against a government, the Americans voting scatteringly,
hesitatingly and ineffectually. Then comes the vote against a government, and
the Hudson's Bay Company men trained for the occasion, fire a solid shot, voting
loudly and as one man, and everything seems lost for the Americans. A few
brave spirits refuse to be beaten, will not admit defeat, and call for a division
and polling the men. The division is ordered by the chairman and pandemonium
breaks loose. The Hudson's Bay men and Catholic Canadians rapidly mingle with
the Americans to prevent a division and bitterly remonstrate against any gov-
ernment organization. Neighborhood friendships, peace of the community,
every consideration is recalled to prevent any action; when suddenly, as if leap-
ing out of the earth, springs forth the stalwart form of Joseph L. Meek, and
shouts above the din of contending voices:
"DIVIDE! DIVIDE! WHO'S FOR A DIVIDE!
All in favor of the American flag, follow me!"
Instantly the commotion is silenced. The Americans line up after the nat-
ural born leader of men, and as the lines lead out to the banks of the beautiful
river, the decision hangs in the balance. The secretaries go down the lines of
determined men, resolutely facing each other with that grim courage which be-
tokens the real heroes of a great cause, and it looks fearfully like a drawn battle.
Suddenly a Frenchman-(the Frenchman has always helped Americans out
when them most needed him)—a Frenchman steps out from the ranks of those
of his native land, conquers the greatest trial of his life, and Francois Xavier Mat-
thieu slowly crosses over to the American side and takes rank with his fellow-
countryman, Etienne Lucier, and Oregon is saved to the nation--fifty-two votes
for organizing the provisional government of Oregon and fifty votes against.
Now it will not be claimed that Colonel Joe Meek was a great man. It is
not necessary to set up for him any claim to great talent or statesmanship. It
was not an occasion that required that. A decision had to be snatched from
doubt and indecision. Men had to be rallied to the greatest event not only of
their lives, but in the life of a great national movement and the founding of a
Vol. 1-18
274
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
new state. The actors in the dramatic scene could scarcely have comprehended
the tremendous consequences of their acts, and of the unfolding scheme big with
vast results to two great nations. But this chief actor, at the vital moment, had
the inborn imagination, the bumptious dare-devil courage and dramatic talent,
to seize the only point left him for effect, and make an appeal for the flag. He
had heard in old Virginia, as every American boy has heard, the slogan of every
battle cry~"Rally around the flag, boys!" Meek saw the chance; it might have
been an inspiration from boyhood days; but he caught it instantly, used it most
effectively; won the victory and secured organization, union and combination,
and by that means enrolled his name among the savers of Oregon.
(Josepn L. Meek was a native of Washington county, Virginia, born in 1810.
He grew up without education on a Virginia plantation, and being troubled be-
cause his father contracted a second marriage, ran away and joined a party of
fur traders going to the Rocky mountains, and drifted into Oregon in 1840. He
married a Nez Perce woman, and they raised a very respectable family; his
daughter, Olive, is a woman of education, talent and refinement, and his son,
Stephen, was a member of the Oregon legislature. Meek had a splendid phy-
sique, a magnetic presence, wit, courtesy, and generous to a fault, and if he had
been afforded the advantage of an education, would have reached high official
station.)
But not all the heroes and savers of Oregon rage the battle field, or pace the
forum in the limelight of popular acclaim. Every man at that historic meeting
at old Champoeg proved his title to true worth and honorable mention. Victor
and vanquished proved their worth in the founding of a new empire. Those who
were defeated, promptly and quietly withdrew, showing neither faction or op-
position, and proved their real worth as men and citizens in yielding cordial obe-
dience to the new government.
Of Francois X. Matthieu, the only one of that band of immortals still living
when this history of the events is recorded, too much cannot be said in his praise.
Born and reared under the flag that on that day he reluctantly discarded, with all
his educational bias, and all his personal associations, with the policy and men
who were defeated, it must have been a soul-trying ordeal to cast in his lot with
the Americans. But being convinced that it would be better for those men and
their families, and the future of the country, to be ruled by the United States
than by England, he sacrificed all personal feeling and the associations of his
life-time, and voted unselfishly for what he conceived to be the greatest good to
the greatest number. On his vote depended the hopes and fears of both sides-
the whole mass. Had he remained with the Canadians the vote would have
tied evenly and no decision. The future of the community might have drifted
helplessly, or broken out into faction and violence. At the least sign of danger-
ous strife the great commercial company, backed by England, would have inter-
vened, and British immigration and settlement would have followed, and Oregon
would have been lost to the United States. And well we may conclude that the
single vote cast by the far-seeing and patriotic heart of Francois Xavier Mat-
thieu solved a momentous question at a critical moment, and enrolled the name
of this true man among the savers of Oregon.
(Francois Xavier Matthieu was born at Montreal, Canada, April 2, 1818; and
in 1837, at the time of the Canadian rebellion, was clerk in a store in Montreal
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
275
Being a rebel, he employed his leisure in purchasing and shipping arms to the
centers of the rebellion, and was obliged at last to quit Canada to save his life, and
come over to the United States, which he did in 1838. Going first to Albany, New
York, and thence to St. Louis, he joined a party of the American Fur Company
to trap and trade up into the Yellowstone region. But the Indians being fur-
nished with rum, which Matthieu did not approve of, he left the party and joined
a party of 1842 immigrants on their way to Oregon. Reaching Oregon he went to
Champoeg, and hired out to Etienne Lucier for two years as a carpenter and
farmer. Married a good woman in 1844, and settled at St. Paul in French
Prairie as a farmer. He is the only survivor of the 102 men taking part in the
Champoeg meeting to organize a new state, and now resides with a daughter in
Portland, enjoying life and his friends at the age of ninety-four.)
But as “Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war, so we find that
after the hazardous and strenuous contest to establish the provisional government
and launch the frail ship of state on the unsounded seas of inexperience, that the
right man finally came to the helm. Sooner or later the right man always comes
to a good cause ; and when plain, modest citizen, George Abernethy, was elected
the first governor of Oregon, the good people of the new-born state had insured
the success of their great enterprise. A spark of genius may strike out a great
idea, a dashing general may win a great battle for a noble cause, and a close
student may solve a great scheme of government; but the even-tempered, patient,
tireless, honest, practical man of common sense is absolutely necessary to utilize
the great idea, the great battle, or the great scheme. So also with the Oregon
provisional government. From its very inception there were ambitious men
thirsting for glory and anxious to lead, but had not the necessary brains or bal-
last. A three-fold executive was tried and found inefficient. Impatience for re-
sults, the jealousies of little men and petulant tempers of bigger men, all conspired
to threaten the government experiment with failure. The final success of the
effort was only secured by the majority of citizens, who asking nothing for them-
selves but peace and safety, determined that their efforts should not be wrecked
by incompetency or lack of conscientious effort. And so after more than two
years of careful consideration of every name in the whole country favorable to
the government, Abernethy was chosen to pilot the ship of state, and continued
at the helm until the United States government assumed all responsibility and
relieved him of the great duties he had discharged with singular integrity and
efficiency, without salary, fee or reward.
To raise money to support a government in a country where half the people
did not want any government, and where there was not even the power to en-
force taxation, and where the legal tender was wheat, beaver skin, etc., and serve
the government for years without salary or pay, was not half a list of the trials
and difficulties Governor Abernethy had to contend with and overcome.
That he was able to keep the little craft afloat, and steer clear of the opposi-
tion of open enemies, and the petty annoyances of racking rivalry, until he
finally reached the secure harbor of national protection, is a marvel of good
management, patient forbearance to all criticism and patriotic devotion to the
welfare of his fellowmen. Where all Americans were ardent patriots, and many
were captious critics, the slightest deviation from the straight and narrow way
of strict rectitude, and even self-sacrifice, would have lost him the confidence of
276
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
the little commonwealth and plunged the community into anarchy that would have
.. wrecked the whole effort to found a new state. And to have succeeded as Gov-
ernor Abernethy did, was to save and strengthen the entire movement from day
to day, until from infantile weakness it reached the vigor and capacity to defend
itself from foreign intrigues and Indian wars. And thus saving the organiza-
tion was in fact making the state, and the labor and success of the achievement
places the name of George Abernethy among those who really in truth and in
fact saved Oregon to the United States.
George Abernethy was a native of New York City and was born October 7,
1807. Left New York in 1839, and arrived in Oregon in 1840, coming with
a missionary party. He was an ardent Methodist, but smooth and politic in a
marked degree, and able to manage Catholic and Protestants with equal facility.
He was actively supported by his Methodist brethren for the office of governor,
and made a good executive. On his canvass for re-election, he had serious oppo-
sition, and it is said that a majority of the voters preferred General Lovejoy, but
put aside their preferences rather than disturb an existing order of administra-
tion. He went actively into business after the expiration of his official duties.
He was not successful in mercantile affairs, and after losing most of his fortune,
removed from Oregon City to Portland, and resided there for sixteen years, pass-
ing away May 2, 1877.
It is appropriate to notice here a suggestion that has been made occasionally,
that but for the timely arrival of the immigration of 1843 the provisional govern-
ment organized at Champoeg would have gone to pieces and failed. And that it
was saved by such men as James W. Nesmith, Jesse Applegate and Peter H. Bur-
nett coming in 1843, and in time to save the organization from dissolution. There
is no doubt that the immigration of 1843, and such men as are named did greatly
reinforce the organization that had been effected. Both Nesmith and Burnett
were successively Supreme Judges of Oregon, and Applegate was active in the
Legislature. But the fact is the government did not go to pieces; and the
assumption, that it would have gone to pieces but for the reinforcements of
1843, has no foundation on any historical facts.
No record of the strenuous times in which the foundations of civil govern-
ment were laid in Oregon would be just or complete that failed to recognize the
united efforts of all the men and women to organize society and promote good ·
works here from 1840 to 1848. There were leaders, as there must be in all for-
ward movements, which the turn of events or characteristic abilities brought to
the front. But the record and the results show that while individuals stoutly
contended for their opinions and for the policies of government, yet on the one
purpose in view there was more harmony and united action than is generally
found in small communities. It was all the people who united in the provisional
government and manfully pulled together through good and evil report, that
saved Oregon to the United States.
Of all these, three men have secured great prominence, and one at least, a
national reputation, in the work of saving Oregon. And of these three, one was
not for a time a citizen of the United States.
The work of John McLoughlin in co-operating to organize society and estab-
lish the institutions of education, religion and civil government, is unique and
unexampled in the history of the West. The work of Marcus Whitman, cut off
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
277
in the midst of his career by the treacherous hands of those he vainly sought to
bless, has not, and probably never will be fully known or comprehended. There
can be no doubt that Whitman was one of the first to divine the plans of the
Hudson's Bay Company, as the representative of Great Britain in Oregon, and
probably the first man to personally appeal to the government for that support
which was so long and so wrongfully withheld.
An immense effort has been made, principally by college professors and their
co-adjutors to belittle the work of Dr. Whitman. And recently a voluminous
book written by one William I. Marshall has been published by private sub-
scription because it could never have seen the light of day in any other way,
which bitterly attacks the work of the dead martyr to the cause of Oregon.
There are certain great facts which the enemies of Whitman cannot deny; but
being themselves narrow and limited in their conceptions or real greatness they
cannot comprehend the importance of these undeniable facts. For example,
Whitman in the dead of winter made a two thousand mile dash on horseback
over two ranges of mountains, conquering the icy blasts of winter the depth of
snows that had housed all animal life, staking his life and that of his faithful
steed against starvation, freezing to death in crossing snowy falls on Alpine
heights, fording icy rivers, braving Indian enemies and landing safely at his
goal. Such a feat was never heard of in the world before. It astonished the
the nation, and the news of it spread far and wide by wireless messengers and
proved to the waiting missionaries and all the west that emigrants could get
to Oregon safely and surely in summer weather. That single fact alone puts
Whitman to the very forefront of all the Oregon savers.
The Whitman critics say there is no evidence that Whitman ever saw Presi-
dent Tyler or Secretary of State Webster on the Oregon question. But there
is evidence that Whitman did visit Washington City for some purpose. And
there is no evidence that he did not see both of those officials. Marcus Whitman
was not an idle gadder-about. His time was too precious. His life was too
serious; his work in Oregon was too great for any trifling of time or opportun-
ities. Many of the greatest feats of public service are never heralded to the
world. Does any sane man of this age suppose for a moment that if Marcus Whit-
man had interviewed the president and secretary of state and obtained any
kind of an expression of purposes from them in relation to Oregon that he would
have violated the confidence given him by those high officials and gone out and
published to the world the result of the interview? The idea is absurd. And
the Whitman critics only expose their own ignorance and bitterness by their
reiteration of the state and senseless fault finding about a man whose pur-
pose and career in life was above their comprehension.
The work and career of Jason Lee was in many respects different from that
of McLoughlin and Whitman. Lee, himself a native Canadian, was able to
command the friendship of McLoughlin from his first appearance in Oregon;
but being a citizen of the United States, all his aims and ambitions were en-
thusiastically enlisted with his adopted country; and he was withal an in-
tensely practical man. He passed over the country that Whitman settled in.
He sized up the native red man from some observation of him in Canada. He
saw at a glance that the Willamette valley offered a better and broader foun-
dation for a missionary station than the more rugged regions east of the Cas-
278
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
cades. The characteristics of these three great men were entirely dissimilar.
Their work, careers, and influences in Oregon and in saving Oregon has been
the subject of a great controversy for a quarter of a century. Books have
been written, each covering four hundred or more pages, proclaiming the
good work of these men for Oregon. And that the work of each of them
may be fully and justly presented, and preserved in this history, it has been
deemed best to have their careers sketched by friends who have made a special
study of their lives. And in pursuance of that arrangement, Mr. Frederick
V. Holman, has prepared the monograph on Dr. John McLoughlin; Joseph
R. Wilson, D. D., has rendered a like service for Dr. Whitman, while Mr. John
Gill has given us the career of Jason Lee. These sketches will be found at the
end of this chapter.
If the publisher had given more space it would have been a pleasant duty
to have noticed at length such men as W. H. Gray, John S. Griffin, Robert
Newell, Robert Shortess, James W. Nesmith, Peter H. Burnett, John Minto
and others, all of whom did valiant and effective work in saving Oregon to
the United States. Gray was practically the lieutenant of Whitman. Ener-
getic, omnipresent and courageous to the limit, he lost no opportunity in his
determined purpose to do all and say all that could be done or said for Protest-
antism and the provisional government. And besides this, Gray's work lives
after him in a history of Oregon which contains many facts and phases of
life in pioneer times that cannot be found in any other work on Oregon. Peter
H. Burnett, one of the judges of the provisional government, did useful work
for the new state, attained prominence here, and going to California was made
the first governor of that state. James W. Nesmith was also one of the judges
of the provisional government, colonel in the Indian wars, and United States
senator. John S. Griffin (Father Griffin) was for many years a pioneer
preacher of usefulness, giving his services freely to all, and living to the hon-
ored old age of 92. Robert Newell was the wit and philosopher of the whole
community, and the peace-maker in all petty contentions for office or prece-
dence. He was the diplomat that could “sooth the savage beast” and bend the
red men to his will. What "Doc. Bob Newell” could not plan, and success-
fully carry out to promote the public welfare and peace of the community
sixty-five years ago, is not worth mentioning.
But heroes and heroines, all of them, all gone but one, and we will never
see their like again. Peace to their ashes and honor forevermore.
"Oh, bring us back once more
The vanished days of yore,
When the world with faith was filled;
Bring back the fervid zeal,
The hearts of fire and steel,
The hands that believe and build."
JASON LEE
Father of American Oregon (Scott); Founder of American Institutions
and Civilization on the Pacific Coast (Bancroft.) By John Gill.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
279
A tale so improbable that it has been doubted by historians, and regarded
as a myth by many critical readers, has been attested as truth by the vera-
cious testimony of Miss McBeth, missionary among the Nez Perces for thirty
years.
Let us begin with this link of evidence. In her “Story of the Nez Perces
since Lewis and Clark,' Miss McBeth says: “There are two events in Nez
Perces history so well known that even children can tell about them. These
are the coming of Lewis and Clark in 1805, and their return from the coast
in 1806, and the going out of the four Flathead Indians seeking the 'Book of
Heaven' twenty-five years later." She gives the names of these four messen-
gers. One of these names corresponds with that given by Catlin, who met the
two surviving members of this band of four Nez Perces in 1832, in St. Louis,
and traveled two thousand miles with them on their journey to their coun
in northern Idaho. Another of the names given by Miss McBeth is evidently
but a slight variation of the name applied by Catlin to the same man.
Two old men of the four had died before Catlin met the survivors. They
had been sent out upon their quest of the white man's God in 1831, by mandate
of a grand council of their tribes.
If any testimony were required to confirm Miss McBeth, that of George
Catlin, the artist and traveler, the greatest authority who ever wrote upon the
Indians, is sufficient. He says:“When I first heard the report of this extraordi-
nary mission, I could scarcely believe it; but on conversing with General Clark
(William Clark of the great exploring expedition) I was fully convinced of the
fact." Catlin painted the portraits of over five hundred Indians, which are now
in the National Museum at Washington, and among them are the portraits of
the two Nez Perces spoken of. Catlin traveled with these Indians for weeks on
the first steamboat that made the voyage from St. Louis to the upper Missouri.
This was in the spring of 1832.
General Clark was probably the first American who took a deep interest in
the quest of these Nez Perces. He received them into his own house and was
most hospitable and helpful to them. When Keepeelele, the old man of the three
remaining upon their arrival at St. Louis, was mortally sick, Mrs. Clark min-
istered to him. She was herself in feeble health, and died, it is stated, of mias-
matic fever, December 25, 1831. Keepeelele was buried in St. Louis. His
epitaph reads: "Keepeelele, enterree, October 31, 1831, Nez Perces de la tribu
des Choponeck, apple Tete-plate."
Conquest, Mrs. Eva Emery Dye.
Some have stated that General Clark was a Roman Catholic. He was in
fact a communicant of the Episcopal church. General Clark upon first receiv-
ing these messengers directed them to Rev. John York of the M. E. Church, then
a resident of St. Louis. In 1876, Mr. York was pastor of the M. E. Church of
Corvallis, Oregon.
An eloquent speech made at St. Louis by He-oh-kste-kin, one of these Nez
Perces, is recorded by Dr. Hines. It too has been considered mythical; not more
so than the earliest claims that these “Flathead” messengers were Nez Perces,
probably. This speech tells of the regret of the messengers that "they must re-
turn empty handed to their people." They returned home disappointed, but their
errand was not in vain. Three years after the meeting of the council that sent
280
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
them forth, Jason Lee and his companions passed through the Nez Perces country,
seeking for the “Flathead Indians” who had borne the message and the tribes
that sought the light. It was for their sake that Lee undertook the mission
though his work was destined to be in a field far to westward.
The appeal of the Nez Perces was carried swiftly from St. Louis to the At-
lantic States. It stirred the missionary spirit of the churches wonderfully.
Dr. Wilbur Fisk, president of Wilbraham Academy (Mass.), was one of the
earliest and most active to respond. “Zion's Herald” of Boston, in issue of
March 22, 1833, contained a rousing address to the Methodist churches, in part
as follows:
A GREAT PROCLAMATION
Missionary Intelligence
Hear! Hear!
*
“Who will respond to the call from beyond the Rocky mountains? The com-
munication from Brother G. P. Disosway, on the subject of the deputation of
Flathead (Nez Perces) Indians to General Clark, has excited intense interest.
We are for having a mission established there at once.
Money shall be
forthcoming. I will be bondsman for the church. All we want is the men. Who
will go? Who? I known one young man who, I think, will go, and I know of
none like him for the enterprise. * Were I younger and unencumbered,
how joyfully would I go! But this honor is reserved for another. Great will
be his reward; glorious his crown.
"WILBUR FISK.
"WESLEYAN ACADEMY, MARCH 9, 1833."
On March 20, 1833, the Missionary Board of the M. E. Church in session
in New York City received the above communication from Dr. Wilbur Fisk,
urging the sending of a missionary to the Indians. Through the bishops of the
church inquiries were made and a correspondence with General Clark fol-
lowed. From him the board received valuable information of the tribe and
the country, and the result was a resolution of the board to establish a mis-
sion among the Indians west of the Rocky Mountains. The church had then a
single mission, recently established in Liberia. Dr. Fisk, who was the presi-
dent of Wilbraham Academy and a great leader in the church, was asked to
name a man to take the proposed mission in charge. He replied: "I know
but one man, Jason Lee.” On July 17, 1833, Lee was appointed to the super-
intendency of the mission west of the Rocky Mountains.
BOSTON'S PART IN THE EARLY OCCUPATION OF OREGON
New England was alive with the spirit of colonization in the early years
of the last century. From Massachusetts and Connecticut large colonies trav-
eled to the territories of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, and especially to the
"Western Reserve.' The sons and grandsons of some of these Yankee set-
tlers moved westward again in the forties to the Oregon country.
In Massachusetts the idea of American occupation of Oregon first took a
certain shape. This was naturally due to the discovery of the Columbia by
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
281
Captain Robert Gray, a Boston sailor in the “Columbia," owned by Boston
merchants trading for furs along the north Pacific coast. Other Boston ships
also traded along these shores. Even before the Astoria enterprise, three brothers
named Winship, residents of Boston, and others, formed a company for settle-
ment and trade on the Columbia, and Nathaniel Winship sailed upon this
enterprise in 1809 in the “Albatross.'' This ship entered the Columbia in
1810, and ascended the river to Oak Point (on the Oregon side) nearly north
of the village of Marshland.
Here Winship planted a garden and began the building of a fort or trad-
ing station; but the June rise of the Columbia swept away the foundation,
destroyed the garden, and caused Winship to abandon his efforts. These New
England ventures doubtless inspired Astor's expedition of the following year.
Hall J. Kelley, a Bostonian, became an active advocate for the occupation
of Oregon, as already stated in this chapter.
THE STUDENT AND HIS LINEAGE
At the time when Kelley was most active in his exhortations for the settle-
ment of Oregon, a young Canadian giant came down from Stanstead, a bor-
der town of the Vermont line, to study at Wilbraham academy. This was
Jason Lee, then twenty-four years old. He had been recently converted and
determined upon entering the Methodist ministry. Though born in Canada,
Jason Lee was of one of the New England families, his father, Daniel Lee,
having moved to Stanstead in 1800, to join a colony of New Englanders who
were settling that township which they believed would be included in Ameri-
can territory when the international boundary was finally settled. Daniel
Lee was of Connecticut, and his wife also. John Lee, the English progenitor
of the family, was of Colchester, Essex, and came to America in 1643, in the
ship “Francis” of Ipswich. He lived in Cambridge and was one of the com-
pany of Rev. Thomas Hooker, which settled and founded the city of Hartford.
His descendants were soldiers in the French and Indian wars, and fought
at Concord, Lexington, Long Island, Valley Forge, and Bennington. Colonel
Noah Lee, equipped a regiment and fought with Ethan Allen. Captain Na-
than Hale, Washington's scout, was a descendant of Tabitha, youngest daugh-
ter of John Lee, and Rev. Edward Everett Hale is of the same lineage. Such
were the ancestors of Jason Lee.
This young student was six feet, three inches in height, and of correspond-
ing herculean proportions. His complexion was ruddy, his eyes gray-blue;
an Anglo-Saxon in type, full of the strong virile elements of that race. He
attracted the especial attention and care of Dr. Wilbur Fisk, then president
of Wesleyan Academy, and when the Methodist church determined upon send-
ing a mission to the Indians of the Oregon country, Dr. Fisk recalled Jason
Lee, who had returned to Stanstead, and by authority of the Missionary Board
of the church he wrote to Lee, offering him the superintendency of the mission.
The young man had already offered his services to the Wesleyan Missionary
Society of London as a missionary to the Canadian Indians, and when Dr.
Fiske's letter reached him, he was expecting the appointment from London.
282
OR
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Up to this time, Jason Lee had been a member of the Wesleyan Church of
Canada; but at once accepted the offered appointment.
.
Jason Lee was born in 1803 at Stanstead, and his life was that of a back-
woodsman, with limited means of education. It was in 1827 that he entered
Wilbraham academy as a student, at the age of twenty-four.
Jason Lee was received into the New England conference in the spring of
1833, and set about the preparation for his mission at once. As his assistant
in the duty of the new field he chose Rev. Daniel Lee, his nephew, then a
minister in New Hampshire. As a teacher, Cyrus Shepard, of Lynn, was en-
gaged. They held a farewell meeting in New York in the Forsyth street
church, November 20, Bishop Hedding presiding.
Captain Wyeth at this time, was planning a second expedition to Oregon,
and was to start overland in the spring of 1834. The opportunity was thus
offered for our missionaries to cross the plains and mountains with men who
had become acquainted with the route, and the Methodist mission took its de-
parture in March to pass via Pittsburg, and the Ohio river and Mississippi to
St. Louis, and fell into the train of Captain Wyeth at Independence, then the last
town westward, on April 22d. From St. Louis to Independence, Jason and
Daniel Lee had ridden horseback across Missouri. At Independence Mr. Lee
engaged P. L. Edwards as a teacher and Courtney M. Walker as an assistant.
ACROSS THE PLAINS WITH CAPTAIN WYETH
The young evangelist found himself in strange company. There were nearly
two hundred of Wyeth's men, and they were a tough lot of mountaineers and
trappers, accustomed to hard life and scant ceremony-winters spent in St.
Louis and the river towns in wild orgies, then back to the fur country. This
company was expecting to compete with the Hudson's Bay establishment for the
fur trade of the Northwest, and it is not likely that Captain Wyeth engaged any
class-leaders for the enterprise. The Lees were sick of their strange surround-
ings at first, but soon found themselves none the worse. · They bore their proper
share of the toils and dangers of the journey through the Indian country and
won the friendship and good-will of the party.
On June 15, the Wyeth company met the great body of trappers and mountain-
eers of the inter-mountain region at the ''summer rendezvous," a summer gather-
ing of these semi-wild men, at a time when they were footloose. This time the
rendezvous was on Ham's Fork, a stream which enters Green river, a branch of
the Colorado, at a point near the site of Fort Bridger. Two days' journey by
the old emigrant road west from Green river, some of the trappers in the motley
crowd promised to make trouble for the missionary party, but as soon as Jason
Lee was informed of their threats, he sought the men out and had a frank talk
with them, which quite removed their hostile ideas and gave them a wholesome
respect for the young preacher.
At the redezvous Lee encountered certain Indians of the Nez Perces tribe
who had heard of Christianity, like their neighbors, the Flatheads, and the
young chief who was at the head of this party of Nez Perces invited him to
come to the country of his people and establish his mission among them. This


View as Houten
OF
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
283
chief was the celebrated leader of his tribe, subsequently known as "Lawyer,"
and is remembered by many of our pioneers.
On July 10th, the expedition passed over the divide, from which the waters
flow west into the Shoshone, and three days later they reached that river at the
mouth of the Port Neuf. Here Wyeth's party remained some time, procuring
provisions from the Indians and establishing the trading post station known as
Fort Hall. Here Lee preached the first sermon ever uttered in the Oregon
country, July 27, 1834.
His audience consisted of Indians, half-breeds, Canadian trappers, etc.
Among the listeners was the famous Captain Tom McKay, who acted as guide
for Wyeth's party from this point west, and two years later he performed the
same service for Dr. Marcus Whitman, whom he also escorted from Fort Hall
to Vancouver.
On the first day of September, they emerged from the Blue mountains and
before night of September 2, they reached Fort Walla Walla. The missionaries
had been placed under obligations for the food they ate to Captain McKay and
the Indians of the country. Lee says in his diary: "The Indian women would
bring food and putting it down return without saying a word, as they speak
no language we can understand."
The Lees reached Vancouver September 17, 1834, going down the Columbia
river in flat boats.
That night the missionaries slept in beds, in houses for the first time in 150
days. They were the guests of a prince among men, Dr. John McLoughlin,
chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company, master of a territory that stretched
from California to the Arctic and from the Pacific to Saskatchewan.
The country was esteemed much as Kamchatka and the seal rookeries of
the North Pacific by ourselves now. The handful of white men scattered between
the Rocky Mountains and the sea had no idea of 'settling" the country. It was
to them a great preserve of fur-bearing animals, and they intended to keep it so.
No greater menace to their interest was possible than the occupation of the coun-
try by settlers of whatever origin; and yet they put no obstacles in the way of
the stream which had its beginning in Jason Lee's party, and increased in volume
year by year thereafter. Until long after Lee's arrival the Oregon country was
a no-man’s-land—a debatable ground, the intrinsic value of which was unknown
alike to both America and England. Dr. McLoughlin was the governor of the
country, acting for the only civilized people within its borders, who by existing
treaties had at least an equal right in it with the only other contestant, and by
possession and vested interests a better, than any then existing
Jason Lee was received by Dr. McLoughlin as hospitably as man could be,
and with the respect and deference due him as a clergyman. He was not quite
sure that his mission met Dr. McLoughlin's approval at first, but his frank
kindness soon won Mr. Lee's confidence. The appeal of the four Indians who
had gone to St. Louis still rang in his ears, and he counseled with the Doctor
about going back into the Clearwater country to find their people, but Dr. Mc-
Loughlin advised the establishment of the mission in the Willamette valley in
the neighborhood of French prairie, where a number of former employees of the
Hudson's Bay Company had settled on farms, and where many Indians gathered.
This advice ought to set at rest any idea that Dr. McLoughlin was opposed to
281
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Lee's enterprise, for it would have been easy enough to second his own desire
to go far into the interior where the difficulties in the way would have been per-
haps insurmountable. McLoughlin was a Catholic, indeed, and his hearty con-
currence in Jason Lee's plan to Christianize the Indians marks the liberal,
magnanimous gentleman.
When Lee determined to visit the locality proposed by Dr. McLoughlin,
the company offered him every facility. Boats, boatmen and provisions were
freely given him. At the Willamette Falls the Indians assisted in the portage
of the boat and goods, and the journey to the site of the mission in the Willam-
ette valley was completed October 6th.
The season was already too far advanced for beginning such an undertaking
as the construction of a mission house, but Jason Lee was resolved upon its com-
pletion for winter use as a house for himself and companions, and as a school
and chapel. Dr. McLoughlin had sent up oxen and a number of cows for the
mission. Jason Lee was a New England frontiersman, handy with the axe and
care of cattle; and the management of the clearing, hauling and building were
his personal care and labor. He was a collossal man, eight inches above aver-
age heighth and powerful in accord. The building first constructed was eight-
een by thirty-two feet and one story high. It was occupied four weeks after
their arrival on the spot, though not yet completed. This was the first Ameri-
can home built on the Pacific coast or on the western side of the Rocky moun-
tains.
Before the completion of the building Indian children of the prairie were
receiving instruction and care. October 19th, Jason Lee preached his first ser-
mon near the Mission in the house of Joseph Gervais, of French Prairie, as a
large tract of land between the Willamette and the present town of Gervais was
called. The location chosen was in some ways unfortunate, but all considera-
tions of comfort or future advantage were properly set aside by Lee in his de-
termination to perform the work to which he was called. The half-breed chil-
dren of the prairie were numerous, and many Indians traveled the river and
lower trails, or made their homes near French Prairie. Here was the most
favorable place for reaching the people, and so the mission site was chosen
near the river on land too low, as it proved later, being subject to inundation
in river floods, and peculiarly miasmatic.
THE PEOPLE OF THE VALLEY
It was the intention of the church to Christianize the Indians; the mes-
sage of the pilgrims to St. Louis had evoked a remarkable response from the
eastern churches, and it was doubtless intended that Jason Lee should establish
himself among the "Flatheads." The people who sent him knew nothing of
Nez Perces, and Lee overshot the actual mark five hundred miles, by coming
to the Willamette, but the Indians of our vicinity were flatheaded as any, and
as fit subjects of missionary aid as could be found anywhere. They were not
the most hopeful subjects, but the first great missionary of Christianity seems
not to have balanced very carefully the advantage of preaching to Greeks or
Romans rather than to Hebrews.
Among the resident Indians of the Willamette were Chinooks, Multnomahs,
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
285
Clackamas, Calapooias, Molallas and other tribes, whose names in some instances
still pertain to the land they lived in. These Indians, like most of their race,
had no fixed dwelling place. When the camas or wapato or berries were ready
for gathering or digging, they migrated in bands to places where these things
were to be had. When salmon were plenty at the Falls or down the Columbia,
the men would be off fishing. In the fall there was game in abundance, par-
ticularly wild fowl, and the tribes followed these necessary objects of their
lives from place to place over large tracts, from the river to the mountains,
from the mountains to the sea. The aborigines had been rapidly decreasing
in number for half a century or more. Their traditions tell of terrible pestilence
among them, even before the first contact with the white race on the Pacific,
half a century before Lee's coming. The year after Lee established the mission
the Multnomahs living on Wapato Island and the adjoining low lands, died by
hundreds from measles, having been infected from a trading vessel in the river.
The disease contracted from the whites had greatly reduced the population
of the Willamette, and soon after the establishment of the mission sickness of
a dangerous sort prevailed among the Indian children, who had, up to that
time been received in considerable numbers, and begun their new duties as
proselytes of the mission with encouraging zeal and interest. The sickness
seemed to cling about the place for years. It was a fever, and is explained by
some as malarial, due to the cultivation of the moist lowlands. Jason Lee and
his two assistants gave the utmost care possible to the sick, and Daniel Lee
was compelled to seek relief from labor and sickness by a voyage to the Sand-
wich Islands the following winter.
Like certain Asiatics, our Indians held the medicine man responsible when
the patient died; this spirit of vengeance nearly cost Lee and his companions
their lives more than once. Some other Indians, grateful for kindnesses shown
them, gave Lee warning.
The Indians of 1834, in the western Oregon country were half savage only,
the nobler traits of the ancient race being supplanted by the white man's vices.
The remoter tribes maintained the tribal customs and manner of living, but
from Astoria to Wai-il-at-pu, and for a hundred miles up the Willamette, the
tools, trinkets, arms and cast off clothing of the whites were common enough.
The Indians of this locality attempted to imitate the trapper and voyageur.
Many hovered about the trading posts, more ready to eat the scraps and offal than
follow the ancient hardy habits of their race. Exceptional Indians foresaw this
new order, and were anxious that their children should get the wisdom of the
white man, or even his religion. Many such children came under the care of
the Willamette mission.
The children of French Prairie were more hopeful subjects for instruction.
Their fathers were mostly Canadian trappers and voyaguers, formerly servants
of the Hudson's Bay Company, who had taken Indian women to wife in their
days of wandering; and now domesticated in the heart of the valley, released
from service, they were glad to have the mission and school available for their
children.
The settlement on the "Prairie" now included in the old Catholic parishes
of St. Louis and St. Paul, was begun in 1829. Dr. McLoughlin advised the
servants of the Hudson's Bay Company who had served their enlistment to settle
286
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
there, and aided them substantially in making their homes; furnished them
plows and cattle, and assured them the protection of the great company. Even
at that early date Dr. McLoughlin was convinced that this settlement was des-
tined to be an American settlement,
The material for conversion to Christian and civilized living, was not the
most hopeful. After three-quarters of a century the problem of education for
the Indian is still a doubtful one. Jason Lee's idea of teaching the children of
the mission to do useful work as well as study, seems to have been followed and
approved by missionaries and teachers to this day. His work and methods were
approved by men qualified to judge. Rev. Samuel Parker who visited the mis-
sion in 1835, while investigating the conditions for the establishment of American
Board missions among the Pacific coast Indians, records his approval and ad-
miration of the mission; and its head, Dr. McLoughlin, a year and a half after the
mission was begun, sent to Mr. Lee, one hundred and fifty dollars which had been
contributed by himself and other gentlemen of the post, with this noble letter of
commendation:
"I do myself the pleasure to hand you the enclosed subscription, which the
gentlemen who have signed it request you will do the favor to accept for the use
of the mission; and they pray our Heavenly Father, without whose assistance
we can do nothing, that of His infinite mercy, He will vouchsafe to bless and
prosper your pious endeavor; and believe me to be, with esteem and regard, your
sincere well-wisher and humble servant.'
"JOHN MCLOUGHLIN.
“Fort VANCOUVER, First of March, 1836."
Toward the end of the same year, Mr. Wm. A. Slacum, naval agent of the
United States, visited the mission and all the families of the “Prairie."
Mr. Slacum wrote Jason Lee a letter of high approval, and enclosed a gift of
fifty dollars, "as an evidence of my good will toward the laudable efforts you are
making, regretting that my means will not allow me to add more."
Mr. Slacum and Jason Lee discussed the situation of the settlers in the Willam-
ette, and Mr. Slacum gave important aid to an enterprise of vital interest to
the country. Cattle were still very scarce, and a company was formed, by the
settlers who had money, to bring a large band of cattle from California. Jason
Lee was a leader, if not, if not, as seems probable, the leader in this effort.
Ewing Young, another of the early Americans, went as captain of the expedi-
tion. Mr. Slacum took those who went from the valley on this errand in the
"Loriot” to San Francisco without cost, and Mr. Edwards, who came out in
Jason Lee's party, accompanied these pioneer cowboys as treasurer of the cattle
company. The animals were driven up the Sacramento, and then to Oregon,
closely following the present route of the railroad. The cost delivered at desti-
nation was eight dollars per head. Probably this large influx of Spanish blood
is responsible for many of the gifted fence-jumping bovines that still roam our
fields.
REINFORCEMENTS ARRIVE
In January, 1838, Jason Lee set out upon a journey to the Umpqua valley,
to see about establishing a mission there. He spent two months on this quest,
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
287
enduring great privations and peril. The Dalles was selected as a promising
point for a mission, and to this field Rev. Daniel Lee, and Rev. H: K. W.
Perkins, were assigned. They arrived at their destination, the Indian
town of Wascopam, March 22, and immediately began their work. The
field of their labors extended from the Cascades to Deschutes river, and on both
sides of the Columbia. In this territory were clans of Walla Walla, Wishram
(the notorious robber tribes of the Grand Dalles), Wascos, who lived at Wasco-
pam, Klickitats, and the “Upper Chinooks,” the two latter occupying the coun-
try north of the river; about two thousand Indians were more or less perma-
nently in this field, and Yakimas, Cayuses and Klickitats were frequently pass-
ing through it. The latter tribes made astonishing journeys from their country
to Northern California annually and claimed to overlord the Willamette tribes.
The Dalles mission religiously accomplished more among the Indians than any
of the other stations.
The missionaries used the Chinook intertribal tongue in their public talk to
the Indians; and the upper tribes as far as the Nez Perce, at least, were accus-
tomed to make use of Chinook, though speaking languages of their own, which
were as different from Chinook as Arabic is from the English. Some of their
hymns, prayers and addresses are preserved, all in Chinook of the "Upper" dia-
lect in old books.
Frequently it was necessary that the words of the missionary should be trans-
lated into the speech of the interior tribe by an interpreter.
In 1840, after the arrival of a lay party of missionaries in the Lausanne, a
council or conference of the members of the mission was held at Vancouver, and
new missions were detailed for Clatsop (sometimes called Chinook), Nisqually,
Umpqua and Willamette Falls. Jason Lee remained in charge of all as their
superintendent.
A MISSION TO THE EAST
Three years after the establishment of the Willamette mission the question
of sending Jason Lee east for more workers in the field and financial aid from
the missionary society was discussed. Besides Lee and his earlier assistants,
there were then connected with his work Rev. David Leslie, Rev. H. K. W. Per-
kins, Alanson Beers, W. H. Willson and Dr. Elijah White. These all earnestly
advised Lee's return. A similar situation in some respects existed at Wai-il-at-pu
in the fall of 1842, four and a half years later than Jason Lee's first return to
the east. Both of these missions felt the need of representing to their parent
societies by an envoy thoroughly acquainted with the situation the importance
of their field of labor and its needs in 1842. The American board had deter-
mined to abandon the Waiilatpu and Clearwater missions. The Methodist
Episcopal society was not very warmly interested in the Oregon work. Jason
Lee and Marcus Whitman had like ambitions to see the American people and
government in control of this western empire, which was no-man's land for many
years. The great spring of action in both instances was the duty to his mission.
That Lee was awake to the political importance of his errand is proven by the
fact that before he started east, in March, 1838, at a meeting of the American
settlers in the mission house, Lee, Leslie and Perkins drew up a memorial to be
presented to Congress asking that body to take formal and speedy posession."
>>
288
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
The memorial is worthy of a statesman. It set out the great value of Oregon
as a territory to the United States, and stated intelligently the whole situation
historically and economically. This paper was signed by thirty-six residents of
the Willamette valley, including all Americans and many Canadian settlers.
Lee set out on his journey in March, staying for two days at the Wascopam
mission As far as possible he went by canoe. Thus he arrived at Waiilatpu,
where he remained nearly three weeks in the friendliest intimacy with Dr. Whit-
man and Rev. H. H. Spalding. It is not probable that there was any reserve be-
tween these men, engaged in the same work, and with the same patriotic senti-
ments. If we could have Dr. Whitman's word about it he would tell us now that
he read every word of the memorial from the settlers of the Willamette, and
knew Jason Lee would present it to the Congress of the United States as soon as
he reached Washington.
At Wallula (Fort Walla Walla of the Hudson's Bay Company), Lee left the
river, and from thence onward a thousand miles or more, horseback to the Mis-
souri. At Fort Hall he took in charge three sons of Captain Tom McKay, who
had been Lee's guide westward from that fort in 1834. The boys were com-
mitted to him by their father to be put in school, and Lee took them to Wilbra-
ham academy, his own alma mater. At Westport, Missouri, September 1, a mes-
senger from Oregon overtook him with letters. They brought him the terrible
news that his young wife and new-born son had passed away at the mission June
26. Her gravestone in Lee mission cemetery at Salem, bears the legend: “Be-
neath this sod, the first ever broken in Oregon for the reception of a white mother
and child, lie the remains of Anna Maria Pittman, wife of Rev. Jason Lee.”
Perchance her hands planted the climbing white rose that John Minto found
growing luxuriantly over the walls and roof of the log house that was her home
when he purchased the mission farm in 1845. Mr. Minto has distributed this
rose over the Willamette valley, nature's most favored rose garden, and he speaks
lovingly of it as "the sweetest rose that grows.
By way of St. Louis, Mr. Lee passed to Illinois. Again the nation awoke to
the existence of the Oregon country. At Peoria he delivered an address invit-
ing immigration to Oregon. This resulted in the formation of the first company
of settlers for the Willamette, which left Illinois the following spring. He ar-
rived in New York in November, and so well did he plead his cause before the
Missionary Board that that body determined to send the largest missionary col-
ony to Oregon that had ever left American shores. The party included thirty-
three adults to take various duties and eighteen children. The fund raised for
the new expedition was over forty-two thousand dollars.
The memorial from the settlers of the Willamette was presented by Lee to
Senator Linn, of Missouri, and by him to the Senate. Caleb Cushing, of Massa-
chusetts, desiring more information, wrote to Lee for the facts, and he replied
from Middletown, Conecticut, stating clearly and powerfully the needs and de-
sires of the Oregonians. Senator Cushing was a relative of Captain John H.
Couch, who was induced to come to Oregon in the brig “Chenamus," by reason
of Lee's letter to Cushing. The Cushing family were Boston merchants, and
here again appears the helping hand of Massachusetts to the Oregon settlement.
Two brothers of the Couch family commanded vessels of the Cushings. They
were interested, as stated above, in Jason Lee's report to Senator Linn, and the
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
289
1
correspondence between the missionary and the merchant resulted in the Couches
and the Cushings' entrance into Oregon commerce.
Captain Couch made several voyages here, and finally took up a claim in
Portland, and became one of the founders of that city, which has done his name
well-deserved honor in perpetuating it by giving the name of Couch to one of its
important streets and to one of its public schools. Lee's reply to Senator Cush-
ing closed with these words: “to whom we can look for laws to govern our ris-
ing settlements, but to the Congress of our own beloved country? It depends
much upon Congress what the character of our population shall be, and what
shall be the faith of the Indian tribes of that country. It may be thought Oregon
is of little importance; but rely upon it, there is the germ of a great state. We
are resolved to do what we can to benefit the country, but we throw ourselves
upon you for protection." Lee's presentation of the claim of the Oregon settlers,
was so favorably received by the President and his Cabinet that $5,000 from the
secret service fund was contributed toward the expense of the missionary so-
ciety, in recognition of the strategic and political importance of the mission of
the Willamette.
On October 9, 1839, the "Lausanne" sailed from New York with fifty-one
souls, destined for the Willamette and other missions of Oregon. Among them
were George Abernethy, who became Oregon's first provisional governor; Rev.
J. P. Richmond, Rev. J. L. Parrish, Rev. Gustavus Hines, Hamilton Campbell
and other men afterwards notable in the annals of early days here. Jason Lee
made the voyage with them. They touched at Rio, Valparaiso, and made a stay
of three weeks in Honolulu. On May 21, 1840, the “Lausanne” entered the Co-
lumbia. At Vancouver, Dr. McLoughlin made all welcome, as long as they
chose to remain."
Very soon after their arrival the men appointed to the missions at Clatsop,
Nisqually, “The Falls” and The Dalles, were on their way to their stations. In
the neighborhood of all these points have sprung up important cities, whose
nuclei were the missions.
In 1841 the Central mission was removed about ten miles south from its orig-
inal location to Chemekete. A manual training school was erected here for in-
struction of Indian children. Mills had been built earlier at this site for the mis-
sion. Around this Chemekete mission grew the city of Salem.
THE MISSION'S NEW MISSION
Jason Lee found the Indian population greatly reduced upon his return in
the “Lausanne." There was no increase up to that time in the number of Amer-
icans in the Willamette, but there were more Canadians and half-breed children.
The newer missions found more populous fields at The Dalles and Nisqually, and
made great progress. . The American immigration of 1841 arrived in the fall of
that year, and many settled near the Valley mission.
In 1840 a saw mill and grist mill was built for the needs of the mission on
Mill creek, ten miles south of the mission site. On Mill creek was built later
the Indian manual training school and a mission house. The site of these build-
ings was near the old woolen mill at Salem, and two of them are still standing;
the oldest of these is a part of the residence of Hon. R. P. Boise, at 852 Broad-
Vol. I-19
290
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
way street, Salem, and the hewn timbers of the building, acording to the diary of
Rev. Mr. Waller, who assisted in the work, warrant the belief that Jason Lee's
hand wielded the broad-axe upon them. Around this new establishment and
because of it, the community which developed into the capital city of Oregon
grew up.
The Indians of the Willamette had decreased in number constantly, and the
central mission found its intended field of labor among the Indians less fruitful
year by year; the white settlers were becoming more numerous, and the teachers
and preachers of the mission saw larger opportunities offered. In 1842, at a con-
ference of the mission it was determined to build a school at “Chemekete,'' to
be called the Oregon Institute. This project was the conception of Jason Lee.
The building erected was planned for great things. None knew so well as Jason
Lee the certain future of the Willamette valley, destined to be perhaps the most
populous valley of the Pacific coast. The building was completed in 1844, the
missionary community contributing generously to the fund. In the same year
the missionary at "The Falls," Rev. A. F. Waller, completed the first church
built in Oregon, still standing at Oregon City, where during the four preceding
years a large community of Americans had settled.
Thus the work of the mission in the valley was directed to a new channel
the educational and religious care of the immigrants streaming in constantly in-
creasing wagon trains into western Oregon.
Because of this natural diversion of the energies of the Willamette mission,
some writers have considered its work a failure. Such a view would indicate
that the holder of it considered it better to teach dead Indians than the young
pioneers. No fair-minded reader and observer can fail to see the great and
blessed influence of Jason Lee and his missionary contemporaries upon the peo-
ple of the Willamette and other fields of their labors. As examples, only cite
Salem and Forest Grove as representative cities of inissionary origin, and
largely populated still by the descendants and pupils and proselytes of Oregon
missions.
Jason Lee in 1843 wrote to the New York Missionary Board: "My interest
in the Oregon missions is not in the least abated. Oregon is still of immense im-
portance as a field of missionary operations among the Indians."
Enough has been said already to show Jason Lee's knowledge of Oregon's
importance as a future territory of the United States, and enough to set at rest
any doubt regarding his deep interest in "saving Oregon." In 1834, before he
started upon his mission, he visited Washington and secured passports and cre-
dentials entitling him to the government's recognition and protection. Upon his
return in 1838 he went as early as possible to Washington and presented to Con-
gress the memorial of the missionaries and settlers in Willamette, urging the
government to extend its control over the territory. His addresses in the middle
west the same year were the source of that interest in Oregon which started the
mighty stream of pioneer immigration to the Willamette valley. First and fore-
most of the builders of Oregon was Jason Lee.
Before the “Lausanne” sailed, Jason Lee married Miss Lucy Thompson, of
Barre, Vermont, who accompanied him to Oregon with the Lausanne party.
On March 20, 1842, she died at the mission, leaving an infant daughter. This
child, upon Lee's return to the east in 1844, was left in the care of Rev. Gus-
1
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
291
tavus Hines. She was an early graduate of Willamette University, and became
the wife of Professor Francis H. Grubbs, to whom I am much indebted for
information here recorded.
LEE'S SECOND JOURNEY EAST
Later, in 1843, Jason Lee determined to go again to New York to set before
the missionary board the affairs of the Oregon mission. He was aware that the
board was not satisfied with the work in Oregon. The disappointment was due
to their lack of knowledge of conditions there, and to the results of the work
among the Indians particularly. In the most favorable circumstances a letter
sent from Oregon in 1840 would not be answered until the end of the following
year. The information of the board was always a year behind the fact. The
board was hoping for conversion of thousands of Indians, and quite unaware
of the splendid work the mission was doing among the whites as well as at several
of the Indian stations. It was to inform them of these matters that Lee left Ore-
gon February 3, 1844, on the British barque "Columbia” which sailed from
Vancouver for London in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company.
At Honolulu, Lee received information that his successor had been appointed
and was on his way to Oregon. After consideration of this unexpected phase of
affairs, he determined to go on his intended journey. He went from Honolulu
to Mazatlan, crossed Mexico to Vera Cruz, barely escaping imprisonment on ac-
count of the ill-feeling due to the Texas intrigues, all his letters and papers be-
ing seized.
From Vera Cruz by sail to New Orleans, then by steamboat to Pittsburgh, and
by stage to the Atlantic sea-board, July 1st, he appeared before the missionary
board and made a plea of such convincing power that that body expressed its
renewed confidence in him and his wise administration; but his successor was at
sea, irreclaimable, and arrived in Oregon about the time Jason Lee arrived in
New Orleans.
Again Lee visited Washington, called upon President Tyler, and was assured
by him that the “Oregon Bill” would probably pass Congress at the coming ses-
sion. He spent two weeks at Washington at this time, but a presidential election
was near at hand, and was the principal affair of the time. It was then in view
of the approaching settlement of the claims of the Oregon country that the
"Fifty-four, Forty or Fight” slogan was ringing through the country.
After finishing his business in New York, Jason Lee went to his old home in
Stanstead. He expected to return to the west after some months of rest and
renewal of old acquaintance in his native place. On his way thither he visited
Wilbraham Academy, where his student years were passed.
It seems strange, indeed, that a man of Lee's heroic frame, inured to hardship
for ten years in all the climates of our country, should have met death in life's
prime, at his early home, among his dearest relatives and boyhood friends. He
preached to them his last sermon in November, 1884, even then feeble and ema-
ciated, but yet filled with zeal and fire.
As late as February, 1845, he wrote to his friend, Rev. G. Hines, in Oregon:
“Unless some favorable change in my malady occurs soon it is my deliberate con-
viction that it will prove fatal. Should such a change take place I advise you
292
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
to be looking out for me, coming around Cape Horn, or threading my way up
the Willamette as I used to do.” On March 12 he passed away at the age of
forty-one years.
Sixty-four years afterward, on June 15, 1906, the ashes of Jason Lee were
consigned with solemn and impressive ceremonies to the hallowed soil of the Lee
mission cemetery at Salem. Great men from four great states were there; states
carved from the territory of the old Oregon country. These men, speaking above
his ashes, accorded him the honor that is his due as pioneer, patriot and priest.
MARCUS WHITMAN
Among those who bore an important part in the beginning of Oregon was Dr.
Whitman, the missionary of Walla Walla. Marcus Whitman, third son of Beza
and Alice Whitman, was born at Rushville, Yates county, New York, September
4, 1802. He was descended from English ancestors who had settled in Massa-
chusetts early in the seventeenth century. His father died when he was eight
years of age and shortly after Marcus was sent to live with his grandfather,
Samuel Whitman, of Plainfield, Massachusetts, where he lived for nine years,
and received the greater part of his education in his professional studies.
His first choice of a profession was that of the gospel ministry; but the way
not being open for his entering this, he studied medicine, first privately with
Dr. Ira Bryant, a physician of his native town, and later in the medical col-
lege of Fairfield, New York, from which he was graduated in 1824. The next
ten years of his life he spent chiefly in the practice of his profession, first in
Canada and later in Wheeler, New York, with an interval in which he engaged
with his brother in running a saw mill; an experience which was to stand him
in good stead in his later life in Oregon.
Dr. Whitman seems never to have been quite reconciled to the relinquishment
of his early purpose of entering the Christian ministry. His natural tastes, had he
followed out his first purpose, would doubtless have led him either to some foreign
field or to the frontiers of his own country. Being a man of strong and mus-
cular frame, of indomitable will and courageous and adventurous spirit, he was
not one to be content to settle in the quiet and comfort of older communities
and build on other men's foundations. He was a man quick to hear and prompt
to respond to the call of human needs, and counted it rather a joy if such re-
sponse called him to face danger and hardsips. The opportunity to give full
vent to his pent-up desire for an active life of ministry to his fellow men came
at the close of his first ten years of professional life; and it came in such a way
as to make to one of his nature and ambition an irresistible appeal.
In the early thirties, at a time when the various missionary societies of the
east. were warmly interested in missions to the native races of the Mississippi
valley, an incident occurred that directed their interest and effort particularly
to the region west of the Rocky Mountains. A delegation of four Indian chiefs
from one of the tribes located in the Oregon country appeared in St. Louis, on
an unusual mission. Having heard from explorers and traders something of
the white man's religion, they had been impressed by what they had heard, and
came to try to find some one that would tell them more of this religion. The
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
293
romance and pathos of this incident thrilled the whole Christian church and
kindled it to a new zeal and enthusiasm in Indian missions.
The first response to this appeal from the Oregon country was the mission
of the Methodist Episcopal church, under Jason Lee, who came with his com-
pany overland to Oregon in 1834, and settled in the Willamette valley. The
next response was by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis-
sions, located at Boston and representing the Congregational, Presbyterians and
Dutch Reformed churches. Early in the year 1835, this board commissioned
the Rev. Samuel Parker of Ithaca, New York, and Dr. Marcus Whitman, to
go to the Oregon country and explore the field with a view to the establishment
of missions among the Indians of that region. Mr. Parker and Dr. Whitman
set out at once on this mission, and joining the caravan of the American Fur
Company which left Liberty, Missouri, in May of that year, proceeded under
the safe conduct of this company as far as the company's rendezvous on Green
river, one of the headwaters of the Colorado. Here they met representative
men of the Nez Perces nation, who were so earnest in their entreaty that mission-
aries be sent to their people, that it was at once decided that Mr. Parker should
go on alone, and Dr. Whitman should return and report to the Board of Mis-
sions and secure, if possible, the sending out of missionaries the next year.
Dr. Whitman's fitness for pioneer missionary life was abundantly shown
during his connection with the caravan of the Fur Company, composed of
hunters, traders and trappers; the type of men with whom in after life he
was to have much to do. While at the rendezvous on the Missouri river an
epidemic breaking out which threatened serious results, by his promptness and
skill he not only saved the lives of many, but saved the expedition itself from
destruction or disbandment. And later, at the rendezvous on Green river as
well as on the route, he commanded respect for his professional skill, and by
his readiness to put his skill at the service of his fellow travelers won the good
will of the men of the company.
Dr. Whitman lost no time in carrying out his agreement with Mr. Parker,
but returned at once to New York and Boston. The spring of the following
year found him again at the rendezvous on the Missouri river with a company
of missionaries commissioned and equipped for the Oregon country. He had
been married in the meantime to Narcissa, daughter of Judge Stephen Prentiss
of Prattsburg, New York, a young woman of strong character and devoted
piety, who had given her life to the cause of missions. The mission consisted
of himself and Mrs. Whitman, and the Rev. H. H. Spalding and Mrs. Spald-
ing, together with Mr. W. H. Gray of Utica, New York, in the capacity of
assistant missionary. Mrs. Whitman and Mrs. Spalding were the first white
women to attempt the daring feat of crossing the Rocky mountains into the wild
region beyond. But to their honor it must be said that they performed it with a
courage and endurance that commanded the admiration of all who witnessed it.
They reached the Columbia river early in September of the same year, and
proceeded at once under the escort of agents of the Hudson's Bay company to
Fort Vancouver. Here they were received with the utmost hospitality by Dr.
John McLoughlin, chief factor of the company. Dr. Whitman had already pro-
visionally agreed with Mr. Parker that the mission should be established among
the tribes east of the Cascade range. He was advised by Dr. McLoughlin to
294
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
the same decision. The result was that Mr. Spalding settled at Lapwai among
the Nez Perces Indians, on what is now the western edge of the state of Idaho;
while Dr. Whitman settled on the Walla river near the site of the present town
of Walla Walla.
The site of what came to be commonly known as the Whitman mission was
well chosen; not so much from the point of view of a mission to the Indians as
from the point of view of a vantage ground from which to influence the destinies
of the Oregon country. It lay near the junction of the two principal trade
routes from the east and near to one of the chief forts of the Hudson's Bay com-
pany. It was a station at once for observation and influence. The various
interests of this whole region centered here as in no other place. The various
currents of travel that were to determine the ultimate destiny of this region
passed this way as at that time they passed nowhere else. Dr. Whitman proved
to be the man for the place; quick to grasp the significance of the situation and
bold and prompt to seize and use its opportunities.
The life of Whitman in Oregon falls into two well marked periods. The
first of these extending from the establishment of the mission in 1836, to Octo-
ber, 1842, was the period of his distinctively missionary work. The second,
extending from that eventful year to his death in 1847, was marked by a wider
activity in which, while keeping the interests of his mission and the welfare of
his Indians as his central object, he yet exerted well-directed efforts toward
furthering the nation's interests in the Oregon country.
Dr. Whitman's conception of his mission to the Indians and the persist-
ence with which he strove to carry it out, are indicative of the character of the
man. His ideal for the Indians was that they should become not only Chris-
tians, but peaceful and thrifty citizens. With this ideal before him he at once
set about to instruct them in the faith and morality of the Christian religion,
to give them an elementary education in their own tongue, and to instruct them
in agricultural and other arts of a peaceful and settled life. His efforts toward
these ends in this earlier period promised a fair measure of success. As the
fruit of his and Mrs. Whitman's patient instruction and consistent daily lives,
a few of the natives were brought to embrace the Christian religion; some of
whom commanded the highest respect of the white man by their lives of con-
sistent piety and integrity. A school was early established, and though main-
tained under the utmost difficulties, enrolled considerable numbers of the In-
dians, reaching at one time an enrollment of more than one hundred. Agri-
culture, too, was taught, with promising results. More than one immigrant
and early traveler on visiting the mission remarked on the prosperous appear-
ance of the mission farm, and observed with special interest the well cultivated
farms of the Indians that surround it.
The attitude of the Cayuse Indians, among whom Dr. Whitman settled, to-
ward Dr. Whitman and his work changed at the end of this period. The mis-
sion had been established on the invitation of prominent men of the Indian
tribes. and the missionaries and their wives had been made welcome. But
from the fall of 1839, to the end of this period the feelings of the Indians show
a change from that of cordial good will to one of suspicion and faultfinding,
which resulted in the later years in threats, and even in over acts of violence.
Several things contributed to this change of attitude. One was the indirect
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
295
influence of the Catholic missionaries who had come into the region in 1839.
This arose not from hostility on the part of these missionaries personally toward
the Protestant missionaries, but it was an inevitable result of their variant
teaching, unsettling the minds of the Indians, and still further, from a policy
differing from that of the Protestant missions in following the Indian in his
roaming life, and not insisting on his settling in one place to a life of industry.
The treatment, too, by the missionaries, of their wives, was on an equality with
themselves, offended the leading Indians, as being a constant rebuke to their
own conduct, and as tending to cause in their wives restlessness and discontent.
Finally, the coming of the white settler in such numbers as to attract the at-
tention of the Indians and awaken their fears that they should be dispossessed
of their lands by the white men, contributed to this growing spirit of hostility
toward the Protestant missions. The situation of the mission on the highway
of immigration of that period made it peculiarly open to this influence. In a
letter of May 2, 1840, Mrs. Whitman writes :
"A tide of immigration appears to be moving this way rapidly. A great
change has taken place even since we entered the country, and we have no rea-
son to believe it will stop here. Instead of two lonely American females we
now number fourteen, and soon may twenty or forty more, if reports are true.
We are emphatically situated on the highway between the states and the Colum-
bia river.”
The fall of 1842 brought a still larger immigration, numbering more than
one hundred and including many families. It was an immigration well suited
to impress the Indians as it passed through their lands, and further to arouse
their apprehensions for the future.
With the arrival of this immigration affairs at Walla Walla mission seem to
have reached a crisis. There had been for some time a growing feeling at the
headquarters of the Board of Missions at Boston that the results of the mission
at Walla Walla were not satisfactory. Missionaries at that day were expected
by the board that commissioned them to confine themselves strictly to the re-
ligious instruction and care of those to whom they were sent. Even education
had not yet come to be regarded as a proper part of their work, while instruc-
tion in industry and secular arts must have appeared quite aside from it. Be-
sides, news had reached the Board of unpleasant differences among the mis-
sionaries themselves, which seemed to bode ill for the work of the mission
Whitman now learned that the order for the abandonment of the Walla Walla
mission, if not already issued, was the least imminent. A less far-sighted and
courageous man than he might have welcomed the order to leave the post where
hardships ivere great and where perils from the natives were thickening around
him. But it was not of Whitman's character to abandon a post which, peril-
ous as it was, he felt was important to the cause of missions and to the interests
of his country to hold. He would not abandon it without first making a de-
termined effort to secure from the mission board its continuance and reinforce-
ment, and from the government at Washington provisions and the adoption
of measures that would bring content to the Indians and open an easier and
safer highway for intending immigration.
Accordingly, on the 2nd of October, 1842, within a month after the arrival
at Walla Walla of the immigration of that year, Whitman was on his way to
296
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
1
Washington and Boston, accompanied by a single companion. Crossing the
mountains at any season of the year in those days was a serious undertaking;
entered upon at the edge of winter it was perilous, and for any object but one
of supreme importance and urgency, foolhardy. Undertaken as it was with
Whitman's full knowledge of its difficulties and perils and with his conception
of the interests at stake, it was heroic.
Whitman's one companion on this perilous ride was A. L. Lovejoy, a young
lawyer who had arrived in Oregon with the immigration of that year. They
reached Fort Hall without serious difficulty, but here they found their way over
the direct route barred by the snows of an early winter. Not discouraged by
this, Whitman procured a guide, and he and his companion turned southward,
keeping along the western base of the Rocky mountains, to the Santa Fe trail,
and thence eastward to St. Louis where Whitman, having left Lovejoy on the
way to return by way of Fort Hall to Oregon, arrived in February after a jour-
ney of four months of incredible hardships and privation and peril. From
St. Louis he hastened on to Washington, stopping briefly in Cincinnati on the
way. From Washington he went to Boston by way of New York. The date
of his visit to Washington is not fixed, but it is certain that he was in New
York, March 28, and a day or two later was on the steamer on the sound bound
for Boston, and that he was in Boston the first week in April. His stay at his
home after leaving Boston must have been brief, for he was back in St. Louis
early in May on his return to Oregon, in less than three months from the time
of his arrival there on his eastward journey.
Finding the emigration somewhat delayed in setting out, he visited rela-
tives in Quincy, Illinois, then went to the Shawnee mission in the neighbor-
hood of the rendezvous from which immigrants for Oregon were accustomed to
start. On May 17, he was visited here by a committee of emigrants appointed
for that purpose, and on the 20th attended a meeting of the committee ap-
pointed to draw up the rules and regulations for the journey.
The emigration started on the 22nd under Captain Gantt, a man experienced
in the route as far as Fort Hall, who had been employed to pilot the company
to that point. Whitman remained at the Shawnee mission for some days and
joined the emigrants on the Platte river about the middle of June, and continued
with it to Fort Hall. During this part of the route he traveled for the most
part with Jesse Applegate, who after the division of the emigrants was captain
of one of the divisions. This division was generally in advance, as appears from
the diary of J. W. Nesmith, who was made orderly-sergeant of the company as
first organized. It was perhaps while traveling with this division in advance
that Whitman obtained information from the Catholic missionaries, who were
somewhat in advance of the immigration, of a shorter route by Fort Bridger,
known afterwards as the Fort Bridger cut-off. Of this Peter H. Burnett writes:
"On the 12th of August we were informed that Dr. Whitman had written a let-
ter, stating that the Catholic missionaries had discovered by the aid of their
Flathead. Indian pilot a pass through the mountains by way of Fort Bridger,
which was shorter than the old route. We therefore determined to go by the
fort. On the 14th we arrived at Fort Bridger, situated on the Black's fork of
Green river, having traveled from our camp on the Sweetwater two hundred
and nineteen miles in eighteen days. Here we overtook the missionaries.''
.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
297
Fifteen days later on August 27th, the immigration arrived at Fort Hall.
Of the route up to this point Burnett writes: “Up to this point the route over
which we had passed was perhaps the finest natural road of the same length to
be found in the world. Only a few loaded wagons had ever made their way to
Fort Hall and were there abandoned. Dr. Whitman was at the fort and was our
pilot from there to the Grande Ronde, where he left us in charge of an Indian
pilot, whose name was Stickus, and who proved to be faithful and competent.
“We had now arrived at the most critical period in our journey, and we had
many misgivings as to our ultimate success in making our way with our wagons,
teams and families. We had yet to acomplish the untried and difficult portion
of our long and exhaustive journey. We could not anticipate at what moment
we should be compelled to abandon our wagons in the mountains, pack, our
scant supplies upon our poor oxen and make our way on foot through the terrible
rough country as best we could. We fully comprehended the situation; but we
never faltered in our inflexible determination to accomplish the trip; if within
the limits of possibility, with the limited resources at our command, Dr. Whit-
man assured us we could succeed, and encouraged and aided us with every means
in his power.
This from Burnett's “Recollections'' was not so much a forecast of the trip as
a description of what it proved to be. Others who had passed over the trail by
which they must go represented its manifold difficulties and perils, and did not
hesitate to present in the strongest terms the obstacles to their taking wagons
successfully over it. It was to the minds of the hardy mountaineers a trail for
a pack train only, and a difficult one at that. It was no wagon road over which
a company of a thousand men, women and children could hope successfully to
pass, taking their wagons as they had come thus far. Whitman, however, al-
though knowing the difficulties, was confident that it could be done, and his
counsel prevailed. The emigration left Fort Hall August 30th, and reached the
Whitman mission the 10th of October. Whitman had left the company in charge
of a skillful Indian pilot when he saw it safely pass Fort Hall, and was already
at the mission on its arrival. He there had the gratification of seeing encamped
near the banks of the Columbia the largest immigration that had ever entered
Oregon, and as he looked on it with its unbroken families, with their wagons and
goods and herds, having successfully passed through all the difficulties and perils
of the journey, he knew that the road to Oregon, was now fully open. In his let-
ter to the Secretary of War a few weeks later, he writes :
“The government will now doubtless for the first time be apprised through
you and by means of this communication, of the immense migration of families
to Oregon which has taken place this year. I have, since our interview, been
instrumental in piloting across the route described in the accompanying bill,
and which is the only eligible wagon road, no less than one hundred families con-
sisting of one thousand persons of both sexes, with their wagons, amounting in
all to more than one hundred and twenty and ninety-four oxen, seven hundred
and seventy-three loose cattle.''
“The immigrants are from different states, but principally from Missouri, Ar-
kansas, Illinois and New York. The majority of them are farmers, lured by the
prospect of bounty in lands, by the reported fertility of the soil, and by the de-
sire to be the first among those who are planting our institutions on the Pacific
298
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
.
coast. Among them are artisans of every trade, comprising with farmers, the
very best material for a new colony. As pioneers these people have undergone
incredible hardships, and having now safely passed the Blue mountains with
their wagons and effects, have established a durable road from Missouri to Ore-
gon, which will serve to mark permanently the route for larger numbers each
succeeding year."
The note of triumph in this letter may be pardoned Whitman when we re-
member how persistently lie had labored to bring his wagon over this route when
he first came to Oregon, and how firmly he believed in the face of all assertions
to the contrary that the trail through the mountains would yet prove to be an
open highway for immigrants and their wagons and herds; and when we remem-
ber, too, how clearly he saw that the ultimate demonstration of this would bring
a solution of the Oregon question favorably to his country. In the great caravan
safely encamped on the Columbia, he saw with pardonable pride, the accomplish-
ment of a cherished hope and of a purpose persisted in for seven years; and full
justification of all the hardships and toil he had endured to bring it to a success-
ful accomplishment.
On his return the mission work was resumed, the school re-opened and its
numbers enlarged, the grist mill was re-built, and in addition, a saw mill erected;
and new efforts were made to induce the Indians to settle down to the pursūits
of agriculture and stock raising. But conditions had changed; Whitman felt it,
and the Indians showed that they, too, felt it. It was no longer a matter of doubt
to either that the Americans were to have Oregon, and both foresaw that this
meant sooner or later, the dispossession of the Indian, of a large portion of his
land. In a letter to his father and mother in the May following his return, Whit-
man gives expression to his view to the changed condition:
“It gives me much pleasure to be back again, and quietly at work again for
the Indians. It does not concern me so much what is to become of any particular
set of Indians, as to give them the offer of salvation through the gospel, and the
opportunity of civilization, and then I am content to do to all men as I have the
opportunity. I have no doubt our greatest work is to be to aid the white settle-
ment of this country and help to found its religious institutions. Providence has
its full share in all these events. Although the Indians have made, and are mak-
ing rapid advance in religious knowledge and civilization, yet it cannot be hoped
that time will be allowed to mature either the work of christianization or civiliza-
tion before the white settlers will demand the soil and seek the removal of both
the Indians and the missions.
In April of the same year Mrs. Whitman had written to Mrs. Brewer of the
Methodist Mission: “Our Indians have been very much excited this spring, but
are now quiet. The influx of immigration is not going to let us live in as much
quiet, as it regards the people, as we have done.
The fall of 1845 brought a larger immigration than ever, numbering in all
several thousand. Shortly after this Mrs. Whitman writes again of her appre-
hension:
"It may be that we shall be obliged to leave here in the spring. The state of
things now looks very much as though we should be required to.
For
the
poor Indians' sake and the relief of future travelers to this country, I could
*


we
HALL JACKSON KELLEY
RICH
OF
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
299
wish to stay here longer if we could do it in peace. We feel sometimes as if our
quietness were past for this country, at least for a season.
Such was the growing uneasiness at the Mission. It awakened apprehen-
sions, but did not weaken purpose or paralyze activity. The same zeal, warm
and unabated, for the welfare of the Indians, was manifest through it all. Mean-
while the increased immigration brought to the Whitman household care and
work of another kind. The long journey was a severe tax upon the strongest,
but for the weak it was doubly trying. Some fell by the way; mothers-now and
then both father and mother-sickened and died, leaving dependent families of
young children; invalids unable to complete the journey without a period of
rest; wives approaching confinement; families of slender means which the exact-
ing journey had exhausted—such from time to time, took refuge under the lios-
pitable roof of the mission.
Mrs. Whitman in letters to friends gives us vivid pictures of the family at
Waiilatpu these years after the great immigration. In January following her
return from her stay at the Methodist Mission during her husband's absence,
she writes to one of her friends:
“My family consists of six children, and a Frenchman that came from the
mountains and stops with us without invitation. Mary Ann, however, is with
Mrs. Littlejohn now. Two English girls, Ann and Emma Hobson, one thirteen
and the other seyen, of the party, stopped with us; husband engaged to take
them in the first party of the journey, but when they arrived here, they went di-
rectly to Walla Walla, being persuaded not to stay by some of the party on ac-
count of the Indians. When I arrived at Walla Walla they saw me and made
themselves known to me and desired to come home with me. The girls were so
urgent to stop that I could not refuse them, and their father was obliged to give
them up. I felt unwilling to increase my family at that time, but now do not
regret it, as they do the greater part of my work and go to school besides."
A day or two later Mrs. Whitman writes of the household to which she re-
turned :
“When I arrived home I found Mr. and Mrs. Littlejohn occupying my bed-
room. She was sick, having been confined a few days before I came. The room
east of the kitchen, Mr. East and family occupied-four children, all small. Mr.
Looney with a family of six children and one young man by the name of Smith,
were in the Indian room. My two boys, Perrin Whitman, and David, slept up-
stairs, Alex, the Frenchman, in the kitchen and Mary Ann and Helen in the
trundle bed in the room with Mr. Littlejohn. The dining room alone remained
for me. Husband and my two English girls; all of these we fed from our table
except Mr. Looney's family, and our scanty fare consisted of potatoes and corn
meal, with a little milk occasionally, and cakes from the burnt wheat. This was
a great change for me from the well furnished tables of Waskopum and
Willamette.?!
It was due to the memory of the mission by the wayside to present one more
picture of its hospitable home. In a letter dated April 26, 1846, Mrs. Whitman
again writes:
"You will be astonished to know that we have eleven children in our family,
and not one of them our own by birth, but so it is. Seven orphans were brought
to our door in October, 1844, whose parents both died on the way to this coun-
300
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
try. Destitute and friendless, there was no other alternativewe must take them
in or they must perish. The youngest was an infant five months old-born on
the way-nearly famished but just alive; the eldest was thirteen, two boys and
five girls; the boys were the oldest. The eldest girl was lying with a broken
leg beside her parents as they were dying one after the other. They were an
afflicted and distressed family in the journey, and when the children arrived here
they were in a miserable condition. You can better imagine that I can describe
my feelings under these circumstances. Weak and feeble as I was in an Indian
country without the possibility of obtaining help, to have so many helpless chil-
dren cast upon our arms at once, rolled a burden on me unsupportable. Nothing
could reconcile me to it but the thought that it was the Lord that brought them
here, and He would give me grace and strength so to discharge my duty to them
as to be acceptable in His sight." These orphans were
These orphans were the Sager children.
Such was the enlarged scope of the Whitman mission and the increased bur-
den put upon its heads by the increased immigration. The burden was made
heavier by the fact that the stream of immigration which brought these new in.
mates to the Whitman home, increased the irritation of the Indians to the point
where more than once during these years it seemed as if the mission must be.
abandoned for lack of protection. The letters of this period made frequent
mention of this impending peril. One letter, however, of Mrs. Whitman's writ-
ten in the midsummer of 1846 speaks with joy of a season of relief from these
painful apprehension:
"The Indians are quiet now, and never more friendly.
So far as
the Indians are concerned our prospects of permanently remaining among them
were never more favorable than at present. It is a great pleasure to them to see
so many children growing up in their midst. Perrin, the elder, is able to read
Nez Perces to them, and when husband is gone takes his place and holds meetings
with them. This delights them much."
This season of quiet was not to last. Late in the summer of the following
year Mrs. Whitman writes of their situation in a less hopeful strain. It is on
the eve of the passing of another caravan of immigrants, and she views their
coming not without apprehension, for the Indians as well as for themselves :
"It is difficult to imagine what kind of a winter we shall have this winter,
for it will not be possible for so many to all pass through the Cascades into the
Willamette this fall, even if they should succeed in getting through the Blue
mountains as far as here.
We are not likely to be as well off for
provisions this season as usual-our crops are not abundant.
"Poor people, those that are not able to get on, or pay for what they need are
those that will most likely wish to stop here, judging from the past.
The poor Indians are amazed at the overwhelming numbers of Americans com-
ing into the country. They seem not to know what to make of it. Very many of
the principal ones are dying, and some have been killed by other Indians, in
going south into the region of California. The remaining ones seem attached
to us and cling to us the closer; cultivate their farms quite extensively, and do
not wish to see any Sniapus (Americans) settle among them here; they are
willing to have them spend the winter here, but in the Spring they must all
move on. They would be willing to have more missionaries stop and those de-
*
*
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON.
301
voted to their good. They expect that eventually this country will be settled
by them, but they wish to see the Willamette filled up first."
The undertone of foreboding in this letter was not groundless. Whether
Mrs. Whitman was conscious of it or not as she wrote, her letter describes a
situation that boded ill for the mission. A proud tribe, accustomed in the past
to dominate neighboring tribes, seeing its numbers decimated by war and by
disease, and its lands each year more surely destined to pass into the hand of
the white man—this was a situation that might easily on further provocation,
pass into one of bitter hostility and open revolt.
Dr. Whitman had felt this for some time, but without taking measures for
protection. In a letter to her sister in the spring of 1847, Mrs. Whitman writes
of her husband's absence for several weeks at Vancouver. This absence J.
Quinn Thornton, in his history of the provisional government of Oregon ex-
plains in part at least. “In the spring of 1847,” he writes, “Dr. Whitman being
at my residence in Oregon City spoke to me freely on the subject of his mission
station, and of the perils to which he feared all connected with it were exposed.
And he said that he believed nothing short of a territorial government would
save him and his mission from falling under the murderous hands of the
savages. And he urged me to yield to the solicitations I had received to go at
once to Washington on behalf of the people and provisional government, for this
and other purposes.
This was no imaginary peril. It was the forecast of a clearsighted, fearless
man, one whose courage did not blind him to impending danger. The stroke
fell sooner than he had expected and with not less murderous effect. In the late
summer and fall of this year an epidemic of measles prevailed among the In-
dians about the Whitman mission, and among other tribes of the Columbia val-
ley. Many of them died in spite of the utmost exertions of Dr. Whitman and
his assistants. Dr. Whitman's very efforts to save the Indians only made his
death at their hands more certain, such were their cruel superstitions regarding
their medicine man or anyone else in whose hands any of their number died.
Then, too, the presence among them at that time of a vicious and disaffected per-
son (an Iroquois Indian )made it almost certain that this dreadful superstition
would work disaster to the mission.
So it did. On the morning of November 29, with no immediate warning,
the storm of savage passion broke with murderous effect on the devoted mission.
Dr. Whitman, himself, fell first, then the others until fourteen in all were slain
—including Mrs. Whitman, the one woman among the victims, and fifty-three
taken captives, mostly women and children.
The causes of the massacre have already been indicated. As years remove us
from the event, and passions cool and partisan feeling abates, historians grow
less inclined to find in it any purpose other than that of which the Indians under
the circumstances already described were of themselves fully capable.
It was the death of the mission at Waiilatpu. The mission was never re-
organized, or even sought to be re-established. The Cayuse Indians themselves
decimated by disease and war, became scattered and soon were lost in other
tribes. Estimated by the results of Dr. and Mrs. Whitman's united labors for
the Indians, the mission can hardly be reckoned among the great missions of
the country. Other neighboring missions may justly be regarded as having sur-
V
302
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
passed it. But when looked at in its work, for passing immigrants, and its effect
on the fortunes of the Oregon country, the case is altogether different.
By common consent the culmination of Whitman's exertions for the American
interests in Oregon is considered to have come in the year 1842-43, and to have
centered particularly in his journey to Washington and Boston, and his return
with the immigrants of that year. Various views of the objects of this celebrated
journey have been expressed by historians. That Whitman had several objects
in view is now well ascertained. What they were may be gathered partly from
considering the main objective points of the journey, partly from official docu-
ments, and partly from his and Mrs. Whitman's private correspondence. The
main objective points of Whitman's visit were Washington and Boston. These
he visited, and beyond reasonable doubt in this order.
The main object of this visit to Washington may be gathered from the bill he
drew up at the request of the Secretary of War, and from the letter with which
he accompanied it. To the Secretary he wrote:
"In compliance with the request which you did me the honor to make last
winter while at Washington, I herewith transmit to you the synopsis of a bill,
which, if it could be adopted, would, according to my experience and observation,
prove highly conducive to the best interests of the United States, generally,
and to Oregon where I have resided more than seven years as a missionary, and
to the Indian tribes that inhabit the intermediate country.'
The bill itself exhibits the object here stated in an extended form. It is re-
markable for the thorough grasp it shows of the situation, of the needs of every
interest involved and of the means best suited to meet each one. No document of
that time exhibits a more full and clear grasp of the Oregon problem, and of the
condition of its ultimate solution. A reasonable hope on his part of his being
able by any representations that he might make of securing the adoption of such
a measure by the government, was itself a justification of his perilous journey.
To a member of the board of missions at Boston after his return to Oregon.
he writes touching the objects of his visit:
“It was to open a practical route and a safe passage and to secure a favorable
report of the journey from emigrants, which, in connection with other objects,
caused me to leave my family and brave the toils and dangers of the journey,
which carried me on, notwithstanding I was forced out of my direct track and
notwithstanding the unusual severity of the winter and the great depth of the
snow.”
In the same letter we have frankly stated the other great object of his visit,
that which took him to Boston as the other had taken him to Washington. In
close connection with that quoted above he writes:
"The other great object for which I went was to save the mission from being
broken up just then, which it must have been, as you will see by reference to the
doings of the committee which confirmed the recall of Mr. Spalding only two
weeks before my arrival in Boston.”
These were two of the main objects of his journey, the one leading hin to
Washington, and the other to Boston, both clearly stated in his own words.
The third object of this journey had to do particularly with the immigration
of that year. His object in connection with this immigration was not in induc-
ing men to join it, or in organizing the company when together. It was already
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
303
assured beforehand that a large immigration, larger than any before, would as-
semble in the spring of 1843, and staft for Oregon. Immigrants of the year be-
fore had brought this word. Whitman had received it before he had even de-
cided upon his journey. He had but little directly to do with gathering the com-
pany, further than to drop encouraging words here and there in the western
states as he journeyed eastward. His main purpose in connection with it was,
as he says, to secure its safe conduct, in a manner as satisfactory as possible to
the immigrant, but especially that at Fort Hall they should not be induced to
turn aside to California, or to leave their cattle and wagons behind for fear of the
difficulties of the road beyond this point. He wished nothing to prevent the safe
arrival of the whole body with wagons and stock on the Columbia, so that when
the word went back, as he intended to make sure that it did, both the government
and the people of the east should know that a highway for immigration was now
fully open through the mountains into the Oregon country.
These then were Whitman's chief objects in that winter ride. There were
others incidental and subsidiary to these. One was to get reinforcements for his
mission, if not of commissioned missionaries, at least of such families as would
settle near the mission and aid in furthering its purpose. Another was to secure
an appropriation from the secret service fund of the government to aid in the
support of schools among the native tribes, and still another was to induce the
government to send sheep and cattle to the Indians. In a letter to his brother
written from the Shawnee mission May 27, 1843, on the eve of his joining the
emigrants in the westward journey, he writes:
“Sheep and cattle, but especially sheep, are indispensable for Oregon
I mean to impress the Secretary of War that sheep are more important
to Oregon than soldiers. We want to get sheep and stock from the government
for the Indians instead of money for their lands. I have written of the main in-
terests of the Indian country.
“My plan, you know, was to get funds for founding schools and to have good
people come along as settlers and teachers, while others might have sheep of their
own along also.'
This passage in Whitman's letter is explained by a letter of the brother-
in-law to whom he wrote, J. G. Prentiss. Mr. Prentiss says: “His project was,
so far as the Indians were concerned, to induce the government to pay them off
for their lands in sheep and leave them to be a herding people. Hence in
his letter to me he wrote about a secret fund controlled by the cabinet.
In seeking to draw upon this fund for the Indians he was but following the
Methodist and the Catholics in their several missions. All seemed to feel jus-
tified in drawing upon this fund to aid them in their secular work for those
whom they justly regarded as the nation's wards.
Of the three main objects of his journey Whitman seems to have regarded
the safe conduct of the immigration on his return as the most important, pos-
sibly because it proved to be the most obviously fruitful of results. Nor did
he overestimate the importance of the success of that immigration. Ten times
larger than any former immigration, cumbered with wagons and herds besides,
it might easily have ended in disaster. But if successful it insured still larger
immigrations in the future, and would satisfy those cautious and hesitating
statesmen who were waiting to be shown that Oregon was accessible before vot-
301
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
ing measures for relief and protection of the few scattered settlers already there,
and offering inducements to others to follow.
It does not seem, either, that Whitinan claimed a larger share in the con-
duct of this immigration than was actually his. Prominent members of the com-
pany have fully justified his claim. M. M. McCarver, writing within a month
after his arrival in Oregon to A. C. Dodge, member of congress from Iowa, says:
“We had less obstacles in reaching here than we had a right, to expect, as
it was generally understood before leaving the states that one-third of the
distance, to-wit, from Fort Hall to this place, was impassable for wagons. Great
credit, however, is due to the energy and perseverence, and industry of this
emigrating company, and particularly to Dr. Whitman, one of the missionaries
of the Walla Walla mission, who accompanied us out. His knowledge of the
route was considerable and his exertions for the interest of the company un-
tiring."
Years afterward when the pioneers of Oregon began to recall the beginning
of their state, other members of the immigration of 1843 bore like testimony to
the services of Dr. Whitman. One of these was J. W. Nesmith, orderly sergeant
of the company, and afterwards a United States senator from Oregon. In an
address before the Oregon Pioneer Association at its annual reunion in 1875, he
said:
"Beyond that (Fort Hall) we had not the slightest conjecture of the con-
dition of the country. We went forth trusting to the future and doubtless
would have encountered more difficulties than we did had not Dr. Whitman
overtaken us before we reached the terminus of our guide's knowledge. He
was familiar with the whole route and was confident that wagons could pass
through the canyons and gorges of Snake river, and over the Blue mountains,
which the mountaineers in the vicinity of Fort Hall declared to be a physical
impossibility. Captain Grant then in charge of the Hudson's Bay Company at
Fort Hall endeavored to dissuade us from proceeding further with our wagons,
and showed us the wagons which the emigrants of the preceding year had aban-
doned, as an evidence of the impracticability of our determination. Doctor
Whitman was persistent that wagons could proceed as far as the Grand Dalles
of the Columbia river, from which point, he asserted they could be taken down
by rafts or batteaux to the Willamette valley, while our stock could be driven
over an Indian trail near Mt. Hood. Happily Whitman's advice prevailed." ''
From the diary of Nesmith kept on the journey we learn that Whitman trav-
eled much of the way in company with Jesse Applegate, who was captain of one
division of the immigrants and travelled much of the time in advance of the
others. In a paper written for the annual reunion of the Oregon Pioneers in
1876, Applegate says of Whitman's services to this immigration:
“It is no disparagement to others to say that to no other individual are the
emigrants of 1843 so much indebted for the successful conclusion of their jour-
ney as to Dr. Marcus Whitman."
At their organization at Independence, Missouri, the emigrants selected
Peter H. Burnett, one of their number as captain. Burnett had an important
part in the organization and conduct of the company, and on the journey kept a
careful diary, by the aid of which years afterwards he wrote his “Recollections
of a Pioneer." In this book he thus spoke of Whitman and his services:
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
305
"I knew Dr. Whitman well; I first saw him at the rendezvous near the west-
ern line of Missouri in May, 1843; saw him again at Fort Hall, and again at his
own mission in the fall of that year.
I saw him again at my home
in Tualatin Plains in 1844. He called at my house and finding that I was in
the woods he came to me there. This was the last time I ever saw him. Our
relations were of the most cordial and friendly character, and I had the
greatest respect for him. I considered Dr. Whitman to have been a brave, kind,
devoted, and intrepid spirit, without malice and without reproach. In my best
judgment he made greater sacrifices, endured more hardships, and encountered
more perils for Oregon, than any other man, and his services were practically
more efficient, except perhaps those of Dr. Linn, United States senator from
Missouri. I say, perhaps, for I am in doubt which of these two inen did more
in effect for Oregon.''
Whitman's work for Oregon had little to do with its internal affairs. He
had little or no part in organizing its scattered settlements into a civil com-
munity. But in the work of bringing Oregon into close connection with the
states of the Union by opening the door through the barrier of the intervening
mountains, he was among the foremost. Others contributed to this end, but
no one seems to have seen as early as did he the supreme importance of finding,
or making this highway, nor to have seen it with so single and unclouded an
eye. He saw almost from the first that if Oregon was to become the territory
of the United States; if England was to be brought to acknowledge the right-
fulness of the American claim; if the American government itself was to be
brought to take any serious and effective steps toward pressing its claim to
that to which it pretended to have a just title, American families must be
brought through the mountains into the region claimed, and the way be shown
beyond all doubt to be open for others to follow. To this end Whitman ad-
dressed himself with tireless purpose, and when he discovered that the supreme
moment for action had arrived, acted with heroic daring. He succeeded, but his
very success was his undoing.
JOSEPH R. WILSON.
DR. JOHN MCLOUGHLIN
Dr. John McLoughlin, his title having been for years used as though a part
of his name, is the most conspicuous man of Oregon's true pioneer period. He
was born in Parish le Riviere du Loup, Canada. His paternal grandfather,
born in Parish Desertagney, Ireland, immigrated to Canada, married there, and
his son John was the father of Dr. John McLoughlin. The maiden name of the
mother of Dr. John McLoughlin was Angelique Fraser, born in parish of Beau-
mont, Canada. Her father was Malcolm Fraser, a Scotch highlander, a member
of the well known Scotch family, or clan of that name. A relative of hers was
General Fraser, one of Burgoyne's principal officers, who was killed in the bat-
tle of Saratoga, October 7, 1777. Her father, as a lieutenant in the regular Brit-
ish army, took part in the capture of Quebec, under General Wolfe. At the time
of his retirement from the army and settlement in Canada, he was the captain
in the Eighty-fourth regiment of the British regular army. He was the first
seigneur of Mt. Murray, Canada.
Vol. 1-20
306
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Dr. John McLoughlin's father was accidentally drowned in the St. Lawrence
river, while the former was a child. He and his brother David were brought up
in the home of their maternal grandfather. He was educated in Canada and
Scotland, and became a physician while still very young and did not long prac-
tice his profession. He joined the Northwest company and his ability soon
made him prominent. When the Northwest company and the Hudson's Bay com-
pany coalesced in 1821, he was in charge of Fort William, situated on Lake
Superior, the chief depot and factory of the Northwest company. Although
he strenuously opposed the coalition of the two companies his ability was such
that he was soon after appointed chief factor of all the Hudson's Bay company's
business west of the Rocky mountains. In 1824 he arrived at Fort George
(Astoria) near the mouth of the Columbia river, which was then the chief
post of the company west of the Rocky mountains. The next year he estab-
lished the headquarters of the company at Fort Vancouver now in the state of
Washington. About the year 1830, he erected a new Fort Vancouver, about
one mile distant from its first location. Here is now located the United States'
military post known as Vancouver Barracks. Dr. McLoughlin soon established
a farm of about 3,000 acres near Fort Vancouver, on which were grown quan-
tities of grain, principally wheat. He gradually developed a large herd of
cattle. He constructed saw mills and flour mills near the fort, and yearly
shipped lumber to the Hawaiian islands and flour to Sitka. He established
and maintained a number of trading forts and posts, and made the part of
the Hudson's Bay Company's business under his control the most profitable of
all its business in North America.
When he first came to Oregon the number of Indians in the country in which
he had command is estimated at about one hundred thousand. At that time it
was not safe for white men to travel except in large parties and heavily armed.
In a few years there was practically no danger and small parties traveled
safely in all parts of the country west of the Rocky mountains. This was due
almost wholly to Dr. McLoughlin's personal qualities and his superb command
and influence over men of all kinds. He was the autocrat of the country, yet
ever tempered austerity with kindness, justice and mercy. His subordinates and
the Indians soon came to know that he was a man of his word whether it was
for reward or punishment. He had no police or armed men, except the regular
trade officers of the company and its employees and servants. No one ever un-
derstood how to manage Indians better than he. Physically he was a man of
large frame and fully six feet four inches in height. While comparatively
a young man his hair became white. Usually his hair was worn long, reach-
ing nearly to his shoulders. His mental qualities matched his magnificent
physical proportions. He was fearless, just and honorable. No one was more
approachable than he, for he was a man with a kindly courtesy, yet he was ever
true to his company's interest, except where humanity required him to act
otherwise.
It was necessary that some one should be in command in what was known
as "the Oregon country," being all that part of North American north of latitude
42 degrees north, the present northern boundary of California, and Nevada, then
Spanish possessions west of the Rocky mountains, south of latitude 54 degrees
and 40 minutes the southern boundary of the Russian possessions, and east of
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
307
the Pacific ocean. By a convention or treaty between the United States and
Great Britain, dated October 20, 1818, it was agreed that for a period of ten
years the Oregon country should be open to the citizens and subjects of the two
powers, without prejudice to the rights of either of them or of any other power
or state, this being what is called for convenience "joint-occupancy." By an-
other convention or treaty between these two nations, dated August 6, 1827, this
joint-occupancy was indefinitely extended, subject to be terminated by either of
the two nations by giving notice of twelve months, after October 20, 1828. This
joint-ocupancy was terminated by the boundary treaty of June 15, 1846, estab-
lishing the present north boundary of the United States, south of Alaska, froin
the Rocky mountains to the Pacific ocean. During this joint-occupancy neither
the laws of the United States nor of Great Britain were in force in the Oregon
country, but Canada in 1821 passed a law which probably applied to Canadians in
the Oregon country, giving its courts jurisdiction of civil and criminal matters
in the Indian territories not within the province of lower or upper Canada or
of any civil government of the United States. No attempt was ever made to en-
force this law on a citizen of the United States. By his own initiative, approved
by common consent, Dr. McLoughlin, became the ruler, or the efficient but
kindly autocrat of the Oregon country, as applied to the officers and employees
of the Hudson's Bay Company and to the Indians. But his rule was just. On
two occasions he caused an Indian to be hanged for murdering a white man.
In 1828 fourteen men of a party of eighteen, commanded by Jedediah S.
Smith, an American rival trader, were murdered by Indians near the mouth of
the Umpqua river, who took all of Smith's goods and furs. Dr. McLoughlin suc-
cored the four survivors, one of whom was Smith, and sent a party of the Hud-
son's Bay Company's men who recovered the furs, which were of large value,
Dr. McLoughlin bought these furs from Smith, paying the fair value to the lat-
ter's satisfaction. In 1829, when one of the company's vessels was wrecked near
the mouth of the Columbia river and the wreck was looted by the Indians, he
sent a well-armed party who punished the Indians. There are other instances
of retributive justice meted out by him to the Indians, which lack of space pre-
vents the telling. The result was an admiration and obedience of Dr. McLough-
lin by the Indians. They called him the great white chief and from his master-
ful ways, his grand appearance and his long white hair, they also called him the
“Whiteheaded Eagle. " The few extreme measures he took with the Indians were
always justifiable under the circumstances. The unusual conditions justified the
unusual methods.
There were no Indian wars during the twenty-two years Dr. McLoughlin had
charge of the Hudson's Bay Company's affairs west of the Rocky Mountains. The
first Indian war, caused by the Whitman massacre, occurred the year after Dr.
McLoughlin's resignation went into effect.
Never was there a finer, truer, or more acceptable hospitality extended than
that of Dr. McLoughlin at Fort Vancouver to missionaries, without regard to
sect, to strangers from any country, and also always to rival traders. These trad-
ers were all Americans, for British traders were forbidden to trade in the Oregon
country, under the grant of the British government to the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany. But as the head of this company in the Oregon country he readily en-
gaged in ruinous competition with rival traders, including Nathaniel J. Wyeth.
1
308
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
On each side it was always a commercial war to finish. It was a similar com-
petition to that the American traders engaged in with each other. Rev. H. K.
Hines, D.D., a Methodist minister, who came to Oregon in 1853, in an address
at Pendleton, Oregon, December 10, 1897, said: "My own conclusions, after a
lengthy and laborious investigation, the results of which I have given only in
bare outline, is that Dr. McLoughlin acted the part of an honorable, high-minded
and loyal man in his relation with the American traders who ventured to dis-
pute with him the commercial dominion of Oregon up to 1835 or 1837."
In November, 1850, Samuel R. Thurston, the first territorial delegate from
Oregon territory, who was unfriendly to Dr. McLoughlin, wrote to Nathaniel J.
Wyeth, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, where the latter then resided, asking for
information against Dr. McLoughlin as to his treatment of Wyeth, when the lat-
ter was in Oregon in 1832 and 1834. Wyeth replied in a letter of praise and
also wrote to Robert C. Winthrop, then a congressman from Massachusetts, say-
ing that Wyeth had no confidence that his testimony would be called for by any
congressional committee and that he would like to present a memorial in favor
of Dr. McLoughlin. In this letter, after quoting an excerpt from Thurston's let-
ter, Wyeth wrote Winthrop: "I have written Mr. Thurston in reply to the above
extract, that myself and others were kindly received and were treated well in
all respects, by J. McLoughlin, Esq., and the officers of the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany.
The very honorable treatment received by me from McLough-
lin during the years 1832 to 1836, during which time there were no other Amer-
icans on the lower Columbia, except myself and parties, calls on me to state the
facts.” Wyeth forthwith sent a copy of this correspondence to Dr. McLough-
lin and wrote him, tendering Wyeth's good offices in the matter, and saying:
"Should you wish such services as I can render in this part of the United States,
I should be pleased to give them in return for the many good things you did
years since, and if any testimony as regards your efficient and friendly actions
towards me and other earliest Americans who setled in Oregon, will be of any
use in placing you before the Oregon people in the dignified position of a bene-
factor, it will be cheerfully rendered.”
But Dr. McLoughlin's humanity was extended also to those who were not of
his race.
In 1834 he learned accidentally that three Japanese sailors, the sur-
vivors of a crew of seventeen of a derelict Japanese junk which had drifted
across the Pacific, had been captured and enslaved by the Indians a few miles
south of Cape Flattery, near the entrance of the straits of Fuca. After great
trouble these Japanese were rescued and taken to Fort Vancouver, where they
were most kindly treated for several months. He then sent them to England on
one of the company's vessels, whence they were sent to China.
In 1832 he started the first school west of the Rocky Mountains. John Ball, ,
who came with the trading party of Nathaniel J. Wyeth in 1832, was a graduate
of Dartmouth college. On the failure of this expedition, Dr. McLoughlin en-
gaged Ball to teach his son and other children at the fort. After teaching about
two months he was succeeded by Solomon H. Smith, who also came with Wyeth.
Smith taught his school about eighteen months, when he was succeeded by Cyrus
Shepard, a lay missionary, who came with Revs. Jason and Daniel Lee in 1834.
The first missionaries to Oregon were Methodists who came to Oregon with
Wyeth's second party in 1834. The next missionaries were the Presbyterians,
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
309
couver.
who came in 1836. Among the latter was Dr. Marcus Whitman and wife. Al-
though none of these missionaries were of his religious faith, Dr. McLoughlin
treated them with the greatest hospitality and kindness. He assisted and pro-
tected them from all troubles and perils from the Indians. The missionaries who
came later received the same kindly treatment and assistance. The first Cath-
olic, missionaries came to Oregon in 1838. These, too, he assisted as he had the
Protestants, although he was then a member of or at least followed the practices
of the English established church. It was his custom to read the service of that
church on Sundays to a congregation of officers and employes at Fort Van-
He became a member of the Catholic church in 1842, and for the rest
of his life was a consistent and devoted Catholic.
After the death of Dr. McLoughlin there was found among his private papers
a document in his own handwriting probably written a short time before his
death, setting forth what he had done in Oregon and the treatment he had re-
ceived. It is one of the important contributions to the history of early Oregon.
It was presented to the Oregon Pioneer Association. It is published in full in
the “Transactions” of that association for the year 1880, on pages 46-55. In this
document he says that he early saw from the mildness and salubrity of the cli-
mate that it was the finest portion of North America for the residence of civi-
lized man. He evidently had determined to make Oregon his home for life, and
with this in view, in 1829 he located his land claim at the falls at Oregon City,
where there is a large and excellent water power. He encouraged the French-
Canadian employes whose services with the Hudson's Bay Company had expired,
to settle in the Willamette Valley. The first settler located a land claim near
Champoeg in 1829. He furnished these settlers with wheat, seeds and necessary
supplies at low prices to enable them to be successful, loaned them cattle and
bought their crops of wheat at a good price. It was the beginning in Oregon of
farming and of home life, outside of the Hudson's Bay Company. To this colony
of settlers there added from time to time a few persons, mostly American citi-
zens; some of these were free trappers, who wished to stop their nomadic careers,
a few of Wyeth's two unsuccessful ventures, and other adventures. All these
were treated by Dr. McLoughlin with the same kindness and consideration he
had extended to the French-Canadian settlers. He felt certain that these settlers
would not interfere with he fur trade of his company, and he had also been in-
formed by the directors of his company as early as 1825, that Great Britain
did not intend to claim any part of the Oregon country south of the Columbia
river.
Until after the year 1840, Dr. McLoughlin was a very happy and prosperous
In that year he was fifty-six years of age. He was happily married. His
children were coming to maturity; he had accumulated a fortune, and his salary
was $12,000 a year and the country was to his liking. Few men at his time have
brighter prospects for a happy old age. He had planned to erect mills on his
land claim and live there when he retired from the service of his company.
In 1840 the Oregon missions, particularly in the Willamette valley, were a
failure. Most of the Indians had died from epidemics in the years 1829-1832,
and the few who were left in that valley were a miserable lot. They would not
be converted, or if converted, stay so. But in the fall of 1838, Rev. Jason Lee
went to the eastern states and with great fervor delivered lectures collected
310
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
moneys, and enlisted new missionaries, clerical and lay, to go to Oregon, osten-
sibly to convert the Indians, but in reality, as he said in his verbal report to the
missionary board in July, 1844,—“When the board sent out its last reinforce-
ment (in 1840) its object in my view, and I believe in theirs, was that Methodism
should spread throughout Oregon; for what purpose else, I ask, did so large a
number of laymen go out?” A ship, the Lausanne, was chartered, loaded with
goods, machinery and merchandise to establish mills and stores for mercantile
purposes. The moneys raised for these purposes amounted to $42,000. This
ship carried as passengers thirty-six missionaries men and women, and sixteen
children. It is usually called “The Great Reinforcement." The Lausanne ar-
rived at Fort Vancouver, June 1, 1840. Dr. McLoughlin sent a skillful pilot, for
the captain of the ship did not have any reliable chart of the river. He sent
fresh vegetables, milk and a large tub of butter from Fort Vancouver. On their
arrival there Dr. McLoughlin supplied rooms and provisions for the whole mis-
sionary party. They were his guests for about two weeks. A few weeks after
some of these missionaries were endeavoring to take for themselves Dr. McLough-
lin's land claim at Oregon City. The Methodist Mission, as such, did not offi-
cially take part in these proceedings. Some of the missionaries took no part in
these actions. The mission took up a land claim of 640 acres north of Dr. Mc-
Loughlin's claim. The first missionary work on this claim was done where Glad-
stone park is now situated. In July, 1840, Rev. A. F. Waller, one of the new
missionaries who had charge of this mission, was sent by Rev. Jason Lee to es-
tablish a mission at Oregon City. Dr. McLoughlin gave to the mission a piece
of his land claim and assisted in building the mission house thereon. July 21,
1840, Dr. McLoughlin having been informed that the mission intended to try
to take his land claim, notified Rev. Jason Lee, the superintendent of the Ore-
gon Methodist missions, that Dr. McLoughlin had taken up this claim and gave
a general description of it. Lee returned a satisfactory answer. In 1841 some
of these missionaries attempted to occupy what is now known as Abernethy Isl-
and, near the crest of the Falls, a part of Dr. McLoughlin's claim. On Dr. Mc-
Loughlin's protest, this occupancy was stayed for a while. In the fall of 1842,
after Dr. McLoughlin had made further improvements on his land, had it sur-
veyed and laid öff, part of it into lots and blocks, and named the place Oregon
City, Waller employed John Ricord, a peripatetic lawyer, and asserted his owner-
ship of the whole claim, except Abernethy Island. The result was that Dr. MC-
Loughlin bought off Waller, by giving him personally five hundred dollars, a
few acres of land in Oregon City, also six lots and a block to the Methodist
Mission. About three months after this settlement, Rev. Geo. Gary, who
came from the eastern states to close the mission and to dispose of all its
property, compelled Dr. McLoughlin to pay twenty-two hundred dollars to the
mission for the land he had given the mission in the settlement with Waller. In
1841 several of the missionaries formed a company called the Oregon Milling
Company, which succeeded in taking Abernethy Island from Dr. McLoughlin.
The details are too many to be set forth in this article. In 1842 Dr. McLoughlin
built a saw mill on the river bank, near Abernethy island, and a little later he
established a flour mill. It was from the latter that the first shipment of flour
was made from the Pacific coast to the Orient.
Waller and others who took part in trying to deprive Dr. McLoughlin of his
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
311
land endeavored to justify themselves by the fact that Dr. McLoughlin was then
a British subject, and was not entitled to hold a land claim in Oregon. But
British subjects and citizens of the United States had equal rights under the
conventions of joint occupancy; and the boundary treaty of June 15, 1846, pro-
vided that the possessory rights of land of British subjects in Oregon should be
respected.
In 1845 Dr. McLoughlin tried to be naturalized by a court of the Oregon
provisional government, but he was informed by its chief justice that it had no
jurisdiction in the matter. The courts of Oregon territory were established in
May, 1849. In that month Dr. McLoughlin, at Oregon City, made his declara-
tion to become a citizen of the United States, as required by its naturalization
laws. He became an American citizen in 1851, which was as soon as he could
do so by law.
While small parties had come to Oregon from the United States prior to
1843, and some of the persons composing these parties had settled in the Willam-
ette Valley with the assistance of Dr. McLoughlin, it was in that year that
the first true home building immigration came to Oregon. It left Independence,
Missouri, May 20, 1843. It was composed of about eight hundred and seventy-
five persons of whom two hundred and ninety-five were men and boys over six-
teen years of age. They were the first persons to bring loaded wagons west of
Fort Hall, now in Idaho. After great hardships they arrived at The Dalles at
the beginning of the winter season. There was then no way to take wagons fur-
ther, except by water. Their supplies were nearly exhausted, their clothing was
badly worn; some of the immigrants, especially children, were sick. They were
threatened with massacre by the Indians. It was then the greatness and human-
ity of Dr. McLoughlin was best shown. He prevented the assaults of the Indians,
provided boats to carry the immigrants to Fort Vancouver, furnished food and
clothing to all, extended credit to all who needed it without collateral, although
selling goods on credit was strictly against the rules of the Hudson's Bay com-
pany. He took care of the sick at the company's hospital without charge. He
provided means for them to reach the Willamette Valley, and supplied them
with seed wheat to be returned in kind the next season, loaned them tools to cul-
tivate with, and also cattle. Although most of these and succeeding immigrants
repaid for these advances, it is to be greatly regretted that a number did not, and
thus caused Dr. McLoughlin great trouble and loss, and were one of the causes
which led to his resignation from the Hudson's Bay company in 1845, which
became effective in 1846. Without these aids, most of these immigrants would
have suffered greatly, probably many would have died from privation, exposure,
and some possibly from starvation. The total white population, men, women
and children in Oregon, outside of the officers and employes of the Hudson's Bay
company, prior to the arrival of the immigration of 1843, did not exceed two
hundred persons.
The immigration of 1844, numbering about fourteen hundred persons, and
of 1845, numbering about three thousand persons, arrived in nearly the same
destitute conditions as the immigration of 1843. They were protected, aided
and supplied on credit by Dr. McLoughlin, as were the immigrants of 1843.
These early pioneers of Oregon were not adventurers nor mendicants. They
were courageous, strong and forcible men and women, who came to Oregon
312
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
.
to make it their home. They had confidence in their ability to overcome all
difficulties. A majority of these were from the Southern states. They started
without full knowledge of the trials and difficulties of the journey, many without
sufficient equipment or supplies. They were not encouraged nor protected by
the government of the United States. They came of their own initiative. The
assistance Dr. McLoughlin extended to them was not charity. It was a matter
of humanity.
Sir George Simpson, the Governor-in-chief of the Hudson's Bay company,
severely criticized Dr. McLoughlin for his assistance to these immigrants. Fur-
nishing goods and supplies on credit was against the rules of the company, and it
was thought that by so doing he was encouraging a settlement of the country
by citizens of the United States called Americans, as distinguished from Cana-
dians and other British subjects. In 1845, Lieuts. Warre and Vavasour arrived
at Fort Vancouver ostensibly as visitors, but they came as officers of the British
army to report on the condition of affairs and to plan for forts and posts in case
of war. In their reports they severely criticized Dr. McLoughlin. The result
was that Dr. McLoughlin, in 1845, resigned from the company. Under its rules,
his resignation did not take effect until the expiration of one year.
Dr. McLoughlin's assistance to these immigrants was not only humane, but
it was necessary. Had he not done so, it is not unlikely that Fort Vancouver
would have been captured by these immigrants and a war between the two coun-
tries have resulted. This result Dr. McLoughlin with rare prescience fully ap-
preciated and stated it in his reply to the criticisms referred to.
Before the arrival of the immigration of 1846, Dr. McLoughlin's resignation
had taken effect and he had established in addition to his flour mill, a sawmill
and a store for himself at Oregon City. He extended similar aids to that and
to succeeding immigrations as he had to the preceeding ones. By the time the
immigrants of 1846 arrived at The Dalles the Barlow road had been made over
the Cascade mountains so it was possible to bring wagons overland from The
Dalles to Oregon City. But the Willamette valley was so new and so largely un-
settled, roads were to be built, houses constructed, and the country made habit-
able that the latter immigrants were greatly in need of assistance. This Dr. MIC-
Loughlin continued to render.
In this sketch I cannot go into the matter of Dr. McLoughlin's part in the
Oregon provisional government, which existed from May 2, 1843, until March 3,
1849, when the Oregon territorial government was established. Nor can I state
many unfriendly actions against him and his land claim by Methodist mission-
aries and their followers. These missionaries were the leaders of a local political
party known as the mission party. Owing to the absence of many residents in
Oregon in the newly-discovered California placer mines, this party succeeded in
1849 in electing Samuel R. Thurston, a new arrival, as the first delegate to Con-
gress from the territory of Oregon. He was a ready speaker, ambitious and not
over scrupulous. George Abernethy, one of the Lausanne party, a lay mission-
ary who had been steward of the Methodist mission, had charge of their store
and of their secular affairs, and who had been made governor under the provi-
sional government, had become the owner of the Oregon Milling Company and he
and his son claimed Abernethy Island. He and other conspirators against Dr. Mc-
Loughlin, found in Thurston a willing instrument to carry out their nefarious
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
313
plans. They succeeded through false and malicious representations by Thurston
to Congress, in having a clause inserted in the Oregon donation land law of Sep-
tember 27, 1850, giving Abernethy Island to Abernethy as assignee of the Ore-
gon Milling company, but under another name, and giving to the territory of
Oregon the rest of Dr. McLoughlin's land claim, the proceeds from its disposal
to be used for the establishment and endowment of a university. Almost all of
Dr. McLoughlin's wealth was in this claim and in the mills and other buildings
situated on it. Dr. McLoughlin sought redress from Congress, but he was un-
successful. While he was not actually ousted, he could not move nor sell his
mills and other improvements. It resulted in his practical bankruptcy. He died
at Oregon City, September 3, 1857, a broken-hearted man, the victim of malice,
mendacity and ingratitude. He was buried in the churchyard of St. John's
(Catholic) church at Oregon City, where his body has lain ever since. In 1862,
the legislature of the state of Oregon restored to Dr. McLoughlin's heirs all of
the part of his land claim given to it by the donation land law.
In 1846, Pope Gregory XVI., in appreciation of Dr. McLoughlin's high char-
acter and his humanity, made him a knight of St. Gregory the Great, of civil
grade.
It is one test of Dr. McLoughlin's high character and of his true worth that
now, fifty-three years after his death his name is venerated in Oregon and his
memory kept alive, not only by Oregon pioneers and their descendants, but by
the people of Oregon as a whole. His full length portrait is hung in the place
of honor in the senate chamber of the state capitol among the portraits of former
governors of Oregon. His reputation is that of Oregon's greatest citizen, its
first ruler whose autocracy was necessary, but kindly, beneficent and efficient, a
friend of the poor and distressed, and the savior of the early Oregon pioneers.
By common consent, without dispute and without jealousy, he is known as “The
Father of Oregon.'
FREDERICK V. HOLMAN.
CHAPTER XII
1844-1848.
THE COLONIAL PERIODWORKING OF THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT-RIVAL FACTIONS
SILENCED BY LAND CLAIMS-TOMAHAWK CLAIM DESCRIPTIONS-TITLES TO LAND
CLAIMS-PRICES, AND COST OF LIVINGFOUNDING RIVAL CITIES, AND HOW THEY
STARTED-IMPORTATION OF HORSES, CATTLE, SHEEP AND GOATS-FOUNDATION OF
THE FRUIT GROWING INTEREST-ORGANIZATION OF AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES—COM-
MENCEMENT OF TRADE AND COMMERCE-DISCOVERY OF GOLD, AND THE OREGON
MINT-BRIEF SKETCHES OF EARLY PIONEERS.
The American colonist in Oregon started with their little Provisional Gov-
ernment in 1843, under the spectral danger of serious trouble from two different,
and to them, uncontrollable sources. If the British occupation of the region,
in the guise of the Hudson's Bay company, should decide to starve out the Ameri-
cans, or drive them out through control of the Indians, they would be power-
less to offer effective opposition until succor could come from the States—if, in-
deed, it would come at all. Or if the Indians upon their own initiative should
commence a war of extermination, it was easily possible for them to kill every
American before help could reach them by either land or sea. Entertaining
the opinions, which the great majority of the Americans did, of both British and
Catholics, it is not surprising that great danger to the little colony was generally
feared, and that the hostile feelings against their supposed enemies have come
down to us in the writings and correspondence of the Protestants and Pioneers.
History is replete with vast volumes of the experience of mankind showing the
bitterness, malignancy and unreason for religious contentions and persecution,
so that no apology is necessary for stating frankly that the progress of Oregon
as an American Colony was shadowed by two ever-present questions of vital
import: First, and greatest of all, was Oregon to be American or British terri-
tory? Second, the fear of an Indian uprising instigated by British, or British
and Catholic influences. On the first question all the Americans were lined up
in solid column to fight a British control of the country.. On the second question
all the Americans stood solid to fight the Hudson's Bay Co. and the Indians as a
common enemy; but as to Catholic influence on the Indians, the Protestant nnis-
sionaries alone, feared trouble from that quarter. The mountaineers and old
trappers like Joe Meek and Dr. Newell among the Americans did not take much
if any interest in the fears of the Protestant missionaries; and did not consider
one form of religion better than the other. That these sentiments of nationality
and religion had a large influence, and did color the thought and social condi-
tions of the early colonists cannot be doubted, no matter how hard it is to be
believed by the people of Oregon in 1912. The correspondence, books and litera-
ture of that early day, and of the pioneer survivors of later times clearly show
315
316
GON
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
those feelings and ineradicable prejudices. And it was the greatest good for-
tune, and never to be forgotten by the Americans, that the power and influence
of the Hudson's Bay Company was at that time exercised in Oregon by a man of
the highest character for justice and humanity. Had John McLoughlin been
anything less than the great man that he was, the American colony would have
been starved out, if not otherwise disposed of by native Indian ferocity; and
England would have owned and possessed the Oregon Country for all time.
The reports of the British Agents Warre, Vavasour, and others, as well as the
forced retirement of McLoughlin from the control of the H. B. Co. in Oregon,
conclusively show that McLoughlin was condemned by the British management
of the Fur Company in London, and by the British Government for permitting
and aiding the destitute American immigrants to get a foothold in the country
and organizing the Provisional Government. Under such clouds and conditions
as these the Americans hopefully organized the infant state, and proceeded to
establish their homes and American institutions in Oregon. To make this begin-
ning at all in the face of all the doubts and uncertainties that surrounded the
pioneers, required an amount of faith, confidence and courage that the Oregon
citizen of 1912 can but little comprehend. Yet little by little, step by step, so
small they would not be counted in this day, the great work of founding a state
and establishing civilization, and all that is comprehended in the term, was ac-
complished.
The first matter that engaged the attention of our Oregon Pioneers was the
land-six hundred and forty acres for each head of a family, or for the man able
to bear arms and fight Indians. There was no law authorizing it but the law of
the Provisional Government, and that had no more authority to dispose of the
land than it had to send senators to congress or make treaties with foreign na-
tions. But the land grant was proposed in Senator Linn's bill before Congress,
and they expected it to become a law some time. The Provisional Government
and everything else was founded on the land. If there had been no chance to get
a tract of land for each man or family, the whole pioneer movement would have
failed. And the bargain, proposition, or law, whatever it may be called, of those
pioneers to grant land to each other as the foundation of their whole scheme for
a new state, stands in bold relief as a matter of the most intense interest.
The following extract from the land law enacted by the provisional legislature
was the statutory authority for the original Oregon land titles:
Art. 1. Any person now holding, or hereafter wishing to establish a claim to
land in this territory, shall designate the extent of his claim by natural bounda-
ries, or by marks at the corners, and on the lines of such claim, and have the ex-
tent and boundaries of said claim recorded in the office of the territorial re-
corder, in a book to be kept by him for that purpose, within twenty days from the
time of making said claim-provided, that those who shall already be in posses-
sion of land, shall be allowed one year from the passage of this act, to file a de-
scription of his claim in the recorder's office.
Art. 2. No individual shall be allowed to hold a claim of more than one
square mile of six hundred and forty acres in a square or oblong form, according
to the natural situation of the premises ; nor shall any individual be allowed to
hold more than one claim at the same time. Any person complying with the pro-
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
317
visions of these ordinances, shall be entitled to the same recourse against tres-
pass as in other cases by law provided.
Art. 3. No person shall be entitled to hold such a claim upon city or town
sites, extensive water privileges, or other situations, necessary for the transaction
of mercantile or manufacturing operations, and to the detriment of the com-
munity-provided that nothing in these laws shall be so constructed as to affect
any claim of any mission of a religious character, made previous to this time to
extent of not more than six miles square.
Approved by the people, July 5, 1843.
Under this law was taken the titles to the land on which Oregon City, and the
City of Portland were taken, and the titles thus initiated were afterwards by
Chief Justice Williams of Oregon Territory, U. S. District Justice Deady, and
the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed to be good and sufficient titles
to the land. As there were no public land or other surveys provided for at that
early day, the settlers had to take and describe their lands just as the early set-
tlers in Western Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Kentucky, took up their lands;
that is by "Tomahawk" claim surveys. When a man went out and selected his
land he took a light axe, or the Indian “tomahawk” and blazed on the trees a
line of marks, or “blazes,” around his land claim. In the prairie lands he must
plant posts at the corners and properly mark them. And these descriptions were
recorded in the Provisional Government land records. Some of them are inde-
scribably non-descriptive. Here follows a description of one of these original
claims in Washington county twelve miles from the City of Portland, which in-
cludes a tract of land now owned by the author of this history.
Description
>>
Beginning at a point near Reasoner's old blacksmith shop near the mouth
of a small kanyon, thence up that kanyon to the head, thence to an oak tree
blaized on both sides with a T cut in the north side blaize, thence on a strate line
with the head of said kanyon an oak tree to a point intersecting the east line of
George Richardson or William Grahams land claim thence south to a point due
west of a line that divides the land claim of James Hicklin and Darius Taylor,
thence east to where it intersects the meridian line and thence to mouth of said
kanyon to place of beginning, being the land claim of Darius Taylor."
Settling the land question was the first and greatest work of the Provisional
Government. Then everybody went to work upon their lands, and to a great
extent forgot or forgave their disputes about a government. The land law
proved to be the great peace-maker of the colony, and showed that the state build-
ers had wrought even wiser than they knew. For, as soon as this law was
adopted, every Canadian that had voted against any kind of a government
rushed to the Provisional land office to record his claim, or to stake out a new
claim; and by so doing he recognized the Provisional Government and from this
interest in the land became a supporter of the government.
HOW THE PEOPLE LIVED
The land law having practically, for the present at least, settled and quieted
political discussion, there was nothing left to do but go to work, and this the im-
318
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
migrants did with a hearty good will. The government had prohibited slavery
and whisky, had resolved to treat the Indians justly, and made peace with the
Canadian settlers, so that the outlook for the colony was full of hope and pros-
perity. M. M. McCarver, one of the 1843 immigrants, writes a letter under
date of November 6, 1843, from "Tualitine Plains, Oregon Territory to the
Iowa Gazette, and among other things says: “The emigrants are all as far as I
know satisfied. Wages for a common hand is from one dollar and a half per day,
and mechanics from two to four dollars. Wheat is quite abundant and sold to
ship or emigrants, at one dollar per bushel. Flour is from nine to ten dollars
per barrel; potatoes and turnips fifty cents per bushel; beef from six to eight
cents per pound; American cows from sixty to seventy dollars, California (Span-
ish) fifteen to twenty dollars. Nothing is wanted but industry to make this one
of the richest little countries in the world."
Another letter dated 1846 from Tallmadge B. Wood to Isaac M. Nash of Sara-
toga, New York, furnishes the following extracts:
“I am now improving me a farm on Clatsop Plains. I have a splendid claim
of six hundred and forty acres of land, about fifty acres timber, the rest prairie-
laying immediately on the Pacific. We are all very anxious to hear the result
of the treaty (if one is made) between the U. S. and John Bull. We are very
much afraid Uncle will fool away the north of Columbia; if he does we shall be
Solux (mad). We are very anxious the U. S. should extend her jurisdiction over
our valuable country, and we are nearly out of patience with the delay. We are
not all thieves and runaways, as represented by the Hon. Mr. McDuffie, nor our
country a booty. Boy, if it is, it's inferior to none in point of beauty, pleasant
climate, natural resources, and advantages of wealth; and if the settlers were
ever thieves they have wholly reformed, for it is generally believed that no other
colony has ever equaled this in point of bravery, enterprise, hospitality, honesty,
and morality. There are men who arrived here in October last who have at this
time one hundred acres fenced and sown to wheat. Now, all we want is a little
of Uncle Sam's care, that, capitalists may be safe in investing their money.
"Merchandise is generally high here, owing to the scarcity and great demand
Salt $1 per bush.; sugar 1242c per lb.; coffee 25c per lb.; molasses 50c per gal.;
tea 50c to $1.50; nails 18c; window glass 10 to 12c per light; dry goods in pro-
portion; beef, pork, hides, tallow, and most kinds of produce taken in payment;
beef $6 per h. ; pork $10; hides $2 apiece by the lot; tallow 8 to 10 c per lb.; but-
ter 20 to 25 c per lb.; wheat 750 to $1 ; oats 75c; potatoes 50c per bu. ; lumber from
15 to $25 per 1,000 feet; shingles 4 to $5 per 1,000; common laborers $1 per day;
and mechanics $2.'
William L. Smith and John Holman wrote two letters to friends in the east in
1844, from which the St. Louis Reporter printed the following:
“The prospect is quite good for a young man to make a fortune in this coun-
try, as all kinds of produce are high, and likely to remain so from the extensive
demand. The Russian settlements in Asia; the Sandwich Islands; a great por-
tion of California, and the whaling vessels of the Northwest coast, procure their
supplies from this place.
“There is as yet but little money in the country, and the whole trade is carried
on by orders on an agent or factor. For instance, when I sell my crop of wheat,
the purchaser asks me where I wish to receive the pay. Vancouver is as yet the
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
319
principal point, and an order on that point enables the seller to procure goods,
or cattle, or anything else for it.
“The population of this country consists of French, sailors, mountain traders,
missionaries and emigrants from the states. The French population consists of
old worn-out servants of the Hudson's Bay Company; they universally have In-
dian wives, and many children, some of whom are very handsome; this part of the
population are Catholics. The sailors are those who deserted from vessels while
lying on the coast, and have also intermarried with the Indians, and but few of
them have embraced any religion—they are, however, generally good citizens.
The mountain traders are similar to the sailors, except that they have nearly all
embraced the Methodist or Catholic religion."
Within a year after reaching Oregon, Peter H. Burnett, one of the leading
men of the immigration of 1843, wrote a letter to the Washington City Globe,
from which is taken the following extract:
"LINNTON, OREGON, July 25, 1844.
“I am here in our new town, which we have named as above, in respect for
Dr. Linn's services for this territory. Gen. M. M. McCarver and myself have
laid out the town together. He is a gentleman from Iowa Territory, and laid
out Burlington, the seat of Government. He is an enterprising man. Our
place is ten miles from Vancouver, on the west bank of the Willamette river,
at the head of navigation, and three or four miles above the mouth of the Willam-
ette, and twenty-five miles below the Willamette Falls. I have no doubt but
that this place will be the great commercial town in the territory. We are
selling lots at $50 each, and sell them fast at that. At the falls there is quite
a town already. I own two lots in Oregon City (the town at the falls). They
are said to be worth $200 each. I got them of Doctor McLoughlin for two lots
here in Linnton.
"It costs me less to live here than in Weston, Missouri. I paid for wood the
last year I lived at Weston, $75; for corn and fodder $50, all of which is saved
here. We use much less pork here than in Missouri. The salmon are running
now and will continue to run until October next. They generally commence
running the last of February and end in October. I have had several messes
of fresh salmon. At this point we purchase of the Indians ducks, geese, swans,
salmon, potatoes, feathers, and venison, for little or nothing. Ducks, four loads;
Feathers cost about twelve and a half cents a pound. There are more ducks,
etc., here than you ever saw; also pheasants in great numbers. They remain
here all the winter. I have hunted very little, being too busy. We find it very
profitable to get of the Indians, to whom we trade old shirts, pantaloons, vests,
and all sorts of clothing. They are more anxious to purchase clothes than any
people you ever saw. You can sell anything here that ever was sold. Stocking
Cary ploughş, $5 each. We had an excellent blacksmith living in our place who
makes first rate Cary ploughs at thirty-one and a quarter cents a pound, he
finding the iron."
These letters show how the people found things in Oregon sixty-eight years
ago, and how they commenced life in Oregon. Burnett's prediction that Linn-
ton would be the great city of this country did not come true, although it is
now a busy little lumbering suburb of Portland.
320
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
FOUNDING THE GREAT COMMERCIAL TOWN
While Burnett and McCarver did not succeed in picking out the site of Ore-
gon's great commercial town, they came very near to it. On account of the
great water power it was at the beginning believed by the first settlers that
Oregon City would be the chief city in Oregon. There were not less than eleven
locations for the site of the great city to be, a map of which is herein given, Van-
couver being the first and Portland being nearly the last in the order of the
several locations.
The first settlement in the district covered by this history was made at
Vancouver in 1825, by the Hudson's Bay Company. The next within this district
was also by the Hudson's Bay Company at Oregon City in 1829. In 1832, Dr.
John McLoughlin, chief factor for the Hudson's Bay Company, blasted out and
constructed a mill race to conduct the water from above the Willamette falls
to a point below the waterfall, to be used in a mill to grind wheat into flour.
This was the first work to start a business and manufacturing enterprise in
this district. In 1838, McLoughlin had timbers cut and squared and hauled to
the ground for the mill, and built a house at the "Falls." Several families
settled at the “Falls” in 1841 and 1842, and in 1843, Dr. McLoughlin surveyed
off a mile square of land, and platted the town of Oregon City. This was the
first town in Oregon, and the original rival to Portland.
Another location for a city, made in some respects anterior to Oregon City,
was that of Nathaniel J. Wyeth at the lower end of Sauvie's Island, known
in 1835 as Wapato Island. Wyeth was an enterprising young business man
of Boston with considerable capital, and had been induced to launch a great
trading and colonizing scheme to Oregon by the writings of Hall J. Kelley.
Wyeth arrived in Oregon in September, 1834, having left Fort Hall on August
6th with a party of thirty men, some Indian women and one hundred and
sixteen horses. On reaching Fort Vancouver, with Jason Lee, and others,
the first Protestant religious services in Oregon or west of the Rocky mountains
were celebrated. Wyeth took two of his scientific men in a small boat and
started down the Columbia to find a good location to build a city. The party
passed down and around Wapato Island, and finally decided to locate the
future great city of the Pacific at the lower end of the island where his ship,
the May Dacre, had tied up after reaching the Columbia and sailing up the river.
This spot is just above where the government lighthouse on the lower end of
the island is located. Here Wyeth assembled all this men, both from the over-
land party and from the ship, and all hands went to work laying the
foundations of the city. A temporary storehouse was erected, the livestock was
landed from the ship, and then the goods landed and stored. Ground was
cleared, streets were laid out and a row of huts built for quarters for the men;
and the pigs, poultry, sheep and goats that had successfully made the trip
from Boston, Mass., to old Oregon, were turned loose in the streets of "Fort
William’'—the name given by Wyeth to his great western city; and logs and
boards were cut and sawed for permanent structures. Wyeth set up a cooper
shop and set his coopers at work making barrels, into which he could pack the
salmon they would catch in the Columbia to send back to Boston on the ship.
And some salmon were caught, packed and actually shipped back to Boston.
mica
Island
Sauvies
Columbia Rivi
}
Multnomahlige
St Helena
Miltong
For drillia
Irinntond
Portlande
Milwankie
Origon
Linn City city
seough
Vancow
Fort
ino
St Johns
mette River
Ha?? Kelley's
City [1834
GUESSING ON THE METROPOLIS, AND STARTING RIVAL CITIES
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
321
This was the beginning of the great salmon industry of the Columbia river,
antedating Hume, Kinney, Cook and others, thirty-five or forty years—but it
was the last of Wyeth's city—the ship got about half a cargo of fish under
great difficulties; McLoughlin discouraged trading with Wyeth, as he was com-
pelled to do by his company, and the whole scheme proved a failure. After
the island was abandoned by Wyeth, the Hudson's Bay Company established
a dairy down there under the care of a French Canadian named Jean Baptist
Sauvie, which gave the modern name to the island, and started the dairy indus-
try where it has flourished ever since.
Another city was platted opposite Oregon City in 1843, by Robert Moore
who came to Oregon from Pennsylvania. Moore named his city "Linn," in
honor of Senator Linn of Missouri, the friend of Oregon. A few substantial
buildings were erected on that side of the river and maintained a precarious
existence until December, 1861, when they were all washed away by the great
flood in the Willamette.
But Moore was not to enjoy a monopoly of townsite advantages opposite
the original Falls City, for one, Hugh Burns, proceeded to lay out another city
below that of Moore's which he named Multnomah City, and commenced to
build it up by starting a blacksmith shop and operating it himself.
Four years after Moore's venture, Lot Whitcomb, a man of push and enter-
prise, from the state of Illinois, who built the first steamboat in Oregon, uniting
with Henderson Luelling, a founder of the fruit industry in Oregon, and Captain
Joseph Kellogg, a prominent steamboat man of later days, united their capital
and enterprise to build a city that should eclipse all others, and founded the
town of Milwaukie—which is still prospering.
And as we float down the Willamette in our townsite canoe, we come to
the town of St. Johns, laid out in about 1850 by James John, where he erected
and operated in a very quiet way a country store for many years. But the tide
of prosperity finally swung around to St. Johns but not until after its founder
had passed on to the city beyond this life, and now St. Johns is the most pros-
perous suburb of Portland.
And across the river, a little below St. Johns, we find the towns of Linnton
and Springville ; Linnton being planned and platted in 1843 by M. M. McCarver
and Peter H. Burnett. McCarver was a city builder, somewhat of the air castle
style. He was so sure that Linnton would be the great city of the Pacific
Coast, that he declared the only thing in the way of that result would be the
difficulty in getting enough nails to the townsite in good season. McCarver
made nothing of Linnton; and then went over to Puget Sound, and along with
Pettygrove, one of the founders of Portland, laid out the city of Port Townsend,
and early pulling up his stakes there, went to old Tacoma and made his final
effort in city building.
Continuing on down the Willamette slough, our townsite canoe pulls up to
the south bank of the river near the mouth of Milton creek, where we find the re-
mains of a city started there in the year 1846, by Captain Nathaniel
Crosby, and named Milton. But whether the creek gave the name to the town
or the town named the creek, Captain Crosby left no clue. It had a saw mill
and a small population, and a convenient boat landing, but was finally over-
Vol. I-21
322
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
2
shadowed by the next city below-St. Helens—which was founded by Captain
Knighton and others in 1845.
It is not hard to understand the fact of so many townsite locations having
been made in the vicinity of Portland. Everybody in the country in those pio-
neer days, could see as well as we can now, that there would be somewhere
above the Columbia river bar a town started, which would grow into a great
city, and make fortune or fortunes for the lucky proprietors. Every man had
his individual ideas of the proposition. The city would either be at Astoria,
where Astor located, or it would be up near the mouth of the Willamette river.
It would be wherever the ships cast anchor to discharge cargo. If they did
not stop at Astoria, they would sail on up the river until they reached the
outlet of the Willamette Valley. And every man of much prominence was
busily engaged in trying to find the favored spot. It was not even a question
of buying the townsite. The whole country was open to location. The land
was free.
No one knew whether it would be English or American. But it did
not cost any money to claim it if the true location could be determined. And
so there were, counting in Portland, the ten locations we have named; and the
result was a contest for the survival of the fittest; a purely evolutionary move-
ment in a commercial development.
Every townsite proprietor had his unanswerable reasons why his town was
the right place for the great city, but not one of them, except Hall J. Kelley,
who has not been counted among the competitors, ever supposed there would
be a town of more than twenty thousand people. The Oregon City lot holders
with Dr. McLoughlin at their head, believed that the great water power for
manufacturers at that point, and the head of navigation for ocean vessels, would
build the city at the falls. Moore and Burns argued that as their side of the
river was the best place for the canal and locks and nearer to the Tualatin county
farms by a ferry charge, therefore the city would be on the west side of the
river opposite Oregon City. They guessed right as to the canal and locks, but
missed on the farmers.
The Milwaukie owners claimed that Oregon City was not the head of naviga-
tion, because the Clackamas river had dumped a pile of gravel into the Willam-
ette, that ships could not get over, although Captain Couch had once got his
ship clear up to the falls on the June freshet. But the gravel argument did
finally "sand-bag" the hopes of all the falls people on both sides of the river.
But while it shut out the two falls towns, it did not help out Milwaukie to any
appreciable extent. Milwaukie had its days for several years, and then had
to yield to Portland.
St. Johns and Linnton united to decry Portland as the head of navigation,
just as Milwaukie had cried down the Willamette falls towns. They pointed out
that Swan Island was an impossible barrier to ships from the ocean, and that
while they could easily sail in over the Columbia river bar, and along up the
Columbia to their towns, the ships could never do any business at Vancouver or
Portland. And Linnton pointed with pride to the fact that it had three rivers
to support its hopes and make sure its prosperity—the Columbia, the Willamette
and Willamette slough.
Wyeth's townsite on the end of the nose of Sauvie's Island, was the first
aspirant to the honor and profit of the great city; and also the first failure in
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
323
the race for fame and prosperity. And for the reason that Dr. McLoughlin had
apparently transferred all his hopes to Oregon City while still holding Van-
couver as a vassal of the Hudson's Bay Company, and the occupier of the most-
beautiful townsite on the great river. Vancouver was thus practically shut out
from any chance to grow as a trade center, until after Portland got such a sub-
stantial foothold that its future could not be shaken. This left only Milton and
St. Helens to contest supremacy with Portland's ambition.
It was soon shown that Milton, notwithstanding that it was boomed by a
ship and a successful shipmaster, was too close to St. Helens ever to become a
great city, just as Oregon City had conclusively shown that Portland was too
close to Oregon City ever to achieve greatness. But St. Helens was the only
town that ever gave Portland anything of a contest for the metropolis. Prior
to the location of Portland, nearly all the ocean transportation came to and
sailed from Vancouver, being almost wholly in the hands of the Hudson's Bay
Company.
Lewis and Clark had given the world the idea that large ships could not
come into the Willamette river. On their report to the President they say,
speaking of what a great harbor the Columbia river might be: “The large
sloops could come up as high as the tide water and vessels of three hundred tons
burden could reach the entrance of the Multnomah (Willamette) river.”' At
that time (1806) the largest vessel afloat did not carry more than a thousand
tons, but the thousand-ton vessel could have come to Portland townsite as easily
as it got over the Columbia bar. But everybody understood then that it would
be in the end the ocean transportation that would locate the city. To secure
that was to secure the city. Captain Couch and others, with little sailing ves-
sels, had worked their way up to Portland without tugboats to tow them, for
there were no such helpers in those days. But that was not decisive. Would the
ocean steamers come to Portland? That was put to the test when the Pacific
Mail Steamship Company, the first proprietors of steamships regularly running
to the Columbia river, bought a tract of land at St. Helens, erected a dock and
warehouse and stopped all their steamers at that point. One of the most enter-
prising men in Oregon at that time, or even since, was Whitcomb, who was
energetically pushing the fortunes of his town of Milwaukie. He had town lots
to sell; he soon had a steamboat; and he had a sawmill at Milwaukie that was
making and shipping to the then mushroom gold diggers' town of San Francisco
the very first lumber shipped from Oregon by an American--and he was making
a pile of money. And so he pushed his town. The steamship company was
pushing St. Helens, and sending freight up the river in little boats of all sorts-
and Portland was practically between the Whitcomb devil and the deep sea.
But Portland had some energetic men. The townsite proprietors, Stephen
Coffin, W. W. Chapman and Daniel H. Lownsdale, were not only enterprising and
energetic men, but they were able to see further into the future and make more
of their opportunities than others. They saw their opportunity; the opportunity
that is
“Master of Human destinies.'
And they lost no time in purchasing an ocean steamship that should ply
between Portland and San Francisco. This vessel, the Gold Hunter, was kept
on the San Francisco route until both Whitcomb of Milwaukie, and the Pacific
324
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Mail Steamship Company abandoned their opposition to Portland; the steam-
ship company running all their ships to Portland, and Whitcorad running his
steamboat from Portland to other points. It cost Coffin, Chapman and Lowns-
dale in immense sacrifice in town lots to purchase the Gold Hunter and run
her until the contest was decided. But they were equal to the occasion, and if
their successors in real estate holding and business at Portland had possessed
one-tenth of the energy and public spirit of these founders of the city, Portland
would have been larger today than all the Puget Sound towns and cities com-
bined.
In guessing at the location of the chief city of Oregon a lot of men missed
their chance to get into the millionaire class. F. W. Pettygrove sold out a half
interest in the Portland townsite for $5,000 worth of leather not then tanned,
and went to Port Townsend on Puget Sound and died a poor man. Each of the
townsite men had inflated ideas about city values, when only one guess could
prove correct. They all saw the vision of vast wealth foreshadowed in the lines :
"Behind the red squaw's birch canoe
The steamer smokes and waves,
And city lots are staked for sale,
Above old Indian graves;
I hear the tramp of pioneers,
Of nations yet to be;
The first low wash of waves which soon
Shall roll a human sea."
Two important facts combined to locate the principal city of the North
Pacific coast at Portland. The first in importance was that of a ship channel
from the Pacific ocean to this townsite; the second point was the farmer's prod-
uce. Without that there would have been no city here. Fort William, St.
Helens, St. Johns, and Linnton each had the first advantage equally with Port-
land, but they were left behind in the race because they lacked the other advan-
tage. The other point was equally vital when the race for commerce com-
menced, for no matter how many ships could come in over the Columbia bar
and come up the river, they must have some cargo to carry away. And they
could only get that at a point where the farmer could come with his produce,
and it must be the shortest practicable haul between the farm and the ship; and
Portland alone of all the other points offered that advantage. Portland alone
of all the other points could complement the end of the ship channel with the
shortest wagon haul to the farm and could thus halt the ship where the wagon
unloaded. In these days of railroads wagon transportation would cut no figure.
But in 1845, when the railroads had not even then reached the Alleghany
Mountains from Atlantic tide water, the city must be where the wagons
and ships could meet. The scattered farmers of the Tualatin Plains of
Washington county, hauling in their produce and hauling out their supplies
through the old Canyon road, was a mighty factor in locating Portland as the
chief city. And it is a notable fact that for more than half a century the people
of Portland and the people of Washington county have always stood shoulder to
shoulder in all enterprises to promote each other's welfare. When it was pro-
posed to build railroads up the Willamette valley more than forty years ago,
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
325
Portland gave its support to the road that was to run west into Washington
county, and gave nothing to the road that was to run south along the Willamette
river. And years ago Portland built superb macadam wagon roads out to the
Washington county line, and would have gone further west with them if the
county line could have been pushed back.
HOW THE FARMERS STARTED
The settlers at the little river cities got comfortably started sooner than the
farmers in the interior, for there was a sawmill at Oregon City, another at Mil-
waukie, and still another at Vancouver before the country people could get any
building materials, except what they hewed and sawed out by hand labor. The
following description of the home of Joseph Gervais which was near where the
town of Gervais is located, gives a good idea of the shifts and contrivances of
the early settlers.
Gervais had substantial buildings, and LaBonte's description of his house
and barn is very interesting. The house was about 18 by 24, on the ground, and
was constructed of square hewed logs, of rather large size. There were two
floors, one below, and one above, both of which were laid with long planks or
puncheons of white fir, and probably adzed off to a proper level. The roof was
made of poles as rafters, and the shingling was of carefully laid strips or sheets
of ash bark, imbricated. Upon these were cross planks to hold them in place.
There were three windows on the lower floor of about 30 by 36 inches in dimen-
sion, and for lights were covered with fine thinly dressed deer skins. There was
also a large fireplace, built of sticks tied together with buckskin thongs, and
covered with a stiff plaster made of clay and grass. The barn was of good size,
being about 40 by 50 feet on the ground, and was of the peculiar construction
of a number of buildings on early French Prairie. There were posts set up at
the corners and at the requisite intervals between in which tenon grooves had
been run by use of an augur and chisel, and into these were let white fir split
planks about three inches thick to compose the walls. The roof was shingled
in the same manner as the house, with pieces of ash bark. There was a young
orchard upon the place of small apple trees obtained from Fort Vancouver.
The orchard mentioned here was the first in Oregon; but the trees were
seedlings, and from seedlings at Vancouver where trees had been grown from
apple seed brought out by Hudson's Bay Company clerks from London. The
Gervais farm was the first in the Willamette valley proper. Prior to the Ger-
vais location, Ettienne Lucier had cultivated a tract of land where East Port-
land is built; and prior to that, Nathan Winship of Boston had attempted a
location at Oak Point on the south side of the Columbia river about forty miles
above Astoria in 1810, and had cleared and spaded up a tract of land for a
garden and planted the seeds; and this was the very first attempt to cultivate
the soil for any purpose in all the territory of Old Oregon. The next year, 1811,
Gabrielle Franchere in the month of May planted twelve shriveled up potatoes
that had come out to Oregon from New York in a ship around Cape Horn, and
from which he raised 119 good potatoes, and from this start fifty bushels of
potatoes were produced in 1813, thus giving Old Astoria the honor of starting
the potato business in Oregon. In the year 1826, John McLoughlin planted at
326
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Vancouver a bushel of spring wheat, a bushel of oats, a bushel of barley a
bushel of corn and a quart of timothy seed, all of which had been packed on
ponies from York Factory on the east side of the Rocky Mountains. From this
start in grain there was enough wheat to supply the H. B. Co. and succeeding
settlers with flour after the year 1828. Flax was cultivated first in Oregon in
Yamhill county in 1845, in Clatsop county in 1847, and in the vicinity of Salem,
about the year 1866, for the purpose of producing paint oil from the seed; and
a linseed oil mill and presses were erected not far from the Southern Pacific
station at Salem in 1866.
The importation of live stock was commenced by the Hudson's Bay Co., in
1830, so that they had cattle, sheep and hogs for their own use, and was using rape
for feed as early as 1832. The first large importation of cattle for general supply
and sale was made by the Willamette Cattle Company organized by Jason Lee
and others in 1836. Of this company Lee was financial agent, P. L. Edwards,
treasurer, and Ewing Young (who had been denounced when he came to the
country as a horse-thief) was made superintendent and sent to California to buy
the cattle. Dr. McLoughlin took one-half the stock in the Company, Jason Lee
and the settlers raised $1600, U. S. Naval Agent Slacum put in $500, and Mc-
Loughlin the balance of about $900. With that sum, after deducting expenses
of getting and driving the cattle from the Sacramento valley to Oregon, Young
purchased about seven hundred head of long horn Spanish cattle at three dollars
a head, and forty horses at twelve dollars a head. The drivers got free trans-
portation to Monterey on the government ship, and had to drive cattle and fight
Indians through Northern California and Southern Oregon and take their pay
in cattle at actual cost.
The importation of sheep for the production of wool commenced in 1842, when
Joseph Gale of Oregon and his associates bought up 1250 head of cattle and 600
head of horses and drove them to Oregon for sale. That cattle drive broke up
the cattle monopoly in Oregon; and strange as it may seem there was a monopoly
in Oregon in those Arcadian days. And along with and in the wake of Gale
droves of cattle and horses came the first sheep for sale to Oregon settlers. On
account of the wolves and other predacious animals, this first large flock of sheep
was a great venture by a very venturesome man. Jacob P. Leese got his start
in Belmont County, Ohio, a few years before the writer of this book got through
the log school-house college in the same county. Leese conceived the idea while
yet a young man, that if he could get a small ship by hook or crook, he could eu-
list a company of congenial spirits, and sailing from New Orleans around the
south end of South America they could land on the coast of California, capture
the Mexican government, and set up an independent republic after the manner
of Sam Houston in Texas. He was successful in recruiting his company, but he
was unable to raise the money to buy a ship, and finally gave up the idea of con-
quest and fame as an empire builder. But he was so infatuated with the ac-
counts he had read of the California Eden that he came out to that Mexican prov-
ince in 1840 in a trading vessel and went into sheep industry among the Mexi-
This first flock of sheep-900 head—was brought to Oregon by this man
Leese, and was, according to John Minto—a good judge—of very poor quality,
being thin and light of bone and body, coarse wool of all graduations of color
from white to black. One of the drivers of that flock told Mr. Minto, that al-
cans.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
327
though there were only seven guns in the party they had to fight Indians every
day until they crossed Rogue River; they lost twenty sheep crossing Klamath
river, but that loss was made up by lamb increase on the way, requiring from
four to eight pack horses to carry lambs along in panniers.
The first sheep brought across the plains to Oregon were driven over by
Joshua Shaw and son in 1844. They were put into the cattle train to be used as
matton along the way, and those not so used reached Oregon in good shape,
and proved a source of profit. The next flock from Missouri was driven over by
Hugh Fields in 1847; and were a fine lot of all purpose sheep, and was sold out
to various parties in Marion, Benton and Yamhill counties. And as an inter-
esting part of this history, it is to be recorded here, that St. Michael Fackler,
the first Episcopalian minister to Oregon, drove this Fields' flock of sheep all the
way across the plains to distant Oregon, and literally complied with the Scrip-
tural command, "to feed my sheep." Mr. Fackler has been commended by all
histories of Oregon in the highest terms as a noble good man. The next sheep
coming across the plains to Oregon was a flock of 330 head of fine wool sheep,
brought across by Joseph Watt in 1848, some of them of Saxon, and others of
Spanish Merino blood. Subsequent to the above importations of sheep, and for
the purpose of improving these original flocks, the principal importers have been
John Minto and Ralph C. Geer, of Marion county, John Cogswell of Lane, Martin
Jesse of Yamhill, and Jones & Rockwell, who imported from Vermont, American
Merinos.
The first machinery for working wool was a carding mill brought to Oregon
across the plains by Joseph Watt along with his sheep in 1848. And that was
even a greater curiosity to the settlers than the sheep. It carded the wool ready
for the farmers' wives to spin into yam for stockings, and the domestic loom
which could produce good flannel and the "Kentucky Jeans" ready for comfort-
able clothing. And with this limited machinery the people got along until the
first woolen mill was erected at Salem in 1857. The Woolen Mill Company was
organized in 1856 by George H. Williams, Alfred Stanton, Joseph Watt, W. H.
Rector, Joseph Holman, E. M. Barnum and L. F. Grover-Williams, president,
J. G. Wilson, secretary, and John D. Boon, treasurer. They managed to scrape
up $2,500 in cash and then sent Rector to the East to purchase the looms and other
machinery, that would cost $12,000. And when Rector told the machinery men
he had only $2,500, they were somewhat paralyzed, and wanted to know how he ex-
pected them to send their goods away out to Oregon 20,000 miles around Cape
Hom without security for their money. It is said "Uncle Billy” Rector re-
plied to that stunner by saying: "Look into my face, gentlemen. If you cannot
trust me when I say you shall have your pay, my trip is a failure.” "Uncle
Billy" got the machinery and the manufacturer got his money; showing that the
trust in mankind was much greater fifty-five years ago than it is in 1912.
Although the goat and mohair interest in live stock did not take root in Ore-
gon in the same era with horses, cattle and sheep, yet it is so intimately con-
nected with these interests that it may as well be noticed in this connection. The
goat took an early start along with man and sheep in the tedious uplift from bar-
barism to civilization. From its more timid and gentle nature it is probable
that the sheep was domesticated by man before the goat. But as man increased
in knowledge and wickedness it was concluded by the learned barbarian of ancient
328
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
times, that it was necessary to unload his sins upon some dumb animal in order to
get a clean bill of moral health and take a fresh start in the world. And looking
around among the beasts that had been tamed "Billy Goat” was selected as the
"Scape Goat." That was probably the first honor the unfortunate wild goat
was elected to by the Levites 2,500 years ago. And considering the humility and
utility of the poor goat, and the meanness and worthlessness of the sinners,
whose sins, crimes and shortcomings the goat was compelled to bear away into
the wilderness, the verdict of history must be in favor of the goat.
The Angora breed of goats, now bred in Oregon originated in the vilayet of
Angora, in Asia Minor, but it is not known when that was. Some have ventured
to say that it was 2,400 years ago. There is evidence that goes to show that they
were a distinctive breed when Moses was leading the Israelites out of Egypt.
Goat's hair was spun by the Israelites for curtains and other purposes for use in
the temple.
The city Angora, the capital city of the vilayet Angora is the ancient Ancyra,
and is located about 220 miles southeast of Constantinople. Angora was the seat
of one of the earliest Christian churches, which was probably established by the
Apostle Paul. The province is mountainous, furrowed by deep valleys, and
about 2,900 feet above the level of the sea.
It was here that this famous goat reached its perfection. That the altitude,
the soil, or the climate, or all of them together, had much influence in producing
this fleece-bearing goat, is supported by strong evidence. Dr. John Cachman
and the Encyclopedia Britannica both state that the fineness of the hair of the
Angora goat may perhaps be ascribed to some peculiarity in the atmosphere
"for it is remarkable that the cats, dogs and sheep and other animals of the coun-
try are to a certain extent affected in the same way as the goats.'
For much of the history of the Angora goat in the United States which dates
from 1849, this work is indebted to the Oregon Goat Breeders' Association. Dr.
James B. Davis of Columbia, South Carolina, was presented with nine choice
animals by the Sultan of Turkey. The Sultan had requested President Polk to
send a man to Turkey who understood the culture of cotton. Dr. Davis was ap-
pointed, and upon his return to America, as a courtesy, the Sultan presented him
with the goats.
Col. Richard Peters, of Atlanta, Georgia, in 1854, secured most of these goats
and in 1885 made an exhibit of their progeny at the New Orleans World's Fair.
These were followed by the Chanery importation in 1861, the Brown & Diehl
in 1861, and it was from some of these that the flock of C. P. Bailey & Sons was
started.
Then followed the Eutichides importations of 1873, the Hall & Harris of 1878,
the Jenks in 1880, and the Bailey importation of 1893. In 1901 W. C. Bailey im-
ported two bucks and two does from Asia Minor direct, and in 1901 Wm. Landrum
imported two bucks from South Africa, and Hoerle in 1904 imported 130 head
from South Africa.
At the present time it is improbable that any more importations can be made
as a royal decree prohibits exports from Asia Minor, and a prohibitive duty in
South Africa of $486.00 per head has destroyed any hope of a successful importa-
tion from that country.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
329
However, as it is now generally conceded our flocks are of as high quality as
any in the world, we have nothing much to lose by these restrictions.
The Angora goats of Oregon are of a good type, the foundation stock being
the high grade Angoras introduced fifty years ago.
In 1872 or '73 Mr. Landrum exhibited a small flock of Angoras at the Oregon
State Fair at Salem, and the following year brought an additional ten animals
for exhibition. His first flock pastured in a brush enclosure near Salem, having
created a great interest in Angoras throughout that section, a large sale flock was
brought into the Willamette Valley by him in 1874 or '75.
According to Mr. George Houck, writing in the Oregon Agriculturist and
Rural Northwest (November 1, 1897), the first Angora goats brought to Oregon
came from California about 1867. The band, consisting of one hundred and
fifty-two animals, was from the flock of Thomas Butterfield, a former associate
of William M. Landrum, the pioneer breeder, who first introduced Argora goats
in California.
These were brought here by Mr. A. Cantral, and he was one of the first, if
not the first, to introduce them into the Willamette Valley. They were fifteen-
sixteenths and thirty-one thirty-seconds Angoras. There were 150 ewes, which
cost Mr. Cantral $12.50 each, and a pure-blooded buck and one pure-blooded
ewe. For these two he paid Mr. Butterfield $1,500, this being the highest price
for two Angoras by an Oregon breeder at that time of which there is any record.
Mr. Cantral located near Corvallis. Some of the older Angora breeders
still remember when he made an exhibit at the Oregon State Fair.
Most of the goats of the state of Oregon are descendants from this Landrum
stock, their record of breeding being traceable through the Peters flock to the
animals of the original Davis importation from Turkey. Many other flocks
have since been brought into the state, notably that of John S. Harris, a late im-
porter of Angoras from Turkey, until today, as the outcome of forty years ex-
perience with this class of stock, the Oregon breeders have developed a very fine
type of Angora goats-rugged, robust animals, of large size and densely covered
with mohair of good quality.
With such stock for foundation, our present breeders have from year to year
by intelligent breeding and patient care, combined with a knowledge of climate
and local conditions, developed a quality that is the envy of the world and a
source of pride to the state.
We have today men who have achieved a national reputation through their
interest and development of the Angora and mohair industry. Men like Wm.
Riddell & Sons, of Monmouth, Oregon; U. S. Grant, of Dallas, Oregon; J. B.
Stump, of Monmouth, Oregon, and E. L. Naylor, of Forest Grove, Oregon, are
known from coast to coast and are entitled to the gratitude of the public for
the incalculable good done by the exploitation of an industry that has added
millions to the wealth of the state.
From the initial importation fifty years ago the industry has flourished and
broadened out until there is scarcely a county in the state in Oregon where they
may not be found; and the State of Washington is taking thousands there to
put to work on her waste lands. Polk county, Oregon, has been and is still the
"Blue Ribbon” county for Angoras. There will be found the famous flocks of
Grant, Farley, Guthrie Bros., Riddell & Sons, Stump, McBee, and others, and
330
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
for years the sale of bucks has been a source of profit to the owners, aside from
the annual sale of the mohair, which averages about 150,000 pounds for Polk
county.
Angora husbandry in Oregon now ranks well in importance with the live-
stock pursuits of the State. Oregon is second, if not first in number of Angora
goats and production of mohair in the United States, the annual clip from its
flocks of Angoras running in value well toward $50,000, while the value of their
yearly increase approximates $400,000. More than half a million dollars of new
wealth is added annually to the yield of Oregon farms from Angora goats. Ore-
gon mohair ranks with the best in the eastern markets and commands the high-
est market prices.
FOUNDING THE FRUIT INTERESTS
As “Johnny Appleseed” (whose real name was Jonathan Chapman) was
the fore-runner and fore-planter of apple trees in the Ohio valley in 1805, so also
was Henderson Luelling in like manner the good missionary of all fruits to
the region of Old Oregon in 1847. Johnny "Appleseed," so called by the first
settlers in Ohio, came over the Alleghany Mountains through the pass that Gen-
eral Braddock followed on his ill-fated expedition against the French at old Fort
Du Quesne (later Pittsburgh) in 1755. But“Appleseed” passed through about
fifty years afterwards carrying with him a packhorse load of apple seed and
seedling trees which he planted in the settled places of Central Ohio. And forty-
two years after “Appleseed” commenced planting nurseries on Licking river,
Ohio, Luelling took up his line of march carying his precious load of grafted
apple sprouts twenty-five hundred miles from Salem, Iowa, to Oregon. Thus
it is seen by the unselfish labors of these two men, and by two long strides, apple
trees were transplanted from Eastern Pennsylvania to the wilds of Western
Oregon. “Appleseed” transported his cargo on a packhorse, while Luelling
planted his 700 little trees in boxes twelve inches deep and wide enough to fit
snugly in the bed of the wagon; and thus day after day watering the precious
young scions he safely landed them after six months of watchful care on the banks
of the Willamette river at the place where the town of Milwaukie now stands,
and there about half a mile north of the townsite started the first tree nursery
in 1847, west of the Rocky Mountains.
Luelling's trees were not the first fruit trees in Oregon; but they were the
first grafted trees, trees that bear improved fruit true to name. The Hudson's
Bay Company had fruit at Fort Vancouver; but it was all the produce of seeds
and pits of stone fruits brought out from England in 1825, and from its variety
was at that time considered very fine.
Narcissa Prentiss Whitman, one of the first two white women to cross the
plains from “The States" to Oregon arriving at Fort Vancouver on September
12, 1836, made the following entry in her diary under that date: "What a de-
lightful place this is; what a contrast to the rough, barren sand plain through
which we have so recently passed. Here we find fruit of every description-
apples, peaches, grapes, pears, plums and fig trees in abundance; also, cucumbers,
melons, beans, peas, beets, cabbage, tomatoes, and every kind of vegetable, too
numerous to be mentioned. Every part of the garden is very neatly and taste-



HENDERSON LUELLING
Founder of Fruit Business
UNIL
OF
BIC
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
331
fully arranged, with fine walks, lined on each side with strawberry vines. At
the opposite end of the garden is a good house covered with grape vines. Here
I must mention the origin of these grapes and apples. A gentleman, twelve years
ago while at a party in London, put the seeds of the grapes and apples which
he ate, into his vest pocket, soon afterwards he took a voyage to this country and
left them here, and now they are greatly multiplied."
One of these old Fort Vancouver apple trees is still (1912) standing at the
southwest corner of the U. S. Military Reservation in front of the Chief Commis-
sary's office at Vancouver, in apparent good health after having borne crops of
fruit annually for more than eighty years.
Subsequent to Luelling's other nurseries were founded; but Luelling's was
substantially the foundation of all the good orchards started in the pioneer era
of Oregon. In four years from planting these young trees Luelling had a few
apples to sell, and sending a few boxes down to California, sold them out to the
gold miners for a dollar for each apple. The trees soon came into bearing and
apples were plentiful—so plentiful, that in less than fifteen years after Luelling
sold apples for a dollar apiece, thousands of bushels rotted on the ground and
the farmers were feeding them to their hogs to get rid of them. The fruit indus-
try is now a great source of wealth to Oregon, and apples are shipped away to
New York and for the European market by the train load; and it is in point of
importance as well as years, as far back to Luelling's little grafts, and later on to
the labors of Joseph A. Strowbridge traveling around over Multnomah, Clacka-
mas, Yamhill and Marion Counties, gathering up little lots here and there to ship
by steamship to San Francisco. Mr. Strowbridge did for the apple trade what
Luelling had done for the orchardist—he pioneered the business, and on Novem-
ber 18th, 1854, the (Portland) Oregon Weekly Times newspaper gives his busi-
ness the following notice:
“We were shown by our friend Jos. A. Strowbridge the largest quantity, and
the best quality of apples we have ever seen in Oregon. He had some 300 bushels,
comprising almost every desirable variety of grafts gathered from the orchards
of the valley. It was a pleasant sight to the eye, and equally pleasant to the
taste. Indeed, our visit to his storehouse was a tasty treat.'
In the summer and autumn of 1857, ten years after Luelling's planting, the
fruit interest had so increased that the enthusiastic fruit growers commenced to
hold meetings and exhibit their choice fruit, making fine displays of apples,
cherries, blackberries, strawberries, gooseberries, plums and pears, which were
clean of all pests and fruit diseases. Among the growers of fruit attending those
meetings were George Walling, Albert G. Walling, Morton M. McCarver,
J. H. Lambert, Henry Miller, Thomas Frazar, James B. Stephens, Dr.
Perry Prettyman, J. H. Settlemier, Seth Luelling, A. R. Shipley, and Dr.
J. R. Cardwell, all of whom have passed on except Dr. Cardwell. Monthly
meetings were held for several months, and called meetings were held two or
three times in the summer and fall of 1858.
Counties in the Willamette valley began organizing agricultural societies in
the following order: Yamhill county, October 22, 1853; first fair held October
7, 1854, at Lafayette; F. B. Martin, president; Ahio S. Watt, secretary.
Marion county, April 6, 1854; first fair held in Salem, October 11, 1854;
Nicholas Shrum, president; Joseph G. Wilson, secretary.
332
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Polk county, April 3, 1854; first fair, Dallas, October 12, 1854; James M.
Fulkerson, president; John E. Lyle, secretary.
Washington county, May 25, 1854; first fair, West Tualatin (Forest Grove),
October 5, 1854; Thomas G. Naylor, president; J. M. Keeler, secretary.
Linn county, May 3, 1856; first fair Albany, October 10, 1856; Delazon
Smith, president; D. H. Bodine, secretary.
Lane county, April 7, 1859; first fair, Eugene City, October 11-12, 1859;
Avery A. Smith, president; Stukeley Ellsworth, recording secretary; E. E.
Haft, corresponding secretary.
Jackson county, February 8, 1859; first fair, Jacksonville, October 4-5,
1859; W. C. Myer, president; J. H. Reed, secretary.
Benton county, August 2, 1859; first fair, Corvallis, October 13; A. G.
Hovey, president; E. M. Waite, secretary.
Multnomah county, November 19, 1859; first fair, Portland, October 2-3,
1860; Thomas Frazar, president; Albert G. Walling, secretary.
Clackamas county, April 28, 1860; first fair, Oregon City, September 27-28,
1860; A. L. Lovejoy, president; William Abernethy, secretary.
The Umpqua Valley Agricultural Society was organized late in the summer
of 1860; first fair, Oakland, November 2, 1860; R. M. Hutchinson, president;
J. R. Ellison, secretary pro tem.
A pomological convention was held in Salem, October 20, 1858, as the
result of a call by fruit-growers from Clackamas, Marion, Multnomah, Polk,
Washington and Yamhill counties, and the "Fruit-Growers' Association of
Oregon' was organized, with Amos Harvey, Polk county, president, and Chester
N. Terry, Salem, secretary. The meeting was a successful one and thirty-one
exhibitors were present.
The original members of this association were as follows:
Barnhart, C.
Harvey, A.
Stanton, Alfred
Brock, D.
Howell, Joseph
Stone, E. G.
Cox, Joseph
Jones, George M.
Ruble, William
Cornelius, G.
Ladd, J. W.
Taylor, William B.
Davenport, T. W. Lewelling, Seth
Terry, Chester N.
Gilbert, I. N.
Pearce, Ashby
Walling, J. D.
Cox, William
Prettyman, Perry
Woodsides, J.
Gilmore, S. M.
Schnebley, D. J.
By concert of action all the county fairs in the year 1859 sent delegates to a
convention appointed for February 22, 1860, in Salem. Nine counties were
represented in the convention, of which J. Quinn Thornton was president, and
Joseph G. Wilson, secretary. After discussion, the "Oregon State Agricultural
Society" was organized, with William H. Rector, president, vice-presidents
to represent every county; Samuel E. May, corresponding secretary; Lucien
Heath, recording secretary; John H. Moores, treasurer—all of Marion county.
An invitation was extended to the representatives of the "Oregon Fruit Grow-
ers' Association" to merge that body with the Agricultural Society, and on Sep-
tember 10, following the necessary action to that end was taken. On that day
George Collier Robbins, Portland, was elected president. It being found im-
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
333
r
practicable to hold the first state fair on the Linn county fair grounds, as
planned in the spring, it was decided to postpone the matter for a year and
hold the fair in Clackamas county on October 1-4. The site of the fair was
on the north bank of the Clackamas river, about half a mile east from its junc-
tion with the Willamette river, near the present town of Gladstone. The
area occupied was four acres, and was upon the donation claim of Peter M.
Rinearson, a pioneer of 1845. The day before the fair was opened Robbins
resigned as president, and Simeon Francis, then editor of the Oregonian, was
elected, and made the annual address. There were one hundred and forty-two
exhibitors and two hundred and sixty-two premiums were awarded. The
receipts were $1,446.17 and expenditures $1,200.67, leaving a balance of $245.50.
In closing up the business of this first state fair in Oregon the board of
directors decided that the site used was not satisfactory, and advertised for
proposals for a place to hold the second state fair. In response four counties
responded—Lane, Linn, Marion and Yamhill--and the proposal from Marion
county was accepted as being the most favorable, and the date of the second
fair was fixed on September 30, 1862, to continue four days. At a meeting
of the Oregon Agricultural Society on September 18, 1862, the vote of the stock-
holders was taken to settle the question of permanent location, and resulted
as follows: Corvallis, 1; Eugene, 1; Salem, 65; Oregon City, 2.
COMMENCEMENT OF TRADE AND COMMERCE
While the coming of ships into the Columbia river from Capt. Gray's discov-
ery in 1792 down to the first steamship—the Beaver, in 1836, are matters of
great historical interest, and noticed herein in other chapters, yet no one of them
or all of them together, constitute the commencement of foreign commerce with
Oregon. Gray's ship, and all the shipping of the Hudson's Bay Co., down to
and including the first steamship, the Beaver, were strictly fur trading propo-
sitions limited to a special interest and coming for a single purpose, and not
for trade in general. Winship’s and Wyeth's ventures, if successful, would
doubtless have grown into a general business and served all interests and per-
sons without discrimination. The mistake of these two American traders was
that they anticipated the prospects in Oregon by a dozen years or more. The
timber was here and to be cut without leave or license from any one; but there
was no market for it to be reached by either Winship or Wyeth. The fish was
here without limit, but modern methods of taking and curing them had not been
discovered, and Indian labor was inadequate to the undertaking; and so Wyeth's
efforts were fruitless at his fishery. Capt. John H. Couch who came out with
the ship Maryland in 1840, made the same mistake that Winship and Wyeth did.
But it was not his mistake, but the mistake of the owners of the ship—the Cush-
ings of Newburyport, Mass. Couch quickly discovered that the Indians could not
be relied on to load a ship with dried or salted salmon. It is generally believed
that Jason Lee inspired the Cushings to make this venture. But Capt. Couch
being a practical man, measured up the prospects and advantages of this country
and returned to the Columbia river with another ship in 1842, and a stock of
general merchandise suitable for a new country; and with this merchandise
opened a store at Oregon City and placed it in the hands of George W. Le Breton
334
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
and Albert E. Wilson to dispose of for trade with the few settlers in the country.
It proved a success, and Couch was enabled by the trade started in this way to
keep his ship employed between the Columbia river and the Sandwich Islands
until the year 1847, when he returned home to Newburyport by way of China. In
the following year Couch engaged with merchants in New York to bring a cargo
of goods to Oregon on the bark Madonna, Couch's brother-in-law, Capt. George
H. Flanders, coming along as second officer of the ship. This ship tied up to
an oak tree on the bank of the river at the new town of Portland. This cargo of
goods, the first ever landed at Portland, was stored and sold out at Portland.
These two men, Couch and Flanders, went into business together, set their stakes
at Portland, and remained here as their home port for the rest of their lives;
Couch taking up 640 acres of land as a donation, which is now all covered with
Portland business houses and homes. It was John H. Couch that opened the
commerce of Oregon with the world; and it was John H. Couch who settled the
future of Portland as the commercial center of the Columbia river valley. Capt.
Couch had a wide acquaintance with ship captains on both the Pacific and At-
lantic oceans; and he informed them that they could bring their ships safely in
over the Columbia river bar, and safely take them up to the town of Portland,
but no higher up; and all ships to Oregon after that followed his suggestions.
And thus was commerce opened between Oregon and all the world. These first
ships did not get much freight to carry away; and what little they did get, was
made up of hides, furs, salted salmon, wheat and lumber. As soon as Whitcomb
got his saw mill in operation in Milwaukie in 1848, he always had a little lumber
to ship.
THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD
1
The greatest economic event in the first one hundred years after the American
revolution was the discovery of gold in California. At first thought this seems
to be a very unfounded statement. But a careful survey of the whole field of
enterprise, the commerce of the world, and the standard of living throughout
the United States, will show that the discovery of gold wrought a greater change
in the United States and the financial relations of this country to other nations,
than any other one fact, or any other one hundred facts, subsequent to the inde-
pendence of these states.
Up to the year 1848 the United States had possessed a very narrow metallic
base for a circulating medium. And what the country did possess was mostly
silver coin. Gold coin, the delight of kings and the sceptre of millionaires, was
exceedingly scarce in the United States; and on this account the financial stand-
ing of this country and the rating of its securities were practically at the mercy
of the Bank of England, and the house of Rothchilds, which financial institutions
either possessed or controlled the great bulk of the gold coin of the world. When
the mines of California commenced to pour out their great flood of gold, every
line of business in the whole of the United States took on new life. And within
five years after this great discovery, there were more manufacturing establish-
ments started in the United States than had been for a generation before that
event. The banking institutions took on a new phase altogether. From securing
circulating notes with deposits of State's bonds, which were not payable in gold,
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
335
and of doubtful specie value on any liquidation of assets, the banks began to
accumulate gold. Gold begot confidence as nothing else ever had before, and
people more freely deposited their savings in banks. From a starving little
near-to-shore business, the banks were enabled to extend accommodations to man-
ufacturers and producers of wealth. And railroads that had been for twenty
years creeping out slowly from Atlantic seaports to the Alleghany mountains,
found sale for their securities, pulled on over the mountains and out into the
great Mississippi valley, and on across the continent, reaching Portland, Oregon,
a quarter of a century before they had expected to get to Chicago under the
old paper money financiering days before the discovery of the gold. The flood
of gold changed the whole face of affairs, put new life into all business and com-
mercial undertakings, brought all the States and communities together under
one single standard of values, and pushed the United States to the front as the
greatest wealth-producing nation on the fact of the earth.
And here Oregon comes to the front again. The discovery which lifted Amer-
ica above all the nations was made by an Oregonian. James W. Marshall, the
discoverer of gold in California, was an Oregonian. He came to Oregon in the
immigration of 1844, and not finding much to do here, went down to California
the next year. He was a handy sort of a man, could build a house, run a saw-
mill, or keep store. In California he made himself useful to the old pioneer,
Capt. Sutter and was taken into Sutter's business as a partner, and sent up
from Sacramento into the Sierra Nevada mountains to select a site and build a
sawmill. He selected the point at Coloma, on the south fork of the American
river and built the mill. After turning the water on his mill wheel, he had
occasion to go and look at the tailrace, and there on the 19th of January, 1848,
discovered the shining particles of gold in the tailrace where the water had
washed the sand from the gold. Two other Oregonians who had been employed
by Marshall to help build the mill--Charles Bennett, of Salem, Marion county,
and Stephen Staats of Polk county_were there at the mill at the time, and were
called to look at the gold in the water and confirm the discovery. Bennett,
having mined gold in Georgia and North Carolina in 1835-36, was the only
one who knew what native gold looked like, and it was his decision that settled
the question.
The discovery spread like wildfire, and Californians rushed in from all quar-
ters. But it was not known in Oregon until five months after the discovery.
And then the Oregonians went wild. Everybody that could get away, rushed
to California, and nobody was left but old men, boys and women folks. Two-
thirds of the Oregon men started for California. Only five men were left in
Salem, and only a few women, children and some Indians were left at Oregon
City. Pack trains were the first means to get to the gold fields; and after that
a train of fifty wagons started. The first account of the gold received in Oregon
was on July 31, 1848. The little schooner Honolulu from San Francisco sailed
in over the Columbia bar and slowly beat her way up the river, and finally tied
up to an oak tree where the west end of the steel railroad bridge in Portland
now stands. The captain of the schooner was in a hurry to discharge cargo and
get away. He made haste to load up with all the meat and flour his ship could
carry, and then bought up all the picks, pans and shovels he could find in town.
336
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
And when he got everything aboard, he made known the news, and it spread
as if by the wireless telegraph of sixty years later.
THE OREGON MINT AND BEAVER MONEY
The Oregon rush to California for gold resulted in bringing back within a
year unimaginable wealth. From poverty the Oregonians had leaped to great
riches at a single bound. The miners not only returned loaded down with gold
dust, but the few people that had remained in Oregon had got rich in shipping
down to the mines their flour, beans, bacon and lumber. From a legal tender
currency of beaver skins and bacon sides, Oregonians were struggling with a cur-
rency of gold dust. An ounce of gold dust was practically worth $16, but the
Oregon merchants would not take it for goods, for more than $11, while the
Hudson's Bay Company having some coined money, was buying up gold dust at
$10 an ounce and shipping it to the mint in London. This condition of affairs
caused the circulation of a petition to the Oregon Provisional Government, set-
ting forth that in consequence of the neglect of the United States Government,
the people must combine against the greed of the merchants; and the Provisional
Government must at once set up an Oregon mint to coin the gold dust into legal
tender money. It was represented as a basis of action that there was then in
February, 1849, $2,000,000 worth of gold dust ready to be coined. That was
about six times as much money per capita of the population as there is now, or
ever has been since 1852. And prices of everything went up accordingly. Beef
was ten to twelve cents a pound on the block; pork sixteen to twenty cents;
butter sixty-two to seventy-five cents; flour was $14 per barrel; potatoes $2.50 a
bushel, and apples $10.00 a bushel.
The petition for the mint was favorably considered by the Provisional Legis-
lature, and a bill was passed to authorize it and to coin money. Two members
of the legislature-Medorem Crawford and W. J. Martin--voted against the
measure on the grounds that it was inexpedient and a violation of the constitution
of the United States. The act provided for an assayer, melter and coiner and
any alloy was forbidden in the money. Two pieces only were to be coined—one
to weigh five pennyweights and one ten pennyweights, and both to be pure gold.
The coins were to be stamped on one side with the Roman figure for the smaller
coin, and the other with the figure ten on one side. And on the reverse sides
the words "Oregon Territory” with the date of the year around the face, with
the arms of Oregon in the center. The officers of this mint were James Taylor,
Director, Truman P. Powers, treasurer, W. H. Willson, melter and coiner, and
George L. Curry, assayer. These officers, however, did not coin any money.
And to supply that, a partnership was formed, called the “Oregon Exchange
Company, " which at once proceeded to coin gold on its own responsibility.
The members of that company were: W. K. Kilborne, Theophilus Magruder,
James Taylor, George Abernethy, W. H. Willson, W. H. Rector, John Gill
Campbell and Noyes Smith. Rector made the stamps and dies, and acted as
coiner. The engraving of the five dollar die was done by Hamilton Campbell,
and the ten dollar die was engraved by Victor M. Wallace. The total coinage
was $58,500—$30,000 in five dollar pieces, and $28,500 in ten dollar pieces.
The initials A. and W. standing for Abernethy and Willson, do not appear
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
337
on the ten dollar coin. This coinage raised the price of gold dust from twelve
to sixteen dollars an ounce, and saved a vast amount of money to the honest
miners. Engravings of the “Beaver Money,' as this last coinage was called,
are shown on another page.
The general effect of the wealth of gold brought back from California was
beneficial to Oregon; yet in all too many instances it proved the ruin of many
men whose sudden rise to riches induced habits of profligacy and dissipation
from which they never recovered. Many men brought back as much as thirty
or forty thousand dollars washed out of the California streams within a year or
two; and then threw it all away on idle dissipation, and had to start in again at
the bottom of the ladder encumbered with bad habits and remorseful regrets.
CONDITIONS OF THE COUNTRY IN 1848
Sixty-four years ago the great mass of the people of Oregon was located in
the Willamette Valley. At that time Eastern Oregon was yet practically in pos-
session of the Indians. The great donation claims of 640 acres each, had sub-
stantially taken up all the open lands in Western Oregon. At that time the
country and the farmers were every thing, and the towns amounted to little in
wealth, population or political influence. The Methodist Mission people had
been concentrated at Salem, and that village had become the centre of religious,
if not political influence, and was then aspiring to become the seat of the pro-
posed Territorial Government.
The farmers resided distant from each other and remote from the towns, and
the social life was scarcely apparent. And yet all were bound together by a
common tie and unwavering interest in a single hope and purpose. That was
the universal desire of a Territorial Government by the United States, and the
passage of an act of congress recognizing and legalizing their donation land
claims. And many a good Methodist could have paraphrased the old hymn to
read:
“On Jordan's stormy banks I stand
And cast a wishful eye
To Willamette's fair and happy land
Where my possessions lie.'
They little dreamed that so much wealth, prosperity and progress was so near
at hand.
They had labored long and painfully to reach this promised land; they had
saved, and pinched and suffered to the extremity to make ends meet, and hoping
and trusting the great government at the great city of Washington would hear
and heed their far cry from the wilderness of Oregon for recognition and pro-
tection. Their prayers and petitions had been heard; but they knew it not. U. S.
Government protection, and great wealth in gold had both been vouchsafed by a
Providence the Oregonians did not hear of for six months after the fact. Con-
gress passed the Act organizing Oregon Territory on Sunday morning, August
13, 1848, and Gov. Lane did not reach Oregon with his commission until March 2,
1849. Gold was discovered in California on January 19, 1848, but the Oregonians
did not hear the great news until the July following; and before the peo-
Vol. I-22
338
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
ple learned they had finally recognized and given the protection of the United
States, with the "Marion of the Mexican War" as governor, half of the able
bodied men had rushed off to the gold mines of California.
As characteristic of the people and the times, the following lines contributed
at that time to the “Oregon Spectator" by John Carey of Yamhill county, a
pioneer of 1847, who wrote over the signature of "0. P. Q.” is given here as
veritable history:
>
Come hither, Muse, and tell the news,
Nor be thou a deceiver,
But sing in plain poetic strains
The present"yellow fever”.
And then I looked, and lo! I saw
A Herald bright advancing-
A being from some other clime
On golden pinions dancing.
And as he neared the mighty crowd
He made this proclamation
In tones so clear, distinct and loud
It startled half the nation.
“Why do you labor here," he cried,
“For merely life and pleasure,
While just beyond that mountain gray
Lies wealth beyond all measure?
The road is plain, the way is smooth,
'Tis neither rough nor thorny;
Come, leave this rugged vale and go
With me to California.
There wealth untold is bought and sold
And each may be partaker!
Where fifty tons of finest gold
Are dug from every acre!”
At sound of gold both young and old
Forsook their occupation,
And wild confusion seemed to rule
In every situation.
An old cordwainer heard the news,
And though not much elated,
He left his pile of boots and shoes
And just evaporated.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
339
The cooper left his tubs and pails,
His buckets and his piggins;
The sailor left his yards and sails,
And started for the "diggins''.
The farmer left his plough and steers,
The merchant left his measure,
The tailor dropped his goose and shears
And went to gather treasure.
A pedagogue attired incog,
Gave ear to what was stated,
Forsook his stool, bestrode a mule,
And then absquatulated.
A boatman, too, forsook his crew,
Let fall his oar and paddle,
And stole his neighbor's iron-gray,
But went without a saddle.
The joiner dropped his square and jack,
The carpenter his chisel,
The peddler laid aside his pack
And all prepared to mizzle.
The woodman dropped his trusty axe,
The tanner left his leather,
The miller left his pile of sacks
And all went off together.
The doctor cocked his eye askance,
The promised wealth descrying,
Then wheeled his horse and off he pranced
And left his patients dying.
The preacher dropped the Holy Book.
And grasped the mad illusion;
The herdsman left his flock and crook
Amid the wild confusion.
The judge consigned to cold neglect
The great judicial ermine,
But just which way his honor went
I could not well determine.
And then I saw far in the rear
A fat, purse-proud attorney
Collect his last retaining fee
And start upon his journey.
340
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
And when each brain in that vast train
Was perfectly inverted,
My slumbers broke and I awoke
And found the place deserted.
Yamhill, November 10, 1848.
CHARACTER OF THE PEOPLE
The boundary question between England and the United States was settled
in 1846; and that fact with the prospect of the donation land law passing
congress produced the great immigration of 1847, the largest coming into
Oregon in any one year from 1842 down to the completion of transcontinental
railroad. Every immigration to Oregon the plains across had been attended by
much suffering and loss, and this year it was worse than ever before. The foremost
companies on the trail exhausted the grass which compelled the later companies
to halt to recruit their teams. And this delay brought them to Oregon late
in the season and in a starving condition, which brought on much sickness. The
great numbers of people and cattle also alarmed and angered the Indians who
attacked the small companies at every opportunity from the Blue mountains
to the Dalles, robbing the wagons and tearing the clothes off the women, leaving
them naked in the wilderness, and committing other outrages. It would be in-
teresting to give some account of all these pioneers; but that is impossible, for
but few of them ever took any care to leave any record of their antecedents or
lives. Mrs. Frances Fuller Victor hunted up for Bancroft's History all that has
been preserved of these brave pioneers, and which is given in the following
note to this chapter, and which shows the character of the early settlers of
Oregon.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
Dr. Perry Prettyman was born March 20, 1796, in Newcastle Co., Del. He
married Elizabeth H. Vessels, Dec. 25, 1825, and began the study of medicine in
1828, at the botanic medical school in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1839 he moved
to Mo., and 7 years later to Oregon. He settled in 1849 on a farm near East
Portland, where he remained till his death, March 27, 1872. Portland Advocate,
April 4, 1872. Mrs. Prettyman died December 26, 1874, in the 71st year of her
age. She was born in Lewiston, Del., in 1803. She was the mother of ten chil-
dren, only four of whom survived her. Id., Jan. 7, 1875.
John Marks, born in Virginia, January 10, 1795, removed when a boy to Ky.,
and in 1818 married Fanny Forrester, in 1838 moved to Johnson Co., Mo.,
and in 1847 to Oregon, and settling in Clackamas Co., where he resided until
his death, January 5, 1874. He was a soldier of the War of 1812, and received
in his declining years a pension from the government.
Thomas N. Aubrey was born in Va., in 1791, and moved westward with the
ever-advancing line of the frontier until he settled on the shore of the Pacific. He
was the oldest mason in Oregon, except Orrin Kellogg. Eugene City Guard, May
31, 1879.
Rev. William Robinson left Missouri in 1847. Mrs. Susannah Robinson, his
wife, was born in Pa., in 1793; married in Ohio, and in 1833 removed to Indiana,
thence to Platte Co., Mo., and finally to Polk Co., Oregon. She outlived her hus-
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
341
band, dying at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Cannon, near Cottage Grove in
Lane Co., Sept. 30, 1870. Portland Adv., October 15, 1870.
Mrs. Alice Claget Mosier, born in New York, May 31, 1794, removed with her
parents to Indiana, where she married Daniel Mosier in 1830, with whom she
came to Clackamas County, Oregon. She spent the last years of her life with her
son Elias, her husband having died before her. Her death occurred July 2,
1870. Id., September 10, 1870.
Mrs. Polly Grimes Patton was born September 23, 1810, in Frederick Co., MA.
She was the daughter of Joshua and Ellen Grimes, and removed with them to
Adams Co., Ohio, where she was married to Matthew Patton in April, 1830, who
soon after removed with her to La Fayette, Indiana, and in 1839 to Davis Co.,
Mo., whence they went to Oregon and settled in Portland. She died January 7,
1868. Id., Jan. 11, 1868.
.
James Johnson was born April 4, 1809, in Tenn. He moved to Ohio in 1841,
and thence to Oregon in 1847, settling in the Tualatin plains, and died August 20,
1870.
Mrs. Anna Clarke was born in Dearborn Co., Ind., February 26, 1823. At the
age of 16 she married Jason S. Clark, with whom she came to Oregon. She was
the mother of 7 children. In 1865 they removed to White River Valley, in Wash-
ington, where Mrs. Clark died Aug 13, 1867. Id., Sept. 7, 1867.
Mrs. Susan Bowles White was born in Frederick Co., Md., Sept. 18, 1793. She
was the daughter of Rev. Jacob Bowles of the Methodist church. She married
Dr. Thomas White, and eventually settled at French Prairie, where she died
August 13, 1867.
Chandler Cooper, born 1823, was a native of Vt. He moved with his parents
to Ind., when a boy, and at the age of 24 to Oregon. Settling in Yamhill, he mar-
ried Alvira Frye, by whom he had 3 children. He died March 24, 1865, at his
home in Yamhill. Id. April 29, 1865.
Peter Scholl was born in Clarke Co., Ky., in 1809, when young went to Ill., and
thence to Oregon. He settled at Scholl's Ferry in Washington Co. He died
November 23, 1872. Id., Nov. 28, 1872.
Elias Buell, born July 20, 1797, in the State of New York. At the age of 19
he removed with his parents to Ind., where he married Sarah Hammond, October
15, 1817. In 1835 he went west as far as Louisa Co., Iowa, where he resided until
1847, when he came to Oregon and settled in Polk Co., in the spring of 1848,
where he lived until his death, November 14, 1871. Id. November 30, 1871.
Mrs. Emeline Buell Blair, wife of T. R. Blair, and daughter of Eliza Buell,
was born in Tippecanoe Co., Ind., Feb. 29, 1829. She married Mr. Blair in Ore-
gon in 1850; and died July 6, 1877, leaving several children. Id., August 9, 1877.
Mrs. Margaret McBride Woods, born May 27, 1809, in Tenn., was a daughter
of Elder Thomas and Nancy McBride. The family removed to Missouri in 1816,
where Margaret was married to Caleb Woods in 1828, and emigrated with him to
Oregon in company with her brother, Dr. James McBride, and his family. The
sons of this marriage were two, George Lemuel Woods, who was Governor of
Oregon for one term, and James C. Woods, merchant. She died at her home in
Polk Co., January 27, 1871. Caleb Woods has since resided at Columbia City on
the Columbia river. Id., February 25, 1871.
Benjamin E. Stewart, youngest of 11 children, was born near Newark, Ohio,
April 18, 1815. He was apprenticed to a saddler and engaged in this business at
Findley, Hannock Co., where he married Ann Crumbacker, September 28, 1837.
Before coming to Oregon he lived for several years in Putnam Co., Ohio. He
settled finally in Yamhill Co., on a farm, where he died of injuries received by a
fall, on the 18th of August, 1877, leaving a wife and three sons and three daugh-
ters. Id. September 6, 1877.
Susanna T. Hurford wife of Joseph E. Hurford, born in Va., died at Port-
land in the 58th year of her age, August 19, 1877. Id., August 23, 1877.
Joseph Jeffers was born in Washington, D. C., October 17, 1807, removed to
342
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Wheeling, Va., in 1825, and was married to Sarah Crawford of that place, No-
vember 19, 1829. He moved to Burlington, Iowa, in 1837, where he became a
licensed exhorter of the Methodist church. On going to Oregon he resided three
years at Oregon City, after which he made Clatsop county his home. His family
consisted of eleven children, only three of whom survived him. He died in Port-
land, January 2, 1876. Id. Jan. 27, 1876.
Mrs. Mary Watson, one of the arrivals in 1847, died at King's valley, Benton
Co., February 11, 1873, aged 64 years. Id., Feb. 27, 1873.
Henry W. Davis, known as the Hillsboro hermit, was born in London, Eng.,
whence he emigrated to Canada, where he participated in the Patriot war of
1837-8, having commanded a gun in one of the battles, and is said to have been a
Colonel. After the insurrection he fled to the United States to escape arrest. He
was employed in a flouring mill at Cincinnati for some time, and when he went to
Oregon took with him a set of mill-stones. He erected a flouring mill on Dairy
creek near Hillsboro, Washington county, which was in operation for several
years. Davis lived alone, dressed in rags, and avoided his fellowmen. He was
once tried by a commission of lunacy, who decided him sane, but eccentric. He
died alone in his cabin in the summer of 1878, leaving considerable real estate
and several thousand dollars in money, which went to a nephew by the name of
Tremble. Portland Bee, August 30, 1878.
.
J. H. Bellinger was born in the state of New York in 1791, served in the War
of 1812, and built the first canal-boat for the Erie Canal. He settled in Marion
county, and his family have been much noted in state politics. He died of pa-
ralysis, November 13, 1878. Portland Bee, November 14, 1878; Corvallis Gazette,
November 22, 1878.
Jesse Monroe Hodges was born in Melbourne Co., S. C., December 18, 1788.
In 1811 he married Catherine Stanley of N. C. He served in the war of 1812,
and fought under General Jackson at Horse Shoe Bend. In 1817 he moved to
Tenn., thence to Ind., and thence in 1839 to Mo., making his last remove to Oregon
in 1847, and settling in Benton county. He died at the residence of his son, D. R.
Hodges, March 28, 1877. His mental condition was sound up to his latest mo-
ments, though over 88 years of age. Albany Democrat, April 6, 1877.
J. H. Crain, born in Warren Co., Ohio, in 1831. He removed with his parents
in 1837 to Fountain Co., Ind., and thence to Oregon. He remained in and
about Portland till 1852, when he went to the mines of Southern Oregon
finally settling in the Rogue River valley. He served as a volunteer in the Indian
war of 1855-6, after which he married and followed the occupation of farming.
In 1876 he still resided in Jackson county. Ashland Tidings, Oct. 14, 1876.
John Baum, born in Richland county, Ohio, August 12, 1823, removed with
his parents to Porter Co., Ind., in 1835, and came to Oregon when 24 years of age.
He located at Salem, but the gold discovery of 1848 drew him to California. Here
he mined for a few months, but finding his trade of carpentering more attractive,
and also profitable, he followed it for a season. In 1850 he drifted back to Ore-
gon from the Shasta mines, and in July, 1851, married Phoebe S. Tieters, who
died in July, 1873, leaving eight living children, three of whom were sons, namely,
James T., John N., and Edgar C., Sonoma Co., Hist., 631.
Jonas Specht, another who went to the California mines, was born in Pa.,
and had lived in Ohio and Mo. He settled in California, to which state his biog-
raphy properly belongs. See Sutter Co. Hist., 24, and Yuba Co. Hist., 36.
Morgan Lewis Savage, was born in 1816; came to Oregon in 1847; died in
Oregon, February 9, 1880. He was twice married, and left a widow and six chil-
dren. “Lute" Savage, as he was familiarly called, was a favorite among the Pio-
neers of the Pacific coast. He served in the Cayuse war in the battalion raised in
the spring of 1848, and was elected to the Senate after Oregon became a State.
As a citizen, soldier, legislator, husband, father, friend, he did his whole duty.
Nesmith, in Ore. Pioneer Asso., Trans., 1879, 54-5.
Rev. St. M. Fackler, a native of Staunton, Virginia, removed to Missouri, and
A
1

1
3
No 1–WILLIAM DUNBAR, started flour trade to China
No. 2-JOSEPH WATT, exported first cargo of wheat direct to Europe
No. 3-JOSEPH H. LAMBERT, produced the "Lambert cherry," the best in the world
No. 4-CYRUS A. REED, built the first steam sawmill
OF
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
343
thence to Oregon in 1847. He conducted the first Episcopal services in Portland,
and continued faithfully in his profession in that city till 1864, when he removed
to Idaho to establish the church in that Territory. He never took part in politics
or money speculations, but kept an eye single to the promotion of religion. His
first wife dying, he married a daughter of John B. Wands, of New Scotland, N. Y.
In 1867, being on the steamer San Francisco bound east to meet his wife and
child, he met his death about the 7th of January from unintermitting attention
to others on board suffering from an epidemic. S. F. Alta, Jan. 16, 1867;
Blue Mountain Times, La Grande, Aug. 1, 1868.
Thomas Cox was by birth, a Virginian. When but a small child he removed
with his parents to Ross Co., Ohio. In 1811 he married Martha Cox, who though
of the same name was not a relative. He removed with his family of three chil-
dren and their mother to Bartholomew Co., where he built the first grist and
carding mills in that place. He afterward removed to the Wabash river country,
and there also erected flour and carding mills at the mouth of the Shawnee
river. He also manufactured guns and gun-powder, and carried on a general
blacksmithing business. In 1834 he made another move, this time to Illinois,
where he settled in Will county, and laid out the town of Winchester, the name
of which was afterward changed to Wilmington, and where he again erected
mills for flouring and carding, and opened a general merchandise business. Dur.
ing the period of land speculation and "wild-cat” banks, Cox resisted the gamb-
ling spirit, and managed to save his property, while others were ruined. In 1846
he made preparations for emigration to Oregon, in company with his married son,
Joseph, and two sons-in-law, Elias Brown and Peter Põlley. Elias Brown, father
of J. Henry Brown, died on the way; and Mr. Cox in company with Damascus
Brown, as before related, brought the family through to Salem, where he set up
a store, with goods he had brought across the plains and mountains to Oregon.
He purchased the land claim of Walter Helm and placed upon it Mr. Polley.
When gold was discovered in California, his son William went to the mines, and
being successful, purchased a large stock' of goods in San Francisco, returned with
them to Salem, where his father retired from the mercantile business, leaving it
in the hands of William and Mr. Turner Crump. Thomas Cox then engaged in
farming, raising choice fruits from seeds which he imported in 1847. The fruit
business proved remunerative, Cox's first apples selling readily at $6.00 a bushel,
and peaches at $10 and $12. Mr. Cox died at Salem, October 3, 1862, having
always possessed the esteem of those who knew him. Or. Literary Vidette,
April, 1879.
Joseph Cox, son of Thomas Cox, was born in Ohio in 1811, and removed with
his parents to Indiana, where, in 1832 he married, and two years afterward went
to III., settling in Wilmington, whence he removed to St. Joseph, Missouri, and
remained there till 1847, when he joined the emigration to Oregon. He was a
member of the convention that framed the present State constitution. Without
being a public speaker, he wielded considerable influence. Of an upright nature
and practical judgment, his opinions were generally accepted as sound. A good
man in any community, Oregon was the gainer by his becoming a citizėn. He died
in 1876. Or. Pioneer Asso. Trans., 1876-67. Thomas H. Cox, born in Wilming-
ton, Illinois, was a son of Joseph Cox. He died at Salem of paralysis of the
heart, Sept. 25, 1878. Salem Statesman, Sept. 25, 1878.
Albert Briggs, a native of Vermont, with a number of others joined a com-
pany of 115 wagons at St. Joseph, Mo., commanded by Lot Whitcomb. He ar-
rived at Portland, October 14th, and went to Oregon City, where he remained
till 1852, when he removed to Port Townsend. Further mention of Mr. Briggs
will be found in the history of Washington.
Aaron Payne was a pioneer of Putnam County, Illinois. He was elected first
coroner, then county commissioner, and afterward delegate to the state convention
which was held at Rushville, Schuyler county. He was a ranger under General
Harrison, was also in the Black Hawk war of 1812, and was severely wounded at
344
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
the battle of Bad Axe. At the age of 73, when the country was under the excite-
ment of war, he longed to take up arms for the flag. He came to Oregon in 1847,
and settled in Yamhill county. Oregon Argus, March 28, 1863.
John C. Holgate was identified with the early histories of Oregon, Washing-
ton and Idaho. He was killed in a mining difficulty at Owyhee in March, 1868.
Sacramento Reporter, April 10, 1868.
John F. Farley came to California in 1846-7 with the New York volunteers.
While in California he belonged to the Veteran Association, soldiers of the Mexi-
can war. He was one of the original members of the Washington Guard of Port-
land, in which place he died, February 16, 1869. Portland Oregonian, February
18, 1869
Dr. James McBride, Tennessean by birth but brought up in Missouri, was a
leading man in his community both in Missouri and Oregon. A friend of Senator
Linn, he discussed with him the features of his famous bill of 1841-2, and early
took an interest in Oregon matters. He emigrated with his family to the new
west in 1846, and settled in Yamhill county where for many years he lived, a
useful and honorable citizen. He was the friend of education and temperance.
Early in the history of the Territorial Government he was elected to the council;
and in the political excitement of the civil war of 1861-5, was an ardent supporter
of the administration. In 1863, while his eldest son, John R. McBride, was in
Congress, Dr. McBride received the appointment of U. S. Commissioner to the
Sandwich Islands, which position he held for several years. He died at St. Helens,
Oregon, in December, 1875, aged 73, leaving a numerous family of useful and
respected sons and daughters. Portland Oregonian, December 25, 1875. His
wife, Mahala, a woman of marked talent, survived him 2 years, dying February
23, 1877, at St. Helens. Olympia Transcript, March 3, 1877.
Jeremiah Ralston in 1847 removed from Tennessee, where he was born in
1798. He laid out the town of Lebanon, Marion county, on his land claim. He
died August, 1877, leaving a large property, a wife and seven children, namely,
Joseph Ralston, Tacoma; William Ralston, Albany, Ore.; Charles and John
Ralston, Lebanon; Mrs. Moist, Albany; Mrs. D. C. Rowland, Salem, Ore.; and
Mrs. John Hamilton, Corvallis, Ore. Seattle Tribune, August 17, 1877.
Luther Collins came to Oregon in 1847, residing there until 1850, when he
went Puget Sound, and was the first to take up a claim in what is now King
county. He was drowned in the upper Columbia in 1852. His widow, a native
of New York, died in July, 1876, leaving two children, Stephen Collins, and Mrs.
Lucinda Fares. Seattle Intelligencer, July 8, 1876.
Andrew J. Simmons arrived in Oregon in 1847, and settled in Cowlitz prairie.
He died February 12, 1872, in Lewis county, of which he was sheriff, at the age
of 45. Seattle Intelligencer, February 26, 1872; Olympia Standard, March 2,
1872.
Mr. and Mrs. Everett located in 1847 near Newberg in Yamhill county, where
they permanently settled. They were both born in England, in 1792, on the 8th
of March, being of equal age. They reared a large family, most of whom mar-
ried and had also large families, nearly all living on the same section of land.
Olympia Courier, August 9, 1873.
Mrs. Agnes Tallentine, mother of Mr. Thomas Tallentine, died at Olympia,
April 13, 1876. She was born at Harrisburg, Pa., in 1820, crossed the plains in
1847, and settled in the Puget Sound country in 1851. She left two children, a
son and a daughter. Olympia Transcript, April 15, 1876.
Samuel Fackler, a native of Maryland, in 1847, came from Illinois to Oregon,
and died at Bethany, Marion county, February 22, 1867, aged 81 years. Salem
American Unionist, March 11, 1867.
John David Crawford, born in Omondago Co., N. Y., August 16, 1824, was
by trade a printer; thence he came to Milan, Ohio, where he studied law; hut re-
peated solicitations from his brother, Medorem Crawford, finally induced him
to come to Oregon in 1847. In the Cayuse war he was appointed in the commis-
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
345
sary department under General Palmer. When George L. Curry established the
Free Press, Crawford was for a time employed upon that paper as printer ; but
when the California gold excitement came, he joined the exodus to the mines, re-
turning soon to Oregon with some of the precious metals, with which he pur
chased in 1851 a half-ownership in the Hoosier, the first steamboat that ran on
the Willamette River, between Oregon City, Portland, Vancouver and Salem.
In 1852 he went into mercantile business with Robert Newell in Champoeg,
where he continued to reside till the flood of 1862 swept the town away. Mr.
Crawford was a member of the State legislature in 1872. He was a Mason, a
member of the State grange, and of the Oregon Pioneer Association. He died
in Clackamas county in the summer of 1877. Oregon Pioneer Association
Trans., 1877, 66-7.
Walter Monteith with his brother, Thomas Monteith, came to Oregon in 1847.
They were natives of Fulton county, New York, but when little inore than 20
removed to Wilmington, Illinois, emigrating from that place to Oregon. The
brothers purchased and settled upon that section of land where the town of
Albany now stands, and laid it out in town lots in 1848. The result was an
abundant return upon their investments. Like many others, they visited the
California gold mines, and returned with some money which assisted them in
starting in business. The first house in Albany, the finest residence in Oregon,
was built by the brothers at the corner of Washington and Second streets. In 1850
they organized a company of which they were the principal members, and erected
the Magnolia Mills, near the mouth of the Calapooya creek, and have always
been most active in all enterprises which have contributed to the prosperity of
Albany. Walter Monteith died June 11, 1876. He had married in 1858, Margaret
Smith. Three sons were the fruit of this union. State Rights Democrat, June
16 and 23, 1876.
Henry Warren was one of the young men who came from Missouri to Oregon
to help build the State. He had not been long married, and brought a wife and
babe to the new land. The young people settled in Yamhill County, where they
remained for several years, until Mr. Warren was appointed receiver of the land-
office at Oregon City. His eldest son, Charles E. Warren, was carefully educated
and studied law, in which profession he graduated with credit. When about 26
he married a daughter of Dr. Henry Saffarans, of Oregon City; but in his 28th
year died, much lamented, disappointing the hopes of his family and the com-
munity. Salem Mercury, April 3, 1874.
Mrs. Jane L. Waller, born in Fayette county, Kentucky, in 1792, was married
to Thomas C. Waller in 1815, and went with him to Illinois, where he died leav-
ing her with a family of several young children, whom she reared and educated,
and with whom she removed to Oregon, settling in Polk county, in 1847. She lived
a useful life, respected by all, and died full of years and honor Nov. 23, 1869, be-
ing 77 years old on the day of her death. Dallas Times, Dec. 4, 1869.
James Davidson was born in Barren county, Ky., Aug. 30, 1792. Like most
western men of his time, he was self-educated, but his talents being above the
average, he became a leader among his fellows. When a youth he took part in
the war of 1812, and was in the battle of the Thames, where Teciimseh was killed.
He married in 1817, and lived at Nashville, Tennessee, from 1823 to 1829, at St.
Louis in 1830, and in Greene county, Illinois, from 1831 to 1836. He then re-
moved to the Black Hawk purchase, Iowa, and lived in Burlington until 1847,
when he came to Oregon, and settled in Salem. Mr. Davidson has represented
his county in the legislature, and in all respects enjoyed the confidence and esteem
of his neighbors. Nine children blessed the union. His sons, Albert and Thomas,
were among the most enterprising agriculturists in Oregon. Albert, the elder,
first came to Oregon in 1845, and returning, induced the family, and many others,
to return with him. They took the southern route. Salem Record, Aug. 29,
1874. Salem Statesman, Oct. 13, 1876.
Nebuxardan Coffey, born in North Carolina in 1790, moved to Kentucky,
346
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
where in 1810 he married Miss Easley, 14 days older than himself. He removed to
Illinois in 1831, and came to Oregon in 1847. He died at his home in Marion
county on the 20th of January, 1867, leaving his wife, who with him had borne
the vicissitudes of 57 years on the frontier. Salem Unionist, Feb. 11, 1867.
Samuel Headrick, born in Pettis Co., Mo., November 13, 1836, came to Oregon
with his father when a boy. Like most boys who crossed the plains, he early
learned self-reliance. In Marion county where he resided, Headrick was esteemed
the soul of honor and the defender of the right. He was four years sheriff of his
county and two years treasurer just previous to his death, which occurred March
26, 1869. Salem Unionist, March 27, 1869.
Dr. John P. Poujade died at his residence at Gervais in July, 1875. He was
born in France in 1790, and was a surgeon in the army of Napoleon, 1812. He
came to Oregon in 1847. His son, T. C. Poujade, resided in Salem. Salem
Record, July 9, 1875.
Robert Crouch Kinney was born July 4, 1813, in St. Clair Co., Ill. At 20 years
of age he married Eliza Bigelow, and shortly afterward removed to Muscatine,
Iowa, of which city he was one of the principal founders. Engaging in milling
business, he remained 15 years at Muscatine, when the tide of Oregon emigration
bore him to the shore of the Pacific. Settling in Yamhill county, he farmed for
ten years, save a short interval when he was absent at the gold mines of Cali-
fornia. He served in the territorial legislature and was a member of the state
constitutional convention. After 1857 he returned to his old business of milling,
and with his sons, owned large flouring mills at Salem, where he died March 2nd,
1875. Mr. Kinney had eight children. Mrs. Mary Jane Kinney Smith, wife of
J. H. Smith, of Harrisburg in Lane County, was born December 16, 1839, at
Muscatine. Albert William Kinney who married Virginia Newby, daughter of
W. T. Newby, was born at Muscatine, October 3rd, 1843, and resided at Salem.
Augustus Crouch Kinney who married Jane Welch, was born July 26, 1845, at
Muscatine; studied medicine and lived at Astoria. Marshall.John Kinney, born
at Muscatine, January 31, 1847, resided in San Francisco. Alfred Coleman Kin-
ney, born in the Chehalem Valley, Yamhill county, January 30, 1850, graduated
at Bellevue Medical College, New York; residence, Astoria. Josephine Elarena
Kinney Walker, wife of Jas. S. Walker of San Francisco, was born January 14,
1852, in the Chehalem Valley. Wm. Sylvester and Eliza Lee Kinney were born
at Chehalem in 1854 and 1858. Robert C. Kinney a son of Samuel Kinney, who
in 1800 settled on Horse Prairie, west of the Kaskaskia river, Illinois, and
Samuel Kinney a son of Joseph Kinney who in 1799 resided near Louisville, Ky.,
and had a family of seven sons and four daughters. One of his sons, William,
drove the first wagon over the road from the Ohio river to the new home of the
family in Illinois, of which State he was afterward Lieutenant-Governor. Robert
had a brother named Samuel who settled in West Chehalem, and who died October
20, 1875. His other brothers and sisters remained in the States. Salem Farmer,
March 12, 1875; Oregon Statesman, March 6, 1875; Salem Mercury, March 5,
1875.
Robert Cowan, a native of Scotland, emigrated from Missouri, where he mar-
ried, and joined the Oregon companies of 1847. In the following year he settled
in the Umpqua valley, Yoncalla precinct, and with the exception of Levi Scott
and sons, was the first white settler in Douglas county. His cabin stood near the
old trail which the pioneer goldseekers of 1848 and 1849 traveled, and is remem-
bered by many as the last mark of civilization north of the Sacramento valley.
He was killed by a splinter from a tree which he was felling March 9th, 1865. Or.
Statesman, March 20, 1865.
Samuel Allen settled on the Abiqua, in Marion county.
Joseph Hunsaker settled 10 miles south of Salem.
J. H. Pruett resided at McMinnville in Yamhill county.
Jacob Comegys, of Hagerstown, Md., born 1798, came to Oregon in 1847; re-
moved to San Jose, California, in 1856 where he died in 1870.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
317
Charles Sanborn was drowned in the Willamette river near Eugene City,
October, 1875.
John F. Taylor never had a home, but lived among the old settlers, dying at
the age of 78, and buried at public charge, an exception generally in his habits
to his old companions.
Samuel Whitley, resided on the southern border of Marion county-a native
of Virginia--and died September, 1868, age 80 years.
William S. Barker, a cabinetmaker, settled at Salem, where he died July 2,
1869, having been a respected citizen of Oregon for 22 years.
William Whitney, a native of Stately, Huntingdonshire, England, born in
1808, at the age of 19 married Elizabeth Taylor, of Bourne, I.incolnshire, and
moved to the United States in 1832. Their first residence was in Pennsylvania;
and from there they removed to Indiana, and in 1847 joined the emigration to
Oregon, having at this time a family of six children. Whitney settled in Marion
county, and in 1848 went to the California mines and met with good success. He
died at Butteville, June 1st, 1878, three years after his wife, who died April 4,
1875.
Rev. P. J. McCormick, who came to Oregon in the ship L'Etoile du Matin, be-
fore mentioned, was a man of very plain parts, and of an Irish family of not the
very best blood. On arriving at Oregon City, he was stationed there for some
time, where he was compelled to perform every menial service, even to washing
his linen, though a man of accomplishments. Falling ill from this cheerless way
of living, he was ordered to the uplands of Chile, where he resided twenty years;
thence returning to Oregon, he resided there until his death in 1874, well known
for his talents and virtues. Portland Bulletin, December 14, 1874.
William McKinney was born in Howard county, Missouri, August 20, 1820.
In April, 1847, he married Matilda Darby, and started with the immigrations
for Oregon, settling in Marion county. He died October 20, 1875. leaving a
family of eleven children to whose welfare he was truly devoted. In losing
him the community lost a good citizen. Portland Oregonian, November 6,
1875.
James Fulton, born at Paoli, Orange county, Indiana, in 1816, emigrated to
Missouri in 1840, and to Oregon in 1847. His father laid out the town of Paoli,
and with Blackstone, Hallowell, Lindley, and Hopper, built the half-moon fort
at that place in General Harrison's campaign. Settled in Yamhill county where
he remained for ten years, when he removed to Wasco county, where he died in
1896. He saw service in the Yakima Indian war of 1855-56. A number of his
ancestors served in the Revolutionary war. He served one term in the legislature.
Ephraim Adams, born in New Jersey in 1799, removed in 1835 to Ohio, in
1839 to Missouri, and thence to Oregon with his family. Located in Yamhill
county, he spent the remainder of a long life in Oregon, dying January 15, 1876,
at McMinnville, respected and regretted by his acquaintances of twenty-nine
years. Oregon Statesman, Jan. 22, 1876.
H. L. Aikin, born in England in 1818, emigrated with his parents to the
United States in his childhood. At the age of 29 he left Illinois, where his father
was settled, to go to Oregon. He chose a residence in Clatsop county, where he
lived a man of note in his community, dying at Astoria in April, 1875, leaving
three immediate descendants, a son and two daughters, his wife having died be-
fore him. Portland Oregonian, April 24, 1875; Oregon City Enterprise, April
23, 1875.
Isaac W. Bewley, began the westward movement by leaving Indiana for Mis-
souri in 1837, and thence on to Oregon. He is the brother of John W. Bewley of
La Fayette, Indiana, and of Rev. Anthony Bewley, who was hanged by a southern
mob in Texas, at the breaking out of the rebellion, for his fearless advocacy of
human rights. Mr. I. W. Bewley settled on a farm in Tillamook county, Oregon,
about as near sunset as any spot in the United States. Lafayette (Ind.) Bee, in
Portland Oregonian, Oct. 31, 1874.
348
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
>>
served.
Tollman H. Rolfe, a printer, joined the Oregon immigration of 1847, but pro-
ceeded in the spring of 1848 to California, where he was engaged on the Star.
Tuthill's History of California, 215. He was elected alcalde of Yuba county,
and afterward in 1853, went to Nevada City where he was employed on the Jour-
nal, and afterward started the Nevada Democrat, which he edited in company with
his brother, I. J. Rolfe. When Austin was founded, Rolfe went to that place,
and for a time edited the Reveille, but returned to Nevada City and edited the
Gazette. He several times filled the office of city trustee, and about 1870 was
elected justice of the peace, which office he held until failing health drove him
to San Bernardino, where he died in 1872.
William Allphin, a native of Kentucky, was born November 17, 1777. On
becoming of age, he removed to Indiana, settled at Indianapolis, and engaged
in the manufacture of brick, furnished the material for the walls of the state-
house in that city. In 1837 he removed to Illinois, and 10 years later to Oregon,
where he located in Linn county, eight miles east of Albany. He was twice a mem-
ber of the territorial legislature and held several other offices to which he was
elected by the people. He died October, 1876, within 13 months of the age of
100 years, leaving a memory revered. Corvallis Gazette, October 13, 1876;
Albany Reporter, December 11, 1876; Salem Statesman, October, 13, 1876.
A. N. Locke, born in Virginia in 1810, moved to Mo., in 1820, and to Oregon
in 1847. He was among the late arrivals of that year, having, “suffered incred-
ible hardships. He settled in Benton county a few miles north of Corvallis,
He was several times sheriff and county judge, filling these positions in an hon-
orable manner, and enjoying the confidence and esteem of the country he
He lived there for many years and raised a large and interesting
family. He died on the 14th of October, 1872. Corvallis Gazette, October 18,
1872.
Robert Houston, born in Madison county, Kentucky, February, 1793, removed
to Shelby county, Ohio, in 1805, and resided there until 1847. In 1827 he mar-
ried Miss Mary Brown, having by her six children. While residing in Ohio,
he served as associate justice for seven years, and filled other stations of trust with
credit. On reaching Oregon in September, 1847, he selected a farm in Linn
county, where he resided till his death in September, 1876, surrounded by his
children and grandchildren, and esteemed by them all. He lived long in the
enjoyment of the simple pleasures of country life, as he had desired. Albany
State Rights Democrat, September 15, 1876.
Leander C. Burkhart was born in Hawkins county, East Tennessee, Novem-
ber, 14, 1823. Emigrating to Oregon in 1847; he settled in Linn county, in
company with his father and a numerous relationship, amassing a large fortune
without losing his high reputation for integrity, being possessed of a sterling
worth acknowledged by all men. He died at his residence half a mile east of
Albany, November 3, 1875.
Samuel Laughlin was born in South Carolina in 1791, removed to Missouri
in 1823, where he resided until 1847, being twice married, and having seven chil-
dren by each wife, an equal number of boys and girls.
Mrs. Asenath M. Luelling Bozarth, daughter of Henderson Luelling, came
with her parents to Oregon from Indiana in 1847. She was the mother of 11
children, four sons and seven daughters, ten of whom survived her. She died at
the home of her husband, John S. Bozarth, on Lewis River, Cowlitz county, where
she had resided 22 years, on the 30th of November, 1874, aged 40 years. Van-
couver Register, December 25, 1874.
Charles Hubbard settled at what is now Hubbard station, in Marion county,
in the spring of 1848. Mrs. Margaret Hubbard died at her home in that place
December 7, 1879, aged 68 years. She was a native of Ky., but married Mr.
Hubbard in Mo. After marriage she resided in Pike county, Illinois; had she
lived a few days longer, her golden wedding would have been celebrated. She

RURAL NETHWEST
SOME OREGON GOATS THE WOLVES DID NOT GET
WOLF HUNT IN FRENCH PRAIRIE IN 1843
UNIL
OF
Bict
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
349
was the mother of 4 sons and 3 daughters. Portland Oregonian, December 13,
1879.
Hugh Harrison was born in Harrison county, Ky., which county was named
after his grandfather. He was for several years in the Rocky Mountains with
Kit Carson, but settled in South Salem in 1847, where he died at the age of 76
years, May 27, 1877. Portland Standard, June 1, 1877.
Joseph Merrill, born in Ross county, Ohio, November 15, 1818, removed with
his parents to Illinois, at the age of 10 years, returned to Ohio when he attained
his majority, and married the next year a Miss Freeman, of Chillicothe, the
ceremony being performed by Justice of the Peace Thurston, afterward U. S.
Senator from Ohio. Merrill subsequently returned to Illinois, where he resided
until 1847. In the spring of 1848 he settled in Columbia county, Oregon. He
died at his home, May 6, 1879, regretted by the community in which he lived.
Portland Standard, May, 13, 1879.
Mrs. John Fisher lost her husband at the crossing of the Platte river,
June 6, 1847; and on Snake river she buried her little girl 2 years of age. She
arrived late in the autumn at Tualatin Plains, where during the winter she
met W. A. Mills, who had arrived in 1843. He proposed marriage and they
were united in 1848, continuing to reside near Hillsboro. Mrs. Mills had five
children, two sons and three daughters. She was born in Wayne county, Ind.,
April 20, 1822, and died December 11, 1869. Salem Farmer, March 26, 1870.
William Glover settled in Marion county. Mrs. Jane Jett Graves Glover was
born in Pittsylvania Co., Va., in 1827, removed with her parents to Missour
in 1830, and was married to William Glover in 1843, with whom she came to
Oregon in 1847. She died December 31, 1876. Id., Jan. 12, 1877.
Leander L. Davis was born in Belmont Co., Ohio, and crossed the plains
in 1847, settling in Marion Co. He served in the State legislature in 1866.
He died June 29, 1874, at Silverton, aged 48 years. Id., July 4, 1874.
Mrs. Olive Warren Chamberlain was born in Covington, New York, Feb-
ruary 12, 1822. While she was a child, her father, an itinerant Methodist
preacher, removed with her to Michigan, where in 1843 she married Joseph
Chamberlain, and came to Oregon. She was the mother of ten children, eight of
whom survive her. She died October 27, 1874, at Salem. Salem, Or., States-
man, November 7, 1874.
Mrs. R. A. Ford, who settled with her husband in Marion county in 1847,
after becoming a widow, studied medicine, and practiced in Salem, educating
a son for the profession. She died in March, 1880, in the city of Portland.
Portland Standard, April 2, 1880.
William H. Dillon was a native of Kent Co.Del., from which he removed
when a child, to the Scioto valley in Ohio. When a young man he removed
again to Indiana, and thence to Oregon. Dillon lived one year on Sauvie's
Island, when he went to the California gold mines, returning in a few months
with a competency, and settling near Vancouver.
Samuel T McKean was from Delaware county, New York, where he mar-
ried Polly Hicks, in 1817, and removed to Richmond, Ohio, from which place
many years later he again removed to Illinois, where he founded the town of
Chillicothe, naming it after the old Indian village of that name in Ohio.
When he came to Oregon he had a family of six children. In the autumn they
removed to San Jose, California. During his residence in Oregon, McKean
held several places of trust and honor, as member of the legislative assembly,
clerk of the district court of Clatsop county, and afterward as county judge,
and president of the board of trustees of the town of Astoria. He died at San
Jose, in 1873, and his wife followed him in 1877, leaving many descendants.
San Jose Pioneer, April 28, 1877.
George La Rocque, a native of Canada, was born near Montreal in 1820.
At the age of 16 he entered the United States and like most Canadians, soon
sought employment of the fur companies. Being energetic and intelligent,
350
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
he became useful to the American Fur Company, with whom he remained eight
years, finally leaving the service and settling in Oregon near his former
friend, F. X. Matthieu, on French Prairie. When the gold discoveries at-
tracted nearly the whole adult male population of Oregon, to California, he
joined in the exodus, returning soon with $12,000. This capital invested in
business at Butteville and Oregon City, made him a fortune. He died at
Oakland, California, Feb. 23, 1877. Oregon City Enterprise, March 8, 1877.
Ashbel Merrill died at Fort Hall, his wife, Mrs. Susannah Sigler Merrill,
and children pursuing their way to Oregon. Mrs. Merrill was born in the
Shenandoah valley, Virginia, March 20, 1800. She was married to Ashbel
Merrill April 23, 1823, in Ross county, Ohio, and moved to Illinois, and thence
in 1847 to Oregon. Their children were, William, George, Mary A. Emert,
Lyman, Electa, Alvin and Lyda. Six of these resided in Oregon chiefly in
Columbia county, and had numerous families. Mrs. Merrill has celebrated
her 82nd birthday. St. Helen Columbian, March 31, 1881.
Joseph Carey, Geer, went from Windom, Conn., to Ohio in 1816. The
family removed to Ill., and from there to Oregon. The founder of the Oregon
family of Geer was born in 1795. He settled in Yamhill county, in 1847, and
in the number of his descendants has outdone the Canadians, there being of
his line 164 on the Pacific coast; all honorable men and virtuous women, be-
sides being physically people of weight. Portland West Shore, February, 1880.
Ralph C. Geer, was the pioneer nurseryman of Marion county. He also
taught the first public school in the section where he settled, having 30 pupils
in 1848, all but four of whom were living 30 years afterward—a proof that the
climate had nothing to do with the fatal character of the diseases which carried
off the natives in early times. Geer planted apple and pear seeds to start his
nursery in the red soil of the Waldo Hills, which he found to be excellent for
his purpose. His father also put an equal amount of apple and pear seeds in
the black soil of the Clackamas bottoms, but was disappointed in the returns,
which were not equal to the Waldo Hills, where R. C. Geer has had a fruit
farm and nursery for more than 30 years.
John Wilson drove to the Willamette valley a number of choice Durham
cattle, from Henry Clay's herd, at Blue Grass Grove, Ill., and also some fine
horses, greatly to the improvement of the stock in the valley. J. C. Geer
drove a fine cow from this herd.
Stephen Bonser, who settled on Sauvie's Island, drove a herd of choice
cattle, which improved the stock on the Columbia River bottoms.
Luther Savage took to the Willamette Valley a blood race-horse called
George, whose descendants are numerous and valuable.
Hugh Fields drove a flock of fine sheep from Missouri in 1845 which he took to
the Waldo Hills. Before getting settled he and his wife both died under a
large fir-tree, with the measles. The sheep were sold at auction in small lots,
and being superior, the Fields sheep are still a favorite breed in Oregon.
Headrick, Turpin, and Mulkey took a flock of fine sheep. Turpin's were Sax-
This lot stocked Howell Prairie. R. Patton took a large flock to
Yamhill county.
Mr. Haun of Haun's Mills, Mo., carried a pair of mill buhr-stones across
the plains to Oregon.
A. R. Dimick carried the seeds of the "early, or "shaker blue" potatoes
from Mich., planting them on his farms in the north part of Marion Co. From
these seeds sprung the famous Dimick potato, the best raised in Oregon in early
days.
Mr. Watson of King's Valley, Benton Co., drove some short-horn stock
to Oregon. The above notes are taken from Geer's Blooded Cattle, MS.,
a valuable contribution on the origin of stock in the Willamette Valley. See
ony.
>>
&
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
351
also his address before the Pioneer association for 1879, on the immigration
of 1847; see also Salem Or. Statesman, June 20, 1879.
John E. Ross was born in Madison county, Ohio, February 15, 1818. Emi-
grated with his parents to Ind., when 10 years of age, and to Ill., when 16
years old. At the age of 29 he started for Oregon, and was captain of his train
of forty wagons. In the Cayuse war which broke out soon after he arrived in
Oregon, he served as lieutenant and captain. He resided for some time at
Oregon City, engaged in various pursuits. When gold was discovered in Cal-
ifornia he went to the Feather River mines, and in 1850, after having returned
to Oregon, explored in the southern valleys and in northern California for
gold, discovering several rich places, known as Yankee Jim's, Wambo Bar, Jack-
sonville, etc. For a number of years he was almost constantly engaged in
mining or selling supplies to miners; and in 1852 again commanded a company
who went out to fight the Indians on the southern route. In the winter of 1852-3
he was married to Elizabeth Hopewood, of Jacksonville, their's being the first
wedding solemnized in that place. They have nine children, five girls and four
boys. When the Rogue River war broke out, in 1853, Ross was elected colonel,
and again in 1855 was elected colonel of the 9th regiment and commissioned by
Governor Davis. He was a member of the territorial council in the same year;
and in 1866 was elected to the state legislature. When the Modoc war broke out,
in 1872, he was commissioned by Governor Grover as brigadier-general in com-
mand of the State troops. In 1878 he was a member of the senate from the
county of Jackson, where he has resided for many years. The Salem States-
man, in remarking upon the personal appearance of Ross, describes him as
having a well-shaped head, pleasant face and a reserved but agreeable manner.
Ashland Tidings, December 13, 1878.
Ahio S. Watt was born in Knox Co., Ohio, Jan. 15, 1824; went to Mo., in 1838,
and to Oregon in 1848. He was married in 1850 to Mary E. Elder, and settled
in Yamhill county. He was a member of the senate in 1878; has been clerk
of the court, surveyor, and farmer, and a useful and honorable citizen.
E. L. Massey, well known in Oregon, at the breaking out of the mining
excitement of 1861, removed to Walla Walla, where he was justice of the
peace. In 1867 while traveling in Idaho he had his feet frozen, from the effects
of which he died in August of that year. Walla Walla Statesman, August 30,
1867.
Burrell B. Griffin settled in Linn county, where he discovered in 1851 a moun-
tain of bluish gray marl near the junction of Crabtree and Thomas forks of
the Santiam. The stone was easily worked, and hardened on exposure to the
air, and came to be much used in place of brick for hearthstones and chimney
pieces. In 1852 Mr. Griffin removed to the Rogue River valley, where he dis-
covered in 1875 valuable ores of cinnabar and antimony near Jacksonville.
Oregonian, September 25, 1875.
George A. Barnes, a native of Lockport, Monroe county, New York, first
emigrated to Fort Wayne, Indiana, and from there to Oregon in 1848. He
went to the gold mines in California in 1849, returned to Fort Wayne via the
Isthmus that winter, and in the spring of 1850 started across the plains to Oregon
with his family, locating in Portland. He was active in aiding to secure the
passage of an act incorporating Portland as a city in January, 1851, and at the
first city election, April 7, 1851, was elected a member of the council. In the
spring of 1852 he removed to Puget Sound, with the history of which he has
since been identified.
David Stone who was captain of the company with which Barnes traveled,
settled in the Cowlitz Valley, a few miles north of the Columbia.
Thomas W. Avery emigrated to Oregon with his parents at the age of 15,
and in 1849 went to the gold mines in Ca lifornia from which he returned in
1857, when he settled in Douglas county. Working as a carpenter and teach-
ing a country school, he continued to reside in the Umpqua valley until 1862,
352
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
when he went to Salem to study law in the office of Bonham and Curl. He was
elected to the democratic state convention in 1864, and commenced the practice
of law in Umatilla county, and was in the legislature in 1866. In connection
with J. C. Dow, he established the Columbia Press, the first newspaper at Uma-
tilla. He died of consumption in Salem in the autumn of 1867. Salem Capital
Chronicle, December 14, 1867.
Mrs. Susan Sturges, born in Illinois, May 14, 1839, married Andrew
Sturges in Oregon in 1855, and died at Vancouver in Washington Territory,
April 28, 1876, her husband and 6 children surviving. Portland Advocate,
May 11, 1876.
Mrs. Jacob Conser, born in Richmond county, Ohio, July 31, 1822, removed
with her parents to Illinois, where she was married February 28, 1839, and emi-
grated to Oregon with her husband in 1848. She died at Walla Walla while on a
visit to a sister residing there, April 18, 1879. San Jose Pioneer, May 10, 1879.
Nathaniel Hamlin, an immigrant of 1848, died in June 1866. Seattle Weekly,
June 18, 1866.
Rev. Clinton Kelly was born in Pulaski county, Ky., June 15, 1808. He
joined the Methodist church at the age of 19, and devoted his life to preaching.
Before he was 20 he married Mary Baston, who died in 1837, leaving him five
children. He married in the following year Jane Burns, who also died leaving
one child. He then married Maria Crain by whom he had nine children. Being
opposed to the institution of slavery, he determined to emigrate to a country
where his numerous family could be educated to become useful citizens, and
chose Oregon for his home, where he was widely known as “Father Kelly” and as
a never tiring advocate of temperance. He died at his residence near East Port-
land, June 19, 1875, leaving an honorable memory. Oregonian, June 19, 1875;
Oregon City Enterprise, June 25, 1875; Portland Temperancé Star, June 25,
1875; Salem Statesman, June 26, 1875.
W. W. Bristow, son of Elijah Bristow, who emigrated in 1846, with his
brother, E. L. Bristow, and other members of the family, followed his father
in 1848, and all settled in Lane county, then the southern part of Linn. Mr.
Bristow was one of the foremost citizens of that part of the country; was a
member of the first state senate, and of the state constitutional convention, and
active in securing the location of the state university at Eugene City. In his
family he was as gentle as he was enterprising in affairs of public interest. He
died at Eugene City, December 10, 1874. Eugene City Guard, December 1874;
Roseburg Plaindealer, December 12, 1874.
J. M. Hendricks, brother-in-law of W. W. and E. L. Bristow, also settled at
Pleasant Hill, in Lane county, where he died in the spring of 1878. His son,
T. G. Hendricks, is a prominent merchant of Eugene City. San Jose Pioneer,
April 6, 1878.
Nicholas Lee was born in Pike county, Ohio, February 11, 1818. On coming
to Oregon he settled in Polk county, near Dallas. He engaged in merchandis-
ing in 1862, but retired to give place to his son, Joseph D. Lee, in 1876. His
death occurred July 11, 1879, at the farm where he settled in 1848. Dallas
Itemizer, July 18, 1879.
Frances Ella Reynolds, born in Tenn., in 1815, emigrated to Orgeon in 1848,
and resided with her sister, Mrs. Wells, at the time of her death on the 25th
of November, 1879. Portland Advocate, December 4, 1879.
William Porter of Aumsville, Marion county, had never been farther away
from his home than Oregon City, in his 27 years' residence in Oregon, until
summoned to Portland by the U. S. district court, to appear as a juror. He has
.contributed pleasing articles to the columns of the Farmer, but the journey
across the plains satisfied completely his love of travel. Salem Farmer, June
25, 1875.
John L. Hicklin, born in Kentucky, June, 1793, first removed to Indiana
and finally settled in Washington county, Tualatin Plains, Oregon, in 1848,
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
353
where he continued to reside surrounded by a large family. He died October
14, 1876, after a long and exemplary life. Portland Standard, October 27,
1876.
David Linenberger, emigrated from Virginia. In 1851 he moved to Siskiyou
county, California, where he engaged in mining. He died September 7, 1868.
Yreka Union, September 12, 1868.
Rev. Joseph E. Parrott, a man of fine talents and a firm Methodist was born
in Missouri, in 1821, emigrated to Oregon, in 1848, and married Susan Gar-
rison, in 1851, who died in August, 1869. On the 31st of May, 1870, he mar-
ried Mrs. L. A. Worden. On the 3rd of September, 1872, he died at his home
near Lafayette in Yamhill county. Portland Advocate, September 19, 1872.
Buford Smith, who settled in Marion county, after a long residence re-
moved to Northern California, where he remained a few years and returned
to Oregon, having lost his health. He survived the change but a short
time, and the once energetic and always genial pioneer of 1848 passed to his
rest at the age of 70 years, November 6, 1870. Salem Farmer, Nov, 12, 1870.
Mrs. Elizabeth Smith, wife of Buford Smith, was killed by the accidental
discharge of a gun in November, 1876. Their sons were A., Charles and Wil-
liam Smith, who resided at Silverton in Marion county. Salem Statesman,
November 24, 1876.
William Greenwood was born in Hardy county, Va., September 13, 1806; on
the 12th of August, 1828, he married Elizabeth Jane 'Bramel, and in 1832 re-
moved to St. Louis, Mo., and two years later to near Burlington, Iowa, emigrating
in 1858 to Oregon, and settling on Howell Prairie. He was always an upright
and industrious citizen. He was elected to the State senate in 1862, serving
four years. His death occurred May 18, 1869, from injuries received by accident,
leaving two sons and two daughters and a large estate, Id., August 9, 1869.
Mrs. Jane Belknap, wife of Jesse Belknap, died December 10, 1876. Born
in Penn., in 1792, she emigrated with her parents to western N. Y., in 1796. At
the age of 16 she became a convert to Methodism, and on settling with her hus-
band in Benton county, kept open house to the ministry, entertaining Bishop
Simpson on his first visit to Oregon to preside over the first annual conference
of the Methodist church. She had a large family of children. Her husband
survived her. Portland Advocate, December 21, 1876.
Rev. John W. Starr was born in Va., in 1795, removed to Ohio in childhood
and from that state in 1839 to Van Buren Co., Iowa, emigrating in 1848 to
Oregon and locating in Benton county. He was an ardent preacher of his
faith from youth to old age. Id., March 20, 1869.
•
Vol. 1-23
CHAPTER XIII
1844–1912
FOUNDING OF PORTLAND TOWNSITE PROPRIETORS FIRST TEACHERS, PREACHERS,
DOCTORS AND LAWYERS-FIRST STEAMBOATS AND THEIR BUILDERS.
After the native red man, according to all reliable evidence, the first white
man to come upon the Portland townsite and say, "This is my land, here will I
build my hut, here will I make my home," was William Overton, a young man
from the state of Tennessee, who landed there from an Indian canoe in 1843,
and claimed the land for his own. He had not cleared a rod square of land;
he had not even a cedar bark shed to protect him from the “Oregon mist,” when
one day on the return trip from Vancouver to Oregon City, he invited his fel-
low passenger, A. L. Lovejoy, to step ashore with him and see his land claim,
which he did. The two men landed at the bank of the river as near as could be
located afterwards, about where the foot of Washington street strikes the river,
and scrambled up the bank as best they could, to find themselves in an unbroken
forest-literally "the continuous woods, where rolls the Oregon." The only
evidence of pre-occupation by any human being, was a camping place used by
the Indians along the bank of the river ranging from where Alder street strikes
the water, up to Salmon street. This was a convenient spot for the Indian
canoes to tie up on their trips between Vancouver and Oregon City, and the
brush had been cut away and burned up, leaving an open space of an acre or so.
On this occasion, Lovejoy and Overton made some examinations of the land
back from the river, finding the soil good and the tract suitable for settlement and
cultivation if the dense growth of timber was removed. Overton was penniless
and unable to pay even the trifling fees exacted by the Provisional Government
for filing claims for land, or getting it surveyed, and then and there proposed
to Lovejoy if he would advance the money to pay these expenses, he should
have a half interest in the land claim—a mile square of land. Mr. Lovejoy
had not exercised his right to take land, and the proposition appealed to him.
Overton had not thought of a townsite use for the land and did not present
that view of the subject. But the quick eye of Lovejoy took notice of the fact,
that there was deep water in front of the land, and that ships had tied up at
that shore, and so he accepted Overton's proposition at once, and became a half
owner in the Overton land claim; and the Portland townsite proposition was
born right then and there in the brain of Amos Lawrence Lovejoy; and making
him in reality and fact the
”FOUNDER OF THE CITY OF PORTLAND"
Following up this bargain and joint tenancy in this piece of wild land, Love-
joy and Overton made preparations for surveying the tract, some clearing and
355
356
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
the erection of a log cabin. But before these improvements could be even com-
menced, Overton's restless disposition led him to sell out his half interest in
the land to Francis W. Pettygrove for the sum of fifty dollars to purchase an
outfit to go back to The States' or somewhere else, nobody ever knew where. Of
Overton nothing is known of the slightest consequence to the location of the town.
One account says that he made shingles on the place. If he did, it was probably
only for the cabin that was necessary to hold the claim, but he never built any
sort of a house protection, and sold out to Pettygrove before the cabin was built.
Overton was a mere bird of passage; no one ever knew where he came from or
where he went to.
By some writers, Overton is given the honor of being the "first owner of the
Portland Land Claim,” and “after completing his settlement” he sold out to
Lovejoy and Pettygrove. But he never was the owner of the claim, and he never
made or completed any settlement. He had done nothing to entitle him to the
land; he merely said to a passer-by, “This is my claim." He filed no claim with
the Provisional Government, he posted no notice, he built no cabin, and he did not
even do what the pioneers of the Ohio valley did, in a hostile Indian country in
taking lands—he blazed no line or boundary trees. The Ohio valley pioneers took
what was called in their day "tomahawk" claims to land. That is, they picked
out a tract of land that suited their fancy, two or three hundred acres, and then
taking a light axe or Indian tomahawk, they established and marked a boundary
line around the piece of land by blazing a line of forest trees all around that
land. That was the custom of the country. There was no law for it. Those
settlers were hundreds of miles beyond the jurisdiction of any state, or the sur-
veillance of any government officer. But when the public surveys were extended
west from Pennsylvania and Virginia, these “tomahawk claims" were found to
cover large settlements. Their blazed trees were notice to everybody and were
respected by all incoming settlers; and the United States government surveyors
were instructed to adjust all these irregular boundary lines and give the actual
settlers on the lands, or their bona fide assignees, accurate descriptions of these
claims, which were in due course confirmed by government patents. The first
settlers in Oregon, both British and American, were doing precisely the same
thing to secure their home and farms; and it was one of the objects of forming
the Provisional Government to provide for the recording of all these claims to
the end that strife and litigation might be prevented. The Provisional Government
had already before Overton set up a verbal claim to the land provided for this
registry of claims. Overton had not complied with that law, but gave Lovejoy
half of his inchoate right, whatever it might be, to go ahead and comply with the
law, and which Lovejoy did. Lovejoy is then in truth and fact the founder of
Portland, Oregon, for it was he who secured the title to the land for a town site,
and originated the town site proposition.
Amos L. Lovejoy, born in Groton, Mass., March 14, 1808, a graduate of Am-
herst college, related to the Lawrence family of the old Bay state, studied
law, read Hall Kelley's descriptions of Oregon, and started west. Halting
in Missouri, he commenced the practice of law in that state. But falling in with
Dr. Elijah White, who had been appointed some kind of an Indian agent
for Oregon, Lovejoy crossed the plains and came to Oregon in 1842, with
the party of Dr. White, and in which party he acted as one of the

N
OF
2
Brown
FIRST HOUSE IN PORTLAND.- ERECTED IN 1844 AT FRONT AND WASHINGTON STS.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
357
.
three scientific men to record all their experiences and discoveries on their
journey through the wilderness. On reaching Oregon, Lovejoy fell in with the
missionary, Dr. Marcus Whitman. And no sooner had Lovejoy reached the
Walla Walla valley than Whitman besought him to return to the states with him
(Whitman) as a companion. Not one man in ten thousand, for love or money,
would have undertaken that trip in the approaching winter, after just finishing
a like trip from Missouri to Oregon. But he yielded to Whitman's entreaties,
starting to the states in the month of November, and reaching Missouri in Feb-
ruary, by the southern route through Santa Fe, Mexico, and suffering every
imaginable trial, privation, danger and distress while living on dog meat, hedge-
hogs, or anything else of animal life that would sustain their own lives. In May
following his return to Missouri, Mr. Lovejoy joined the emigrant train of 1843,
and again returned to Oregon, arriving at Fort Vancouver in October. He had
thus made three trips across the western two-thirds of the continent, over six
thousand miles in travel, on horseback altogether, suffering all the trials and
dangers of the plains, being once taken prisoner by the Sioux Indians, and break-
ing all records in Overland Oregon trail travel, in the space of seventeen months.
And such was the courageous and determined character that founded Portland,
Oregon.
In organizing and maintaining the Provisional Government, Mr. Lovejoy
took a leading, useful and honorable part. He occupied first and last nearly
every office in the government, and was elected supreme judge by the people,
and was exercising the duties of that office when the United States finally ex-
tended its authority over the territory in 1849.
Francis W. Pettygrove who joined Mr. Lovejoy in developing the Portland
townsite, was born in Calais, Maine, in 1812 ; received a common school education
in his native town, and engaged in business on his own account at an early age.
At the age of thirty years he accepted an offer to bring to Oregon, for an east-
ern mercantile house, a stock of general merchandise, suitable for this new coun-
try. Shipping the merchandise, and accompanying the venture with his family
on the bark Victoria, he reached the Columbia river by the way of the Sandwich
Islands, transferring his merchandise at Honolulu from the Victoria to the
bark Fama. This vessel discharged cargo at Vancouver, and Pettygrove had to
employ a little schooner owned by the Hudson's Bay Company to carry the goods
from Vancouver to Oregon City. After selling out this stock of merchandise,
Pettygrove engaged in the fur trade, erected a warehouse at Oregon City and
was the first American to go into the grain trade, buying up the wheat from
the French Prairie farmers.
But to return to the townsite, we find that after buying out Overton,
Lovejoy and Pettygrove employed a man to build a log house on their claim
and clear a patch of land. The house was built; a picture of which may be
found on another page, near the foot of the present Washington street. The
next year, 1845, the land was surveyed out, and a portion of it laid off into
lots, blocks and streets. That portion of the land between Front street and the
river was not platted into lots and blocks, it being supposed at the time that
it would be needed for public landings, docks, and wharves, like the custom in
many of the towns and cities on rivers in the eastern states. But if such was
the idea and intention of the land claimants, they failed to make such intentions
358
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
known or effective at the time, and their failure to do so gave rise to much
trouble, contention and litigation thereafter.
But it must strike every reader that it was a most singular proceeding,
counting very largely on the lax ideas held by those pioneers on the subjects
of land titles, that these two men could take up a tract of land in the wilder-
ness without a shadow of a title from either the United States or Great Britain
--the governments claiming title to the land—and proceed to sell and make
deeds to the purchasers for gold dust, beaver money or beaver skins, as came
in handy, and everything going "merry as a marriage bell." No abstract
of title can be found that covers or explains these anomalies in the dealings of
the pioneer town lot settlers; but it is proper to add that in assuming control
of the country, Congress approved of the land titles initiated by the Provisional
Government.
However, the real estate dealers in Portland in 1845 were giving a better
deal to their customers in some things than their successors are in 1912. Now-
adays the first thing in the history of the city is a grand map and a grander
name. In 1845 Portland was started, and lots sold before it had any name.
This proving somewhat awkward and embarrassing, the matter came up for
discussion and decision at a family dinner party of the Lovejoys and Petty-
groves at Oregon City. Mr. Pettygrove hailing from Maine, wished to name the
town for his favorite old home town of Portland, while General Lovejoy com-
ing from Massachusetts, desired to honor Boston with the name. And not
being able to settle the matter with any good reason, it was proposed to decide
the difference by tossing a copper; and so on the production of and old fash-
ioned copper cent, an engraving of which is given on another page, the cent
was tossed up three times and came down “tails up" twice for Portland, and
once "heads up” for dear old Boston. And that is the way Portland got its ap-
propriate name.
The town started slowly, and its rate of growth for the first three years was
scarcely noticeable. Oregon City was the head center of all the Americans;
the seat of government, the saw and the grist mill; and Vancouver did not in-
vite and encourage settlers at that point. Men came and looked, and then passed
on up the valley, or out into Tualatin plains, and took land for farms. The
people coming into the country were mostly farmers, had always been farmers,
as had their forefathers, and had but little confidence in townsite opportuni-
ties. And beside all this, the lots offered for sale were so heavily covered with
timber that it would cost more to clear a lot than the owner could sell it for
after it was cleared; and so the town stood still, or nearly so. One of the first
to start anything that looked like business at a cross roads or a townsite, was
James Terwilliger, who erected a blacksmith shop and rang an anvil chorus
for customers from the vast woods all around. Terwilliger was born in New
York in 1809; went west, following up the Indians, and came out to Oregon
with the immigration of 1845. His shop at Portland was evidently only a side
issue with him, running it only five years, for he at the same time took up a
land claim a mile south of Lovejoy and Pettygrove, improved it, and there
passed the remainder of his life, passing away in 1892, at the advanced age of
82 years. James Terwilliger was always an active man of affairs, stoutly de-
Columbia
REVET
N
WAPATO
ISLAND
W-
272
S
mar
/
ht
e
HALL KELLEY'S TOWN SITE, PLATTED IN 1836, WHERE UNIVERSITY PARK IS
LOCATED BELOW PORTLAND
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
359
fending his opinion of the right, and with true public spirit, contributing to
the improvement of the town and the development of the country.
Pettygrove erected a building for a store and put in a very small stock
from his remnants at Oregon City. The business of the town moved impercep-
tibly; in fact there was no business worth mentioning. When a ship would
come in, all that had money, furs, or wheat, would buy of the ship, and trade
in their produce, so that merchandise at the store was a mere pretense.
The first item of improvement that so attracted the attention of the coun-
try as to have Portland talked about, was the starting of a tannery by Daniel
H. Lownsdale in 1847—the first in Portland. As a matter of fact, however,
there were three small tanneries at or near Oregon City, and many of the
farmers up in the valley had been tanning deer and calves skins in a limited way,
as nearly all the pioneer people knew something of the art of tanning skins; but
the Lownsdale tannery was started as a business enterprise to accommodate the
public and make profit to its proprietor. Hides would be tanned for so much
cash, or leather would be traded for hides; or leather would be sold for cash,
furs or wheat. Here was a start in a productive manufacturing business, and
Lownsdale's tannery was the talk of the whole country, and advertised Port-
land quite as much as it did the tannery. This tannery was not started on the
townsite, but way back in the forest a mile from the river, on the spot now
occupied by the “Multnomah Field” of the Athletic Association. And with
$5000 dollars worth of leather, not yet tanned, Lownsdale bought out Petty-
grove's interest in the townsite. After running the tannery for two years,
Lownsdale sold it to two newcomers-Ebson and Ballance--who in turn sold
it to Amos N. King, who then took up the mile square of land adjoining Portland
on the west, known as the King Donation Claim, and which has made for-
tunes for all his children by the sale of town lots. Amos N. King was not much
of a town lot speculator. It was a long time before he could muster up cour-
age enought to ask a big price for a little piece of ground. He stuck to his tan-
nery, and made honest leather for more than twenty years before he platted an
addition to the city.
A leading citizen of those early days of Portland was John Waymire, who
built the first double log cabin, and made some efforts to accommodate strangers
and traders who dropped off the passing bateaux to look at the new city, by
furnishing meals and giving them a hospitable place to spread their blankets
for the night. Waymire further enlarged his fortunes by going into the trans-
portation business with a pair of oxen he had driven two thousand miles all the
way from old Missouri across the mountains and plains. As the new town
was the nearest spot to Oregon City where the ships could safely tie up to the
shore and discharge cargo, Waymire got business both ways. With his oxen he
could haul the goods up to his big cabin for safety, and then with his oxen he
could haul the stuff back to the river to load into small boats and lighters for
transportation to Oregon City. In addition to the transfer business, and the
hotel business, Waymire started a sawmill on Front street. The machinery
outfit would not compare well with the big sawmills along the river in Portland
at the present time, being only an old whip-saw brought all the way from Mis-
souri, where it had been used in building up that state. The motive power be-
ing one man standing on top of the log pulling the saw up preparatory for the
360
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
down stroke, and another man in the pit under the log who pulled the saw dowu
and got the benefit of all the sawdust. Waymire was the only busy man in the
new town, and prospered from the start. He knew well how to turn an honest
penny in the face of severe financial troubles. With the money made in Port-
land, he went to Dallas, in Polk county, in later years and started a store,
thinking it safer to rely on the farmers for prosperity than take chances on such
a strenuous city life. There he sold goods 'on tick” (credit) as was the cus-
tom of the country, and not being a good bookkeeper, he wrote down on the in-
side board walls of his store with a piece of chalk the names of his customers,
and under each name the goods they had bought on credit, with sums due.
And while absent on a brief trip to Portland, his good wife, thinking to tidy
up the store, got some lime and whitewashed the inside of the whole establish-
ment. On his return and seeing what had been done, he threw up his hands
in despair and declared he was a ruined man. The good woman consoled him
with the suggestion that he could remember all the accounts and simply write
them all over again on the wall. And so the next day being Sunday, and a good
day, and everybody absent at church, he undertook the task. His wife dropped
in after divine service and inquired how he was getting along. He replied,
"Well, I've got the accounts all down on the wall agin; I don't know that I've
got them agin just the same men, but I believe I've got them agin lot of fel-
lows better able to pay.” There were preachers and teachers and all sorts of
men in Oregon then, as now.
Another man that dropped in on young Portland the next year after Way.
mire, was William H. Bennett (Bill Bennett) who, having quit the mountains
and the fur trade, started in to make his fortune in making shingles out of the
cedar timber on the townsite, which was a gift to him. Bennett got a start
and prospered until he was ruined by his convivial habits. He pushed various
small enterprises, finally starting a livery stable at the corner where the Mulkey
block is now located. The business started by Bennett was owned successively
by John S. White, Lew Goddard, Elijah Corbett, P. J. Mann (founder of the
Old Foiks' Home), Godard & Frazier and now by Frazier and McLean, at the cor-
ner of Fifth and Taylor streets. In 1846 came Job McNamee from Ohio, hav-
ing come into the valley with the immigration of 1845. McNamee was a good
citizen and brought a good family, wife and daughter, possibly among the first
ladies of the place, and whose presence smothered down some of the rough places
in the village. Miss McNamee became the wife of E. J. Northrup, one of the best
citizens Portland ever had, and the founder of the great wholesale and retail
hardware store now owned by the “Honeyman Hardware Company.' Not
long after the advent of the McNamees, came Dr. Ralph Wilcox from New York,
a pioneer of 1845. Dr. Wilcox was the first physician and the first schoo)
teacher of the city, and a most useful and public-spirited citizen, taking a lead-
ing part in organizing society and serving the public as clerk of the state legis-
lature and as clerk of the United States district and circuit courts. His widow,
Mrs. Julia Wilcox, now over ninety-two years of age, is still active and an in-
terested spectator of the growth of a city of two hundred and fifty thousand
people, which she came to in her early womanhood as a few log cabins in an un-
broken forest.
And about the same time as Dr. Wilcox came, also came the O'Bryant broth-
29

Stephen Coffin
1
W. W. Chapman
Francis W. Pettygrove
3
4
5
Amos Lawrence Lovejoy
Daniel H. Lownsdale
FOUNDERS OF PORTLAND
N
OF
Pic
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
361
ers, Humphrey and Hugh, the latter of which became the first mayor of the city
in 1851, a notice of whom will appear with that of the other mayors; and about
the same time with O'Bryant, came in J. L. Morrison, a Scotchman, a contractor
and builder, who built the first frame house on Morrison street, thus giving his
name to the street.
L. B. Hastings and family came across the plains in 1847, and stopped a
while in Portland. He is remembered as an active, pushing business man, and
stayed with the fortunes of the town for four years. But imagining he could
see a larger city at the entrance to Puget Sound, joined with Pettygrove in
building a schooner, and loading it up with all their worldly belongings. Petty-
grove sold out his interests in Portland, and the whole party sailed away in
1851, for Puget Sound, where they founded the city of Port Townsend, and
where they spent the remainder of their lives and strength in building up a
city to eclipse Portland. Port Townsend has about two thousand population
today, and Portland has one hundred and twenty-five times as many.
And now Portland got its first politician and statesman in Colonel William
King, landing on the river front in 1848. Colonel King was an unusual man.
He would have been a man of mark in any community. He was needed by the
new city, and he made his presence felt from his very first day in town. No-
body seemed to know from what corner of the earth King came, and he
took no pains to enlighten them. But he was a valuable addition to the city,
as he was familiar with all sorts of scheming, and by that early day the new
town had to look out for its interests at every session of the legislature; and
King was always on hand to see that there was a square deal with possibly
something over for Portland.
If King's advice had been followed there would have been no question as to
the ownership by the city of Portland of its water front east of Front street in
the original townsite.
King made enemies as well as friends. His positive disposition and his love
of fair play did not always tally with predisposed politics. It is remembered
that at the time Governor Curry had selected officials for the militia without
respect to party affiliations, a petition was gotten up by some democrats to have
the whigs (republicans) removed or their appointments cancelled. When it
was presented to King to sign, he read it over carefully, then as if not under-
standing it, read it a second time, and then vehemently tore the document
to pieces, and proceeded to denounce the authors in words more forcible than
polite: "That such men would rather see women and children slaughtered by
the Indians than to have a good man of the opposite party hold an honorable
position in the militia.
As great nations have been dependent on the sea, not only for their pros-
perity, but also their very existence England for example--so it was with
Portland, in the years of 1845 to 1851. And now the story turns from the land
builders of the town to the hardy sea rovers working to the same end. And in
this good work the name of Captain John H. Couch stands at the top of the list.
The first appearance of Captain Couch in Oregon waters, was in 1840, when he
came out here from Newburyport, Massachusetts,--in command of the ship
Maryland to establish a salmon fishery on the Columbia. The ship belonged to
the wealthy firm of the Cushings of Newburyport, who had been induced to
362
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
some extent by letters from Jason Lee to make this venture. The fishery was
not successful, for there were no fishermen but the Indians, and they were not
reliable in serving the Americans. And so Couch sold the vessel at the Sandwich
Islands and returned to Newburyport, leaving in Oregon, George W. Le Bre-
ton, an active and pushing young man, who made his mark in helping organize
the Provisional Government. Having learned from this voyage, the conditions
and requirements of trade in Oregon, Couch returned in 1842 with a stock of
goods in a new brig--The Chenamus-named for the Chinook Indian chief
who had lived opposite Astoria; and leaving this stock at Oregon City with one
Albert E. Wilson, and who also came out in the Chenamus, and Le Breton,
Couch engaged his vessel in the trade to the Sandwich Islands, the whole busi-
ness being under the name and auspices of Cushing & Company, of Newbury-
port. Couch continued to manage this business until 1847, when he returned
home to Newburyport by the way of China. In the following year he engaged
with a company of New York merchants to bring a cargo of goods to Oregon
on the bark Madonna, Captain George H. Flanders coming out with the Ma-
donna as first officer, and took command of the Madonna on reaching Oregon,
while Couch took charge of the cargo, which was stored and sold at the new town
of Portland on the Willamette. The two captains went into business together,
and remained in Portland for the rest of their lives. And thus were two of
the best men located in Portland that ever lived in the state.
Portland got the benefit of all this shipping by Captain Couch. He early
saw and fully appreciated the advantages of the location for the foundation
of a seaport and commercial city, and took advantage of his opportunities to
locate a land claim at what has long been the north end of the city. And con-
sidering what Captain Couch did directly for the town, by making it the home
port of his ships for several years, and also what he did indirectly by influenc-
ing other vessels to tie up at Portland, he probably exerted more influence to
give Portland a start than all other persons combined.
Next after Couch, in giving Portland a start, came Captain Nathaniel Crosby,
who founded the town of Milton, near the mouth of the Willamette slough.
Crosby brought the bark Toulon into the river in 1845, and unloaded his vessel
on the river bank at the foot of Washington street, and from there transported
his goods up to Oregon City by smaller craft. Captain Crosby made numerous
trips, and finally anchored in Portland and in 1847 erected the first palatial resi-
dence in the new city--the old story and a half house with the dormer windows
which stood for so many years on the east side of Fourth street, between Yam-
hill and Taylor, having been removed to that site from its original location
at the southwest corner of First and Washington streets. To accommodate the
increasing traffic of his shipping, Crosby erected a small storehouse on the city
front, probably on the open strip east of Front street, but most of his merchandise
was sent up to Oregon City, which continued to be the commercial center of the
whole country.
Besides Couch and Crosby, there were other traders with ships entering the
river. In 1847 Captain Roland Gelston, of New York, brought in the bark
Whiton loaded with merchandise, and Captain Kilbourn came in with the brig
Henry also loaded with merchandise, and tied up at the east side opposite Port-
land, and seriously threatened to start a rival city over there. There was plenty


OF
STATES
AM
ONE
CENT
ERICA
UNITET
1895
THE COIN THAT WAS TOSSED TO DECIDE THE NAME OF THE TOWN

CAPT. JOHN H. COUCH
Who located the town
UNIL
OF
Picw
3
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
363
of free land to be had for the taking, and a town site or two more or less could
not make much difference to Portland, and the doughty captain was told to go
ahead with his town, for it would all be Portland after awhile, and so now, sixty-
five years afterward, it is all Portland, with five bridges to connect the two sides
and another bridge coming.
Captain Gelston, mentioned above, made a second voyage to the Pacific
coast, arriving in San Francisco bay, just after the great gold fever excitement
got well started, and taking advantage of the gold panic news sent to the states,
Gelston had laid in a heavy stock of picks, gold pans and shovels, and when he
got safe within the. “Golden Gate” his fortune was made, from the sales of his
hardware at prices twenty-fold of what it had cost him.
With these ships came in some good men who located, drove down their
stakes, and staid with the town until all got rich and repaid the town by great
service as good and useful citizens. Of these may be mentioned Richard Hoyt,
who came as first officer on the Whiton; and Daniel Lunt, one of the mates of
the Chenamus. Lunt took up a land claim south of Terwilliger's, and subse-
quently sold it to Thomas Stevens. The suburb of Fulton is now built on the
Lunt claim.
But according to the recollection of Colonel Nesmith, the first land claim
within the present limits of the city was the claim just south of Lovejoy and
Pettygrove. This was taken up in 1842 by William Johnson, an English sailor,
who was living on his claim before Overton was claiming the land he sold to
Lovejoy and Pettygrove. Johnson's name figured considerably in the history
of the celebrated or notorious “Wrestling Joe" Thomas' lawsuit about the Ca-
ruthers estate, that estate being almost wholly the land originally claimed by
Johnson and abandoned or sold by him to Finice Caruthers. 'Mrs. Charlotte
Moffett Cartwright remembers well the cabin of Johnson and his half-blood In-
dian wife, which was located near the trail which led from the Terwilliger home
to the "town.' Johnson removed from the site of Portland to the vicinity of
Champoeg.
Johnson had an interesting history, showing what a lot of odd and celebrated
characters drifted into this then out-of-the-way corner of the world. He was
originally an English sailor, subject of Great Britain, but foreswore his alle-
giance to the British king, and took service with the United States on the old
frigate Constitution, and was in the celebrated naval battle between that ship
and the British "man-of-war” Guerriere, in which bloody battle he made one
of boarding party charging the bulwarks of the Guerriere and received an ugly
scalp wound from a British cutlass. He delighted to tell of this terrible sea
fight, speaking of the "Old Ironsides” as one might speak of their dearest friend.
And being the only Oregonian known to have taken part in a naval battle in
defense of the American flag, he is entitled to have his.name reverently pre-
served in this history. When the war of 1812 broke out between the United
States and Great Britain, it was supposed that as this country had no navy, the
English would sweep the American merchantmen from the seas. This they
tried to do; and the few small frigates of the Americans could offer but little
opposition. The American ship made famous by the battle here commemorated,
had but then recently returned from European waters, where she barely escaped
capture by the speed of her sailing. And when she fell in with the British
364
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
cruiser Guerriere, off the Gulf of St. Lawrence, on the 19th day of August, 1812,
a trial of mettle and nerve was the result. The British captain had been anxious
to encounter a “Yankee man-of-war," having no doubt of an easy victory, and
the “Yankee Captain Hull of the Constitution was ready to accommodate him.
It was none of the modern steel-clad battle ships firing at each other from a range
of eight or ten miles, but they were wooden ships and they sailed right into each
other, firing their little cannon as rapidly as they could be loaded, until with
grappling irons one ship laid hold of the other and her brave men leaped over
all obstructions to end the fight at arm's length in a life and death struggle on the
decks of the boarded ship. This was the real battle in which William Johnson,
who had his little log cabin on the present site of Portland seventy years ago,
immortalized himself in. He was defending his adopted country against the in-
justice of the land that gave him birth, and he shed his blood that the Stars and
Stripes should not be hauled down in defeat. He was the first settler on the site
of Portland, Oregon. He was a member of the first committee appointed to or-
ganize the provisional government, and he was one of the fifty-two who stood up
at Champoeg sixty-nine years ago to be counted from the Stars and Stripes. And
it is justly due to his memory that his name and his great services be here duly
recorded, that they may be honored for all time.
The original proprietors and their land claims will be better under-
stood by reference to the drawing here given. William Johnson, the first set-
tler within the present limits of old Portland, had taken the land south of the
Overton tract, claimed by Lovejoy and Pettygrove, for the reason that the river
valley south of the line of Caruthers street was open grass land, and furnished
pasturage for cattle and horses. Etienne Lucier, one of the two Canadian
French Catholics that stood up to be counted for American institutions at Cham-
poeg, was the first settler within the boundaries of East Portland, and the first
man to open a farm in Oregon, which he did on East Portland townsite in that
year, 1829; but he made no claim on the land, and before Portland was claimed
for a townsite, he removed to the open prairie lands called "French Prairie"
(because so many Frenchmen settled there) in Marion county, and made his
home there as a result of the offer of seed wheat to them by Dr. John McLoughlin,
the head of the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Vancouver. The wheat thus
raised was sold to Dr. McLoughlin at Champoeg, and he, in turn, sold it to the
Russian authorities at Sitka, and thus paid for trapping privileges in Alaska.
Lovejoy and Pettygrove were the next settlers filing claims on the Overton
tract. And before any others came in they laid out sixteen blocks into lots,
blocks and streets, making the block at the southwest corner of Front and Wash-.
ington streets "block No. 1.” James Terwilliger claimed the land south of the
Johnson tract. Daniel Lunt claimed the land south of the Terwilliger tract.
Daniel H. Lownsdale claimed the land west of Lovejoy and Pettygrove, and
Captain Couch claimed the land north of Lovejoy and Pettygrove. Then John-
son sold out to Finice Caruthers; Lunt sold to Thomas Stephens; Lownsdale sold
to Amos N. King; Lovejoy sold out his interests to Benjamin Stark, and Petty-
grove sold out to Lownsdale in 1848 for $5,000 worth of leather, and Lownsdale
agreed to a segregation of the lands so that Stark got the sole title to the triangu-
lar tract bounded by the river on the east, Stark street on the south and the
Couch claim (line of Ankeng street) on the north.
Daniel H. Lownsdale was the first man to get into the townsite who fully

DRYGOODS GROCERIES
2007S SHOES LIDOSORS &
PREOKROCDEN
FIRST PHOTO TAKEN OF FRONT STREET, PORTLAND, IN 1852
The citizens proudly showing the first dray.—Reading from right to left, the first tall
hat man, is W. S. Ogden, merchant; the next man Ogden's partner, John M. Breok;
next, tall hat man, Henry W. Corbett; next, tall hat man, is Thomas J. Dryer (founder
of "The Oregonian"); the man in the door, behind Dryer, is W. H. Barnhart, first agent
for Wells Fargo in Oregon; the short man, beyond Dryer, is Adolph Miller, the drayman;
and the man on the extreme left is Charles P. Bacon.
UNIL
OF
ICH
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
365
comprehended the great future of the place. He had considerable experience
as a merchant and business man, and had traveled much, not only in the United
States, but also in Europe; and not only appreciated the advantages of the po-
sition, but possessed the confidence and enthusiasm so necessary to succeed with
a new enterprise. Born in Kentucky, moved to Indiana, from Indiana to Geor-
gia, traveled in Europe, then to Oregon, he gave all his thoughts, time and en-
ergy to every possible plan to build up the new town. He sold lots at nominal
prices, or gave them away to secure improvements. He did not get very far
along until he felt the need of assistance, and soon found the right man in the
person of Stephen Coffin, then living at Oregon City, to whom he sold a half
interest in the townsite. Coffin was a man of great push and energy, and quite
as much of an optimist as Lownsdale. The two men made a team that settled the
future of Portland. But they did not get very far into the depths of the spec-
ulation until they ran up against so many legal snags and obstructions that they
felt the need of a legal adviser. And for that man, the man who fully believed
in Portland, and most heartily and harmoniously worked with and approved
the efforts of Lownsdale and Coffin, was William W. Chapman; and to Chap-
man, Lownsdale and Coffin united in selling and conveying an undivided one-
third interest. So far as the town on the east side of the river is concerned,
the water ont and lands back of it for a mile were covered by the claims of
James B. Stephens and Jacob Wheeler. But neither of these men ever con-
tributed anything whatever to the success of locating or building a city at this
point. Lownsdale, Coffin and Chapman soon put their affairs in shape for ag-
gressive and continuous work for the town by organizing a townsite company,
of which Coffin was president and Chapman was secretary, and thus making
Portland the strongest and most active townsite interest on the Pacific coast
north of San Francisco. Lot Whitcomb, as the representative and principal
owner of the Milwaukie townsite, had been giving the Portlanders a hot fight for ·
supremacy. In this he was ably supported by Captain Joseph Kellogg, the
father of all the Kelloggs and the man who brought across the plains in 1848
the charter of the first Masonic Lodge on the Pacific coast—orginally Multnomah
Lodge No. 84, under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of Missouri, now
Multnomah Lodge No. 1, Oregon City. With their saw mill and little schooner,
they were earning money in making and carrying lumber down to San Francisco.
And just when the race appeared to be about even between the two rival cities,
Whitcomb got hold of a steam engine at San Francisco, brought it up here, and
with the aid of Jacob Kamm, built and equipped a steamboat, launching her
on Christmas day, 1850. Whitcomb soon had her going, a first-class, com-
modious boat for those days, and put her on the route between Milkaukie and
Astoria, twenty dollars for the down trip and twenty-two dollars for the return
trip, with meals additional, steaming past Portland without stopping or either
saluting with a blast from the steam whistle.
At the same time that Whitcomb and Kellogg were waging their active op-
position to Portland, the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, which had at first
made Astoria the end of their trip, suddenly abandoned Astoria, and came up
and purchased a large interest at St. Helens, and erected a wharf and ware-
house there, and made St. Helens the Oregon terminus of their San Francisco
steamship voyage. Whitcomb and Kellogg at once united in this arrangement,
and as it was a shorter run for their steamboat, it could be and was used effect-
366
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
ively to cut off trade from Portland by running the boat to Vancouver and Ore-
gon City, as well as to all points on the Columbia river.
Up to this period, Captain John H. Couch had been the most efficient sup-
port that Portland had received in concentrating trade, especially the ocean-
going sailing vessels. Couch's influence was never fully comprehended in this
contest. He had made the acquaintance of hundreds of sea captains and was
favorably known wherever these captains sailed their ships; and the fact that
he had always discharged his own ship here influenced all his acquaintances on
the seas to also sail for Portland, Oregon."
But now the townsite proprietors--Coffin, Chapman and Lownsdale—must
bestir themselves. They were compelled to meet the opposition of the Pacific Mail
Steamship Company and destroy it one way or another, or be ruined. And by this
time (1850) although growing slowly, Portland had gathered in quite a village
population of active, earnest men, who not only had their own property inter-
ests at stake, but had a genuine friendship for the townsite proprietors. And
it was decided that a long pull, and a strong pull, and a pull all together,
was the thing to do and get in a steamship in the interest of Portland. This
sentiment being conveyed down to San Francisco, the side-wheel steamer
Gold Hunter took in a cargo for Portland, Oregon, and came up to see how the
town looked. This was the first ocean-going steamship that ever tied up at
Portland. It was in fact a gold hunter, and was for sale. Immediately every
friend of Portland got busy. Hope and enthusiasm took the place of anxiety
and fear in the face of the towns-people, and courage once more filled up the
shrinking purse. The price and terms for the ship were ascertained. Sixty
thousand dollars would purchase a controlling interest in the ship, and run her
between Portland, Oregon, and San Francisco. Twenty-one thousand dollars
of this was raised and paid in an hour, of which sum Coffin, Chapman and
· Lownsdale put up eighteen thousand six hundred dollars.
And while this transaction revived the hopes and confidence of many, and
strengthened the courage of all, it did not end the contest. The Pacific Mail
Steamship Company, with ample capital, set to work to undermine the bulwarks
put up by the Portlanders, and bought out some of the interests of Portland stock-
holders in the Gold Hunter, again giving San Francisco the whip-hand. And
after a few trips to Portland the Gold Hunter was treacherously sent down to
South America, mortgaged and sold for a trifle of her value to get rid of all the
Portland stockholders. It was a bitter lesson to Portland, and withal most dis-
honorable on the part of pretended friends and open enemies. But it had proved
one thing, and that was that Portland would fight for the rights of the town,
and that the town was a force that was not to be despised for weakness or want
of courage. In the meantime, Portland had been making allies on the land side.
A fairly passable wagon road had been opened out to Tualatin Plains and on up
the valley to Yamhill and Polk counties, by which the farmers of all that region
could haul their product to Portland.
Although the money was gone, the investment in the steamship had not been
wholly lost. It had been proved that an ocean-going steamship could safely and
successfully come to Portland with full cargoes and could get full cargoes of
produce and safely go out to sea again. The steamships were not getting cargoes
at St. Helens, as Whitcomb's steamboat carried the produce to them, and it did
not get enough to load them. Whitcomb could get nothing at Milwaukie but

OF
VIEW OF PORTLAND FROM THE EAST SIDE OF THE WILLAMETTE RIVER–1858
IV.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
367
lumber, and that could not be shipped on the steamer. The farmers could not,
and would not, haul their produce to St. Helens, and the Whitcomb would not
stop at Portland to get it, and so the St. Helens ships were sailing away with
little or nothing of freight. And thus it was made plain to the steamship own-
ers that they were gnawing a file; and that sooner or later some other steamship
would sail into Portland harbor and appropriate a profitable trade that they
never could get by staying at St. Helens. And thus forced, in March, 1851, the
Pacific Mail Steamship Company abandoned its opposition, ran up the Portland
flag and sent all its ships to the wharves of Portland. And from that day on
the supremacy of Portland, as against all other points on the Columbia and
Willamette rivers, was acknowledged everywhere.
Of the three men who made good the project of Amos Lawrence'Lovejoy in
the establishment of a city at this location, Daniel H. Lownsdale comes first in
order for notice. Mr. Lownsdale was born in Mason county, Kentucky, in 1803.
At the age of twenty-three he married Ruth, youngest daughter of Paul Over-
field, Esq., and moved to Gibson county, Indiana. In 1830 his wife died leaving
three children, two daughters and a son. That son was J. P. O. Lownsdale, who
for many years was an active and influential citizen of Portland, passing away
in July, 1910, at the age of eighty years. After losing his wife, Mr. Lownsdale
moved to the state of Georgia and engaged in mercantile pursuits. And there,
losing his health, he took a trip to Europe and traveled through many countries.
Returning to the United States in 1844, he found the southwest agitated over
the “Oregon Question," and immediately made up his mind to come out to this
unsettled region and grow up with the country. Joining an emigrant train in
the spring of 1845, he crossed the plains with the usual luck and labor of other
emigrants, and reached the Portland townsite late in 1845; and soon after, as
has been stated, claimed the King donation claim, west of the city, and started
the first commercial tannery north of California and west of the Rocky moun-
tains. He died in May, 1862, and is buried in Lone Fir cemetery on the east side
of the river.
Of General Stephen Coffin much can be said in his praise as a public-spirited
man, and a most energetic and successful builder of the city of Portland. Gen-
eral Coffin was born at Bangor, Maine, in 1807, moved west to the state of Ohio
early in life, and crossed the plains and reached Oregon City in October, 1847.
Here he went to work with the industry and energy that characterized his whole
life, and at the end of two years he had accumulated enough to enable him to
purchase a half interest in the Portland townsite claim, as has already been
stated. When the tug of war came up with the Pacific Mail Steamship Company,
Coffin was in the forefront of the battle. His whole being rebelled at anything
like injustice. It was said of him that when the immigrants reached Oregon,
of which party he was a member, some of those already here attempted to extort
unreasonable prices for food and accommodations, and Coffin rebelled. To as-
suage his wrath, he was told that his treatment was the usual custom, and when
he got settled in the country he could recoup his losses by' fleecing other immi-
grants in like manner. This only made matters worse, and the newcomer so bit-
terly denounced such conduct as to make enemies that never forgave him. But
he was not the man to shape his conduct to placate enemies or please wrong.
doers. Fearless and courageous, he pushed his way over all opposition, serving
the public faithfully in every act of his life, and often at the sacrifice of per-
368
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
.
sonal interest. He was liberal to the public and his friends to a fault. He is
the only man that ever gave grounds for the public schools of the city; he gave
the first bell to a church in the city, which still sends out its call from the old
Taylor-street church every Sunday morning, inviting in the faithful. He or-
ganized the company to build the wagon road to Washington county; he organ-
ized the People's Transportation Company to reduce freight charges on the Wil-
lamette and Columbia rivers; he helped start the Oregon Central Railroad, and
many other enterprises. (For further notice see biographical sketches.)
The third man to join the Portland Townsite Company was William W. Chap-
man. Esq., who for distinguished services in the Oregon Indian wars was com-
inissioned a colonel of the volunteers and ever afterwards retained that title.
Colonel Chapman was born in old Virginia, early in 1800. His father was a
brick mason and contractor, and built the first brick building in Washington
City. By dint of great personal efforts and private study, he picked up an
education, studied law and attained a good position in the practice of the law in
Virginia. But thinking the new western states offered the best opportunities
for advancement, removed to Iowa while that region was yet a part of Michigan.
There he was appointed United States district attorney, and when Iowa was set
off as a separate territory, Chapman was elected the first delegate to Congress
from Iowa, in 1836. He made a fine impression in Congress in his efforts to re-
claim to Iowa a strip of territory, in dispute with Missouri, and in which he was
entirely successful, giving him great credit in the new state. He was a member of
the convention to form a constitution for Iowa, and was the father of the measure
to transfer the gifts of public lands to the states for internal improvements from
such purpose to the endowment of public schools, and which after that became
the settled policy of the United States. And while in congress he was to a great
extent the author of the legislation to provide the right to preempt public lands,
which then led to the Homestead Act, which has made millions of people happy
and independent. Colonel Chapman came to Oregon in 1847, settling first at Cor-
vallis and later at Salem. He was often at Oregon City on legal business, and
there made the acquaintance of Coffin and 'Lownsdale, and got into the Portland
Townsite Company. He held many positions of honor and trust, discharging
every duty with scrupulous integrity, an honor to the city and the state, and
passed away with the universal respect of all citizens.
The battle to make Portland the land terminus of all ocean commerce was the
first and greatest question to be settled. That settled in favor of Portland, the
people would come fast enough. But before it was settled the settlers and little
businesses were slowly coming in.
The ferry across the river was started as early as 1845, consisting of one
canoe.
The first blacksmith shop was opened by Terwilliger at the corner of First
and Morrison streets in 1846.
Henderson Luelling brought in the first grafted fruit trees in 1847. In this
same year Captain Crosby built the first frame house in the town, bringing the
materials for it from the eastern states in his ship around Cape Horn. Talk
about carrying "coals to Newcastle," but don't forget Crosby's house, carried
twenty thousand miles in a ship to build alongside the finest timber in the world.
In 1848 the first Methodist church was organized in Portland, and the erec-
tion of the church building commenced by Rev. J. H. Wilbur.

H.
M
UN
THE
DTHIER
AND
ATTER
COAL
VIEW AT FIRST AND ALDER STREETS, LOOKING NORTH
The great flood of 1894, caused by backwater from the Columbia river sent down by melting snows in the Rocky Mountains in June
2
IV.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
369
In 1851 the first Congregational church was erected at the corner of Second
and Jefferson streets, the Rev. Horace Lyman, first pastor, clearing the ground
of trees himself.
In 1849 Colonel Wm. King built a sawmill to run by water power, but it
burned down before it could be made to do anything.
In 1850, W. P. Abrams and Cyrus A. Reed erected a steam saw mill near the
foot of Jefferson street. The main building was forty feet wide and eighty feet
long; the timbers being hewed out of the giant firs growing alongside the mill
site, and being sixteen inches square were so heavy that all the men in town were
unable to put the timbers in place or “raise”' the building, and General Coffin
had to go up to Oregon City to get men to help. But even with this assistance,
they could not handle the timbers, and Reed was forced to rig a derrick, and
with block and tackle, and all the men to pull on the ropes, they hoisted the tim-
bers to place and erected the first saw' mill at Portland, Oregon, a mill that would
cut about ten thousand feet a day. Quite a change since 1850 to the town of
sixty years later, that cuts and ships more lumber than any other city in the
world.
In those days everybody worked and labored hard in building houses. In
describing the work of J. H. Wilbur (Father Wilbur), of the first Methodist
church, a contemporary said of him: “Stalwart and strong, the great forest that
stood where Taylor street church now stands (southeast corner Third and Taylor
streets), fell before his axe. The walls of the old church rose by his saw and
hammer, and grew white and beautiful under his paint brush; tired bodies rested
and listened to his powerful preaching on Sunday, poverty was fed at his table,
and sickness cured by his medicines.'
And now we reach the first business excitement at the new town. On the
first of August, 1848, a little schooner from San Francisco pulled into the wharf
at the little town of Portland, Oregon, and after unloading a lot of Mexican pro-
duce and goods, began to load up not only with Oregon produce but with all the
shovels, picks and pans that could be secured at the two stores in town. And
after making a clean-up of all these necessary tools to mine placer gold, the cap-
tain made known the discovery of gold in California by J. W. Marshall. Mar-
shall had come to Oregon as an immigrant, across the plains in 1844. And not
getting anything to do here at Portland, went down to California in 1846 and
was employed by General Sutter at his mill near where the city of Sacramento
now stands. Marshall was followed in 1847 by Charles Bennett and Stephen
Staats, and they were there at the mill when Marshall found the first gold. And
thus, we see, that it was an Oregonian going from Portland and Oregon City to
California that made the discovery that gave to the world four hundred million
dollars in gold, and which revolutionized the currents and conditions of trade,
commerce and living expense in every civilized land.
The rush to the gold discoveries nearly depopulated the town. And while it
carried off many good workers, there were compensations for their absence.
Lumber, wheat, potatoes and everything fit to eat, ran up to enormous prices and
the Oregon farmers were soon digging as much gold out of their land as the
miners were getting in California. The gold discoveries helped in another way.
Very soon gold dust and states money was rolling back into Oregon for the pro-
duce sent down and surplus dust sent back to families and friends; so that wheat
svas no longer the circulating legal tender medium, but gold dust, and finally
Vol. J-24
370
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
“Beaver Money” made from dust at the Oregon City mint, became the circulat-
ing medium and greatly stimulated trade in all its branches.
Thomas Carter and wife came in from Georgia and located the land claim
south of the King claim, and which covered what is now known as Portland
Heights. Carter built the first old-style southern states' mansion house out in
the region for a long time demeaned by the name of “Goose Hollow,” but sub-
sequently changed into "Paradise Valley'—the region bounded by Jefferson
street on the north, Chapman street on the west, Lownsdale street on the east,
and Market street on the south. Carter lived on the claim for many years, but
finally sold out to his two sons, Charles M. Carter and Thomas Jefferson Carter,
both forceful and public-spirited men.
Goose Hollow” was for a long time a sort of “no man's land,” being too far
out to be salable for city lots, and not worth grubbing out to put in potatoes.
In consequence of which a miscellaneous lot of people got in there who did not
really go in the "upper ten" class in 1862. And while the good husbands were
busy digging stumps or catering to the thirst of the sturdy yeomen on Front
street, their good wives were adding to family comforts by raising geese and
plucking their feathers as far out as the Carter mansion. In consequence of this
goose industry it soon got to be that every woman in the little valley had a flock
of 'geese. And in consequence of the numbers of them they all mixed up to-
gether, and every good woman in the whole neighborhood claimed all the geese.
And from pulling feathers they got to pulling other things, and some twenty,
more or less, 'goose owners were cited to appear before Police Judge J. F. McCoy
to receive justice at the august forum of Portland's first police court. McCoy
had a worse job of it than the judge who decided the case between the two women
who claimed the same baby, two thousand years ago. But he was equal to the
occasion and his decision was, that Marshal J. H. Lappeus and his two deputies
should repair to the seat of war and round up every flock of geese that he could
find, count them and then divide them equally among the contending owners; and
that thereafter the first woman who complained about the geese should be “in-
cerated in the city bastile." For that trip, Lappeus named it "Goose Hollow,''
and the name stuck.
A careful review of the facts and the men will show that the future of the
city and its permanent and substantial success dates back to this period, and
practically to a group of about a dozen leading men who were compelled, from
the very nature of the case, to pull together for self-preservation. Much has
been said and written from time to time about the want of unanimity and har-
monious enterprise among the rich men of Portland. And while there had been
often outward manifestations of a want of harmony, if not secret opposition to
each other, yet altogether the evolutionary progress of the city has compelled
inharmonious elements to work and labor for the common good. Incoming busi-
ness men were loth to open their purses to make improvements which they thought
added more to the prosperity of the townsite owners than their own. And
some of these same business men were so stiff upon this point that they would
not buy town lots at a low price which would have made them wealthy while
they waited for profits from other sources. But altogether the logic of events
compelled all of them, in one way or the other, to contribute their time, ener-
gies, and money indirectly to build a city which made all of them rich.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
371
Counting in the original townsite proprietors, Coffin, Chapman and Lowns-
dale, we can add to their efforts those of Captain J. C. Ainsworth, Jacob Kamm,
Henry W. Corbett, Henry Failing, C. H. Lewis, Captain John H. Couch, Cap-
tain George H. Flanders, William G. Ladd, Simeon G. Reed and R. R. Thompson,
to whose brains and energy Portland is indebted for its present masterful posi-
tion in the commerce and general prosperity of the country.
Captain Ainsworth had settled first at Oregon City, and with his brother-
in-law, Dierdorff, had been carrying on a general store and trading establish-
ment at that point. But seeing the natural advantages of Portland, and early
getting into the steamboat business, so shaped his affairs as to transfer all his
interests to this point, and as the transportation on the Columbia river developed,
became the executive head of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company-the first
large transportation company of the North Pacific coast. Ainsworth's last
work on behalf of the city was in extending transportation to Eastern Oregon,
building hte portage railway at the Cascades and The Dalles, and in exploring
the Columbia to its headwaters and into Kootenai lake, where vast mineral
wealth has followed the discoveries made by Ainsworth's exploring parties.
And while Ainsworth added vastly to the fortune of himself, Reed and Thomp-
son, by the sale of the property of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company to
the Northern Pacific Railway Company, that transaction enabled Henry Vil-
lard to get such control of the railroads leading to the great Columbia basin, as
to hold the transcontinental business to Portland long enough to demonstrate
its superior and exclusive advantages as the gateway to the Pacific; and thus
eventually, as has now been established, control the heavy transportation be-
tween the coast of Oregon and Washington and the Atlantic states.
Of this group of men, Jacob Kamm is entitled to be ranked the first in steam-
boat development. Before Lot Whitcomb could build the first steamboat, he
was compelled to bring Mr. Kamm from California to superintend the con-
struction. In this pioneer work, Mr. Kamm, with his own hands, put all the
machinery together even down to riveting the boiler sheets. From this begin-
ning, Jacob Kamm went on with work on other steamers, and had supervision
as master mechanic, chief engineer and part owner of the steamboats Jennie
Clark, Carrie Ladd, Mountain Buck, Senorita, the Mary, Hassalo, Rival, Sur-
prise and Elk. Mr. Kamm was the first and only man to put steamboat traus-
portation on the upper Snake river. He was the sole owner of the ocean
steamer, George S. Wright, which he ran from Portland to Victoria, Sitka and
Alaska, being the only capitalist Portland had that would make a fight to hold
that trade to Portland. In latter years he organized the Vancouver Transpor-
tation Company, and put on the steamers Lurline and Undine. His work in
building up the city is incalculable. Mr. Kamm was born in Switzerland, in
1823, and is yet a citizen of Portland, with all his faculties unimpaired at the
age of 89. He learned the steamboat business from engineer's assistant up to
owner of ocean steamships; commencing at the engine room on a Mississippi
steamboat-another splendid example of what a poor boy can do with patient
work and honest endeavor.
Henry W. Corbett, born in Westborough, Mass., in 1827, commenced at the
foot of the ladder of fortune and fame in a wholesale dry goods store in New
York City, where he spent seven years in hard work. At the end of that time
372
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
his employers had so much confidence in him that they sold him a stock of
goods on credit which he brought around Cape Horn in a ship that landed at
this town on March 4, 1851. There were four hundred people here then, with
five little stores in town. Corbett rented an unfinished building at the southwest
corner of Front and Oak streets, paying a hundred and twenty-five dollars a
month rent for it. He worked hard, being proprietor, clerk, salesman, and book-
keeper all in one, and at the end of fourteen months, had sold out his whole stock,
cleared twenty thousand dollars, and started back to New York to get another
cargo of merchandise.
He remained in New York one year, but continued to ship goods to Port-
land for sale. He then determined to make Portland his home, and returned
in 1853, with a larger stock of general merchandise, and in 1860 converted his
store into an exclusive hardware business, and in 1871 consolidated with Henry
Failing, forming the firm of Corbett, Failing & Co., making it the largest hard-
ware establishment on the Pacific coast. Mr. Corbett's activities in business life
have been more extensive and varied than that of any other citizen of Portland,
which, with his service in the United States Senate, has made him one of the
most useful, if not the most conspicuous, citizen of the state of Oregon.
Cicero H. Lewis is the typical merchant in all comparison, among men who
have followed the business of merchandising in the city of Portland. He is the
only man among the many distinguished business men that Portland has de-
veloped that has been “the merchant” from first to last. Messrs. Corbett, Fail-
ing, Ladd, Ainsworth, and others might be named who commenced as merchants,
switched off into some other pursuit, before ending their career. Mr. Lewis com-
menced his career as a merchant in 1851, and remained steadfast in the har-
ness until death called him January 5, 1897. He founded and built up the
great wholesale grocery house of Allen & Lewis, until now its patrons cover
the whole country from Ashland, Oregon, up to the furthest limits of Alaska.
Many a distressed country retail man he has helped along for years until
farms and business grew up to help him out. Like Henry Failing, C. H. Lewis
never pressed a customer, and his word was as good as government bonds
throughout the whole northwest. Aside from this business nearly all the edu-
cational and charitable institutions—especially the Good Samaritan Hospital
and the Protestant Episcopal Church-owe much to his wise guidance and finan-
cial support, or that of his family.
Henry Failing came to Portland in 1851, in a subordinate position with his
father, Josiah Failing, of blessed memory, and became a partner in the firm of
J. Failing & Company. The business prospered, and in 1864, Failing, Sr., re-
tired, leaving the hardware business to his sons, Henry, Edward and James.
This business was carried on with success and profit until it was consolidated
with that of Mr. Corbett in 1871. In 1869 Mr. Corbett and Henry Failing pur-
chased a controlling interest in the First National Bank, which had been organ-
ized by the Starr Bros., it being the first National Bank on the Pacific coast.
Mr. Failing became president of the bank and from that day on it has been the
great bank success of the Pacific coast. As mayor of the city, as president of the
board of commissioners that constructed the water works to bring water from
Bull Run lake, a few miles north of Mt. Hood, and in every trust reposed in him,
Henry Failing, is the man against whom there never was a doubt, but that the
PACIFIC OCEAN
NEW
YON
TO
/
LIVERPO04
3130
MILIES
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
CALCUTTA
Pric
MANILA
HONG KONG
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
Boe
CAIRO
on viivoo
Phone
AFRICA
VLADIVOSTOCK
MAN 5013 MILES
YOKOHAMA
OKOHI
1
LONDON:
PORTI ANO
NORTH
POLE
Boo
1
na 4200 min
PORTLAND
NEW YORK
2338 M
TO HON
Boruto
PORTLAN
HONOLULU
CHICAGO
TROPIL
SAN FRANCISCO
n.
UMID
OF
CANCER
MEXICO
PORTLAND ON THE DIRECT MAIN ROUTE AROUND THE WORLD CONNECTING ALL
THE COMMERCIAL CITIES AND NATIONS
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
373
public and every private citizen, no matter how poor or humble, would get abso-
lute and unqualified justice in the discharge of every duty. The great bank is a
monument to his business sagacity and fidelity to the interests of its patrons; and
not a single dollar ever passed into its treasury that was made by the foreclosure
of any mortgage or the pressure of any debtor. With a brusque exterior, Henry
Failing possessed one of the kindest and most sympathetic hearts in existence.
And with generosity to all he was the absolute standard of honesty, justice and
fair dealing in all his ways. With justifiable pride, his children have placed
over his mortal remains, the epitaph:
"HE WAS A JUST MAN AND LOVED MERCY
With long personal acquaintance, the author of this history can testify that
no man ever deserved the above tribute more than Henry Failing.
Captains Couch and Flanders have been already referred to, but not as
they deserve to be. Captain John H. Couch most assuredly drove down the first
stake to fasten the city at this point, when he tied up his ship at the foot of
Washington street, before there was a house here, and said, "To this point can I
bring any ship that can get into the mouth of the great Columbia river."
Like most men developed on the high seas, when he knew anything, he was sure
and confident of his knowledge. When others were trembling and temporiz-
ing for fear Portland would fail like the dozen other places, Captain Couch
lost no sleep over their fears. He knew just as well that the city had to be
built here as the experienced locomotive engineer can tell how many loaded cars
his engine can pull from Portland to Dalles City. That confidence was worth mil-
lions to Portland because it converted all other sea captains to the idea that Port-
land was the seaport of the Columbia river. In this view Captain George H.
Flanders fully occurred. These two men practically made the Pacific ocean
contribute to the success and prosperity of the city. This was their great
contribution to the building of Portland, although their help in other ways would
fill a book. When railroad development was proposed these two men-John
H. Couch and George H. Flanders—placed their names at the top of the roll
of Portland men who aided in starting railroad construction by donating ten
city blocks in the north end of the city for depot and terminal grounds. The
Union depot stands on land which they gave to the old Oregon Central Rail-
road Company when the author of this book was its president and manager
forty-two years ago. But in every other way, and especially in contributing to
the religious and charitable institutions of the city, they and their families have
taken a leading part in making not only a rich and prosperous city, but also a
moral, peaceful, healthful and clean place to raise families in.
As the life and growth of the city goes on, and for generations upon gen-
erations hereafter, the name of Simeon G. Reed is likely to be more in the minds
of men and women in this city than the names of all the other men above
combined. Like R. R. Thompson, for the greater part of his career in Port-
land, Mr. Reed shone by the reflected light of J. C. Ainsworth. Reed was a
closer friend of Ainsworth than any other man, although Ainsworth, Reed and
Thompson, were always spoken of as "The Triumvirate." Mr. Reed was always
a very charitable man, kind-hearted and gentle, with lucky fortune dogging his
374
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
steps throughout life. He put a price on some mining stock in Nevada once,
and then went off hunting sage hens in Umatilla county. A great body of rich
ore was uncovered in the mine, and before the San Francisco “mining sharps"
could locate Reed with telegrams, that stock advanced a hundred thousand
dollars in value, and Reed got back to the old town of Umatilla in time to can-
cel his offer before it could to taken up by the pursuers. S. G. Reed never
lost any sleep or worried about matters he could not prevent. He was always
ready to help any man that deserved his help if they did not ask too much.
He finally came to regard his great fortune as a trust in his hands for the
benefit of his fellow-men. And having no children, and but few relatives when
he passed away, he requested his life-long help-meet, Mrs. Amanda Reed, to
devote their wealth to the benefit of the people of the city of Portland. In pur-
suance of that wish, Mrs. Reed, in her last will and testament, provided that
after paying some legacies to relatives, the Reed millions should be devoted
to founding a great institution for the teaching of practical and scientific
knowledge to the youth of this city. And that great bequest is now being ad-
ministered to carry out the wishes of the large-hearted donors.
Of other notable men who have made their impress on the city and aided
largely in establishing the useful institutions of the pioneer town, Judge P.
A. Marquam is entitled to a high position. While he never made a million
dollars, he did make enough, and made it honestly, to attract the wolves of
finance and banking to rend him to pieces and rob him of what he had. The
“Marquam case," wherein the supreme court of Oregon held that a trust deed
was not a trust but a mortgage, will go down to future courts and judges as
an anomaly in jurisprudence that is a disgrace to any state. But Judge
Marquam's claim to honorable recognition in the history of Oregon does not
depend on either property or business. While in California, he served with
distinction in the wars to subdue the Indians and protect the gold miners.
He was elected county judge twice before coming to Oregon. On reaching
Portland he engaged in law practice and soon secured a large business. Soon
after he was elected county judge and re-elected, serving in all eight years.
Under his administration nearly all the roads in the country were located
and opened to travel.
There were, of course, many other men in the town hard at work at the date
when these more prominent leaders located here who are entitled to recog-
nition, and would not be overlooked here if the facts of their lives were now
accessible. To produce the daily life of the little town now, after the passing of
sixty years has carried away forever the lives and incidents of that day, is a
difficult if not impossible task, and if enough is furnished to enable the dis-
criminating reader to guess at what has been lost by time, it is the best that
can be done.
CHAPTER XIV
1847-1855
THE WHITMAN MASSACRE--THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT ARMY--THE CAYUSE IN-
DIAN WAR ROGUE RIVER INDIAN WARS BATTLES OF BATTLE ROCK AND BIG
MEADOWS-GENERAL LANE BLUFFS OUT 150 SAVAGES-CHIEF JOHN, THE LAST
'BRAVE” TO SURRENDER-THE YAKIMA WAR-THE MODOC WAR-THE CANBY-
i
THOMAS MASSACRE.
The most appalling horror in the history of Oregon and equal in demoniac
savagery to anything in the history of the entire country was the unprovoked
massacre of Dr. Marcus Whitman and wife, and twelve other persons at the Whit-
man missionary station in Walla Walla valley on November 29-30, 1847. And
while there was not the sickening ferocity of burning at the stake which has in
past times attended the deadly strife between competing races and rival creeds,
yet that element of diabolical depravity was more than equaled in the fact that
the victims of this bloody deed were purely, honestly and patiently sacrificing
their lives to benefit and lift up the savages that struck them down.
The actual facts of the bloody deed are briefly stated. During the forenoon
of the day on which the massacre was executed Dr. Whitman assisted at the fu-
neral of an Indian who had died during his visit to the Umatilla, and was struck
with the absence of the tribe, many of whom mounted, were riding about, and giv-
ing no attention to the burial; but as there had been a slaughter of beef which
was being dressed in the mission yard, an occasion which always drew the In-
dians about, the circumstances was in part at least accounted for. School was in
session, several men and boys were absent at the saw-mill near the foot of the
mountains; the women were employed with the duties of housekeeping and nurs-
ing the sick, and all was quiet as usual, when Whitman fatigued with two nights'
loss of sleep entered the common sitting-room of his house and sat down before
the fire to rest thinking such thoughts as — Ah! who will say?
While he thus mused, two chiefs, Tiloukaikt and Tamahas, surnamed “The
Murderer," from his having killed a number of his own people, presented them-
selves at the door leading to an adjoining room, asking for medicines, when the
doctor arose and went to them, afterward seating himself to prepare the drugs.
And now the hour had come! Tamahas stepped behind him, drew his tomahawk
from beneath his blanket, and with one or two cruel blows laid low forever the
man of God. John Sager, who was in the room prostrated by sickness, drew a
pistol, but was quickly cut to pieces. In his struggle for life he wounded two
of his assailants, who, at a preconcerted signal had with others crowded into the
house. A tumult then arose throughout the mission. All the men encountered
by the savages were slain. Some were killed outright; others were bruised and
375
376
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
mangled and left writhing back to consciousness to be assailed again until after
hours of agony .they expired. Dr. Whitman himself lived for some time after
he had been stricken down, though insensible. Mrs. Whitman, although wounded,
with Rogers and a few others also wounded, took refuge in an upper room of the
dwelling, and defended the staircase with a gun, until persuaded by Tamsucky
who gained access by assurances of sorrow and sympathy, to leave the chamber,
the savages below threatening to fire the house. On her way to the mansion house,
where the terror stricken women and children were gathered, she fainted on
encountering the mangled body of her husband, and was placed upon a wooden
settee by Rogers and Mrs. Hays, who attempted to carry her in this condition
through the space between the houses; but on reaching the outer door they
were surrounded by savages who instantly fired upon them, fatally wounding
Rogers, and several balls striking Mrs. Whitman, who, though not dead, was
hurled into a pool of water and blood on the ground. Not satisfied with this,
Ishalhal, who had formerly lived in Gray's family, and who had fired the first
shot at her before she escaped to the chamber from which Tamsucky treach-
erously drew her, seized her long auburn hair, now blood-stained and dis-
heveled, and lifting up the head happily unconscious, repeatedly struck the
dying woman's face with a whip, notwithstanding which life lingered for
several hours.
It is unnecessary to relate the butchery of other innocent persons which
lasted for several days and seemed to be carried on for the gratification of the
savage mind. The victims of this awful tragedy were Dr. Marcus Whitman,
Mrs. Narcissa Whitman, John Sager, Francis Sager, Crocket Bewley, Mr.
Rogers, Mr. Kimball, Mr. Sales, Mr. Marsh, Mr. Saunders, James Young, Jr..
Mr. Hoffman, and Isaac Gillen. Peter B. Hall, while not killed at the mission,
fled to Fort Walla Walla, but was denied admission, and was never heard of
afterward. And of the remaining persons at the Whitman mission, fifty-three
in number, young and old and mostly women and children, none were spared
from outrage of any sort that lust or thirst of blood could devise. In fact
the sufferings inflicted on the survivors by the savages were even more hor-
rifying than murder itself. Everything that the brutal Indian could suggest,
or any mind could imagine, was inflicted not only on mothers whose hus-
bands had been slaughtered but on little girls these mothers could not pro-
tect. Grown women and little girls were carried away to Indian tepees
for wives and subjected to all the outrages that brutal lust could inflict.
Miss Lorinda Bewley, a teacher of the Indian children, eleven days after the
massacre was dragged from a sick bed and torn from the arms of sympa-
thizing women, placed on horse in
in the
the midst of a high
high fever
and carried through a winter snow storm twenty-five miles to the lodge of an
Indian chief named Five Crows, and there for weeks in her sick
and enfeebled state forced to submit to the brutal outrages of the sav-
age. During the day time she was allowed to visit the house where Vicar
General Francis Norbert Blanchet, and Vicar General J. B. A. Brouillet, Catho-
lic priests made their home, but at night was dragged back to the lodge of the
Indian. Afterwards at the trial of these murderers at Oregon City, the girl testi-
fied that she cried and appealed to these priests to he protected either at the
house of the priests, or to be by them sent to the Hudson's Bay Co.'s, Fort Walla
Walla; but they would not interfere to protect her; and to add insult to injury
а.

M
L
ALASKA—(RUSSIAN PLAN)
(NEW ENGLAND PLAN)
IV.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
377
the priest Brouillet asked her how she liked her new husband. The conduct of
these priests towards this defenseless girl has been a matter of bitter recrimina-
tion between Protestants and Catholics for years. The priests themselves
never offered any explanation of their conduct; and by their silence have per-
mitted their critics and competitors in the missionary field to place whatever
construction on their acts that ordinary reason and true manhood would dictate.
And here the two diverging lines of Christian civilization meet and clash
again. They impinged and separated on the St. Lawrence. They proceeded on
their own way across the continent and strike helmets on the Columbia. The
Catholics and Canadian Frenchmen regarded the Indian as an inferior to be
taught to obey orders, to believe in signs and metaphors, to trust the gowned
priest who would make sure of his salvation with the Great Spirit. They did not
want his lands, they only wanted him to hunt wild animals. All this suited the
imagination and the comprehension of the Indian. But the Protestant missionary
and American settlers approached the native from an entirely different stand-
point. The missionary would regard him as a man and a brother to be edu-
cated, enlightened, and taught a system of theology that he could not prove;
and worse than all else—to quit his wild ways and go to work raising potatoes
and cattle. And the American settler was to the Indian a worse enemy than
the missionary. He would fence up the land to raise grain and cattle, and build
towns. That meant destruction of the wild game, the cutting off of the Indians
natural sources of life, and his eventual extinction. The Indian could not put
these ideas in words, but his self-preservation taught him the truth. Here was
the plain difference between the two rival ethical and religious systems. One
would appeal to the imagination, flatter the vanity and adroitly use the simple-
minded barbarian to help carry the common burden. The other would appeal
to his conscience and argue with him on propositions he could not understand,
take his land and fight him. One succeeded and kept the Indian quiet; the
other failed and bloody wars ensued.
The course of Whitman as a man of common apprehension, as the head of
a family, and the manager of the mission is difficult to explain. Dr. McLoughlin
had warned him of his danger, had called his attention to the fickle character
of the Indian and explained to him that the Indians would on occasion kill
their own “medicine" men. The honest old Indian friend, Sticcus, whom Col.
Nesmith pronounced the only Christian Indian he ever met, had warned Rev.
Spalding, and told him that the Indians had decided against the Americans.
Whitman and Spalding were bosom friends and Whitman knew all that Spald-
ing knew. Many other intimations had come to Whitman, and it was plain
that the Doctor and his wife were in great trouble from great peril. Then
why did he not secretly send off a courier to the Willamette valley for a guard
to come to his relief? He could have got it for the asking. His course re-
vealed a strange weakness or fatuity of conduct that cannot be explained.
Why did the Indians murder their friend? Three explanations were promi-
ment in the great excitement of the times sixty-five years ago. First, that Dr.
Whitman had given poison to the Indians sick with the measles which had been
brought into the country and communicated to the Indians by the American
immigrants of that year; and for that many Indians had died. Secondly, that
the Americans were going to take all the good lands from the Indians and pay
them nothing. Thirdly, that the Indians had been incited to the bloody deed
378
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
by the Hudson's Bay Co. and Catholic priests. The Indians engaged in the mas-
sacre themselves put forward the first excuse, even talking of it among them-
selves, as proven afterwards, before the murders were committed. A chief
named Tamsucky took the lead in this part of the conspiracy. Tamsucky's squaw
was sick, and it was agreed among the conspiring Indians to test the medicine
proposition. They would give the sick squaw some of Whitman's medicine, and
if she got well then the medicine was not poison; but if she died, then it was
poison, and Whitman must be killed. They gave the woman the medicine and
she died; then the massacre was decided upon and brutally executed.
As to the land taking excuse, there is no doubt that it had the effect to
break down the influence of Whitman and alienate the Indians from him. They
saw thousands of Americans coming every year. The first large immigration
-1843—had been brought by or come in with Whitman himself, returning from
the states that year. And every succeeding year the Americans came in in-
creasing numbers and many of them stopped to see Whitman as a friend. There
were also at that time twenty or thirty Iroquois Indians in Oregon, one a half-
breed, Joe Lewis was staying at the Whitman mission. These were all enemies
of the Americans and were continually poisoning the Indian mind against the
Americans by telling the Indians the white men had robbed all the Indians be-
yond the mountains of their lands, and that they would do likewise in Oregon
and that their only safety was to kill off all the whites before any more came over.
This had a powerful influence, and all the prejudice concentrated against the
victim Whitman.
As to the position of the Hudson's Bay Co. there never was any reasonable
grounds to suppose the officials of that company had in any way connived at the
murder of Whitman. McBean, the officer nearest to the Whitman station, acted
in a very selfish and heathenish manner towards the escaping Americans; but
that was accounted for by his general meanness of character as a man. Mc-
Loughlin, Ogden, and all others but McBean made 'common cause with the
Americans in denouncing the outrage and in rescuing the unfortunate prin
oners in the hands of the Indians. As to the Catholics, the Indians well knew
of the difference between and the strife between the Catholics and Protestants :
and like all the little-minded of mankind they doubtless thought they would
secure the favor.of the Catholics by killing off the Protestants.
If the golden rule or any other of the generally accepted precepts of the
Christian religion had been observed by the Catholic priests in their propaganda
of Christianity among the Indians, they would have left Whitman alone in the
mission he had founded with great labor and personal sacrifice. If they had done
so the massacre would in all reasonable probability not have been executed.
There were thousands of Indians in widely separated fields where each sectarian
could have exercised their labors and righteous purposes without intruding the one
upon the other. And if such non-aggressive policy had been pursued each mis-
sionary would have had greater influence over the Indians and effected a greater
measure of good works for the heathen, and at the same time safe-guarded the lives
of those who trusted to the good will of the natives. So far as is known the Catho.
lic missionaries did not in any way antagonize the Indians or condemn the mur-
ders of Whitman and his family. And in return for such course the Catholics
were in no wise molested or inconvenienced by the Indians. In the bitter feeling
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
379
which arose out of these atrocious murders, certain Protestants undertook to
prove by the Indians themselves that the Indians had been urged to murder Whit-
man by the Catholic priest Father Brouillet; and the statements of the In-
dians were taken upon that point; but the charge could never get any other
support than the statement of the rascal Joe Lewis (Indian) who said the
priests told him Whitman was giving poison to the Indians to kill them off.
And after this question was raised, Chief Umhowlish, a friend and believer in
Whitman, and other Indians of good character investigated the report among
the Indians, and none could be found that ever heard Brouillet make such a
statement but Joe Lewis—who was not worthy of belief. But this investi-
gation among the Indians uncovered the statements made by Brouillet to a
number of Indians, that “Dr. Whitman was a bad man, and if they believed
what he told them they would all go to hell, for he was telling them lies.
And such a statement as this to unreasoning passionate savages, agitated by
the death of their children, was in itself enough to precipitate a massacre.
THE MASSACRE AND THE H. B. CO.
News of the massacre reached Fort Vancouver seven days after the event
by a special messenger sent by McBean, Hudson Bay Co.'s agent at Walla Walla.
James Douglas, Chief Factor of the Company, immediately sent off a special
messenger to Oregon City to notify Governor Abernethy of the Provisional Gov-
ernment; and then, without waiting to see what the Americans would do,
Peter Skene Ogden, an old and influential factor of the Company, started im-
mediately from Vancouver with an armed party determined to rescue the un-
fortunate prisoners in the hands of the Indians. In this expedition Ogden ex-
hibited his energy and ability in a most extraordinary manner. Knowing the
horrors the unfortunate white women must suffer he pushed through night and
day until he reached the wrecked and ruined Whitman Mission, being only
seven days on the road in the winter season. On reaching Walla Walla Ogden
sent our couriers to all the chiefs and Indians having any of the captives in
their possession demanding an immediate council, within four days.
This summons from Ogden whom the Indians knew to be the “Big Medicine"
fighting man of the Hudson's Bay Company, aroused intense excitement at once
among all the Indians, of the Cayuse and Nez Perces tribes. For while the Nez
Perces had no part in the murders they were fearful of the consequences of
arousing the Americans to the fighting point, and did not want an armed force
sent into their country. And here is seen some shrewd diplomacy, showing that
though the Indian may be stupid in some things, and his religion very much
of a cloak to get favors out of the white man, yet when it comes to saving his
neck he is quite as smart as his white brother. Their first move was to seize
Rev. Spalding, friend of the murdered Whitman, and hold him prisoner as a
hostage for peace. Then they compelled Spalding to write a letter to Catholic
Vicar General Blanchet telling him the “Nez Perces wished the Americans to
be on friendly terms with the Cayuses and not come into their country to pun-
ish them for the murder of Whitman; giving as a reason that the Cayuses had
forgiven the killing of a son of Cayuse Chief Peu-peu mox-mox in California,
for which the killing of thirteen Americans was no more than a reasonable
380
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
offset.” Further, they impressed Spalding with the threat that if he did not
arrange the settlement the Indians wanted they would kill him, too. Blanchet
was instructed to convey all this information to the Hudson's Bay Company,
and to Governor Abernethy, which the Vicar General did.
But when Ogden suddenly appeared on the scene with his fighting men,
and called all the Chiefs together at the house of Bishop Blanchet the whole
scheme was gone over again, and the influence of the Bishop earnestly sought to
protect the Cayuses. Matters began to look serious for the murdering Cayuses ;
and Camaspelo, a Nez Perce chief of high rank, made a long plea to the Bishop
for his aid to keep back the Americans. Blanchet informed him that peace
might be hoped for, but all the chiefs must meet Ogden and make a clean breast
of the whole business. The Bishop's house was packed full of Indians, big
chiefs and sub-chiefs. Camaspelo opened the council with a speech deprecat-
ing the ignorance and blindness which caused him to despair of the life of his
people. He was followed by Chief Tiloukaikt who confessed that the mission-
aries had given them teaching for their good; but wound up by recounting the
death of their chief who accompanied Gray in 1837; and to the death of Elijah
in California, endeavoring to found an excuse for what had been done, hoping
the Americans would consider these things, and call it square. Then Edward
the son of Tiliukaikt made a speech bringing forward the charge of Joe Lewis
that Whitman had poisoned the Indians; and then sprung a surprise on the
whole council by showing a blood stained “Catholic Ladder," which he de-
clared had been shown to the Indians by Whitman, with the remark: "You
see this blood! it is to show you that now, because you have priests among
you, the country is going to be covered with blood;" thus placing all the blame
for trouble on the Catholics. Then the Indians submitted their ultimatum,
asking, "first that the Americans should not go to war with the Cayuses; sec-
ond, that they should forget the murder of Whitman and the others, and the
Cayuses will forget the murder of the chief's son in California; that two or
three great Americans come up to Walla Walla and make a peace; that then
after making the peace the Americans may take away with them all the women
and children and other prisoners; that thereafter no more Americans shall pass
through the Cayuse country for fear their young men may do them harm.”
Peter Skene Ogden had now the whole Indian scheme before him, which was
substantially—we will keep, torture, outrage and kill these prisoners at our will
and pleasure unless you make this peace with us. Their relations with the
Fur Company had been pleasant and profitable for many years, and they
expected Ogden to take up their views and champion their cause. Never were
savage men more mistaken. Ogden knew the Indian character through and
through. He knew it was to be his own stern, unyielding will against 5,000
Indians. He was a man that no power could bluff; and rising to the full dig-
nity of his magnificent manhood, he delivered to the assembled chiefs the fol-
lowing vigorous speech :
“We have been with you for thirty years without the shedding of blood;
we are traders and of a different nation from the Americans. But recollect;
we supply you with ammunition, not to kill Americans, who are of the same
color, speak the same language, and worship the same God as ourselves, and
whose cruel fate causes our hearts to bleed. Why do we make you chiefs if you

OREGON PLAN
Being the old house at the Cascades of the Columbia river,
undermined by the river and washed away in 1867
N
OF
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
381
cannot control your young men? Besides this wholesale butchery you have
robbed the Americans passing through your country, and have insulted their
women. If you allow your young men to govern you, I say you are not men, or
chiefs, but women who do not deserve the name. Your hot-headed young men
plume themselves on their bravery; but let them not deceive themselves. If
the Americans begin war, they will have cause to repent their rashness; for the
war will not end until every man of you is cut from the face of the earth; I
am aware that many of your people have died; but so have others. It was not
Dr. Whitman who poisoned them; but God who commanded that they should
die. You have the opportunity to make some reparation. I give you only ad-
vice and promise you nothing should war be declared against you. The Fur
Company has nothing to do with your quarrel. If you wish it, on my return I
will see what can be done for you; but I do not promise to prevent war. Deliver
to me the prisoners you hold to deliver them to their friends, and I will pay you
a ransom, and that is all I will do."
The white man had brushed aside all their excuses, and all their scheming was
for nothing. The determined will of one man towered above them as an im-
movable mountain. They yielded at once; accepted the ransom offered, of
blankets, clothing and a few guns and delivered all the prisoners to Ogden who
safely delivered them to Governor Abernethy at Oregon City in ten days there-
after. The murderers were not given up by their tribesmen and were not
arrested until Governor Lane came into office under the Territorial Government
and then five Indians participating in the bloody deed were tried, and con-
victed, and hung by United States Marshal Meek at Oregon City on June 3,
1850, four of them confessing to the murders before the execution, and the
fifth admitting that he was present at the murdering, but claimed he took no
part in it.
THE SEQUEL
Saving and excepting the organization of the Provisional Government, no
single act in the history of the state was ever followed by so many exciting in-
fluences as the murder of Marcus Whitman. First, it practically broke up and an-
nihilated all missionary efforts to teach and convert the Indians to Christianity
for a space of twenty years thereafter. Second, it precipitated an Indian war,
and planted the leaven of hatred and enmity that resulted in wars and bloody
reprisal from both sides that sacrificed hundreds of lives and wasted millions
of dollars in property loss and military expense. Third, it planted sectarian
animosities between professedly Christian peoples that are active and unrelent-
ing to this day. Fourth, it proved the substantial value and vital force of the
Provisional Government which could and did organize an army and defend the
people. Fifth, it hastened the action of the United States Congress to organize
Oregon into a Territorial Government under the care and protection of the
United States. Sixth, it showed most effectively that the elevation of the
native race was not and could not be the work of an evanescent religious en-
thusiasm carried on by unreliable contributions of kind hearted church mem-
bers; but must be a work of evolution developed and carried out under the
certain and reliable support of the National Government which would guaranty
382
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
peace and security to the Indian while teaching him useful arts from genera-
tion to generation. To sum up and express the underlying principle of this
thought, the writer will quote a sentiment uttered by the Rev. Elkanah
Walker, who had spent ten years in teaching Indians on the Spokane river from
1837 to 1847. Mr. Walker preached his last sermon in this life at the little
union church at Gaston, Oregon; during the course of which he referred to his
experience among the Indians, and closed his address with this remark: “It
will take a long, long, long time to make a white man out of an Indian, but
it takes but a very brief time to make an Indian out of a white man.
THE INDIAN WARS
It is impracticable to include in this history the long and tedious account
of the Indian wars of Oregon. The narrative would crowd out other and more
important matter. And whilst the personal experiences of beleaguered settlers,
the courage of reckless Indian fighters, and the hair-breadth escapes from sav-
age brutality would be to many readers interesting in some ways, yet it would
not teach any useful lesson. But leading examples of the Indian war game will
be given, which will fully illustrate the whole period of the wars; and im-
portant battles upon which depended the fate of the dying Indian tribes and
confederacies will be given.
The Whitman Massacre was the opening chapter of seven years of more or
less uninterrupted warfare with the Indian tribes of Oregon. The first call
for men to punish the Cayuses for the murder of Whitman and safeguard the
immigration to Oregon was made by Governor Abernethy of the Provisional
government. The news of the massacre reached Oregon City on December 8th
after the horrible deed, being communicated to the governor by a letter from
Fort Vancouver carried by a special messenger. That night a meeting was
called for volunteers to go to the Dalles and defend that Mission and stop any
marauding party that might attempt to descend the Columbia and attack the
white settlers. The meeting resulted in a volunteer company of forty-five men,
who adopted the name of "Oregon Rifles” as the name of their organization.
Most of the men had their own rifles, but those who lacked arms were furnished
by Dr. McLoughlin on their own credit. H. A. G. Lee was made captain; J.
Magone, 1st lieutenant; and John E. Ross, 2nd lieutenant. This being the first
military force called in to existence to defend the infant state of Oregon, the
names of all these brave men going out to defend their homes and the homes
of their neighbors and furnishing their own arms and rations without pay,
deserve to be mentioned here as "The First Defenders” and have their names
recorded here as follows:
Joseph B. Proctor, George Moore, W. M. Carpenter, J. S. Rinearson, H. A. G.
Lee, Thomas Purvis, J. Magone, C. Richardson, J. E. Ross, I. Walgamoutts, John
G. Gibson, B. B. Rogers, Benj. Bratton, Samuel K. Barlow, Wm. Berry, John
Lassater, John Bolton, Henry W. Coe, William Beekman, Nathan Olney, Joel
Witchey, John Fleming, John Little, A. J. Thomas, Geo. Westby, Edward Rob-
son, Daniel P. Barnes, J. Kestor, D Everest, J. H. McMillen, Jno. C. Danford,
Ed. Marsh, Joel McKee, H. Levalley, J. W. Morgan, O. Tupper, R. S. Tupper,
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
383
C. H. Devendorf, John Finner, C. W. Savage, Shannon, G. H. Bosworth,
Jacob Johnson, Stephen Cummings, Geo. Weston.
As forty-five men could not make war upon the powerful tribe of the Cay-
uses, or do more than hold the "pass” at The Dalles, as the Greeks · had the
Thermopylae "in the brave days of old,” Governor Abernethy submitted the
exigency to the Provisional Legislature then in session; which at once took up
the weighty matter and passed laws providing for an army of fourteen com-
panies with Field, Staff and Line officers as follows:
Colonel, Cornelius Gilliam (accidentally killed).
Lieutenant-Colonel, James Waters (promoted to Colonel).
Major, H. A. G. Lee.
Adjutant, B. F. Burch.
Surgeon, W. M. Carpenter.
Assistant Surgeons, F. Snyder and H. Saffarans.
Commissary, Joel Palmer.
Quartermaster, Berryman Jennings.
Paymaster, L. B. Knox.
Judge Advocate, Jacob S. Rinearson.
Company A—55 men—Captain, Lawrence Hall; First Lieutenant, Hugh D.
O'Bryant; Second Lieutenant, John Engent.
Company B-43 men—Captain, John W. Owens; First Lieutenant, A. F.
Rogers; Second Lieutenant, T. C. Shaw.
Company C-84 men—Captain, H. J. G. Maxon; First Lieutenant, I. N.
Gilbert; Second Lieutenant, Wm. P. Pugh.
Company D—36 men—Captain, Thomas McKay; First Lieutenant, Charles
McKay, Second Lieutenant, Alex. McKay.
Company D—52 men-Captain, Phil F. Thompson; First Lieutenant, Jas.
Brown; Second Lieutenant, Joseph M. Garrison.
Company E-44 men—Captain, Levi N. English; First Lieutenant, Wm.
Shaw; Second Lieutenant, F. M. Munkers.
Company E-36 men—Captain, Wm. Martin; First Lieutenant, A. E.
Garrison; Second Lieutenant, David Waters.
Company E-63 men—Captain, W. P. Pugh; First Lieutenant, N. R. Doty;
Second Lieutenant, Maxwell Ramsby.
Company G-66 men-Captain, James W. Nesmith; First Lieutenant, J. S.
Snook; Second Lieutenant, M. Gilliam.
Company H—49 men—Captain, George W. Bennett; First Lieutenant, J. R.
Bevin; Second Lieutenant, J. R. Payne.
Company I-36 men—Captain, William Shaw; First Lieutenant, D. Craw-
ford; Second Lieutenant, B. Dario.
Company No. 7—27 men-Captain, J. M. Garrison; First Lieutenant, A. E.
Garrison; Second Lieutenant, John Hersen.
F. S. Water's Guard—57 men—Captain, Wm. Martin; First Lieutenant,
David Weston; Second Lieutenant, B. Taylor.
Reorganized Company—Captain, John E. Ross; First Lieutenant, D. P.
Barnes; Second Lieutenant, W. W. Porter.
384
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
The following brief of the operations of Colonel Gilliam is taken from Himes
History of the Willamette Valley :
"Colonel Gilliam reached The Dalles on the twenty-third of February, with
fifty men, followed a few days later by the remainder of the regiment. On the
twenty-seventh he moved to the Des Chutes with one hundred and thirty men,
crossed to the east bank, and sent Major Lee up that stream about twenty miles
on à reconnoisance, where he found the enemy, engaged them, killed one, lost
some of his horses and returned to report progress. On the twenty-ninth Col-
onel Gilliam moved up to the Des Chutes to Meek's Crossing, at the mouth of
the canyon in which Major Lee had met the Indians. The next morning, on
entering the canyon, a skirmish followed, in which were captured from the hos-
tiles, forty horses, four head of cattle and $300 worth of personal property,
all of which was sold by the Quartermaster for $1,400. The loss of the Iu-
dians in killed and wounded was not known. There was one white man wounded.
The result was a treaty of peace with the Des Chutes Indians. The command
pushed immediately forward to the Walla Walla country and reached the Mis-
sion prior to March 4. On the way to that place a battle occurred at Sand Hol-
low, on the emigrant road, eight miles east of the Well Springs. It commenced
on the plain where washes in the sand made natural hiding places for a foe, and
lasted until towards night. The volunteer force was arranged with the train
in the road, protected by Captain Hall's company. The companies of Captain
Thompson and Maxon, forming the left flank, were on the north side of the
road, and those of Captains English and McKay, as the right flank, were on the
south, or right side of the command. Upon McKay's company at the extreme
right the first demonstration was made. Five Crows, the head chief of the Cay-
uses, made some pretentions to the possession of wizard powers, and declared
to his people that no ball from the white man's gun could kill him. Another
chief of that tribe named 'War Eagle,' or 'Swallow Ball,' made similar pro-
fessions, and stated that he could swallow all the bullets from the guns of the
invading army if they were fired at him. The two chiefs promised their peo-
pie that Gilliam's command should never reach the Umatilla river, and to
demonstrate their invulnerability and power as medicine chiefs, they dashed
out from concealment, rode down close to the volunteers and shot a little dog
that came out to bark at them. Captain McKay, although the order was not
to fire, could hold back no longer, and bringing his rifle to bear, took deliberate
aim and shot War Eagle through the head, killing him instantly. Lieutenant
Charles McKay brought his gun down to the hollow of his arm, and firing with-
out sighting it, so severely wounded Five Crows that he gave up the command
of his warriors. This was a serious, chilling opening for the Indians—two chiefs
gone at the first onset and their medicine proved worthless—but they continued
to battle in a skirmishing way, making dashing attacks and masterly retreats
until late in the afternoon. At one time during the engagement, Captain Max-
on's company followed the enemy so far that it was surrounded, and a sharp en-
counter followed, in which a number of volunteers were disabled, in fact, eight
of the eleven soldiers wounded that day were of Maxon's company. Two In-
dians were known to have been killed, but the enemy's loss could not be known
as they removed all their wounded and dead except two
"That night the regiment camped on the battlefield without water, and the

INDIAN CHIEFS BROUGHT IN BY FATHER DE SMET FOR TRIAL OR PEACE-MAKING BEFORE GENERAL HARNEY
ONIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
385
Indians built large and numerous fires along the bluffs, or high lands, some two
miles in advance. The next day Colonel Gilliam moved on, and without inci-
dent worthy of note, reached Whitman's mission, the third day after the
battle. The main body of Indians fell back towards Snake river, and a fruit-
less attempt followed to induce them to give up the parties who had committed
the murders at Waiilatpu. Colonel Gilliam at last determined upon making a
raid into the Snake river country, and in carrying out this programme sur-
prised a camp of Cayuses near that stream, among whom were some of the mur-
derers. The captured camp professed friendship, however, and pointed out the
horses of Indians on the hill, which they said belonged to the parties whom
the Colonel was anxious to kill or capture, stating that their owners were on the
north side of the Snake river and beyond reach. So well was their part acted that
the officers believed their statements, proceeded to drive off the stock indicated,
and started on their return. They soon found that a grievous error had been
made in releasing the village, whose male population was soon mounted upon
war horses, and assailed the volunteers on all sides, forcing them to fight their way
as they fell back to the Touchet river. Through the whole day and even into the
night after their arrival at the latter stream the contest was maintained—a
constant harrassing skirmish. The soldiers drove the Indians back again and
again, but as soon as the retreat was resumed, the enemy were upon them once
more. Finally, after going into camp on the Touchet, Colonel Gilliam ordered
the captured stock turned loose; and when the Indians got possession of it, they
returned to Snake river without molesting the command any further. In the
struggle on the Touchet, when the retreating soldiers first reached that stream,
William Taylor was mortally wounded by an Indian who sprang up in the
bushes by the stream and fired with but a few yards between them. Nathan
Olney, afterwards Indian agent, seeing the act, rushed upon the savage, snatched
from his hand a war club in which was fastened a piece of iron, and dealt him a
blow on the head with it with such force as to cause the iron to split the club, and
yet failed to kill him. He then closed with his antagonist in a hand-to-hand strug-
gle, and soon ended the contest with a knife. There were no other casualties re-
ported.
"Colonel Gilliam started from the Mission on the twentieth of March, with a
small force destined to return from The Dalles with supplies, while he was to con-
tinue to the Willamette and report to the governor. While camped at Well
Springs he was killed by an accidental discharge of a gun, and his remains were
taken to his friends west of the Cascades by Major Lee. This officer soon returned
to his regiment with a commission as Colonel, but finding Lieutenant-Colonel
Waters had been elected by the regiment to that position in his absence, he re-
signed and filled a subordinate office, for the remainder of his term of enlistment.
The attempt by commissioners, who had been sent with the volunteers, as re-
quested by the Indians in a memorial to the Americans at the time the captives
were ransomed, to negotiate a peaceful solution of the difficult problem, failed.
They wanted the Indians to deliver up for execution all those who had imbued
their hands in blood at Waiilatpu; they wished the Cayuses to pay all damages
to imigrants caused by their being robbed or attacked while passing through the
Cayuse country. The Indians wished nothing of the kind. They wanted peace
and to be let alone; for the Americans to call the account balanced and drop the
Vol. 1-25
386
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
matter. The failure to agree had resulted in two or three skirmishes, one
of them at least a severe test of strength, in which the Indians had received the
worst of it, and in the other the volunteers had accomplished nothing that could
be accounted a success. The Cayuses, finding that no compromise could be ef-
fected, abandoned their country, and most of them passed east of the Rocky
mountains. Nothing was left for the volunteers but to leave the country also,
which they did, and the Cayuse War had practically ended.
“The Cayuses, as a tribe, had no heart in the war, Joe Lewis told them imme-
diately after the massacre that now they must fight, and advised them to send him
to Salt Lake with a band of horses, to trade for ammunition with the Mormons.
He started with a select band of animals, accompanied by two young braves;
and a few days later one of them returned with the intelligence that Joe Lewis
had killed his companion and decamped with the horses; and this was the last
the Cayuses saw of the scheming villain. Thus matters stood until the spring of
1850, when the Cayuses were given to understand that peace could be procured
by delivering up the murderers for punishment. At that time Tam-su-ky and his
supporters, including many relatives who had not in any manner participated in
the massacre, were hiding in the mountains at the head of John Day river. The
Indians who desired peace went after the murderers, and a fight ensued, ending
in the capture of nearly all of the outlawed band. In this fight 'Cutmouth
John,' an Indian well known in Umatilla, while endeavoring to capture one
of the murderers, received the wound which gave rise to his peculiar appellation.
Only one of the five actually engaged in the bloody work at Waiilatpu (so the
Whitman Indians assert) was captured, and he was Ta-ma-has, and ugly villain
whom his countrymen called The Murderer.' It was he who commenced the
work of death at Waiilatpu by burying a hatchet in Dr. Whitman's brain. Tak-
ing him and four others, several of the older men and chiefs went to Oregon City
to deliver them up as hostages. They were at once thrown into prison, condemned
and executed at Oregon City on June 3, 1850; and even the ones who had escorted
them, in view of this summary proceeding, congratulated themselves upon their
safe return. They believed that Ta-ma-has should have been hanged, but not the
others. So that it was the peaceful Indians that finally brought the murderers
to trial and the hangman's rope."
There have been recently rescued from dust and oblivion some of the docu-
ments which show the manner of furnishing the first army of Oregon. Yamhill
county sent the following: Andrew Hembree, 600 lbs. pork, and 20 bushels of
wheat; Eli Perkins, one horse, 2 lbs. powder, 2 boxes caps, 5 lbs. lead; William J.
Martin, 1 horse loaded with provisions; Benj. Stewart, 2 boxes caps, 2 lbs. lead,
1 blanket; John Baker, 1 horse; Thomas McBride, $5.00 cash; James Ramsey,
3 lbs. powder, 8 lbs. lead; Samuel Tustin, $5.00 cash, 5 lbs. lead, 2 lbs. powder;
Joel J. Hembree, 1 horse, 200 lbs. pork, 20 bu. wheat; James McGinnis, $3.00
in orders; James Johnson, $7.75 on Abernethy, 4 lbs. lead; T. J. Hubbard, 1
rifle, 1 pistol; Hiram Cooper, 1 rifle, 1 musket, 60 rounds ammunition; A. A.
Skinner, 1 blanket, 1 lb. powder; Jas. Fenton, 3 pairs shoes; J. M. Cooper, 2 boxes
caps, two guns; James Green, 2 boxes caps, 2 lbs. lead; C. Wood, 1 rifle; J. Row-
d, 1 outfit; W. T. Newby, 1 horse; Carney Goodridge, 5 bu. wheat, 100 lbs.
pork; John Manning, 1 pair shoes; John Richardson, 1 Spanish saddle-tree;
Solomon Allen 6 bars lead; Felix Scott, 1 gray horse; 0. Risley, 1 rifle, 3 boxes
a
>>
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
387
caps, 100 lbs. flour; M. Burton, 1 pair pants; Richard Miller, 1 horse, 6 boxes caps;
Amos Harvey, 1 gun; James Burton, 1 sack and stirrups. Salem Mercury, in
Albany State Rights Democrat, October 12, 1877. Says Abernethy to Lee, “We
are now getting lots of pork and some wheat. Or., Archives, MSS., 103. Thomas
Cox, who had brought a stock of goods across the plains the previous summer,
had a considerable quantity of ammunition which was manufactured by himself
in Illinois, and which he now freely furnished to the volunteers without charge.
Or. Literary Vidette, April, 1879. The "Caps” mentioned in the above muni-
tions of war were percussion caps'' to fire the guns.
JOE MEEK'S MISSION TO WASHINGTON
As a part and parcel of the whole country-wide uproar over the murder of
Whitman, the Provisional Government decided to send a special messenger far-
u-way over the mountains to President Polk beseeching aid to the colony. All
minds turned at once to one and the same man-Joseph L. Meek, for the danger-
vus mission. Meek's knowledge of the mountains, plains, Indians and dangers
of every sort between Oregon and the Missouri river identified him as the
man to undertake the hazardous trip; and besides all this, his cousin, James
K. Polk, whom he had not seen since boyhood, had been elected President of the
United States, and it was believed that the extraordinary trip of such a delegate
over the Rocky mountains in the depth of winter would arouse the President
and Congress to immediate action. Meek resigned his membership in the Pro-
visional Government Legislature, accepted the commission to Washington and
made speedy arrangements for his departure. For company and aid in trouble
he took along with him as far as St. Louis his old mountaineer friends, John
Owen and George W. Ebberts. They packed their pack horses and took saddle
horses and left Oregon City for the east by the way of the Barlow road around
Mt. Hood on January 4, 1848; Meek carrying with him authority from the
legislature and governor to present Oregon's case to the President and Congress
of the United States. And it must now be recorded here that by this commission
to Meek, Oregon had so far as its governor had authority, put two delegates to
Congress on the way to Washington City. After much consideration and advice
from interested parties Governor Abernethy had on the 18th of October, 1847,
appointed and commissioned J. Quinn Thornton to go to Washington City and
advocate the cause of Oregon with the president and congress. Thornton was
at the time Supreme Judge of the Provisional Government, a smooth, plausible
man and popular with the Methodist mission. But his appointment by the
governor was not relished by the legislature, which passed resolutions indi-
rectly condemning the appointment as the "officiousness of secret actions."
Thornton sailed from Portland October 18, 1847, on his mission to Washing-
ton by the ocean route on the bark Whitton, whose captain contracted in con-
sideration of certain voluntary contributions of flour and very little money, to
carry the Oregon delegate down to Panama. But on this ship and contract
Thornton got no farther than San Juan on the coast of Lower California, where
the United States Sloop of War Portsmouth picked up the stranded Thornton
and carried around Cape Horn and landed him at Boston on May 2, 1848.
Returning now to the Meek party we find it delayed two weeks at the Dalles
388
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
to allow the provisional army to drive back the hostile Indians. Then as soon as
the hostiles were out of the way Meek proceeded to the wrecked Whitman station
and decently re-interred the murdered victims of the massacre, the hasty
burial by the Catholic Priest Brouillet not having been sufficient to protect the
bodies of the slain from the ravages of the wolves. At this time Meek, with
thoughtful tenderness, saved some tresses of the golden hair of Mrs. Whitman
to carry to relatives in the states, and one of which was carefully preserved and
turned over to the Oregon Pioneer Association, and is now in the rooms of the
Oregon Historical Society, City Hall, Portland. And notwithstanding these
unavoidable delays, such was the tireless energy of these sturdy pioneers that
within sixty days after leaving Oregon City the party safely reached $t.
Joseph on the Missouri river. If one stops to think, and can think of all
the dangers, trials and sufferings those men had to endure and overcome on
that trip through the snows in the dead of winter, shooting some wild animals
and packing scanty supplies of food for themselves, sleeping under any tempo-
rary shelter of brush or trees while their horses pawed the snow from dried
grass for feed, over a trackless winter waste for two thousand miles, they can
get some idea of the fiber, the courage and the real heroism of the men who
founded the state of Oregon and saved it to the United States, and who in truth
and deed stand "unrival'd in the glorious lists of fame."
It was not an exploit that necessarily incurred great personal danger, hard-
ship or sacrifice for a Cæsar to cross the Rubicon and devastate Gaul; nor for
Napoleon to scale the Alps and pounce down upon Italy; nor for Grant to hang
to the flanks of the rebel armies until they were penned up, exhausted and forced
to lay down their arms at Appomattox; but it was a mighty different propo-
sition to freeze and starve and bleed with Washington at Valley Forge; or to
march and freeze and wade and fight with George Rogers Clark at Old Vin
cennes and save the Ohio valley to the United States; or to trudge and fight and
starve and freeze with Joe Meek and the Oregon pioneers to save three great
states to the American Union and secure a foothold on the great western ocean.
And it is a labor of love as well as duty to see that these real heroes and hero-
ines of the Great West have justice done their names as far as words and histori-
cal records will suffice.
Although Thornton had started for Washington City three months before
Meek started, he reached the city only one week before Meek got there; and
Meek had the advantage of three months' later news from the west and all the
thrilling events of the Whitman massacre. On this account and his superior
address and his kinship to the President, he quite overshadowed the educated
lawyer and judge, Delegate Thornton. The bill to organize the Oregon terri-
tory was then before Congress, and the report that Meek was able to make suf-
ficed to load up Senator Tom Benton with one of the best of the many speeches
he made for Oregon. On May 31, 1848, Benton in advocacy of the Oregon Bill
delivered an address in the senate from which is taken the following extract:
"Only three or four years ago the whole United States seemed to be in-
flamed with a desire to get possession of Oregon. It was one of the absorbing
and agitating questions of the continent. To obtain exclusive possession of Ore-
gon, the greatest efforts were made, and it was at length obtained. What next?
After this actual occupation of the entire continent, and having thus obtained
exclusive possession of Oregon in order that we might govern it, we have seen

I
3
No. 1-General Crook
No. 2—Chief John of the "Rogue Rivers"
No. 3-Col. John Ross, Indian Fighter
OF
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
389
session after session of Congress pass away without a single thing being done for
the government of a country to obtain possession of which we were willing to go
to war with England!
“Year after year, and session after session have gone by, and to this day the
laws of the United States have not been extended over that territory. In the
meantime, a great community is growing up there, composed at this time of
twelve thousand souls-persons from all parts of the world, from Asia, as well
as from Europe and America—and which, till this time, have been preserved in
order by compact among themselves. Great efforts have been made to preserve
order-most meritorious efforts, which have evinced their anxiety to maintain
their own reputation and that of the country to which they belong. Their ef-
forts have been eminently meritorious; but we all know that voluntary govern-
ments cannot last—that they are temporary in their very nature, and must en-
counter rude shocks and resistance, under which they must fall. Besides the in-
convenience resulting from the absence of an organized government, we are to
recollect that there never yet has been a civilized settlement in territory occu-
pied by the aboriginal inhabitants, in which a war between the races has not
occurred. Down to the present moment the settlers in Oregon had escaped a
conflict with the Indians. Now the war between them is breaking out; and I
cannot resist the conviction that if there had been a regularly organized govern-
ment in that country, immediately after the treaty with Great Britain, with a
military force to sustain it—for a government in such a region so remote would
be nothing without military force—the calamities now impending over that
country might have been averted.
But no government was established, and now all these evils are coming upon
these people, as everybody must have foreseen they would come; and in the depth
of winter, they send to us a special messenger, who makes his way across the
Rocky mountains at a time when almost every living thing perished in the snow
—when the snow was at such a depth that nothing could penetrate to the bottom
of it. He made his way across, however, and brings these complaints which we
now hear. They are in a suffering condition. Not a moment of time is to be
lost. If the bill were passed this instant—this morning, as I hoped it would be-
it would require the utmost degree of vigor in the execution of it to be able to
send troops across the Rocky mountains before the season of deep snow. They
should cross the mountains before the month of September. I was in hopes,
then, that on this occasion there would be nothing to delay action—that we
should all have united in deploring that for years the proposition to give these
people government and laws has been defeated by the introduction of questions
of no practical consequence, but which have had the effect of depriving these peo-
ple of all government and bringing about the massacres which have taken place,
and in which the benevolent missionary has fallen in the midst of his labors.
All the calamities which have taken place in that country have resulted from
mixing up this question, which has not a particle of practical value, with all the
measures which have been introduced for the organization of a government in
Oregon. All the laws passed by the Congress of the United States can have no
effect on the question of slavery there. In that country there is a law superior
to any which Congress can pass on the subject of slavery. There is a law of
climate, of position, and of Nature herself, against it. Besides, the people of the
390
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
country itself, by far the largest number of whom have gone out from slave-
holding states, many of them from the state of Missouri, in their organic law,
communicated to Congress more than a year ago, and printed among our docu-
ments at the last session, declare that the law of nature is against slavery in that
region.”
Thus it is seen that Meek's record-breaking dash across the continent in the
dead of winter, and Benton's speech quoted are necessary incidents from the
murder of the martyr missionary. Whitman had himself made a journey from
Oregon to Washington in the winter season of 1842-3; but he was six months on
the way, about twice the time consumed by Meek. But it was considering the
antecedents and knowledge of the two men, quite as great a feat of physical
prowess for Whitman as for Meek. That both men did, each in his way largely
influence the fate of Oregon there can be no doubt. The career of Whitman and
his wife, and their brutal murder is the most affecting, exciting and dramatic
chapter of history of the United States. Even down to the arrest and execution
of the savages the pathos and the horror of the scene keep hand in hand, and
the brutal murderers that could not be reached and arrested by white men were
hunted down and delivered up for trial and execution by their own blood and
kindred, for the purpose of putting an end to the white man's war against the
Cayuse tribe.
THE BATTLE OF THE ABIQUA
The Cayuse war east of the Cascade mountains came to an end more from
the inability of the Indians to get powder than from being whipped out by the
volunteers; which is, however no reflection on the volunteer soldiers, as they had
faithfully put in their time with short rations and on their own equipment of
clothing and arms in patrolling the Oregon trail and making travel safe. The
murderers reduced to poverty and destitute of ammunition had to keep out of
the way of an even half dozen men with good guns and plenty of powder and bul-
lets.
But the story of the fighting had spread far and wide among the Indians as
if by wireless telegraph, and restless spirits among them were everywhere eager
to give the whites all the trouble they could inflict. And among these wander-
ing bands were some Molallas and Klamaths who ranged about the head of the
Willamette valley, and skulked along down the foothills where the towns of
Brownsville, Lebanon, Scio and Stayton are now located. These marauders be-
lieving all the warriors among the white settlers had gone away to fight the Cay-
uses, took advantage of the situation to rob and steal whatever came handy, and
in one instance attacked and abused a young woman in Lane county, stole a lot
of cattle in Benton county, and attacked the house of Richard Miller near Cham-
poeg in Marion county. The mail carrier-the only mail carrier in Oregon at
that time-came up with the robbers and immediately scattered the alarm and
soon collected a force of 150 men and boys at the house of Miller to pursue and
punish the Indians. This volunteer force organized immediately by the election
of Daniel Waldo as colonel, and R. C. Geer, Allen Davy, Richard Miller and
Daniel Parker as captains. The Indian encampment was on Abiqua creek where
it enters the valley from the Cascade Mountains about where Silverton is
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
391
now; and toward this point the volunteers immediately marched with
their shooting irons; the mounted men proceeding up the north side of the creek,
and the footmen on the south side. R. C. Geer wrote an account of this affair
which was printed in the Oregon Statesman in August, 1877. He mentions the
following settlers as taking part in the battle which took place: William Parker,
James Harpole, Wilburn King, James Brown, S. D. Maxon, L. A. Bird, Israel
Shaw, Robert Shaw, King Hibbard, William Brisbane, Winchester, Port
Gilliam, William Thomas Howell, George Howell (founders of Howell Prairie),
William Hendricks, Lew Goff, Leander Davis, G. W. Hunt, James Williams, J.
Warnock, J. W. Shrum, Thomas Shrum, Elias Cox, Cyrus Smith, T. B. Allen,
Henry Shrum, and Jacob Caplinger. The volunteers overtaking the Indians
before dark, they retreated up the creek after exchanging a few shots with the
attacking party. Night coming on, those who had families to protect returned
home, leaving the single men and boys to watch the enemy. At daybreak the
next morning pursuit of the foe was commenced and a running fight kept up
for most of the day. Seven warrior Indians, one of whom was a woman, were
killed and two Indian women wounded. But when the battle was over it was dis-
covered that the volunteers had not engaged the fighting marauding Indians,
but those who had suffered were the families and camp guards, while the real rob-
bers and fighters had escaped entirely. The easy victory was not a matter to be
proud of and was never much referred to for thirty years afterwards, when it
was all threshed out in the public press again. But there can be no doubt that
if prompt resistance had not been made to the raids of these Indians, the ma-
rauders, emboldened by success, might have brought in all the warriors of the
Klamath tribe, a nation of fighters, as proved by Capt. Jack in the Modoc war,
and many lives would have been lost and homes burned out.
WIDESPREAD DEMORALIZATION OF THE INDIANS
The raid into the Willamette valley and the battle of the Abiqua, trifiling in
itself, was however, important as an indication of widespread unrest and demor-
alization of the Indians in Oregon. The provisional government being forced to
act to defend its own citizens, was compelled to face and deal with the wider and
greater question of maintaining the peace with all the Indian tribes within the
territory now covered by the States of Oregon, Washington and Idaho. Steps
must be taken at once to control the supplies of powder and balls to the Indians
throughout this vast region; for if ammunition was freely on sale at any point
within this territory, Indian runners would distribute it throughout the whole
region. There were by this time twenty-six Catholic priests, with schools and
stations scattered over this widely extended region, all of whom, and especially
the Indians attached thereto, must be provided with food, the principal part of
which was the wild game. This all required ammunition, and the priests pro-
vided the same just as they would any other supply. This enraged the Ameri-
cans, as they believed the Indians would use this ammunition to make war on
the American settlers. And so the line of cleavage and battle was drawn; the
priests and the Indians on one side, and the Protestant preachers, American set-
tlers and the provisional government on the other. It was passing strange that
peace was maintained at all.
392
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
MISSIONARIES OF MURDER
The military forces of Col. Gilliam had not been able to capture the mur-
derers of Dr. Whitman, nor to force the Cayuses into a decisive battle; but they
had succeeded in breaking up the existing tribal community of the Cayuses and
scattering them far and wide from the Columbia to California and from the
Cascade mountains to the Rockies; and everywhere the Cayuse had gone he was
a preacher of murder and destruction of the white men, telling how they had
been driven away from their lands, homes and graves of their fathers. It was
a hard case to meet, and the Cayuse war was substantially the parent of all the
other Oregon Indian Wars.
ROGUE RIVER WARS
Whether justly or unjustly, the community of tribes and families of Indians
inhabiting the southwest corner of the state, and classed by the Ethnologists
as the Shastan, Takelman and Athapaskan families, commenced their inter-
course with the white man under the reputation of being a bad lot; so bad that
they were named the "Rogues;" and the disreputable appellation attached to
their beautiful river. The author is aware that some writers claim that the river
got its name from red or “rouge” clay found along its banks, and with which
the Indians always painted themselves before going into battle. But as he has
been up and down the river from its source in Mt. McLoughlin to its discharge
into the Pacific ocean at Gold Beach, and never saw or heard of any such red or
"rouge" clay, the unfortunate name will stick to the river long after the
last rogue of an Indian has departed to the happy hunting grounds beyond
this vale of tears. The unimaginable titanic forces concealed in the crust of our
little globe of an earth never produced anywhere on its surface a more beautiful
home for a nomadic race of men than is to be found in the clustered valleys of the
Umpqua, Rogue river, Illinois, Applegate, Klamath, Scott and Shasta, with
their intervening timber and picturesque mountains. Having been all over that
region, and knowing of all the hatred with which the early miners and settlers
regarded the native Indian owners of that land, yet the impartial judge might
well be justified in paraphrasing and applying to the Rogue River Indian wars
the famous speech of Tom Corwin (senator from Ohio) on the Mexican war, and
say, “If I were an Indian as I am an American, I would welcome the white men
with bloody hands to hospitable graves.
To comprehend the historical lesson of the Indian wars, or any war, the
reader should put himself in their place." The Indian had been living in these
beautiful valleys, untouched by the hands of man, for thousands of years. His
untutored mind seeing God only in clouds, or hearing Him only in the wind,
could no more comprehend the white man's desire for land to dig gold out of,
or produce food from, that he could explain the apparent daily round of sun,
moon and stars. Lee, Whitman, Walker and Spalding had laboriously sought
to enlighten that untutored mind in the Cayuse and Nez Perce, and in a little
measure prepared the Indian to comprehend the white man. But the Rogue
River Indian had received no such light; and all he knew of the white man was
as an uninvited intruder on his peaceful home, a taker of his land and game

11
OF
V.S
caughes
BATTLE OF THE BIG MEADOWS
3 cm
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
393
without his consent or without even asking for it; and so from the very first it was
war to the knife, and knife to the hilt between the two occupiers of those val-
leys.
When Joseph Lane, the first governor of Oregon under United States author-
ity, reached Oregon City on March 2, 1849, he found the Cayuse war practically
ended by Governor Abernethy and the provisional government troops. Whit
inan's murderers had been captured but not yet tried for the murder. The
desultory border warfare between the miners and settlers of Southern Oregon
had been going on for years as occasion offered to attack emigrant trains, or
parties passing between Oregon and California.' Gold had been discovered be-
fore Lane reached Oregon, and he quickly sized up the importance of peace with
the Indians of the Southern Oregon valleys, through which the gold seekers must
pass and repass with their pack trains and treasure. A party of gold miners
returning from California had been attacked at Rocky Point on Rogue river and
barely escaped with their lives into the woods, while the Indians seized their
camp outfit and poured all their gold dust into the river. Governor Lane was
not a man to halt between two opinions, and quickly calling to his aid fifteen ex-
perienced white men and taking along with him also Klickitat Indian Chief
Quatley and fifteen of his warriors, the expedition set out for Rogue river valley
in May, 1850. Reaching the neighborhood of the Indian village at Sam's Valley
not far from Rock Point about the middle of June, 1850, Lane sent a message
to the Indian chief to come to his (Lane's) camp for a talk, as he had come
to make a treaty of peace and friendship. The Indian returned an
answer that he and his people would come unarmed as directed, in two days.
And, according to promise, the two principal chiefs and seventy-five war-
riors came and crossed over the river to Lane's camp.' Lane had already
coached Chief Quatley and his warriors as to what they were to do; which
was to help to make a treaty of peace; and not to fight unless fighting was
necessary A circle was formed, with the Rogue river warriors forming one-
half thereof, and the white men and Quatley and his warriors forming the other
half, with Governor Lane and the Rogue river chiefs in the centre. But before
these high contracting parties got down to business, a second band of Rogue
river warriors as large as the first appeared on the scene fully armed with bows
and arrows, and the outlook was much more like fighting than peace-making.
Here were 150 Indian warriors on one side, and fifteen white men and fifteen
Klickitats on the other side. It took a man of superb courage, immovable nerve
and supreme confidence in himself to face the situation; and yet Governor Joe
Lane proved equal to the occasion. The first move was to order the second band
of Indians to deposit all their arms behind the outside circle and sit down on
the grass. Then Lane directed Quatley with two of his men to take a position
next to the head Rogue river chief, to be ready for an emergency. Then Gov-
ernor Lane made an address to the Indians through an interpreter in which he
explained his position as head man among the whites, and reminded them of
their acts in killing and robbing white men, and that he wanted all such conduct
stopped, and wanted the whites and Indians to live at peace with each other as
brothers; and that if the Indians respected his wishes and advice and behaved
well that they would all be paid for their land, and have an agent and teachers
to instruct them in all the ways and knowledge of white men. In reply to this,
394
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
when Lane was done speaking, the Rogue River chief addressed his warriors in
a loud voice, in deliberate words with menacing gestures, when instantly every
Indian sprang to his feet, raised the war cry.and seized their weapons. Klickitat
Chief Quatley instantly seized the Rogue River chief and held him fast. And
Governor Lane ordering his men not to fire, with revolver in hand dashed at the
armed Rogue Rivers and knocked their guns and bows out of their hands, com-
manding them to sit down again. And as their chief was a prisoner, with Quat-
ley's knife at his throat, they quickly obeyed Lane's order. Lane then com-
manded the captive Chief to send his warriors away or they would be shot
on the spot, and not to come back for two days, while their big Chief was re-
tained in Lane's camp as a prisoner. During the absence of the warriors Lane
used every means to impress the chief with the power of the white man, their
great numbers, guns, etc., and succeeded in convincing him that it was best to
make a treaty of peace. And when the warriors returned at the end of the two
days the chief advised them to accept the terms which the great white Chief of.
fered, which they finally agreed to. The treaty being concluded, Lane gave the
Indians slips of paper announcing the fact, and warning white men to do them
no injury. These little papers, bearing Lane's signature, became a talisman
among all the Indians, who on meeting a white man would hold the paper up,
crying out “Jo Lane!” “Jo Lane!" the only English words they knew. This
treaty was fairly well kept by both sides for about a year. The old Chief and
Lane became fast friends, the Chief asking Lane to bestow his name upon him,
saying he had seen no man equal to “Jo Lane."
The governor consented to give him half his name, and thereafter the Indian
went by the name of “Jo,” and in the last treaty with the Rogue Rivers is named
"Joseph.” The governor also named the chief's wife, calling her Sally. And
these two royal heads of the Rogue River nation had a son and daughter which
Lane also gave names to, naming the son "Ben" and to the daughter, who is
represented by Lane to have been quite a queen in beauty and manners, he gave
the gentle name of "Mary.” This Mary was an unusual Indian. She never
married into the tribe, and when after five years of war the remainder of the
tribe was placed on the Siletz Reservation, Mary chose her life among the white
people of Rogue river valley, and lived and died with them; and of her, gowned
in the gorgeous dress of beads, silks and lace she had made with her own hands,
and in which she was buried, is given a fine photo-engraved picture on another
page.
Having now given the opening chapter of the Rogue River wars, let us for a
moment compare the leading incident of this chapter with a similar scene in the
Cayuse war. When Peter Skene Ogden summoned the Cayuse chiefs before him
to give an account of themselves and their station in connection with the Whitman
massacre he knew that he had to deal with the whole of the three Cayuse, Nez
Perce and Snake tribes. For while the Nez Perces and Snakes had nothing to
do with the murders, they were not friendly to Whitman because of the immi-
gration of the white men and not disposed to hunt down his murderers. Ogden
could not go out and find and arrest the murderers or recover the unfortunate
prisoners. If he succeeded in his mission it must be through the moral and
mental forces of his personality. In this he was of course supported by the fact
that he represented the all-powerful fur company. But he made the demand
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
395
i
for the prisoners in the face of all this tacit opposition, and in the face of the
fear of the Indian Chiefs that they might themselves be punished if they yielded
to the white Chief's demand. But protesting their own innocence while pleading
that the murders were more than condoned for by the killing of Indians by
white men in California, they surrendered to the unequivocal demand of a single
white man. That was a great triumph of moral over brute force, represented by
the personality, culture and intellectual powers of Ogden.
Now shift the scene from the Umatilla to Rogue River. The Rogue River
Indians had been robbing and killing inoffending white men passing through
their country for more than twenty years, and had escaped any punishment for
their savage brutalities. The first man in authority, and the first man of any
station to appear on the scene and demand a settlement was Joseph Lane, then
territorial governor. The Rogue River Indians knew no more about Lane or his
official position than they knew about Christopher Columbus. To them Governor
Lane was only a man like any other white man. That he was the big chief they
had only his word for it. And yet he calls them in for a council—150 warriors,
half of them armed, with their big chief, sullen, unyielding, demanding war and
swift killing of all white men. And yet, with his slender force of thirty men,
half of them Indians, and surrounded by the savages, he boldly arrests their
chief before their eyes, binds him a prisoner, and then with his own single
weapon proceeds to knock their bows, arrows and guns out of their hands, in-
dignantly dismisses the council, ordering the Indian army to begone and not
return for two days—and they obey his orders and leave their chief in his hands
without an effort to release him. The feat of Governor Lane was greater than
that of Ogden; for he had twenty times as many Indians in his presence to deal
with; he had not the prestige of the great fur company to back him, and he of-
fered no ransom of presents or plunder to secure peace. And yet he, by sheer
force, of his own demonstration and natural superiority over the red men,
forced the Rogue Rivers into a peace treaty that was observed for more than a
year.
After making this treaty, General Lane passed on down to California and
engaged in gold mining, having learned that he was to be, as it turned out that
he was, superseded as governor of Oregon by the appointment of John P. Gaines
as governor.
In 1850 Congress passed an Act to extinguish the Indian title to all lands
west of the Cascade mountains, and President Millard Fillmore appointed Anson
P. Dart superintendent of Indian affairs for Oregon. A commission was also
created by congress consisting of the newly appointed Governor Gaines, Alonzo
A. Skinner and Beverly S. Allen, to make treaties with the Indians west of the
Cascades. Superintendent Dart soon had plenty of trouble. For without any-
body being able to point out the exciting cause of it, during the latter part of
1850 and the summer of 1851 there was a general outbreak of the Indian war
spirit from the Snake river region down to the California line. Many persons
blamed the trouble upon the instigation of the Mormons, and others upon the
general unrest of the Indians by the increasing settlements of the white people.
The latter cause was all-sufficient. The Indian could see that he could not com-
pete with the white man; and that he must become subject to him or go down in
the contest, and he resolved to fight first. On the Oregon trail through Idaho
396
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
the immigration of 1851 suffered the most fiendish outrages at the hands of the
Snakes, who regarded neither age, sex or condition. Thirty-four persons were
killed, many wounded, and many thousand dollars worth of horses and cattle
stolen. The road to California, now constantly traveled by going and returning
gold miners, could not be safely passed over without constant danger of Indian
ambuscades with frequent murders. David Dilley was murdered and his camp
robbed of much gold dust by two professedly friendly Rogue Rivers; Dr. James
McBride, of Yamhill county, with thirty-one men returning from California,
were attacked at Rogue river by two hundred Indians, half of whom were armed
with rifles, the IcBride party having only seventeen guns. The battle lasted
four hours, and until the Indian Chief Chucklehead was killed, when the In-
dians drew off. The white men lost sixteen hundred dollars worth of gold dust
and other property, but no men; the Indian loss not known. At the time of this
battle Major Philip S. Kearney had a party of United States dragoons explor-
ing out a road through the Umpqua canyon to Rogue river, and receiving infor-
mation of the fight made a forced march with twenty-eight men to the scene of
the trouble, reaching Rogue river five miles below Table Rock, the ancient In-
dian stronghold. Here he divided his force and sending one-half of the men up
the south bank of the river under Captain James Stuart and leading the other
half up the north bank, he soon found plenty of Indians who were prepared for
and expecting an attack. The men had tied their sabers to their saddles to pre-
vent noise and when they struck the Indian camp they dismounted so quickly
they forgot their sabers and dashed into the Indians firing their carbines and
charging with revolvers. The Indians—200 of them-fled from twenty-eight
soldiers, leaving eleven dead on the ground; the only loss of the whites being
Captain' Stuart who was shot through the kidneys by an arrow fired by an In-
dian he had knocked down, dying the next day from the wound, and being
buried at the mouth of a creek emptying into Rogue River, and which from that
incident received the name of Stuart creek.
From the Stuart creek battlefield, the Indians fell back to their natural forti-
fication at Table Rock, which is a high, flat-topped promontory overlooking
Rogue River valley, and from which signals can be given for many miles. Find-
ing his force too small to attack the Indians in this position he made a camp to
observe the enemy and wait for the balance of his force with volunteers to come
in and prepare to attack the Indian stronghold. Here he was soon reinforced
by thirty miners going to the Willow Springs mines, and by General Lane and
forty men making a second venture to the California mines. And with this
combined force of about one hundred_men, Major Kearney attacked the Indians
behind their log defenses on Table Rock on June 23, 1851. Two attacks were
made on the 24th, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, General Lane's
old friend, Chief "Jo'' being in command of the Indians, and boasting that
while he had not many guns, he had bows enough to keep a thousand arrows
in the air all the time." There had then been practically four days of fighting,
and Kearney then offered to treat for peace, and if no peace attack the Indians
again on June 25th. The morning of the 25th came and found the Indians run-
ning down the river, which they crossed seven miles below Table Rock and fled
up Sardine creek. As soon as the course of the Indians was discovered, the reg.
ulars and volunteers mounted their horses and all joined in hot pursuit of the
hann
му
Caughey
THE BATTLE OF BATTLE ROCK
Which took place in the edge of the Pacific Ocean in 1851, and where nine men with four old muskets and an old signal gun repulsed an
attack of 150 Indians, killing 23 of them, and getting away with their lives

2
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
397
flying enemy, which was soon overtaken, the warriors running without stopping
to fight, scattering in the forest, and leaving their women and children to be
captured and fed by the soldiers. After scouring among the hills for two days
and finding no Indians, Kearney was compelled to abandon the chase, taking
back to camp thirty Indian women and their children. Here General Lane gal-
lantly and generously offered to relieve Kearney of his captives, he having no
means of taking care of them, and take them to Oregon City and deliver them up
to Governor Gaines. With this charge he started and proceeding north he met
Governor Gaines in the vicinity of where Grant's Pass is located, and there on
July 7, 1851, delivered the captives to the governor. And by means of the pos-
session of the prisoners, the governor was enabled to get eleven of the head men
of the Indians and about one hundred of their followers to come in and make
peace. These treaty-makers belonged to the Peace Party among the Rogue Riv-
ers, and always came to the front when the fighting Indians got thrashed in
battle; and for years afterward they were alternately fighting or peacemaking,
according as the fortunes of war ran for or against them.
From the beautiful Rogue River valley the bloody scenes now shift to the
sea coast. About June 1st, 1851, the steam coaster Sea Gull, Captain William
Tichenor, master, landed a party of nine men at Port Orford in Curry county,
as the first installment of a force that was intended to establish a trading estab-
lishment at that point, and open a pack trail from there to the gold mines in
Jackson county. The names of these men were, J. M. Kirkpatrick, J. H. Eagan,
John T. Slater, George Ridoubs, T. D. Palmer, Joseph Hussey, Cyrus W. Hed-
den, James Carigan, and Erastus Summers. Tichenor was under contract with
the men to give them supplies, rifles and ammunition for defense in case of an
attack from the Indians; but on landing the men found they had only three old
flint-lock muskets, an old sword and a few pounds of lead and powder and one
rifle owned by one of the men. Complaining of this miserable outfit, the gallant
captain assured them they needed no arms at all, but these would do to show and
scare the Indians as well as good guns. But to make sure of more efficient de-
fense in case of an attack, the men carried off the signal gun from the ship which
was about a four-pound cannon. Soon after the men were landed the Indians
gathered around and by signs warned them to leave. This intimation of danger
proved their salvation, for they at once set about making ready for an attack.
The old cannon was dragged up the sloping end of an immense rock rising out of
the edge of the ocean. And upon this rock the men took their outfit of food and
blankets, loaded the old cannon with powder and slugs of lead and awaited the
attack they felt was coming. As soon as the ship sailed the Indians again or-
dered the men to leave. There was now no chance to leave. The next morning,
June 10, 1851, the great rock was surrounded on the land side with a hundred
yelling Indians. Their chief made a loud speech to his warriors, after which
with a chorus of yells fifty Indians made a rush for the rock and the balance of
them filled the air with arrows aimed at the nine white men. The rock is so
shaped that before the Indians could reach the white men they would have to
crowd upon and along a narrow space for thirty feet. The old cannon had been
trained to sweep that approach, and as the first Indian reached the muzzle of the
cannon, and the narrow approach was crowded with yelling Indians, Captain
Kirkpatrick applied the match and thirty Indians were hurled into eternity in
398
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
the twinkling of an eye. Besides the outright killing of half the attacking party,
the balance of the Indians on the rock were so shocked by the loud explosion that
they tumbled off into the ocean or rolled down the sides in deadly terror. This
terrific repulse sent the whole band remaining alive or unmangled back to their
camp in wailing. And that night the defenders packed their pockets and knap-
sacks with food and set out in the night on foot to reach the white settlements
in Umpqua valley more than a hundred miles distant; and finally after incred-
ible hardships in hiding from the pursuing Indians, wading streams, sleeping
on the ground in wet clothing and living on snails and wild berries they all safely
reached the houses of white men. The great rock has ever since gone by the
name of Battle Rock, a photo of it and a spirited sketch of the battle appears on
another page.
LANE'S SECOND TREATY
The first treaty of peace made by General Lane with the Rogue River Indians
was tolerably respected for a year; and then desultory fighting with miners and
travelers and stealing stock from the farmers was resumed; so that by 1853 all
the tribes of that region were again practically on the war path. The settlers
got together as well as they could a small body of volunteers, General Lane
brought over fifty men from Umpqua valley where he had settled on a farm, and
assumed command of the whole force; Colonel John Ross, of Jackson county, and
Captain Alden, of the regular army, serving under Lane. Old "Jo'—the "Jo"
Lane “Jo” Chiefs John and Sam were leaders of the Indians who had collected
a large force of warriors and made their headquarters in the rough mountains
and heavy timbers on Evans creek, and making a fortified camp of fallen tim-
bers on Evans creek, and making a fortified camp of fallen timber with plenty of
arms and ammunition made a formidable foe to attack. Nevertheless, on reach-
ing the ground Lane charged the breastwork of the Indians, and received a shot
in one arm, while Captain Alden received a wound from which he never fully
recovered. Several other volunteers were badly wounded and died, and Pleas-
ant Armstrong, an old and respected citizen of Yamhill county, was shot dead on
the ground. In this fight the Indians and white inen were so close together in
the charge on the log fort, that they could easily talk back to each other, and
the Indians bitterly reproached Lane for the attack, and asked him to come into
their camp and arrange another peace. And surprising as it was to all his men,
General Lane stopped the battle, and in his wounded condition marched alone
into the Indian stronghold where he saw many dead and wounded Indians,
showing clearly they had got the worst of the battle. And after a talk with the
Chiefs it was agreed that both whites and Indians should all go back to Table
Rock and there make a permanent peace. And upon that temporary arrange-
ment both sides retired from the Evans creek battlefield and did go back to
Table Rock, both parties marching over the same trail-the Indians preceding
the white men,
When this outbreak occurred couriers were sent off for aid by the regular
U. S. soldiers and volunteers. To this appeal Colonel James W. Nesmith re-
sponded with 75 volunteers raised quickly in Polk, Marion and Linn counties;
Capt. A. J. Smith marched at once with Company C of the First U. S. Dra-
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
399
goons, while Capt. August V. Kautz, then just out of West Point and after-
wards a Major General in the Union army, brought up the rear with a twelve
pound howitzer and fixed ammunition. These forces all reached Fort Lane
on Rogue river on September 18, 1853, making a combined force of about 250
men as against an estimated Indian force of 700 warriors. Now for the bal-
ance of the story of this second treaty of peace the account of Col. Nesmith
is given in full, describing a thrilling drama, never safely executed by any
other man than General Joseph Lane, of Douglas county, Oregon.
“The encampment of the Indians was on the side of the mountains, of
which Table Rock forms the summit, and at night we could plainly see their
camp fires, while they could look directly down upon us. The whole command
was anxious and willing to fight, but General Lane had pledged the Indians
that an effort should be made to treat for peace. Superintendent Palmer and
Agent Culver were upon the ground. The armistice had not yet expired, and
the 10th was fixed for the time of the council. On the morning of that day
General Lane sent for me, and desired me to go with him to the council ground
inside the Indian encampment, to act as interpreter, as I was master of the
Chinook jargon. I asked the general upon what terms we were to meet the
Indians. He replied that the agreement was that the meeting should take
place within the encampment of the enemy, and that he would be accompanied
by ten other men of his own selection, unarmed.
"Against those terms, I protested, and told the general that I had traversed
that country five years before, and fought those same Indians; that they were
notoriously treacherous, and in early times had earned the designation of
‘Rogues,' by never permitting a white man to escape with his scalp when
once in their power; that I knew them better than he did, and that it was
criminal folly for eleven unarmed men to place themselves voluntarily within
the power of seven hundred well-armed, hostile Indians in their own secure
encampment. I reminded him that I was a soldier in command of a company
of cavalry and was ready to obey his order to lead my men to action, or to dis-
charge any soldierly duty, no part of which was to go into the enemy's camp
as an unarmed interpreter. The general listened to my protest and replied
that he had fixed upon the terms of meeting the Indians and should keep his
word, and if I was afraid to go I could remain behind. When he put it upon
that ground, I responded that I thought I was as little acquainted with fear
as he was, and that I would accompany him to what I believed would be our
slaughter.
“Early on the morning of the 10th of September, 1853, we mounted our
horses and rode out in the direction of the Indian encampment. Our party
consisted of the following named persons: Gen. Joseph Lane; Joel Palmer,
Superintendent of Indian affairs, Samuel P. Culver, Indian agent, Capt. A.
J. Smith, 1st Dragoons; Capt. L. F. Mosher, Adjutant; Col. John E. Ross;
Capt. J. W. Nesmith; Lieut. A. V. Kautz; R. B. Metcalf, J. D. Mason, T. T.
Tierney.
"After riding a couple of miles across the level valley, we came to the foot
of the mountain where it was too steep for horses to ascend. We dismounted
and hitched our horses and scrambled up for half a mile over huge rocks and
through brush, and then found ourselves in the Indian stronghold, just under
400
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
•
ner.
the perpendicular cliff of Table Rock, and surrounded by seven hundred
fierce and well armed hostile savages, in all their gorgeous warpaint and
feathers. Captain Smith had drawn out his company of dragoons and left
them in line in the plain below. It was a bright, beautiful morning, and the
Rogue River valley lay like 'a panorama at our feet; the exact line of dragoons
sitting statue like upon their horses, with their white belts and burnished
scabbards and carbines, looked like they were engraven upon a picture, while
a few paces in our rear the huge perpendicular wall of the Table Rock towered,
frowningly, many hundred feet above us. The business of the treaty commenced
at once. Long speeches were made by General Lane and Superintendent Pal-
mer; they had to be translated twice. When an Indian spoke in the Rogue
River tongue it was translated by an Indian interpreter into Chinook or jar-
gon to me, when I translated it into English; when Lane or Palmer spoke, the
process was reversed, I giving the speech to the Indian interpreter in Chinook,
and he translating it to the Indians in their own tongue. This double trans-
lation of long speeches made the labor tedious, and it was not until late in
the afternoon that the treaty was completed and signed. In the mean time an
episode occurred which came near terminating the treaty as well as the repre-
sentation of one of the 'high contracting parties in a sudden and tragic man-
About the middle of the afternoon a young Indian came running into
camp stark naked, with the perspiration streaming from every pore. He made
a brief harangue, and threw himself upon the ground apparently exhausted.
His speech had created a great tumult among his tribe. General Lane told
me to inquire of the Indian interpreter the cause of the commotion; the In-
dian responded that a company of white men down at Applegate Creek, and
under the command of Captain Owen, had that morning captured an Indian
known as Jim Taylor, and had tied him to a tree and shot him to death. The
hubbub and confusion among the Indians at once became intense, and murder
glared from each savage visage. The Indian interpreter told me that the In-
dians were threatening to tie us up to trees and serve us as Owen's men had
served Jim Taylor. I saw some Indians gathering up lass-ropes while others
drew skin covers from their guns, and the wiping sticks from their muzzle.
"There appeared a strong probability of our party being subjected to a
sudden volley. I explained as briefly as I could what the interpreter had com-
municated to me, in order to keep our people from huddling together, and
thus make a better target for the savages, I used a few English words, not
likely to be understood by the Indian interpreter, such as 'disperse' and
segregate.' In fact, we kept so close to the savages, and separated from one
another that any general firing must have been nearly as fatal to the Indians
as to the whites.
“While I admitted that I thought that my time had come, and hurriedly
thought of wife and children, I noticed nothing but coolness among my com-
panions. General Lane sat upon a log with his arm bandaged in a sling, the
lines about his mouth rigidly compressing his lips, while his eyes flashed fire. He
asked brief questions, and gave me sententious answers to what little the Indians
said to us. Capt. A. J. Smith, who was prematurely gray-haired, and was afflicted
with a nervous snapping of the eyes, leaned upon his cavalry saber, and looked
anxiously down upon his well formed line of dragoons in the valley below. His
Road from
Jackson's fight
Old Road to Hot Springs
Bernárd's train attacked
Land Claim
Bernard's train etracked
"PLAVAYBEDS
Jack's Strong
Linkville
Utakeport
Ford
Several citizens munered
Nov. 294, 30.
in thimicinity.
Brotherton's
8TATE BOUNDARY LINE
ONZER
Miller's
Murder Point
TUTTI
REFAMATIE
EURE
SEE
MODO C9FAKE
Springer
Dome Hilmi
Gen Canby,
Apr. 11973
Cena Gied's Camp
Jumper
LP
"Bütte
Thomas the
Killed Wright
Col. Mason,
Apr.26
Hovo
12, 13, 14 May
Van Bremer's
Cranston
Soras Lo
to Camp Warner
Lost
Jacksonville
lamar
Citized
Nov 29, '72
a
Applegates
Springs
ock surrendered
Finney, '93
WU
Good
Tmi
Sue
Dorrig.
Oléar
=
Es
Rd. from
*
Yreka
halar
Renic
Fairchildren
počbolds
nos content
Cottonwood Ox
Capt. Hasbrouck,
12, 13, 14 May
Tycknor Road
R.
BATTLE FIELDS OF MODOC WAR
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
101
eyes snapped more vigorously than usual, and muttered words escaped from under
the old dragoon's mustache that did not sound like prayers. His squadron looked
beautiful, but alas, they could render us no assistance. I sat down on a log close
to old Chief Jo, and having a sharp hunting knife under my hunting shirt, kept
one hand near its handle, determined that there would be one Indian made
'good' about the time the firing commenced.
In a few moments General Lane stood up and commenced to speak slowly
but very distinctly. He said: "Owens who has violated the armistice and
killed Jim Taylor, is a bad man. He is not one of my soldiers. When I catch
him he shall be punished. I promised in good faith to come into your camp
with ten other unarmed men to secure peace. Myself and men are placed in
your power; I do not believe that you are such cowardly dogs as to take advan-
tage of our unarmed condition. I know that you have the power to murder us,
and you can do as quickly as you please, but what good will our blood do
you? Our murder will exasperate our friends and your tribes will be hunted
from the face of the earth. Let us proceed with the treaty, and in place of war,
have lasting peace.' Much more was said in this strain by the general, all rather
defiant, and nothing of a begging character. The excitement gradually sub-
sided, after Lane promised to give a fair compensation for the defunct Jim Tay.
lor in shirts and blankets.
"The treaty of the 10th of September, 1853, was completed and signed and
peace restored for the next two years. Our party wended their way among the
rocks down to where our horses were tied, and mounted. Old A. J. Smith gal-
loped up to his squadron and gave a brief order. The bugle sounded a note or
two, and the squadron wheeled and trotted off to camp. As General Lane and
party rode back across the valley, we looked up and saw the rays of the setting
sun gilding the summit of Table Rock. I drew a long breath and remarked
to the old general that the next time he wanted to go unarmed into a hostile
camp he must hunt up some other one besides myself to act as interpreter.
With a benignant smile he responded, "God bless you,' 'luck is better than
science.'
“I never hear the fate of General Canby at the Modoc camp, referred to,
that I do not think of our narrow escape of a similar fate at Table Rock.
Rickreall, April 20, 1879." '
Of this account, General Lane wrote to Colonel Nesmith as follows:
"ROSEBURG, Monday April 28, 1879.
"MY DEAR SIR—Your note of the 23rd instant, enclosing a copy of an ar-
ticle giving an account of our council or treaty with the Rogue River Indians
on September 10, 1853, was received two or three days ago and would have
been answered on receipt, had I not been too feeble to write. I am feeling
quite well this morning, though my hand trembles. You will get this in a day,
or two, and the article will be published in the Star on Friday and will reach
you an Saturday. Dates and incidents in the article are in the main correct.
You could, however, very truly have said, that neither you nor myself had a
single particle of fear of any treachery on the part of the Indians toward us,
and the proof was they did not harm us.
"We had at all times been ready to fight them, and to faithfully keep and
Vol. 1—26
402
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
maintain our good faith with them. We never once, on any occasion, lied to .
them, and as you know, when the great Indian war of 1855-6 broke out, and
you were again on the field fighting them, poor old Jo was dead, and you, or
some other commander, at old Sam's request, sent him and his people to Grand
Round Reservation.
“Old John and Adam, and all others except Jo's and Sam's people fought
you hard, but the Rogues, proper, never forgot the impression we made upon them
in the great Council of September 10, 1853. It was a grand and successful
Council, the Rogue Rivers proper, fought us no more; they did not forget their
promises to us.
“Very truly your friend and obedient servant,
"JOSEPH LANE.'
CHIEF JOHN'S LAST BATTLE
Notwithstanding the second treaty made by Lane, the treaty of 1853, the
Rogue Rivers were all again on the war path killing and robbing the settlers
in 1855 and 1856. The widely scattered settlements of the mountainous region
of Southern Oregon could not be successfully defended by any reasonable
force of white men, because they could not live and fight and travel through
the mountains as the Indian could. Chief John was the leader and hero of this
last Indian war, and an Indian better qualified for guerilla warfare could not
have been found. It is impossible to record in this work all the battles, routs,
murders and toilsome marches of a dozen separated commands of volunteers
and regulars endeavoring to keep the Indians so continually on the move from
one hiding place to another that they would be exhausted, surrender and go on
the then provided Indian Reservation. By this strenuous effort nearly all the
old men, women and children of the Indian tribes were gathered up, but the able-
bodied warriors still roved about the country murdering and robbing wherever
there was an opportunity. The Indians had made the junction of the Illinois
and Rogue river streams their headquarters; for while this location was diffi-
cult of access by regular United States soldiers and their equipment, it was an
ideal point for the Indians to convene at and run away from if attacked,
furnishing three water-level valleys in three different directions as line of ac-
cess or escape. To this point Lieutenant Colonel Buchanan in command of
the United States regulars, directed his efforts in hopes of convening there all the
warring chiefs for the purpose of inducing them to go on the Indian Reser-
vations in Benton or Yamhill counties. Word was sent out in all directions
inviting the outstanding warriors to meet Buchanan at Big Meadows near the
mouth of the Illinois river. Chief John accepted the invitation and came May
21, 1856, with all his men, and Chief George, Limpy and other minor chiefs.
John was invited into the white soldiers' camp for a talk, and assured of pro-.
tection. He came and had a long talk with Colonel Buchanan, and which
was finally ended by John's speech to Buchanan, saying: “You are a great chief;
so am I. This is my country. I was in it when those large trees were very
small, not higher than my head. My heart is sick with fighting; but I want to
live in my country. If the white people are willing I will go back to Deer
creek and live among them as I used to do. They can visit my camp, and I will
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
103
visit theirs; but I will not lay down my arms and go with you to the Reserve.
I will fight. Goodby." Then he returned unrestrained to his own camp as had
been agreed.
After much argument and promises of many presents all the chiefs but
John came in four days after and gave up their arms and were escorted by
a part of the soldiers to Fort Lane on their way to the reservation. Captain A. J.
Smith had given notice that in three or four days he would be back again at
the common rendezvous with his men to receive the remainder of the Indian war-
riors; and to hasten their decision had told them that if he found any of them
roaming around the country with fire arms he would hang them. But when he
got back to camp no Indians appeared, but instead thereof, two peaceably dis-
posed Indian women came in and informed Smith that he might expect an
attack from Chief John on the next day. Smith immediately hurried off a
courier to Colonel Buchanan asking for reinforcements to meet this sudden
change in John's disposition, and then immediately moved his camp to higher
ground, but further away from water, and had to leave his cavalry horses
in the meadows below him. The men worked all night, getting no sleep, dig-
ging rifle pits with their tin cups, having not a single spade in camp, and
planting their howitzer so it would command one approach to their position
while the men lying flat in their shallow pits could protect the other approach
with their carbines. John's first move was to send forward forty armed war-
riors for a talk with Captain Smith, and as they advanced to the east approach
they called on Smith to come out and talk. The Captain was too well aware of
Indian tactics to trust himself in their possession, and so ordered them to retire
and deposit their arms at the edge of the timber. Thus finding Smith prepared
to fight, and no chance to capture him by strategy, the warriors returned to
their camp, and within an hour, on May 27, 1856, was commenced the last
pitched battle of the Rogue River Indian war. The Indians simultaneously
attacked both sides of Smith's camp, firing their guns and rushing up the de-
fending slopes with hideous yells. They were met at short range with the
deadly fire of the carbines on both sides and compelled to fall back to the tim-
ber. (See the drawing on another page.) Not being able to get at the soldiers
by these approaches, the Indians made desperate attempts to scale the unpro-
tected sides with perpendicular banks, and the regulars were compelled to
abandon their rifle pits and hurl back the desperate foe with shots at short
range, and even some Indians with clubbed muskets. The Indians exhibited
the most reckless daring and bravery in repeated attacks throughout the day
in attempts to get into Smith's camp, but all to no purpose but the loss of life
to the attacking party. Thus the long day of May 27, was spent; followed by
hard work all the succeeding night digging more rifle pits and erecting breast-
works, without food, water or sleep. On the 28th the Indians renewed the
attack; and to the white men was added not only the labor and dangers of
defense, but also the fatigue from loss of sleep and the torture of thirst. The
Indians understood the frightful condition of the white men, and from their
covert in the edge of the timber, tauntingly called out “Mika hyas ticka chuck"
(You very much want water?); "Halo chuck Boston” (No water for white
man.) And to this taunt they added another (referring to Captain Smith's
threat to hang all Indians he found roaming over the country with arms
104
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
in their hands) "that they had ropes to hang every trooper, the soldiers not
being worth the powder and ball to shoot them;'' and occasionally a rope would
be hung out on a bush and Captain Smith was told to come out and hang him-
self. All sorts of insulting epithets in tolerable English were hurled at the sol-.
diers from the nearest fringe of timber. This terrible strain continued until
four o'clock the second day of the battle, when one-third of Smith's cominand
was killed and wounded. About sundown the Indians held a council, and rely-
ing on the exhausted condition of the white men planned to charge Smith's
camp with the whole force. “It was an hour never to be forgotten”-says the
letter of one of the soldiers—" a silent and awful hour, in the expectation of
speedy and cruel death.” Suddenly an infernal chorus of yells burst forth
from John's camp, the whole Indian army joining in one blood-curdling roar
of demoniac fury; they rushed upon Smith's poor camp from all sides. The
life of every white man hung in the balance; and the yelling, and savage thirst
for the white man's blood had prevented the Indian chief from discovering
that at that same instant Captain Augur, responding to Smith's call for aid,
had silently crept through the surrounding timber, and as the Indians charged
down upon the beleagured whites Augur's men rushed upon the rear of the In-
dian attack firing at short range and then charging with the bayonets, and the
battle was over in fifteen minutes, the Indians wildly fleeing in all directions,
abandoning their camp entirely. Thus ended May 28, 1856, the last battle of
Chief John and the Rogue Rivers.
Chief John was a very unusual Indian. He is described as a bolder, braver
and stronger man mentally than any chief west of the Cascade mountains.
When dressed in white men's costume he might have been easily taken for
a hard working, sun burnt farmer of the western states. A good likeness of
him is given upon another page. With slight resistance after his last battle
he, with all his warriors, came in and surrendered to Captain Smith, and
Joel Palmer, Supt. of Indian affairs, on June 1, 1856, thus ending the Rogue
River Indian wars for all time. The final result was that about 2,700 Indians
old and young were removed from the Southern Oregon country to the Siletz
and Grande Ronde Reservations, and showing that before the war commenced
there must have been an Indian population of fully 5,000 in that region. Many
minor events, bloody reprisals, and isolated murders from both sides have been
recorded, but which have not been referred to, but which are well worth pre-
serving. These have been collated by the Hon. Wm. M. Colvig, and given to
present day readers in an address by him to the reunion of Indian war veterans
at Medford on July 26, 1902; and all of this Indian war history compiled in the
above address, and which has not been already recorded herein, will now be
given and credited to the careful work of Mr. Colvig.
The first recorded fight between the Indians and whites in any portion of
southern Oregon occurred in 1828 when Jedediah S. Smith and seven other trap-
pers were attacked by the Indians on the Umpqua River, and fifteen of the whites
were slain, only Smith and three of his companions escaping. The next fight of
which we have any account was in June, 1836, at a point just below the Rock
Point Bridge, where the barn on the W. L. Colvig estate stands. In this fight
there were Dan Miller, Edward Barnes, Dr. W. J. Bailey, George Gay, Saunders,
Woodworth, Irish Tom, and J. Turner and Squaw. Two trappers were killed,

2.
3.
4.
(Thanks to Major Lee Moorhouse)
INDIANS ON RESERVATIONS
No. 1-Sac-a-ja wea
No. 2-An aged squa w
No. 3.-Fishhawk, war chief of Cayuses No. 4-Alice Pat-e-wa, Umatilla belle
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
405
and nearly all were wounded. Within my recollection, Doctor Bailey visited
the scene of the fight, and pointed out to my father its location. In September,
1837, at the mouth of Foot's Creek, in Jackson county, a party of men who had
been sent to California by the Methodist mission to procure cattle, while on their
return were attacked by the Rogue River Indians and had a short, severe fight,
in which several of the whites were badly wounded and some twelve or fourteen
of the Indians killed. In May, 1845, J. C. Fremont had a fight with the Indians
in the Klamath country; it may have been a little over the line in California.
Four of Fremont's men were killed and quite a large number of the Indians.
Kit Carson was a prominent figure in this battle.
A few bold adventurers had located in Rogue River Valley as early as De-
cember, 1851. During the spring, summer, and fall of that year there was a
considerable amount of travel by parties from northern Oregon going to and re-
turning from the great mining excitement of California. Fights between these
travelers and the Indians were of frequent occurrence. On the fifteenth of May,
1851, a pack train was attacked at a point on Bear Creek, where the town of
Phoenix is now situated, and a man by the name of Dilley was killed.
At the massacre of emigrants at Bloody Point, Klamath County, in 1852,
thirty-six men, women and children were murdered. Capt. Ben Wright, and
twenty-seven men from Yreka and Col. J. E. Ross and some Oregonians went out
to punish these Modocs. Old Sconchin, who was afterwards hung at Fort Klam-
ath in 1873, at the close of the Modoc war, was the leader. Wright gave them
no, quarter. He and his men, infuriated at the sight of the mangled bodies of
the emigrants, killed men, women and children without any discrimination.
I can not give you the names of all who were killed in Rogue River Valley
during the years 1851 and 1852, and 1853. I will mention some that were killed
in 1853. In August of that year Edward Edwards was killed near Medford;
Thomas Wills and Rhodes Nolan, in the edge of the town of Jacksonville; Pat
Dunn and Carter, both wounded in a fight on Neil Creek above Ashland. In a
fight with the Indians on Bear Creek, in August, 1853, Hugh Smith was killed,
and Howell Morris, Hodgins, Wittemore, and Gibbs, wounded, the last named
three dying from their wounds soon after.
These murders, and many more that could be mentioned, brought on the In-
dian war of 1853. Southern Oregon raised six companies of volunteers, who
served under the following named captains, viz., R. L. Williams, J. K. Lamerick,
John F. Miller, Elias A. Owens, and W. W. Fowler. Capt. B. F. Alden, of the
Fourth U. S. Infantry, with twenty regulars, came over from Fort Jones, Cali-
fornia, and with him a large number of volunteers under Capt. James P. Goodall
and Capt. Jacob Rhoades, two Indian fighters of experience. Captain Alden was
given the command of all the forces. The first battle of the war was fought on
the twelfth day of August, 1853, and was an exciting little fight between about
twenty volunteers under Lieut. Burrell Griffin, of Miller's company, and a band
of Indians under Chief John. The volunteers were ambushed at a point near
the mouth of Williams creek, on the Applegate. The whites were defeated with
a loss of two killed, and Lieutenant Griffin severely wounded. There were five
Indians killed and wounded in the battle. On August 10, 1853, John R. Hard-
ing and Wm. R. Rose, of Captain Lamerick's company, were killed near Willow
Springs.
!
406
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
The war of 1855-56 was preceded by a great many murders and depredations
by the Indians in different parts of southern Oregon. I will mention a few :
Dyar and McKew, were killed on the road from Jacksonville to Josephine
County on June 1, 1855. About the same time a man by the name of -Phil-
pot was killed on Deer Creek, Josephine County, and James Mills was wounded
at the same time and place. Granville Keene was killed at a point on Bear Creek,
above Ashland, and J. Q. Faber was wounded. Two men, —Fielding, and
Cunningham, were killed in September, 1855, on the road over the Siskiyou
mountains.
On account of these various depredations, Maj. J. A. Lupton raised a tem-
porary force of volunteers, composed of miners and others, from the vicinity
of Jacksonville, about thirty-five in number, and proceeded to a point on the
north side of Rogue River, opposite the mouth of Little Butte Creek. There
he attacked a camp of Indians at a time when they were not expecting trouble.
It is said that about thirty men, women and children were killed by Lupton's
The Major himself received a mortal wound in the fight. This fight has
been much criticised by the people of southern Oregon, a great many of them
believing that it was unjustifiable and cowardly. Two days after this affair
a series of massacres took place in the sparsely settled country in and about
where Grants Pass is now situated. On the ninth of October, 1855, the Indians,
having divided up into'small parties, simultaneously attacked the homes of the
defenseless families located in that vicinity. I will name a few of those tragic
On the farm now owned by James Tuffs, Mr. Jones was killed, and his
wife, after receiving a mortal wound, made her escape. She was found by the
volunteers on the next day and died a few days afterwards. Their house was
burned down. Mrs. Wagner was murdered by the Indians on the same day.
Her husband was away from home at the time, but returned on the following
day to find his wife murdered and his home a pile of ashes. The Harris family
consisting of Harris and wife and their two children, Mary Harris, aged twelve,
and David Harris, aged ten, and T. A. Reed, who lived with the family were
attacked. Mr. Harris was shot down while standing near his door, and at a
moment when he 'little suspected treachery from the Indians with whom he was
talking. His wife and daughter pulled his body within the door, and seizing
a double-barrelled shotgun and an old-fashioned Kentucky rifle, commenced
firing through the cracks of the log cabin. They kept this up till late in the
night, and by heroic bravery kept the Indians from either gaining an entrance
into the house or succeeding in their attempts to fire it. Just back of the cabin
was a dense thicket of brush and during a lull in the attack the two brave women
escaped through the back door and fled through the woods. They were found
the next day by the volunteers from Jacksonville, our late friend, Henry Klippel
being one of the number. Mrs. Harris lived to a good old age in this country. Mary
who was wounded in the fight, afterwards became the wife of Mr. G. M. Love,
and was the mother of George Love of Jacksonville, and Mrs. John A. Hanley
of Medford. David Harris, the boy, was not in the house when the attack was
made, but at work on the place. His fate has never been ascertained, as his
body was never found. The Indians stated, after peace was made, that they
killed him at the time they attacked the Harris house. Reed, the young man
spoken of, was killed out near the house.
1
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
1
407
On October 31, 1855, the battle of Hungry Hill was fought near the present
railway station of Leland. Capt. A. J. Smith of the United States army was
at that battle, and a large number of citizen soldiery. The result of the battle
was very undecisive. There were thirty-one whites killed and wounded, nine
of them killed outright. It is not known how many of the Indians were killed,
but after the treaty was made they confessed to fifteen. The Indians were in
heavy timber and were scarcely seen during the two days' battle.
In April, 1856, after peace had been concluded between the whites and In-
dians, the Ledford massacre took place in Rancherie Prairie, near Mount Mc-
Loughlin, in this county, in which five white men were killed. This event was
the last of the "irrepressible conflict." Soon afterwards the Indians were re-
moved to the Siletz reservation, where their descendants now live and enjoy the
favors of the government which their fathers so strongly resisted.
The war in Rogue River Valley had not virtually ended. "Old Sam's"
band, with an escort of one hundred United States troops, was taken to the
coast reservation at Siletz. Chiefs "John" and "Limpy," with a large number
of the most active warriors, who had followed their fortunes during all these
struggles, still held out and continued their depredations in the lower Rogue
River country and in connection with the Indians of Curry County.
Gen. John E. Wool, commander of the Department of the Pacific, in Novem-
ber, 1855, had stopped at Crescent City while on his way to the Yakima coun-
try. He received full information while here of the military operations in
southern Oregon. Skipping many details, it is sufficient to state that he ordered
Capt. A. J. Smith, to move down the river from Fort Lane and form a junction
with the United States troops under Captain Jones and E. 0. C. Ord (after-
wards a major-general in United States army) who were prosecuting an active
campaign in the region from Chetco, Pistol River, and the Illinois River Valley.
Captain Smith left Fort Lane with eighty men-fifty dragoons and thirty in
fantry. I can only take the time to mention a few of the fights in that region
during the spring of 1856. On March 8th, Captain Abbott had a skirmish with
the Chetco Indians at Pistol River. He lost several men. The Indians had his
small force completely surrounded when Captain Ord and Captain Jones with
one hundred and twelve regular troops came to his relief. They charged and
drove the Indians away with heavy loss. On March 20, 1855, Lieutenant-Colonel
Buchanan, assisted by Captain Jones and Ord, attacked an Indian village ten
miles above the mouth of Rogue River. The Indians were driven away, leaving
several dead and only one white man wounded in the fight. A few days later Cap-
tain Augur's company (United States troops) fought John and “Limpy's"
band at the mouth of the Illinois River. The Indians fought desperately, leaving
five dead on the battlefield. On March 27, 1855, the regulars again met the In-
dians on Lower Rogue River. After a brisk fight at close quarters the Indians
fled, leaving ten dead and two of the soldiers were severely wounded. On April
1, 1855, Captain Creighton, with a company of citizens, attacked an Indian vil-
lage near the mouth of the Coquille River, killing nine men, wounding eleven
and taking forty squaws and children prisoners. About this time some volun-
teers attacked a party of Indians who were moving in canoes at the mouth of the
Rogue River. They killed eleven men and one squaw. Only one man and two
squaws of the party escaped. O.n April 29, 1855, a party of sixty regulars es-
108
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
corting a pack train were attacked near Chetco. In this fight three soldiers
were killed and wounded. The Indians lost six killed and several wounded.
The volunteer forces of the coast were three companies known by the name
of "Gold Beach Guards,” the “Coquille Guards," and the "Port Orford Min-
ute Men."
On May 31st, Governor Curry ordered the volunteer forces to disband-
nearly all the Indians had surrendered. About one thousand three hundred
of the various tribes that had carried on the war were gathered in camp at Port
Orford. About July 1, 1856, "John” and thirty-five tough looking warriors,
the last to surrender, "threw down the hatchet.”
A large number of the pioneer Oregonians rendered valuable and distin-
guished services in this long, bitter and sanguinary contest with the native red
men. General Joseph Lane, Col. John E. Ross, Capt. Wm. H. Packwood, Capt.
Ben. Wright, J. H. Lamerick, John F. Miller, Elias Owens, W. W. Fowler, B. F.
Alden, Burrell Griffin, Major J. A. Lupton, Mrs. Mary Harris, Capt. A. J. Smith,
Capt. Creighton, Major Latshaw, Capt. J. M. Kirkpatrick, Col. John Kelsay,
Col. W. W. Chapman, Major James Bruce, and Dr. Wm. L. Colvig; all of whom
have now passed over the Great Divide, except Major Bruce, and Capt. Pack-
wood, who are at this writing (May 1st, 1912) both still in the full vigor of
their mental faculties and good bodily health.
THE YAKIMA WAR
There can be but little doubt that there was an effort on the part of all the
Indians of the region of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho to form in 1854 a
general combination to expel the white people from all this territory or to exter-
minate theni. And if the Indians had possessed a great leader like Pontiac or
Tecumseh they might well nigh have succeeded. There could not have been more
than 3,500 men capable of bearing arms in Oregon at that time. Washington
was so sparsely settled that it could not have defended its own people; and
[daho was still then an Indian country. As against such a combination the
men of Oregon would have had to do the fighting, as in fact they did do it, helped
out by small detachments of the regular army. The wars broke out simultane-
ously in Idaho, Eastern Oregon, on Puget Sound and in Southern Oregon. It
was ascertained subsequently that previous thereto the Indians in all these sec-
tions of the country had been accumulating large quantities of powder, lead
and rifles. The aggregate force of Indian warriors in these regions could not
have been less than eight thousand. In their wide extended attacks they had
many advantages over the Oregonians. First, a large force had to be deployed
to Idaho to protect the incoming immigration on the Oregon Trail. Here fifty
Indians could keep 500 white men busy scouting for them, and then not catch
a single Indian and not fully protect the immigrants. Second, the Indian men
could all go on the war path and leave the women to shift for themselves and
take care of children. Third, the Indians needed no shelter tents, commissary
train, baggage masters, wagons, horses or wagon roads. They knew every nook,
corner, defile and hiding place in all the mountains, and could fire from ambush
and retreat in safety, while their game hunters could supply them with meat
for food. If all the Indians could have combined they could have exterminated

CHIEF JOSEPH
CopyRIGHT. 1901.
BY LEE Mporypus
(Favor of Major Lee Moorhouse.)
CHIEF JOSEPH OF THE NEZ PERCES
The greatest Indian character since Pontiac and Tecumseh
OF
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
109
the whites. But nature was against them as well as their own want of training
and discipline. The wide spread arid plains of Eastern Oregon and Washington
kept them separated in the summer season, and the snowy heights of the Cas-
cade Mountains held them back from any attack on the Willamette valley in the
winter season save by the Columbia Pass. But so profound was the danger sup-
posed to be that preparations were made throughout the Willamette Valley for
defense against possible Indian raids. It is said that the Methodists on Tualatin
Plains, of Washington County, constructed a stockade around their church and
prepared for defense of their families inside of the pickets. That there were
good grounds for alarm there can be no doubt. There were during the years of
1854-5 and 6 at different times as many as four thousand Indians on the war
path in different parts of the country at the same time. To have so controlled
that large force of Indian desperadoes so they could do no harm would have re-
quired a military force of ten thousand soldiers so distributed that they could
intercept or strike a marauding band of Indians in any part of Oregon, Wash-
ington or Idaho. But as the entire military forces of volunteers and regulars
in the entire Oregon country never exceeded fifteen hundred men in actual
service, the result was the abandonment of the outlying settlements and con-
centrating the settlers at points where they could be protected. Running battles
between white and Indians were frequent events in the Eastern Oregon Coun-
try, some of them covering four days. This was possible in the open and level
regions of Eastern Oregon, Washington and Idaho, and wholly impossible in
the mountainous regions of Southern Oregon. And to show how completely the
Indians had possession of the whole country east of the Cascade mountains,
the attack on the people at the Cascades, where the towns of Stephenson and
Cascades Locks are now located, within forty miles of the City of Portland, the
following account of that attack is here by Lawrence W. Coe, who was an
eye witness of the exciting scenes. In a letter to Putnam Bradford, who was at
that time constructing the first portage railroad at the Cascades, Mr. Coe
writes:
“On Wednesday, March 26, 1856, at about 8:30 A. M. the men had gone to
their work on the two bridges of the new railway, mostly on the bridge near
Bush's house, the Yakimas came down on us. There was a line of them from
Mill Creek above us to the big point at the head of the falls, firing simultaneous-
ly on the men; and the first notice we had of them was the bullets and the crack
of their guns. Of our men, at the first fire, one was killed, and several wounded.
Our men on seeing the Indians all ran for our store, through a shower of bullets,
except three who started down stream for the middle blockhouse, distant one
and a half miles. Bush and his family also ran into our store, leaving his house
vacant. The Watkins family came to the store after a Dutch boy, who was lame
from a cut in the foot, had been shot in their house. Watkins, Finlay and
Baily were at work on the new warehouse on the island, around which the water
was now high enough to run about three feet deep under the bridges. There
was grand confusion in the store at first; and Sinclair, of Walla Walla, going
to the railroad door to look out, was shot from the bank above the store and
instantly killed. Some of us commenced getting the guns and rifles, which
were ready loaded and behind the counter. Fortunately, about an hour before.
there had been left with us for transportation below, nine United States gov-
410
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
I saw
ernment rifles with cartridge boxes and ammunition. These saved us. As the
upper story of the house was abandoned, Smith the cook, having come below, and
as the stairway was outside where we dare not go, the stove pipe was hauled
down, the hole enlarged with axes, and a party of men crawled up and the upper
part of the house was soon secured. We were surprised that the Indians had
not rushed into the upper story, as there was nothing or nobody to prevent
them.
“Our men soon got some shots at the Indians on the bank above us.
Bush shoot an Indian, the first one killed, who was drawing a bead on Mrs. Wat-
kins as she was running for our store. He dropped instantly. Alexander and
others mounted into the gable under the roof, and from there was done most of
our firing, it being the best place of observation. In the meantime, we were bar-
ricading in the store, making portholes and firing when opportunity presented.
But the Indians were soon very cautious about exposing themselves. I took
charge of the store, Dan Bradford of the second floor, and Alexander of the
garret and roof.
"The steamer Mary was lying in the mouth of Mill Creek, and the wind was
blowing hard down stream. When we saw Indians running toward her and heard
the shots, we supposed she would be taken; and as she lay just out of our sight,
and we saw smoke rising from her, concluded she was burning, but what was
our glad surprise after a while to see her put out and run across the river. I
will give an account of the attack on her hereinafter.
"The Indians now returned in force to us, and we gave every one a shot who
showed himself. They were nearly naked, painted red and had guns and bows
and 'arrows. After a while Finlay came creeping around the lower point of
the island toward our house. We halloed to him to lie down behind a rock,
and he did so. He called that he could not get to the store as the bank above
us was covered with Indians. He saw Watkin's house burn while there. The
Indians first took out all they wanted—blankets, clothes, 'guns, etc. By this
time the Indians had crossed in canoes to the island, and we saw them coming,
as we supposed, after Finlay. We then saw Watkins and Bailey running
around the river side towards the place where Finlay was, and the Indians
in full chase after them. As our own men came around the point in full view,
Bailey was shot through the arm and leg. He continued on, and plunging into
the river, swam to the front of our store and came in safely, except for his
wounds. He narrowly escaped going over the falls. Finlay also swam 'across
and got in unharmed, which was wonderful, as there was a shower of bullets
around them.
'Watkins next came running around the point, and we called to him to lie
down behind a rock, but before he could do so he was shot in the wrist,
the ball going up the arm and out above the elbow. He dropped behind a rock
just as the 'pursuing Indians came following around the point, but we gave
them so hot a reception from our house that they backed out and left poor
Watkins where he lay. We called to Watkins to lie still and we would get him
off; but we were not able to do so until after the arrival from The Dalles of
the steamer Mary with troops—two days and nights afterwards. During this
time Watkins fainted several times from weakness and exposure, the weather
being very cold, and he was stripped down to his underclothes for swimming.
When he fainted he would 'roll down the steep bank into the river, and the
6
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
411
ice-cold water reviving him, he would crawl back under fire to his retreat be-
hind the rock. Meantime, his wife and children were in the store in full
view, and moaning piteously at his terrible situation. He died from exhaus-
tion two days after he was rescued.
"The Indians were now pitching into us right smart.' They tried to burn
us out; threw rocks and fire brands, hot irons, pitch wood—everything on
the roof that would burn. But you will recollect that for a short distance
back the bank inclined toward the house, and we could see and shoot the In-
dians who appeared there. So they had to throw from such a distance that
the largest rocks and bundles of fire did not quite reach us; and what did,
generally rolled off the roof. Some times the roof got on fire, and we cut it
out, or with cups of brine drawn from pork barrels put it out or with
long sticks shoved off the fire balls. The kitchen roof troubled us the most.
How they did pepper us with rocks; some of the big ones would shake the
house all over.
“There were now forty men, women and children in the house-four women,
and eighteen men that could fight, and eighteen wounded men and children.
The steamer Wasco was on the Oregon side of the river. We saw her steam up
and leave for The Dalles. Shortly after, the steamer Mary also left. She had
to take Atwell's fence rails for wood. So passed the day, during which the In-
dians had burned Inman's two houses, your saw-mill and houses, and the lumber
yards at the mouth of Mill Creek. At daylight, they set fire to your new ware-
house on the Island, making it as light as day around us. They did not attack
us at night, but the second morning commenced as lively as ever. We had no
water, but did have about two dozen ale and a few bottles of whiskey. These
gave out during the day. During the night, a Spokane Indian who was travel-
ing with Sinclair, was in the store with us volunteered to get a pail of water
from the river. I consented, and he stripped himself naked, jumped out and
down the bank, and was back in no time. By this time we looked for the steamer
from The Dalles, and were greatly disappointed at her non-arrival. We weath-
ered it out during the day. Every man keeping his post, and never relaxing in
vigilance. Every moving object, shadow, or suspicious bush on the hill, received
a shot. The Indians must have thought the house a bombshell. To our ceaseless
vigilance I ascribe our safety. Night came again; we saw Sheppard's house
burn; Bush's house nearby, was also fired, and kept us in light until about four
A. M., when darkness returning, I sent the Spokane Indian for water from the
river, and he filled two barrels. He went to and fro like lightning. We also
slipped poor James Sinclair's body down the slide outside, as the corpse was
quite offensive.
"The two steamers now having exceeded the length of time we gave them in
which to return from The Dalles, we made up our minds for a long siege and
until relief came from below. We could not account for it, but supposed the
Ninth Regiment had left The Dalles for Walla Walla, and had proceeded too
far to return. The third morning dawned, and lo! the Mary and the Wasco
blue with soldiers, and towing a flat-boat with dragoon horses, hove in sight:
such a hallo as we gave.
As the steamer landed the Indians fired twenty or thirty shots into them, but
we could not ascertain with any effect. The soldiers as they got ashore could
412
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
not be restrained, and plunged into the woods in every direction, while the
howitzers sent grape after the retreating red skins. The soldiers were soon at
our store, and we, I think I may say, experienced quite a feeling of relief on
opening our doors. During this time we had not heard from below. A com-
pany of dragoons under Colonel Steptoe went on down. Dan went with them.
The block-house at the middle Cascades still held out. Allen's house was burned,
and every other one below. George W. Johnson's, S. M. Hamilton's, F. A.
Chenoweth's, The wharf boat at Cascades—all gone up. Next in order comes
the attack on the Mary. She lay in Mill Creek, no fires, and wind hard ashore.
Jim Thompson, John Woodard and Jim Herman, were just going up to the
boat from our store and had nearly reached her as they were fired upon. Her-
man asked if they had any guns. No. He went on up to Inman's house, the
rest staying to help get the steamer out. Capt. Dan Baughman and Thompson
were ashore on the upper side of the creek hauling on lines, when the firing from
the Indians became so hot they ran for the woods, passed Inman's house. The
firemen, James Lindsay, was shot through the shoulder. Engineer, Buckminster
shot an Indian with his revolver on the gang-plank, and little Johnny Chance
went climbing up on the hurricane deck with an old dragoon pistol, killed his In-
dian; but he was shot through the leg in doing so. Dick Turpin, half crazy,
probably, taking the only gun on the steamboat, jumped into a flat boat lying
along side, was shot, and jumped overboard and was drowned.
Fires were
soon started under the boiler and steam was raising. About this time, Jesse.
Kempton, shot while driving an oxteam from the saw-mill, got on board; also a
half-breed named "Bourbon," who was shot through the body. After sufficient
steam to move was raised, Hardin Chenoweth ran up into the pilot house, and,
lying on the floor, turned the wheel as he was directed from the lower deck. It
is almost needless to say that the pilot house was a target for the Indians. After
the steamer was fairly backed out and turned around, he did toot that whistle
at them good. Toot! Toot! Toot! it was music in our ears. The steamer picked
up Herman on the bank above. Inman's family, Sheppard, and Vanderpool all
got across the river in skiffs, and boarding the Mary went to The Dalles.
"Colonel George Wright and the Ninth Regiment, Second Dragoons, and
Third Artillery, had started for Walla Walla, and were out five miles, camped.
They received news of the attack at 11 P. M., and by daylight were back at The
Dalles. Starting down, they only reached Wind Mountain that night, as the
Mary's boiler was in bad order, because of a new fireman the day before. They
reached us the next morning at 6 o'clock.
“Now for below. George Johnson was about to get a boat's crew of Indians
when Indian Jack came running to him, saying the Yakimas had attacked the
block house. He did not believe it, although he heard the cannon.
He went up
to the Indian village on the sand bar to get his crew; saw some of the Cascade
Indians, who said they thought the Yakimas had come, and George, now hearing
the muskets ran for home. E. W. Baughman was with him. Bill Murphy had
left the block-house early for the Indian camp, and had nearly returned before
he saw the Indians or was shot at. He returned, two others with him, and ram
for George Johnson's, about thirty Indians in chase. After reaching Johnson's,
Murphy continued on and gave Hamilton and all below warning, and the families
embarked in small boats for Vancouver. The men would have barricaded in the
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
413
wharf-boat but for want of ammunition. There was considerable government
freight in the wharf-boat. They staid about the wharf-boat and schooner nearly
all day, and until the Indians commenced firing upon them from the zinc house
on the bank. They then shoved out. Tommy Price was shot through the leg in
getting the boats into the stream. Floating down they met the steamer Belle with
Phil Sheridan and forty men (Sheridan afterwards Maj. Gen. Sheridan of the
Union Army) sent up on report of an express carried down by Indian Simpson
in the morning. George and those with him went on board the steamer and
volunteered to serve under Sheridan, who landed at George's place and found
everything burned. The steamer' returned, and the Indians pitched into Sher-
idan, fought him all day and drove him with forty men and ten volunteers to be-
low Hamilton's, notwithstanding he had a small cannon-one soldier killed.
"The steamer Belle returned the next day (3rd of the attack) and brought am-
munition for the block-house. Your partner, Bishop, who was in Portland, came
up on her. Steamer Fashion, with volunteers from Portland, came at the same
time. The volunteers remained at the lower Cascades. Sheridan took his
command, and with a bateaux loaded with ammunition, crossed to Brad-
ford's Island on the Oregon side, where they found most of the Cascade Indians,
they having been advised by George Johnson to go on there the first day of the
attack. They were crossing and re-crossing all the time, and Sheridan made
them prisoners. He pressed a boat's crew, and as they towed up to the head of
the Island and above, saw great numbers of Indians on the Washington Territory
side and opposite them. Sheridan expected them to cross and fight him, and
between them, and the friendly (?) Indians in his charge, thought he had his
hands full.
"Just then Sheridan discovered Steptoe and his dragoon infantry and volun-
teers coming down from the Mary, surprising completely the Indians, who were
cooking beef and watching Sheridan across the river. But on the sound of the
bugle the Indians fled like deer to the woods with the loss of only one killed-
"Old Joanum.' But for the bugle they ought to have captured fifty.
"The Ninth Regiment are building a block-house on the hill above us, also at
George Johnson's and will hereafter keep a strong force here. Lieut. Bissell and
twelve men who were stationed at the Upper Cascades were ordered away and
left for The Dalles two days before the attack was made upon us.
“The Indians Sheridan took on the Island were closely guarded. Old Cheno-
weth (Chief) was brought up before Colonel Wright, tried, and sentenced to be
hung. The Cascade Indians, being under treaty, were adjudged guilty of trea-
son in fighting. Chenoweth died game; was hung on the upper side of Mill
Creek. I acted as interpreter. He offered ten horses, two squaws, and a little
something to every 'tyee' for his life; he said he was afraid of the grave in the
ground, and begged to be put into an Indian dead house. He gave a terrific
war whoop while the rope was being put around his neck. I thought he expected
the Indians to come and rescue him. The rope did not work well, and while
hanging he muttered, 'wake niki kwass kopa memaloose!' (I am not afraid
to die). He was then shot. I was glad to see the old devil killed, being satisfied
that he was at the bottom of all the trouble. But I cannot detail at too great
length.
- The next day Tecomeoc and Cap. Jo. were hung. Cap. Jo. said all the Cas-
414
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
cade Indians were in the fight. The next day, Toy, Sim Lasselas, and Four-
fingered Johnny were hung. The next day Chenoweth Jim, Tumalth, and Old
Skein were hung and Kanewake sentenced, but reprieved on the scaffold. Nine
in all were executed. Banaha is a prisoner at Vancouver and decorated with ball
and chain. The rest of the Cascade Indians are on your Island, and will be shot
if seen off of it. Such are Col. Wright's orders. Dow, Watiquin, Peter, Ma-
hooka John, Kotzue, and maybe more of them, have gone with the Yakimas.
“I forgot to mention that your house at the Lower Cascades, also Bishop's was
burned; also to account for Captain Dan. Baughman and Jim Thompson. They
put back into the mountains, and at night came down to the river at Vanderpool's
place, fished up an old boat and crossed to the Oregon side. They concealed
themselves in the rocks on the river bank opposite, where they could watch us;
and at night went back into the mountains to sleep. They came in safely after
the troops arrived.
"We do not know how many Indians there were. They attacked the block-
house, our place, and drove Sheridan all at the same time. We think there was
not less than two or three hundred. When the attack was made on us three of
our carpenters ran for the middle block-house, overtook the cars at the salmon
house, cut the mules loose, and, with the car drivers, all kept on. They were not
fired on until they got to the Spring on the railroad, but from there they ran the
gauntlet of bullets and arrows to the fort. Little Jake was killed in the run.
Several were wounded."
This is a sample of the desperate sort of fighting the Indians prosecuted all
over Eastern Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Southern Oregon for the years
1855 and 1856; and only came to an end by the practical exhaustion of the Indian
allies. The U. S. Government then made a business effort to extinguish the In-
dian title to lands the American settlers wished to occupy. When all the bills
and expenses the Government was liable for, or should justly assume and pay
for these years of war was summed up, the aggregate was $6,011,457.36, as re-
ported by Captains Rufus Ingalls and A. J. Smith, U. S. A., and L. F. Grover,
commissioners appointed to audit these war claims. On February 7, 1860, R.
J. Atkinson, Third Auditor of the United States Treasury, reported $2,714,808.55
as justly due; and the greater part of this sum was during the early years of the
Civil war in depreciated currency. This reduction and mode of payment bank-
rupted many of the early settlers, from the effects of which they never recov-
ered. Then a peaceable settlement was made with the Indians for less than one-
sixth of that expense. Treaties and purchases of lands from the Indians were
made as follows. Twenty-nine thousand square miles, covering Klickitat, Yak-
ima, Kittitas, Spokane, Lincoln, Whitman, Franklin, Lincoln, Douglas, Adams,
Columbia, and Walla Walla counties in the State of Washington and portions
of Union and Umatilla Counties in Oregon, excepting the Indian Reserves therein,
were ceded to the United States by the allied Indians known as the "Yakima
Nation." For this vast tract the Indians were to be paid $200,000 in yearly in-
stallments, and $500 a year to the head chief for twenty years. The Walla
Wallas, Cayuses and Umatillas joined in another treaty by which they were to
receive $100,000, with $500 a year to their head man for twenty years, and re-
serving the lands in the Umatilla Reservation. The Nez Perces, who had always
been friendly to the whites, joined in another treaty ceding eighteen thousand
square miles, and reserving one-fourth of it in one body for their own Reserve,

OF
UNVEILING OF MONUMENT TO CHIEF JOSEPH
"Joseph is dead, but his words are not dead his words will live forever. This monument will stand-Joseph's words will stand
as long as this monument.”-From speech of Yellow Bull
2
IV.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
415
for the sum of $200,000, and $500 a year for their head man for twenty years.
Ffty-eight Chiefs signed this treaty. The Flatheads, Kootenais, and Upper
Pend d'Oreilles, constituting that Flathead Nation, made a treaty cēding twenty
thousand square miles, reserving a large tract for their exclusive use, and for
which they were to receive $200,000 and $500 a year for twenty years to their
head man.
After making all these treaties, buying over fifty million acres of
land for less than two cents an acre, Gen. Joel Palmer, who had negotiated all
these treaties returned to The Dalles, Oregon, and there induced the Wascoes,
Des Chutes, and John Day river Indians on June 25, 1855, to cede their lands
amounting to sixteen thousand square miles, for the sum of $150,000. This
was the best bargain of all, including as it did all the rich wheat lands, of Wasco,
Sherman, Morrow, Crook, and Wheeler Counties at one cent per acre, and re-
serving to the Indians the beautiful Warm Springs Reservation at the east base
of Mt. Jefferson. After making these treaties for the acquisition of all these
millions of acres of Indian land, General Palmer published a notice in which
Governor Isaac I. Stevens of Washington Territory concurred, telling the people
that all the country east of the summit of the Cascade Mountains, except the
Reservations, was opened to settlement. But the Indians did not so understand it.
The great body of the Indians did not approve of what their Chiefs had done.
They could not understand how for a sum of money they knew not the value of,
the Chiefs could barter away their ancient hunting grounds. And so when the
first breath of resistance came they were all ready to repudiate what the Chiefs
}iad done and rush into a wide spread relentless war. So far as money considera-
tions were concerned the exhausted and impoverished Rogue Rivers fared worse
than all the other Indians, receiving only about $125,000 in trust for all of their
Southern Oregon country.
But they fared better in Reservations; their homes being cast in the mild
climate of Lincoln and Yamhill Counties, with very good hunting and trapping
grounds and an abundance of fish, with friendly white neighbors with whom
they could visit and trade.
In the prosecution of the Yakima war, many Oregonians rendered distin-
guished and valuable services; among whom should be named Col. T. R. Cor-
nelius, Col. James K. Kelly, Col. Gilliam, Col. James W. Nesmith, Major Sewall
Truax, and many others.
THE MODOC WAR
This Chapter will be closed with a brief account of the most bitter and sen-
sational Indian war in the whole history of the United States, the leader of which
was the youngest Chief among all the fighting Indians; and who for mental
ability, quick perception, cunning and dare-devil courage was more than equal
to any military officer sent out to capture or kill him. Bancroft's account of
the Modoc war covers 183 pages of his history of Oregon, and its great length of
detail forbids its inclusion in a single volume of the State.
The word "Modoc" means "a stranger" or "hostile stranger;" and that is
what in fact and truth the Modoc Indians proved to be to the people of South-
east Oregon. From the time some of Fremont's men were killed on Klamath
Lake in 1843, down to the making of the first treaty with them in 1864, the Mo-
docs were the implacable enemies of the white race. They lived on the border
land between California and Oregon, but mostly in Oregon, on Sprague River
416
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
and upper Klamath Lake; Sconchin, the head Chief having his original home on
Sprague river. Keintpoos, a young sub-chief, had his camp anywhere conven-
ient about Tule Lake, and ranging the country over between the two Klamath
Lakes to Yreka, California. He was called
He was called "Captain Jack” by the white set-
tlers, because he had a love for military ornaments. He was a thoroughbred
savage, and as debased a specimen of manhood as could be found, quickly taking
up all the vices of civilization, and making his easy money by the prostitution of
the women of his band, petty thieving and downright robbery. During the years
of the civil war with the Southern States, “Jack," who had acquired consider-
able knowledge of the English language at the mining camps, heard much of the
great war among the white men, and how so many thousands were being killed
off. And having no knowledge of the size or population of the United States,
conceived the idea that all the white soldiers being now away at war among them-
selves it would be a good time and an easy job to kill off all the white men in the
Klamath Lake region, and thus get rid of them. But before starting in on this
enterprise he sought out and had an interview with Elijah Steele, the Superin-
tendent of Indian affairs for Northern California. The Modocs being Oregon-
ians, Steele had no authority to make any treaty with them, but he did make a
sort of personal and individual compact with Jack and his band which amounted
to nothing more than abstaining from drunkenness, prostitution, theft, murder,
child-selling and killing the white people, the only penalty for which was the
loss of Steele's friendship. This of course amounted to nothing with the Indians.
They were free to visit mining camps, go where they pleased and do as they
please and cunningly cover up their bad conduct. Sconchin, the head Chief,
was now an old man, and “ Jack” speedily grasped the reins of authority, and
lost no time in making himself master of the Indian situation, and taking unto
himself all the joys and pleasures of an unrestrained and bloodthirsty savage.
He would not remain on the Klamath Indian Reservation where old Chief Scon-
chin had gone; nor would he respect any authority of the Indian Agents, or
the advice or wishes of the other Indian Chiefs, who had become attached to a
young chief named Allen David, and who was striving to teach all the Indians
the arts of peace. During the summer of 1871 Jack frequently visited the Kla-
math Reservation, defying the military authorities, and boasting that he had
friends in Yreka who gave him passes to go where he pleased; and upon a chal-
lenge he actually produced a pass signed by E. Steele confirming the boast of
the Indian. Becoming so arrogant and puffed up with his budding greatness,
Jack went upon the Klamath Reserve and killed an Indian doctor, who having
failed to save the life of a member of Jack's family, was according to Jack's
reasoning guilty of the death of the deceased. For this murder Ivan D. Apple-
gate, commissary at Camp Yainax, made a requisition on the commander of Fort
Klamath to arrest Jack for murder; and this effort to bring Jack to account was
defeated by Jack's white friends in Yreka. Jack now assumed that he was all-
powerful; and with this event the trouble commenced. If the Yrekans had
joined in demanding Jack's punishment for the murder of his own tribesman,
he would have been punished, and all the bloody work he inflicted thereafter
would have been prevented. Jack now demanded a separate Reservation for
himself, six miles square lying on both sides of the Oregon and California line
near the head of Tule Lake. And Superintendent of Indian Affairs, A. B. Mea-
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
417
cham, not knowing how to get Jack back on the Klamath Reserve, recommended
that this special favor be given the outlaw. All this fed the vanity of the savage
and made him more insolent and dangerous. A part of the land that Jack de-
manded was claimed under U. S. laws as the property of Jesse D. Carr of Cal-
ifornia, and then in charge of Carr's Agent--the old pioneer, Jesse Applegate.
Of Applegate, Jack demanded pay for occupation, which being refused, one of
· Jack's personal friends known as Black Jim went on the war path with twenty
warriors, alarming the whole community. The Modoc war had now practically
commenced. "Jack had repudiated and defied the U. S. authorities, openly com-
mitted murder on a government reserve, defied the rights of white settlers to
their lands under the laws, and put an armed force in the field to enforce his de-
mands. About this time there was much confusion of authority on the Klamath
Reservation by the changing of Agents, there being four different agents inside of
three years time; and this did not add to any respect for U. S. authority. Jack
was invited to repeated conventions to settle differences, sometimes he would
come and sometimes treat the invitation with contempt; and when he did con-
descend to meet the white men to talk peace he was always accompanied by a
dangerous retinue of fighting men. Finally, on June 27, 1872, Jack sent a mes-
sage to Agent L. S. Dyer who had invited Jack to meet him at Linkville, in-,
structing Dyar to say to the Superintendent: “We do not wish to see him (the
Supt.) or talk with him. We do not want any white man to tell us what to do.
Our friends and counselors are men in Yreka, California. They tell us to stay
where we are, and we intend to do it, and will not go upon the Reservation. I
am tired of being talked to, and I am done talking."
This ultimatum from the haughty son of the forest, somewhat humiliating
to the kindly appeals of government officials, put upon them the necessity of
either allowing a savage to run at large ready to commit any outrage his innate
hatred of the white race might suggest, or take the last resort and capture Jack
and all his warriors by military force. The Superintendent of Indian affairs
turned the whole matter over to Col. Green of Fort Klamath, and that officer,
guided by Ivan Applegate, made a forced march for Captain Jack's camp, ar-
riving there early on the morning of November 29, 1872 with thirty-six regular
troopers. Arriving at the outskirts of Jack's camp they called on the Indians
to come out and surrender. A part of the Indians seemed willing to yield to
the command, but Scarface Charley and Black Jim seized their guns and stood
on the defensive. Lieut. Boutelle then advanced with a small guard to arrest
“Scarface” and “Jim”, when Scarface fired a rifle shot at the Lieut. and missed
him. A volley of shots from both sides followed; and one trooper was killed
and seven wounded, and fifteen Indians were killed outright. Up to the time
of the firing Jack had remained silent in his tent; but on the opening of the
battle he came out and led the retreat of the Indians numbering twice as many
as the soldiers. The Modoc war was now fairly opened; and couriers were
sent off in every direction warning the white settlers to flee for their lives. From
that time the enraged Indians burned, killed and destroyed in every direction,
to the full extent of their ability. These murders and pillaging of property
aroused the Governors of both California and Oregon to action and volunteers
were called out to aid the U. S. regulars. Col. John Ross of Jacksonville and
Capt. 0. C. Applegate of Klamath both raised companies which were accepted
Vol. 1-27
418
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
The savage
and mustered into the service. Applegate's company was made up of seventy
men, nearly half of whom were selected Klamaths, Modocs, Shoshones and Pit
River Indians, and from their training and knowledge of the country proved to
be the most alert and effective soldiers in the service.
Jack's warriors were finally rounded up and forced to retreat to the lava
beds on the east shore of Tule Lake, from which it looked as if nothing but an
earthquake or another outflow of lava would ever be able to get him out. From
the time Jack and his warriors retreated into this lava bed stronghold on De-
cember 16, 1872, until he was finally forced out after the massacre of General
Canbey and the peace makers on May 30, 1873,-five and a half months—there
was continuous effort to capture or destroy him, without success.
Chieftain never at the best had more than sixty warriors to support him, while
the regular army and volunteers amounted to fully five hundred men equipped
with every then modern means of effective gunnery. And this also shows that
the Indian must have been preparing for such a siege by laying in provisions
for a long time before.
The massacre of the Peace Commissioners by Jack and his leaders on the
11th day of April, 1873, was a terrible revelation to the kind-hearted advocates
of justice to the Indian. And it showed that there were fully as many white
men who did not understand the Indian character, as there were Indians who
could not comprehend the white man. When warned over and over by Riddle,
the white husband of an Indian wife, that the Indians must not be trusted in a
proposition for a peace talk in their lava bed den, Rev. Thomas, the Methodist
minister who was murdered with Canby, replied “That God Almighty would
not let any such a body of men be hurt that were on as good a mission as peace
making." To this Riddle returned the only sensible and safe reply that could
be made: “Mr. Thomas, you may trust God as much as you please, but I don't
trust any of them Injuns."
The sad record of the treachery and murder of the peace makers is briefly
as follows: Commencing about the 5th of March, 1873, diplomatic negotiations
between Jack and Gen. Canby was carried on until the 10th of April; Jack
endeavoring to get the General and his aids into his power and murder them,
and the General trying on his part to secure honestly and fairly, just terms of
peace between Jack and his adherents and the white settlers. Dozens of mes-
sages were passed to and from the opposing camps. Toby Riddle, the white
man with an Indian wife, and who understood the Modoc language acted as
interpreter and go-between, and repeatedly wamed Canby that it would not be
safe for him to meet Capt. Jack in Council. The negotiations proved that the
Indian was more than a match for the educated army officers in cunning, saga-
city and diplomatic genius. Jack finally agreed to meet the Peace Commission,
composed of Brig.-General E. R. Canby, Rev. E. Thomas, Supt. of Indian Af-
fairs, A. B. Meacham, and Indian Agent, L. S. Dyer, and meet them at a point
one mile from the soldiers, without guards, and all to go unarmed, Jack to be
accompanied by five of his warriors. Toby Riddle still opposed the meeting,
and again warned Canby of his danger. Meacham and Dyar also both opposed
the meeting fearing a trap, but yielded to the wishes of Canby and Thomas.
But so earnest was Riddle in his opposition to the meeting and determined to
be not blamed for results, he forced the Commissioners to go with him to the
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
419
tent of Col. Gillem who was sick, and there made before Gillem a formal pro-
test against meeting Jack at the place selected, and admitted that he would go
along rather than be called a coward; and then urged each man to arm him-
self with a small pistol concealed on his person, so that if betrayed they would
have something to defend themselves with.
This suggestion was spurned by Canby and the preacher, but adopted by
Meacham and Dyer. Canby trusted to the army, and Thomas to God, to see
them safe through. The point selected by Jack was a depression in the lava
bed rocks, favorable to an ambuscade; and into this trap the Peace Commis-
sioners went like lambs to the slaughter on the morning of April 11, 1873. Ar-
riving at the rendezvous all sat down around a camp fire. Canby offered the
Modocs cigars, which were accepted, and all smoked for a while. The General
the Council with an address, talking in a fatherly way about his desire
to promote the welfare of the Indians, and make a permanent treaty of peace.
Meacham and the Methodist minister followed in the same strain, urging the
Indians to trust the white men and look forward to happy and peaceful days.
Jack replied in a careless tone as to his having given up the Lost River country,
and did not know anything about any other countries, and that he would de-
mand the Cottonwood and Willowcreek lands, and removal to the U. S. soldiers
from that country. And while Meacham was making reply, and Sconchin was
making disrespectful remarks in his own tongue, Hooker Jim arose from the
ground and going to Meacham's horse, took his overcoat and putting it on with
mocking gestures asked if he was not a good Meacham. The affront was under-
stood by all of them, but not noticed by any of them. General Canby then
calmly arose and with kindly words to the Indians, told them he could not
remove the soldiers without the authority of the President. Then Sconchin reit-
erated the demand for the Cottonwood and Willow Creek lands. And while
Sconchin was talking Jack arose from the ground and took a position in front
of Gen. Canby; and as he took this position two Indians suddenly appeared, as
if rising out of the ground, each carrying a number of guns. Every man sprang
to his feet as Jack gave the word "all ready” in his own language, and draw-
ing a revolver from his breast shot down Gen. Canby. Simultaneously Sconchin
fired on Meacham, and Boston Charley on the preacher. At the first motion
of Jack to fire, Agent Dyer took to his heels and run for life pursued by Hooker
Jim, but being hard pressed by the savage he turned and fired on him twice
and finally reached the picket line in safety. Riddle also escaped by running,
and his wife, Toby, after getting a blow on her head from one of the savages
was allowed to follow her husband. Canby and Thomas were shot dead and
both stripped and left naked. Meacham had five bullet wounds and a knife cut
on the head, was thought dead, and stripped as the others; but was not dead,
and was finally revived and survived the terrible attack. The Indians followed
up this treacherous advantage with efforts to decoy other officers beyond the
lines and murder them; but soon the awful truth was known and the soldiers
rushed out to recover the dead.
This terrible chapter exceeds in savage brutality anything in previous deal-
ings with the Indians, and was followed up by a campaign that never halted
or hesitated, until the last Modoc was captured, and Jack and his fellow mur-
420
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
derers hanged for their crimes; and all the rest of the Modocs sent into per-
petual exile from their country at Quapaw Agency in the Indian Territory.
At the outset Jack's warriors were estimated at sixty; and on the final sur-
render there were fifty fighting men and boys, over fifty women and sixty chil-
dren. And while Jack was on the war path forty-one soldiers had been killed,
fifty-nine wounded and twenty-four settlers had been killed and sixty-three
wounded. Jack is described as rather small in stature, with small hands and
feet and thin arms. His face was round, forehead low and square, expression
serious, almost morose, his eye black, sharp, watchful, indicating cunning, cau-
tion, and a determined will, and his age 36 when executed.
Thus ends the review of the Indian wars of Oregon. What was called the
Shoshone war of 1866 and 8 never amounted to a serious war. While the In-
dians committed many depredations on travelers, and isolated settlements, it
was all of the horse-stealing character of warfare, and never amounting to a
regular battle in any case with either settlers or soldiers. According to Mrs.
Victor's count, going over the whole history of Indian troubles in Oregon, Wash-
ington and Idaho, the total number of white people killed in this region by In-
dians from 1828 down to 1878-fifty years—was 1896.
In closing this chapter a few words should be said in order to perpetuate the
memories of three men-mixed bloods--who served Oregon well in the Indian
wars—Captain Thomas McKay and his two sons, Dr. William C. McKay and
his brother Donald. Captain McKay was the efficient commander of a company
of volunteers in the Cayuse war, and died at Scappoose in 1849. Dr. McKay
and Donald were scouts in the Yakima war of 1855-56, whose services were
invaluable. It was the skill of the latter, under most hazardous conditions,
that saved the lives of Major Haller's command of one hundred U. S. soldiers
at the time he was defeated in Klickitat county, Washington, in October, 1855.
In the Modoc campaign in 1872-1873 Donald McKay, with his sixty Warm
Spring scouts, did more in ninety days to rouse the Modoc Indians from their
stronghold in the lava beds than one thousand soldiers of the regular army
did in a year. Captain Thomas McKay was a son of Alexander McKay, the
partner of John Jacob Astor, who went on the Tonquin from Astoria, to
Queen Charlotte's island in the summer of 1811 and was killed by the
Indians together with the entire ship's crew. He was the father of Dr. McKay
and Donald. The former was born at Astoria in March, 1824, and the latter
near Walla Walla in 1836.
CHAPTER XV
1849-1858
THE EVOLUTION OF ORGANIZED GOVERNMENT-ORGANIZATION OF THE TERRITORIAL
GOVERNMENT LOCATION OF THE STATE CAPITAL-THE CONSTITUTIONAL CON-
VENTION AND ITS MEMBERS-ORGANIZATION OF THE STATE GOVERNMENT—THE
GOVERNORS AND REPRESENTATIVES IN CONGRESS
5
The organization and maintenance of the Provisional Government for nearly
six years without wealth, arms or the aid of the United States during an ex-
pensive Indian war, and administering justice by organized courts, showed
that the Pioneers were practical State builders. As a matter of fact their
experience with the Provisional Government had largely qualified them to gov-
ern themselves well, and to receive the boon of National recognition and author-
ity with strong and capable hands. There was but a single college graduate
in the whole convention which organized the Provisional Government, and with
that exception-Rev. John S. Griffin--not a single member of the so-called
learned professions. But their division of the Oregon country into districts
and counties, and their practical methods of ascertaining and executing the
popular will exhibited their wisdom and capacity for self-government.
The organization of Oregon into a U. S. Territorial Government had been
opposed in Congress for four years by the Southern slave-holding members of
Congress vainly trying to fasten the institution of human slavery on the new
State. That opposition was finally beaten down and exhausted by a Senator
from the slave state of Missouri—Thomas H. Benton. The opposition to a Ter-
ritorial Government was finally abandoned after an all night session of the
United States Senate, and the organization Bill passed on Sunday morning
August 13, 1848. President Polk signed the Act within a few hours after its
passage, and soon after appointed General Joseph Lane of Indiana the first
Governor of Oregon under U. S. authority; and then appointed Joseph L. Meek
U. S. Marshall for Oregon and gave him the Governor's Commission to carry
to Lane at his home in Indiana. And within three days after Meek delivered
that Commission, Lane sold out his property and started with Meek for Oregon.
The new Governor and Marshal came to Oregon by the way of the Ohio
and Mississippi river steamboats from Indiana to Fort Leavenworth, Missouri.
There they got an outfit and followed the Santa Fe trail through New Mexico,
Arizona, and California to old Los Angeles, finally reaching the Pacific Ocean
at San Pedro. Here they took passage on a little sailing vessel bound for San
Francisco. Reaching San Francisco Bay in safety they found the U. S. Sloop
of war, St. Mary, and Meek demanded that as he and Lane were U. S. Gov-
ernment officials the war ship should take them aboard and carry them up to
421
422
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Oregon. The Governor opposed this on the grounds of economy, telling Meek
they could go on a cheaper vessel. A little ship, the Jeanette, was just about
to sail for the Columbia river crowded with gold miners returning to Oregon,
and so the Governor and his aid, Meek, took passage, and arrived at Oregon
City on the 2nd of March, 1849, being eighteen days on the trip from San
Francisco to Oregon City, and six months and twelve days from Washington
City to Oregon. The party suffered greatly in crossing the desert regions of
Arizona, losing many of their horses for want of water, and requiring the men
to travel on foot. Lane started from Leavenworth with a party of fifty-five
men; two were killed by Indians on the route, forty-six deserted to the mines
in California, and Lane, Meek, Lieut. Hawkins, Surgeon Hayden, and three
soldiers reached Oregon.
General Lane lost no time in issuing his proclamation as follows:
PROCLAMATION
"In pursuance of an Act of Congress, approved the 14th of August in the
year of our Lord, 1848, establishing a Territorial Government in the Territory
of Oregon: I, Joseph Lane, was, on the 18th day of August, in the years 1848,
appointed Governor, in and for the Territory of Oregon. I have therefore
thought it proper to issue this my proclamation, making known that I have
this day entered upon the discharge of the duties of my office, and by virtue
thereof do declare the laws of the United States extended over, and declared
to be in force in said Territory, so far as the same, or any portion thereof, may
be applicable.
“Given under my hand at Oregon City, in the Territory of Oregon, this 3rd
day of March, Anno Domini, 1849.
'JOSEPH LANE.'
In twenty-four hours after the above proclamation was issued President
Polk's term of office expired, so that Oregon was only one day under the ad-
ministration of James K. Polk. Along with Lane as Governor, and Meek as
Marshal, the President appointed William C. Bryant, Chief Justice, and Or-
ville C. Pratt and Peter H. Burnett for Associate Justices of the Territorial
Courts. Other U. S. officials were provided for afterwards and appointed by
the successor to Polk-President Taylor, to-wit: for Governor, Jno. P. Gaines
to succeed Lane, Edward Hamilton, Secretary; John McLean and William
Strong, Judges; Amory Hollrock, U. S. Attorney; John Adair, Collector of
Customs at Astoria ; H. H. Spalding, Indian Agent, and Joseph L. Meek re-
tained as Marshal.
The last officers under the Provisional Government were as follows: George
Abernethy, Governor; S. M. Holderness, Secretary; John H. Couch, Treasurer;
George W. Bell, Auditor; J. Quinn Thornton, Supreme Judge; Alonzo A. Skin-
ner, Circuit Judge; H. M. Knighton, Marshal.
The first general election for public officials under the Provisional Govern-
ment, and being the first election in the Oregon country was held May 14,
1844, and is shown by the following table.

IV.
Z
OF
2
M
WWW
NAV
WMV
GOV. LANE AND MARSHAL JOE MEEK, WITH SOLDIERS, BRINGING U. S. GOVERNMENT TO OREGON ACROSS MEXICO—1848
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
423
CANDIDATES
DISTRICTS
Tualatin Champoeg
Clackamas
Totals
Executive Committee
.
15
22
10
84
182
18
140
244
49
11
41
40
21
11
10
6
6
3
3
2
2
1
10
6
6
70
26
2
12
1
23
IIIIIIIIIII
10
7
7
งง
P. G. Stewart
Osborn Russell
Alanson Beers
Jesse Applegate
Peter H. Burnett
Hugh Burns
David Hill ..
W. J. Bailey
William W. Doughty.
A. Lawrence Lovejoy
Robert Newell
A. J. Hem bree
William Geiger
Spencer
Territorial Recorder or Clerk-
Dr. John E. Long
O. Johnson
C. M. Walker
J. G. Campbell
A. E. Wilson
F. X. Matthieu
Supreme Court Judge-
Ira L. Babcock..
J. W. Nesmith
Peter H. Burnett ..
P. G. Stewart
Osborn Russell
O. Johnson
26
14
33
24
8
1
UL
73
24
8
1
2
65
2
.
65
|
88
39
16
2
4
88
39
16
2
5
2
.
1
2
III
•
CANDIDATES
DISTRICTS
Tualatin Champoeg
Clackamas
Totals
8
1
6
40
4
4
2
1
1
LI
Territorial Treasurer-
Phil Foster
Nineveh Ford
P. H. Hatch.
A. E. Wilson
John E. Long
W. C. Remick
Territorial Sheriff-
Joseph L. Meek
B. Harragus
William Holmes
Legislative Committeem
M, Gilmore
Peter H. Burnett
48
10
4
2
1
1
11111
79
64
2
1
II
143
2
1
27
32
.
27
32
424
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
CANDIDATES
Clackamas
Totals
David Hill
M. M. McCarver
W. T. Perry
T. D. Keiser
Daniel Waldo
Robert Newell
W. H. Gray
W. J. Bailey
F. C. Cason
A. Lawrence Lovejoy
1.IIIIIII
DISTRICTS
Tualitin Champoeg
24
20
8
67
75
75
20
11
18
24
20
8
67
75
75
20
11
18
IIIII
The following table shows the first Census taken in the Oregon Country, being
taken by authority of the Provisional Legislature, Joseph L. Meek, Sheriff, being
the census taker:
CENSUS RETURNS OF OREGON IN 1845
COUNTIES
No. of No, heads of Under 12 years of age
Housekeepers Families Males Females
Clackamas
Champoeg
Clatsop
Tualatin
Yamhill .
18
24
17
14
16
57
85
29
127
109
69
142
14
115
79
54
136
18
109
65
I
Total ....
89
405
419
382
45 and over
COUNTIES
Whole Number
Males Females
Males Females
Clackamas
Champoeg
Clatsop
Tualatin..
Yamhill ....
12 and under 18 and under
18 years
45 years
Males Females Males Females
12 15 136 53
45 37 171 114
1 3 42
8
28 24 142 90
31 24 124 57
15
42
4
26
23
7
18
1
6
9
234
400
61
309
257
129
305
30
229
158
Total ...
117
103
615
322
110
41
1259
851
COUNTIES
Clackamas
Champoeg
Clatsop
Tualatin
Yamhill
Total Population
361
705
91
538
415
Total
2110
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
423
One of the first acts of General Lane's brief administration as Governor was
the taking of another Census which had been authorized and provided for in
the Act organizing the Territorial Government. That Census taken by Marshals
appointed by Governor Lane, is shown by the following table:
COUNTIES
Clackamas
Tualatin
Champoeg
Clatsop
Yamhill
Polk
Lewis
Linn
Benton..
Vancouver
Males under Males 21 yrs. Temales of
21 yrs. of age
and over
all ages
401
390
585
346
293
468
465
458
647
49
100
75
394
402
557
337
327
509
39
33
37
295
269
359
271
229
370
4
22
20
Total ..
2601
2523
3627
COUNTIES
Clackamas
Tualitin
Champoeg
Clatsop
Yamhill .
Polk
Lewis
Linn ..
Benton
Vancouver
FOREIGNERS
Males under Males 21 yrs. Females
21 years
and over
of all ages
12
5
4
23
8
5
94
13
3
3
8
4
1
1
31
4
-
LT
II
2
39
12
Total ..
15
211
46
COUNTIES
TOTAL
Clackamas.
Tualitin
Champoeg
Clatsop
Yamhill
Polk
Lewis
Linn
Benton.
Vancouver
Total No. of Total No. of
Citizens Foreigners
1376
17
1107
35
1570
112
224
3
1353
15
1173
1
109
36
923
870
80
79
1393
1142
1682
227
1368
1174
145
923
870
159
•
Total
8795
298
9083
426
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
As soon as the Governor had received the reports on the Census he issued a
proclamation for the election of a Delegate to Congress, and for Members of a
Territorial Council, and Representatives to a Territorial Legislature. At this
election the total vote cast for Delegate was 943, of which Samuel R. Thurston
received 470; Columbia Lancaster, 321; James W. Nesmith, 104; Joseph L.
Meek, 40; J. S. Griffin, 8. The apportionment of Councilmen and Representa-
tives was made by the Governor in his proclamation. The names of the gentle-
men elected the first Territorial Legislature were as follows: Council — W.
Blain, Tualatin; W. W. Buck, Clackamas; S. Parker, Clackamas and Champoeg;
W. Shannon, Champoeg; S. T. McKean, Clatsop, Lewis and Vancouver; J. B.
Graves, Yamhill; W. Maley, Linn; N. Ford, Polk; L. A. Humphrey, Benton.
Representatives-D. Hill and W. M. King, Tualatin; A. L. Lovejoy, J. D. Hol-
man and Gabriel Walling, Clackamas; J. W. Grimm, W. W. Chapman, and W: T.,
Matlock, Champoeg; A. J. Hembree, R. C. Kinney, and J. B. Walling, Yamhill;
J. Dunlap, and J. Conser, Linn; H. N. V. Holmes, and S. Burch, Polk; M. T.
Simmons, Lewis, Vancouver and Clatsop, J. L. Mulkey and G. B. Smith, Ben-
ton.
The members of this first Legislature under the authority of the United
States assembled at Oregon City on July 16, 1849, holding their sessions in
the first Christian church in North America west of the Rocky Mountains, that
being the first Methodist Church. This Legislature changed the names of Cham-
poeg, Tualatin and Vancouver counties, respectively to Marion, Washington and
Clark; and organized all the counties by providing what their officials should
be and the duties thereof; and also divided the Territory into three Judicial
Districts, and assigned the Judges to their respective Districts. In October fol-
lowing County elections were held to select and install County officers; and this
completed the organization of the Territorial Government.
In December following the Territorial Legislature again convened at the
Capital–Oregon City—and proceeded to the more serious business of enacting
a code of laws. The members of this Legislature were nearly all Democrats and
did not work harmoniously with the Whig Governor-Gaines. On the 4th of
December, Thos. J. Dryer issued the first number of the Oregonian as a Whig
paper, and lost no time in attacking the Legislature as a nest of Democratic
vipers. Asahel Bush—and yet living a multi-millionaire at Salem-was elected
Territorial Printer and immediately issued a Prospectus for the “Oregon States-
man," although he had neither a press or a stickful of type. But in due time
he got both, and the war between the Statesman and Oregonian commenced in
earnest. Both papers were loaded to the guards with politics, personal abuse
and red-hot advocacy of political doctrines dead and buried fifty years ago.
Everything that was Democratic was denounced as vile by the Oregonian; and
everything that was Whiggery was denounced by the Statesman as treason to
the Constitution, and its author deserving of summary execution.
At this session of the Legislature there were so many conflicting local in-
terests scheming to secure the location of the State Capital, that in order to
get anything at all enacted into law nearly every important proposition was
put into one Bill; and when it did finally receive a majority of the votes of the
Representatives and Councilmen, it was called the "Omnibus Bill," and de
nounced by the Governor as a nullity because of its many inconsistent sections

TITUTITITIE
1
3
STATE CAPITOLS
1-First Methodist Church at Oregon City 2-A Store Building at Corvallis
3—Present Capitol Building
4-Holman's Block in Salem
5-Willamette Institute at Salem
OF
3
H.
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
427
and propositions relating to diverse purposes and interests. The Bill under-
took to please everybody, and resulted in satisfying no one. Salem was to be
the Capital, for there would be wisdom to make the laws; Marysville (now called
Corvallis) was to have the Territorial University, for there could knowledge
and learning be obtained; and Portland was to have the Penitentiary, so as to
be handy to the rascals deserving punishment. But the inconoclastic Governor
ruefully smashed the whole bargain-counter scheme, and the accommodating
Legislature pleasantly acceded to the disposal of this first "Legislature job,'
and passed a resolution providing for the annual sessions of the Legislative as-
sembly “to be held on the first Monday in December at the Seat of government,'
without naming any seat of government.
While there was no law regulating the matter, the Legislative Committee of
the Provisional Government, and subsequently the Provisional Government
Legislature, had held their sessions at Oregon City, and for much of the time
had convened at the residence of private persons, and in part of the Cliff House
Hotel, and in 1847 in the Methodist Church building. But now that the Federal
Government had lifted the little colony from the position of a straggling settle-
ment of pioneers fighting Indians for an existence, to the position of a Federal
Territory in the community of sovereign States, it was necessary to establish
and dignify some place as 'the Capital of the future State of Oregon. The Ore-
gonians were not slow to see the advantages of a fortunate selection; and every
town had its plan and claims to secure the Capital. The members of the Legis-
lature then adjourned to meet at the seat of Government, without naming any
such place, solved their difficulties by a private agreement to meet at Salem;
and accordingly when the first Monday in December came round all the members
of the Council but one, and all of the members of the House except four, as-
sembled at Salem and went into Legislative session in the old “Oregon Insti-
tute," the two large front rooms on the first floor being given up for that pur-
pose, while school went on as usual in the remainder of the building. Mean-
while, the recalcitrant members opposing a Capital at Salem, convened at the
usual place in Oregon City, and the four Representatives organized themselves
into "The House”, and the sole member of the Council organized himself into
a Council of One; but as soon as one of the House members secured leave of
absence the other three adjourned sine die—and thus Oregon City lost the seat
of Government. The State Capital was thus left very much up in the air; and
to put an end to all doubt and uncertainty, the Salen Legislature referred the
matter to Congress which passed an Act recognizing Salem as the Capital and
legalizing the acts of the Legislature convened there.
Under this Act of Congress Salem held the Legislature until the session of
1854-55. And notwithstanding the fact that Congress had appropriated $50,000
for the erection of public buildings, and the money had been expended in erect-
ing an uncompleted State House at Salem, on the site of the present Capitol,
the Legislature passed an Act to remove the seat of Government from Salem to
Corvallis, and the University from Corvallis to Jacksonville; the Legislative
Assembly to meet at Corvallis the following year; and thereupon, the Governor
(George L. Curry), Secretary of State and State Printer, moved their offices,
books, records and official persons to Corvallis, going up the river on the Steam-
boat Canamah, being the first trip of the first steamboat to ascend the Willam-
428
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
ette river to that point. On the records, Oregon had then nominally two
Capitals. But the
But the “Capital City” prosperity of Corvallis was doomed to an
early frost. In a few weeks the Treasury Department at Washington City noti-
fied the Territorial officers that the Capital re-location Act would not be recog-
nized, and that no government moneys could be expended at any place but Salem;
and that no mileage or per diem would be allowed to members of the Legislature
meeting at Corvallis. The Territorial officers then moved back to Salem; and
construction work was resumed on the State Capitol building. But Corvallis
still held out hoping to have its location recognized by Congress. The title to
the Capitol site at Salem was founded on a conditional deed, and Corvallis was
making the most of that point and offering lands for State buildings without
conditions. The Legislature then in session was halting between two opinions;
when L. F. Grover, a member of the Legislature (afterwards Member of Con-
gress, Governor and U. S. Senator) the leader of the Salem party, quickly
mounted a fleet horse, rushed to Salem, aroused W. H. Willson and wife at mid-
night, told them they must then make an unconditional deed to the State House
block or Corvallis would win, got the deed signed, rushed back to Corvallis be-
fore the morning hour for the Legislature, took his seat, and when the Capital re-
moval question came up, produced the new deed which turned over votes enough
to defeat Corvallis and confirm the claims of Salem. The members of the Legis-
lature then moved back to Salem, and the session re-opened there on the 18th of
December, 1855. On the night of the 29th, the State House, nearly completed,
was destroyed by fire together with Library and Archives. It was undoubtedly
the work of an incendiary. A Bill was then passed to submit the locating of
the Capitol to a vote of the people at the next election; and at which election
Eugene City secured 2,627 votes, Corvallis 2,327, Salem 2,101, and Portland
1,154. Neither of these contestants having a majority, and Eugene City and
Corvallis having the highest vote, the final decision was to be made according
to the law, as between Eugene City and Corvallis by the voters at the next elec-
tion-in October. It being one of the provisions of the law that the returns of
the election should be filed with the Secretary of the Territory within forty days
after the election to be canvassed. The counties of Wasco, Tillamook, Jackson,
and Josephine failed to comply with this provision of the law, and were left out
of the count. Corvallis had received a large majority in Jackson County and
the loss of that vote placed that town behind Salem in the race. The Secretary
certified the result as follows: Eugene, 2,319; Salem, 2,049; Corvallis, 1,998;
Portland, 1,154. Then a special election was called to decide between Eugene
and Salem. The people were by this time disgusted with the Capital contest,
and but few attended the election or voted. Less than 100 votes were polled
at Portland, Eugene City received 2,539 votes, Salem, 444, and the counties of
Curry, Marion, Tillamook, Polk, and Wasco made no returns at all. According
to the election Eugene became the Capital of the State; but the election was
ignored, and both the Legislature and Supreme Court convened at Salem in
December. The authorities at Washington City had decided that Salem was
the capital, no matter what the people or the Legislature decided; and salaries
of Judges and mileage and per diem of Legislators were more effective than
popular elections. And in this position the Capital question remained until
after Oregon was admitted to the Union as a state. By the act of October
19, 1860, it was to be submitted to popular vote biennially until some place was
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
429
selected by a majority of all votes cast. The question was voted on in June, 1862,
without a choice. It was again submitted in June, 1864; then Eugene received
1,588 votes, Portland 3,864, Salem 6,108 and other places, 577. Salem receiving
79 majority of the whole vote cast and was therefore declared the permanent
seat of government. At the date of this election Marion county had a larger
population than any other county in the state.
THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION
The progress of events in the evolution of a strong stable government from
an incoherent settlement of scattered pioneers, brought to the surface many
peculiar and inconsistent characteristics of human nature. As long as there
was no government all were upon the same level of undistinguished personality.
And upon this level the Provisional Government was harmoniously organized
by the Americans. The Canadians, having no organization or standard of
either social or political standing, were happy in the thought that the priest
would take care of their souls, and Dr. McLoughlin would provide for the com-
fort of their bodies. Not so with the American. He was a born politician,
statesman, and innovator. The Provisional Government had given him, each a
square mile of the richest land on the earth, had endowed him with all the rights
of citizenship and holding office. But he was not content. He wanted the Stars
and Stripes by Act of Congress, and the regular army to fight the Indians. He
got both; and no sooner had this boon been confirmed upon him than he strutted,
fumed and fretted to get out of the swaddling-clothes of a Territorial govern-
ment, and be endowed with the boon of State Sovereignty, with Governor, Su-
preme Court Justices, Congressmen and United States Senators. Every right
of property, opportunity for business protection from the Indians, freedom of
speech, education and religion he had under the Territorial organization, and
paid for with warrants on the U. S. Treasury. But he was not content. He
must launch the full rigged Ship of State, elect the Captain, and spread every
yard of sail, no matter whether there was ballast or anchor. Four efforts were
made to secure the election of a Constitutional Convention, and the framing
of a State Constitution preparatory to asking for admission to the Union of
States. First, in 1853, the Territorial Legislature submitted the question to
the people on June 5, 1854, with the result of 3,210 voters in favor, and 4,079
opposed to a Constitutional Convention. Second, the Legislature in 1855 again
submitted the question to the people, resulting in a vote of 4,420 in favor of
the Convention, and 4,835 against it. Third, again in 1856 the question was
submitted to a popular vote, with the result of a majority of 249 votes against
a Convention. Fourth, the Constitutional Convention came before the people
again in 1857. Matters had now changed. Oregon had a large claim against
the Federal Government for Indian depredations and Territorial expenditures
in fighting Indians; and it was believed that if the Territory was represented in
Congress by a member that could vote, instead of a delegate who had no vote,
and by two senators, the payment of these claims could be secured. The con-
sequence of this change in the popular mind was that at the election in 1857
the vote in favor of a Constitutional Convention was 7,209, and the opposition
to the Convention only 1,616.
430
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
At the same election the voters had elected delegates to the proposed Con-
vention, and these delegates convened at Salem on the seventeenth of August,
1857, and organized by electing M. P. Deady, President, and C. N. Terry, Sec-
retary. After an animated session the convention adjourned on the eighteenth
of September, their work, as a whole being adopted by a vote of thirty-five to
ten-fifteen members being absent. The following gentlemen composed the
convention :- Benton-John Kelsay, H. C. Lewis, H. B. Nichols, Wm. Matzger;
Clatsop-Cyrus Olney; Columbia —John W. Watts; Clackamas-James K. Kelly,
A. L. Lovejoy, Wm. A. Starkweather, H. Campbell, Nathaniel Robbins; Coos-
P. B. Marple; Curry-William H. Packwood; Douglas-M. P. Deady, Solomon
Fitzhugh, Stephen S. Chadwick, Thomas Whitted; Josephine-S. B. Hender-
shott, W. H. Watkins; Jackson-L. J. C. Duncan, J. H. Reed, Daniel Newcomb,
P. P. Prim; Linn-Delazon Smith, Luther Elkins, John T. Crooks, J. H. Brat-
tain, James Shields, Reuben S. Coyle; Lane-Enoch Hoult, W. W. Bristow,
Jesse Cox, Paul Brattain, A. J. Campbell, Isaac R. Moores; Marion-George H.
Williams, L. F. Grover, J. C. Peebles, Joseph Cox, Nicholas Shrum, Davis Shan-
non, Richard Miller; Multnomah-S. J. McCormick, William H. Farrar, David
Logan; Multnomah and Washington-Thomas J. Dryer; Washington-E. D.
Shattuck, John S. White, Levi Anderson; Polk-Reuben P. Boise, F. Waymire,
Benjamin F. Burch ; Polk and Tillamook - A. D. Babcock; Umpqua—Levi Scott,
Jesse Applegate; Wasco-C. R. Meigs; Yamhill—M. Olds, R. V. Short, R. C.
Kinney, John R. McBride.
The questions of slavery and free negroes had been purposely avoided in the
convention, and were engrafted upon the schedule as special articles, to be voted
upon by the people separately. The constitution was opposed by some people
because it did not prohibit slavery, and by others because it did not establish
slavery. The seat of government was also objectionable to some who were op-
posed to Salem. A special election was held on the second of the following No-
vember, and resulted as follows: For constitution, seven thousand, one hundred
and ninety-five; against, three thousand, two hundred and fifteen. For slavery,
Two thousand, six hundred and forty-five; against, seven thousand seven hun-
dred and twenty-seven. For free negroes, one thousand and eighty-one; against,
eight thousand six hundred and forty. The Territorial Legislature convened on
the eleventh of December, 1857, and held its usual session. For the regular June
election, 1858, State tickets were nominated by the Democratic, progressive
Democratic, and Republican parties, the contest resulting in a sweeping victory
for the Democrats, as follows: Representative to Congress-L. F. Grover, five
thousand eight hundred and fifty-nine; James K. Kelly, four thousand one hun-
dred and ninety. Governor-John Whiteaker, five thousand seven hundred and
thirty-eight; E. M. Barnum, four thousand two hundred and fourteen. Secre-
tary of State-Lucien Heath, five thousand seven hundred and forty-six; E. A.
Rice, three thousand six hundred and fifty-nine. Treasurer-John D. Boon,
five thousand six hundred and seventy-six; J. S. Bramley, three thousand, five
hundred and thirty-one; E. L. Applegate, five hundred and ninety. State
Printer-Asahel Bush, four thousand nine hundred and fifty-eight; James
O'Meara, four thousand five hundred and fifty-seven; D. W. Craig, four hundred
and thirteen. M. P. Deady, R. E. Stratton, R. P. Boise and A. E. Wait were
chosen Justices of the Supreme Court. According to the constitution a special
term of the newly elected State Legislature convened in Salem on the fifth day of
M 9 Deady Pred.
I H, Red
leyrus bluey
Seleziona
C. R. Meigs
W. Olds
Danie Noward Al Peelle
Sistler Elvis
A
g. Campbell
La Hayate Gamma
Derudomon
Rasedur Boise
hominy B Renaush
John W Watts
W. H. Hatkins
To B. Marsed
AS Babcock
Haman b. Lewis
Richard Miller Jesse Applegate
Waypiny
Levi Seatt
eph. lax
E O Shattuck
Thimas I donyer
John | Crochó
Jom si Pachuron
William Shatzger
Leve Arderan Tpm. Apart neather
ohn
Jesse bear
Rolut 6 Jim ey Hhhan
eland Shields
Lg e Duncan
ed
POPDbrim
wie
Astorian
Wrciam N.Farrar James
kelly
Stephen A Charnica
Davidhara
dohu RneBride Beynin F. Bunghe
moriston
Thoman, isted
t shrum
k od. Shart
H.B. Nichols er bormie
Solomon-Hettush Hour Point
Nathanae Robbens elsace R Moores
Toulinbagles
Enern Hertta
Kebay
t
؟
Eo
sle
AUTOGRAPHS OF THE MEMBERS OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
431
July, for the purpose of electing two United States Senators. It was composed
of thirty-eight Democrats and eleven Republicans. On the eighth of July the
oath of office was administered to Governor Whiteaker by Judge Boise, and the
machinery of the new Government was put in operation.
The Legislature elected Joseph Lane and Delazon Smith to represent Oregon
in the United States Senate, and adjourned after a session of four days.
The sections of the Constitution reserved for a separate vote read as follows:
'Section Persons lawfully held as slaves in any state, territory, or district of
the United States, under the laws thereof, may be brought into this State, and
such slaves and their descendants may be held as slaves within this state, and
shall not be emancipated without the consent of their owners." 'Section
there shall be neither slavery or involuntary servitude in this state, otherwise
than as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly con-
victed." "Section No free negro or mulatto, not residing in this state, at
the time of the adoption of the constitution, shall ever come, reside, or be within
this state, or hold any real estate, or make any contract, or maintain any suit
therein; and the legislative assembly shall provide by penal laws for the removal
by public officers of all such free negroes or mulattoes, and for their effectual ex-
clusion from the state, and for the punishment of persons who shall bring them
into the state or employ, or harbor them therein."
Grover, (Public Life in Or.) says that among others, Jesse Applegate, one of
the most talented men in the country, was snubbed at every turn, until, when the
draft of a constitution which he had prepared at home was peremptorily re-
jected, he deliberately took up his hat and walked out of the court-house.
The nativity of the members is as follows: Applegate, Anderson, Bristow,
Coyle, Fitzhugh, Kelsay, Moores, Shields, 8, Kentucky; Brattain, of Linn,
Prim, Shrum, White, Whitted, 5, Tennessee; Brattain of Lane, Logan 2, North
Carolina; Babcock, Dryer, Lewis, Olney, Smith, Williams, Watkins, 7, New
York; Boise, Campbell of Clackamas, Lovejoy, Olds, 4, Massachusetts; Burch,
Cox of Lane, McBride, Watts, 4, Missouri; Cox of Marion, Waymire, 2, Ohio;
Crooks, Holt, Marple, Newcomb, Robbins, 5, Virginia; Campbell of Lane, Shan-
non, 2, Indiana; Chadwick, Meigs, Starkweather, Nichols, 4, Connecticut;
Deady, Miller, 2, Maryland; Duncan, 1, Georgia; Elkins, Kelly, Peebles, Reed,
Short, 5, Pennsylvania; Farrar, 1, New Hampshire; Grover, 1, Maine; Hender-
shott, Kinney, Packwood, Scott, 4, Illinois; Matzger, 1, Germany; McCormick, 1,
Ireland; Shattuck, 1, Vermont.
There was only one member of the Convention nominated and elected as a
member of the Republican party; all the others were Democrats or Independents.
The Convention was composed of thirty-three farmers, eighteen lawyers, five
gold miners, two newspaper men, one civil engineer, and one merchant.
The men who formed the Constitution of Oregon have now all passed on but
onė. That sole survivor is the Hon. William H. Packwood who represented
Curry County, and now resident of Baker, Oregon.
Of the leading members who largely influenced the acts of the Convention,
some personal notice may now be given.
THE PRESIDENT, MATTHEW P. DEADY
Matthew P. Deady was easily the first and greatest citizen of the State. He
was nine years the senior of the author of this History. Both men got their start
432
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
in Belmont County, Ohio, residing in adjoining townships. Young Deady
started out for himself as a blacksmith apprentice to John Kelly in Barnesville,
Ohio. Mr. Kelly discovering that his helper had a taste for reading, introduced
him to Arthur Davenport a local attorney who had a good library and who im-
mediately gave young Deady books to read. Soon after this Kelly was elected
Treasurer of the County and moved to the County seat at St. Clairsville, taking
Deady with him to assist as a clerk in the Treasurer's office. Here he could at-
tend, the courts and make the acquaintance of the then ablest Lawyers in the
State. Soon after this he took a position in the office of William Kennon, Sr.,
who was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio, and one of the framers of
the new Code of Civil Procedure, abolishing the old Common Law forms and
practice of Chitty's Pleadings. From this time on, Deady's rise was steady
and uniformly upward. Ambitious for a newer and wider field for a young
man, Deady started for Oregon, the Plains across, in 1849, and located in Yam-
hill County in October of that year. And from the time he became President
of the Constitutional Convention he was trusted adviser in making the laws of
the State and moulding its civil and political Institutions.
To give a life-like picture of the Convention, and the men who were most
active in its work, the following extracts are made from an address of Hon. John
R. McBride, to the Oregon Historical Society, December 20, 1902. Judge Mc-
Bride, then resident of Spokane, Washington, was himself a member of the Con-
vention from Yamhill County, and subsequently a member of Congress from Ore-
gon and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Idaho.
PRESIDENT, MATTHEW P. DEADY
"If I may indulge in comment on individual members, I will begin with the
president. As he has spent a long and useful life among the people of Oregon,
I can say little of him that will be new.
“He was at that time, 33 years of age, was a man large in stature, of impres-
sive manner and bearing, smooth in speech, courteous and affable in intercourse,
though he had dignity and firmness as a presiding officer.
"There were a few subjects dealt with in that convention that gave rise to
most interesting discussion.
"The subjects of corporations and their powers was one.
"President Deady frequently called some member to the chair and, descend-
ing to the floor, took an animated part in general discussion. On the subject of
the powers of corporations, he and Judge Boise, then a delegate from Polk
County, were in harmony, and I think they two are responsible for the language
which the constitution contains. An exception was interpolated in the section
which fixes the personal liabilities of stockholders of insolvent corporations, as
the limit of the amount of stock held by the shareholders. Old Fred Waymire,
of Polk, made a motion to add to this sentence the words 'and no more,' and,
on this motion, he made his famous speech of denunciation of all corporations,
which I shall mention hereafter. In vain was he told by some of his friends,
that the meaning was clear without it, and that these negative words would not
add to the meaning he advocated. He insisted, and they were incorporated in
committee of the whole, though afterward eliminated.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
433
“It was on this part of the constitution that President Deady took an active
part and aired his social and economic opinions with vigor.
DEADY'S VIEWS OF GOVERNMENT
“His theory, was that all pursuits that were not connected with the soil, as the
legitimate business of life, were mere artificial outgrowths of modern civiliza-
tion, and to be tolerated only by necessities of society; and that the nearer the
people kept to the primary methods of acquiring a livelihood the happier they
were. The trades and callings of the artisans and the professional man were
departures from the natural order of life. The man who lived at the base of
some forest and raised and harvested a crop of grain and vegetables in the sum-
mer, and hunted coons and chased wild deer in winter was a happier man and
lived nearer to God and nature than the man who sat in some factory driving
shoe pegs at a daily stipend. There was much of this kind of philosophy of the
ideal sort in the address, and if he had been speaking to a crowd of modern re-
formers he would have been commended as an oracle. He was a great admirer
of rusticity. Although his tendencies towards an aristocratic life were strong,
he was an admirer of simplicity in home life.
DISLIKED THE METHODS
“President Deady made a most excellent presiding officer, and increased his
popularity with all its membership. I have always thought he favored me beyond
my merits. He encouraged me to enter into debates and reproached my over-
modesty. He took pains one day when I made a brief speech on some question
to come up to me and compliment me for it. Within a few years after I was
candidate for Congress, against Judge Wait, a Democrat, he supported me, much
to my surprise, and that of many of his friends, and he jokingly told me the
reason he had assigned to an old Democratic acquaintance for doing so (in those
days all voting was viva voce, and every one knew how his neighbor voted.) He
said he accounted for his political treason as follows:
" The Methodist church has always had control of the Oregon delegation in
Congress. From Thurston down to the admission of the State, Lane, Grover,
Stout, and the Senators have been tools of that church, and it dictated their
conduct on any matter in which it took interest. I have grown tired of this
church dictation and have concluded to give my Campbellite friends of Yamhill
a chance to break up the campmeeting combination, and I voted for McBride,
who has no religion at all, and I don't think can be used by any church or sect,'
and he laughed with merriment at his political change, which became perma-
nent.
FREDERICK WAYMIRE'S INFLUENCE
"Perhaps the most influential man in the farming membership was Frederick
Waymire. He was known as 'Uncle Fred,' or 'Old Fred,' just as his rela-
tions to any one who spoke of him happened to be. Nature had given him a
good quality of common sense, a very active brain, but man had done practically
Vol. I-28
434
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
nothing in the way of education or training. He was a sort of Far West David
Crockett. His politics were, I suppose, inherited, for he often alluded to Andrew
Jackson and must have voted for him for President. He had been in the ter-
ritorial legislature much of the time since the territory was organized, and for
a man of his limited education was known as a useful member. In all things he
was honest. He had a blemish in one eye, but as he said, this did not prevent
his 'spotting a rascal,' when he came in the way, or seeing straight ahead in
the line of duty. In the convention he spoke quite often, but briefly, always
to the point. His pronunciation was often not only bad, but ludicrous, but he
spoke easily and with vigor, and always made himself understood. He was
direct, if not elegant, and had the power of convincing people by the simple
way of being sincere and earnest. He was a Methodist in religion, but he had
to get a new supply of it every year or two, as he said of himself, or his stock
would run too low to live. He had endorsed the propriety of forming a State
government, but had done so with reluctance, and in the convention he gave early
notice that he meant to fight high taxes, high salaries and corporations, as he
put it 'tooth and toe-nail.' He faithfully kept his word.
“One of the most amusing and effective speeches was made by Waymire on
corporations. He regarded them as devices of the devil to begin with, and, after
denouncing them generally, he illustrated his opposition argument with a little
personal experience. A year or two before this, some enterprising manipulators
had organized a telegraph company under an act of the territorial legislature
to construct a line of telegraph from Portland to Corvallis, passing up the west
side of the valley through Waymire's county of Polk. Everybody was solicited
to subscribe to the stock, and Waymire admitted that he was 'fool enough to
join this lightnin-using enterprise,' along with his other neighbors. The money
was paid in and the line practically built and the wires were stretched most of
the distance and used for a few weeks. What this sparsely settled country of
farmers and cowherders wanted a telegraph line for no one could tell by the
time it was constructed. They had about as much use for it as if it had been
built to the moon and it soon fell into disuse, had no patronage and went to
ruin. A considerable debt had been incurred, causing the franchise and the
property, which was of no value, to be sold, leaving a balance for which resident
stockholders had to pay, as the managers were a set of Californians who pocketed
the cash on hand and flitted from the territory.
"PIZEN” ON CORPORATIONS
‘Now,' said Waymire, 'came on our troubles. The wire was down and was
giving trouble to stock, was lying all along the roads, and we could not get rid
of the thing. The local subscribers to stock were sued in the courts, and, though
they contested, they were held liable for the debt of the corporation personally,
and the sheriff went into our pockets for what the schemers had stolen.'
"After detailing the wrongs from a personal point of view he related the final
catastrophe. He said he had gone into courts over which Judge Williams pre-
sided to contest the liability of the thieving corporation promoters; had fought
it through a long trial and was beaten. When night came on and he started
home, he was full of indignation, combined with some of Ad. Starr's wheat


WILLIAM H. PACK WOOD
Sole survivor of the sixty men who framed the State Constitution
OF
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
435
whiskey, and his head was not entirely clear. He took the road along which
the old telegraph wire had been strung, and it was lying at intervals along his
path; as if to add to his misfortunes. In the darkness his horse stepped into
a: coil of it, and the rider soon found himself and his horse tightly wound up
to a tree by an iron wire that he could not break, untie or cut. "That d- d
telegraph wire,' he exclaimed, ‘was as tightly round us as the judgment of
the court rendered against me that day for helping to put it there. My best
horse was ruined by the cutting of the wire about his legs, and there I stood
in the dark cussin' the rascals who got me into this mess and wishing in my
soul that wire was around their necks and I had the right to draw it. No cor-
porations of any kind, sort, or character for me!' And he closed his diatribe
with another burst of honest indignation.
"The debate was more animated and exciting than any other question in the
convention, and while Waymire's efforts to prevent corporations were not en-
tirely successful, he did succeed in hedging them with such restrictions and
limitations and their power has been less liable to abuse than in any other State
in the Union.
CLOSE TO THE PEOPLE
"The other vital matter with Waymire was state taxation and salaries for
state officials. These he proposed to put at the lowest possible limit. The judges,
he insisted, should be paid no more than $2,000 per year, then paid by the gov-
ernment to the judges of the territory, and besides performing the duties of
trial judges in their various districts, they were to be the supreme judges en
banc; and this he forced the convention to adopt, with the proviso that when
the population should reach a certain figure a separate supreme court might be
authorized by the legislature, and as four judges were provided for the State,
the judge who presided in the inferior court was not allowed to sit on any appeal
taken from that district. The lawyers in the convention almost unanimously
opposed the system, but most of the laymen were with Waymire and the knights
of the bar had to accept it.
"Indebtedness on the part of the State was limited, and the objects of it were
specified with distinctness, and finally the salaries for the Governor, Secretary
of State, Treasurer, and State Printer, became the topic of Waymire's vigilant
attention. For days he fought the salaries proposed like a bulldog guarding
his master's treasure. He thought $1,500 was enough for the Governor. As
the Secretary's office had much duty to perform he finally agreed to $1,800 for
him. The State Treasurer had only to keep the money safely he argued that
$800 was enough for him, and so on down through the list. For this
I cheerfully give the credit to Fred Waymire. He was an example of an honest
pioneer, who, while illiterate and unpolished, had many of the qualities of a
wise and shrewd guardian of the public interest. In the circle of the leading
men in that convention when it was once asked who was the most influential of
all its membership, it was said, as the judgment of all present, that Waymire
could come nearer getting what he wanted done than any other man in it.
"There were a number of members of the convention who became prominent
in the State. Delazon Smith was one of the first United States Senators. Grover
'
436
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
eventually became a Senator, and Kelly served a term in that body. Deady
was appointed United States District Judge and died after thirty years of ser-
vice on the bench. Dryer was appointed United States Commissioner to the
Hawaiian Islands and died subsequently in Portland. Williams became a
United States Senator, and afterwards Attorney-General of the United States,
and is now the Mayor of Portland. Shattuck, of Washington County, served
as a District and Supreme Judge for many years acceptably and ably, and
many others who were prominent in the deliberations have done good service
to the State in honorable positions.
“Many interesting features and incidents of the convention, scenes sometimes
gay and humorous contributing to its entertainment, must be passed over. The
grim humor of Reed, of Jackson County, never failed to excite mirth, and Logan
of Multnomah, with his sarcastic tongue made many an opponent subside in
silence to his seat. The useful work was done by Williams, Olney, Boise, Grover,
and a few others; the debates being participated in by Smith, Dryer, Logan,
Kelsay and spasmodically by others who took an interest in that which affected
them locally.
DELAZON SMITH
"No account of the convention would be just that does not include a reference
to Delazon Smith of Linn County. As a political speaker no man on the Pacific
coast was his equal, except it be General Baker, who eventually became a Sena-
tor from Oregon.
“Smith was by birth, I believe, a New Yorker. He was educated at Oberlin
College in the days of old President Finney, and while almost a youth he en-
tered the world as the editor of a political newspaper. This portion of his life
is rather obscure, but in the political contest of that day he so impressed himself
upon his fellows, that he became noted as one of the champions of President
Tyler in the latter's quarrel with his party. Some time in 1834 he was ap-
pointed Minister to one of the South American republics. Whether his office
was one that demanded constant attention or not, I can not say, but, at all
events, after having entered upon his duties for a season, he concluded to inform
himself by travelling in that wild and almost unknown region traversed by
the Andes. He crossed the continent on horseback, and for 11 months, was the
quest of the State Department. This incident led to his being dubbed by the
newspapers "Tyler's lost Minister,' and the name 'Delusion? Smith was a
sobriquet that stuck to him ever afterwards.
HIS SPLENDID ORATORY
“As a platform orator he was seldom equaled. I doubt if he were ever sur-
passed. He had a splendid voice, was rather under medium height, of good .
presence, could say beautiful things with splendid effect and while not often
indulging in the dramatic style, had great powers of imitation, and his powers
of sarcasm and gibe were like bolts of Jove. His speeches usually began
with great deliberation of manner. His mind was orderly and his intellectual
processes logical.

ELI THAYER
Was born in Mendon, Massachusetts, June 11, 1819; died in Worcester, April 15, 1899.
Founder of the New England Aid Company, which saved the territory of Kansas from
slavery and the nation to freedom. Author of the Kansas Crusade. Member of Congress,
1859-1861. Through his determined efforts in Congress, in opposition to the powerful influ-
ence of such men as Horace Greeley of the "New York Tribune," and Senator Henry Wilson of
his own state, other influential men, Oregon was admitted to the union February 14, 1859.
OF
As 1
ch
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
437
THOMAS J. DRYER
“Early in the '50's Thomas J. Dryer came with a wife and daughter to Port-
land, Oregon, then a village with a forest as its limits. Dryer was an editor and
an old-fashioned New York 'Silver Gray Whig.' All things which were not
Whig were to him the politics of the devil. He was a vigorous writer and a
good stump speaker. While his politics were not popular in the territory, the
parties were about evenly balanced in his locality, and Dryer, possessing many
amiable qualities, was personally popular. He was a joint delegate from Mult-
nomah and Washington to the convention, and in that body he was the steady
rival of Smith on the floor. He was a ready speaker, full of wit and humor, and
often went into debates for the fun of the thing.' On one occasion he brought
down the applause of the house on Smith. I do not recall the subject, but in
his speech Smith alluded to some matter in which he had some experience on a
question on which he was not supposed to be an expert. Dryer replied by
quoting from Mother Goose:
"There is none so well as the farmer knows,
How oats, peas, beans and barley grows.'
"The grammar was bad, but it was a palpable hit, and Smith joined in the
laughter it evoked.
"Dryer's ambition was of the kind that induced him to oppose anything that
could be used to favor the Democrats. He was a sort of gadfly to the Democratic
flanks, and omitted no opportunity to sting a Democratic leader who came in
his way. His paper, The Oregonian, was a lively sheet, and he employed Patrick
J. Malone, an Irishman, to report the proceedings of the convention. Some of
the speeches were published in the paper quite fully, but as it was only issued
weekly, it contained but selections and in these Dryer was pretty well repre-
sented.
“Dryer was a member of the State Legislature in 1858-59, and was an elector
on the Lincoln ticket in 1860. In 1861 he was appointed to the post of Commis-
sioner at Honolulu. He remained there some years, but finally returned to
Portland, where he died. His paper, while he controlled it, was strong, and
exerted much influence. Founded by Thomas J. Dryer, it has survived all of
its contemporaries, and now, under its present management, is regarded as
one of the leading papers of the country. Dryer was not a great editor, but
he was well adapted to the rough and tumble of the times, was useful to the
public, and deserves to have his memory embalmed as one of the most useful of
the pioneers.
BRIGHT CONTROVERSIAL REPORTER
"There was one who figured in that convention conspicuously who was not
of its membership, and of whom slight mention has been made by those who
have had occasion to refer to its proceedings. Patrick J. Malone was then well
known to the public as a journalist. He was one of the best shorthand reporters
who had appeared in those days, and had been mainly employed in such work
during the sessions of the Territorial Legislature. He also wielded a vigorous
438
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
pen, and wrote with perspicuity and force. Like all members of the Irish race,
he put much feeling into his articles, and never entered into a controversy
without exciting his adversary to displays of acerbity. In politics, a Democrat,
the passages between him and Dryer were so remarkable for the variety and
intensity with which they had been carried on that there was much surprise
when he appeared at the convention as an employe. of The Oregonian. Such
things are so common now that it would be regarded as unworthy of remark, but
then it was a matter of amazement. Dryer had alluded to him as “Paddy
Whack,' 'Teddy O'Rourke-Malone,' 'My Boy,' 'Bogtrotter,' and such like
epithets, and that he should be found sitting at a reporter's desk labeled 'The
Oregonian,' seemed like mixing oil and water. The journalist of nowadays un-
derstands the value of the mixing process, just as the pioneers in it knew it.
Malone was even then a good type of the modern professional journalist. Many
Democrats thought him a traitor to his party, who had been bought with a
price, and yet the only evidence of it was, that he was a correspondent and re-
porter for The Oregonian, and was paid for his services.
"It is evident from the whole history of the movement to secure a Constitu-
tional Convention and a State Government that the people generally were op-
posed to the movement at that time as premature. The three rejections of the
proposition by decided majorities of the popular vote clearly showed the temper
of the people. But the continuous agitation of the subject by politicians seeking
high stations and State offices, had tired out and disgusted much of the opposi-
tion. And then to the scheming of the politicians was added the clamor of the
claimants for losses by the Indian wars, who hoped for a speedier settlement,
if not a more liberal one of all such claims through the agency of United States
Senators and Congressmen. That the people were fearful of State expenses and
high taxation was evidenced by the moderate salaries fixed by the Constitution."
GOVERNORS OF OREGON
Executive Committee, David Hill, Alanson Beers, and Joseph Gale from
July 5, 1843, to May 14, 1844.
Peter G. Stewart, Osborn Russell and W. J. Bailey, May 14, 1844, to Au-
gust 3, 1845.
Governor-George Abernethy, from August 3, 1845, to March 3, 1849.
Territorial Governors—Joseph Lane, March 3, 1849, to June 18, 1850.
Kintzing Pritchett, June 18, 1850, to August 18, 1850.
John P. Gaines, August 18, 1850, to May 16, 1853.
Joseph Lane, May 16, 1853, to May 17, 1853.
George L. Curry, May 19, 1853, to December 2, 1853.
John W. Davis, December 2, 1853, to August 11, 1854.
George L. Curry, August 1, 1854, to March 3, 1859.
State Governors-John Whiteaker, March 3, 1859, to September 10, 1862.
A. C. Gibbs, September 10, 1862, to September 12, 1866.
George L. Woods, September 12, 1866, to September 14, 1870.
La Fayette Grover, September 14, 1870, to February 1, 1877.
Stephen F. Chadwick, February 1, 1877, to September 11, 1878.
W. W. Thayer, September 11, 1878, to September 13, 1882.


JOHN WHITEAKER

The First State Governor
UNIL
OF
M
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
439
Z. F. Moody, September 13, 1882, to January 12, 1887.
Sylvester Pennoyer, January 12, 1887, to January 14, 1895.
William Paine Lord, January 14, 1895, to January 11, 1899.
Theodore T. Geer, from January 11, 1899, to January 10, 1903.
George E. Chamberlain from January 10, 1903, to January, 1909, then elected
U. S. Senator.
Frank W. Benson, Secretary-Governor from January, 1909, until his death
November, 1910. Jay Bowerman, President of the Senate, Governor from death
of Benson until January 5, 1911.
Oswald West, present Governor, taking office January 7, 1911.
Oregon has had more Thanksgiving days than any other state in the Union
since it became a state. In 1893 it had one by proclamation of Governor Pen-
noyer on November 23, and another by proclamation of President Cleveland on
November 30. It also stands alone among the many states in respect to a seal
of state. The others all have one; Oregon is without one.
According to the constitution of the state, the state seal SHALL be an es-
cutcheon, supported by thirty-three stars and divided by an ordinary, with the
inscription "The Union." In chief, mountains, an elk with branching antlers,
a wagon, the Pacific Ocean, on which a British man-of-war departing, an Ameri-
can steamer arriving. The second quartering with a sheaf, plow and pick-axe.
Crest, the American eagle. Legend, State of Oregon. If any one will take the
trouble to compare this description with the impression of the pretended seal
now in use, they will see that Oregon has no seal of State.'
OREGON'S REPRESENTATIVES IN CONGRESS
Leaving out of the account the appointment of J. Quinn Thornton by Gov-
ernor Abernethy to present the claims of Oregon to Congress in 1848, and the
appointment of Joseph L. Meek by the Provisional Legislature to discharge the
same duty after the massacre of Whitman and family, Oregon has had the fol-
lowing representatives in Congress from 1849 down to the present time:
Thirty-first Congress, 1849-51, Delegate, Samuel R. Thurston, Linn City.
Thirty-second Congress, 1851-53, Delegate, Joseph Lane, Oregon City.
Thirty-third Congress, 1853-55, Delegate, Joseph Lane, Winchester.
Thirty-fourth Congress, 1855-57, Delegate Joseph Lane, Winchester.
Thirty-fifth Congress, 1857-59, Delegate Joseph Lane, Winchester; Repre-
sentative, La Fayette Grover.
Thirty-sixth Congress, 1859-61, Senators, Joseph Lane, Winchester; Delazon
Smith of Albany; Representative, Lansing Stout, Portland.
Thirty-seventh Congress, 1861-63. Senators, Edward D. Baker, died Octo-
ber 21, 1861. Benjamin Stark appointed in his place. Benjamin F. Harding,
Salem, elected to place of Stark, took his seat December 1, 1862, James W. Nes-
mith, Salem. Representative, George K. Shiel, Salem.
Thirty-eighth Congress, 1863-65. Senators, Benjamin F. Harding, Salem,
James W. Nesmith, La Creole. Representative, John R. McBride, Lafayette.
Thirty-ninth Congress, 1865-67. Senators, James W. Nesmith, La Creole,
George H. Williams, Portland. Representative, John H. D. Henderson, Eugene
City.
440
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Fortieth Congress, 1867-69. Senators, Henry W. Corbett, Portland, George
H. Williams, Portland; Representatives, Rufus Mallory, Salem.
Forty-first Congress, 1869-71. Senators, Henry W. Corbett, Portland, James
K. Kelly, Portland. Representative, Joseph S. Smith, Salem.
Forty-second Congress, 1871-73. Senators, Henry W. Corbett, Portland,
James K. Kelly, Portland. Representatives, James H. Slater, La Grande.
Forty-third Congress, 1873-75. Senators, James K. Kelly, Portland, John
H. Mitchell, Portland. Representative, G. A. LaDow, Pendleton, elected in place
of Joseph G. Wilson, who died in 1873, before taking his seat.
Forty-fourth Congress, 1875-77. Senators, James K. Kelly, Portland, John
H. Mitchell, Portland. Representative, La Fayette Lane, Roseburg, elected in
place of George A. La Dow, who died in 1875.
Forty-fifth Congress, 1877-79. Senators La Fayette Grover, Salem, John H.
Mitchell, Portland. Representative, Richard Williams, Portland.
Forty-sixth Congress, 1879-81. Senators, La Fayette Grover, Salem, James
H. Slater, La Grande. Representative, John Whiteaker, Pleasant Hill.
Forty-seventh Congress, 1881-83. Senators, La Fayette Grover, Salem, James
H. Slater, La Grande, Representative, Melvin C. George, Portland.
Forty-eighth Congress, 1883-85. Senators, James H. Slater, La Grande, J. N.
Dolph, Portland. Representative, Melvin C. George, Portland.
Forty-ninth Congress, 1885-87. Senators, J. N. Dolph, Portland, John H.
Mitchell, Portland. Representative, Binger Hermann, Roseburg.
Fiftieth Congress, 1887-89. Senators, J. N. Dolph, Portland, John H. Mitchell
Portland. Representative, Binger Hermann, Roseburg.
Fifty-first Congress, 1889-91. Senators, John H. Mitchell, Portland, J. N.
Dolph, Portland. Representative, Binger Hermann, Roseburg.
Fifty-second Congress, 1891-93. Senators John H. Mitchell, Portland, J. N.
Dolph, Portland, Representative, Binger Hermann, Roseburg.
Fifty-third Congress, 1893-95. Senators, John H. Mitchell, Portland, J. N.
Dolph, Portland. Representatives, Binger Hermann, Roseburg, W. R. Ellis,
Heppner.
Fifty-fourth Congress, 1895-97. Senators, John H. Mitchell, Portland, George
W. McBride, St. Helens. Representatives, Binger Hermann, Roseburg, W. R.
Ellis, Heppner.
Fifty-fifth Congress, 1897-99. Senators, George W. McBride, St. Helens,
Joseph Simon, Portland. Representatives, T. H. Tongue, Hillsboro, W. R. Ellis,
Heppner
Fifty-sixth Congress, 1899-01. Senators, George W. McBride, St. Helens,
Joseph Simon, Portland. Representatives, T. H. Tongue, Hillsboro, M. A. Moody,
The Dalles.
Fifty-seventh Congress, 1902-03. Senators, Joseph Simon, Portland, John H.
Mitchell, Portland. Representatives, T. H. Tongue, Hillsboro, M. A. Moody, The
Dalles.
Fifty-eighth congress, 1903-05. Senators, Charles W. Fulton, Astoria, John
H. Mitchell, Portland: Representatives, Thos. H. Tongue of Hillsboro and M. A.
Moody of The Dalles.
Fifty-ninth Congress, 1905-07. Senators, Charles W. Fulton, Astoria, and
John M. Gearin, appointed by Governor Chamberlain to fill out term of John
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
441
H. Mitchell, deceased. Representatives, W. C. Hawley, of Salem, and W. R.
Ellis of Pendleton.
Sixtieth Congress, 1907-09. Senators, Charles W. Fulton, Astoria, and Jona-
than Bourne of Portland. Representatives, W. C. Hawley of Salem, and J. N.
Williamson, of Prineville.
Sixty-first Congress, 1909-11. Senators, Jonathan Bourne, of Portland and
George E. Chamberlain, of Portland. Representatives, W. C. Hawley, of Salem,
and A. W. Lafferty, of Portland.
CHAPTER XVI
1843_-1908
THE COUNTY ORGANIZATION OF THE STATE
The organization of the counties of Oregon commenced with the Provisional
Government. At the popular sovereignity meeting of the people held at Cham-
poeg (then called and spelled “Champooick”) on May 2, 1843, a legislative com-
mittee was appointed by the sovereign people at that meeting and instructed to
prepare a Code of Laws and report the same to a meeting to be held on July 5,
1843. No authority was conferred upon the committee to divide the country
into Districts or counties; but the committee assumed that power believing it to
be a necessary part of their duty under the circumstances, and recommended the
following: "The First District, to be called the Tuality District, comprising all
the country south of the northern boundary line of the United States, west of the
Willamette or Multnomah river, north of the Yamhill river, and east of the Pa-
cific Ocean.
"Second District, to be called the Yamhill District, embracing all the country
west of the Willamette, or Multnomah river, and a supposed line running north
and south from said river, south of the Yamhill river to the parallel of 42° north
latitude, or the boundary line of the United States and California, and east of the
Pacific Ocean.
“Third District, to be called the Clackamas District, comprehending all the
territory not included in the other three districts.
“Fourth District, to be called the Champooick District, and bounded on the
north by a supposed line drawn from the mouth of the Anchiyoke (Pudding)
river, running due east to the Rocky mountains, west by the Willamette or Mult-
nomah river, and a supposed line running due south from said river to the paral-
lel of 42° north latitude; south by the boundary line of the United States and
California, and east by the summit of the Rocky Mountains.
"The committee recommended that the above districts be designated as 'Ore-
gon Territory.'”
Clackamas county is distinguished in the history of the State as the first
center of American population; and as having in it the first established
town (Oregon City), and as having the first mercantile establishments, the
first saw mill, the first flour mill, the first newspaper, the first Capital of the
future State, and the first and only mint to coin and issue money in the United
States, independent of the United States.
The Census returns of population for Clackamas county are as follows: for
the year 1850—1,859; 1860—3,466 ; 1870–5,993; 1880—9,260; 1890—15,233;
1900–19,658; 1910—29,931.
Subsequently the Provisional Government legislature created the districts of
Clatsop and Polk, and in 1845 changed the name of district to that of county.
443
1
444
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
>>
The name Champooick was the name of the Indian village at the point now
known as “Champoeg”; and from that association became the name of the dis-
trict. It is an Indian word, without doubt, and was often referred to in early
days as meaning the place of the Camp," as it was the only point along the
Willamette river for more than seventy-five miles where a portion of the virgin
prairie extended to the river bank.
The name Tuality, after being bandied around by the writers and historians
from 1834 to 1850 as "Falatine, Fallatten, Twality, Tualitin, Fallatry, Faulitz,
Fallatah, and Quality,” finally settled down to be by common usage spelled
as “Tualatin,” and was the name of the county until changed to that of Wash-
ington by the Territorial Legislature in 1849. The name of Tualatin still adheres
to the only river in the county, and to the beautiful prairie country surround-
ing Hillsboro, Forest Grove, Banks, Glencoe and Cornelius. The name of the
river is an Indian name and signifies sloth or sluggish, and whether applied
by the Indians to the river exclusively, or to the river and the plains both,
nobody can tell. As a general thing Indian names of natural features applied
to places and not streams, so that a long river might have different names
to different tribes. The name of the Yamhill river is a case in point; for it de-
rived its name from the bald hills, northeast of Lafayette which the Indians
termed "Che-am-il." This discovery was made by Judge Deady, who first
settled at old Lafayette and looked up the origin of the name among the few
remaining Indians then in the Willamette valley; and from the name of the
hills, both the river and the county derive their names. Clackamas is another
Indian name, and has had a great variety of spelling and pronunciation. The
word was apparently originally applied to the tribe of Indians living on the
Clackamas river; and from the tribe the river took its name, and from that com-
bination the county got its name. Tolbert Carter, a pioneer of 1846, always
claimed that the word “Tualatin” was an Indian word which meant a "land
without trees''-significant in its application to the broad plains in Washington
county as they appeared sixty years ago.
Clatsop is another county, originally called a "District” which derives
its name from a small Indian tribe located south of the mouth of the Columbia
river; and which was created, organized or segregated as a District by an Act
of the Provisional Government Legislature on June 22, 1844. Clatsop is dis-
tinguished as being the first point of land in the old Oregon country on which
the American flag was flung to the breeze. Here the Astor expedition by sea
and land located in 1811, and erected a stockade fort and within which erected
storehouses, dwelling houses and means of defense. It is the only county that
has had or could have a “Centennial” celebration of its founding and exis-
tence as an American community; and it is the only place where British guns
were trained to fire on American interests in Oregon. Its chief city, Astoria,
is the outpost and sentinel holding the keys to the gate, to protect the name,
fame and vast interests of Oregon and the great Columbia river valley. And
well and faithfully has the “City by the Sea” performed that duty.
"Be ours the dreams prophetic, shadowing forth
The things that yet shall be
As through this gate the treasures of the North
Flow outward to the sea.'

ASTORIA-AS IT WAS FOUNDED IN 1811
IV.
OF

F
FIRST U. S. CUSTOM HOUSE IN OREGON
OF
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
445
Astoria's ambition to be the greatest commercial entrepot of the Columbia
river valley seemed to be entirely reasonable as based on the sea going vessels
of 1811 to 1843. Had the vast expansion of commerce since that date depended
on sailing vessels it must have stopped near the river's mouth and made a great
city of Astoria. But with the first successful voyage of an ocean steamship up
to Portland passed away Astoria's dream of commercial supremacy. The little
ship might still have sailed up to Portland as Captain Couch sailed his little
craft that far inland. But the great ship carrying six thousand tons could never
have passed by Astoria to go to Portland. And the great ship was only possi-
ble on the great river by the aid of steam power.
The people of Astoria were not alone in their ideas of the importance of the
situation. The U. S. Government early took an active interest in promoting and
defending the location. To do this defences were not only proposed at the
mouth of the river, but military roads were projected into the supporting coun-
try. In 1855 Congress provided for the construction of a Military road from
Astoria to Forest Grove. Thirteen miles of this road were constructed in 1856,
forty miles additional in 1857, and a pack trail the balance of the distance con-
necting the Nehalem river with the Forest Grove, in 1858. In 1870 Congress
provided a grant of twenty sections of public land per mile of road to aid in
the construction of a railroad from Astoria to Forest Grove. The railroad would
have cost approximately two million dollars; but no capitalists in the United
States or Europe could see any chance for the return of their money in build-
ing that road. The land was, and is yet largely timbered land; and the timber
on that land is salable now for money enough to build a double-track railroad
from Astoria to New York City.
Many old and influential families in the history of the State have settled
in and around old Astoria; notably the Taylors, Adairs, Grays, Warrens and
others. The Warrens, founders of Warrenton, were direct lineal descendants
of General Warren, the immortal hero of Bunker Hill. For local history of
Clatsop county this work is under obligations to Miss Clara C. Munson,
versatile writer on all subjects connected with that region.
The Census returns of population for Clatsop county are as follows; For
the year 1850–462; 1860—498; 1870—1,255; 1880—7,222; 1890—10,016; 1900
--12,765; 1910—16,106.
Polk District was created by an Act of the Provisional Government legisla-
ture December 22nd, 1845, and originally extended from the south line of Yam-
hill county, down to the California line and west to the Pacific ocean. It was
named in honor of President James K. Polk, who proved false to Oregon and
gave away to England all of Old Oregon north of the present nortli boundary
of the State of Washington. Polk committed his treason in the face of his oft-
repeated pledge that he would faithfully execute the will of the people in their
overwhelming referendum vote to maintain the national title to all the country
up to "Fifty-four, Forty-or Fight."
The Census returns of population for Polk county are as follows: For the
year 1850–1,051; 1860—3,625; 1870–4,701 ; 1880–6,601 ; 1890—7,858; 1900-
9,923; 1910—13,469. And for Indians, 1900—150; 1910–133.
Benton county was the first county organized after the passage of the Act
changing the name of Districts to that of Counties. This county was created by
Act of the Provisional Government legislature passed December 23, 1847, and
a
446
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
embraced all the territory south of the present south boundary of Polk county
down to the California line. The reader must bear in mind that the Provisional
Legislature was compelled to describe county lines by natural objects, there
not having been up to that time, and for quite a period afterward, any U. S.
public land surveys in the territory. A forcible illustration of this difficulty
appears on the records when four years later the Territorial legislature under-
took to define the southern boundary of Benton county preparatory to the or-
ganization of Umpqua county. In this Act of January 15, 1851, the description
runs: "The southern boundary of Benton county shall be located as follows:
Commencing at the middle of the channel of the Willamette river, at a point
where a line running west, will pass three miles south of the ford on Long Tom
near Roland Hinton's field, and running due west to the Pacific ocean. As
the Long Tom river or creek could be forded at any point the boundary line
was certainly a movable point in Oregon geography.
Benton county was named in honor of Oregon's best friend in Congress-
Senator Thomas Hart Benton, whose life-like engraving appears on another
page of this book.
The census returns of population for Benton county are as follows: For
the year 1850–814; 1860—3,074; 1870–4,584; 1880–6,403; 1890–8,650; 1900
-10,663. In 1893 Lincoln county was carved out of Benton which explains the
reduced census returns of 1900.
Linn county was the last county to be organized by the Provisional Gov-
ernment legislature. The Act creating the county was passed on December 28,
1847, and the county named in honor of the U. S. Senator, Lewis F. Linn, the
colleague of Senator Benton. The Donation land law giving to the heads of
each family a square mile of land–320 acres to the wife and the same to the
husband
was the work of Senator Linn. And while the pioneers fully appre-
ciated this generous gift, it is doubtful whether many of their descendants re-
member the man or his work. The original boundaries of the county were all
that vast territory lying south of the Santiam river and its north fork, and a
straight line from said north fork to the Rocky Mountains, and east of the Willam-
ette river to the Rocky Mountains and south to the north boundary of Cali-
fornia and Nevada.
The census returns for population of Linn county are as follows: For the
year 1850—994; 1860–6,772; 1870–8,717; 1880–12,676; 1890–16,265; 1900
-18,603; 1910–22,662.
Washington county was the original Tuality District, then Tuality county,
and on September 3, 1849, re-baptized by the territorial legislature and named
for the "Father of His Country'-George Washington. The act of the legis-
lature changing the name recites, “That the name of the County commonly
called Tuality or Falatine be and the same is changed to Washington.” Where
the legislature got its authority for saying that the county was commonly called
“Tuality or Falatine," does not appear, and it appears to be making a declara-
tion against the historical fact that the Provisional legislature, and the pio-
neers who made up that legislature, commonly called the county "Tuality."
The county seat of Washington county was located on the Donation Laud
claim of David Hill and was named for him—Hillsboro. Mr. Hill was a member
of the Executive Committee of three, of the Provisional Government, elected by
the convention of the people at Champoeg on July 5, 1843. The other members
1

IV.
N
OF
2
ASTORIA-FROM CAPT. HUSTLER'S MAP-1870
10
1
447
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
of the Committee were Alanson Beers and Joseph Gale, and these three men
were the first Governors of Oregon. Hillsboro was originally named “Colum-
bus” and located on the northeast corner of Hill's Donation claim, but was
changed to Hillsboro when the townsite was surveyed and platted into lots. The
name of Joseph Gale is also preserved in the history of Washington county, for
all time; “Gale's Peak,” a conical mountain lifting its crest 2,000 feet above
sea level southwest of Forest Grove, and “Gale's Creekflowing from the Coast
Range mountains east through the beautiful "Gale's Creek Valley,” all three of
these grand features of nature being named in honor of this Pioneer Governor
of Oregon. . And likewise will the name of David Hill be perpetuated for all
time in the name of the City of “Hillsboro” county seat of Washington county,
named in honor of David Hill. And as long as water runs, an as long as Gale's
Peak towers above all the county, and as long as the city of Hillsboro exists, in-
creases and stands witness, will the names of these two Pioneer Governors of
Oregon be remembered and honored among men. And in addition to these two
Pioneer Governors, Washington county possessed also John S. Griffin, familiarly
known as “Father Griffin,” who was not only a member of the Convention that
formed the Provisional Government but he was the man who rode all over the
Willamette Valley urging the Americans to attend that Convention and vote for
organization; and for this he is entitled to equal honor with Gale and Hill. Father
Griffin lived to the age of ninety-three.
Washington county originally included all of Multnomah county west of the
Willamette river, including the city of Portland, down to the year 1854, prior to
which date the Portland lawyers had to ride horseback out to Hillsboro to attend
to their legal practice. And down to that date Washington county included
“Sauvie's island," formerly called “Wappatoo" island, and also “Wyeth's is:
land.” And there are old records in the Washington county court house that rec-
ognize the name of! Wyeth's island.” Captain Nathanial Wyeth started a town
on the lower end of the island in 1834, and named it "Fort William.” Here he
had live stock, planted a garden, and established a salmon fishery—the first fishery
in Oregon to export fish, sending back to Boston in one of his ships about half a
cargo of salted salmon. So that Washington county has the honor of having with-
in its borders the first platted townsite, the first salmon fishery, shipping the first
cargo of salmon and having two of the first triumvirate of American governors
west of the Rocky mountains.
The census returns of population for Washington county are as follows: For
1850—2,652; 1860—2,801; 1870_4,261; 1880—7,082; 1890–11,972; 1900—14,-
467; 1910—21,522.
Yamhill county, as has already been noticed, together with its river, derives
its name from the native Indians who named the bald hills northeast of the old
town of Lafayette "Che-am-ills." Those hills were an important feature of the
landscape to the Indians; for near by them was the so-called “falls” of the Yam-
hill river, being simply a ledge of rock running across the river, and on which the
Indians could cross the river without much trouble in low water. Far to the
south was an open country, and coming from the south the Indians could see the
bald hills for a long distance, and by them they were guided to the ford across the
river.
Alexander Henry, in his diary of January 23, 1814, refers to the Indians on
the Yamhill or Yellow river as the “Yamhelas” or “Yamils,” and says they
448
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
"were short of stature, and altogether the most miserable, wild, and rascally
looking tribe I had seen on this side of the Rocky mountains.''
From the fact that many of the men distinguished in the history of the state
settled in early times there, or got their start in life there, the county has secured
the credit of being a talisman of good luck to all its sons and daughters. To say
of a man “that he got his start in Yamhill,” is much more than the newcomer
would think it counted for. It attracts attention, and if the subject will bear
inspection, it gives him a good start in politics, education or the church. The
state's most distinguished judge (Matthew P. Deady), and the most distinguished
lawyer (David Logan), started in Yamhill. The county has furnished a Congress-
man (John R. McBride); a governor (George L. Woods); a United States sen-
ator, George W. McBride; the first president of the state university, John W.
Johnson; the present state superintendent of public schools, L. R. Alderman; Dr.
James McBride, delegate of the American Medical Association to the Interna-
tional Medical Congress at Budapest in 1911, and chairman of the section devoted
to the investigation of neurotic and mental diseases, chief justice of the supreme
court, Thos. A. McBride; General Joel Palmer, superintendent of Indian
affairs; an associate justice of the supreme court, George H. Burnett; a judge of
the state circuit court, William Galloway; Dr. James McBride, father of all the
McBrides, and United States Minister to the Sandwich Islands, and many other
men distinguished in all walks of life. The first cargo of wheat and the first. .
cargo of flour shipped from Oregon to a foreign market was furnished by
Yamhill county. And the first corporation that built a railroad in Oregon
was organized at Amity, Yamhill county, on May 25, 1867. The first board of
directors of which were James T. Belcher, of Lafayette, Wm. T. Newby, of
McMinnville; Thomas R. Cornelius, of Washington county; W. C. Whitson, of
Dallas, Polk county; and Joseph Gaston, of Portland.
In many ways Yamhill county has been influential in the history and forma-
tion of the state. Among the early pioneers Peter H. Burnett was a Supreme
Judge of the Provisional Government, and appointed one of the first United
States Territorial judges, and afterwards became the first governor of Cali-
fornia. Orville C. Pratt, another United States Territorial judge, also removed
to California and became a judge of the Supreme court. of that state. Old La-
fayette once figured as the “Athens”' of Oregon, and the classic halls of its
old court house reverberated the thundering eloquence of Deady, Logan, Pratt,
Williams, Burnett, Chapman, Dryer, Nesmith and others. And in commercial
importance it was scarcely less important than in politics. At one time Lafayette
had far more business than Portland, and more than thirty stores of all kinds
flourished and sent away pack trains of merchandise to the mines of southern
Oregon and northern California. The county has always led the way in
educational matters, and has founded and liberally supports two of the best
colleges in the state.
The census returns of the population for Yamhill county are as follows:
For the year 1850–1,512; 1860—3,245; 1870-5,012; 1880—7,945; 1890—
10,692; 1900–13,420; 1910–18,285.
And for Indians, for 1900–236; 1910–204.
That the grand total of assesments for Yamhill county in the year 1853
was only $751,024. Land was not assessed, the title to all land being at that

ဒါဖြင့်
OREGON CITY IN 1858

IV.
OF
2
M
OREGON CITY IN 1845
From drawings of British naval officers
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
449
time in the Government. Assessed valuation for Yamhill county in 1912 is
over $16,000,000.
Marion county was one of the original districts organized by the Provis-
ional Government, and during its existence as such District, bore the name of
Champooick,” which was by public usage changed into the word Champoeg.
In Mr. F. V. Holman's exhaustive investigation of the origin of names
of counties, he has traced this word back to an Indian word, “Cham-
poo,
!! and which was the Indian name of a weed growing on the west side of
the Willamette river opposite the old warehouse shipping point of Champoeg
on the Willamette river. When the territorial legislature of 1849 took up the
subject of reorganizing the counties the name of the county was changed from
Champooick to Marion. This change was made to honor General Francis Marion
of the Revolutionary war. Nearly every family in the Ohio and Mississippi
valleys had in the thirties and forties of the last century copies of the books
written by Rev. Mason L. Weems, the Episcopalian rector of Mt. Vernon
parish when George Washington was a plain farmer at the same place. Weems
not only wrote a biography of Washington, but also of General Marion, Dr.
Franklin and William Penn. The boys and girls who came to Oregon as pio-
neer men and women in 1843 to 1848 had most of them read Weems' Life of
Marion, and had been so impressed thereby that they embraced the opportun-
ity of honoring their hero by attaching his name to the great central county of
the state.
General Marion was born in South Carolina in 1732. He joined the Ameri-
can rebels in 1776, and had his first smell of gunpowder in defending Sullivan's
Island in Charleston harbor against an attack of the British soldiers. Driven
from the island, and from Charleston, Marion raised a brigade of volunteer
soldiers and carried on a guerrilla warfare against the British for three years.
And such was his success in harrying the British forces and escaping all their
traps and pursuits that he was entitled “the swamp fox of the Carolinas,''
and Generals Washington and Greene both bestowed upon him the highest
praise in holding the British army in the South while Washington finally de-
stroyed it in Virginia. Marion county may well be proud of its name. How
Marion county won the capital of the state will be found in Chapter XV.
Marion county has the honor of the first permanent settlement of the state,
as well as the first Protestant missionary station, the first school to teach
children and the first college west of the Rocky mountains. And this is not
all. On Marion county soil was erected the first structures of civil govern-
ment on the Pacific coast-the old Provisional Government at Champoeg—and
there the flag of Freedom and Independence—a reincarnation of the old Liberty
Bell of 1776-proclaiming freedom, independence and all the blessings of civ-
ilization throughout the wide extended areas of old Oregon, and to all the
people thereof, was first unfurled.
Louis Bichette was the first white man to settle in Marion county. Bichette
had in 1817 led a party of twenty-five Canadians from Canada to Oregon, and
landed at Astoria with the remnant of the party in 1818. After spending sev-
eral years in trapping, he settled among the Indians and opened a farm near
old Champoeg, and lived thereon until his death in 1876. Joseph Gervais,
in whose honor the town of Gervais was named, was the second settler in Marion
county, opening a farm near where the town is located in 1828.
Vol. 1-29
450
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
As no
The census returns of the population of Marion county were as follows:
For the year 1850—2,749; 1860—7,088; 1870–9,665; 1880—14,576; 1890—
22,934; 1900—27,713; 1910—39,780.
Lane county was organized by the territorial legislature of 1851, and des-
cribed as "all that portion of Oregon Territory lying south of Linn county,
and south of so much of Benton county as is east of Umpqua county.'
eastern boundary was mentioned, it was supposed to run eastwardly to the
Rocky mountains. In 1853, the southern boundary of the county was defined
by Act of the legislature to commence on the Pacific ocean at the mouth of the
Siuslaw river; and from thence following up the south bank of that stream to
a point fifteen miles west of the main road known as the Applegate road; thence
southerly to the summit of the Calapooya mountains; thence eastward along the
summit of said mountains to the summit of the Cascade range.
This county was named in honor of General Joseph Lane, the first gov-
ernor of Oregon, under the authority of the United States; a distinguished sol-
dier in the Mexican war, Territorial delegate to Congress, one of the state's
first United States senators, was the leading character and most influential
factor in settling the Rogue River Indian wars, an honest, upright citizen and
public official who was fatally misled into the candidacy for vice president on
the Southern pro-slavery ticket of 1859, on which John C. Breckenridge was
the candidate for president.
Lane county and its expanding and prospering chief city, Eugene, both
get their start from the same pioneers. Eugene F. Skinner, who built a double
log cabin on the west end of "Skinner's Butte” in 1847, was the founder of the
city, to which his first name is attached. Skinner settled first in Polk county,
but not seeing anything to his liking there, and settlers getting too numerous
for comfort-about one person to the square mile-he, with Elijah Bristow, Wil-
liam Dodson and Felix Scott, in the year 1846, emigrated from Polk county
proceeding up the west side of the river until they reached "Pleasant Hill,"
which they named. Here Bristow claimed “the first white settler's claim in
Lane county;" Dodson took a claim next to Bristow's, and as the party re-
turned down the valley Skinner laid claim to the "Butter and his claim covered
a part of the city townsite. And five years later the first Lane county mer-
chant started his little store in Skinner's cabin, and shortly after built a store
room at the foot of the east end of the Butte. The first school house--the Col-
lege of the people of this now recognized head center of University education
of the Northwest, was erected on that "Pleasant Hill," in 1849, by the same
Bristow, with the help of his sons, sons-in-law and grandsons, one of whom is
the honored and useful citizen still working for Eugene and Lane county-
Thomas G. Hendricks. Those pioneer founders builded wiser than they knew;
for the city whose foundations they laid at the "parting of the ways" to all
the counties through all the mountains, is prophetic of the greatest city between
the Columbia and the “Golden Gate."
Lane county has furnished its full share of useful and distinguished men.
No American poet, and scarcely any outside of his own land, has a recognized
higher claim to fame than Joaquin Miller; and no worker in the fields of science
has done more or secured a greater measure of honor than Thomas Condon,
whose discoveries in the field of geology have attracted the attention of scien-
tific societies throughout the world. And there is John Whiteaker, an old style

MAJOR BALL
A lineal descendant of the mother of George Washington-For many
years a resident of Curry County

CAPT. J. M. KIRKPATRICK
The Hero of Battle Rock
OF
Magic
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
451
statesman, the first governor of the state under the State Constitution, a sample
of the many good citizens of Lane county-governor, congressman, state sena-
tor, collector of internal revenue, the hero of many a hard fought politi-
cal battle—and through it all, and above all other honors, winning and holding
the title of "Honest John." But the man who has done most for Eugene city
never held high office. The work of Josiah J. Walton in the long contest for
the State University is greater than that of all the Lane county statesmen.
Lane county has contributed to the service of the state Justices of the
Supreme Court Riley E. Stratton and Robert S. Bean, Congressmen Whiteaker
and J. H. D. Henderson ; Secretary of State Harrison R. Kincaid, Surveyor-
General B. J. Pengra, Circuit Judges A. A. Skinner and L. T. Harris, State
Printer Harvey Gordon. And for further notice see biographical volumes.
The last review of the history of Lane county is that made by Miss Ann
Whiteaker; and from which this work has drawn liberally.
The census returns of the population of Lane county are as follows:
For the year 1860—4,780; 1870—6,426; 1880—9,411; 1890–15,198; 1900-
19,604 ; 1910—33,783.
Umpqua county was created by the territorial legislature of 1851; and is the
only county distinguished as being wiped off the map of Oregon by having its
territory sliced off in successive parcels to found other counties until it was
wholly, abolished. It embraced the territory between the north bank of the
Umpqua river and the summit of the Calapooia mountains, and running thence
west to the Pacific ocean.
Old Umpqua county deserves something better than an obituary notice.
In its day it was the center of great activities for a new country. Scottsburgh,
named for its founder, Levi Scott, was the head of steamboat navigation on
the Umpqua river, and contained many enterprising merchants and inland
traders to the gold mines. To this point David Linn (the recently deceased
pioneer of Jackson county) shipped in 1855 the first saw mill set up in southern
Oregon. The mill was purchased in the Eastern states, shipped in a sailing
vessel around Cape Horn to San Francisco, and from that port carried up to
the mouth of the Umpqua river in a little coaster, carried from there up to
Scottsburgh in a little steamboat, and from Scottsburgh hauled 150 miles by ox
teams to the then new town of Jacksonville. Scottsburgh was in 1850 the head-
quarters and metropolis of all southwestern Oregon and northern California.
The flood of 1862 washed away the greater part of the town which at one
time had ten merchandise establishments. Among these was Wadsworth, Peters
& Ladd who were wholesale liquor dealers, in addition to carrying miners' sup-
plies. R. J. Ladd later went to Portland. It is said that in Scottsburgh four
men got their start for the office of governor of Oregon. Two of them were
practicing law at the time of the inundation Stephen F. Chadwick and Ad-
dison C. Gibbs. The latter had a partner, Judge Stratton, later of the Supreme
bench.
It was here that Judge Deady first attained eminence in the profession.
Here flourished Pat Flanagan, father of James Flanagan, the Coos Bay
banker. One of the best-known men of the Umpqua country was L. L. Wil-
liams, a trapper and Indian scout, whose life was saved by the late Cyrus Hed-
den in the Rogue river wars. Williams was wounded and Hedden lit-
132
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
erally packed him to Scottsburgh on his back about 40 miles over the inountain
trails. D. J. Lyons was editor of the Democratic weekly newspaper published
there in 1854, the first paper south of Salem. He was a blind man of considerable
ability, and came from Louisville, Kentucky, with his bride, overland.
Douglas county was organized by the legislature of 1852 giving the east-
ern portion of Umpqua county to the new county, and by another act of the
legislature of 1862 giving what was left of Umpqua to Douglas and wiping out
Umpqua entirely. The county was named in honor of the distinguished Illi-
nois senator, Stephen A. Douglas, who was an active friend of Oregon in the
United States senate, and with whom many of the Oregon pioneers were person-
ally acquainted.
Douglas county is the heir and assignee of all the greatness of old Umpqua
county. The opening of the wagon road from Jacksonville to Crescent City
in 1858 took away the trade from old Scottsburgh, and Roseburg practi-
cally rose from the decay of the Umpqua seaport and monopolized all the good
business of the North and South Umpqua valleys. To this advantage was added
the stage coach line and telegraph between Portland and Red Bluffs in Cali-
fornia, and permanently established the prosperity of the new county and the
prosperity of its county seat.
Douglas county has produced many of the state's distinguished men, or given
them a boost to fame and greatness. Among them may be named Judge M. P.
Deady, Governor A. C. Gibbs, General Joseph Lane (governor, congressman,
senator and candidate for vice president of the United States), Congressman
Lafayette Lane, Governor S. F. Chadwick, Congressman and Commissioner of
the United States General Land Office Binger Hermann, Justice of the Supreme
Court E. B. Watson and many others.
The census returns of the population of Douglas county are as follows:
For the year 1850-none; 1860—3,203; 1872–6,066; 1880—9,596; 1890—
11,864; 1900-14,565; 1910–19,674.
And of Indians for 1880—270; 1890—120, 1900—124; 1910–154.
Jackson county was organized by the territorial legislature of 1852, and
covered all the territory south of Douglas county to the California line and
west of the Cascade mountains to the Pacific ocean. It was the first gold mine
region discovered in Oregon; and the dark and bloody battle ground with the
Rogue river Indians. For many years its isolation and distance from cen-
ters of trade kept its value and importance in the background. The advent of the
railroad produced here a greater change than in any other part of Oregon; and
now its great orchards of apples, peaches and pears far exceeds in wealth all
the past of present riches of its gold mines. The farmers and millers of Jack-
son county were the first citizens to contribute funds to promote the work of
securing the Congressional land grant on which the railroad was built from
Portland to the Rogue river valley. On the eastern border of Jackson county
the majestic peak, Mt. McLoughlin rears its lofty snow-capped crown 9,760
feet above sea level. This mountain improperly appears on the Rand McNally
maps as Mt. Pitt. McLoughlin is the lawful geographical and official name of
the mountain, and the name of the British statesman (Pitt) has no right to
be attached to it in any way. The mountain was early as 1838 appropriately
named in honor of John McLoughlin-"Father of Oregon."
Jackson county was once (in 1854) the selected site of the State University;


AARON ROSE
The Founder of Roseburg
UNIL
3
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
453
:
but the whirligig of politics in the Willamette valley—the "Cow Counties
as the bluff miners of the Rogue river contemptuously referred to the Willam-
ette region-traded off the Jacksonville University for State Capital support
wherever and whenever needed. In 1855 Jackson county polled 1,496 votes for
the two candidates for Congress—General Lane and Governor Gaines—while
Multnomah county polled only 607 votes at the same election.
This county has in the last year, compared with the population and wealth
of other counties in the state, gone to the front and taken the lead of all other
counties in the state in the improvement of the public roads.
Nearly $300,000 has been spent on roads and bridges during the year 1911
by Jackson county. Twenty-six miles of rock roadway was made, two and a half
miles being through solid rock, cut to a width of 20 feet. Six steel bridges were
erected, and $32,582 was expended for road machinery.
For many years Jackson county was a most potent factor in the political
history of the state. Down to the breaking out of the secession rebellion
Jackson county practically dominated the Democratic party of Oregon by
virtue of its solid and aggressive party organization. Its leading citizens
in the past always secured for the county state wide recognition. Lindsay
Applegate was a trail blazing pioneer who did most to secure settlement and
settlers to protect the people from the savage red men. Colonel John E. Ross
was an Indian fighter with a good reputation as a judicious leader and brave
man from the Columbia to the Sacramento. Mrs. Harris was the heroine of all
the Oregon Indian wars, who with her trusty rifle stood off a band of savages
and saved her own life and that of her little girl, after her husband had been
shot down without provocation. David Linn, the pioneer builder, manufac-
turer, importer of the first saw mill, and widely known as the founder of me-
chanical industries, has just now passed on.
The census returns of the population of Jackson county are as follows:
For the years 1860—3,736; 1870—4,778; 1880–8,154; 1890–11,455 ; 1900-
13,698; 1910—25,736. And of Chinese for 1870—634; 1880–337; 1890—224;
1900-43; 1910_84.
Tillamook county was organized by the territorial legislature of 1853
of so much of that part of Yamhill and Washington counties as lay west of
the summit of the Coast range mountains. Its original boundaries on the
land side were so imperfectly described that no person could tell within twenty
miles where the boundaries were. The name of the county is derived from the
tribe of Indians inhabiting that part of Oregon. It was supposed by the early
writers on Oregon to be pronounced as if spelled Killamook. But as the name
came from the Indians themselves, considering their inability to express names
in understandable terms, the real name might have been something else. But
now it is Tillamook, and it means "the gathering of the waters,'' and Tillamook
Bay is that in a singular degree, for five rivers—the Trask, Tillamook, Kilchis,
Wilson and Miami-draining the central and northerly parts of Tillamook
county, flow into it.
The first historical glimpse obtained of Tillamook is when Captain Robert
Gray sailed into Tillamook Bay, in the sloop Lady Washington on the 14th
of August, 1788, nearly four years before he discovered and sailed the ship
Columbia into the mouth of the great Columbia river. And this gives to Tilla-
mook Bay and Tillamook county the unique distinction of being the first har-
454
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
>
bor and the first land in the state of Oregon visited by white men, within histor-
ical records.
On getting inside of the Bay with his ship Gray thought he had discovered
the mouth of the famous “River of the West,” mapped out by Jonathan Car-
ver twenty years before that date. On Gray's arrival in the Bay the Indians
were quite friendly, furnishing the famished crew berries and fish, and trading
furs for iron implements. Fresh water and wood was obtained. And then while
waiting for a tide to go out to sea, the ship's mate and seven men went ashore
to get firewood and some grass for the livestock on the ship, when they were sud-
denly attacked by a horde of savages with clubs, bows and arrows, killing one
man and wounding others and following the sailors to their boat and even at-
tacking the ship. The sailors beat off the Indians with their oars and the ship
fired rounds of grape shot into the canoes with the swivel gun; and thus ended
the first battle with the Indians in old Oregon. In recognition of the bloody
event Captain Gray named the place "Murderer's Harbor." The battle was
fought in front of the location of "Bayocean," but it is not likely that Captain
Gray's name will be adopted by any of the town lot speculators on Tillamook Bay,
A real live sketch of this first battle in Oregon appears on another page.
The Tillamook coast has a tinge of that romantic mystery which leads
over-sanguine people to hunt for lost or hidden treasure. The skeleton of an
ancient ship has from time to time protruded its bones through the sea beach
sands about the mouth of the Nehalem river. And forthwith the ancient mar-
iners of that vicinity have woven a tale of the Spanish treasure ship wrecked in
the long, long ago, near the foot of Ecahnie mountain, the burying of uncounted
tons of gold and silver bullion from the mines of Peru and Mexico, and the
secrets and unraveled signs and indices of its location. Men have patiently
hunted and delved for this treasure for thirty years or more. But the only real
find is-beeswax. No doubt of that. Cakes of the wax with hieroglyphical
and apostolical signs thereon, and real dead bees on the inside have been
found so often that the beeswax story is incontestible.
Tillamook is now one of the richest and most productive counties of the
state. Here on the rich pastures of that region was the first great success made
in the production of butter and cheese. Tillamook cream cheese is the stand-
ard of excellence wherever offered for sale. But the sturdy dairymen had a
hard start. It took years of toil to subdue the rugged forest and warm up the
fat soil. Hardships of all kinds beset the first settlers. There were so many
bears to eat up the live stock that it was questionable for years whether the
farmers would drive out the bears, or the bears drive out the farmers. In those
strenuous days a good citizen was arrested for stealing his neighbor's swine.
The trial showed beyond a question that the accuser had lost his hogs. The
accused answered the charge by laying it on the bears. But the unlucky citi-
zen was found guilty and imprisoned in Tillamook's first jail-a jail made of
round fir logs, and covered with shakes held in place with poles. After pon-
dering a few hours over the eccentricities of administering justice in a new coun-
try the prisoner resolved to get out of that jail and appeal his case to the Goy-
ernor of Oregon. And he was not long in getting out, and then walked out
all the way over the mountains to Salem, arriving there in two days. On reach-
ing town the man went straight to the office of the Oregon Statesman where
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
455
the author of this book was at work as editor of the paper. He presented his
case immediately, saying, "I have been unfortunate; I have been arrested
and convicted of hog stealing; but I am not guilty; the bears eat up the man's
hogs, but I can't prove it. I come to you because you are the editor of the Ore-
gon Statesman, and I am the only subscriber you have in Tillamook county,
and I want you to get me a pardon from the governor.
Good paying subscribers were scarce in 1865, and D. W. Craig, then pro-
prietor of the Statesman, and still living in that city, could not afford to lose
that man. And so he was taken immediately to the office of Governor Gibbs in
the Old Holman block where he told his story "But how did you get out of
jail," inquired the governor. "I just climbed up the logs on the inside,
pushed some shakes aside in the roof and crawled out. “But how am I to know
that you are guilty of any crime, you have no papers, no transcript of the trial,'
replied the governor. “But there were no papers in the case; they just took me
before the Squire, and the man that lost the hogs told his story, and I told mine,
and the Squire said I was guilty and sent me to jail; and that was all there was
of it," replied the prisoner at large. “Well,” says the governor, gasping in as-
tonishment, “I can't issue a pardon to you, because I have no evidence of either
a crime or conviction. But if you are right sure the bears won't get any more
of your neighbors hogs I will give you a letter to the Justice of the Peace telling
him I think he has acted hastily and without due process of law." "That is
just as good as a pardon,” exclaimed the joyful prisoner, "for they will never
find out over there what due process of law means, and they will let me alone."
Suffice to say the man got the letter, and went back to Tillamook rejoicing.
Some readers may say that this is not history. But it is history. It is not
a fairy tale, or a made-up story, but a veritable recital of an actual occurrence.
And it is told here to show the simplicity of forms, manners and neighborhood
life in early Oregon days. And there are many other pioneer settlements that
could equal this with parallel or kindred examples of primitive justice.
Tillamook county is distinguished as the great producer of fine cheese and
butter, having now forty-two cheese factories and producing last year three and
a half million pounds of cheese. Although for many years very much isolated
from the balance of the state, the people were even more progressive in their
chosen pursuits than other more favored communities. Energetic measures
are in operation to improve navigation on the great bay; and the advent of
the railroad last year has given the people every advantage to make the most
of their vast wealth in soil and timber.
The census reports of the population of Tillamook county are as follows:
For the year 1860—95; 1870—408; 1880-790; 1890—2,932; 1900—4,471;
1910—6,266.
The county of Coos was created by act of the territorial legislature Decem-
ber 22, 1853, and was carved out of the territory formerly embraced in the
Umpqua and Jackson counties. It, like Tillamook, Clatsop and Clackamas
counties, gets its name from the Indians. Although a county of Oregon, yet for
nearly sixty years it has in trade and commerce been practically a suburb of
the city of San Francisco. But now it will soon be annexed to Oregon with
the construction of first class railway line. It is one of the richest, if not the very
wealthiest county in the state in natural resources of soil, timber, coal and sea-
156
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
1
port harbors. It is the only county in the state that has developed valuable
and profitable coal mining. It is also the only county in the state that has added
to the commerce of the state by the successful building of ships for ocean trans-
portation, having on its great bay a large and prosperous ship-yard. Sea-beach
mining for gold has been profitably carried on in this county for over fifty
years, and the supply of the precious black sand gold seems to be inexhaustible.
With the advent of railroad transportation the expansion of all the industries
and natural resources of Coos county will be so rapid and enormous that no es-
timate of its wealth and development can even be guessed at.
Coos county has developed many men influential in the commercial and
political life of the state. One of the most influential and picturesque charac-
ters in the development of this part of the state was Captain Wm. Tichenor,
who run the steamer Sea Gull along the coast in early days and brought in the
first settlers to open and hold the country against the Indians. Another man
of a different character but equally efficient in good works for Coos county,
was Dr. Henry H. Hermann, who came in 1858, settling on the Coquille river
with other German colonists. Here was where his son, Hon. Binger Hermann,
got his start, commencing as a school teacher of the county-lads and lassies
in the first school ever opened in the Coquille valley. From this modest begin-
ning Mr. Hermann's rise in the political field of Oregon was steady and con-
tinuous until he had filled the office of Representative and Senator in the State
Legislature, Receiver of the Roseburgh Land Office, Member of Congress for
fourteen years, and Commissioner of the U. S. General Land Office.
While in Congress Mr. Hermann secured appropriations amounting to $1,253,-
000 for the improvement of the rivers, ports and harbors of Coos and Curry
counties besides appropriations for other harbors on the Oregon coast.
Coos and Curry counties, like Tillamook, are fine dairy countries, and the
dairy interests have been largely developed and aided by the Bankers Flanna-
gan and Mann, who have imported for the farmers pure bred dairy cattle. The
local history of these two counties has been well preserved and admirably set
forth in a volume of nearly six hundred pages prepared by Mr. Orvil Dodge;
and from which and from the author himself, this work is under great obli-
gations. For fuller accounts of local history see the biographical volumes of
this work.
The census returns of population for Coos county, are as follows:
For the year 1860_445; 1870–1,644; 1880—4,834; 1890–8,874; 1900-
10,324; 1910—17,959.
Columbia county was created by act of the territorial legislature January
16, 1854. It was cut off the northwest part of Washington county; and named
after the great river which forms its northern boundary. It has lived and grown
upon the feverish excitement of many great commercial expectations which per-
ished like castles in the air. Three cities were founded within its limits which
were to be the metropolis of the great Columbia valley. Milton was No. 1; St.
Helens No. 2; and Columbia City No. 3. Milton got ships and a sawmill.
St. Helens got ships and a saw mill; and Columbia City got a saw mill. St.
Helens kept on in the even tenor of its way, got an ocean steamship dock
and ocean steamships to land thereat and discharge cargo; and therefrom
disputed the supremacy of Portland. St. Helens got the county seat, sent out

JOHN MINTO
Farmer, Statesman and Poet

FIRST DWELLING HOUSE IN SALEM
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
157
surveyors to locate a railroad into the Willamette valley, and circumscribe
"Portland-on-Wallamet." St. Helens put forth even greater energy in the
race for greatness than Portland. But Coffin and Chapman bought a steam-
ship of their own and Captain Couch persisted in sailing his ships up to the
Willamette river town—and, St. Helens lost the commercial emporium. But
its tributary valleys of rich soil and river transportation, and logging rail-
road development have given it the prosperity it for so many years hoped for.
Columbia county has now more miles of railroad transportation than many of
the counties of the state.
The census reports of population for this county are as follows:
For the year 1860—532; 1870–863; 1880—2,042; 1890—5,191; 1900—6,237;
1910—10,580.
Curry county was carved out of the southern part of Coos county by the
territorial legislature on December 18, 1855, and named in honor of the then
governor of Oregon-George L. Curry. It occupies the southwestern corner
of the state; and is an exceedingly picturesque and interesting region of moun-
tains and valleys, covered with forests of fine timber growing over mines of
gold, copper, chrome, iron, platinum and other valuable metals. Curry county
was the home of a savage race of hardy and hard fighting Indians; and was
the scene of the last desperate battle of Chief John and his warriors in their
reckless extremity trying to save their country from the all-conquering white
man. Notwithstanding its great natural resources of wealth in timber, soil,
metals and fish, with the best climate in the state, its isolation has greatly ham-
pered its development. Yet despite these drawbacks the county has been pros-
perous in all its industries and the population enjoying far more of the comforts
of life than many communities in the midst of cities and networks of railroads.
The energy of one citizen of Curry has shown what could be done with the
scientific handling of natural resources. R. D. Hume came to Rogue river in
1876 and built a salmon cannery at Gold Beach. It burned down in 1893, and
he built another cannery across the river at Wedderburn. He soon found that
the natural supply of fish would not keep his packing establishment supplied
with the raw material, and he started a fish hatchery on his own account. He
did not wait for the aid of the government. He farmed Rogue river for a crop
of salmon large enough each year to keep his cannery at work; made a success
of the enterprise and a large fortune. Curry county has but few towns—Lang-
lois, Port Orford, Wedderburn and Gold Beach being the principal trading
points. But it has always had leading and forceful men in the state legislature-
Curry had the honor of having been the home of Ebenezer Burgess Ball, whose
grandfather was a first cousin of George Washington's mother—Mary Ball.
This gentleman, known in Curry history as Major Ball, came to Oregon in
1850, and after visiting the Applegate families went to the Curry county gold
mines and conducted a general store for ten years, and went back to his old
home in Virginia in 1860. His photo in an original old Virginia military uni-
form of 1780—a family heirloom--appears on another page.
The census of population for Curry county are as follows:
For the year 1860—393; 1870—504; 1880—1,208; 1890–1,709; 900-
1,868; 1910—2,044.
Multnomah county was named in honor of a tribe of Indians of that name liv-
458
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
ing within its boundaries, and was organized by act of the territorial legislature on
December 22, 1854, and was made up of a slice of the eastern part of Washington
county, and another slice off the northern part of Clackamas county. In terri-
torial area it is the smallest county in the state; but having the city of Portland,
it is the most populous county, having about one-third the entire population of
Oregon. Chapter XIII of this work is devoted to Portland, and the readers are
referred to that chapter for further history.
The census of the population of this county are as follows:
For the year 1860—4,150; 1870–11,510; 1880—25,203; 1890–74,884; 1900
-103,167; 1910—226,261. And of Chinese for 1870–508; 1880—1,983; 1890–
5,184; 1900—8,012; 1910—5,764.
Wasco county was created by act of the legislature on January 11, 1854.
It embraced all the territory east of the Cascade mountains down to the bound-
ary line of California and Nevada, and east to the summit of the Rocky mount-
ains; which was not only all of what is now known as eastern Oregon, but also
all of the state of Idaho. Wasco county takes the name of the tribe of Indians
that made their headquarters from where Dalles City is now located up to the
falls of the Columbia, at Celilo. The Indians themselves seemed to have called
their country Wascopam, if the early writers of Oregon history understood
them. The Wascoes occupied a strategic point on the river and did not hesi-
tate to make the most of it in trading with other Indians and in serving or
robbing the white people travelers. They controlled the great salmon fishery at
the falls of the Columbia, and to the extent of their ability levied a royalty on
all other Indians who wanted a winter's supply of dried fish. But in this they
did no worse than the steamboat capitalists who in later times got control of
The Dalles passway and levied tribute on every passenger and pound of freight
that passed up and down the Columbia river, until great fortunes were piled
up, which have in our day blossomed out in a great bank, a great hotel and a
great college of learning. The census returns of Wasco county shows the fol-
lowing population :
For the year 1860—1,689; 1870—2,509; 1880–11,120; 1890–9,183; 1900—
13,199; 1910–16,336.
The falling off in population in 1890 is accounted for by the territory taken
to form Sherman county in 1889.
And of Indians for 1880-124; 1890–166; 1900_414; 1910-377.
Josephine county was created by the territorial legislature January 22,
1856, and was cut off the western part of Jackson county. It was named in
honor of Josephine Rollins, the daughter of an early gold miner in that county.
Almost its entire resources for the support of a population for many years
depended on the placer gold mines, many of which were very rich; and the
support of a county organization was so small that the little county business
was scarely worth considering. With the advent of the railroad the county seat
was removed to “Grants Pass," which was located on the Donation claim of
Thomas Croxton, and acquired its name from the act of Lieutenant U. S. Grant,
in locating the wagon road from Rogue river to the Umpqua; and who afterwards
became the great commander of the Union armies in the suppression of the

EUGENE SKINNER
Founder of Eugene City
OF
Bic

OF
EUGENE CITY IN 1860
IV.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
459
Secession Rebellion, and still later President of the United States, from 1868
to 1876.
The census reports show the population of this county to be as follows:
For the year 1860—1,623; 1870–1,204; 1880—2,485; 1890–4,878; 1900-
7,517; 1910–9,567.
Baker county was the first county created under the State Constitution, and
was organized by act of the legislature September 22, 1862. It was named in
honor of Col. E. D. Baker, who came to Oregon in 1860, and was elected to
the United States senate September, 1860. On the breaking out of the Southern
Rebellion and while acting as senator for Oregon, Senator Baker was appointed
a Brigadier General in the Union army and lost his life in leading a charge
against the rebel forces at the battle of Ball's Bluff in Virginia, not many miles
from Washington City. Baker county has figured largely in the development
of eastern Oregon. Its rich mines of gold, great forests of timber, and rich
agricultural valleys early attracted a population of active, forceful men who
have exercised a potential influence in shaping the legislature and policy of
the state. The census reports show the population of this county as follows:
For the year 1870—2,804; 1880—4,616; 1890—6,764; 1900—15,597; 1910—
18,076.
Umatilla county was created by act of the legislature September 27, 1862,
being like Baker county taken out of the territory of Wasco. Its name is de-
rived from the tribe of Indians occupying the territory of the county. Lewis
and Clark in their journals spelled the name Youmalolum ; Nathaniel J. Wyetli
in his journal spells it Otillah; Gustavus Hines in his history of Oregon spells
the name in one place as Utilla, and in another place Umatilla; Capt. Bonne-
ville, in the journal of his expedition to Oregon, spells the name of the Umatilla
river at Ottolais; all of which goes to show the difficulty and uncertainty of
English-speaking people in translating Indian names into English words.
Umatilla is now one of the most prosperous counties of the state, and al-
though much of its rich territory is occupied by an Indian reservation, its wealth
and population is rapidly increasing.
The census reports show its growth in population as follows; although it
has lost much territory since its organization by the creation of new counties.
For the year 1870—2,916; 1880–9,607; 1890–13,381; 1900—18,049; 1910
--20,309. And of Indians for 1900—995; 1910—960.
Grant county was created by legislative act of October 14, 1864, and made
up of territory cut off from Wasco and Umatilla counties. It was named in
honor of General U. S. Grant, who was just about that date giving the death
blows to the Southern States Confederacy. Grant county has produced millions
of dollars of gold from its mines which are still worked, although it is now largely
a live stock producing region. Its growth in population is shown by the census
reports as follows:
For the year 1870—2,251; 1880—4,303; 1890–5,080; 1900—5,948; 1910—
5,607.
Union county was created by the legislature on the same day as Grant county,
October 14, 1864; and named “Union” as a tribute to the sentiment in favor
of the union of states which had then been so sorely attacked by the southern
rebellion. It occupies the Grand Ronde valley of Eastern Oregon, and is one
460
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
1
of the most beautiful tracts of rich land in the world. It is a very rich and
prosperous region. Its growth in population is shown by the census reports
as follows:
For the year 1870—2,552; 1880–6,650 ; 1890–12,044; 1900—16,070 ; 1910—
16,191.
Lake county was organized by the legislature October 24, 1874, and embraced
all the territory of the then Southern Wasco, and included the territory of Kla-
math county. It was so named on account of the numerous lakes within its area.
It is a sparsely settled region, with vast sage brush lands of rich soil and greatly
productive by irrigation. Its natural resources are much greater than generally
believed, as it possesses vast deposits of borax, soda, gold and possibly potash.
A U. S. land office is located at its county seat of Lakeview which is a trading
point and railroad terminus doing a large and rapidly increasing business.
Its growth and population is shown by the following census reports:
For the year 1880—2,804; 1890—2,604; 1900—2,847; 1910—4,658.
Klamath county was carved out of Lake in 1882, which cut off its population
to the west.
Klamath county was taken off of Lake in the year 1882, organized into a
county on October 17. Its name is derived from the Indians inhabiting the
region of the lakes of the county, the lakes Upper and Lower Klamath also get-
ting their names from the Indians. Lieut. Fremont visited the region in 1843,
following the trails of the Hudson's Bay Company trappers south from The
Dalles. The region was the theatre of a desperate Indian war with the Modocs in
the year 1873, an account of which is given in the chapter on Indian wars. The
country is now very prosperous with the construction of government irrigation
canals, railroads, lumbering enterprises and an aggressive and rapidly growing
county seat—Klamath Falls. The county has vast wealth in timber, water power
and millions of acres of rich soil. The Klamath Indian reservation is within this
county, but the Indians are peaceful and many of them industrious farmers.
Crater Lake, the greatest natural curiosity in the known world is located in this
county. The census reports show the growth of population of Klamath county
as follows:
For the year 1890—2,444; 1900—3,970; 1910–8,554. And of Indians for
;
1900–1,037; 1910–1,027.
Crook county is the west central part of old Wasco county, and was organized
into a county by the legislature on October 24, 1822. It is named in honor of
General George Crook, of the U. S. Army, whose vigorous campaign against the
Snake Indians gave peace, protection and settlements to Eastern Oregon. A
good likeness of the general appears on another page. The interior position of
the county and a population devoted to live stock production, has not been con-
ducive to much growth or increase of population.
The census reports show the following:
For the year 1890—3,244; 1900-3,964; 1910—9,315. And of Indians for
1900—537; 1910—451.
Morrow county was organized by the legislature February 16, 1855, and
named in honor of Jackson L. Morrow, an old resident of that region, and being
a member of the legislature at the time did not put aside the honorable dis-
tinction. Its county seat is the town of Heppner which was practically all

GENERAL W. S. HARNEY
The man who opened Harney Valley to settlement by white men after it had been closed by
the edict of General Wool-and in whose honor the valley and
the county were named

UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
461
washed away by a torrential cloud-burst a dozen years ago, but has since been
rebuilt on higher and safer ground. The census shows the following growth
of population.
For the year 1890—4,205; 1900—4,151; 1910-4,357.
Gilliam county was organized in the year 1885, and named in honor of
Colonel Cornelius Gilliam, an Oregon pioneer of 1844, and who was acciden-
tally killed at Wells Springs in the territory of that county while in command
of a regiment of Oregon volunteers who had gone out to capture the murder-
ers of Dr. Whitman. Gilliam was a good man, a good citizen, a good soldier
and deserved the honor. Its county seat is Condon, in honor of Thomas Condon.
The growth of the population of the county is shown by the census reports
as follows:
For the year 1890–3,600; 1900—3,201 ; 1910—3,701.
Wallowa county was organized on February 11, 1887, being carved out of the
territory of Union county, and is located in the northeastern corner of the State.
The county gets its name from the beautiful Lake and river which dis-
tinguishes the beautiful mountain valley, the most attractive mountain scenery
of the whole State, and not excelled by that of any other region in the world.
This beautiful valley was the home of that branch of the Nez Perce tribe of
Indians whose government was the rule of the great Indian Chief Joseph, and
whose likeness appears on another page. Joseph and his people claimed that
they had been unjustly driven out of the valley by the white man, and on being
refused restoration to their ancient home went to war in 1877, and being at-
tacked by the U. S. Troops under General 0. 0. Howard, Joseph effected such
a masterly and successful retreat over the Rocky Mountains as to win the re-
spect and admiration of the General and all his men. To recognize the dis-
tinguished Chief the settlers in the valley have named their principal town
"Joseph" in honor of the Indian; the only town or county named in honor of
an Indian on the Pacific Coast.
The census reports of the county show population as follows: For 1890—
3,661; 1900—5,538; 1910—8,364; Enterprise is the county seat. .
Malheur county was organized by the legislature February 17, 1887. It
occupies the southeastern corner of the State. It gets the name from the prin-
cipal river in the county; and the river got the name from the fact that the
Indians had stolen a cache of furs and goods the Hudson's Bay Co. trapper,
Peter Skene Ogden, had hid on the banks of the river. The word is pronounced as
if spelled "Maloor," and is a French term signifying “bad luck." It is as yet
a sparsely settled region. But now in this year 1912, the Oregon Short Line
railroad is being constructed westerly across the county.
The census reports population of the county as follows:
For 1890—2,601; 1900_4,203; 1910—8,601 ; The County seat is now at the
town of Vale.
Harney county was created by legislative enactment February 25, 1889,
and embraces the great Harney Valley, including the large lakes Malheur and
Harney. The county is named in honor of Major-General William S. Harney, a
distinguished soldier of the United States army, who had seen hard service fight-
ing Indians in Florida, Illinois and Oregon, besides active service in the war
with Mexico, and finally against the Southem rebels in Missouri. Being given
162
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
command in Oregon in 1858, he opened the Harney valley to settlement after it
had been closed against white settlers by General Wool. A good likeness of the
distinguished soldier appears on another page.
Harney is now the scene of great activity, in taking up the long neglected
rich lands of that region. Burns, the principal town and county seat, contains
the U. S. Land office, with two banks and many prosperous mercantile houses;
and it has tributary territory of rich land large enough to make a greater State
than many of the New England States. The census reports the growth of popu-
lation as follows:
For the year 1990-2,559; 1900—2,598; 1910~4,059.
Sherman county was organized by the legislature on February 25, 1889,
having been once the northeastern portion of Wasco County. It is named in
honor of Major General Wm. T. Sherman, the hero of the march through
Georgia to the sea which cut the Southern Confederacy in twain and broke
the backbone of the Southern Rebellion. This is one of the great wheat pro-
ducing counties of the State, and upon which many farmers have grown rich.
The county seat is Moro.
The growth of population is shown by the census reports as follows:
For the year 1890-1,792; 1900–3,477 ; 1910—4,242.
Lincoln county created by legislative act on February 20, 1893, is located
on the Pacific ocean west of Benton county, embracing the Siletz Indian reserva-
tion, the Siletz valley, vast bodies of the finest timber in the world, the health
resorts of Yaquina and Newport, and is named in honor of the martyr Presi-
dent, Abraham Lincoln.
The census reports the white population as follows:
For the year 1900-3,575; 1910-5,587, and the Indian population for 1900
-465; and for 1910-- 392.
The county seat is at the town of Toledo.
Wheeler county was organized February 17, 1899, out of portions of Crook,
Gilliam and Grant Counties. It is named for Henry H. Wheeler, an old settler
in that part of the State. Its county seat is at the town of Fossil, which is so
named for the great variety of fossil remains of the ancient animal life of that
region.
The census shows its population as follows: For the year 1900-2,443; 1910
--2,484.
Hood River is the last county organization of the legislature, and the Act
for which was passed by an initiative petition at an election held June 1, 1908.
Its territory was taken off of Wasco county. The county gets its name from the
great mountain at the head of its river; and the mountain was named by Lieut.
Broughton, for Lord Hood, an English nobleman. The county seat is the town
of Hood River; so the English lord dominates the whole aggregation of moun-
tains, county and town. Its population according to the census of 1910 is
8,016.
The settlement of the Klamath country had its commencement or inception
in the desire of some young Oregon volunteers who, serving on the frontier,
noticed its varied beauties of lake, valley and mountain, and having been reared

LINDSAY APPLEGATE
A locator of the Applegate Trail into Southern Oregon, 1845

FOUNDER OF FRUIT GROWING IN ROGUE RIVER VALLEY
OF
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
463
on the farm regarded its fertile soil as promising future greatness as an agri-
cultural possibility.
Its remoteness from markets, its lack of transportation facilities or even
passable wagon roads to connect it with the older and settled portions of either
Oregon or California, were deterring factors in preventing its agricultural de-
velopment, while its bunch grass covered hills, its native meadows and abundant
springs, naturally indicated its adaptability to stock raising; an industry that
did not of necessity require transportation other than upon its own legs. Hence
its introductory history was that of a stock country only, and as the large stock
owners required for their business a free range for their herds, scanty encour-
agement was given to settlers, who would fence up and improve the land.
The writer was one of the first to demonstrate the agricultural possibilities
of the soil, and having no means other than the small sum saved during his two
years and eight months service in the army, he very naturally tried to cultivate
a little garden, and raise some grain to help defray the cost of living which was
necessarily high from the fact that all provisions, clothing, and other supplies,
were brought in over the mountains by mule trains, or in wagons, from a long
distance. No railroads were then built either in Oregon or California, and the
river steamers were the freight handlers to the head of navigation, whence the
mule train or the freight wagon were the distributing agents.
The greatest drawbacks in the settlement of the country were not however,
the natural obstacles that confronted the settler. These he could overcome and
conquer, but the unjust and inefficient land laws that deterred settlement, and
which the state authorities made no attempt to remedy, deprived many an hon-
est hardworking family of their home, and discouraged many would be settlers
from attempting to make homes in the country.
The first settlers located in the near neighborhood of Link River and the
shores of Little Klamath Lake. This land had been surveyed in 1859, by D.
P. Thompson and others, when it was far in advance of any prospective settle-
ment. But in those days the surveying of public lands was a very lucrative
business, and the contracts were let far in advance of the actual needs of set-
tlement to accommodate administration supporters. As the country was oc-
cupied with Indians who, though not actively hostile to the white man, were
yet extremely jealous of intrusions into their territory, and resented the mark-
ing of their lands, very many of the stakes and monuments were destroyed al-
most as soon as erected and the surveyors became very careless about the per-
manency or accuracy of their work. Many of the corner and half-mile posts
were simply small branches of trees stuck in the ground with blazed surfaces
to receive the survey markings, or, a boulder set up on end upon which the
symbolic characters were lightly chiseled.
Nearly or quite all of the lands embraced in this early survey had been
selected from the field notes as a part of the five hundred thousand acre grant
given the state by congress "to aid in internal improvements,” but had not
been approved as such by the secretary of the interior. The only way to get a
recognition of right to these lands was to file an application describing the
tract, with the secretary of the state land board, who charged a fee of three dol-
lars ($3.00) for filing the same.
Then whenever the state selections were ap-
proved the party making the first application could pay one-third of the pur-
464
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
chase price, which was then two dollars per acre, give his notes for the remaining
two-thirds in two equal payments, and receive from the state a certificate of
purchase. This certificate was transferable. Any person, a citizen of the
United States and over eighteen years of age, could, if a settler on such lands
purchase three hundred and twenty acres; in case the applicant was not a set-
tler, the amount of land that could be bought by one person was limited to one
hundred and sixty acres.
In the case of the writer, who took up one of the first places in the country,
he filed his application accompanied by the affidavits of two disinterested parties,
that the applicant was an actual settler on the lands applied for, and was cul.
tivating and improving the same as a home.
In spite of this precaution six other filings were allowed on top of his first
filing, the clerk of the board realizing a goodly sum for permitting them to
be recorded. This rendered it necessary to hire lawyers to defend his title in
order to secure the certificate.
It was also found that nearly all the most valuable meadow lands, and many
large tracts of higher sage brush lands that protruded into the marsh lands
had been returned by the early survey, as a part of Little Klamath Lake, and
as many settlers were coming into the country who wished to locate homes on
these lands, the writer drew up a petition to the secretary of the interior re-
citing the conditions and asking for a resurvey of these lands in order that all
lands susceptible of settlement might be thrown open for entry. This petition
was signed by nearly all the settlers in the country, and resulted in a resurvey
being made during the fall of 1872, in spite of a large number of exparte-
affidavits sent to prevent the resurvey. These affidavits, some five or six in
number were largely made by people living in California and engaged in stock-
raising, who were deeply interested in preventing the settlement of the ranges.
To give an idea of the motive for these strenuous efforts to balk the settle-
ment and development of the country, it is necessary to go back to the legisla-
tive session of the Oregon legislature of 1870, when a bill drawn up by Quincy
A. Brooks, to select and dispose of swamp lands in the State of Oregon, to
which the state was entitled by Act of March 12, 1860. This bill was cleverly
drawn to enable a few individuals to secure control of all lands that could by
any means be construed as swamp or overflowed, within the state, as it pro-
vided among other things that the lands could be selected in advance of the
U. S. surveys, by describing them by natural boundaries, such as mountain
ranges, lakes, rivers, etc. There was no limit to the amount any one could file
on, and the price was one dollar per acre, 20 cents to be paid after the accept-
ance of the state selection by the secretary of the interior, and the remaining
80 cents to be paid when the lands were finally reclaimed.
As Q. A. Brooks had visited this country the previous year and had been
largely instrumental in securing additional filings upon state lands both oc-
cupied and unoccupied, and had plots and lists made out for nearly all the
swamp and overflowed lands in the Klamath Basin, and his applications ready
for immediate filing before the bill passed, it should have aroused a suspicion
in the minds of sensible legislators that such a measure was contrary to the best
interests of the state, but no serious opposition was encountered and the in-
famous bill passed.

vu
LADY OSCHARWAUSHA
The Last of the Rogue River Indians in the Valley
UNI
OF
M
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
465
When the settlement of the lands returned by the resurvey of 1872 was
commenced a land office was established at Linkville in the fall of 1873, and
some fourteen or fifteen settlers were located under the preemption and home-
stead laws. Judson Small and George Conn, were appointed as register and
receiver of the Linkville Land Office, but Mr. Small soon resigned, as office
work was too confining for him; and through the efforts of Senators John H.
Mitchell, Samuel B. Cranston, a brother-in-law of Quincy A. Brooks, and him-
self a large filer on swamp land under the Brooks application, was put in as
register.
To further insure the defeat of the settlers, the state board appointed Q. A.
Brooks as attorney to conduct the prosecutions instigated against 'every set-
tler upon the resurveyed lands. As a result, all contests with settlers on land
claimed as swamp were prosecuted before an interested register who ruled out
all evidence favorable to settlers, and delayed and postponed trials to annoy
them during the season of haying or semi-annual rodeo. . The settlers joined
forces in the employment of B. Z. Dowell of Jacksonville to take their cases to
a final settlement; but such a policy of delay and postponement was followed
that it was evident that the policy of the State was not to secure an early set-
tlement of the questions at issue, as it was to wear out the settlers by pro-
tracted litigation,
When the land office was moved to Lakeview, soon after that place became the
county seat, the register was removed for cause, and the newly appointed reg-
ister was of a different character and not an interested party; yet the long
distance (120 miles) that contestants were obliged to go to attend land con-
tests was one of the causes that contributed to the discouragement of the set-
tlers, most of whom either sold out their claims for a small pittance, or aban-
doned them entirely. During these land troubles, which lasted over ten years,
several different agents of the government and state came out to investigate
and report as to the actual conditions and character of the land in controversy,
etc., but in nearly every instance these men were taken in charge by the land
speculators before their investigation commenced or soon after, and the reports
they made were so evidently colored by the prosecution, and so one-sided that
they were of no value in the real determination of facts.
In 1880, when the state elections were approaching, the deposed register,
formerly a rabid Republican, renounced his allegiance to the Republican party,
and made a canvass of the county to secure support for the Democratic nomi-
nation for representative for the County of Lake, which was then Democratic
by 140 majority. The Republican County Convention which followed that of
the Democrats in Lakeview, nominated the writer as their candidate for the
Legislature to oppose Mr. Cranston for the reason that he had been active in the
fight to secure the land for settlers, and in the hope that he might, if elected, get
some remedial legislation for the home seekers, and cause a suspension of the
state's policy of fighting the settlers on its frontiers.
No notice reached the writer of any intent to place him in nomination, nor
did he learn that he was on the ticket for near a week after his opponent had
taken up an active campaign, so that in response to a challenge to joint debate
he only had sufficient notice to meet him at two points as he was closing his
canvass, namely Bonanza and Linkville.
Vol. I-30
166
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
The election was a landslide in favor of the Republican candidate who re-
versed the 140 majority, receiving nearly half the entire Democratic vote of the
county.
The legislative experience of the writer shows the methods employed by
the land sharks to defeat the will of the people, and by suppressing all at-
tempts at exposing their methods, secure a continuance of their exploiting the
public domain for individual profit.
In writing this chapter, it is with no desire to laud or extol the efforts of the
writer, but to give a true statement of facts, that will show the conspiracy of
the land and moneyed interests to gain and retain control of the public lands
for private gain.
Having had no experience in public life, being unfamiliar with parliamentary
usage, the writer experienced something similar to the feelings of the boy who
first starts to school, scarce knowing how, or what to do to fill his responsible
position with honor or credit. He realized that much was expected of him,
that it was essential that something be done to aid the settler and thwart the
efforts being made to turn the lands of his county over to speculators.
In his dilemma, he was advised by B. J. Pengra, of Springfield (an uncle by
marriage) to lay his case before Judge J. M. Thompson, who was one of the
representatives from Lane County and had been Speaker of the House two
years before, when he made an enviable record as an honest efficient representa-
tive and a fearless exponent of right, and an untiring foe of wrong, whether
of Republican or Democratic parentage.
As presiding officer of the Democratic House of the former session, he had
incurred the enmity of the major portion of his party by probing and exposing
some of the dishonesty of a former Democratic administration. At the last elec-
tion he was elected by Republican votes, his own party being desirous to punish
him by defeating him in the election.
Having a letter of introduction to Judge Thompson, from my uncle, I soon
interested him in the cause of the settlers, and he promised to aid me in pre-
paring a suitable measure, to be put before the house, for their protection.
The preliminary skirmishing to organize the house developed the fact that
the main issue engaging the members was that of the building of a state insane
asylum at Salem.
The insane of the state had heretofore been cared for in a private asylum
in East Portland, by Dr. Hawthorne, and had occasioned much comment and
strife with regard to its management, and as its maintenance cost many thou-
sands of dollars, and was very profitable to the community where situated both
from a pecuniary and political standpoint, the people of Portland and its
nearby counties desired to retain it, while the southern, or as called, the “Cow
Counties” wished to place the care and control of the insane in a state build-
ing and at the state capital. Hence the legislative organization was more of a
sectional than political strife, the Democrats being hopelessly outnumbered.
Candidates for Speaker were J. P. Schooling and Z. F. Moody of Wasco, and
the latter having the united support of the “Cow Counties” and Eastern
Oregon, was victorious and the asylum fight was on.
Believing that the Speaker was fully informed as to why I was sent there to
represent a Democratic county, as well as being ignorant of the custom of

le
S
C
JOE MEEK
As a Hunter-as U. S. Marshal-as a Farmer in Old Age
OF
Bich
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
167
רן
requesting or demanding places on the various committees, I paid no attention
to seeking the committee work that would most aid me in my work, and it was
not until the Speaker announced to the house the membership of his standing
committees, and I heard my name as one of the committee on engrossed bills,
when I fully desired, and expected to be placed on the committee on public
lands, that I realized there was some unseen and potent influence being exerted
to block any effort I might make to remodel or amend existing land laws. I im-
mediately sought Mr. Moody and asked him why he had not given me a place on
the Public Land Committee. He replied that I had made no effort to secure
such a place, but that he had placed me on the “Committee on engrossed bills at
the earnest solicitation of the Southern delegation," meaning the delegation
from Jackson county.
This opened my eyes, as Thos. Smith of Jackson, was one of the committee
on Public Lands, while the other two were Lee Laughlin, a cabinet maker of
Yamhill county and Dr. F. A. Meyer of Multnomah. I asked Mr. Moody if
he could not change my committee assignment so that I could be placed on the
Public Lands Committee, and he replied that it would be impossible unless some
one of that committee declined to serve on that committee. That it was not
compulsory upon any member to serve upon any committee if he did not so
desire. I then asked him if he would give me a place on the committee
Public Lands if one of the present committee declined to serve, and he said
"In the event that I declined to serve on the committee on engrossed bills and
one of the members of the public lands committee declined to serve on that com-
mittee, he would make the change." I immediately sought Dr. Meyer and after
explaining the situation and my reasons for desiring a place on the Public
Lands Committee he replied, “Sure! I shust as soon pe on von commidde as
an-nudder; I knows nodding apout bublic lands anyhow;" so it was arranged
that in the morning session he would follow my lead in declining to serve on
the committee to which he had been assigned, thus leaving the way clear for the
Speaker to make the change. This part of the program was carried out so
far as the part Dr. Meyer and myself were to play, we both publicly declining
to serve on the committees to which we had first been assigned. The Speaker,
while accepting our declination made no reappointment at the time. At noon
the state printer, Mr. Odell, came to me and asked if the change had been made,
as he desired to have the Rules of the House with the standing committees in
print for distribution on the following day. I told him what had been done
and what the Speaker had promised to do, and that he would doubtless give him
the new committee assignments before going to press. The afternoon session
passed without any action by the Speaker on the committee change. The next
morning the pages began the distribution of the printed rules and standing
committees which were as first announced. I immediately wrote a note to the
Speaker, asking him why he had failed to keep his promise to me, as evidenced
by the printed rules, this I sent to his desk by one of the pages, and remarked
that his face colored while reading it. Immediately after perusing my note,
the Speaker arose and announced that Dr. Meyer was appointed to serve on
the committee on Engrossed Bills, and that 0. A. Stearns was assigned to fill
the vacancy on the Public Lands Committee.
Thus it was that while my name appears on but one committee report, nor
468
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
is known of record as being on such committee, while as a matter of fact, every
"Majority” report of the Public Lands Committee was written by myself, the
chairman of the committee, Mr. Laughlin, acquiescing in my position in every
case.
Thinking it best to work in connection with the committee on Public Lands
of the Senate in a remodeling or reconstruction of the land laws of the state,
I first introduced a joint, or concurrent resolution No. 7, “Resolved by the
House, the Senate concurring: That a committee of six, four from the House
anıl two from the Senate, be appointed to revise the laws relative to the sale
and reclamation of swamp and overflowed lands within the State of Oregon.''
This was adopted by the House, was sent to the Senate where, upon motion
of Col. Kuight, it was tabled.
Soon after the organization of the House, during the first day of the intro-
duction of bills, Thos. Smith, of Jackson, introduced House Bill No. 33, en-
titled "A bill for an act providing for a reduction of the state indebtedness
by payment of a portion thereof from the proceeds of the sale of swamp and
overflowed lands, and for more speedy sales of such lands and earlier pay-
ments therefor."
This bill was in the interest of the swamp land grabber, entirely and was to
facilitate the driving out of the settlers, and the converting of the swamp land
warrants, which had been authorized by a previous legislature, into a legal
tender in payment for such lands. Mr. Smith (I afterward learned) held sev-
eral thousand dollars of these warrants that he had taken as part payment for
his farm, hence his earnest desire to make them a legal tender, and marketable.
After its second reading on Sept. 24th, this bill No. 33 was referred to the
committee of Public Lands, of which Mr. Smith was a member.
Still believing that the better way to secure legal legislative redress for the
settlers was through joint action of both houses, I sought the aid of the joint
senator for Lake and Wasco counties, Col. N. H. Gates, and laying the case
before him asked his aid in taking up from the Senate table my concurrent
resolutions, and that he meet with the Public Lands Committee of the House
to agree on suitable legislative action. To my surprise, he expressed hostility
to my attempt to aid the settlers, saying "that he was sent there to the Senate)
to look after the interests of his clients (he was, I learned later, attorney for the
notorious swamp angel, Hon. Owens), and by Gmd he was going to do it.”
I then sought Senator Cochran of Lane county and he promised to try and get
a reconsideration of the motion by which my concurrent resolutions was tabled.
However, nothing came of the attempt, and it was evident that the only remedy
lay in introducing a bill to alter or ainend existing land laws to cure their
With the aid and advice of Judge Thompson, a bill was drawn up
covering the entire state land law to meet and incorporate all the various re-
form measures demanded, which was quite a task embracing as it did various
acts and amendments to acts for the previous twelve or more years legislation.
The bill had to be re-written several times, as various State officers, learn-
ing of its existence, had various suggestions and amendments to offer, until,
when finally ready to introduce, the session was so far advanced that its chance
of passing the House and reaching the Senate in the regular order of precedence
would almost certainly defeat its passage, so, with the consent of the chairman
DA
Viti pun DE
judi
Honorum
THE DALLES METHODIST MISSION—1838
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
469
of the committee, Mr. Laughlin, it was decided to report it as a substitute for
House Bill No. 33, as introduced by Thos. Smith, and so advance it on the
calendar.
The bill as finally prepared and introduced by the chairman, Mr. Laughlin,
vin Oct. 12th, was quite lengthy, embracing 33 sections. Its main features were,
the classification of all state lands, the requiring of proof of settlement and
good faith, as well as priority of settlement. That where swamp lands were
settled upon by parties in good faith, that their claims should prevail over that
of other applicants. It also limited the amount that any one person could pur-
chase to 320 acres for actual settlers or 160 for non-settlers of swamp lands of
first class and of the 500,000-acre grant; it required public easements on all.
section lines where the same entered navigable streams or lakes to prevent the
monopoly of water for range purposes. It also provided for settling con-
troversies over state lands, for loaning the school funds derived from sale of
state lands, and the early converting of the swamp lands that were worthless
in the present condition, into a revenue producing asset for the state.
On the motion to place this bill on the calendar as a substitute for House
Bill No. 33, Mr. Smith made a violent attack on the writer, impugning his mo-
tives, and declaring him unqualified to vote as a member of the committee, on
account of personal interest in the matter before the House. (He evidently for-
got the thousands of dollars in swamp land certificates he was holding for re-
demption that his bill would secure, or else was aware that the writer did not
know of the fact.)
As Mr. Smith had circulated numerous letters among the members of both
houses, from Q. A. Brooks, A. Langell and others warning them that I was a
dangerous agitator, and that I was trying to cheat the state out of some of its
swamp lands; and as some of the members had brought the letters to me to
read, I saw an opportunity to bring the matter up on a question of personal
privilege. I therefore demanded that a certain letter from Q. A. Brooks to
Mr. Smith, making these charges against me, be produced and read by the clerk
of the House; after which I arose to give a history of the land troubles in Lake
County, that had forced the people to unite in sending a man to the Legislature
to secure redress. I also gave a brief history of Q. A. Brooks' career, his au-
thorship of the swamp land law, and his activities as a state attorney in
prosecuting claims against the settlers in which he was the real party in inter-
est, and his co-partner, and brother-in-law was sitting in the capacity of judge.
As the House had enacted a five minute rule, to cut off windy debaters, a few
days previous, I had scarcely commenced my "explanation" when Mr. Smith
called me to time. I immediately sat down, but the interest and curiosity of
the members were aroused, and the motion that I be given all the time needed
was quickly passed, and the House got from me a pretty full, if brief, account
of the working of the state land laws, and the need for remedial legislation.
After my talk was over, the motion to adopt the majority report of the com-
mittee (my bill) was put, and after various and many attempts to substitute,
re-submit, lay on table, and otherwise defeat, was carried by the vote of 43 to
9,-eight members being absent. Representative Geo. E. Chamberlain (now
senator) supported Mr. Smith and voted against every measure in aid of set-
tlers, or to curb the land grabbing then prevalent.
170
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
The bill was then read by title the first and second times and referred to
committee on Public Lands with leave to report at any time, and 150 copies
were ordered printed.
On October 16th the committee, by majority vote, reported back the bill; it
was passed by the vote of 37 to 13, with 10 absent members, not voting. Among
the nays, was the Speaker, as well as Chamberlain.
The bill then went to the Senate where no action on it was ever taken,
there being so strong an opposition to it that it was impossible to bring it before
that body.
Another measure, “Senate Bill No. 38,” introduced Sept. 16th by Senator
Wright, "was read the first time and passed to second reading without a ques-
tion." It was cleverly entitled "An act to regulate the price of state lands
belonging to a class known as a part of the five hundred thousand acre grant
and to repeal certain sections, etc."
The first section read as follows: "That all the lands of this state which
belong to the class of state lands known as a part of the 500,000-acre grant
shall hereafter be sold as now provided by law in quantities to suit purchaser,
not exceeding six hundred and forty acres, to any one person at a price not
less than one dollar per acre.”
Any person making application should make affidavit before notary or
clerk, that they were 18 years of age, a citizen of the United States, or had de-
clared intention of becoming such, and was also a citizen of this state.
The bill carried an emergency clause, that it should take effect immediately
from and after its signature by the governor.
On Sept. 28th Senate Bill No. 38, was read a second time by title and on mo-
tion of Senator Wright, its author or sponsor, it was referred to the committee
on Public Lands who reported it back on the 8th of October with the recom-
mendation that that part, requiring the applicants to purchase be required to
swear they were citizens of the state, be stricken out, which was done, and the
bill was finally passed on the 16th of October, by a vote of 23 to 6.
It was sent to the House and referred to the Public Lands Committee and a
strong lobby pressure brought to bear to have it immediately reported to the
House for passage.
As it bore on its face the stamp of a big graft, or steal, of the remaining
state lands of that class, which were largely located in my county, and which
embraced some of the best farming and timber lands in the state, I was vitally
interested in seeing that its objectionable features become well known to the
members before voting.
The bill was passed to second reading by title the day of its reception by a
vote of 42 to 13.
On October 22nd the House by a vote of 43 to 6 suspended the rules to enable
our committee to report on the bill, as extreme pressure had been brought to
bear on members, and even threats had been made by notorious lobbyists that if
our committee did not immediately report the Senate Bill 38 favorably, they the
Senate would defeat my Bill 138 which was then in the hands of the Public
Lands Committee of the Senate.
But we had our report ready; that is Mr. Laughlin and myself; it here fol.
lows as I wrote it:
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
471
"HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
“SALEM, OREGON, Oct. 20, 1886.
“MR. SPEAKER: Your committee on Public Lands, to whom was referred
Senate Bill No. 38, beg leave to report the same back for the consideration of
the House, with the recommendation that it do not pass. Our reasons for such
recommendations are these : 1st. The House, on the 16th of the month, passed
House Bill No. 138, which provides for reducing the price of state lands to one
dollar per acre as minimum price, the same price as provided in this bill; but
while the former increased the quantity that could be purchased to 640 acres
for a settler, it provided that only 320 acres could be purchased by a person
not a settler. The Senate bill provides that any citizen of the United States
may purchase 640 acres, therein conflicting with the former, and rendering it
very easy for speculators to secure all the remaining state lands that may be
desirable, and inviting just such a state of affairs as the House bill was intended
to prevent.
“2nd. This Senate bill provides for no affidavit of the applicant, as has
been usual in former laws, to the effect that the applicant is the first or only
claimant to such lands and knows of no prior settler claiming any portion of
said lands, and would be likely to result in hardship to the poorer class of
settlers.
All of which is respectfully submitted,
"LEE LAUGHLIN,
60. A. STEARNS,
“Committee."
Mr. Smith filed a minority report, stating that the majority of the lands
embraced were practically worthless, and cited the fact that there was but
7,225.82 acres of such lands sold during the past two years. That with price
reduced to one dollar per acre, and amount of acres allowed a purchaser in-
creased the lands would be speedily sold. Of this there was little doubt, as
everything indicated a similar scoop as that following the passage of the no-
torious swamp land bill of 1870, when nearly all the swamp, and overflowed
lands in the state of Oregon were filed on before the governor's signature to the
law became cold.
After much debate, in which John Minto called attention to the significance
of the striking out of the clause in the original bill requiring the would be pur-
chaser to assert citizenship in the state of Oregon, an endeavor to substitute
the minority report, the report of the majority of the committee was adopted
by a vote of 37 to 17.
On Oct. 23rd the bill was taken up, as on the calendar, read a third time,
and after a brief but stormy debate was defeated by a vote of 26 to 26, the
speaker casting his vote for the affirmative.
Early in the session, the state treasurer, Earheard, had endeavored to have
removed that clause in the old swamp land law requiring "proof of reclama-
tion" before issuing title to swamp lands. This effort, I had defeated, as it
would cut off all attempts to adjust the claims of settlers, as to the swampy
character of the land and prevent them from establishing the justice their
claims that the lands were not swamp within the meaning of the grant to the
state.

w
(CH.
OF
IV.
Caughey
THIS BATTLE TOOK PLACE ON SEPTEMBER 17, 1788, BETWEEN THE SAILORS OF CAPT. GRAY'S SHIP, "LADY WASHINGTON,”
AND THE TILLA MOOK NATIVES


IT
Caughey
FORT SHERIDAN AND GEN. JOEL PALMER

UN
OF
3
472
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Just prior to final adjournment in the hour of greatest confusion preceding
the final fall of the Speaker's gavel, a page handed me a note from a friend in
the Senate notifying me that the secretary had sent to that body a resolution,
which had passed it without ceremony, a resolution that I had better watch
out for. The resolution was as follows:
No. 14
“Resolved by the Senate, the House concurring: That it is the opinion
of this body, that where appropriations (should be applications) for the
purchase of swamp lands have been regularly made, and the terms and con-
ditions of the law under which they were made have been fully complied with,
excepting the complete reclamation of the lands applied for, and where such
lands have been duly listed to the state by the secretary of the interior, it is
the duty of the board of commissioners for the sale of school and university
lands, etc., to sell and convey to such applicants such lands, without requiring
proof of reclamation."
I saw a page from the Senate hand the message to the speaker, who in
turn passed it to the clerk, who, amid the din read the resolution. As soon as
he had finished I was on my feet and obtaining recognition from the speaker,
briefly remarked that “this resolution is quite remarkable, in that it declares
it to be a duty of the state land board to ignore and disregard a plain law of the
state that they had sworn to obey," and I therefore moved to lay the resolu-
tion on the table. It was with difficulty that the House could be called to order
for a vote, but when the tellers announced that my motion had carried, I felt
that I had scored at least twice against the combined land grabbers and grafters
of the state, though they had defeated my efforts in remedial legislation.
Although defeated in my attempts to secure the required changes in the
land laws of the state, my failure was through no neglect nor lack of work and
effort on my part, as my activities were confined to the lower branch of the
legislature, and in that branch I had prevailed against the combined interests
and opposition of the entire swamp-land ring, a strong lobby, and the active
hostility of a majority of the state administration. I had for the first time
made the case of the settler versus the land grabber so plain that thereafter it
would be difficult to hoodwink a legislature into passing laws for the privileged
few. Penumbra Kelley, a conscientious and able member of the House from
Multnomah county, remarked in explanation of his vote on House Bill No. 138,
after my arraignment of Q. A. Brooks and the swamp-land ring, "that he had
served two previous terms as representative from his county and had read and
heard much pertaining to swamp land, but he had never before understood the
iniquities of the law as he now understood it, and could now cast his vote in
full confidence, and understandingly."
Many others expressed to me similar views, and the fact that from that time
on, the aggressiveness of the land thieves was on the wane, indicates to me that
my labors were not fruitless.
In prohibitive legislation, my defeat of the Senate bill alone saved to the
common school funds of the state several hundred thousands of dollars, in the

W. T. NEWBY
Founder of McMinnville

ROBERT KINNEY
Pioneer miller and exporter of flour from Yamhill and Marion Counties
OF
UNIU
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
173
sale of its lands, besides giving to thousands of actual settlers homes that other-
wise could not have been had except by paying tribute to speculators.
My activity as a legislator was sufficient reason for preventive measures
being taken by the political bosses, who were nearly always either interested
in the exploiting of the public domain or allied for aggressive and protective
purposes with these corporate interests, to insure my retirement to private
life. Thus, while having shown my ability and loyalty to the people who
elected me, and being doubly qualified from my experience of one term, and
acquaintance with hold-over members, I was the logical candidate to succeed
myself for the ensuing term, the bosses thought, or pretended to think, the
eastern part of the county should be represented at the next term and delib-
erately ignoring my claim to succeed myself, the nomination was given to a
Republican living near Lakeview. As the new candidate, though an able and
very popular young man, had no record of active sympathy with the settlers
to appeal to them, in the ensuing election he received simply his party vote
and was defeated.
Politicians of both parties were ever afterwards shy of any attempt to inject
local issues into their party nominations as such always resulted in disrupting
party lines and in many instances defeating well arranged political programs.
The knowledge gained in my legislative career of the chicanery and cor-
ruption of party politics resulted in weakening my faith in party politics, and
rendered me skeptical of the fulsome promises and pledges of office-seekers.
Though casting my first vote for Abraham Lincoln when he ran for president
for the second time, and voting for every succeeding Republican candidate for
the presidency since that time, excepting when the silver issue was the para-
mount issue, when McKinley and Bryan were the opposing candidates, when I
voted for the latter. I have permanently allied myself with the Prohibition
party as representing the fight against the greatest social, moral and political
enemy of civilization, the liquor interests, which undoubtedly have for years
past, and now, control both the old political parties and corrupt and demoralize
every branch of national and municipal government.
An issue, world wide, nation wide, and state wide that does more to debauch
and demoralize the human race than any other cause, and which, unless checked,
and divorced from governmental protection and exploitation is destined to over-
throw the best government on earth and make a by-word and reproach of Lin-
coln's definition of ours as a "government of the people, by the people, and for
the people.”
0. A. STEARNS.
CHAPTER XVII
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES—THE STATE OF NATURE-GAME AND FISH-
PRAIRIE AND TIMBER-FREE LANDS AND LAND GRANTS--SOIL AND IRRIGATION-
FORESTS WEALTH, MOUNTAINS AND WATER POWERS
The first American settlers in Oregon found the country in a state of nature,
unmarred and unimproved by the hand of man. The Indians had subsisted here
for a long and unknown period on what they found ready to take with their hands,
or such crude contrivances of primitive art as would catch fish or ensnare wild
animals. Their development had not passed beyond the age of stone mortars
with stone pestles for grinding mills of the seed crops of native plants and nuts,
and the simple bow and arrow of all ages of barbarism to bring down the wild
goose or the unsuspecting deer. Nature furnished not only generous supplies
of food, but also the skins and rich furs of wild animals for clothing. What
more could be desired ? Nothing! And the Indian had no incentive or reason
to disturb this order of Providence. And nature was not disturbed, and every-
where herds of elk, deer and antelope, the aristocrats of the wild game world,
roved and pastured practically undisturbed by the desires of men. There were
here throughout Oregon when the first Christian missionary came, an abundance
of wild game, elk, deer, antelope, bears, wolves, foxes, beaver, marten, otter, wild
goats, wild sheep, muskrats, wild geese, swans, cranes, ducks, pheasants, grouse,
quail and smaller birds and animals. And upon this natural provision of nature,
and such edible plants, roots and seeds as naturally grew here without cultiva-
tion, a population of wild Indians, variously estimated at from twenty to forty
thousand lived in all the comfort their imperfect development could comprehend.
Various estimates have been made of this native population; but the one given
by Lieut. Wilkes, prepared with care to find out the facts, is probably as near
correct as any ever made. It is copied here not only to show the number of
the Indians, but also to give the names and divisions of them in the year 1842,
as near as could be gathered by a competent and painstaking public official:
Vancouver and Washington Islands
5,000
From the parallel of 50° to 54° 40' north
2,000
Penn's Cove, Whidbey's Island, and mainland opposite (Scat-
chat)
650
Hood's Canal (Squamish and Toando)..
500
At and about Okanogan
300
About Colville, Spokane, etc.
450
Willamette Falls and Valley
275
Pillar Rock, Oak Point, and Col. R.
300
475
476
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
.
Clallams :
Port Discovery
150
Port Townsend
70
New Dungeness
200
Walla Walla, including the Nez Perces, Snakes, etc.
1,100
Killamouks, north of Umpqua
400
Closset tribe; Capt. Flattery, Quiniault, to Pt. Grenville 1,250
Blackfeet tribes that make excursions west of the Rocky
Mountains
1,000
Birch Bay
300
Fraser's River
500
Chenooks
209
Clatsops
220
At the Cascades
150
At The Dalles
250
Yakima River
100
Shutes River (Des Chutes)
125
Umpquas
400
Rogue Rivers
500
Klamets. (Klamaths)
300
Shastys. (Shastas)
500
Kalapuyas. (Calapooias)
600
Nisqually
200
Chikeeles and Puget Sound
700
Cowlitz Klackatacs. (Klickitats)
350
Port Orford Suquamish
150
.
Total
19,204
As the Indians in accounting for their people counted only the adult males
and took no account of women and children it is probable that the real popula-
tion of all the Indian tribes depending upon nature for support was about fifty
thousand. This would give to the Indian estimate one woman to each man, and
ten thousand children. Indian families were never large anywhere in North
America. The stress of barbaric life, which placed upon the mother not only
the burden of child-bearing, but also the greater labor in providing food and
clothing and moving from place to place, powerfully repressed any increase of
population.
But as it is, it is easy to see what a bountiful provision nature had made for
the support of man. And if unaided nature could support the improvidence of
fifty thousand Indians, what might have been done with the same resources if
they had been thoughtfully conserved and supplemented with the cultivation
of the soil and the protecting care of common sense? The white man reversed
all the ideas and traditions of the red man in the conservation of natural re-
sources. He turned his battery of fire-arms on the half tame elk, deer, and ante-
lope, and soon well nigh exterminated the natural stock. He hooked, netted,
seined, trapped by every conceivable device, the fish, and sold the pack to foreign
lands. He fired the grassy prairies and drove away the pheasants, grouse and
quail; he fired the timber and drove out other game and destroyed their coverts
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
177
and protecting shelter. He poisoned the geese and ducks for pulling up his
wheat, and killed the remaining ducks for sport. The Indian rebelled and fought
to the last ditch for the beauties of nature and his natural food and when ex-
hausted, the white man put him on a Reservation and supported him in idle-
ness with national taxes. Which was the wiser of the two races ? Later on in
this chapter it will be seen how the white man suffered for his folly and sur-
rendered to his enemy.
There can be no doubt but that this Oregon country in its state of nature be-
fore the white man came here was the richest region in animal life on the face of
the globe; as it was also the richest in animal life millions of years ago before the
present mountain ranges were elevated from the depths of the ocean. In the
four years from 1834 to 1838, the Hudson's Bay Company shipped from Old Ore-
gon over ten million pelts of fur bearing animals to China and England. These
pelts were made of the skins of beaver, marten, otter, silver, red and black foxes,
muskrats, bears, ermine, fisher, lynx, mink, wolf, badger, swan, and raccoon, to say
nothing of the elk, deer, antelope, wild goats, and sheep that were not killed for
their hides.
In the matter of fish and game the improvidence of Oregonians has not been
greater than that of the people of other States; although blessed with a greater
abundance of these most attractive and valuable natural sources of food. The
art and business of preserving the salmon in all its delicacy for food was per-
fected on the Columbia river in Oregon. The first salmon canning establishment
was built on the Columbia in the year 1866, by Hume Brothers; and from that be-
ginning the business rapidly spread along the river and up and down the Pacific
coast as far north as the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. And from that little can-
nery packing about four thousand cases of fish, the first year, and not knowing
whether it could be sold or not, the business has so grown in importance and
wealth producing power that the Columbia river shipped 772,668 cases in the
year 1911, more than five million dollars worth of fish, and could have sold twice
that' amount. This is an increase of 33 per cent on the output of canned salmon
in 1910, and nearly double the amount of 1909.
The value of the various kinds of salmon shipped from the Columbia river
during that period was: 772,688 cases canned salmon, at $5.50 a case, $4,249,674;
85,000 tierces of pickled salmon at $100 a tierce, $850,000; 800,000 pounds of
frozen fish, at 11 cents a pound, $55,000; total value, $5,154,674. In the same
period there were 6,575,377 bushels of wheat shipped out of the Columbia river
district to various ports, and this at 80 cents a bushel had a value of $5,260,301.-
60, or only about $100,000 more than the value of the salmon.
It seems incomprehensible that the greed and selfishness of mankind, even
those most benefited, should have been so short-sighted as to well nigh destroy
such a great source of natural wealth-the harvesting of five million dollars
worth of a fish crop without owning the river that produced it, or spending a
dollar for planting or cultivation. Yet such was the haste and greed for fish that
the cannerymen came near exterminating the salmon, fifteen years ago; and to
protect the great industry the towns people, country farmers, and professional
men—persons not directly profited by the salmon fisheries—were compelled to
unite in demanding of the legislature legislation to protect the salmon, and to
keep up the supply of fish with artificial hatcheries. In this way the great sal-
478
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
mon fishery interests and a great natural source of food for mankind, has been
saved from destruction.
In the same way and by the same unrestrained greed and short-sighted policy
of handling the sturgeon fishing interest, that most excellent food fish, has been
well nigh utterly exhausted in the Columbia river. So plentiful was this fish
twenty-five years ago, and so easily taken that thousands of big sturgeon, some
of them ten feet in length, were thrown away at the Portland markets for want of
a consumer. Now the fish are very scarce and retail in the Portland markets at
twenty cents per pound. The same fate has overtaken the prince of all game
fish—the mountain trout. “Game hogs” of every kind and degree have pursued
these fish to the head waters of all the streams; so that now there is nothing be-
tween the trout and total extinction except the orderly and scientific control of
the trout streams by Government protection and State hatcheries. That trout
hatcheries can be made as successful as Salmon hatcheries is amply proved by
the experience of Mr. John Teal, of Dallas, in Polk County, who owns and oper-
ates a private hatchery of his own and where he has produced and raised over
100,000 fine trout from ponds fed by spring water.
So far in the history of conservation of fish and game, the legislature has con-
sidered only the demands of the sportsmen and the salmon packers. Fish and
game as an article and resource for food for the people generally has had very
little consideration. The most reliable and instructive document on this sub-
ject is the report of Mr. George H. Cecil, supervisor of forest reserves in the
State; and from which is taken for a record of this interest at this date the fol-
lowing extracts:
“In the Cascade national forest, it is estimated that 30 elk are in the forests at
this time; in the Malheur national forest, elk, which were formerly exceedingly
plentiful, have dwindled to 20, which range the high mountain areas in the north-
eastern portion of the forest. Hunters kill on an average of about five annually,
but the larger number are destroyed by predatory animals.
"In the Oregon national forest there are about 75 elk, and the law is rigidly
enforced here and one is rarely taken by hunters. In the Siskiyou national forest
there are three bands of elk. These are in the northwestern part of the forest
and include about 50 head. Since 1908, none have been killed by hunters, and it
is believed they are increasing in number.
“There are probably 200 elk in the Siuslaw, and during the past few years
they have seemed neither to increase, nor decrease, predatory animals killing off
the per cent of the increase. During the past few years a few elk have been com-
ing into the Umatilla forest, and as many as 13 have been counted there. About
125 elk are believed to range in the Whitman national forest, where the hunters
kill annually an average of 25, while predatory animals kill a large number and
as a result there is a decrease. About 15 elk range in the Crater Lake Forests near
the headwaters of the middle fork of the Rogue river, but the gray wolf destroys
nearly all of the young and when there are severe winters pull down the weak
.
"There are 100,000 of the various species of deer in the Oregon forests. Of
these the hunters kill about 14,000 annually, while predatory animals kill prac-
tically 20,000 in the same length of time. Panthers and wolves kill a large per
ones.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
479
cent of the fawns, and even the old deer are killed in this way when they are
weakened by the severe storms of the winter.
"Antelope are less numerous than in years past, there being probably about
4,800 in the high desert. These are not killed so extensively as deer and, being
fleet of foot, are not destroyed by predatory animals so readily, save when young.
“Of game birds, grouse are being killed in great numbers by hunters and birds
of prey, while supervisors in the forests report that pheasants gather in great
numbers in the low mountains along the river bottoms and small streams. Their
number seems to remain about stationary. Quail are found in all the forests,
but in smaller numbers than grouse or pheasants, while sage hens and prairie
chickens are scarce. The forests, it is estimated, contain about 40 per cent of the
productive capacity of game birds."
Water fowl are either decreasing in numbers, or remaining stationary, the re-
ports stating:
“Ducks, geese and swans are found in the lakes, sloughs and streams of the Des
Chutes drainage system area. A large number of them nest there each year.
Very few are found in the streams west of the summit of the Cascades, as there
are no suitable feeding grounds. The geese and swans do not seem to be decreas-
ing, though there is no apparent increase. The present condition seems to be
about 85 per cent of the productive capacity. Ducks seem to be decreasing at
the rate of about 2% annually, due mainly to hunters.
"The Crater forest seems to be an exceedingly attractive region for the hunter
and fisher, including campers and huckleberry pickers.
"It is estimated that there are not less than 5,000 persons who pass from one
to six weeks time each season hunting and fishing in this forest. This seemingly
large number is due mainly to the fact that the Crater Lake national park is sur-
rounded almost entirely by the Crater national forest, and of course a great num-
ber of the persons who visit the lake, do more or less hunting and fishing on
their way to the Forest, both going and coming.
"In the national forest area of Oregon there are estimated to be about 24,000
coyotes, 12,000 wildcats, 7,500 bears, 300 cougars (panthers), and 900 wolves,
which annually kill stock valued at $120,000, besides being responsible for the
destruction of numerous game animals and birds. A cougar will destroy, during
its lifetime, on an average, 1,800 to 2,500 deer, while the grey wolf is hardly less
destructive. In a snowfall of only two and a half feet, a wolf will easily
pull down any deer within a short time. The cougar kills cattle and horses,
while the coyotės chief prey is sheep.
“Other species, such as red and grey foxes, lynx and skunks, are very destruc-
tive to game birds.”
The notice of the fish and game resources of the State in the year 1912 would
be imperfect and insufficient if the work of President Taft and State Game
Warden Wm. L. Finley was not duly recognized. On May 6, 1911, the Presi-
dent issued an order making Clear Lake reservoir and site, and contiguous lands
owned by the government, in Klamath county, a bird reserve. This will make
about 25,000 acres in one body a reserve for wild birds where no pot hunter will
be allowed to get in his deadly work. This is a natural breeding place for water
fowl. Following up this policy with an intelligent and energetic administration
of his office, Mr. Finley has secured all the State lands about the State capital,
180
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
amounting to over 3,000 acres, to be reserved for wild birds, and to these lands
public-spirited farmers owning adjoining lands have agreed to add their own
holdings, make a bird reserve in the heart of the Willamette Valley of over 20,-
000 acres.
The public-spirited conduct of these farmers is in sharp contrast
with the city gentry who go out to kill everything in sight no matter if it is the
last bird in the State.
LAND AND LAND GRANTS
No country that the white man ever settled upon in America was ever better
suited to his uses and ambition than the Willamette, Umpqua, and Rogue River
valleys. Here were great areas of rich prairie land cleared ready for the plow.
All the man had to do was to inclose his field with a fence, plow and sow the seed,
and an abundant harvest was his reward. Here close at hand was timber for
fencing, house-building and firewood. Unlike the prairies of Illinois, and the
sage plains of Eastern Oregon and Idaho, the farmer did not waste half his time
in hauling firewood and fencing for fifty miles before he could begin a farm or
erect a house. And more than this, the mild climate united with the soil and the
groves of timber to bid him welcome, and comfortably live in a tent or under a
wagon sheet until with his own hands he had erected his house. And if anything
more could be added to complete the Oregon Paradise, a beneficent government
dealt it out with a liberal hand. Every husband and wife were given a mile
square of rich land as a free gift. All they had to do was to stake it out and
record their claim. And government encouragement did not even stop there;
but grants of land were liberally given in aid for public free schools for all chil-
dren, university education for the favored few, and agricultural college educa-
tion for all that could reach that fountain head of scientific knowledge. The
government did not stop even there; but after providing free farms, free homes,
free schools, free agricultural knowledge, instruction and experimentation, and
a free university the same fountain head of free gifts added to all these, grants of
land to build wagon roads and railroads--and hard cash for steamboat canals,
deepening of river channels and improvement of harbors for shipping and en-
trance thereto from the ocean. In addition to the lands donated to settlers for
homesteads, the United States government has given to the people of Oregon,
lands as follows:
Wagon road construction land grants, 2,453,932.32 acres, including Oregon
Central and Military road, 845,536 acres; Corvallis and Yaquina Bay road,
90,240 acres; Willamette Valley and Cascade Mountain wagon road, 861,504
acres; Dalles Military road, 556,832.67 acres ; Coos Bay and wagon road, 99,-
819.35 acres.
Railroad construction land grants, 4,812,298.64 acres; including Northern
Pacific, 602,684.94 acres; Oregon and California 3,821,901.80 acres; Oregon Cen-
tral, 387,711.90 acres.
Swamp lands, 351,743.16 acres; Public buildings, 6,400 acres; Agricultural
College, 90,000 acres; State University, 46,000 acres.
Grants of land for common schools, 3,404,302 acres; for charitable educa-
tional penal and reformatory institutions, 136,080 acres; for internal improve-
ments 500.000 acres, making a grand total of eleven million, six hundred and
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
481
fifty-eight thousand, three hundred and fifty-five acres, making a tract of land
exceeding in area that of several of the Atlantic coast States.
With the exception of the railroad grants these land grants applied to and
benefited all parts of the State. And in addition to these grants 46,000 acres
were granted with salt springs which through neglect of State officials were
never selected and were lost to the State. The grant of lands in aid of the con-
struction of a railroad from Astoria to Forest Grove, was also lost because no
company or capitalist would undertake the construction of the road for the
grant-1,280,000 acres, and now worth for the timber thereon over a hundred
million dollars. In every practicable way the U. S. government has fostered
and favored the development of Oregon; as if desirous to make amends for the
great mistake of giving up a part of Old Oregon to England.
IRRIGATION
In Eastern Oregon there are vast areas of arid land which on acount of its
aridity can produce but little of grain or forage for man or beast, yet with water
produces enormous crops. To remedy this neglect of nature a paternal govern-
ment has taken the proceeds of the sales of public lands and used he same in
carrying water for many miles in irrigation canals and delivering the same at
actual cost to the farmer with which to irrigate his crops, and make the desert
blossom as the rose. Irrigation water will thus in Eastern and Central Oregon
soon be supporting in comfort a large population of prosperous farmers with
consequent towns, cities, schools and all the refinements of civilization.
On this vital subject of irrigation, the State Engineer, John H. Lewis, has
furnished the following important data.
"The Deschutes river at Benham Falls, has a mean annual discharge of
1,220,000 acre feet of water, as shown by eight years records. The minimum
year furnished 1,070,000 acre feet, so that it is safe to say that there is avail-
able at this point for irrigation purposes, one million acre feet of water. This
will irrigate 333,000 acres of land, or a strip one mile wide, and 520 miles long.
“The regular flow will ultimately irrigate about 120,000 acres between Bend
and the Crooked River. Every drop of the remaining water can and should be
stored for irrigation purposes through the construction of a 60-foot dam at Ben-
ham Falls. This could be released in the summer and diverted near the Cline
Falls for the irrigation of 110,000 acres on Agency Plain, for the irrigation of
60,000 acres in the Crooked River bottom near Prineville, and by diverting above
Bend, irrigate 50,000 acres in the Benham Falls segregation just south of Prine-
ville.
“The entire flow at the head of the river can be used for the irrigation of about
60,000 acres of land above the Benham Falls reservoir without affecting these
figures, as the seepage will all be collected in the reservoir below.''
This is only one river in Eastern Oregon. To the work of the Des Chutes
must be added that of the Klamath, Sprague Williamson, Chewaucan, Crooked,
John Day, White River, Silvies, Malheur, Owyhee, Powder, Snake, Burnt, Grand
Ronde, and Umatilla rivers.' And when all their waters are utilized for irriga-
tion and power Eastern Oregon will become one of the most populous and pros-
perous regions of the United States.
Vol. I-31
482
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
THE GREAT FORESTS
For full fifty years the Pioneer settlers and their descendants considered the
vast forests of the Coast, Cascade and Blue Mountain ranges of mountain as
fit only for wild beasts, and an incumbrance if not a nuisance to the country.
They all declared with one voice that Oregon had the finest timber and the
greatest forests in the world. These great trees would be valuable sometime, but
not in our day. They were not the first people in America that failed to appre-
ciate the value of the timbered regions. The author of this book remembers with
lively appreciation the toil and troubles of getting rid of the grand oak, hickory,
walnut, poplar, and sugar maple trees in Morgan County, Ohio, sixty-two years
ago, in order to raise corn, wheat and tobacco on the land. If those trees, grand
and old, were standing there today, they would bring more money as lumber
than all the profit of agriculture on the same land for the last forty years. It
was not until about the year 1890 that the Oregon forests seemed to have any
value for timber. Warned by the steady exhaustion of the fine forests in Michi-
gan and Pennsylvania, a few venturesome lumbermen came to Oregon and made
purchases on the finest tracts of timber for eight to ten dollars an acre; or
about twenty cents per M for the timber on the stump. Even at that price,
in the subsequent financial panic many of the same lands were resold for less
money or taken for debts. Investment in Oregon timber lands began to revive
in the year 1901, and many fine tracts were bought from homesteaders for five
dollars an acre, and millions of acres were taken up under the stone and timber
Act of Congress by the paying of the locators, falsely swearing they wantedi
the lands for their own use, when in fact they were but the “dummy” entrymen
of eastern speculators grabbing timber lands wherever they could be found, and
in many cases importing their perjured locators from the Eastern States by the
car load. By these corrupt land theft schemes, many men became millionaires
in a few years, and a few of them being indicted and prosecuted for their crimes
in such infamous work were sent to the penitentiary.
The amount of commercial timber in the State of Oregon has been estimated
by competent men to be at this date (1912), not less than five hundred billion
board measure square feet. Timber is now selling on the stump in accessible
regions of the state at one dollar and a half per thousand feet. That would make
a value of seven hundred and fifty million dollars for the standing timber of
Oregon. If to this stumpage cost is added the expense of logging, delivery to
the mill, and manufacture into rough lumber (estimated at $8.00 per thousand),
there is the enormous and incomprehensible sum of four thousand million dollars
added to the stumpage value of the timber, or a grand total of wealth in rough
lumber of four thousand seven hundred and fifty million dollars, which Oregon
timber can develop in this State. Here, then, is seen the great necessity for con-
servation of timber. This is the greatest item of perishable wealth in the State.
The prevention of forest fires by well-trained forest rangers becomes a duty in
which all are interested. The preservation of forest reserves is second to no
other interest in the State.
But who owns all this vast wealth of timber? Not the state of Oregon. The
state had millions of dollars in that possible treasury; but through incompetent
or corrupt public officials all the school lands in the timbered regions were sold
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
483
out to timber land speculators for a tithe of their real value. After President
Taft came into office he ordered an investigation of the timber land ownership.
Commissioner Herbert Knox Smith made the investigation and reported as
follows:
(1) The concentration of a dominating control of our standing timber in a
comparatively few enormous holdings, steadily tending toward a central control
of the lumber industry.
(2) Vast speculative purchase and holding of timber land far in advance
of any use thereof.
(3) An enormous increase in the value of this diminishing natural resource
with great profits to its owners. This value, by the very nature of standing
timber, the holder neither created nor substantially enhances.
The former Chief of Field Service of the General Land Office, H. H. Schwartz,
stated officially (1909) that the Timber and Stone Act-has resulted in the sale
of over 12,000,000 acres of valuable timber lands, of which fully 10,000,000
acres were transferred to corporate or individual timber-land investors by the
entrymen. These lands brought to the people or general government a gross
sum of $30,000,000. At the date of sale they were reasonably worth $240,000,000.
The profit of over $200,000,000 went not to the needy settler engaged in sub-
duing the wilderness, but to the wealthy investors. Not over a fractional part
of one per cent of the timber purchased from the United States under this Act
is held, consumed, or even cut by the men and women who made the entries.
Five-elevenths of the country's privately owned standing timber is in the
Pacific Northwest (California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana) 1,103
billion feet. One-half of this is now owned by thirty-seven holders; many of these
are closely connected. This section now furnishes only one-sixth of the annual cut.
Thus its timber is being largely held for the future, and the large owners there
will then be the dominating influence in the industry and make the people
pay any price they demand.
THE MOUNTAINS
The grand mountains of Oregon, long considered serious and immovable ob-
structions to travel, trade and commerce, and at best only a scenic attraction to the
landscape, are now seen in the light of electrical science to be one of the greatest
sources of life, health, wealth and comfort which the State possesses. The grand
scheme of nature which lifts the water from the bosom of the Pacific ocean in
vapor, and by the ever-recurring landward breezes carries it over the State of
Oregon to its highest mountains, where the rarified and frigid atmosphere con-
denses the same into the snow falls on the mountain tops, and rains at lower
levels, is now seen to be the conservation of light, heat and power beyond the
ken of men to measure in dollars or millions thereof. Diminutive, weak, short-
sighted man may flatter himself that he has been able to squeeze a few millions
out of his fellow man by this monopoly of the gifts of nature intended for the
common use of mankind. But what are his millions, his monopoly, or his life,
compared with the stupendous forces and working of physical laws which build
up continents, carry oceans to the mountain tops automatically to generate all
the life of our globe for inexpressible ages of time. The scientist may set down
484
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
in horse power what he can see in the power of a mountain stream for a year;
but he cannot measure the life of the stream any more than he can determine
the age of our planet. Man is wholly powerless to increase or decrease the fun-
damental unit of a water power. He may for a brief period store up in a reser-
voir the surplus energy of a stream, and thus increase its value; but he cannot
increase the original unit of value. For these considerations this greatest gift
of nature made known to mankind by unravelling the secrets of electricity,
should be absolutely controlled and administered by the State for the use of all
its citizens on exactly the same terms and conditions. And thus it is seen that
the mountains and forest reserves, holding and conserving the great blanket of
snow deposited by winter storms, to be turned loose by the summer's heat and
sent down the streams to turn innumerable turbine wheels generating electric
power, are one of the State's greatest sources of wealth and power. And by the
just and wise use of this power, furnished and administered under the control of
State laws, every household and citizen of Oregon should soon have all the light,
heat and power needed to make the house comfortable throughout the year, and
do the work of plowing the fields, harvesting the grain and hauling to market the
crops at one-fourth of the expense for such necessaries by present methods.
This vast water power is generated by the grand elevations of the Oregon
mountains; which are as follows:
Adams, Mt.
Crater Lake
Crescent Lake
Diamond Peak
Hood, Mt.
Jefferson, Mt
McLoughlin, Mt.
Odell Lake
Pauline Peak
Pilot Rock
Saddle Mountain
Scott Peak
Siskiyou Peak
Sterling Peak
Sugar Loaf
Thielsen, Mt.
Three Sisters
Union Peak
Yainax Butte
Yamsay Peak
Eagle Cap
12,424 feet
6,177 feet
5,025 feet
3,807 feet
11,225 feet
10,350 feet
9,760 feet
4,990 feet
7,387 feet
6,104 feet
6,976 feet
8,938 feet
7,662 feet
7,377 feet
8,415 feet
9,250 feet
10,250 feet
7,698 feet
7,277 feet
8,248 feet
9,686 feet
The United States geological survey has completed a careful estimate of the
available water power of Oregon from which is taken the following statistics :
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
485
;
.
Columbia River (proper)
Willamette v
Deschutes
Umpqua River
Mt. Hood Rivers
Rogue River
Minor Tributaries Columbia
Horsepower
Minimum Maximum
4,060,000 6,250,000
602,000 1,670,000
953,000 1,920,000
80,000 160,000
200,000 400,000
80,000 160,000
718,000 1,230,000
Totals ..
5,975,000
10,560,000
With possibilities of developing 10,000,000 horsepower in Oregon, where
less than one-fourth of a million horsepower is now utilized, and when
it is considered that only a little more than 5,000,000 horsepower are today
utilized in the entire United States, it is argued by the directors of the geological
survey that there is not a remote possibility that the water power of this region
can ever be monopolized by a single corporation combine or commercial trust.
Such a prediction is based upon the hope that justice and common user rights
of the gifts of nature may prevail. But experience has already shown, that on
account of the controlling power of the money trust of the United States, and
the friendly, if not directly interested relations of the managers of the money
trust with that of the associated power companies of the Northwest, it is now
practically impossible to secure capital to develop water power enterprises in
opposition to those now already established. So that the price to the consumer
of electric water power service in the State of Oregon is now ten times greater
than similar service to the people of Ottawa in the Canadian Dominion. And
notwithstanding the vast water power of the State of Oregon, larger than that
of all the States of the Union from the Mississippi river to the Atlantic ocean,
the people of Oregon are compelled to pay higher rates for light, heat, and
power than the people of any other State in the Nation.
For the value and importance of the water power of Oregon, reference is
again made to the most valuable public service of State Engineer Lewis. He
joins in the opinion that the Des Chutes river is the most wonderful stream in
the world, and states the following facts to prove it and says:
“Between Benham Falls and Cline Falls there is 1,300 feet fall. About
sixty per cent of the one million acre feet of water will be discharged through
the dam for irrigation purposes, during July and August, and will be available
for the development of power which can be transmitted economically from two
to four hundred miles for the pumping of water to irrigate other lands say
along the Columbia river. This water at a 100 foot drop immediately below the
dam will furnish 56,800 horsepower, which at 50 per cent plant efficiency will
lift 2,500 second feet, 100 feet above the Columbia river, for the irrigation of
200,000 acres of land. There is another fall of 100 feet a short distance below
and above the first diversion for irrigation, and the amount of summer power
which can be developed in the 1,300 feet fall to the last diversion at Cline Falls
is almost inconceivable."
"Sixteen dam sites have been located on the Des Chutes in the narrow rock
486
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
walled canyon from the Columbia river up to a point just below the junction
with the Metolius. With 4,000 second feet at the 1,300 feet of fall which can be
developed at these sites, 600,000 theoretical horse power can be generated. With
the low and high year flow equalized at the Benham Falls reservoir, and with
a 120 foot dam in the Crooked river about 40 miles above Prineville, this low
water flow can be increased to about 6,000 second feet, and the power to nearly
900,000 horse power. This is about six times the present installed steam and
hydro-electric machine capacity in the vicinity of Portland, and about 40 times
the low water power development at Oregon City."
This is but one river, and although a wonderful river, Oregon has many
others furnishing vast power. Mt. Hood sends down half a dozen rivers, and
keeps the flow of water up the whole year round.
RED MAN AND WHITE MAN
When the native red man found the new-comer white man taking possession
of his land, killing his game and driving it away, depriving him and his family
of their natural God-given sources of sustenance, he went to war; and fought
the white man to the best of his ability. He was conquered in battle and placed
on a Reservation to keep the peace. Sixty years later this same white man finds
an enemy seizing his sources of life, light, heat and comfort through the cunning
instrumentalities of legalized monopolies. Does he bravely oppose the new
enemy like the Indian? No! But he attends primary elections, and votes this
way and that way, and every other way but the right way, and his enemy wins
every time, elects the rulers, makes the laws, and charges all the traffic will
bear and still leave the worker alive to earn more taxes. The monopoly, the
trust combine, the corrupt or incompetent legislature of his own making has
captured the white man—and put HIM on a Reservation.
CHAPTER XVIII
1849-1910
GOLD AND SILVER IN ANCIENT TIMES—THE CHARACTER OF MINERS IN ANCIENT TIMES
MINING LAWS IN AMERICA-DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN CALIFORNIA— DISCOVERIES
IN OREGON-PRESENT CONDITIONS OF MINING IN OREGON-MINES OF OTHER VAL-
UABLE MINERAL DEPOSITS-THE INFLUENCE OF MINES ON THE STATE
The Bible contains frequent references to the Gold of Ophir, and the Silver
of Tarshish, dating back to over a thousand years before the birth of Christ. In
that early period of recorded history neither gold or silver was coined into ex-
changeable money, but passed from hand to hand in trade by weight, the little
pieces of all sorts and sizes being weighed in scales for every transaction. The
first statesman of those 'ancient days that conceived the idea of coining gold and
silver into pieces of definite weight to pass current as money, as we present day
people use it, was probably Croesus the typical rich man of all history, King of
Lydia, six hundred years before the birth of Christ. Lydia was a small kingdom
in the western part of Asia Minor which after many years of fighting with the
Greeks finally secured access to the Mediterranean sea at Smyrna and entered
upon a great era of commercial prosperity. Lydia has passed into history as the
industrial power of the ancient world, and Croesus, its most illustrious King, has
become the synonym of the rich man for all time. While the small streams of that
country did produce some gold dust, the probability is that the invention of
coining the gold into money, and the seaport access to the trade and commerce
of the cities of the great sea enabled the Lydian merchants to monopolize the
commerce of that region and increase the wealth of the country and the riches
of its enterprising King by trade. The lesson of that, and all succeeding gold-
bearing regions, seems to be, that gold and silver have always been the stimu-
lants of enterprise and new discoveries.
Following down the history of mankind in connection with mines not a single
sign of wealth or prosperity is discovered attaching to the common man who
found a mine of any sort, until after the formation of the American Republic. The
reason of this is found in the laws of all countries, except those of the United
States, which made mines or deposits of minerals the property of the King,
Crown or Government. And for the same reason miners in all countries but our
own have been in many cases slaves. Men convicted of crime, or rebellion against
the established authority, would be sentenced to a life of servitude in govern-
ment mines—no matter whether the mines were of gold, silver, diamonds, salt,
copper, lead or iron. For a thousand years the salt mines of Cracow have been
alternately the work house and living tomb of unfortunate criminals or rebels
of Poland, Russia, Sweden, Bohemia, and Austria. The Spaniards sent their
487
488
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
own criminals to wear out their lives in the mines of Spain, and when short of
help boldly seized Protestant religionists in the Netherlands, or elsewhere, and
consigned them to a life of unpaid toil. And when they seized Mexico and Peru
they forced the harmless and inoffensive natives to toil in chains until life was
exhausted to produce silver for the Government of Spain. If there is any crime
against humanity that old Spain has not been guilty of history makes no record
of it.
One of the first questions of great importance which confronted the first states-
man of our Nation was the disposal of the public lands with, or without the min-
erals therein contained.
In the colonies before the Revolution the title to the common minerals passed
under the common law rule, to the owner of the soil; and the colonies, when they
entered the Federation retained control of these lands. But the mineral lands
owned by the United States after the Revolution were disposed of under three
statutes.
1. An Ordinance (May, 1785) entitled "An Ordinance for ascertaining the
mode of disposing of lands in the Western Territory," which was of the vaguest
character.
2. The Lode Law of 1866.
3. The General Mining law of 1872, known as the law of the apex.
There was substantially no mining done in the United States till the purchase
of Louisiana and the acquisition of the lead mines of Missouri, which had been
one of the most alluring baits of Law's Mississippi scheme. As a result of the
Louisiana purchase, a law was passed in 1807 to the effect that "the President
of the United States shall be and is hereby authorized to lease any lead mine
which has been or may hereafter be discovered in the Indian Territory for a
period not exceeding five years." The leasing of mineral lands was entrusted to
the War Department, but it did not impose on it a heavy burden till 1845, when,
after the extinction of the Michigan Indian titles in 1843, active mining com-
menced in the native copper deposits of Lake Superior. For two years only, sub-
sequently to 1845, the system of leasing was carried out. It was the system in-
herited from the mother country, and badly practised when applied on the large
scale by inexperienced officials.
In his interesting address to the American Institute of Mining Engineers on
"A Century of Mining,” Abraham S. Hewitt tells of the process by which the
leasing system was supplanted by the out-and-out purchase system:
"For a few years the rents were paid with tolerable regularity, but after
1834, in consequence of the immense number of illegal entries of mineral lands
at the Wisconsin land office, the smelters and miners refused to make any further
payments, and the Government was entirely unable to collect them. After much
trouble and expense, it was, in 1847, finally concluded that the only way was to
sell the mineral land, and do away with all reserves of lead or any other metal,
since they had only been a source of continual embarrassment to the department.
"Meanwhile, by a forced construction (afterward declared invalid) of the
same Act, hundreds of leases were granted speculators in the Lake Superior cop-
per region, which was from 1843 to 1846 the scene of wild and baseless excite-
ment. The bubble burst during the latter year; the issue of permits and leases
was suspended as illegal, and the Act of 1847, authorizing the sale of the min-
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
489
>>
eral lands and a geological survey of the district, laid the foundation of a more
substantial property."
The first mining excitement in the United States followed the first successful
effort to mine the metallic copper of Lake Superior, and as we have seen, the
result was the adoption of the sale in preference to the lease system. The next
modification of importance followed the rush for gold in California, then a re-
mote area, newly acquired by conquest and subsequent treaty. To meet local
exigencies, a mining code was framed by the miners, through methods curiously
illustrative of the working of popular institutions.
When Mexico succeeded in overthrowing the rule of the King of Spain, and
set up the Mexican Republic in 1821, one of the first acts of the new government
was to abolish Spanish titles and regulations of mines. Mexico was at that time,
and probably is yet, the richest country in mineral resources in the world. So
that when California was occupied by the United States the Mexican mining laws
were in force, and till 1849 the conquered province remained under military rule.
Colonel Mason, the governor, while still ignorant that the treaty of Guadaloupe
Hidalgo had been signed on February 2, issued the following proclamation from
Monterey on February 12, 1848 :
"From and after this date, the Mexican laws and customs now prevailing in
California relative to the denouncement of mines are hereby abolished."
"The legality of the denouncements which have taken place, and the posses-
sion obtained under them since, till the occupation of the country by the United
States forces, are questions which will be disposed of by the American Govern-
ment after a definite treaty of peace shall have been established between the two
Republics."
Without questioning the right of Colonel Mason to revoke arbitrarily the exist-
ing mining law, the miners obeyed, and framed rules and regulations, not only
for regulating the conduct of mining, but for the mode of acquiring the mines
themselves, although all of them were virtually trespassers on the public domain.
Hence arose the custom, afterward embodied in the United States statute,
of allowing miners to create a mining district and constitute themselves a legis-
lative body, whose rules and regulations, if not contrary to either Federal or
State or Territorial laws, have a binding obligation. These self-constituted legis-
lators in California followed the Mexican code so far as it applied to discovery
and development, but they introduced into their mining code a principle which
had no place in any modern mining statute. To them the ownership of the
surface was subsidiary to that of the lode, or quartz vein, which might happen
to crop out at any given spot. Therefore they conceded to the owner of the out-
crop the right to follow his discovery to any depth and under the “dip, spur,
and angle clause" of their amateur regulations, created extra-lateral rights
and introduced the law of the apex, which came to be the distinguishing feature
of the statutes passed in 1866 and 1872, and which has remained unaltered till
today. This anomalous law of the apex was apparently copied from an old cus-
tom confined to the High Peak district of Derbyshire, England, and probably in-
corporated in the California mining code at the suggestion of some English min-
ers. Judge Field, who was ultimately elevated to the Supreme Court of the United
States, but who had been one of the pioneers of California-an alcalde before the
admission of the State—a legislator in the first Assembly, and a state judge, thus
490
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
graphically describes the process by which these mining regulations were framed
by these early intelligent miners:
"The discovery of gold in California was followed, as is well known, by an
immense immigration into the State, which increased its population within three
or four years from a few thousand to several hundred thousand. The lands in
which the precious metals were found belonged to the United States, and were
unsurveyed and not open by law to occupation and settlement. Little was known
of them further than that they were situated in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
Into these mountains the emigrants in vast numbers penetrated, occupying the
ravines, gulches, and canyons, and probing the earth in all directions for the
precious metals. Wherever they went they carried with them that love of order
and system and of fair dealing which are the prominent characteristics of our
people. In every district which they occupied they framed certain rules for their
government, by which the extent of the ground they could severally hold for min-
ing was designated, their possessory right to such ground secured and enforced,
and contests between them either avoided or determined. These rules bore a
marked similarity, varying in several districts only according to the extent and
character of the mines; distinct provision being made for different kinds of min-
ing, such as placer mining, quartz mining, and mining in drifts and tunnels.
“They all recognized discovery, followed by appropriation, as the foundation
of the possessor's title, and development by working as the conditions of its reten-
tion. And they were so framed as to secure to all comers within practicable lim-
its absolute equality of right and privilege in working the mines. Nothing but
such equality would have been tolerated by the miners, who were emphatically
the law-makers, as respects mining, upon the public lands in the State. The first
appropriator was everywhere held to have, within certain well defined limits, a
better right than others to the claims taken up; and in all controversies, except
as against the Government, he was regarded as the original owner from whom
the title was to be traced.
These regulations and customs were ap-
pealed to in controversies in the State courts, and received their sanction; and
properties to the value of many millions rested upon them. For eighteen years,
from 1848 to 1866, the regulations and customs of miners, as enforced and molded
by the courts, and sanctioned by the legislation of the State, constituted the law
governing property in mines and in water on the public mineral lands."
The Argonauts not only carried to the west coast the habits of self-govern-
ment which were the heritage of the race, but carried them into practice with the
same independence and originality as characterize most of the legislation of the
State Legislatures.
27
THE GREAT DISCOVERY
The discovery of gold in California on the 19th of January, 1848, was one
of the greatest industrial events of the world. At first thought this seems to be
a very unfounded statement. But a careful survey of the whole field of enter-
prise, the commerce of the world, and the standard of living throughout the
United States, will show that the discovery of gold wrought a greater change in
the United States and the financial relations of this country to other nations
than any other fact or any other one hundred facts, subsequent to the inde-
pendence of these states.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
491
Up to the year 1848 the United States had possessed a very narrow metallic
base for a circulating medium. And what the country did possess was mostly
silver coin. Gold coin, the delight of kings and the sceptre of millionaires, was
exceeding scarce in the United States; and on this account the financial standing
of this country and the rating of its securities were practically at the mercy of
the Bank of England and the house of Rothschilds, which financial institutions
either possessed or controlled the great bulk of the gold coin of the world. When
the mines of California commenced to pour out their great flood of gold, every
line of business in the whole of the United States took on new life. And within
five years after this great discovery, there were more manufacturing establish-
ments started in the United States than had been for a generation before that
event. The banking institutions took on a new phase altogether. From secur-
ing circulating notes with deposits of state bonds, which were not payable in
gold, and of doubtful specie value on any liquidation of assets, the banks began
to accumulate gold. Gold begot confidence as nothing else ever had before, and
people more freely deposited their savings in banks. From a starving little near-
to-shore business, the banks were enabled to extend accommodations to manufac-
turers and producers of wealth. And railroads that had been for twenty years
creeping out slowly from Atlantic seaports to the Alleghany mountains, found
sale for their securities, pushed on over the mountains and out into the great
Mississippi valley, and on across the continent reaching Portland, Oregon, a quar-
ter of a century before they had expected to get to Chicago, under the old paper
money financiering days before the discovery of the gold. The flood of gold
changed the whole face of affairs, put new life into all business and commercial
undertakings, brought all the states and communities together under one single
standard of values, and pushed the United States to the front as the greatest
wealth-producing nation on the face of the earth.
And here Oregon comes to the front again. The discovery which lifted Amer-
ica above all nations, was made by an Oregonian. James W. Marshall, the dis-
coverer of gold in California, was an Oregonian. He came to Oregon in the immi-
gration of 1844, and not finding much to do here, went down to California two
years later. He was a handy sort of a man, could build a house, run a sawmill
or keep store. In California he made himself useful to the old pioneer, Capt.
Sutter, and was taken into Sutter's business as a partner, and was sent up from
Sacramento into the Sierra Nevada mountains to select a site and build a sawmill.
He selected the point at Coloma, on the south fork of the American river, and
built the mill. After turning on the water on his mill wheel, he had occasion to
go and look at the tail-race, and thereon the 19th of January, 1848, discovered
the shining particles of gold in the tail-race where the water had washed the
gold from the sand. Two other Oregonians who had been employed by Marshall
to help around, and build the mill-Charles Bennett, and Stephen Staats of Polk
County_were there at the mill, and were called to look at the gold in the water
and confirm the discovery.
The discovery spread like wildfire and gold seekers rushed in from all quar-
ters. But it was not known in Oregon until five months after the discovery.
And then the Oregonians went wild. Everybody that could get away, rushed to
California, and nobody was left but old men, boys and women folks. Two-thirds
of the Oregon men started for California. Only five men were left in Salem,
492
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
and only a few women, children and some Indians were left at Oregon City.
Pack trains were the first means to get to the gold fields; and after that a train
of fifty wagons started. The first account of the gold received in Oregon by sea
was on July 31, 1848. The little schooner Honolulu from San Francisco sailed in
over the Columbia bar and slowly beat her way up the river, and finally tied up to
an oak tree where the west end of the steel railroad bridge in Portland now stands.
The Captain of the schooner was in a hurry to discharge cargo and get away.
He made haste to load up with all the meat and flour his ship would carry and
then bought up all the picks, pans and shovels he could find in town. And when
he got everything aboard, he made known the news--and it spread as if by the
wireless telegraphy of sixty years later.
THE OREGON MINT AND BEAVER MONEY
The Oregon rush to California for gold resulted in bringing back within a
year unimaginable wealth. From poverty the Oregonians had leaped to great
riches at a single bound. The miners not only returned loaded down with gold
dust, but the few people that had remained in Oregon had got rich shipping down
to the mines their flour, beans, bacon and lumber. From a legal tender currency
of beaver skins and bacon sides, Oregonians were struggling with a currency of
gold dust. An ounce of gold dust was practically worth $16, but the Oregon mer-
chants would not take it for goods, for more than $11, while the Hudson Bay
Company, having some coined money, was buying up gold dust at $10 an ounce,
and shipping it to the mint in London. This condition of affairs caused the cir-
culation of a petition to the Oregon Provisional Government, setting forth that in
consequence of the neglect of the United States government, the people must
combine against the greed of the merchants; and the provisional government
must at once set up an Oregon mint to coin the gold dust into legal tender money.
It was represented as a basis of action that there was then in February, 1849,
$2,000,000 worth of gold dust ready to be coined. That was about six times as
much money per capita of the population as there is now, or ever has been since
1852. And prices of everything went up accordingly. Beef was ten to twelve
cents a pound on the block; pork sixteen to twenty cents; butter sixty-two cents
to seventy-five cents nearly double what it is today; flour was $14 per barrel;
potatoes $2.50 a bushel, and apples $10 a bushel.
The petition for the mint was favorably considered by the provisional legisla-
ture, and a bill was passed to authorize it and to coin money. Two members of
the legislature-Medorum Crawford and W. J. Martin voted against the measure
on the grounds that it was inexpedient and a violation of the constitution of the
United States. The acts provided for an assayer, melter and coiner, and an alloy
was forbidden in the money. Two pieces only were to be coined-one to weigh
five pennyweights, and one ten pennyweights, and both to be pure gold. The
coins were to be stamped on one side with the Roman figure V for the smaller coin,
and the other with the figure ten on one side. And on the reverse sides the
words "Oregon territory” with the date of the year around the face, with the
arms of Oregon in the center. The officers of this mint were James Taylor, di-
rector, Truman P. Powers, treasurer, W. H. Willson, melter and coiner and
George L. Curry, assayer. The mint succeeded in coining $50,000 of these coins

OF
76
u
No. 1-The Prospector Starting to Find a Mine
No. 3-Sinking a Hole to Bed-rock
No. 2-On the Trail to a New Mining Camp
No. 4—The Modern Gold Dredge
2
IV.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
493
before Governor Joseph Lane reached Oregon and closed it up. Nobody was
ever prosecuted for issuing this money, although it was a clear violation of the
constitution and laws of the United States.
But Governor Lane did not stop the coining of gold dust. Although the ter-
ritorial mint was closed up, the need of currency of certain value still remained.
And to supply that, a partnership was formed, called the “Oregon Exchange
Company,” which at once proceeded to coin gold on its own responsibility. The .
members of that company were: W. K. Kilborne, Theophilus Magruder, James
Taylor, George Abernethy, W. H. Willson, W. H. Rector, J. G. Campbell, and
Noyes Smith. Rector made the stamps and dies. The engraving was done by
Campbell. Rector acted as coiner, and no assaying was done. This company
coined about $55,000 worth of gold into two pieces to circulate as tokens of five
and ten dollars, respectively. This coinage raised the price of gold dust from
twelve to eighteen dollars an ounce, and saved a vast amount of money to the
honest miners. Engravings of the “beaver money", as this last coinage was
called, are shown on another page.
The general effect of the wealth of gold brought back from California was
beneficial to Oregon; yet in all too many instances it proved the ruin of many
men whose sudden rise to riches induced habits of profligacy and dissipation
from which they never recovered. Many men brought back as much as thirty
or forty thousand dollars washed out of the California streams within a year or
two; and then threw it away on idle dissipation, and had to start in again at the
bottom of the ladder encumbered with bad habits and remorseful regrets.
The discovery of gold in California powerfully influenced the future of
Oregon. Down to that time Oregon was in the lead of all settlement, discovery,
trade, commerce and population on the Pacific coast. All the people of all the
Eastern States who knew anything of, or cared anything for the Pacific Coast,
thought only of Oregon. Lewis and Clark's wonderful Expedition across the
Continent, Astor's settlement at Astoria, the wonderful emigration of the Pio-
neers across two thousand miles of mountains and deserts, the unique founding
of an American State in the Oregon wilderness, with its laws, armies, courts,
constitution, and twenty thousand people, the mighty Columbia river draining
half a continent, the vast forests, rich soil, mild climate and heroic Missionaries,
all separately and combined, united in giving Oregon such a standing and pres-
tige with Eastern people and the world as to have made this the leading Amer-
ican State of the Union west of the Mississippi river. But the discovery of gold
by Marshall flew upon the wings of the wind-north, south, east and west-and
in six months the fame of California had completely eclipsed pioneer Oregon.
and become the Mecca of the soldiers of fortune from the whole civilized world.
If the discovery of gold had not turned the tide of population to California,
the Columbia river valley, with Oregon as the controlling factor, would have
been developed by agriculture, fisheries, lumbering, ship building and city mak-
ing as the first unit of State building and Commerce on the Pacific Coast. The
riches of the gold mines in both California and Oregon, are but trifles now in
comparison with the wealth of Oregon annually taken from the soil in wheat,
wool, beef and fruit, or from the forests in lumber or from the rivers in fish, and
commerce. But the gold put California in the lead, and her people were wise in
time to develop wealth from the soil as well as from the mines.
494
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
THE DISCOVERY IN OREGON
As the continued discoveries of gold spread northward in California and
finally to Siskiyou county in that State it became necessary for the miners to get
a new base of supplies this side of the Sacramento Valley. To meet this state of
affairs pack trains of mules were put on the route, first between Scottsburgh on
the Umpqua river, and the mines, and then between the Willamette valley and
the mines. One of these pack trains owned by James Cluggage and James R.
Poole, camped for the night on the ground now covered by the town of Jackson-
ville; and after staking out their animals went in search of water up the little
gulch south of the present town known as Rich gulch. And here after scraping
out a hole to fill with water they saw a lot of placer gold. From this find they
extended their examination of the gulch, and finally to the nearby channel of
Jackson creek, and found plenty of gold wherever they examined these streams.
This discovery was made in 1851, and was the first discovery of paying gold
mines in Oregon. Prior to this date (1849) some Oregonians going down to the
California mines did find colors of gold at the old fort of Rogue River down below
the point where the town of Gold Hill is now located. But as it was not worth
working it was never reported as a discovery. After this discovery of gold,
Cluggage and Poole filed on land claims adjoining the gold discovery and laid out
the town of Jacksonville, and both became wealthy and influential citizens.
From this discovery on Jackson Creek, the discoveries rapidly extended east and
west until all the mountain regions of Jackson, Josephine and Curry Counties
had been thoroughly explored, and many millions of dollars taken out. Gold was
discovered first in Josephine County by a party of sailors who deserted their
ship at Crescent City on hearing of the discovery in the Rogue River valley, and
made their way across the mountains to the head waters of the Illinois river,
and commenced prospecting in the vicinity of the old mining camp of Waldo.
Here they struck “pay dirt,” and so rich as to attract many others to the place,
which from that date on went by the name of “Sailor Diggins.” And here in
Josephine County was organized the first mining district in Oregon; and of which
the following is a copy of their rules and regulations :
(Copy)
"OREGON'S FIRST MINING CODE
“Know all men by these Presents: That we, the miners of Waldo and Alt-
house in Oregon Territory, being in convention assembled for the purpose of
making rules to regulate our rights as miners, do hereby on the first day of
April, 1852, ordain and adopt the following rules and regulations to govern
this camp
“Resolved, 1st. That 50 cubic yards shall constitute a claim on the bed of
the creek extending to high water on each side.
“Resolved, 2nd. That forty feet shall constitute a bank or bar claim on the
face extending back to the hill or mountain.
“Resolved, 3rd. That all claims not worked when workable, after five days,
be forfeited or jumpable.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
495
'Resolved, 4th. That all disputes arising from mining claims shall be settled
by arbitration, and the decision shall be final.
"E. J. NORTHCUTT,
CHAIRMAN.'
Following the discoveries of gold in Jackson and Josephine Counties came
the discovery of the gold dust in the sea beach sands in Coos and Curry Coun-
ties. In 1853 there were more than a thousand men washing gold out of the
black sand along the sea shore south of Coos Bay. This gold is supposed to have
been washed down into the ocean by the coast rivers; and every big storm carried
back in a fresh lot of gold dust within the reach of the miner who has patience
enough to work the sands over often enough to get the gold dust out of them.
The first discovery of this sea beach gold was claimed to have been made by
some half-breeds in 1852 at the mouth of a creek a few miles north of Coquille
near where Randolph appears on the map. The gold was so very fine that the
use of a microscope was often necessary to detect it; but notwithstanding that,
with the use of quicksilver it could be recovered in paying quantities. Hundreds
of machines have been invented and patented to save that sea beach gold; and yet
none of them seems to have much advantage over the original methods of the
first miners using the quicksilver. The sand in which this sea beach gold is
found exists not only on the present day sea shore but is also found on the an-
cient sea shore line forty miles back in the interior on the upper Coquille river.
A very large deposit of this gold bearing sand was found on an ancient sea
shore line one and a half miles back of, and 180 feet above the level of the pres-
ent sea beach. Here the depth of the gold bearing sand varies from one to
twelve feet in a deposit that is from three to five hundred feet wide and covered
with a deposit of white sand showing not a particle of gold dust. The surface
of this deposit is covered with a dense forest; and the gold bearing black sand
contains trunks of trees of great size in a good state of preservation.
THE DISCOVERY IN EASTERN OREGON
Ten years after the discovery in Jackson County came the discovery on
Burnt river in Eastern Oregon. It came about in this wise. Undoubtedly the
first discovery of gold in Eastern Oregon was that which has passed into history
as the “Blue Bucket Mines. Of this discovery two versions are given. A
small party of immigrants were on their way from the Missouri river to the
Willamette valley, and was camped at some point which the first discoverer
(W. J. Herren) supposed to be on the upper branches of the Malheur river in
what is now Malheur county, in the year 1852. And while at this camp and
herding his cattle Herren picked up a piece of shining metal on the rocky bed
of the nearby creek, and carried it into camp as a curiosity. Another specimen
was found and brought to another wagon in the party. No one in the party
could tell what the metal was, and no one thought of it being gold, although the
pieces were hammered and flattended on a wagon tire. It was said these
nuggets were thrown into a tool chest and lost and forgotten. The other story
is as follows: That a train of immigrants after great trials and perils from In-
dians and hard travel came to a creek in that Malheur region where the leader
496
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
of the party died, and the party halted for a half day to give the man decent
burial. And while here a woman of the party took advantage of the stop, and
the water in the creek, to do some washing; and with her clothes and her buckets
she went down the little stream below the camp to do her work, taking her chil-
dren along with her. And while so engaged the children played and paddled
in the creek and picked up the pretty pebbles and threw them in a bucket-a
blue bucket-in which they were carried to the camp and examined by all the
party, hammered on a wagon tire, flattened out, and no one could tell what the
shining metal pebbles were; but years afterwards, and after the discovery of
gold in California, a sailor seeing one of the nuggets declared it to be gold.
These are the Blue Bucket stories. Now for their work on real gold miners.
Early in 1861, wonderful stories reached California miners of a great gold
discovery at Oro Fino, in Washington Territory. As a matter of fact there
was no such a place in that Territory at that time. But it served to attract
attention to new and wonderful “diggins,
diggins,” and to bring four men up to Port-
land, Oregon in seach of the wonderful mines. These four men were David
Littlefield, Henry Griffin, William Stafford, and G. W. Scriver—Mr. Littlefield
is still active in Baker county, and his likeness appears on another page. On
reaching Portland these men found the Oro Fino story to be a romance without
any foundation. But while walking the streets of Portland to find out the
facts of the case and take a new start they fell in with a man who had heard
the story of the “Blue Bucket Mines”, and was so full of it that he was confident
he could lead a party right to the spot where the gold could be picked up in
buckets full. This enthusiast, whose name was Adams, declared he had been
with the party of immigrants and knew just how to go to the “Blue Bucket"
find, and he produced three other men who vouched for him and corroborated
his story, declaring they had been with Adams when the Blue Bucket gold was
discovered. There were some valiant liars about Portland in those days. All
that Adams wanted was men, arms, and supplies enough to make the trip and
stand off the Indians. A party of fifty-three men in addition to the eight already
mentioned was soon formed, well armed and equipped, and on the way to the
Blue Mountains, to find the long lost "Blue Bucket." Leaving The Dalles
the party proceeded southeast crossing Des Chutes river at the old Emigrant
crossing, then' up that stream to Crooked River, then up Crooked River to its
headwaters near Wagon Tire mountain, then out on to the desert where the water
gave out, and Adams showed signs of being lost. To make a long and disagree-
able story short, it is enough to say, that the party wandered around for weeks
among the headwaters of Silvie's river, John Day river and finally reached
Malheur river and run up against the Strawberry Ranch. During all this dis-
appointment the curses against Adams and his three friends were both loud
and deep. Threats to kill him unless he found the mines within three days were
made; then one day only was given him; and then he was tried by a jury and
expelled from the camp under penalty of death if he returned. Littlefield and
his three friends saved the poor man's life from day to day because he worked
harder than any other man in the party. Littlefield secretly carried food to
the man after he had been expelled from the camp, and saved him from starva-
tion. Finally the party broke up, the great majority returning to the Willam-
ette valley. The four Californians and a few others then started on an inde-

On the left-DAVID LITTLEFIELD, still living
On the right-BRUCE GIBBS
DISCOVERED GOLD IN EASTERN OREGON—1861
OF
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
497
pendent prospecting expedition, and wandering through the mountains panning
the sand in every little stream, they finally crossed over the divide between
Burnt and Powder rivers, just above the old town of Auburn and coming down
Elk Creek they camped on the night of October 23, 1861, in a ravine which
they afterwards named Griffin gulch. Here Henry Griffin sunk a prospect hole
three feet deep to bed rock and struck the first gold found in Eastern Oregon-
not counting the Blue Bucket myth. From this discovery on Griffin gulch gold
discoveries were extended all over the Blue Mountains region. The question
may be asked, if there ever was such a discovery as the Blue Bucket find why
was it not found again. Hundreds of men have for many years searched for
those mines. There can be no doubt but what the Blue Bucket discovery has
been found and worked out long ago. The Blue Bucket find was probably in
Grant county in the Canyon City region, and the original finders of that gold
were simply lost on the trail west, hurrying through the country in fear of the
Indians, and for that reason could never go back and find the place again.
HOW THE GOLD POURED INTO PORTLAND
The columns of the Oregonian of the years 1861 and 62 are the best record
of the great gold hunting stampede to and successful hunt for gold in Eastern
Oregon that exists; and the columns of that paper are now freely used to fur-
nish the record of mining experiences and successes for this work. The follow-
ing extracts are taken without alteration or abbreviation and credited to the
Oregonian of 50 years ago. In estimating amounts of gold found the reader
will bear in mind that an ounce of miner's gold was worth sixteen dollars.
From the Oregonian, July 23, 1861:-There are now arriving in this city
by steamer, stage and private conveyance hundreds of miners on their way to the
mines. The Julia on Monday was crowded. We learn from persons from Yreka
that the exodus from Northern California is immense. Parties are constantly
going to the mines by way of Klamath Lake. The Red Bluffs Independent says
there is a perfect stampede from that section. Many from the Upper Willam-
ette go by the different roads across the Cascades. By the Julia last evening
$28,000 came down from the Nez Perces mines.
April, 1862:-The Mountaineer tells the story that a miner, while on his way
to Salmon river, struck rich diggings and that having no bag for his gathered
gold, he filled one of his India rubber boots with it and at the last date was filling
the other.
The steamers from San Francisco bring large numbers bound for the mines
and the overland stage comes every day loaded with miners. Besides, we have
reason to believe, that numbers of miners from California take the route east
of the mountains to Walla Walla. There will probably be nearly or about 5,000
persons at the mines by October. Tracy & Company brought down last night,
per steamer Julia, $12,000 in gold dust.
December 4, 1861 :—Walla Walla News-A man by the name of Wiser,
from Benton County, took out $5,000 in two days in Baboon Gulch, Salmon
river diggings.
The Washington Statesman made its first appearance at Walla Walla on
Friday 1st.
Provisions are very high at Oro Fino. Flour 30 cents per pound; bacon, sugar
and apples, 50 cents per pound.
Vol. 1–32
498
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Nine men, packers, came down on the Julia with from $50,000 to $60,000 in
hand, the result of their summer's work in the mines. Tracy & Co.'s express
brought down $45,000. The whole amount which was brought down by the
Julia was about $150,000.
October 28th, 1861:-On the 13th inst. as Crayton, Bledsoe, D. C. Cole-
man, and others seven in all, had reached about eight miles on the Salmon River
trail, beyond the Cold Springs, they were stopped by Eagle of the Light with
a party of about 60 men, 40 of whom were Snake Indians and the balance Nez
Perces. Eagle of the Light positively forbid them to cross his country, and
threatened death if they persisted, and declared that he was going to drive all
the whites out of his country. Crayton who spoke Nez Perces somewhat argued
with him for an hour, but to no purpose. The Indian's determination was fixed.
Whereupon the party returned a short distance and camped to wait for the
miners to come up so that their force would be strong enough to push their way
through. Since that time I have not heard that the party has moved.
From the Oregonian of March 31, 1862:-H. Miller writes to the Walla
Walla Statesman under date of Florence, January 14:
“Scarcely a miner here would stay by a clạim if he were not sure that it
would pay him $25,00 a day in good weather. During the Fall, when rockers
could be used to advantage instances of miners making from $300 to $500 a day
were common and less than $50 was not spoken of. As high as 140 ounces a
day have been taken out.
"The body of a man was found a short time ago on Camas prairie partially
devoured by the wolves. No doubt Spring will disclose the bodies of many who
have perished there."
A party of roughs recently attempted to trample on the mining laws in
Florence in a disputed claim affair when suddenly about 200 resolute men
armed with rifles and shotguns came down upon them unawares and immediately
put a stop to their malicious designs.
January 31, 1862:- A letter from Florence, Salmon River, dated Decem-
ber 22, to the Mountaineer, contains this interesting item:
"Another rich claim has been opened by Messrs. Wilson & Tolly on Summit
Flat near town, in which two men with a rocker are averaging from 75 to 100
ounces per day. Warren & Co., are also doing well about 50 yards from here,
making about $100 to $500 per day to the man and others doing nearly as well.
Claims that pay from $20 to $50 per day to the man sell for $300 to $500. Flour
is selling at from 50 to 75 cents; bacon, 75 cents to $1, and good supply on hand.
Weather very cold, and tonight snow is falling fast; it is now about two and
one-half feet deep. Yet pack trains are arriving daily and there is no fear of
scarcity of provisions this Winter.
Mr. Wiser of Yamhill, is a successful miner. Last Fall with two others, he
purchased a gold claim on the Salmon river, for which the company agreed to
pay $6,000. They worked the claim two months, and his part of the gains was
$12,000. He left the claim with his partners, who will work it this Winter, if
they can, and at any rate keep off trespassers. He estimates that the claim will
be worth to each of the partners at least $100,000.
From Mr. L. Day, Tracy & Co.'s express messenger, who arrived last night
on the Julia, we learn that he brought $30,000 in gold dust; also that news had
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
499
been received from Powder River that diggings had been struck at that locality
paying from 10 to 20 ounces per day to the hand, and that the gold is very
coarse, much resembling the California stock.
THE DALLES, February 6, 1862.
“Mr. Jones arrived yesterday with the express all right. Seven men arrived
last evening from Walla Walla, part of them with feet badly frozen. They left
Mr. Brown of Walla Walla on the road between John Day's and the Deschutes,
exhausted. They buried him alive in the snow, but with both feet frozen.
Messrs. Palmer and Hatchet went from Deschutes to his assistance, but returned
last evening without find him. Brown had about 30 pounds of gold dust with
him. The party left William Albright at John Day's with 450 express letters
and 70 pounds of dust.
Mr. Jones left here this evening with two men to bring the express through
and if possible, to find and bring in Mr. Brown. This man is of the firm of
Brown & Stanifore.
“A party arrived this evening from Grande Ronde. One of them found
Brown on the road and slept with him all night (4th) left him at 10 A. M., (5th)
buried in the snow and alive, but unable to use his feet at all. There are reports
of others frozen on the road, but none definite. No snow in Grande Ronde Val-
ley. Frozen men all doing well. Moody will have all the toes of his right foot
taken off tomorrow by Dr. H. L. Roberts."
Mr. Schriver, from the Grande Ronde, as late as the 12th of January, brings
a letter from which are made these extracts:
"All the settlers in here now live at one place, for protection from the Snakes.
There are five log houses here, ten men, two women, and eight children, who
comprise all the actual settlers in the valley. Ten or twelve men are wintering
at the Powder River mines, to be ready for operations in the Spring. I have seen
good prospects from there. Mr. Coffin, of Portland is going to build a mill here.
They have got the millsite taken up and some improvements on it.'
“Walla Walla-Great distress exists here on account of the severity of the
weather. A number of the stores and saloons are closed, for the reason that the
proprietors are unable to procure wood to keep them warm. Wood is selling at
$30.00 per cord; flour $24.00 per barrel; board $15 per week, and other things
in proportion.
All along the road between the Dalles and Walla Walla provisions are almost
exhausted. On the Umatilla and at Willow Creek the settlers are living exclu-
sively on beef, and must continue to do so until relief can be sent to them from
The Dalles.
January 20, 1862:—From the Mountaineer extra of January 20th: On Mon-
day last, about noon, John James, Esq., in charge of Tracy & Co.'s express, ar-
rived at The Dalles, bringing with him 300 pounds of treasure and a large
number of letters. From Mr. James we learn many particulars of the ill-starred
trip in which Jagger, Allphin, and Davis lost their lives and so many others suf-
fered untold horrors.
On Sunday morning, January 12, Messrs. James Gay, W. H. Moody, F. M.
Allphin, and Pat Davis started out to reach the Deschutes on foot. After in-
credible suffering the first two succeeded in reaching their destination. The party
had not made more than four miles from the John Day when Mr. Allphin gave
500
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
out and lay down by the side of the trail. Mr. Davis proceeded probably a mile
further, when he became exhausted and turned back. Neither of these men have
since been heard from and the probabilities are that they died that night.
On Wednesday, January 15, Messrs. J. Mulkey, T. S. Jeffries, H. Wellington,
Wm. Riddle, Dougal McDonald, J. E. Glover, C. Nichols, H. S. Niles, and I. E.
Jagger left John Days for the Deschutes. They were out two days and two
nights. Jagger was the first one of his party that gave out. He was left on
the road, about 15 miles from the Deschutes, and, although not frozen, was utterly
exhausted. Mr. Wellington, the last man, left him at daybreak on the 16th.
Of this party Niles is the only one that escaped uninjured. Messrs. Riddle and
Jeffries are frozen all over, and the balance suffered greatly in their hands, feet
and ears. Jagger, without doubt, has perished.
“Gold,-many hunted; sweat, bled and died for gold.''
"The Days of old, the days of Gold
Have passed away as a tale that is told;
But their memory dear will linger still,
And brighter grow down life's long hill.
In forty-nine, and the days of old,
You dug your wealth from the Mountains bold,
But the days of old, and the days of Gold,
Have passed away, as a tale that is told."
The foregoing is the history of primitive placer mining in Oregon. After the
shallow placers were worked out by pans, rockers, and sluices, then came the
larger operators with hydraulic pipes, giants, reservoirs and long canals to bring
in water to wash down vast deposits of gold bearing gravel in hills and bench
deposits. And after that came the last and most perfect work of man's inventive
ability to find and reclaim the grains of gold from mother earth—the power
dredge. This aggregation of steam power, dredges, elevators, rockers and screens
floating boatlike in a channel excavated by the great machine itself is now at
work not only in Oregon but all over the world wherever placer gold is found in
quantities which justifies the expenditure of building a dredge that may cost fifty
or one hundred thousand dollars.
After the shallow placers were exhausted the miners' turned their attention
to the discovery of the sources from which the placers were fed—the veins of
gold bearing quartz in the hills. Much money has been expended in Oregon in
sinking shafts, running tunnels and building mills to crush the gold bearing rock
that has been lost because the vein deposits would fail, the ore prove refractory,
or too poor to work at a profit. The greatest discovery, and one which has enabled
miners to work over at a profit piles of tailings from abandoned mines and quartz
mills, and work low grade and refractory ores, is what is called the “Cyanide
Process."
This was simply the use of the chemical known as the Cyanide of
Potassium (a deadly poison) to recover fine particles of gold, and gold allied
with various minerals that would not give it up to any other re-agent. The cyan-
ide process of saving fine gold in quartz mill treatment was invented, discovered
and proved at Glasgow, Scotland, in 1888; and was practically proved and devel-
oped at the Crown Mines at Karangahake in Australia in the year 1889. Thomas
Melville, an old Auckland Australian resident, floated the Crown Mines Company
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
501
in Glasgow, and after doing so, in company with some of his shareholders they
tested the new Cyanide process discovery in a small way, and found it so success-
ful that it was then adopted at the Crown mine mills in Australia; and from that
beginning it spread all over the world wherever there were gold mines.
Besides the Southern and Eastern Oregon mines noticed above, gold has been
found in the State in many other places, the largest and most promising deposits
being at the Bohemia mines in Lane County. Here a large amount of money
has been expended not only on the mines, but on wagon roads and a railroad to
cheapen transportation; and the prospects are that one of the largest gold mines
will be developed here.
Gold has also been found at the head of the Clackamas river in Clackamas
County, at the head of the Nehalem river in Tillamook County, on the Chewaucan
mountain in Lake County, and gold, silver and lead have been found in the
Cascade Range on the headwaters of the North Santiam river in Marion County.
The most beautiful specimens of wire-natural wire gold, in the world is found
in these last named mines.
METAL PRODUCTION IN OREGON
+
In Oregon, according to Charles G. Yale, of the U. S. Geological Survey, the
total value of the mine production of gold, silver, and copper in 1910 was $700,-
676, against $827,001 in 1909, which, however, also included the value of the
lead produced in that year. The ore treated in 1910 was 82,132 short tons, against
59,281 tons in 1909. The production of gold decreased from $781,964 in 1909
to $679,488 in 1910; that of silver increased from 27,827 oz. valued at $14,470,
to 35,978 oz. valued at $19,428 ; that of copper fell off from 235,000 lb. valued at
$20,550, to 13,861 lb. valued at $1760; and that of lead declined from 400 lb. in
1909 to nothing in 1910. Baker County led in gold production with an output
of $401,002, mostly from deep mines, followed by Josephine with $150,048 from
both placer and deep mines. All of the copper production and 29,835 oz. of the
silver output also came from Baker County, whose output of gold, silver and
copper was valued at $418,873 in 1910. The combined gold output from south-
western Oregon in 1910 was $209,324, of which $130,103 was placer gold. The
placer gold output of this region decreased $55,149 in 1910. The mines of north-
eastern Oregon produced $470,164 in gold in 1910 of which the placer yield was
$40,822 and the deep-mine yield $429,342. The placers of this region showed
an increase of $4,756 in 1910 and the deep mines a decrease of $42,311. The
total number of active mines shows little change, but some of the larger ones
have become less productive. The hydraulic mines are the most productive
placers and their number is the greatest. The deep mines of the state are yield-
ing large quantities of milling ore, but the grade of ore worked has declined
nearly one-half. Baker County is still the largest producer of gold. It has
about 50 or 60 producing mines about half of which are placers.
OTHER MINERAL DEPOSITS
Besides gold, Oregon has promising deposits of cement, copper and soda, all
of which are now in a fair way for successful development. The cement deposits
502
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
of Baker county have been taken up by practical manufacturers of cement, and
active work to develop the deposits over a large scale is now organized. Of the
copper deposits in Baker and Josephine Counties regular shipments of ore or
matte has been going on for some time. And of the deposits of soda in Lake
County, the state has leased the Summer Lake deposit to a California Company,
while the Oregon Borax Company is now at work to develop the deposits in
Alkali Lake in the same County.
There are many Salt Springs in the State but they have never been utilized
on a commercial basis.
The discovery of paying mines has been a powerful factor in the settlement
and upbuilding of the state. In the first place it settled the Indian question in
both Southern and Eastern Oregon. The gold miners were a very positive
lot of people. All they asked was to be let alone to dig gold; and when the
Indians would not agree to that proposition the tug of war came. Either the
gold miners must go, or the Indian must go—and it was the Indian that had
to go. In the second place the mines furnished a reliable currency on which to
do business, and plenty of it; and that started the wheels of commerce, built
the steamboats on the Columbia, gave Oregon's chief city its first substantial
and enduring start as the commercial metropolis of the Columbia river valley.
In the third place, the mines gave many a hard pressed farmer the means to
pay off his debts and to build a comfortable home and improve his farm. In the
fourth place it gave a start to the towns in the mining regions, like Jackson-
ville, Baker, La Grande and The Dalles. All these towns, and many others,
got their start on gold miners' gold, and they have been powerful agents in or-
ganizing society, building school houses, churches, highways and all the means
of improving the country and inviting settlements. The gold miners gold was
a positive and enduring benefit and blessing to the State. Therefore, comfort,
and good health to the hardy old prospector and miner; and may his days be
long in the land that his courage and toil reclaimed from barbarism and deliv-
ered over to civilization.
CHAPTER XIX
1843-1911
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS THE FIRST FERRY AND CANAL-THE FIRST MAIL CAR-
RIERS—THE FIRST STEAMBOATS--THE FIRST EXPRESS LINES—THE FIRST TELE-
GRAPH-THE FIRST RAILROADS
The work of internal improvements in Oregon commenced in the Legisla-
tion of the Provisional Government on June 22, 1844. The first propositions
were for grants of franchises to John McLoughlin, to Hugh Burns, and to
Robert Moore to establish a ferry across the Willamette river at Oregon City.
Burns being the owner of a townsite on the west side of the river succeeded in
getting the franchise.
At the same time an effort was made to give McLoughlin a franchise to con-
struct a Canal and Locks around the Falls in the river. This proposition was
renewed from time to time in favor of McLoughlin, but never adopted. The
same proposition was afterwards in different Legislatures revived from time
to time but never passed until 1872 when an Act was passed by the legislature
giving to a Corporation controlled by Bernard Goldsmith and Joseph Teal, a
state subsidy of $200,000, and the necessary legal rights to prosecute the work.
Under that Act the Canal was built and has been operated down to the present
time, developing an enormous water power in the interest of private manufac-
turing corporations, as well as electrical power generation. To get rid of those
franchises given away by the State Legislature and made valuable by a gift of
State money, and make the - Canal free to all common carriers, the State and
National Governments has been compelled to pay the private corporation over
a half million dollars, getting nothing for the money but the Canal, and leaving
in the hands of the private corporations the water power rights of much greater
value than the Canal. A lot of inexperienced old ladies, or ten year old chil-
dren could certainly have done better for the State than the Governors and
Legislators that represented the State in this stupid, if not criminal manage-
ment of the public interests.
The first wagon road proposed in the Provisional Legislature was on June
24th, 1844, when Mr. Lovejoy presented a petition from residents of Yamhill
asking for the location and construction of a road from the Yamhill river south
to the forks of the Willamette, about one hundred miles.
The first carriers of letters or mail generally, were private persons acting
independently of any government authority and charging their own rates for
the service; the usual charge for carrying a letter from Southern Oregon to
California was fifty cents. After the gold mines was discovered in Eastern
Oregon, private persons engaged in carrying the mail, and they were however
. 503
504
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
soon superseded by the messengers of the Express Companies carrying both
mail and gold dust. The first mail carriers in the Willamette valley usually
started from Oregon City going up one side of the valley and down the other
side distributing their mail from house to house, or leaving it at central points
with the pioneer storekeepers.
The first mails carried by authority of the United States in Oregon was in
the closing months of 1847. Hugh Burns had been executing a contract with
the Provisional Government in 1846 to carry the mail every six months from
Oregon to Weston, Missouri, for fifty cents for each single letter sheet; and other
persons had in much the same way been carrying letters to parts of the Willam-
ette valley and down to Astoria. But the authority of the Provisional Gov-
ernment was merely nominal. In 1847 the U. S. Postal Department appointed
John M. Shively Special Postal Agent for Oregon, and he thereupon advertised
and let contracts to carry the U. S. Mails from Oregon city to Astoria, and from
Oregon City to Marysville, which is now known as Corvallis.
The next enterprise after the mail carriers, and even ante-dating them some-
what was the transportation on the rivers by little boats propelled by sails or
oars as the necessity of the case required. There was a regular line of these
public carriers between Oregon City and Fort Vancouver; and at all times
boatmen could be hired for special service to carry freight or passengers.
THE FIRST STEAMBOATS
Out of the sail boat traffic grew the necessity for larger accomodations, and
the ambition of the townsite proprietors soon formulated the scheme for the first
steamboat. For the supremacy and to be first on the water with a steam pro-
pelled craft, Astoria and Milwaukie were rivals. Oregon City, Vancouver and
Portland were even larger and more pretentious towns; but Astoria and old Mil-
waukie had the superior energy and courage for the venture.
There has been a great deal of discussion as to whom was due the credit for
building and operating the first American steamboat on the rivers of Oregon. As
the man is still living in Portland who knows all about this history, we will give
his story of the whole matter and settle the question for all time.
As to the building of the old Lot Whitcomb, Jacob Kamm can truthfully say
"all of which I saw, and a part of which I was. The Lot Whitcomb was
launched at the town of Milwaukie, six miles above Portland on Christmas day,
1850, now sixty-two years ago. In his notice of the early steamboats, Judge Strong
seems to think that the Columbia, a boat projected by General Adair, and built
at upper Astoria in 1850, was the first boat. But that fact can't be well decided
between the two contestants for the honor, as both boats were built in the same
year, and there is no accessible evidence showing which boat"took to the water"
first. Strong says that the mechanics building the Columbia were paid sixteen
dollars a day for their work, and the common laborers handling lumber were paid
from five to eight dollars a day in gold dust. They certainly fared better than
the men working on the Whitcomb, for they got no pay until the boat was run-
ning and earning something, and then they had to take pay in wheat, and farm-
ers produce, and convert it into cash or "store pay” as best they could.
The history of the Lot Whitcomb is mixed up with the struggle between

G
OVERLAND STAGE
Type of the Early Sixties Before the Railroad-Eight Hundred Miles by Stage Coach from Salt Lake to the Columbia River
Zo
2
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
505
rival towns for the location of the future city. Mr. Lot Whitcomb, one of the most
energetic and ambitious men of early Oregon pioneer days, had located his land
claim on the present site of the town of Milwaukee in 1847, and with the aid of
Captain Joseph Kellogg, who arrived in the fall of 1848, started in to build
a city. He had got together enough machinery to build a little saw mill, and
was shipping little “lots” of lumber to the embryo town of San Francisco,
in '49 and '50; the profits on which were so large, that he was enabled to
buy the old bark Lausanne that had brought the fifty-two Methodist mis-
sionaries out here. In the Lausanne were a pair of engines and all the
necessary machinery for a steamboat. These engines had evidently been sent
out in the bark from New York, for the express purpose of building a steam-
boat on the Willamette or Columbia rivers, and had been forgotten, or over-
looked as not necessary to the Methodist mission; and so Whitcomb looked
upon his "find” in the bottom of the ship as an act of Providence to enable him
to build a steamboat, and with her aid annihilate the pretensions of the little
town of Portland. Whitcomb lost no time in getting those engines to Milwaukie
and made all possible haste to build his boat. He had taken time by the fore-
lock and hunted up a man at Sacramento, California, that was qualified to build
a steamboat. That man he found in the person of a young man named Jacob
Kamm, who was born in Switzerland, and coming to the United States and to St.
Louis had learned the business of an engineer on the Mississippi river steamboats
from the bottom up, and had his papers to show his qualifications. Whitcomb at
once engaged Mr. Kamm, and brought him to Oregon to put up the engines and
boilers, and put all the machinery in the boat.
This was a great opening for the young engineer, and Jacob Kamm was the
man to fully appreciate it and make the most of his opportunity. Young, am-
bitious to succeed, industrious, frugal, and thoroughly conscientious in the dis-
charge of every duty, and in protecting and promoting the interests of his em-
ployer, he won the confidence of everybody, and his fortune was made in the
good name and good standing he secured from this first employment in Oregon.
So that from that time on Jacob Kamm never lacked employment at the highest
wages, nor friends, nor chances to get ahead in the battle of life.
While Mr. Kamm was entrusted with the most important work of putting in
and operating the machinery of the new boat, Mr. W. L. Hanscom was employed
to build the hull and cabin. All hands worked together with a hearty good will
to complete the boat and make the best showing possible; although the reputed
owners, Lot Whitcomb and Berryman Jennings, were in such straitened circum-
stances as to be scarcely able to pay the board bills of the men; having expended
all their means to the purchase of the engines and machinery. The boat was prac-
tically finished and launched on Christmas day, 1850. Wm. Henry Harrison
Hall was employed as pilot, Jacob Kamm as engineer, while the builder, Hanscom,
acted as master in running the boat until she was paid for and the necessary
papers issued by the collector of customs at Astoria. No authority from the gov-
ernment could be had to run the boat until the evidence was filed in the custom
house that the men who built the boat had all been paid. Here was a veritable
“snag” right in front of the first steamboat that was about as bad as a hole
in her bottom. The collector of customs might wink at some violation of law,
and allow Hanscom and Kamm to run her up and down the Willamette, and over
to Vancouver, and down to St. Helens, but the Whitcomb must not dare to venture
506
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
down to the Astoria custom house without the receipts in full of all labor, machin-
ery and material bills. Some high financing had to be done, and done quickly.
So Whitcomb and Jennings formed a syndicate the first syndicate in Oregon-
and got Abernethy to head the paper, and then circulated it among the wheat
growing farmers up in the valley and they subscribed dollars payable in wheat;
and finally enough cash and farmers' produce was put into the syndicate to pay
for Oregon's first steamboat; Hanscom took cash as far as it would go, and wheat
for the balance; Kamm took wheat and sold it to the Oregon City merchants
and finally everybody that had a dollar against the boat got their pay; Hanscom
ran her down to Astoria, filed a clear bill of health on the creditors' account,
and General Adair issued the authority to run on the Willamette and Columbia
rivers; and the Lot Whitcomb took the head of the fleet of the hundreds of steam-
boats that have followed in her wake; and John C. Ainsworth was appointed her
first master.
As population increased, business on the rivers increased, and became more
remunerative, while the stimulus of the greater business in the future incited
others to try their luck at steamboating which has always been an attractive pur-
suit in new countries, where there were navigable rivers. Other boats were pro-
jected and built.
On December 29, 1860, there being at that time no law under which a cor-
poration could be organized in Oregon, J. C. Ainsworth, P. F. Bradford, S. G.
Reed and R. R. Thompson applied to the legislature of Washington territory and
procured a charter incorporating said persons and their associates in the name
of the “Oregon Steam Navigation Company.” These men were at that time
owners of several steamboats, plying on the Columbia river from Portland to
Lewiston in Idaho and from Portland to Astoria; and also owners of a port-
age railroad around the Cascades of the Columbia. And after so incorporating
the Company proceeded to build a railroad 14 miles long on the portage to pass
The Dalles rapids and falls of the Columbia. These portage railroads thus
constructed in connection with the steamboats owned by the Company, gave to
that Corporation a practical monopoly of all the business on the great river, and
constituted the first great transportation monopoly in Oregon. Under the first
organization, the stockholders were R. R. Thompson, 120 shares; Ladd & Til-
ton, 80; T. W. Lyles, 76; L. W. Coe, 60; Jacob Kamm, 57; J. C. Ainsworth, 40;
A. H. Barker, 30; S. G. Reed, 26; Benjamin Stark, 19; Josiah Myrick, 12;
Richard Williams, 7; J. W. Ladd, 4; G. W. Pope, 4; J. M. Gilman, 4; George
W. Hoyt, 3; 532 shares at $500 a share, making $266,000. On October 18, 1862,
the company was reorganized under the general incorporation law of Oregon
with the following shareholders: Bradford & Co., 738 shares; R. R. Thompson,
672; Harrison Olmstead, 558; Jacob Kamm, 354; L. W. Coe, 336; T. W. Lyles,
210; J. C. Ainsworth, 188; A. H. Parker, 160; S. G. Reed, 128; Ladd & Tilton,
78; Josiah Myrick, 66; Richard Williams, 48; A. H. Grenzebach, 52; J. W,
Ladd, 48; J. M. Gilman, 44; P. F. Doland, 42; E. J. Weekes, 42; S. G. Reed
Agent, 40; J. W. Ladd Agent, 40; Joseph Bailey, 36; 0. Humason, 34; J. S.
Ruckle, 24; George W. Hoyt, 18; Ladd & Tilton, 16; J. H. Whittlesey, 8; making
a total of 3,988 shares of the nominal value of $1,994,000. As an illustration of
the earning power of the boats at the rates charged for freight, fares and other
services, the following transcript is taken from the company's books at The Dalles :
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
507
For the steamboat Col. Wright, for March 27, 1862.
For the steamboat Co. Wright, for March 28, 1862.
For the steamboat Col. Wright for March 31, 1862
For'the steamboat Tenino, for April 9, 1862
For the steamboat Okanagon, for April 11, 1862
For the steamboat Okanogan, for April 15, 1862.
For the steamboat Okanogan, for April 18, 1862
For the steamboat Tenino, for April 22, 1862..
For the steamboat Okanogan, for April 25, 1862 .
For the steamboat Tenino, for April 27, 1862.
For the steamboat Tenino, for April 29, 1862 .
For the steamboat Tenino, for May 5, 1862.
For the steamboat Okanogan, for May 11, 1862.
For the steamboat Tenino, for May 13, 1862.
For the steamboat Okanogan, for May 17, 1862.
For the steamboat Okanogan, for May 26, 1862....
$2,625.00
2,446.00
1,570.00
1,405.00
3,540.00
1,622.30
1,020.00
3,232.00
3,630.00
3,289.00
2,595.00
6,780.00
2,145.00
.10,945.00
2,265.00
6,615,00
These daily receipts were for up the river passenger tickets only in the gold
fever rush to the mines of that year, and were the daily sum total for freight,
passenger fares, meals and drinks at the bar. On single up trip of the Tenino
took in $18,000.00.
The rates of freight charged were all the traffic would bear;" and for meas-
urement tons, were
From Portland to The Dalles, 121 miles, per ton.
From Portland to Umatilla, 217 miles, per ton.
From Portland to Wallula, 240 miles, per ton..
From Portland to Lewiston, 407 miles, per ton..
.$10.00
20.00
25.00
40.00
Passenger Charges
Portland to The Dalles
Portland to Umatilla
Portland to Lewiston
..$ 5.00
10.00
20.00
.
Owing to the high rates, opposition boats were started from time to time on
both the Columbia and Willamette rivers; the most noteworthy of which was the
People's Transportation Company in 1862. This company was organized by C. D.
Kingsley, David McCully, Leonard White, Stephen Coffin and S. T. Church;
of which Coffin was president, A. C. R. Shaw, treasurer, and Church, secretary.
This company maintained its existence against the big monopoly doing a fair busi-
ness and serving the people of the Willamette valley well for nearly twelve years,
and then sold out to Ben Holladay, who will be noticed further along.
By 1871, the Northern Pacific Railroad was in the zenith of its prosperity
and desired to use the Oregon Steam Navigation Company facilities in connec-
tion with their enterprise. They proposed to purchase a control of the Oregon
Steam Navigation Company stock, and invited an interview with an authorized
committee from the Oregon Steam Navigation Company to meet in New York
City. Mr. Thompson and Mr. Ainsworth were appointed with authority to
sell. They met the company in New York, and after much talk and frequent
1
508
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
6
disagreements, they effected the sale of three-fourths of the capital stock of
the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, at the rate of $2,000,000 for the whole,
taking one-half of the amount in N. P. R. R. Company bonds at par and giv.
ing easy time for money payments. The old owners of the company retained
one-fourth of the stock and continued in the management, so they considered
that they had made a good sale, but subsequent events proved it to be a mistake.
Through the failure of Jay Cooke & Company, in 1873, the Northern Pacific
was forced into liquidation and the bonds that the Oregon Steam Navigation
Company directors still held and could have sold for cash at ninety cents, drop-
ped to ten cents. The three-fourths of the capital sold to the Northern Pacific
passed into the hands of the bankrupt estate of Jay Cooke & Company, and
here it remained locked up for a long time. This failure served to shrink
values all over the United States. The result was that Oregon Steam Naviga-
tion Company stock went down in the crash with other stocks. A plan was
adopted by the trustees of the estate of Jay Cooke & Company to pay its creditors
in kind. Each creditor accepting the proposition received fourteen per cent of
his claim in Oregon Steam Navigation Company stock at forty per cent of
its par value. This, as the creditors slowly and reluctantly came forward
to accept, began to throw Oregon Steam Navigation Company stock on the
Philadelphia and New York markets. Parties taking it knew nothing about
it, and offered it at once for sale, and as they were ignorant of its value, the
Portland directors were not slow in improving this opportunity to buy back
a sufficient amount as would again give them control. Some of it was pur-
chased as low as thirteen cents and the average cost of enough to give control
was about twenty cents on the dollar, so in the end, covering a period of about
five years, they found themselves the owners of the large majority of the stock
at about half the amount they had sold for.
In 1879, Mr. Villard came to Oregon with the avowed purpose of purchas-
ing the Oregon Steam Navigation Company property, or commencing opposition.
He asked J. C. Ainsworth whether he and his associates were willing to sell. Mr.
Ainsworth refused to take less than $5,000,000. An inventory of the company's
property was made, together with a statement of the earnings for several years,
with an offer to sell 50,320 shares at par. The directors thought it was too big
a deal for Mr. Villard but he considered it a bargain. His plan was to form a
new company, the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company, with a capital
stock of $6,000,000 and an issue of $6,000,000 of six per cent bonds. He got
an option till October 1st, by paying $100,000 in cash, which called for 40,320
shares of stock at par, to pay fifty per cent cash, twenty per cent bonds and
thirty per cent stock. He allowed $1,000,000 stock and $1,200,000 in bonds
for the Oregon Steamship Company, and $2,000,000 stock and $2,500,000 bonds
to raise the cash required for Ainsworth. Leaving $1,800,000 stock and $1,500,-
000 bonds for the purchase of thirty-five miles of Walla Walla railroad and
Willamette Valley Transportation & Lock Company. $1,200,000 stock and
$800,000 bonds were reserved for new steamers. He submitted his plans to Jay
Gould, but got a cool reception. He therefore laid the proposition before his
friends in the east. His plan was to unite all the transportation facilities in
Oregon. He asked his friends to join in exchanging Oregon Steamship for
Oregon Railroad & Navigation Company securities, and to subscribe for the
i

UN,
OF
M
THE LAST STAGE COACH ON THE OREGON AND CALIFORNIA LINE PULLING OUT FROM BARRON'S ROAD HOUSE
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
509
required cash payments for bonds at ninety with a bonus of seventy per cent in
stock. He received a prompt response. Thus the Oregon Railroad & Navigation
Company grew out of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, and the Oregon
Steam Navigation Company, after a score of years of prosperity unparalleled in
the annals of steam navigation, passed out of existence in 1879. The Oregon
Railroad & Navigation Company was incorporated June 13, 1879, with a capi-
talization of $6,000,000, divided into $100 shares. Mr. Villard was president.
The reference to Jay Gould above revives the story circulated at the time
that when the United States was proceeding by judicial proceedings in the
United States district court to appropriate a right of way for the canal at the
Cascades, and the Oregon Steam Navigation Company was resisting the pro-
ceeding that David P. Thompson, who had no love for the Oregon Steam Naviga-
tion Company, sat by and listened to the testimony of Captain Ainsworth, and
prompted the government attorneys to compel Ainsworth to tell about all the im-
mense profits of the company. And that after getting it on record, Thompson sent
the figures to Villard, who telegraphed a sensational story to the western papers
saying that the Union Pacific Railroad, which Gould then controlled, would im-
mediately take steps to extend its road to the Columbia river, and down to Port-
land, thereby expecting and intending to buy the 0. S. N. Company for a song.
But, that after Gould had thus flushed the game, Villard scurried around Wall
Street, got cash from other parties and rushed to Oregon and bought out Ains-
worth & Company before Gould could get his agent out here; making a good il-
lustration of one railroad sharp-shaking the plum tree while another, just a
little quicker on foot, picked up the plums.
GREAT OPPORTUNITIES
When the great field of virgin soil, rich mines and great forests are consid-
ered, it is no wonder that this great monopoly so greatly prospered. No syndi-
cate of capitalists ever had greater opportunities. And while they made mil-
lions and retired with great fortunes, yet what they achieved and what they
took away was but a drop in the bucket of what they might have accomplished
and gained. They were absolute masters of all the country east of the Cascade
mountains in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. A region embracing every va-
riety of soil, climate, timber and natural resources, and comprising an area equal
to that of the states of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts. And
yet they barely touched the resources of wealth along the margin of the great
river, and made no attempt to penetrate the rich valleys of the interior with cheap
and easily constructed feeder railways. They made so much money out of so small
an effort that the glamor of the great wealth blinded their eyes to the greater
possibilities beyond their vision.
1
THE EXPRESS CARRIERS
The carrying of mail and packages antedated the United States mail in
Oregon in most of places; and on the discovery of new mines was carried on with
much energy and not a little rivalry between the pioneers in the business. The
first express company operating in Oregon was that of Todd & Co., which com-
menced business in 1851, and sold out to another concern in the same line named
510
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
1
Newell & Co. in 1852. The same year Dugan & Co., which was allied with
Adams & Co., of the Atlantic states, commenced business in Oregon. As busi-
ness was more active between the gold camps of Southern Oregon and the lower
towns of California, the express business was large and important, especially in
the transportation of gold dust, between Jacksonville, Oregon, and Shasta, Cali-
fornia, in 1852, 3 and 4. On this line T'Vault's Oregon and Shasta express, of
which Col. T'Vault, who had been postmaster general under the provisional
government, was manager, did a large business. In 1853 Adams & Co., supersed-
ing Dugan & Co., commenced business in Oregon and continued until the better
organized Wells, Fargo & Co. came into the Oregon field when Adams & Co., and
all other companies retired and left Wells, Fargo & Co. in possession of the
Oregon business, and of which they have had practically a monopoly until the
present day.
THE STAGE LINES
The stage line service followed on soon after the establishment of the express
business, the first service of this kind being on the line between Portland and
Salem in 1857, where the Concord stage made the fifty-five miles in one day.
In 1859 a mail and passenger coach line was put on the road from Salem to
Eugene, and shortly after extended from Eugene to Jacksonville. And this
was the extent of the accommodations until 1860. In June, 1860, the California
Stage Company placed its stock on the line from Red Bluffs on the Sacramento
river to Oakland in Douglas county, Oregon, where it connected with the line
of Chase & Co., running stages to Corvallis, and where Chase & Co. connected
with the Oregon Stage Company's line to Portland; thus making a through
mail and passenger line from Red Bluffs, California, to Portland, Oregon.
THE FIRST TELEGRAPH
Immediately following the establishment of the express transportation business
in Oregon, came that of the electric telegraph, the agitation in favor of which
commenced in 1854. Charles F. Johnson, an agent of the Alta California Tele-
graph Company, was the first person to propose a telegraph line to connect
Portland, Oregon, with the California cities, and finally secured support enough
from the Willamette valley people to induce the organization of a company and
construct a line of posts and wire from Portland to Oregon City, in 1855; the
line being finished to Oregon City, November 5, 1855, and a message sent over
the wire to Portland on November 16, 1855. The line was to be run to Lafay-
ette, Dayton, Salem and Corvallis. The completed line finally reached Salem
by September, 1856, but was so little patronized that it was never extended to
Corvallis, nor kept in repair, and was finally abandoned. This enterprise was
the occasion of Fred Waymire's hot speech against corporations in the Consti-
tutional Convention. (See Chapter XV.)
The next effort to secure telegraphic service was made in 1861 by J. E.
Strong, of Salem, who organized an Oregon company of which H. W. Corbett
John McCraken, S. G. Reed, D. F. Bradford, A. G. Richardson, A. L. Lovejoy,
and C. N. Terry were officers and directors, and by whom the first telegraphic
connection was made with the telegraph system of California. In 1868 a tele-

2
Jacob Kamm
1
U. B. Scott
ਚਾਟ
3
4
Capt. J. C. Ainsworth
Capt. George H. Pease
LEADING STEAMBOAT MEN IN THE HISTORY OF THE STATE
OF
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
511
graphic line was extended from Portland to the Dalles, and on to Boise City,
Idaho, in 1869, by the Oregon Steam Navigation Co. In 1876 the line was ex-
tended from Portland to Astoria. The invention of the telephone coming in
after these extensions of the telegraph, and supplementary thereto, has now
been extended all over the state, giving to nearly all the farming population
nearly the same advantages of the telegraph as that enjoyed by the residents of
the towns and cities.
At the close of the Centennial in Philadelphia in 1876 a newspaper of that
city, in reviewing the exhibits in a general way, among other things, spoke of
a very ingenious "mechanical toy" called the telephone;' and in addition said
that there were those who believed that in time it would be an instrument of
"considerable commercial importance.” “But we, for our part,” said the
newspaper, "do not think that it will amount to much beyond being an inter-
esting mechanical toy.” Early in 1878 the late Captain George J. Ainsworth
bought the right to introduce the telephone in Oregon. He made several ineffectual
attempts to establish an experimental line in the city of Portland, and became
somewhat discouraged over the persistent refusals on the ground that the pesky
thing would be such a nuisance." Finally he met George H. Himes on the corner
of Front and Washington streets one morning in May, 1878, and related his
experience. Mr. Himes said, “Captain, if you choose, you may put up one end of
your experimental line in my printing office up-stairs in this building, and I
will find a place for the other end in thirty minutes.” Mr. W. T. Shanahan, a
music dealer on the south side of Morrison street, between Second and Third,
was seen and he consented to have the other end of this experimental line put
up in his store. This was the first telephone line in Oregon. At the end of 1878
there were one hundred lines in Portland.
RAILROAD HISTORY OF OREGON
The first proposition of a railroad to Oregon, or in Oregon, is contained in
a memorial to congress in 1846 by George Wilkes. A bill had been introduced
in congress requiring the president to establish military posts between the Mis-
souri and the Columbia rivers, at suitable distances, and authorizing the rais-
ing of a regiment of mounted riflemen for service along the line of travel and
in Oregon, with the promise of a mail route to the Pacific and talk of a railroad
to the Columbia river. On this basis Wilkes put forward his proposition of a
government railroad to Oregon. It was a good idea, certainly; but fourteen
years in advance of the proposition that did secure a railroad from Omaha to
San Francisco. In 1846 Oregon was ahead of California, but the great gold
discovery reversed the position of the two territories, and gave our rival state
what certainly would have come first to Oregon-a transcontinental railroad-
but for that discovery of gold in the tail race of Sutter's saw mill by Mar-
shall and Bennett in 1848.
The first Oregon proposition for a railroad in Oregon was made by H. M.
Knighton, the original owner of the townsite of St. Helens. Mr. Knighton pro-
posed to make good the claim of his town to the seaport head of navigation on
the Columbia river by building a railroad in 1851 from St. Helens through the
Cornelius pass and across Washington county to the city of Lafayette, that
town being at that time the big town of the Willamette valley. In this propo.
512
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
months."
sition Crosby and Smith, the owners of the Milton townsite, also joined. In an
advertisement of this road in the Oregon Spectator of November 28, 1850, it
is recommended as "a brilliant chance for an investment-that an unusual
amount of the stock has been taken abroad that the road will be finished in six
The "booster" started early in Oregon. Could these worthy pio
neers in railroad promotion come back and see how Mr. James J. Hill has actu.
ally appropriated their railroad pass and put an electric railroad from their
hated rival, Portland, into Washington county, they might be excused for some
painful regrets as to what might have been.
Seven years after Wilkes proposition the territorial legislature of Oregon
took up the subject of railroad construction in the Willamette valley and
granted charters to four railroad companies at the session of 1853-4. These
companies were named: The Willamette Valley Railroad Company, The Ore-
gon and California Railroad Company, The Cincinnati Railroad Company,
and The Clackamas Railroad Company. The Clackamas Company proposed a
railroad around the falls of the Willamette river; the Cincinnati Company
proposed a road from the town of that name in Polk county to the Polk county
coal mines (wherever they were); the Oregon and California Company pro-
posed a road from Eugene City to some point in the Willamette below Oregon
City; and the Willamette Valley Company proposed a road from Portland to
the head of the Willamette valley. In each case commissioners were appointed
by the legislature to organize the companies and start the machinery to con-
struct the railroad, but only on one charter was any action taken. And that
was on the charter for the Willamette valley railroad to be constructed from
Portland to the head of the valley on the west side of the Willamette river.
The commissioners to organize the company were Fred. Waymire, Solomon Teth-
erow, James S. Holman, Harrison Linville, Fielder M. Thorp, J. C. Avery,
James O'Neill, John Thorp and Martin L. Barber. They held one meeting on
April 22, 1854, at Thorp's Mills in Polk county, and appointed days in each
county to receive subscriptions of money to build the road; but not a dollar
was ever subscribed.
The commissioners (incorporators) of the Oregon and California Company
were Lot Whitcomb, N. P. Doland, W. Meek, James B. Stephens, William
Holmes, Charles Walker, Samuel Officer, William Barlow, John Gribble, Har-
rison Wright, J. D. Boon, J. L. Parrish, Joseph Holman, Wm. H. Rector, Daniel
Waldo, Benjamin F. Harding, Samuel Simmons, Ralph C. Geer, William
Parker, A. R. Dimmick, Hugh Cosgrove, Robert Newell, W. H. Willson, Green
McDonald, James Curl, E. H. Randall, Luther Elkins, John Crabtree, David
Claypool, Elmore Keyes, James H. Foster, George Cline, John Smith, Ander-
son Cox, John H. Lines, Jeremiah Duggs, John N. Donnell, Asa McCully, Hugh
L. Brown, James N. Smith, William Earle, W. W. Bristow, Milton S. Riggs,
James C. Robinson, P. Wilkins, William Stevens, Jacob Spores, Benjamin Rich-
ardson, E. F. Skinner, James Hetherly, Felix Scott, Henry Owen, Benjamin
Davis, Joseph Bailey, J. W. Nesmith and Samuel Brown. This company never
organized. In all this list the town of Portland had not a single representative,
and the west side of the Willamette valley had only one name-J. W. Nesmith.
This was a Salem scheme opposed to the west side of the Willamette valley and
the city of Portland. Ten years later Portland repaid the kick by helping the
Oregon Central Railroad Company on the west side of the valley.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
513
The next proposition for an Oregon railroad came from Astoria in 1858,
when the legislature incorporated the Astoria and Willamette Valley Railroad
Company to construct a railroad to run from Astoria to Salem, and thence to
Eugene City. The capital stock of this company was first fixed at five million
dollars and afterwards raised to ten millions; construction work to commence
within two years and the road to be completed in ten years. The following
named persons were the incorporators authorized to secure the capital stock and
organize the corporation : John Adair, John McClure, J. Imbrie, Wm. Wilson,
James Taylor, J. Welch, C. Boelling, W. W. Parker, P. Wilkes, W. R. Bassett,
T. R. Cornelius, Chas. McKay, M. Wolf, R. C. Kinney, Joe. Meek, R. Bean, W. T.
Newby, Andy Shuck, Edward Shiel, J. D. Boon, J. H. Moores, W. C. Griswold,
S. Parker, Jacob Conser, Jos. Holman, W. H. Rector, L. Westacott, L. F.
Grover, E. F. Skinner, E. Bristow, G. Humphrey, Jos. Teal, I. R. Moores, P.
Brattain, A. A. Smith, W. C. Gallagher, B. F. Whitson, Thos. Kendall, W. Blair,
Chas. Drain, R. Newell, J. H. Stevens, J. D. Crawford, H. N. V. Holmes, A. C.
R. Shaw, J. H. Lewis, B. F. Burch, H. Linville, J. Thorp, J. C. Avery, J. Barn-
hart, I. N. Smith, Jno. Kelsay, A. J. Thayer, Wm. Gird, I. R. Moore, J. Dohse,
Leonard & Green, Ladd & Co., Thos. Pritchard, Job McNamee, Thos. Carter,
D. H. Lownsdale, J. S. Rinearson, S. W. Moss, Geo. Abernethy, W. C. Bowring,
Thos. H. Smith, and H. Stevens.
The incorporators never acted upon their charter and the scheme died for
want of funds.
The first steps to build a railroad in the state of Oregon, followed up by con-
nected and continuous effects and organization, were taken at Jacksonville, in
Jackson county, in October, 1863. Sporadic meetings had been held and cor-
porations formed prior to that time in several places in the Willamette valley
proposing to build railways, but nothing had resulted but talk not worth re-
cording That the first substantial effort to develop the state by railroad trans-
portation should have taken form at a small interior town three hundred miles
from a reliable seaport is quite remarkable, but not unreasonable. Jacksonville
was the county seat and trade center of the beautiful Rogue river valley, which
has been more benefited by railroad transportation than any other community
between the Columbia river and San Francisco bay. Steamboats could run up
the Sacramento river one hundred and fifty miles from San Francisco, and
other boats could get up the Willamette river one hundred and twenty-five
miles from the ship landing to Eugene; and teams, pack trains and stage lines
could serve a limited trade and population in all the region on the north and
south route between these river boat termini. But limited to these pioneer
transportation facilities, the trade and population of all this region must for-
ever stand still. There are in what is known as the "Rogue River Valley," of
which Jacksonville, Ashland, Talent, Medford, and Gold Hill are trading
points, about a million and a quarter acres of fine agricultural, timber, mineral
and grazing lands, and of which in 1863 not more than one-tenth had been taken
up by actual settlers. The pioneer farmers saw the necessity and the immense
benefits to be gained from a railroad which should pass through their valley
from Portland to San Francisco, and resolved, although poor in purse, to make
the best effort they could to secure such a road.
In the spring of 1863, S. G. Elliott, of California, had arranged with George
H. Belden, a civil engineer of Portland, Oregon, to make an instrumental sur-
Vol. I--33
514
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
vey for a line of railroad from Marysville to Portland, on their joint account.
They commenced their work at Marysville in California, in May and reached
Jacksonville in October. Before reaching Jacksonville they had sent forward
a letter to the author of this book, then residing at Jacksonville, requesting him
to canvass Jackson county for aid in paying the expenses of their survey, which
work he performed. Upon reaching Jacksonville, Elliott and Belden disagreed
as to which of them should have the control of the line of survey through Ore-
gon; Mr. Belden claiming that under their agreement he should select the route,
and Mr. Elliott as stoutly claiming that as chief of the party and the original
proposer of the undertaking, he was entitled to such control. But the question
which proved to be fatal to the ambition of both gentlemen was the fact that
their party of twelve men had received no pay for six months, and there was
nothing in the treasury to further subsist the men and teams. The whole party
was stranded and their proposed railroad venture wrecked. Mr. Elliott left
the party in possession of all its equipment and returned south to California,
and Mr. Belden also left and proceeded to his home in Portland, and this ended
the connection of both gentlemen with this preliminary survey.
The subscriptions in aid of this first work on an Oregon railroad (not consid-
ering mere portages on the Columbia) and the first money expended in the
actual construction of such road, followed up by connected and continuous work
until the road was in operation, were contributed by the following named per-
sons:
SUBSCRIPTION LIST FOR RAILROAD SURVEY FUND
“ The following subscriptions are received for the purpose of defraying in
part the cost of making a preliminary survey for a railroad route, connecting
the Pacific Railroad in California with the city of Portland, Oregon, we, the
undersigned subscribers, agree to pay the amount hereunto subscribed by us, for
the above purpose to S. G. Elliott, on demand made by him. On the final or-
ganization of the railroad company, it shall be optional with the undersigned
subscribers to become stockholders in said company to the amount subscribed
by each, at the rate of $10 per share, with the privilege of one vote to each
share, or not. If they choose to become stockholders as above, they each shall
be credited on the books of the company for the full amount subscribed by
each. If they do not become stockholders, said company, as soon as able, shall
pay them back the amount subscribed by each without interest. It is further
agreed that the subscribers to this list shall not be required to pay or made liable
for any amount beyond that by them subscribed."
October, 1863.
Names.
mount Subscribed.
C. Boylery
John Robison
D. E. Steaves
G. Nanylor
John Holton
M. Mickelson
R. B. Hargadine
- $10.00 (Paid).
40 bushels of wheat at Phoenix.
$5.00 (Paid).
$2.50 (Paid).
$2.50 (Paid).
$2.50 (Paid).
$5.00 (Paid).

CHIEF ENGINEERS.
NO_20
This is so bertify the facob Kamm.
has
been duly ornmined
fy the unkoigned Focal Inspectors of Steamboat)
for the Gistrict of Portland bigan 15 to his qualifications
Engineer of Theimovels, and found h la compétent and reliable
person bulacaksted with the powóns and duris il Cumer ENGINEER
Wach as such for
El five years from this dali.
Given under our hands the
day of Jul
Souard
Beo, I. Puller,
Titanyutes
nspectors irensteko
I SEX
on Cond
19/2
OAK
Inspector of Hills
52827
Inspector of Boiler
wa
THE "HONOR” CREDENTIALS, ANNUALLY ISSUED TO JACOB KAMM, NOW
NEARING HIS NINETY-YEAR MILE POST. THESE PAPERS HAVE BEEN ISSUED
TO MR. KAMM FOR OVER SIXTY YEARS
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
515
Names.
E. Emery
Lindsay Applegate
0. C. Applegate
John Murphy
J. C. Tolman
P. Dunn .
.
H. F. Baren
Wagner & McCall
Enoch Walker
B. F. Myer
W. C. Myer
W. Beeson
J. G. Van Dyke
John S. Herrin..
Amos E. Rogers
C. S. Seargent
John Watson.
Emerson E. Gore
Amount Subscribed.
$5.00 (Paid).
..10.00 (Paid).
. $2.50 (Paid).
5 bushels of wheat at Wagner & McCall's mill.
(Settled by note.)
$16.00 (Paid in supplies and 30 bushels of
wheat to be delivered at Wagner & McCall's
mill. (Settled by note.)
50 bushels of wheat, to be delivered at Wag-
ner & McCall's mill, Ashland. (Settled by
note.)
$18.00 (Paid in supplies to S. G. Elliott.)
50 bushels of wheat, delivered at Wagner &
McCall's mill. (Settled by note.)
$4.00 in supplies. (Paid to S. G. Elliott.)
10 bushels of wheat, at Ashland mills.
.10 bushels of wheat, at Ashland mills.
.25 bushels of wheat at Ashland mills. (All
three settled by note.)
$3.50 (Paid in supplies to S. G. Elliott.)
10 bushels of wheat delivered at Foudray's
mill. (Settled by note.)
$10.00 (To be paid in board).
$2.00 (Paid).
40 bushels of wheat, delivered at Allen's mill.
$10.00 in legal tenders. (Paid in wheat at Al-
len's mill.)
.20 (twenty) bushels of wheat, delivered at
Phoenix mill.
22 bushels of wheat, at Foudray's Phoenix
mill.
40 bushels of wheat, at Allen's mill.
25 bushels of wheat, at Phoenix mill.
$10.00 (Paid).
. 20 bushels of wheat, at Phoenix mill.
$25.00 (Paid by note).
$12.00 (Paid by note).
25 bushels of wheat at Foudray's mill.
.. $2.50 (Paid).
$10.00 (Paid).
10 bushels of wheat, to be delivered at Poole
ranch. (Paid by note.)
$5.00 (Paid).
40 bushels of wheat, at Allen's mill.
25 bushels of wheat, at Allen's mill
$10.00 (To be paid in wheat at Allen's mill).
15 bushels of wheat, at E. D. Foudray's mill.
M. Riggs
William Wright
Frederick Heber
S. D. Van Dyke .
John Coleman
Joseph A. Crain
J. T. Glenn
Wm. Meyers
W. K. Ish
H. A. Breitbarth
J. Gaston
McLaughlin & Klippel
.
W. H. S. Hyde
J. E. Ross
Aaron Chambers
M. Hanley
Granville Sears
516
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Names.
R. S. Belknap
U. S. Hayden
John Neuber
H. Amerman
Beall & Brother
Wm. H. Merriam.
Haskell Amy
Alexander French
Merit Bellinger
Amount Subscribed.
20 bushels of oats, to be delivered at Hunter's
ferry.
$10.00.
$5.00 (Paid).
.$5.00 (To be paid at Gasburg).
100 bushels of wheat at Allen's mill.
. 20 bushels of wheat at Allen's mill.
20 bushels of wheat at Allen's mill.
20 bushels of wheat at Foudray's mill.
10 bushels of wheat at Foudray's mill. (The
five last subscriptions settled by note.)
40 bushels of wheat, delivered at Phoenix mill.
(Paid by note.)
20 bushels of wheat, delivered at the Phoenix
mill. (Paid by note.)
30 bushels of wheat at Phoenix.
.10 bushels of wheat at Phoenix.
5 bushels of wheat at Phoenix.
5 bushels of wheat at Phoenix mill. (The last
four subscriptions paid by note.)
$15.00 (Paid—$10 in coin and $5 in green-
backs)
James Thornton ..
Woodford Reames
E. K. Anderson .
D. P. Anderson
Joshua Patterson
D. P. Brittain.
L. V. Amerman
Upon consultation with the above subscribers to this fund, the author of this
book was appointed agent to collect and disburse the money subscribed by these
men in subsisting the surveying party until May, 1864, and to procure further
subscriptions along the proposed line to continue the survey north to the city of
Portland, and to organize a company and apply to congress for a grant of land in
aid of the construction of a railroad from the Columbia river to San Francisco,
passing through the Willamette, Umpqua and Rogue river valleys. And in pur-
suance of this authority, this original subscription of money in aid of such rail-
road was collected, the surveying party subsisted in Jacksonville until May,
1864, when it again took up the line of survey where Elliott and Belden had
abandoned it and under the supervision of Col A. C. Barry, it was extended to
Portland, which point was reached on October 1. 1864. To carry on the busi-
ness part of the undertaking and present the proposition to congress, a company
was organized under the name of “The California and Columbia River Railroad
Company," and of which J. Gaston was made secretary, and A. C. Barry, chief
engineer. The results of this survey were then (October, 1864,) laid before the
Oregon legislature, then in session, and a bill, prepared by the secretary of the
company, was introduced in the senate (S. B. No. 14), which provided for grant-
ing to a railroad to be constructed through the Willamette, Umpqua and Rogue
river valleys, the proceeds of the half-million acres of public lands granted to
Oregon for internal improvements. This bill was referred to the senate com-
mittee on corporations, which reported the proposition back by recommending
the passage of an act to levy a tax of one mill on the dollar on all the taxable
property in the state, and apply the proceeds of such tax to the payment of the
WWX
T1ZH-ZINI G
bloggen
IND
MZA
22
TV T S
DOCATELLO
COLUMBIA
WHEAT
Mines
EZ
27 TRI ORI DA
QA2
WHEAT
SIL
MISTOA
SPOKANE
Gold Mines
U
BURNS
IMMT
WHEAT
WHEAT
SUDINGTON
کد
mo LAKEVIEW
Depok
WHEAT
ATJTUAHT
F
W
ALFALFA
ZBENO
Waar
AKC
ZL.
m
T.PITI
(OSO.
IACOMA
PORTLANO
Ornoon corr
SALT
INon?
MLBAN
W
Yi4noo
chip to
OCEAN
PACIFIC
THIS MAP SHOWS THE COLUMBIA GATEWAY; THE TRIBUTARY TERRITORY; THE LINES OF LEAST
RESISTANCE; AND THE COURSE OF TRAFFIC
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
517
interest on the construction bonds of a company to build the proposed road. The
bill became a law, but was never utilized.
Immediately following the legislature, Colonel Barry prepared a report of his
survey, with maps and profiles of the line, which together with a report on the
resources of Oregon (the first ever made) prepared by the secretary of the com-
pany, was laid before congress at the opening of the session in December, 1864.
Prior to this, in the winter of 1863-4, Hon. C. Cole, M. C., from California, had
introduced in the house a bill granting lands to the California & Oregon Rail-
road Company to aid in building a railroad from the Central Pacific Railroad in
California, through the Sacramento and Shasta valleys, to the northern boun-
dary of the state of California, and to such company as the Oregon legislature
should designate from Portland, Oregon, through the Willamette, Umpqua and
Rogue river valleys, to a connection with the said California road at or near the
state line. On being apprised of the work going forward in Oregon in aid of this
enterprise, Mr. Cole addressed the following letter to the secretary of the
Oregon company.
"WASHINGTON, October 15, 1864.
"J. Gaston, Esq.:
SIR—I have just received a letter from you of June 30th. I think I sent you
a copy of my bill before the adjournment. If your Oregon company is organ-
ized it had better be named in the bill before it passes. I will consult with Mr.
McBride.
Your obedient servant,
"C. COLE.'
Mr. McBride referred to was the Oregon member of Congress; the name of
the then Oregon company was never inserted in the bill, which passed congress
and became a law on July 25, 1866, and granted twenty alternate sections of
public land per mile of the railroad which has been constructed thereunder
from Portland to the California line.
It is necessary to thus particularly trace the original connected and succes-
sive steps in projecting and carrying out a great public work, to show that the
Jackson county people were entitled to the credit of giving it birth; and to show
how the wisdom of the original location of the line was vindicated by the actual
construction of the road. In seeking the best line for a railway between two
distant points, all other inducements being equal, the line of location, like all
other forward movements of human effort, will proceed along the line of least
resistance. Two facts determined the location of this Oregon and California
railroad. First, the line of least resistance. The physical features of the region
to be developed offered a series of beautiful valleys, rich in all the resources
to support a railroad, and so located as to form nearly the shortest line between
the termini of the road, and through which it could be constructed centrally
through the greatest length of these valleys, and at the lowest cost, and serving
the majority of population and interests. Second, here on this line had settled
the population of the two states, and made the then existing development of
their resources, and upon which the road must rely for its support.
It was not the only available, or the only line proposed, as many persons
might now think. The line of the first transcontinental road had been projected
to San Francisco when the first steps to secure this Oregon and California line
were taken, and connection with the transcontinental line was one of the moving
518
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
factors to induce action for a connection with Oregon. But the Oregonians
were not unanimous as to the best route. Mr. B. J. Pengra, the surveyor
general of Oregon and a very able and enterprising man, and the successful
promotor of the Oregon central military wagon road, with a land grant run-
ning from Eugene to the southeast corner of the state, together with a large
following of wealthy and influential men, was actively advocating a line for
an Oregon railroad connection with the Central Pacific road, on what was called
"The Humboldt" route, which should run from the city of Portland to Eu-
gene City, thence southeast by the middle fork of the Willamette river and
over the Cascade mountains where the Natron branch of the Southern Pacific
is now (1912), being constructed across the Cascade mountains; and thence
by Klamath Marsh and Lake on to Winnemucca on the Central Pacific Rail-
road in the state of Nevada. And had Pengra been supported by as much
political influence as Southern Oregon was able to command, he might possi-
bly have defeated the location through the Umpqua and Rogue river valleys
and secured the land grant to the line of his wagon road.
THE LAND GRANT
We pass now from the history of the location of the line to the administra-
tion of the land grant. The Oregon legislature met in September, 1866, six
weeks after congress granted the lands in aid of the road. It was decided to
abandon the original organization which had so far promoted the enterprise,
and accordingly the author of this book prepared articles for the incorpora-
tion of "The Oregon Central Railroad Company,” the office and headquarters
of which should be at Portland, Oregon. These articles were signed by J. S.
Smith (member of Congress for Oregon) in 1870, I. R. Moores, John H. Mitchell
(for twenty-two years United States senator for Oregon), E. D. Shattuck
(for thirty years justice of the supreme and circuit courts of Oregon),
Col. John McCraken, Jesse Applegate, S. Ellsworth, F. A. Chenoweth, Joel
Palmer, E. R. Geary, M. M. Melvin, Thos. H. Cox, B. F. Brown, W. S. Ladd,
(founder of Ladd & Tilton), H. W. Corbett (United States senator), S. G.
Reed (founder of the Reed College, Portland), J. C. Ainsworth (founder of
the Oregon Steam Navigation Company), C. H. Lewis (founder of Allen &
Lewis), R. R. Thompson and Joseph. Gaston, the author of this book. These
articles were filed according to law, and the association of these persons became
a private corporation to administer the land grant on October 6th, 1866. These
articles were laid before both houses of the Oregon legislature, then in session,
and on October 10th, upon the motion of Hon. E. D. Foudray, representative
from Jackson county, joint resolution No. 13, designating said corporation to
receive the said land grant, was passed. And in December, following, fourteen
of the incorporators of said company, appointed Joseph Gaston "Secretary of
the Board of Incorporators,” and authorized him to open the stock books of the
company and solicit subscriptions to its capital stock. In pursuance of this au-
thority in April, 1867, he opened stock books and took subscriptions to the
capital stock; the subscribers to the “Barry survey” to have their subscriptions
credited on stock subscriptions. A copy of the prospectus of the company, pub-
lished in the Oregon papers on February 20, 1867, is herewith printed as follows:
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
519
PROSPECTUS OF THE OREGON CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY.
"We, the undersigned incorporators of the Oregon Central Railroad Com-
pany,' hereby appoint J. Gaston, of Salem, Oregon, Secretary of the Board of
Incorporators, and authorize and designate him, as one of the incorporators of
said company, to prepare and open the stock books of said company, under the
following rules and regulations :
"1st. The shares of the capital stock in said company shall be subscribed
for at their par value in gold coin or its equivalent in currency.
“2nd. The Board of Directors may levy assessments as often as once in
every sixty days, but not more than ten per cent, shall be levied in such period.
"3rd. Shares may be subscribed and paid for with 'claimed' or improved
lands, rating them at a fair cash value.
“4th. All persons who paid money or property in aid of 'Barry's Railroa
Survey,' made in 1864, shall be entitled to have the same credited to the amount
of ten per cent upon any subscription of one or more shares, provided they fur-
nish satisfactory evidence to the Board of Directors of payment in said year.
"5th. The board of directors shall have the right to reject any subscription
or subscriptions, for fraud, or any other matter bearing upon the interests of
the company.
"6th. Neither the board of incorporators, or board of directors shall ever
have any right or power to sell or dispose of the corporate franchises of this
company without a three-fourths vote of all the stock subscribed, in favor of such
sale; but this proviso shall not be construed to prevent the board of directors
from raising money to construct the company's road by mortgage of its lands
or other real estate, railroad or equipment; and in all questions upon which the
board of directors may not unanimously agree, any stockholder may appeal to
the decision of a majority of the stock, which decision shall be final.
"7th. As soon as the capital stock, or one-half thereof, of said sompany
shall have been subscribed, the said secretary is hereby directed to call a meet-
ing of the stockholders, in pursuance of the general incorporation law, for the
election of a board of directors.
"8th. The above articles are hereby made a part of the contract of sub-
scriptions between the stockholders and said company.
"The said secretary shall open an office for the transaction of the company's
business, and proceed to the work of canvassing for subscriptions of stock in the
counties and towns along the route of said road; the Hon. F. A. Chenoweth
being authorized to canvass Linn and Benton counties.
R. R. THOMPSON, J. C. AINSWORTH; S. G.
REED, M. M. MELVIN, GEORGE L.
WOODS (by his proxy, W. S. Ladd),
F. A. CHENOWETH, JOEL PALMER,
ED. R. GEARY, S. ELLSWORTH, J.
H. MITCHELL, H. W. CORBETT, B.
F. BROWN, T. H. Cox, Incorpora-
tors.',
All those mentioned above are now dead except Gaston.
Persons on the east side of the Willamette river, notably I. R. Moores, and
others at Salem, opposed this proposition because it recognized the "Barry Sur-
520
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
vey;" and in consequence the people of the east side of the Willamette valley
made no subscriptions to the stock of the company, while the people on the west
side made large subscriptions and thereby secured the location of the road on the
west side of the Willamette river, where it is now constructed from Portland to
Corvallis.
The Californians who had secured the above land grant as far as it was lo-
cated within that state were not disinterested spectators of what was going on
in Oregon. In fact, the record shows that even before the passage of the act
granting the lands, a party of California capitalists had filed articles of incor-
poration in this state, to incorporate a company to take the land granted within
the boundaries of Oregon. On July 1, 1865, articles of incorporation to incor-
porate “The Oregon and California Railżoad Company” were executed in San
Francisco, and signed by Alpheus Bull, S. G. Elliott, C. Temple Emmett, Thomas
Bell, Joseph Barron, David M. Richards, S. F. Elliott, T. J. Gallagher; and
Wm. E. Barron, and brought up to Oregon by S. G. Elliott, and filed in the
office of the secretary of the state at Salem on July13, 1865. These articles pro-
vided for a corporation with a capital stock of sixteen million dollars, that its
principal office be at Jacksonville, Oregon, and that the company should build
a railroad from some point on the state line between California and Oregon as
should thereafter be designated “to some point on the navigable waters of the
Columbia river," and should receive the lands that might be granted by con-
gress in aid of such a road.
Here was a carefully planned scheme gotten up in California, with not a
single Oregonian connected with it, one year before the passage of the land
grant about which there was so great a battle forty years ago; and about which
there is now a great battle in the United States courts between the United States
and the companies claiming the lands; and which was a secret, stealthy attack on
the vital interests of the people of Oregon.
ADVENT OF ELLIOTT
.
As soon as Gaston commenced canvassing for subscriptions to the stock of
the company, Mr. S. G. Elliott, the promoter of the above mentioned California
scheme, appeared on the scene and put in an appearance at Salem, where it
appeared he had Oregon confederates in his San Francisco company.
Mr. Elliott had been a county surveyor, and was a man of great energy, and
ambition, but was not a civil engineer or constructor of railroads, and was not
troubled with any scruples about plans or methods of business. He had a large
scheme for the construction of this Oregon railroad, and at once laid it before
I. R. Moores and others at Salem. His scheme was to get control of the company
already incorporated, and, in default of that to organize a new company which
should execute a power of attorney to S. G. Elliott, authorizing him to let a con-
tract to build a railroad to the California line, and that such company should
issue two million dollars of unassessable stock to certain Californians for their
good will in the matter; and then these Californians would transfer back to the
Oregonians getting up this company, one million dollars of the unassessable
stock for their service in organizing the company. Gaston was invited to go
into this scheme and offered an office in such new company and some unassess-
able stock if he would throw away the papers of the original company. This he

M
GREGONSIVE
DAVID HEVES
THD
OREGON
PON
1982-190
RIGHT HAND CORNER-FIRST LOCOMOTIVE RUNNING OUT OF CHICAGO, 1848
FIRST LOCOMOTIVE RUNNING ON RAILS IN OREGON, 1864
2
11
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
521
declined, but offered to submit their scheme to the incorporators of the Oregon
Central Company and if they approved, Mr. Elliott could use their organization
to advance his scheme. But upon submitting the Elliott scheme to the incorpo-
rators supporting Gaston, every one of them opposed it. Accordingly, Elliott
and his Salem friends, on April 22, 1867, incorporated another Oregon Cen-
tral Railroad Company, the incorporators being S. A. Clarke, John H. Moores,
George L. Woods, and I. R. Moores. The articles of incorporation of this com-
pany provided for a capital stock of $7,250,000, to which six persons subscribed
each $100, and thereupon elected George L. Woods, chairman of the incorporators'
meeting; and then at such meeting passed a resolution authorizing the chair-
man to subscribe $7,000,000 to the stock of the company as follows: "Oregon
Central Railroad Company by George L. Woods, chairman, 70,000 shares-
$7,000,000." Upon this fictitious subscription the company was organized by
electing a board of directors and George L. Woods (then governor of Oregon)
as president and S. A. Clarke, secretary. And upon this organization, the
Salem company located its road upon the east side of the Willamette river, se-
cured some local donations, some aid from James B. Stephens, proprietor of the
then East Portland townsite, and induced Bernard Goldsmith, of Portland, to
advance $20,000 on the bonds of the company, and commenced the work of con-
structing their road. I am thus particular in setting out these facts to show
how the railroad was located on the east side of the Willamette valley.
Up to this point the Elliott scheme, concocted in San Francisco and swal-
lowed by the Salem people, baited with unassessable stock, was an attack on
the interests of Portland. The prejudice in the Willamette valley against
Portland was greater then than it is now.
And the fact that the Salem com-
pany had been promoted from San Francisco, while the company Gaston rep-
resented was a Portland corporation with Portland incorporators, having its
office there, and making Portland, the terminus of its railroad, created all the
antagonism between the rival parties and engendered the long and bitter con-
test for the land grant.
The Gaston, or Portland company "broke ground” and commenced the
work of grading their line on the 15th of April, 1868, in the presence of about
two thousand people, in the street at what is now the southwest corner of the
county hospital block in Caruthers' addition to the city of Portland. And be-
sides an address from the president of the company showing the prospects of
the enterprise, speeches were made by Gov. Gibbs, and Col. W. W. Chapman,
Mrs. Rebecca Lewis, wife of the chief engineer of the company, then and there
cast the first shovel full of earth in grading the Oregon railroad system.
The east side or Salem company "broke ground" the next day, April 16,
at the point where the Southern Pacific Company's car shops are located,
south of Stephen's addition to the city of Portland.
The following is the original. list of stock subscriptions in Portland with
which the Oregon Central Railroad Company commenced construction work;
Ladd & Tilton, five shares; C. M. Carter, five shares; F. Dekum, five shares;
S. Coffin, five shares; Jacob Kamm, five shares; A. H. Johnson, five shares;
T. J. Carter, five shares; John M. Breck, five shares; Wm. Cree, five shares;
David Monnastes, five shares; J. H. Hayden, five shares; Walter Moffett, five
shares; E. J. Northrup, five shares; Hiram Smith, ten shares; Hannah M.
Smith, ten shares; J. A. Fisher, ten shares; J. Myrick, five shares; J. B. Har-
522
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
ker, five shares; J. C. Ainsworth, five shares, Joseph Teal, five shares; S. G.
Reed, five shares; T. R. Cornelius, five shares; R. C. Kinney, five shares; R.
Glisan, five shares; D. C. Lewis, five shares; Cincinnati Bills, five shares; A.
B. Hallock, five shares; J. S. Smith, five shares; Lansing Stout, five shares; G.
W. Vaughn, five shares; John McCraken, five shares, J. W. Cook, five shares;
Sam. Lowenstein, five shares; D. Simon, ten shares; A. Harker, ten shares;
Joseph Knott, ten shares; Wiberg & Strowbridge, five shares; C. A. Burchardt,
five shares; John Green, five shares; R. R. Thompson, five shares; Estes &
Stimson, five shares; E. Milwain, five shares; J. W. Ladd, five shares; T. M.
Ritchey, fifteen shares; A. P. Ankeny, five shares; Labbe Bros., five shares.
These men have all passed on except John McCraken, J. W. Cook, Blaise
Labbe and Samuel Lowenstein.
Mr. Elliott's financiering, however, did not carry the enterprise very far.
The $2,000,000 of seven per cent unassessable stock in the company was issued
to A. J. Cook & Co. (fictitious name for Elliott), under an agreement that
$1,000,000 of it should be given to the directors of the Salem company, and this
stock for the directors was deposited in the safe of E. N. Cooke and lay there
for two years and until the company ceased to exist. But that stock brolight
no aid or comfort to the company or its directors. Goldsmith's money was all
spent, the laborers on the grade were clamoring for back pay, and Elliott's
scheme was on the verge of collapse when in very desperation the whole scheme,
with all its hopes, assets, and great expectations, was turned over to Ben
Holladay.
HOLLADAY AND THE LAND GRANT CONTEST
Holladay appeared in Oregon about six weeks before the meeting of the legis-
lature in September, 1868, and took energetic steps to attack the rights of the
corporation first named above to its land grant. With ready cash Holladay
pushed the work of construction on the east side grade, subsidized newspapers
to advocate his cause and sing his praises, bought up politicians on all sides
to do his bidding and treated with imperious contempt the rights of all who dared
to question his career. At the ensuing session of the legislature he appeared at
Salem as the host of a large establishment, dispensing free "meat and drinks''
to all comers, and otherwise equipped with all the elements of vice and dissi-
pation. Joined with a part of this force, was the first hired and organized band
of lobbyists in the history of the Oregon legislature. And so energetic and suc-
cessful was the battle they waged, that on October 20, 1868, the legislature passed
a joint resolution declaring that the act of the previous legislature was made in
mistake, that the designation of the company to receive the land grant was still to
be made, and that The Oregon Central Railroad Company of Salem, be desig-
nated to receive such grant. This was done in the face of all the facts stated
above, fully presented to the legislature, and of the further facts that the first
named company had filed its acceptance of the land grant in the department of
the interior at Washington city according to the law, and within the time pro-
vided, which acceptance had been accepted by the secretary of Interior;
and that the time had passed by within which any company could file another
acceptance of the grant. Such a high-handed outrage was probably never
enacted before in any state, and was accomplished in Oregon only, as Holla-


BEN HOLLADAY
UNID
3
OF
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
523
day afterwards admitted to the author of this book, at a cost to him of $35,000,
paid to members of the legislature. This, however, was about the least
of Holladay's offences against public morals, common decency and justice dur-
ing his career in Oregon. Thus securing this act of the legislature in his favor,
Holladay continued to push the work of construction on the grade, and sent
agents to Washington to get an act through congress enabling his Salem com-
pany to file its acceptance of the land grant act. Congress finally, on April 16,
1869, passed an act extending the time for filing acceptance of the land grant
act and providing that whichever of the two companies should first complete and
put in operation twenty miles of railroad from Portland southward into the Wil-
lamette valley should he entitled to file such acceptance of grant.
But this concession was not secured without a bitter contest before congress;
Mr. S. G. Reed spent the winter of 1868-9 in Washington city in labors before
congress in the interest of the real Oregon Central Company, while the fraudu-
lent Oregon Central was represented by John H. Mitchell and S. F. Chadwick,
who afterwards became secretary of state and governor. Senator George H.
Williams espoused the cause of the Salem fraudulent company, while Senator
H. W. Corbett faithfully supported the rights of the honest corporation. On
final vote. Williams got support enough to pass his enabling act to let in the
Salem company to compete for the land grant. And upon this hope, Holladay
continued to push construction work with all his available means until in De-
cember, 1868, he had in a very cheap and imperfect manner completed and put
in operation with one engine and a car or two, twenty miles of railroad, and was
thereby recognized as entitled to the land grant.
But notwithstanding this hard-earned success, Holladay was now face to
face with a state of facts that would have paraylzed a less reckless and unscrup-
ulous operator. It had become everywhere understood and admitted that the
Salem Oregon Central Railroad Company was not a corporation and had no
legal existence, and for that reason could not appropriate the right of way in any
case where the landholder refused it; or enforce any other rights of a corpo-
ration. The supreme court of Oregon afterwards decided that the Salem com-
pany was not a corporation, but a mere nullity and fraud, that it had no legal
rights and could not take the land grant, and that the act of the legislature, of
1868 could not heal its defects. (In the case of Elliott v. Holladay, et al., p 91,
vol. 8 of Oregon reports.)
The court says: “On the 22nd day of April, 1867, I. R. Moores, George L.
Woods, S. A. Clarke, and others filed articles of incorporation to incorporate the
Oregon Central Railroad Company. The capital was fixed at seven million two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars, divided into seventy-two thousand five hun-
dred shares of one hundred dollars each. On the same day stock books were opened,
when six shares of stock were subscribed by six persons; then follows this subscrip-
tion: Oregon Central Railroad Company, by George L. Woods, chairman, seventy
thousand shares; seven million dollars. On the same day directors and other
officers were elected.
The attempt to subscribe seventy thousand
shares of stock of the 0. C. R. R. Co., by the corporation itself through a per-
son styling himself chairman, was done simply to evade the liability the law
imposes on all persons who subscribe to the capital stock of corporations. This
was a mere nullity, and added nothing to the amount of stock subscribed which
was then only six shares of one hundred dollars each. Those who subscribed the
524
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
six shares proceeded to elect the directors of the corporation. The corporation
was not organized according to law, but in direct violation of the statute which
provides that "it shall be lawful in the organization of any corporation to
elect a board of directors as soon as one-half the capital stock has been sub-
scribed." This attempted organization of the Salem 0. C. R. R. Co., amounted
to nothing. It was absolutely void. It had no power to legally transact any
business, or to accept or hold the lands granted by congress.
And besides this the west side company had finally forced the Salem com-
pany to stand trial before Justice M. P. Deady, of the United States district
court as to its right to its corporate name, and the court had held that one
corporation could not take and use the name of a prior organized company. This
of itself was a death blow to the Salem company. (See Deady's Reports, p.
609). In this crisis of his Oregon venture Holladay turned the whole matter
over to the great lawyer, W. M. Evarts, who was secretary of the state to
President Hayes. After many months of study Mr. Evarts decided that the
franchise to exercise corporate rights was a grant from the state and could be
questioned only by the state, and not having been so questioned the Salem com-
pany was at liberty to transfer any and all rights and franchises it was assum-.
ing to own. And that as the land grant was a concession from the federal
government the right thereto could be disputed only by the grantor, and not
having been so questioned the franchise to take such grant could be also assigned
and transferred by the Salem company; and that the next step for Mr. Holla-
day was to lawfully organize a new Oregon corporation to take over all the
rights, property, and franchises of the Salem company, and have the Salem
company make such transfer. For this opinion Holladay paid Evarts $25,000;
and immediately thereafter (1870) incorporated and organized The Oregon and
California Railroad Company, to which all the assets of the Salem company
were conveyed. After thus clearing up the wreckage of the fictitious corpora-
tion, and burying as best he could the scandals which disgraced the lives and
ruined the political fortunes of more men in Oregon than all other events in
the history of the state, Holladay sold in Germany ten and a half million dol-
lars of bonds upon the land grant and the road to be constructed. Applied at
the rate of $30,000 per mile of road, these bonds were estimated to build three
hundred and fifty miles, or practically to the California line. But by Holla-
day's recklessness and dishonest management, not more than fifty-seven cents
on the dollar of the bonds ever went into the construction of the road; so that
by the time the track had reached Roseburg from Portland the proceeds of the
bonds were exhausted, and Roseburg remained the terminus of the road for
ten years. Then a reorganization took place, the holders of the bonds surrender-
ing their securities for preferred stock and advancing more money on a new
mortgage to extend the road to Ashland in Jackson county. Here the track
stood still for seven years, and another reorganization took place; the old
bondholders refunding their second issue of bonds in new bonds bearing a still
lower rate of interest, and the Southern Pacific Company advancing the capi-
tal to finally connect Oregon and California with the present existing road,
in the year of 1887; making nineteen years from the time constrụction work com-
menced until the road reached the California line. Holladay, proving wholly
incapable of managing the property, was forced out of its control hy the hond-
holders in 1876, and Mr. Henry Villard put in control; and under Villard, as
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
523
immediate and responsible manager of the property, a young man from Ger-
many (Richard Koehler) of whom we have more to say further along.
Of the contest for possession of the land grant and the character of the men
who combined to rob the rightful owners of it, H. W. Scott's History of Port-
land, p. 287, says:
"It was a memorable conflict that conducted by the first rival railroad
companies of Oregon; with matter in it for a novelist. It would be rash to
intimate that Elliott with all his mythical capitalists was an agent of Holla-
day all the time, the general opinion being that he was at first only acting
for himself, or that the east side company knew the extent of his romances,
which they used so well to their advantage. It would on the other hand be
difficult to believe that Holladay's or the original east side company were act-
ually imposed upon by representations as to a firm like A. J. Cook & Co., of im-
mense weal'h and standing when any business or banking gazetteer would in-
form them as to the existence or non-existence of such a firm; particularly as
MIr. Gaston was constantly asserting in public that this company was all a
pretense.
Of Ben Holladay, the same work says, p. 283: “He was a man whose selfish-
ness dominated all else, and his practical incentive was to use the power of
wealth to control a state. He showed no love for Oregon, or for the people
of Oregon, but no other field 'was so inviting, or so well within his means. If
his aims had been to build a railroad, he might have done it with less trouble
and expense, and for far greater returns. If his idea was to make himself
the autocrat of the state, to own legislature and United States senators and
perhaps extend his operations over adjoining territories and control trans-
continental lines, he never followed it with consistency. Upon examination
we apprehend he would be found a man of great intentions, but of unstable
will, of deep schemes but feeble convictions, of large aims, but incapable of
sustained effort or sacrifice, and subject to violent passion and prejudice. As
a working scheme of morality he let nothing stand in the way of his aims, recog-
nizing uo rights of anybody, but the shortest way to his object. He had one,
and but one, means of attaining his end and that was the use of his money.
To buy an attorney, judge, a city, a legislator, a senator or public opinion, was
all one to him. He made no appeals to the people, neither addressing them on
the side of self-interest or generosity. The public knew nothing of him except
that he was a nabob living in unapproachable magnificence, and was at the head
of all that was going. This was the man that appeared above the stormy rail-
road horizon in Oregon in his true form in 1868. J. H. Mitchell, one of the first
incorporators of the original Oregon Central Railroad Company, but also an
incorporator of the second or East Side Company, and their attorney, rendered
very efficient service to Mr. Holladay.”
To the above review by Mr. Scott, may be truthfully added; that Holladay did
buy judges, and legislatures and attorneys to betray their clients. Mr. Mitchell
was the first attorney of the original Oregon Central Railroad Company, and be-
trayed its interests to the Salem or East Side Company. One judge, at least, up
in the Willamette valley was silenced, so that he would not follow the plain dic-
tates of the statue law, and universal decision of the courts, to protect the legal
and just rights of the original Oregon Central Company. Another judge in the
Multnomah district (and his name was not Erasmus D. Shattuck or Matthew P.
29
526
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Deady by any means) offered to sell his decision to the original Oregon Central
Company, and when his goods were declined he went over to the other side, and
like the judge up the valley declined to decide anything at all.
But it has all passed into history. All the actors in the drama are dead but one,
All the members of all the old companies are dead but this one. And while he
was robbed of his rights and his property by a corrupted legislature, and cor-
rupt judges, he still remains to enjoy in comfort a pleasant home that looks down
on the city he has helped to build, with all the necessary comforts of life, and what
is better than all else, the respect of his old friends and neighbors—and lives to
write this history of those who so wantonly robbed him, and gained nothing in
the end by their wrong-doing.
Ben Holladay was born and reared near Blue Lick, Kentucky. Emigrating
to Missouri in 1856, he became a hanger-on to the army at Fort Leavenworth,
and drifted into various camp-follower speculations for several years until in
1860 when the Civil war broke out he was operating a buckboard mail and stage
line from St. Joseph, Mo., to Salt Lake City. About this time the great army
transportation firm of Russell, Majors & Waddle, fell into financial trouble and in
order to tide over their affairs and force a cheap settlement with their creditors,
as related to the author of this book by Mr. Russell himself, the firm delivered
to Holladay, as their friend, $600,000 of government vouchers, for transportation
the firm had rendered ; under an agreement that when they had settled with their
creditors Holladay should return to them the $600,000. Holladay took the vouch-
ers, collected the money, and when requested to return it to the confiding firm, he
repudiated not only the agreement to do so, but all knowledge of the transaction.
As it was an unlawful act for the failing debtor he could not recover, and
SO,
not only Russell, Majors & Waddle lost the vast sum of money, but their creditors
had been beaten by both the debtors and their deceiver, Ben Holladay. On this
plunder Holladay came to the Pacific coast, bought the line of ships to Oregon and
got into the Oregon railroad. He was a man of splendid physique, fine address,
and knew well how to manage the average human nature. He was energetic, un-
tiring, unconscionable, unscrupulous and wholly destitute of fixed principles of
honesty, morality or common decency.
THE WEST SIDE ROAD
Returning now to the Oregon Central Company, we find it in 1869 robbed of
the land grant it was justly entitled to, but not wholly driven out of the field.
The citizens of Portland, Washington, Yamhill and Polk counties stood loyally
by the old company, and not only gave financial aid to the extent of grading
and bridging the first twenty miles of its roadbed, but also threw into the scale
the weight of their political influence, declaring that no man should represent
Oregon in congress who could not labor to secure another grant of land in aid
of their road.
A GREAT BLUNDER
“And now,” says Bancroft's History of Oregon, 2nd Vol., p. 701, “hap-
pened one of those fortuitous circumstances which defeat occasionally the
shrewdest men.. The west side (original Oregon Central Co.) had sent in May,

HENRY VILLARD
OF
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
527
1868, half a million dollars of its first mortgage bonds to London to be sold by
Edwin Russell, then manager of the Portland branch of the Bank of British
Columbia. Just at the moinent when money was most needed, a cablegram
from Russell to Gaston informed him that the bonds could be sold so as to fur-
nish the funds and iron necessary to construct the first twenty miles of road,
by selling them at a low price. Gaston had the power to accept the offer, but
instead of doing so promptly, and placing himself on an equality with Holla-
day primarily, he referred the inatter to Capt. J. C. Ainsworth, a director of
the company, to whom he felt under obligations for past favors, and whom
he regarded as a more experienced financier than himself, and the latter, after
deliberating two days on the subject, cabled to Russell a refusal of the proposi-
tion.'
But to make amends for this blunder, for such it was, Ainsworth organized
a syndicate under the name of S. G. Reed & Co., to construct one hundred miles
of the Oregon Central Railroad from Portland south in the Willamette valley
for the sum of thirty thousand dollars a mile, to be paid for with the company's
first mortgage bonds on the road issued at the rate of thirty thousand dollars a
mile.
Under this contract Reed & Co. proceeded with construction work until
they had expended thirty-three thousand dollars, and then stopped work, for
the alleged reason that the company would lose the land grant to save which
the contract had been given and accepted. But on intimations from Gaston
that Reed & Co. would be held for damages, they furnished Gaston funds to
go to Washington city in 1869-70 and solicit a new grant of lands to the com-
pany.
Speaking of the condition of the railroad enterprise at that time, Bancroft's
History above quoted, p. 702, says: “The action of congress in practically de-
ciding in favor of the Holladay interest, caused S. G. Reed & Co. to abandon the
construction contract, leaving the whole hopeless undertaking in the hands
of Gaston. Without resources, and in debt, he resolved to persevere. In the
treasury of Washington county were several thousand dollars paid in as inter-
est on the bonds pledged. He applied for this money, which the county officers
allowed him to use in grading the roadbed during the summer of 1869, as far
as the town of Hillsboro. This done, he resolved to go to Washington, and
before leaving Oregon made a tour of the west side counties, reminding the
people of the injustice they had suffered at the hands of the courts and legisla-
ture, and urging them to unite in electing men who would give them redress.
Gaston reached the national capital in 1869. Holladay having completed
in that month twenty miles of the Oregon & California Railroad and become
entitled to the grant of land which Gaston had been the means of securing to
the builder of the first railroad. His business at the capital was to obtain a new
grant to the Oregon Central; and in this he was successful, being warmly sup-
ported by Corbett and Williams; the latter, however, refusing to let the road
extend farther than McMinnville, lest it should interfere with the designs of
Holladay.''
This was not what was desired, but it was the best that could be secured at
that time. And in the partition of Oregon, local interests then seeking recogni-
tion at Washington City, it was agreed by the Oregon delegation in Congress,
528
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
that at the next session of congress this grant should be extended from MC-
Minnville to Eugene. And upon this basis it was further agreed that Mr. B. J.
Pengra of Eugene, then also at Washington, and representing the proposed rail-
road from Winnemucca to Eugene (incorporated as "Oregon Branch Pacific
Railroad”), should also have a grant of lands for his company. This scheme,
carried out, would give a continuous land grant from the Central Pacific Rail-
road in Nevada, to Eugene, Portland and Astoria. And upon this foundation,
C. P. Huntington, then in the zenith of his power as a railroad financier and
constructor, agreed to furnish the capital and build the railroad from Winne-
mucca to Eugene, Portland and Astoria, giving Oregon a more direct connection
to the east than by the California route. This scheme was defeated by Ben Hol-
laday, then also at Washington, who, within ten days after congress passed the
Oregon Central grant to McMinnville, induced Senator Williams to amend the
Pengra bill by providing that the Winnemucca road should connect with the Hol-
laday line at a point in the Rogue river valley. This provision would, of
course, prevent all connection with the McMinnville line and give Holladay
control of all roads from the Rogue river valley to Portland. Holladay was
quick to see that the Pengra bill would bring to Oregon a giant in energy and
ability who would dwarf his own pretensions and soon drive him from the field;
and with a selfishness and vanity which knew no limits, he demanded the sacri-
fice of the interests of the state and the ruin of the man who was willing to
befriend him. Upon this change being made in the Winnemucca bill, Mr. Hunt-
ington promptly withdrew from his offer to finance the road, and the whole
scheme to get another road into Oregon through the Klamath lake region failed.
Had not the Winnemucca (Oregon Branch Pacific) proposition been emascu-
lated, southeastern Oregon, the Nehalem valley and Astoria, would have had
practically a transcontinental railroad more than thirty years ago; and Eugene
would have been the junction of two great lines. But for this, the Midas touch of
Huntington would have made the southeastern Oregon plains and the Nehalem
wilderness prosperous and populous with commerce and population of half a mil-
lion, and Astoria would have had a population of 50,000. Driven, from this
opportunity which Huntington himself sought, he turned his attention to Arizona
and Mexico and gave to the arid deserts of the south the wealth which should have
been the reward of Oregon enterprise. It was the most damaging blow to the
growth of the state which Oregon ever suffered; for it not only deprived
the state of a great railroad, and its consequent development, but it wrecked
the political career of a great man-the man who had most influence in con-
gress from the Pacific coast-George H. Williams—and deprived the state of
his eminent abilities. Ben Holladay and John H. Mitchell by this act ruined
Judge Williams for life and did Portland and the state of Oregon an incalcula-
ble damage.
As an excuse for the action of Senator Williams in this matter, it has been
alleged by his friends, that he altered the terms of the proposed grant of lands
for a railroad from Winnemucca to Eugene for the reason that the California
interests represented by Huntington would abandon the line to Oregon through
the Rogue river valley and come into Oregon by way of Pit river and Goose
lake, if the Pengra proposition was carried out; and by so doing, the people of
the Umpqua and Rogue river valleys would be deprived of a direct communica-


WILLIAM REID
OF
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
529
tion to California. But this excuse is not good, for the reason that the Oregon
and California grant specially provided -
"That the company completing its respective part of the said railroad and
telegraph from either termini herein named to the line between California and
Oregon before the other company shall have likewise arrived at the same line,
shall have the right, and the said company is hereby authorized to continue in
constructing the same beyond the line aforesaid, upon the terms mentioned in
this act, until the said parts shall meet and connect and the whole line of said
railroad shall be completed."
Under that special provision the Oregon part of the road might have been
constructed clear down to Marysville, California, if the California Company
had not built their end of the proposition. There was no possible excuse for the
course of Senator Williains in that transaction. The whole program had been
arranged and agreed to at a meeting held at the residence of Congressman
Thomas Fitch of Nevada at which Senator Williams was present, and Judge Cyrus
Olney representing Astoria interests, B. J. Pengra representing Eugene and
eastern Oregon interests, Thomas Fitch representing Nevada interests, Joseph
Gaston representing Oregon Central Railroad, Portland and Willamette valley
interests, and a personal letter from Hon. C. P. Huntington was read pledging
the Central Pacific Company to build the Pengra road from Winnemucca to
Eugene. Senator Williams backed down and deserted Pengra and his proposed
road because Ben Holladay threatened to defeat him for re-election to the
Uniteci States senate. That was the real, and only explanation of his course;
which proved his own political ruin. and an incalculable damage to his state.
Upon this land grant to the Oregon Central Company, and upon one mil-
lion dollars construction bonds thereon, English capitalists advanced a mil-
lion dollars to build the road from Portland to the Yamhill river, where it
stood still for ten years at the Holladay town of St. Joe. The same capitalists
rere induced by Mr. Villard to advance further capital to extend the road
from St. Joe (long since deserted) to McMinnville and Corvallis, the present
terminus. In the work of building this west side road, the citizens of Portland
contributed in cash and lands $150,000, the people of Washington county $25,-
000, and the people of Yamhill county about $20.000.
.
THE WORK OF VILLARI)
The coming of Henry Villard to Oregon in 1874 was the fact of largest
importance to the development of the Northwest. Mr. Villard had been by his
friends in Germany placed in charge of their interests in the Kansas Pacific
Railroad, and had proved so faithful and capable in managing his trust that
when similar investments in Oregon had been jeopardized by Ben Holladay he
was sent here to make a report and right all wrongs. On his first visit to Ore-
gon, the author of this book accompanied him on a trip throughout the Willam-
ette valley and discovered that he had thoughts, if not plans, for a field of
action far beyond the confines of the state. Quickly getting under his full con-
trol the existing Oregon roads, he went straight at the work of his vast plan of
an Oregon railroad system having a transcontinental power and influence. And
as one step rapidly followed another in the unfolding of his scheme, it was seen
Vol. I-37
530
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
that Henry Villard was not an ordinary railroad promoter, but a veritable em-
pire builder. His genius for grand plans of developing great states was fully
equalled by his ability to raise the means to successfully carry them into effect
W. W. CHAPMAN'S WORK
Upon the completion of the Union Pacific Railroad to Salt Lake, that inter-
est had sent surveying parties to look out a route for the extension of their
road to Oregon. That exploration, made in the year 1868, was known as "the
Hudnutt survey." An Oregon man, Col. W. W. Chapman, one of the founders
of the city of Portland, took up and exploited the idea of a "Portland. Dalles
& Salt Lake Railroad" on the route proposed by Hudnutt. Colonel Chapman
worked upon this scheme from 1870 to 1876, attending the sessions of congress
in each year and vainly urging congress to transfer to his company the unused
land grant of the Northern Pacific railroad from the mouth of the Snake river
to Portland. Chapman did a vast amount of work on this proposition, getting
rights of way and accumulating facts showing the value, resources and im-
portance of the route, and may be justly considered the pioneer of the road
subsequently built on the route.
In every view of the case, the Portland, Dalles & Salt Lake proposition was
the most important, and if carried out, the most beneficial railroad which Port-
land and Oregon could have. Because it would not only develop the largest
territory of the state, but would place Oregon on an equality with California in
getting emigration from the east and in competing for the Asiatic commerce.
And that Col. Chapman did not succeed was owing wholly to the opposition of
the Oregon Steam Navigation Company. This great monopoly would not brook
any competition for the eastern Oregon business, and could not see that a rail-
road on that line would be self-sustaining, and that it was their true policy as
a business proposition as well as a duty to the state to support Chapman's
efforts and become the leading and controlling interest in the great work. Col.
Chapman's long-continued effort has been a thousand times vindicated as cor-
rect by the wonderful success of the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company,
one of the most profitable railroads in the United States
The want of financial support and the infirmities of age compelled Chapman
to abandon the enterprise, but not until the time was auspicious for Henry Vil-
lard to take it up in 1879. Mr. Villard visited Oregon first in 1874, again in
1876, and again in 1878. He was greatly impressed and pleased with the
country from the first visit, and had made arrangements to bring his family and
settle permanently in Portland. He had from the first been deeply interested
in developing the country and had made careful investigation of its resources,
and of the tributary regions; so much so that on his visit in 1878 he inquired of
Capt. J. C. Ainsworth, president of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company,
whether his stockholders would be willing to dispose of that company's
property, as has been stated. To this proposal Ainsworth replied by handing
Villard an inventory and appraisal of the Company's boats and portage
railways on the Columbia river, aggregating $3,320,000, with an offer to
sell the entire property at $5,000,000. The property probably had never
cost inore than half the appraisal, but as it was paying twelve per cent divi-
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
531
dend on $5,000,000, Villard thought he made a good bargain when he induced
the Ainsworth stockholders to give him an option to purchase their property
at $4,000,000, one-half cash and the balance in bonds and stocks in a new com-
pany to be organized. For this option for six months, Villard paid Ainsworth
$100,000, is cash, and then immediately returned to New York to finance the
deal and carry out the first move in his great scheme of concentrating the trade
of all the region west of the Rocky mountains and north of California, at Port-
land, Oregon. He presented the proposition first to Jay Gould, and other large
stockholders in the Union Pacific Railroad, with a view to constructing a branch
of the Union Pacific from Salt Lake to Portland on the Chapman route. After
considering this for months, the Gould party declined to go into the scheme
and Villard at once organized the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company,
raised the money to take up the Ainsworth option, and immediately commenced
the construction of the road eastwardly from Portland. The Oregon Railway
& Navigation Company's roads in Oregon, Washington and Idaho are the chil-
dren, the lineal descendants of the old Oregon Steam Navigation Company,
owned and operated by Captain J. C. Ainsworth, and associates. After getting
possession of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, Villard proceeded to in-
corporate and organize the successive corporation—the Oregon Railroad &
Navigation Company, incorporated June 13, 1879. Its first board of directors
consisted of Artemus H. Holmes, William H. Starbuck, James B. Fry and Henry
Villard of New York City. George W. Weidler, J. C. Ainsworth, S. G. Reed,
Paul Schulze, H. W. Corbett and C. H. Lewis, of Portland, Henry Villard being
elected president. And Villard at once set to work with all his characteristic
energy to construct the railroad up the south bank of the Columbia river to the
mouth of the Umatilla river, and from thence via Pendleton over the Blue moun-
tains to La Grande, Baker, and on to Huntington, where it was met by the
Oregon Short line. Subsequently branch lines were run off to Spokane, and
various other points in Oregon and Washington and to Lewiston, Idaho.
To this bold movement of Villard, wholly unexpected by the Union Pacific
people, they promptly replied by organizing the Oregon Short Line Company,
to build a road from the Union Pacific line to the Columbia river, and at once
commenced construction. Villard had thrown down a challenge for possession
of the short line route, it had been promptly accepted, and now the race was
on as to see which of these parties would win the game. It was the first great
test of Henry Villard's ability as a financier. He was opposed by Gould, Mor-
gan and some of the ablest-and wealthiest capitalists in the world, and yet his
talents and energy were such that he pushed his road eastwardly with such
force and rapidity as to meet his rivals at Huntington, near the eastern boun-
dary of the state, and effectually hold his chosen field of enterprise.
But brilliant in conception and rapid in construction as had been the great
road to control the Columbia River valley, Mr. Villard had in his fertile brain
a still greater scheme of finance and development to astonish the railroad world.
The Northern Pacific Railway, with the largest bounty of public lands ever
granted in aid of the construction of any road, had been making but a snail's
pace in spanning the continent with money raised on peacemeal mortgages at
high rates of interest. The line from Portland to Tacoma had been built, and
the eastern division of the road pushed west to the crossing of the Missouri, and
532
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
some work done on a section from the Columbia toward Spokane. The outlook
Was ominous. In the hands of a more energetic management Villard could fore-
see that his grand scheme of an Oregon system might be crippled and so, matur-
ing his plans, he made the great venture of his career. Quietly ascertaining the
amount of money necessary to secure a controlling interest in the Northern Pa-
cific Company, he addressed a circular (May 15, 1881) to his financial friends
asking for the temporary loan of $8,000,000 for a purpose not named, “and no
questions to be asked,”' assuring his friends that in due time he would account
to them for the money intrusted to him with such profits as would be satisfac-
tory. Such a proposition was unheard of in the world of finance. It was auda-
cious, appalling. But, nevertheless, the money was promptly given him. And
this was the formation of the historic “blind pool” to control the Northern Pa-
Railroad, never attempted before and never repeated since.
With this $8,000,000 Villard purchased a controlling interest in the Northern
Pacific, got control in June, 1881, and was elected president in September. He
immediately started an army of men to complete the great work. J. L. Hallett,
of Washington county, Oregon, was superintendent of construction on the west
end. Hans Thielsen, of Portland, chief engineer, and the work was pushed with
such force and vigor that an observer might have supposed that the entire army
of the United States was pushing construction of a military work in time of a
great war. It was the supreme test of Villard's mental and physical strength.
He was at that time president of the Northern Pacific, the Oregon Railway &
Navigation Co., the Oregon Steam Navigation Co., and the Oregon and Califor-
nia Co., and was raising the money for and pushing construction work on all
these lines. But he proved his matchless ability by successfully carrying out
these great enterprises, and on September 8, 1883, completing the Northern Pa-
cific across the continent and connecting its steel bands with those of the Oregon
Railway & Navigation Company at the long since abandoned town of Ainsworth
on the north side of the Snake river, just above its confluence with the Colum-
bia, and thus planned and formed what I have named “The Oregon Railroad
System." How long Villard was considering this idea, no one knows. He
doubtless mentioned it to others, but the first time the author of this book heard
of it was at the dinner table of Senator Nesmith, at his farm on the Rickreall,
in Polk county, in 1874, while accompanying Villard on a trip of observation
through the Willamette valley. The grand conception was his in origin and exe-
cution; and although hampered by doubters and opposed by powerful enemies,
he triumphed over all obstacles and made its success the most enduring monu-
ment of his fame as one of the most forceful characters and honorable men of
his day and generation. The people of Oregon have but slightly comprehended
and do yet but little appreciate the great work he wrought for the state.
planned his work upon the lines of the least resistance"; he worked in harmony
with the laws of nature and upon plans laid down by the great architect of our
planet; and his record and his work is invincible. And now, after spending
years of effort and millions of inoney to reverse the plans of Villard and carry
the trade of the “Inland Empire” over the Cascades to Puget Sound, the great
capitalists of the Northern Pacific and Great Northern roads are forced to ad-
mit the correctness of Villard's plans, and expend forty-eight million dollars to
rectify the blunder of opposing them. It was the keen foresight of Henry Villard


JAMES J. HILL
3
OF
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
533
that saw in the distance all the local wealth and production, trade and popula-
tion of the empire lying west of the Rocky mountains from the California line
to British Columbia, and all the transcontinental commerce between the same
lines pouring its tribute for all time to come down easy grades through the Co-
lumbia gateway to a great city to be built at the junction of the Willamette and
Columbia; and now not one road but four are vieing with each other to utilize
this water-level pass to the great Pacific and the still greater Orient.
Henry Villard was born in 1835 of an honorable and influential family in
Speyer, kingdom of Bavaria, Germany. In the revolution of 1849, his father was
a loyalist and the presiding judge of an important court. Young Villard was at
school, at the gymnasium wore a red feather in his cap and refused to pray for
the king. For this offense he was suspended and managed to get out of his
youthful disloyalty by going to a school over in France. Subsequently par-
doned, he returned and completed his studies at the University of Munich. He
came to the United States in 1853, tarried with relatives near Bellville, Ill., for
a year, and then drifted into journalism, became a war correspondent in the Civil
war, made friends with influential people, attracted attention by his ability and
genial manners, made some money in speculations, went back to Germany on a
visit, and made the financial friends at Frankfort who afterward employed him
to look after their interests in investments in America and put him on the high-
way to his great success. He was a man of most engaging and genial manners,
with nothing of the hard selfishness or avaricious grasp of the typical rich man.
No man was inore considerate or generous in praise and assistance to those who
worked with or under him, or whose work he had made use of. In the days of
his prosperity his purse was open wide to all works of charity and benevolence,
chief of which in Oregon was $50,000 to the state university for an irreducible
fund, at least $400 of the interest from which to be used annually in the pur-
chase of books for the university library. He gave a like sum to house the on-
phan children of Portland. No act of littleness, meanness, oppression, injustice
or dishonor ever stained the escutcheon of his noble career, and he sleeps well on
the banks of the Hudson.
BRANCH ROADS
This chapter might properly end here were it not that others have done good
work in building branch lines to complete the grand scheme planned by Villard;
and which it seems the facts of history require to be recorded in this connection.
The principal of these was the narrow guage systein projected by the author
of this book in 1878 to more completely develop the Willamette valley. In that
year he built the first forty miles of three-foot gauge railroad in the state from
Dayton to Sheridan in the Yamhill valley with a branch to Dallas in Polk
county. In this work the farmers of the South Yamhill valley raised and paid
in on stock and other forms of substantial aid the sum of forty-five thousand
dollars. And while the work of construction was going on, the town of Inde-
pendence, in Polk county, launched a schieme to remove the county seat from
Dallas to Independence. And as Dallas was off the general lines of travel and
destitute of ready access to the outside world, it looked as if the Independence
people would succeed. To checkmate the move, the Dallas people sought out the
534
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
1
assistance of Mr. Gaston, who was building the narrow gauge railroad, and of-
fered to raise, and did raise, seventeen thousand dollars to have the little rail-
road extended to their town. The road was accordingly extended to Dallas, and
that is the way the town of Dallas secured its first railroad and saved the county
seat of Polk county.
RAILROAD LANDS
List of lands and sales of lands under the United States grants to aid con-
struction of the Oregon and California Railroad.
Total pur-
Total Total
Sales
Acres chase price
Sales in quantities not exceeding 160 acres... 4,930 295,727.52 $1,234,538.51
Sales: in quantities exceeding 160 acres but
less than 640 acres
280
91,434.67 402,725.29
Sales in quantities exceeding 640 acres but
less than 2,000 acres
56 60,366.29 410,759.12
Sales in quantities exceeding 2,000 acres.... 40 372,399.46 2,922,250.67
Total
5,306 819,927.94 $4,970,273.59
In the above computations are included 830 pending contracts aggregating
174,109.08 acres, as to which the exact purchase price in not known, but is com-
puted on the basis of $10.00 per acre. It is probable that this amount is a little
in excess of the exact amount; $7.00 per acre would probably be more accurate.
Lands patented under East Side Grant
Lands patented under West Side Grant
Acres.
2,765,597.13
128,618.13
Total lands patented both grants
Lands claimed but not yet patented, approximately
2,894,215.26
293,000.00
Total
Total lands sold
3,187,215.26
819,927.94
Balance remaining unsold and involved in land grant suit..
2,367,287.32
The United States is now seeking to recover these 2,367,287 acres by a suit
in equity for violation of the provisions of the law granting the lands; and esti-
mates these lands to be of the value of fifty million dollars. The lands already
sold probably produced fifteen million dollars to the purchasers from the rail-
road companies. All of these lands were secured for railroad purposes by the
direct efforts of Joseph Gaston, and their value to the companies is some evi-
dence of the value of Gaston's service in the railroad development of the state.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
535
THE WORK OF WILLIAM REID
In 1880 the narrow gauge road built by Mr. Gaston in Yamhill and Polk
counties was sold to capitalists in Dundee, Scotland, who, through their agent
in Oregon, William Reid, of Portland, extended the lines on the west side of the
Willamette river to Airlie in Polk county, and to Dundee, Yamhill county, with
an east side of the river branch from Dundee crossing the river at Ray's Land-
ing, thence to Woodburn, Silverton, Scio and on to Coburg in Lane county. Mr.
Villard leased this system (about 200 miles) in 1880; and Mr. Reid, on his own
capital, subsequently extended the line from Dundee to Portland via Newberg;
and the whole road thus built was soon incorporated in the standard gauge sys-
tem up the Willamette valley.
It was during Mr. Reid's administration of this enterprise that the great
fight about the public levee” in Portland took place. As it was "public"
ground, it seemed to Reid's attorneys that the railroad had as much right to
land on top of the levee as the steamboats had to tie up at the front of the same
ground. And so the superintendent of Reid's road commenced improving the
levee for a railroad track. Whereupon Mayor D. P. Thompson ordered the
chief of police to arrest the railroad laborers and put them in the city jail, which
was done. But as fast as one man was carried away, another man was put in his
place and he in turn arrested until the chief of police had got eighty-five big,
husky fellows in the city jail for grading and cleaning up the levee. It had be-
come a farce, and the chief of police threw open the doors of his prison and told
the men to go-which they did.
From the levee the matter was transferred to the legislature at Salem. The
mayor, the Oregonian, and a lot of rich, men of Portland, Oregon, were against
Reid, but the farmers were all in his favor. The legislature promptly passed an
act to give Reid's road terminal privileges on the levee. Governor Thayer vetoed
the bill, and then the legislature passed it over the governor's veto—and two
railroads are now using that public levee for terminal grounds. Mr. Reid sub-
sequently took up the proposition of building a railroad from Astoria to Port-
land. On this work he expended many thousands of dollars in surveys and in
grading the line from Seaside eastwardly into the heavily timbered region of
Saddle mountain. But the financial depression of 1893 coming on put a stop
to railroad building all over the United States, and Mr. Reid's enterprise and
fortune went down in the general wreck.
But the work and money Reid put into the Astoria-Hillsboro line was not
wholly lost. Taking the matter up again in 1903-4, he was so far able to go ahead
with the work of construction as to put engineers and a force of graders on the
first section of the line west of Hillsboro, and make it ready for the rails and ties.
And at this juncture the Harriman interests seeing Reid was likely to succeed,
inspired Mr. E. E. Lytle, who had constructed the Biggs-Shaniko line in eastern
Oregon, to purchase out the interests of Reid and his stockholders, and go on
with the road as a part of the Harriman system under the name of the Pacific
Railway & Navigation Company. So that whatever credit is to be attached to
the construction of this road into the Nehalem and Tillamook valleys, belongs to
William Reid.
Of independent roads, which are also in effect feeder lines to this Oregon sys-
536
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
tem may be mentioned the Sumpter valley road, built by Messrs. Eccles and Nib-
ley of Utah, from Baker City to the town of Prairie City and south west towards
Burns, now aggregating nearly ninety miles of track. This road was organized
in 1890. The same parties have within the past year built eighteen miles of new
road running up the Hood river valley from the town of Hood River, and called
it the Mt. Hood Railroad. Another important independent line is the Rogue
River Valley road running from Jacksonville to Medford, and from there it is
being extended to Crater lake and on to Klamath Falls by J. J. Hill; and on this
line will be developed the largest tract of sugar pine timber in the United States.
This enterprise was started in 1891 by Mr. E. J. DeHart, of Medford. Another
important independent line is what has been called successively The Willamette
Valley & Coast, “The Oregon Pacific,'' and The Corvallis & Eastern Railroad,
running from Yaquina on the bay of that name, eastwardly via Corvallis and
Albany to Idanha in the Cascade mountains. This road has had a checkered
career. Commenced in 1880 by public-spirited citizens of Corvallis and Benton
county, who first and last put about $100,000 of hard cash and labor into its con-
struction. It was turned over to one T. Egerton Hogg, a promoter of great
promise and little performance, who reorganized the scheme into its second name
and issued $15,000,000 in bonds and $18,000,000 in stock on one hundred and
forty miles of road and then failed and died, leaving his bankrupt road to be
sold for $100,000 to A. B. Hammond. It has from the first been such a “misfit
that neither the genius of Villard, the energy of Huntington, nor the comprehen-
sive mind of Harriman, have been able to assign it a practical and profitable
place in the Oregon system. It is now doing a large business in hauling lumber,
and must sooner or later find a useful and necessary purpose in the development
of the country.
WORK OF GEO. W. HUNT
a
George W. Hunt's work in the railroad development of Oregon makes an
important chapter in the history of the state. He also was one of the independ-
ent builders of railroads, never working under the patronage of any of the
great systems. His work in Umatilla and Walla Walla counties made him.
serious rival of the Northern Pacific in its progress to the seacoast; and so much
of a competing element that the Northern Pacific and Oregon Railway &
Navigation Company combined to force Hunt out of the railroad field.
He built the Corvallis & Eastern Railroad. He also built the Hunt sys-
tem, which opened a great wheat country in eastern Washington and Oregon.
This system extended from Wallula to Pendleton and from Wallula to Walla
Walla, Dayton and Waitsburg, and is now a part of the Northern Pacific sys-
tem. He also planned to build a road from Centralia to Gray's Harbor, and it
was in this venture that the large fortune he had amassed, was broken. By this
project he drew upon him the fire of his more powerful railroad rivals, who
brought so much pressure to bear against the sale of his bonds and other steps
he took in the effort to carry out the plan, that he was forced to retire from rail-
road activities.
He also planned to build the road down the Columbia river, and it is
over part of the line of survey made by him that the Spokane; Portland &
Seattle Railway Company (commonly known as the “North Bank Road'') now


Copyrighted Photo by Kiser, Portland, Oregon
The beginning of the lumbering industry in the Great Northwest, on Portland townsite,
more than fifty years ago, and now developed into a business aggregating in the same terri-
tory one hundred million dollars annually
ONIL
OF
Pic
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
537
operates. After retiring from railroad work, he devoted his time to farming.
In a measure he recouped his lost fortune and acquired large tracts of land
near Umatilla, where he recently held 3,300 acres, which was sold to the Swift
Packing House Company for a million dollars. Dr. Hunt passed away last
year.
JAMES J. HILL'S WORK
Mr. James J. Hill did not come into the Oregon railroad field until its rail-
road development had been planned and fixed by those already here, or by the
laws of nature. If Hill's roads over in the state of Washington could have
hauled lumber to the eastern states for as low a freight rate as Harriman was haul-
ing the same class of freight through the Columbia gateway, and paid as good
dividends on his railroad shares, it is not probable that he would have crossed
the Columbia with his magnificent bridge at Vancouver, or ventured into the
rugged fastness of the Des Chutes canyon. But James J. Hill is a great man,
one of the greatest in the nation, and he did not need a telescope to discover
the great field for his energy, and the profitable employment of the great capi-
tal of which he is trustee, which lay beyond the Des Chutes, and beyond the
Nehalem mountains.
The “North Bank Road” is a monument to the railroad genius and grim
perseverance of Mr. Hill. It is literally a rock road for a hundred miles, either
carved out of the basaltic cliffs or built upon the rock foundations filled in from
waste rock blasted out of the roadbed.
ELECTRIC RAILWAYS
Railroads operated by electric power, other than the street railways of towns
aud cities, were introduced in Oregon in 1906, by the construction of the Ore-
gon Electric from Portland to Salem, with a branch to Forest Grove. The own-
ers of that line have since extended the road to Eugene; and also constructed
another line from Portland to Banks in Washington county, with the intention
of extending the line to Tillamook Bay. Several other electric propositions
have been incorporated.
OTHER RAILROADS
Other railroads, and railroads now in process of construction in Oregon, are
as follows, for an account of which this work is indebted to the Report of the
Oregon Railroad Commissioners for the year 1911. And it is no more than a
truthful record of contemporaneous history to say, that the present Board of
Railroad Commissioners—Clyde B. Aitchison, Thos. K. Campbell and Frank
J. Miller, and their efficient secretary, H. H. Corey, have, as such officials, ren-
dered services to the State of incalculable value, and fully vindicated the confi-
dence placed in them by the people of Oregon.
Astoria & Columbia River railroad, Portland to Astoria, 92 miles. Beaver-
ton & Willsburgh, from Beaverton to Washington county to Willsburgh in
Multnomah county, 10 miles.
538
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
California & North Eastern from Weed in the state of California to Kla-
math Falls in Oregon, 86 miles.
Central Railroad of Oregon from Union Junction to Union, 3 miles; and
from Valley Junction to Cove, 11 miles; all in Union county.
Columbia River & Oregon Central from Arlington to Condon, 45 miles.
Columbia Southern, from Biggs to Shaniko, 70 miles.
Coos Bay, Roseburgh & Eastern, Marshfield to Myrtle Point, 26 miles.
Corvallis & Alsea from Corvallis to Monroe and Glenbrooke, 24 miles
Oregon Trunk, from Fallbridge to Bend, 120 miles.
Corvallis & Eastern, from Yaquina to Hoover, 154 miles.
Des Chutes, from Des Chutes Junction to Bend, 120 miles.
Great Southern, from Dalles to Dufur, 30 miles.
Independence & Monmouth, from Independence to Monmouth and Airlie,
16 miles.
Malheur Valley, from Malheur Junction to Vale, 24 miles.
Mount Hood, Hood River to Dee, 16 miles.
Northwestern, from Blake Junction to Homestead, 58 miles.
Oregon & South Eastern, from Cottage Grove to Disston, 22 miles.
Oregon & Washington from Portland to Huntington, and Branches, 827
miles, with a total capitalization of 113 million dollars.
Oregon Short Line in Oregon, Huntington to Nyssa, 25 miles.
Pacific & Eastern, from Medford to Butte Falls, 34 miles.
Pacific Railway, from Hillsboro to Tillamook Bay, 68 miles.
Rogue River Valley, from Medford to Jacksonville, 6 miles.
Oregon & California, from Portland to the state line; and from Portland
to Corvallis, 412 miles.
Spokane, Portland & Seattle, from Portland to Vancouver, 5 miles.
Sumpter Valley, from Baker to Prairie City 81 miles.
Umatilla Central, from Pilot Rock Junction to Pilot Rock, 14 miles.
Portland to Cazadero, Electric, 41 miles.
United Railways, Portland to Banks, 28 miles.
Sheridan - Willamina, 6 miles.
Oregon Electric, Portland to Eugene, 125 miles.
Garden Home to Forest Grove, 20 miles.
This list does not contain the mileage of the logging railroads in the state
which are regarded as temporary structures, and not used by the general public.
CHAPTER XX
1810—1911
AGRICULTURE HORTICULTURE ANIMAL INDUSTRIES FARMS, FARM LANDS AND
VALUES-COMMERCE,MANUFACTURES-THE STATE FAIR-THE LEWIS AND CLARK
EXPOSITION.
Cultivation of the soil for food in Oregon was commenced at Oak Point on the
south side of the Columbia river in the year 1810 by Capt. Nathan Winship of
Boston, Mass. Captain Winship and his brother Jonathan had decided to
establish a trading post on the Columbia river, and this point was selected for
the enterprise. Here they cleared some land in May, 1810, commenced build-
ing a house and planted a garden, but on account of the annual Columbia river
freshet they were forced to abandon the site and move to higher ground.
In 1811 the Astor men building the Fort at Astoria in May of that year
planted twelve potatoes that had been brought from New York around Cape
Horn, which started the cultivation of potatoes in Oregon, and from the twelve
first planted a crop of fifty bushels was produced in 1813. The first bushel of
wheat was brought overland from Canada by order of Dr. John McLoughlin in
1825, and was planted that year. In 1837 Lieut. Slacum reported to the U. S.
War Department that the H. B. Co. had produced on their farm near Vancouver
that year 8,000 bushels of wheat, 5,500 bushels of barley, 6,000 bushels of oats,
9,000 bushels of peas, and 14,000 bushels of potatoes, besides turnips, pumpkins
and other vegetables. At that time the Company had 1,000 head of beef cattle,
700 hogs, 200 sheep, 500 horses and forty yoke of working oxen, a threshing
machine, a flouring mill and a distillery. Outside of the Hudson's Bay Company
the first farms were opened in Marion county, Louis Bichette settling near
Champoeg in 1825, Joseph Gervais near where the town of Gervais is located, in
1828, and Etienne Lucier in 1830. A number of the remnants of the Wilson
Price Hunt party also settled on the prairie near Gervais and Lucier; and all of
them being Canadian Frenchmen they gave the name to the neighborhood
“French Prairie,” which identifies that region to this day. When Jason Lee
came in 1834 he found here these Frenchmen and although they were all Cath-
olics, and he was a Methodist, he deemed it a good place to found a mission and
start the first school in the Willamette valley. These first farmers and Ameri-
cans who came in 1843 and 4 prospéred in raising wheat, as the H. B. Company
took all they raised at a fair price. Gervais had the first orchard in the present
state of Oregon, his trees having been procured from Dr. McLoughlin at Fort
Vancouver; but they were all seedling apples, and not to be compared with the
grafted fruit introduced by Luelling in the fall of 1847.
The first market the pioneer Oregon farmers had for their wheat was the
539
540
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Hudson's Bay Company which took all they produced and sold it to the Russians
of Alaska in payment of the annual royalty the Company paid for the monopoly.
of catching furs in that region.
From that beginning of wheat production in Oregon eighty-seven years ago
the wheat crop has so grown that now the City of Portland, as the principal ex-
port wheat inarket of the Northwest, ships to foreign countries one-third of all
the wheat exported from the United States and inore than any other port in the
United States. The wheat crop of this Northwest for the year 1912 being about
seventy million bushels, of which Washington produced 35 million. Idaho 5 mil-
lion, and Oregon 30 million bushels. The cultivation of other grains-oats,
barley, and rye kept along with wheat in production in proportion to the amount
consumed. The manufacture of oatmeal comienced in Oregon in 1875, by a
Scotchman named John Milne who bought an old over-shot water wheel mill that
was abandoned near the town of Beaverton in Washington County. Milne re-
paired the old mill and soon proved that good oatmeal could be made out of Ore-
gon oats; and made money enough to build a larger oat mill at Hillsboro where he
made a fortune at the business. Ten years later Albers Bros. of Portland took
up the same business, and has now at Portland the largest and most prosperous
milling business making oat meal west of the Mississippi river.
Flax culture as a business commenced at Salem, Oregon in 1865, where a mill
was erected to manufacture linseed oil, the proprietors of the mill distributing Hax
seed to the farmers to induce them to raise the flax for the seed which could be sold
to the oil mill. The flax grown for seed alone produced as fine a fibre as the Irish
or Belgian flax; and the only thing needed to produce fine linen in Oregon was
the flax and linen mills with the men who knew how to handle the raw material.
HORTICULTURE
The cultivation of fruit started in Oregon before its settlement by the Amer-
icans. The romantic story of the young ladies at a London dinner party drop-
ping the seeds of the apples eaten at the dinner into the pockets of the young men
about to sail away to the wilds of Oregon, and the planting of those seeds at Old
Vancouver, and the trees therefrom bearing fruit, and at least one of these trees
now 85 years old and still bearing fruit, is not only a romantic but also a literally
true story. And from these seedling trees were started the first orchards on
French Prairie and in Yamhill County. Captain Nathaniel Wyeth in his diary
of 1835 speaks of having grafted fruit trees at his place of Fort William on Sau-
vie's Island. In this he must have been mistaken. He may have got some young
trees from Vancouver. There was no other place to get fruit trees. But if he
ever planted a tree at Fort William it did not survive his enterprise. The first
grafted fruit trees were brought to Oregon by Henderson Luelling, an account
of which will be found in Chapter XII.
About the year 1858, Seth Lewelling, a brother of Henderson Luelling set out
the first Italian prune orchard west of the Rocky Mountains. His success with
this fruit was so marked that other fruit growers were induced to take up the idea
of commercial prune orchards.

OF
2
M м
CBL.D
5
THE MODERN WAY
Lumbering in Oregon Forests in 1910
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
541
The first man to engage in this branch of the fruit industry as a commercial
proposition was Dr. J. R. Cardwell of Portland, Oregon, who was for twenty
years President of the Oregon Horticultural Society. But to be sure of his fruit
Dr. Cardwell ordered trees from France and Germany, getting fourteen different
varieties to test them. After making these practical tests Dr. Cardwell com-
menced planting prune trees in 1871, and continued his plantings down to 1881,
at which time he had 80 acres planted and in a high state of cultivation, at the
place now known as Capitol Hill on the Salem Electric Railroad three iniles
southeast of Portland. Here he had 6,000 prune trees; 1,000 Royal Ann and
Black Republican cherry trees; 1,500 Bartlett pear trees, and 500 Winter Nellis
pear trees; making the first commercial orchard in the State of Oregon. The
first crop of dried prunes sold for 12 cents a pound, and for several years never
sold below 9 cents a pound. Prunes are now a great source of wealth in both
Oregon and Washington. In Oregon at Dallas, Newberg, Salem and some other
points, are large commercial drying and packing houses, and the prune orchards
are kept up to the top-notch of excellence.
Great rivalry exists between different localities in the production of cherries
in Oregon. The fact is almost any good clay soil will produce fine cherries in
Oregon. The competing points for excellence are The Dalles, Salem, Eugene and
Two hundred and thirty tons of Royal Ann cherries, were shipped
from Lane County in 1911, making one of the largest cherry shipping centers of
the Pacific Northwest. The crop of 230 tons, or more, harvested this year repre-
sents the fruit from old orchards. There are three times this number of old
cherry trees in new orchards that will bear for the first time within the next two
years, which should triple or even quadruple the crop of this year.
According to figures prepared by several large orchardists, the average
profit on cherries will exceed $365,000 an acre. Taking the average of the vari-
ous orchards about Eugene it was found that between six and seven tons are
harvested from an acre. The cost of picking the cherries ranges from 60 cents
to $1.00 a hundred pounds, but taking a maximum $120.00 an acre should be al-
lowed for picking. For cultivation, spraying and pruning, $15 an acre is re-
quired. This makes a total expense of $135 an acre.
This year the price received by the grower for the cherries was $80.00 a ton,
and assuming an average of six or seven tons to the acre, each acre would produce
no less than $500 worth of fruit. This would leave a minimum of $365 as a
revenue from one acre of land.
A cherry tree near Monroe, Benton County measures 12 feet in circumference
and from the tips of the limbs across the tree measures T5 feet. It was set out
by Pioneer Martin about 1860 and has been loaded with luscious fruit each year.
Sheridan Sun says: Newberg lays claim to the oldest cherry tree in Oregon.
It is a Royal Anne 52 years old, and measures 9 feet in circumference, 312 feet
from the ground and has produced a ton of cherries in one season.
Great crops of fine pears are raised in almost every part of the State; but
Rogue River valley has paid more attention to this fruit than any other clistrict
of Oregon, and has made great profits in the business. The soil of that valley
542
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
seems to be specially adapted to that fruit. The crop is shipped in refrigerator
cars to all eastern and Canadian cities, and being a perishable fruit must be
handled expeditiously with scientific care.
The culture of the English walnut (so-called) has not yet had sufficient time
to prove its absolute success. The trees already planted are thrifty and bear well
for young trees, and large plantings have been made in Yamhill and Washing-
ton Counties, especially on the highlands west of Sheridan, and on the Chehalem
range of hills east of Wapato Lake.
There are about 200 acres of bearing walnut orchards in the state of which
Yamhill county has over half. Dundee and Sheridan are the principal centers
of the walnut industry in Yamhill county, with Dundee as the principal pro-
ducing point at the present time.
Oregon is the pioneer in shipping apples from the Pacific coast to the great
markets of the eastern cities and of Europe. And Hood River valley is the first
apple growing region to ship the fruit. W. P. Watson who owned a beaver dam
farm out at Beaverton in Washington county, and made money on it raising
onions was the first man to exploit the advantages of Hood River as a fruit grow-
ing country. Watson traded off his onion farm and went to Hood River in 1870,
because he could raise better peaches and apples at that point than at Beaverton,
and he liked peaches better than he did onions. But Watson was a philosopher,
enthusiast and dreamer and not a business man. He could tell how and show the
way to success but did not trouble himself to walk therein. After he went up
to Hood River and was enjoying life and his luscious peaches and apples, a
colony of eastern people settled in Hood River valley because the land was cheap,
five and six dollars an acre. But it was not profitable land for ordinary crops,
and the colonists were not much of a farming lot anyway. And to Watson, the
old Oregonian, and always the enthusiast, these colonists went with their
troubles. Watson was equal to the occasion. He advised them all to go to rais-
ing fruit, and sell fruit although he never sold any himself. The colonists
took his advice, and after four or five years battle with hard times to keep the
wolf from the door they had fruit to sell-beautiful yellow Newtons, Spitzen-
bergs and Bellefleurs. But the Portland market would not pay any more for
Hood River apples than Yamhill apples, and that was fifty or sixty cents a box.
But these Iowa colonists could not sell their fine apples at that price and make a
living So they combined their brains and their apples and thought out a brand
new idea. They would pack a carload of apples in neat boxes, in neat layers
in the box, and wrap them in paper, and be absolutely and devoutly honest in
the transaction and put just as good apples in the bottom of the box as in the
first layer on top. They packed their car and sent it out on a venture—a reck-
less venture, to a commission merchant in New York City. And what was the
result? The hard pressed colonists had wrought a miracle. Their apples and
their "honest pack” was the wonder of the great city, and were snapped up at
three dollars a box. The Hood River people had set the pace for the State--good
apples and an honest pack. From that start Oregon has gone on in the fruit
business conquering, and to conquer; so that when the city of Buffalo held its
great World's Fair Exposition, the Oregonians could put up the following:
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
543
CHALLENGE
Come Down Arkansas! Come Down British Columbia! Come
Down Virginia ! Come Down New York
Come Down World !
The Oregon Booster is up to Stay! We show
The biggest Apples and the biggest and best
Fruit of All Kinds. There are no Flies on
Oregon Fruit.'
Oregon has gained more honors, medals and awards for her horticultural
productions at various Expositions than any other state. In detail, these were:
At Chicago, 13 gold medals (highest awards); 70 silver medals, 10 bronze
medals. At Omaha, five gold medals (highest awards); 10 silver medals, five
bronze medals. At Buffalo, 18 gold medals, (highest awards) ; 18 silver medals,
51 bronze medals. At Charleston, 34 gold medals, (highest award); 14 silver
medals, one bronze medal. At St. Louis, three grand prizes, (highest awards);
37 gold medals, 152 silver medals, 72 bronze medals. At Portland (Lewis &
Clark Exposition,) 114 gold medals (highest awards) ; 151 silver medals, 346
bronze medals. At Seattle (A. Y. P. Exposition), seven grand prizes, highest
award); 10 gold medals, 21 silver medals, 82 bronze medals. Recapitulation-
10 grand prizes, 237 gold medals, 436 silver medals, 567 bronze medals—total
1,250. The grandest prize ever won was the “Wilder Medal,' at Buffalo, in
competition against the world, and all participated even Tasmania, Australia,
France, England, Germany, Canada, and all the states of the Union. This
prize is given every two years by the Pomological Society of the World. At
the Pan-American Exposition (Buffalo), New York entered 3,000 plates, Wis-
consin 2,000 plates, while Col. Henry E. Dosch entered for Oregon only 140
plates of the choicest apples, pears, peaches, apricots, plums, cherries and
prunes. It was quality, not quantity that carried the day.
H. M. Williamson, Secretary of the State Board of Horticulture, has col-
lected the statistics and estimates the value of the Oregon fruit crop of 1911 as
follows:
Value
Apples, bushels
Dried Prunes, pounds
Fresh Prunes, Plums, crates
Pears, bushels ..
Peaches, boxes
Cherries, pounds
Grapes, pounds
Strawberries, pounds
Blackberries, pounds
Raspberries, pounds
Loganberries, pounds
Other fruits and nuts
Amount
1,200,000
20,000,000
220,000
180,000
480,000
4,000,000
3,750,000
7,000,000
2,000,000
1,400,000
3,000,000
$1,300,000
2,550,000
154,000
225,000
250,000
240,000
125,000
400,000
90,000
85,000
135,000
100,000
1
544
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
In consequence of this prosperity in fruit growing the price of land adapted
to fruit culture has greatly appreciated in value, rising from ten dollars an
acre in Hood River and Rogue River Valley twenty-five years ago to $500 an
acre in 1910, and when in bearing trees, commanding two or three times that
price.
HOPS AND BEER
From a few vines planted near Silverton in Marion county forty-five years
ago Oregon has become the leading producer of hops in the United States. This
year the production of the United States stands as follows:
Bales.
Oregon
115,000
Washington
15,000
California
80,000
New York
40,000
Total United States
250,000
1
Allowing a pound of hops to the barrel of beer, Oregon is now producing hops
enough to produce yearly thirty million barrels of beer; or 30 barrels for
each man, woman and child in the State. But only a small amount of the hop
crop is converted into beer in Oregon, and not one fourth of what is produced here
is consumed by the people of the State. Nearly all the Oregon hop crop is shipped
to the eastern states or to foreign countries; while the Oregon breweries ship
probably half their brew to the Phillipines, Hawaii, Alaska and British Colum-
bia. Taking one year with another the price of hops will average 15 cents a
pound, which will give the Oregon farmers more than three million dollars
annually for hops, more than half of which goes to the actual labor of
producing, curing and baling the crop. But the price, as well as the annual
production varies greatly from year to year. Dry weather and insect pests cut
down the crop; and large crops in England and Germany cut down the price.
Some years have given the Oregon farmers five million dollars for their hops,
and other years not enough to pay the cost of production.
The crops of Oregon from 1900 to 1911, inclusive, have been as follows:
1911
1910
1909
1908
1907
1906
Bales
70,000
93,000
88,500
92,000
136,000
160,000
1905 ..
1904
1903
1902
1901
1900
Bales
117,000
88,000
88,000
86,000
71,000
80,000
THE ANIMAL INDUSTRIES
In any historical consideration of the animal industries of Oregon the faith
ful Bos must lead the procession. It was the ox-team and its helper, the cow,

2.
1.
S
3.
THE FISHING INTERESTS IN COLUMBIA RIVER
No. 1-A sturgeon catch
Nos, 2 and 3-Salmon hauls
UNIL
3
OF
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
545
that delivered the pioneer settlers in safety from the Missouri to the Colum-
bia. All honor to the Ox.
The long distance trail across the western two-thirds of the American Con-
tinent well nigh exhausted the vitality of all the cattle the immigrants of 1842,
3, 4 and 5 brought to the country. The stock of cattle the pioneers found here
were very little better than wild cattle. One of the most notable acts of Jason
Lee after reaching Oregon was his enterprise in 1837, in connection with Ewing
Young, of driving overland from California 750 head of Spanish cattle. These
long horned cattle were worthless as dairy stock, but good for beef. Ten years
later improved breeds of cattle, both for milk and beef, were driven overland
from the States, and in a few years greatly improved the Spanish Stock. John
Wilson of Illinois brought thoroughbred Durham cattle in 1847; and J. C. Geer
and Capt. Bonser, also brought in fine milk cows in that year. One of the
largest importers of fine cattle to Oregon was S. G. Reed, the founder of the
Reed College. About the year 1880 he established a large breeding farm at
Reedville, in Washington County, with which he stocked with pure bred Jer-
seys, Ayrshires and Short Horn cattle. Thos. H. Tongue of the same County
also imported fine Ayrshire milk cattle; and Washington County soon became
one of the most important centers of the dairy business in the State. Tillamook
county is now the leader in the dairy industries; although it was not the leader in
the importation of dairy cattle from outside the State. Prof. Kent of the Oregon
State Agricultural College has recently made an extensive and very careful in-
vestigation of the dairy business in Oregon, and from his report is taken the
following extracts:
It has been estimated that about 175,000 dairy cows are owned in the state
of Oregon. The average annual milk production of these cows will not exceed
4,000 pounds, or approximately 2,000 quarts. The total amount of milk pro-
duced in the state during the year 1911, therefore, probably did not exceed 350,-
000,000 quarts. There were approximately 800,000 people in the state juring
1911 and if we assume that there was an average of five to each family, and
that each family used one quart of milk daily, the total consumption of milk
alone for the year would amount to 58,400,000 quarts or about 17 per cent of
the total production. If we allow an average market value of 71/2 cents a quart
to this milk, we have a total valuation of $4,380,000 for the product of the cow
sold and consumed in the form of milk.
Retail milk men report that about 10 per cent of their sales are in the form
of sweet cream. Probably an equal or larger amount of sweet cream is sold by
sweet cream shippers. The value of the sweet cream therefore may be placed at
approximately $1,000,000 and would represent about 8,000,000 quarts of milk
or about two and one-half per cent of the total. Condensed milk would probably
represent about an equal amount of utilization of the total milk produced, and
a market value of about $2,000,000.
The 1911 production of cheese is probably in the neighborhood of 5,000,000
pounds. Tillamook County is credited with the production of 3,500,000 pounds,
and the other cheese-producing sections should bring the total to about 5,000,000
pounds. This would require about 25,000,000 quarts of milk, or about 7 per
cent of the total. This cheese has cost the consumer an average of not less than
20 cents a pound, or $1,000,000.
Vol. I-35
546
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
According to the foregoing computation about 72 per cent of the milk pro-
duced in the state may be considered as having been used for butter making
purposes. If we assume that this milk contained an average of 40 per cent of
butter fat, there could have been made from this fat about 24,000,000 pounds of
butter, which cost the consumer an average of about 35 cents a pound or an
aggregate of $8,400,000. The aggregate value of Oregon's dairy products as
represented by the consumer's standard, may thus be summarized as follows:
Amount
Market Milk
Sweet Cream
Condensed Milk
Cheese
Butter
$4,380,000
1,000,000
2,000,000
1,000,000
8,400,000
Total
....
$16,780,000
But from the standpoint of the milk producer the summary would be ap-
proximately as follows:
Market Milk ...
Sweet Cream
Condensed Milk
Cheese
Butter Fat
Amount.
$2,195,000
500,000
750,000
600,000
5,500,000
Total ..
$9,545,000
Upon the subject of increasing the productive value of dairy cows, Mrs.
Annie I. Hughes of Clackamas County reported her experience to the annual
meeting of the State Dairy Association for 1911 as follows: By applying prac-
tical methods Mrs. Hughes had increased the annual sale of cream from $42 to
$102 a cow. From a herd of eight cows in 1905, Mrs. Hughes sold an average
of 176 pounds of butter fat a cow, netting $42.40 a cow. For the year ending
October, this year, 11 cows produced an average of 219.3 pounds of butter fat,
which sold for $99.54 a cow. The net revenue from the herd for the year was
$1,218.23. L. E. Warner of Yoncalla, Douglas County, related a similar experi-
ence, increasing the production of butter fat in his herd from 119 to 333 pounds
a cow in six years.
There are now in operation in Oregon 55 butter factories, 45 cheese factories,
and seven milk condensers, located at Forest Grove, Hillsboro, McMinnville,
Amity, Scio, Newberg and North Bend. Their product goes to every corner of
the globe, and their important markets, outside the United States proper, are
Alaska and the Orient.
Tillamook is the banner cheese county of the Pacific Coast; having thirty
cheese factories producing annually over three and a half million pounds of
cream cheese, selling for five hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
547
The census for 1910 reports 271,000 horses for Oregon, worth twenty-five
million dollars; ten thousand mules worth one million dollars; and 540 burros
worth $150,000. And notwithstanding the increasing use of gasoline trucks
and automobiles, horses are increasing in value in the State.
The production of, sheep and wool is one of the great industries of the State.
The Census reports 2,700,000 head of sheep in the State valued at twelve million
dollars. The annual wool clip is placed at twenty million pounds bringing into
the State about three million dollars-not quite so much as the hops.
The first swine were brought to Oregon by the Hudson's Bay Company. But
since that early day many other breeders have bought in small lots of the differ-
ent breeds. Now at this day the price of all meats is very high, and fat hogs
selling on foot at ten cents a pound. The Banks at Burns and other points in
Eastern Oregon are making importations of breeding stock and selling to farmers
without profit, in order to increase the production of pork.
GOATS AND MOHAIR
Oregon is one of the few states of the Union that has made success in breed-
ing goats for their fleeces. Their introduction in Oregon is related in Chapter
XII; but the commercial part of the equation is yet to be told, and in some re-
spects yet to be proved. The mohair fleeces of the goats have not always brought
the farmer their full value. The buyers of mohair combine to hold down the
prices of this product, and it having only a limited market they have too often
succeeded. The "fashion” controls the demand for clothing, and determines
the demand for mohair. But the utility value of mohair will eventually give
it a large market and make its production one of the great agricultural interests
of Oregon. The goats have fully proven their great values to the pioneer settler
in the timbered regions. They clear his land, they furnish him excellent food
and their fleeces command money and pay for food and clothing. The Census
for 1910 reports the number of goats in Oregon at 185,411, valued at $370,637.
POULTRY
The increase in the number of fowls on Oregon farms during the last de-
cade according to the Census amounts to 32.8 per cent, while the value shows
an increase from $583,000 to $1,068,000 or 83.3 per cent. The increase in
number is confined to chickens, there being a decrease in the number of every
other kind of fowl reported. The number of farms reporting poultry increased
from 29,997 to 37,126, or 23.8 per cent; thus the average number of fowls per
farm reporting increased from 46 to 49. The value of poultry and number of
farms reporting were obtained in 1900 for the total of all fowls only, and not
for each kind as in 1910.
The following table gives the numbers of the various kinds of poultry re-
ported in 1910, together with their value and the number of farms reporting
each kind in 1910 :
548
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
.
1910
April 15th
Kind
Chickens
Turkeys
Ducks
Geese
Guinea Fowls
Pigeons
All others
Farms Reporting
Per cent Number
Number of all farms of fowls
..37,071 8.15 1,753,224
4,433 9.7 26,684
1,976 4.3
10,757
2,599 5.7 14,106
842
1.9
2,608
588 1.3 15,764
19
537
Value
$ 972,606
61,772
8,371
16,191
1,769
5,156
1,878
Total
..37,126
81.6
1,823,680
$1,067,743
Nine farms report 508 pheasants valued at $1,606; 8 farms report 21 peafowls,
valued at $167; 1 farm reports 3 wild geese, valued at $5; 1 farm reports 5 wild
turkeys, valued at $100.
BEES
1910 and 1900.--The number of farms reporting bees has decreased from
8,895, in 1900 to 8,861 in 1910 or 0.4 per cent. The number of colonies of bees
decreased from 55,585 to 47,285, or 14.9 per cent and their value decreased from
$160,382 to $150,164, or 6.4 per cent. The average value of bees per farm report-
ing was $18.03 in 1900 and $16.95 in 1910. Only one farm in every five reports
bees.
VALUES OF FARM CROPS
The U. S. Census for 1910 gives the values of farm crops in Oregon in the
order of their importance at, for hay and forage, $15,226,000; wheat, $10,849,-
000; oats, $5,037,000; hops, $2,839,000; potatoes, $2,099,000, and barley, $1,513,-
000; total, $37,963,000.
THE NUMBER AND VALUE OF FARMS
According to the census the number of farms in Oregon is 45,502, an in-
crease of 27 per cent over the number in 1900, as compared with an increase
of 62.7 per cent in the population of the state, according to the census report
just finished. The acreage of farm land is 11,685,110 and that of improved
land 4,274,803, representing increases of 16 per cent and 28.4 per cent, respect-
ively, over the corresponding figures for 1900. In this connection, however,
it should be noted that the statistics relative to the total acreage and
value of farm lands in 1900 are not strictly comparable with those for
1910, as an Indian reservation of over 484,000 acres was reported as a farm
in Crook county at the earliest census but was not included in the reports for
1910. The apparent decrease during the decade of 24.2 acres, or 8.6 per cent
in the average size of the farm is due largely to this fact. The exclusion of

DANIEL MCALLEN
Father of Lewis and Clark Exposition
UNL
OF
3
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
549
the figures for the reservation referred to from the statistics for 1900 would
reduce the decrease to 10.7 acres. In general, the state has experienced a period
of exceptional agricultural development during the past decade.
IMMENSE VALUES INVOLVED
The total value of farm property, which includes land, buildings, implements
and machinery, and livestock (domestic animals, poultry, and bees), is
$528,244,000, representing an increase of 205.8 per cent since 1900. Land
alone increased in value 263.9 per cent, compared with an increase of 128.5 per
cent in the value of buildings, 103 per cent in that of implements and machinery,
and 75.3 per cent in that of livestock. In considering the increase of values in
agriculture the general increase in the prices of commodities in the last 10 years
should be borne in mind.
The average value of a farm, including its equipment, in 1910 was $11,609,
compared with $4,821 in 1900. The average value per acre of farm land alone
rose from $11.23 in 1900 to $35.23 in 1910, an increase of 213.7 per cent.
INCREASE NOTED EVERYWHERE
In the 60 years since 1850 a continuous and rapid increase has occurred in the
population of the state, in the number of farms, and in the total farm acreage.
The acreage of improved land also shows a continuous increase, except for the de-
cade from 1890 to 1900, when a slight decrease occurred. The increase in the
number of farms has, however, not kept pace with that in population; in 1910
there was one farm to every 15 inhabitants, as compared with approximately one
farm to every 11 inhabitants in 1850. During the last decade the number of
farms increased at the rate of 966 per year, as compared with an increase of
1,031 per year between 1890 and 1900, and of 897 per year between 1870 and 1890.
The census figures for 1850 show the total value of farm property as $4,908,782.
SIZE OF FARM DECREASING
The average size of the Oregon farm is 256.8 acres. From 371.8 acres in
1850 it decreased to 270.0 acres in 1890, since which time it has again
decreased. The inclusion of a large Indian reservation as a farm in 1900, caused
the average acreage per farm reported to be considerably greater than would
otherwise have been the case, and making allowance for this fact, it will be seen
that the average size in reality varied but little between 1890 and 1900. The
state has in its eastern portion a great amount of semi-arid land upon which
are many stock ranches much greater in size than the farms utilized for general
agricultural purposes. During the past few decades, however, these live-stock
ranches have formed a constantly decreasing proportion of all the farms in the
state, and since the more recently developed farms are mainly of the general
farming or fruit-growing type, the average size of all farms has decreased.
550
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
AVERAGE FARM WORTH $11,609
The average value of an Oregon farm, including its equipment is $11,609,
of which $10,012 represents the average value of land and buildings, $1,307
that of livestock, and $290 that of implements and machinery.
In 1910 the total number of farms owned in the whole or in part by the
operators was 37,796. Of this number 24,855 were reported as free from mort-
gage; 12,632 were reported as mortgaged; and for 309 no report relative to mort-
gage indebtedness was obtained. The number of motgaged farms constituted
33.7 per cent of the total number of owned farms exclusive of those for which
no mortgage report was obtained. The percentage is higher than in 1890 or
in 1900.
INDEBTEDNESS SHOWS INCREASE
The average debt of mortgaged farms increased during the 20 year period
from $1,301 to $2,060, or 58.3 per cent, while the average value of such farms
rose from $4,359 to $9,103, or 108.8 per cent. Thus the owners equity increased
from $3,058 to $7,043, or 130.3 per cent. As a result of the greater relative
increase in farm values than in farm debt, the mortgage indebtedness, which
was 29.9 per cent of the value of the mortgaged farm in 1890, had decreased to
22.6 per cent of this value in 1910.
Of the farms in Oregon, 26.4 per cent are from 100 to 174 acres in size.
15.1 per cent from 20 to 49 acres, and 14.9 per cent from 50 to 99 acres. Nearly
three-fifths of all the farms in the state are therefore, from 20 to 174 acres in
size. About one-third of all farms comprise 175 acres or over, nearly half of
this group being between 260 and 499 acres. A study of the distribution of
farms by size groups disclose the fact that between 1900 and 1910 the greatest
actual increase—2,805—occurred in those of 20 to 49 acres, while the greatest
relative increase—157 per cent-took place in those from 3 to 9 acres in size.
NEW FOREIGNERS ON FARMS
Nearly four-fifths of the Oregon farmers are native white and one fifth for-
eign born white. Only 627, or 1.4 per cent of the total are non-white, 452 being
Indians, 82 Japanese, 65 Chinese and 27 negroes. Among the native white
farmers, 16.4 per cent are tenants, as compared with 9.2 per cent among the
foreign born white farmers.
COMMERCE
Commercial transactions with Oregon commenced with the fur traders, the
Hudson's Bay Company, Capt. Wyeth's effort to cure and ship cargoes of salmon,
and Captain Couch's first cargoes of merchandise, one of which he carried in
his ship up to Oregon City on the June freshet from Rocky mountain snow water.
John H. Couch was the first man to seriously undertake to build up commerce
in Oregon; and as he succeeded, and as he fixed the site of the chief commer-
cial city of Oregon and the Columbia river valley he is entitled to be con-
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
551
sidered the founder of commerce in Oregon, and in fact of the whole Pacific
coast.
According to the operation of the United States Custom House at
Portland, the total value of exports to foreign countries from the custom house
district of the Willamette, for the fiscal year ending June, 1911, was $10,375,963.
The value of the imports from foreign countries to Portland for the same time
were $2,637,977.
According to the records of Major J. F. McIndoe, chief engineer of rivers
and harbors in the second (Portland, Oregon) district, the commerce of the
Willamette and Columbia rivers for 1910 is fairly shown by the following sta-
tistics :
The head of deep-water navigation is at Portland, Oregon, on the Willamette
river, 110 miles above the mouth of the Columbia. Light-draft boats ascend
the Willamette for 150 miles and by using the state portage road between
Celilo and Big Eddy cargoes of light-draft boats, during high stages, reach
Pittsburg Landing, a point on the Snake river, 537 miles above the mouth of
the Columbia. The Columbia and Willamette rivers, over this stretch prob-
ably form the greatest waterway for logging and rafting purposes in the
United States. Lumber and shingle mills are located along the banks, and logs
are floated down all the tributaries from points 20 to 90 miles inland, and towed
to the different mills to be manufactured. During the calendar year 1910 eight
rafts of logs and piling timbers, aggregating, approximately 48,000,000 feet
b. m. were made up in the Columbia river, and towed to San Francisco and
southern California ports.
The export commerce consists principally of grain and lumber, while
the imports are composed principally of Oriental products, cement, coal, lime,
sulphur, etc. The light-draft tonnage is chiefly dairy, farm and lumber prod-
ucts and miscellaneous machinery and mercantile supplies.
The total commerce handled during the calendar year 1910 amounted to
7,834,273 short tons, valued at approximately $64,882,006.
COMPARATIVE STATEMENT OF TRAFFIC HANDLED ON COLUMBIA AND LOWER
WILLAMETTE RIVERS, BELOW PORTLAND, OREGON
Handled by sea-going vessels Handled by river vessels
Total
Calendar
Short
Estimated Short
Estimated Short Estimated
years
Tons
Value
Tons
Value
Tons
Value
1900.. 552,290
1,287,582
2,204,064
1901.. 669,284
1,534,780
2,204,064
1902.. 1,131,426
1,567,336
2,698,762
1903.. 832,184
1,596,220
2,428,404
1904.. 778,328 $27,281,302 1,905,451 $30,775,609 2,683,779 $58,056,911
1905.. 946,805 31,786,607 1.313,153 26,712,339 3,259,958 58,498,946
1906.. 1,200,973 34,407,991 2,331,121 26,377,640 3,532,094 60,785,631
1907.. 1,664,717 45,000,000 2,586,964 31,583,804 4,251,681 76,583,804
1908.. 1,688,331 43,000,000 2,927,041 27,509,475 4,615,372 70,509,475
1909.. 1,597,787 40,200,874 2,865,221 33,261,731 4,463,008 73,462,605
1910.. 2,440,956 39,765,404 5,393,317 25,116,602 7,834,273 64,882,006
552
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
COMMERCIAL STATISTICS
Season of navigation-Year 1910; opened, January 1, 1910; closed, Decem-
ber 31, 1910.
VESSEL CLASSIFICATION
American licensed river steamers
Net registered tonnage
Passengers
26
4,490
..26,714
FREIGHT TRAFFIC
Rate per
Amt. in
short tons
Amount
Articles
(customary units)
Coal.
....43 tons
Fish .
.15 tons
Flour
.13,306 barrels
Fruit
.600 tons
Grain ..
.268,750 bushels
Hay and Feed .. .1,724 tons
Hops.
2,654 tons
Live stock ... .1,453 head
Logs (towed)
.17,453,723 feet
Lumber
.1,012,060 feet b. m.
Mfgd. Iron & Steel. ...40 tons
Merchandise
.39,551 tons
Miscellaneous
.48,179 tons
Oil (barged)
.340,765 barrels
Piles (towed) .388,500 linear feet.
Potatoes
3,808,000 pounds
Sand and gravel .....378,915 cubic yards
Shingles
.5,300 bundles
Stone (barged) .769 cubic yards
Wood (barged).
(barged)......7,642 cords ...
Wool
.18 tons
43
15
1,304
600
7,210
1,724
2,654
511
34,907
1,315
40
39,551
48,179
57,249
7,770
1,904
569,794
93
1,153
11,463
18
Valuation ton-mile
301 $0.046
1,800
.06
65,200 .02
36,000 .045
163,200 .023
25,860 .025
530,800 .043
7,050 .085
104,721 .0085
13,150 .025
1,400 .036
3,955,100 .06
2,890,740 .06
171,747 .04
31,080 .0085
38,080 .026
189,457 .005
2,790 .05
1,153 .05
28,658 .01
3,960 .05
Total.
...787,497
$8,332,247
Tota!
Average haul over portion of river under improvement, 70 miles.
average haul on rivers, 70 miles.
COMMERCIAL STATISTICS-COLUMBIA RIVER
Season of Navigation–Year 1910, opened January 1, 1910; closed Decem-
ber 31, 1910.

00000000
1
2
Book
3
4
THE FOUR MEN WHO MADE THE LEWIS AND CLARK EXPOSITION A POSSIBILITY
No. 1-Henry W. Corbett.
No. 2-Lewis B. Cox
No. 3-Henry E. Dosch
No. 4—Henry L. Pittock
OF
Ecm
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
553
VESSEL ' CLASSIFICATION
Classes
DEEP SEA CRAFT
American
Foreign Total
Net Regis.
tered toug
Passengers
125
90
125
95
388,584
177,939
None
None
5
Registered:
Steamers...
Sailing
Unregistered, (licensed and
enrolled):
Steamers.
Sailing.
Gasoline..
Rafts...
2,050
145
197
8
2,050
145
197
8
3,179,751
119,206
17,131
No record
No record
No record
Total.....
2,405
....215 2,620
3,882,611
Classes
RIVER CRAFT
American Foreign Total
Passengers
299,831
87
Licensed river strs..
Barges and Scows ..
Net Regis
tered tong.
15,288
5,027
87
16
16
Total...
103
103
20,315
299,831
FREIGHT TRAFFIC
Amount
(customary units)
Rate pe
Amount in
short tons Valuation top.mil
19,202
Articles
Exports and Imports:
Bags and Burlap
Cement
Coal
Coke
Fibers
Flour
Fire brick and clay
Iron, pig and bar
Lumber
Machinery
Rice
Sulphur
Wheat
..5,230 tons
80,852 barrels
.18,733 tons
.. 4,021 tons
1,703 tons
283,679 barrels
7,149 tons
..8,774 tons
..122,711,000 feet b. m...
..50 tons
2,082 tons
7,630 tons
5,120,826 bushels
5,230 $ 488,934
119,061
18,733 47,313
4,021 14,187
1,703 190,313
27,800 1,186,654
7,149 33,848
8,774 137,454
159,524 1,505,497
50 1,445
2,082
90,662
7,630 124,643
153,624 4,511,403
0.694
.122
.694
.308
.793
.638
.191
.184
.620
.694
.851
.638
.421
...415,522 8,451,414
Total ..
Domestic:
Lumber
Logs
Oil
Miscellaneous
.
..317,932,977 ft. b. m. .. 413,313 4,133,130
48,000,000 ft. b. m. 96,000 288,000
..6,900,000 barrels... 1,159,200 5,477,600
..356,921 tons
356,921 21,415,260
3.331
1.051
2.050
5.00
Total ..
2,025,434 31,313,990
554
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Rate pe
Amount
Amount in
Local
(customary units)
short tous Valuation ton-mile
Coal .
.3,424 tons
3,424 $ 23,968 20.00
Fish
.13,223 tons
13,223 1,586,760 20.00
Flour
107,397 barrels
10,525 526,250 20.00
Fruit
.3,478 tons
3,478
208,680 40.00
Grain
728,413 bushels
18,116 391,525 25.00
Hay and feed
. 11,483 tons
11,483 172,245 20.00
Hops
...135 tons
135 27,000 50.00
Live stock
.22,001 head
4,592 918,400 35.00
Logs (towed)
..1,035,295,704 ft. b. m. 2,070,591 6,211,773 5.00
Lumber
13,930,960 ft. b. m. 18,110 181,100 20.00
Mfgd. iron and steel .....7,369 tons
7,369 257,915 25.00
Merchandise
55,146 tons
55,146 5,514,600 50.00
Miscellaneous
70,247 tons
70,247 4,214,820 50.00
Oil (barged)
1,872,582 barrels 314,594 1,343,782 30.00
Piles (towed)
...14,017,887 lin. ft.... 280,358 1,121,432 12.50
Potatoes
.30,610,000 pounds 15,305 306,100 30.00
Sand and gravel (barged) 1,059,133 cu. yds.....1,592,671 796,335 8.00
Shingles
2,193,733 bundles 38,390 1,151,700 28.00
Stone (barged)
562,364 cu. yds.. 843,550 84,355 10.00
Wood (barged)
14,603 cords
21,905 54,762 15.00
Wool ..
105 tons
105 23,100 50.00
0
Total
5,393,317
25,116,602
RECAPITULATION
Exports and imports ...
Domestic
Local
Tons
415,522
2,025,434
5,393,317
Value
$ 8,451,414
31,313,990
25,116,602
Grand total.
...7,834,273
$64,882,006
+
Average haul over portion of rivers under improvement, 100 miles; total aver-
age haul, rivers and oceans, exports and imports, 8,000 miles; domestic, 800 miles,
local, 100 miles.
ANNUAL COMMERCIAL REPORT OF MARINE TRANSPORTATION OF COOS BAY FOR THE
YEAR 1911
COMPILED BY F. E. LEEFE, U. S. ENGINEER
Tons
Inbound
Coal
Dairy Produce
Gasoline
Fruit
Tons
Outbound
4,746
700
5
176
791
2
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
555
Tons
Outbound
Tons
Inbound
112
652
168
2,104
578
17
Fish
Grain
Hay
Lumber (1,009,500 ft. b. m.)
Lumber (140,410,367 ft. b. m.
Laths
Livestock
Machinery
Matchwood
Miscellaneous
Shingles
Box Shooks
Vegetables
Woolen goods
Other articles
224
25,202
290,439
7,137
12
12
65
14,903
505
1,312
65
8
1,031
+
7
1
413
29,680
Total
Grand total
Number of passengers inbound
Number of passengers outbound
321,707
351,387
6,074
5,801
Total number of passengers
11,875
MANUFACTURERS
The establishment of manufacturers in Oregon has been accomplished with
great difficulty. For long years of tutelage to older and richer communities,
Oregon was compelled to suffer the inconveniences and pay the penalty of
being a sparsely settled region. Manufactures could live and prosper only
where there was a large population to purchase the manufactured articles.
And capitalists would not risk their money in enterprises where there were
few customers and those possibly to be taken by rival concerns. A complete
history of the state would show that many public spirited Oregonians lost
all they invested in pioneering first efforts to establish manufactories in this
state. The want of the prosperity that such industries would bring was felt
by all citizens. In a burst of enthusiasm the Daily Oregonian of October 19,
1861, says:
“Manufacturers in Oregon-We are for these all the time. Every article
manufactured in Oregon saves money to Oregon. Every broom made here;
every boot and shoe made here; every plow made here; every yard of woolen
or other cloth made here, and so we might go on almost al infinitum—all these
manufacturers save money to Oregon. This morning a box of soap was placed
on our table with these marks: 'A. Merchant & Co., chemical olive soap, Port-
land, Oregon.' The article appears to be a good one. We like the present but
we are more pleased with the profits which will accrue to Oregon and the owners
of this establishment. Shame that Oregon people should be tributary to San
556
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
a
Francisco, for an article which can be made here and of such absolute necessity
as common soap. The manufactory at present is in the north part of the city.”
Of a different tone, but expressing the same universal desire for home
manufacturers, was an expression in the Message of the Governor of the State
åt that time in urging the Legislature to encourage manufacturing enterprises;
and to give point to his appeal, pointed out the fact that the people of Oregon
were in 1861 importing from other states such prime necessities as "soap, socks
and pickles;' a homely phrase, to be sure, and one that his political enemies
applied to the good governor for many years, as “Old Soap, Socks and Pickles.”
From 1850 to 1900 the population of the United States increased a little
more than three-fold, while consumption of manufactured articles increased
thirteen fold. This conclusion is based on the census reports of American
manufactures, the imports and exports. Industries employing hundreds of
thousands of hands, which were unheard of not many years ago, will readily
come to mind-for example, those growing out of electrical inventions. Proba-
bly the consumption of manufactured articles will increase four times as fast
as population in the next fifty years also
Consumption of manufactured goods cannot be regarded as a fixed quan-
tity according to population. The doctrine that every dollar's worth of com-
petitive imports entering the ports of the United States displaces that amount
of products manufactured in American factories by American workmen is
plausible, but not true. The fact is people will buy what they desire accord-
ing to their ability to pay, no matter whether they need the articles or not.
The vast consumption of such useless, and much of it pernicious and promiscuous
trash as wines, liquors, tobacco, candies, ostrich plumes, automobiles, etc., proves
the truth of this statement, and the foolishness of a majority of the American
people.
The first frame house, the old Crosby house, erected in the City of Port-
land was manufactured in the state of Maine, and brought in a ship, in pieces,
around Cape Horn, and set up in Portland in 1847. Soon after this (1850)
Portland got the first steam saw mill in the state, erected by W. P. Abrams and
Cyrus A. Reed. The first flouring mill in Old Oregon was at Vancouver,
in 1834, and was worked by horses or oxen. The first saw mill in Old Oregon
was a water-wheel mill on a little stream above Vancouver, which in the course
of the year cut lumber enough for the fort but also in 1833 to load two small
vessels going to the Sandwich Islands. This was the beginning of manufac-
tures in Oregon. The first flouring mill in Oregon was started on French
Prairie, in Marion county, by the Methodist missionaries in 1840 with mill
stones and machinery brought around Cape Horn; but being roughly set
up the mill stones running the wrong way, threw the wheat out of the stones
instead of grinding it. At that time many of the pioneers ground their wheat
in coffee mills. It was a long, hard pull for thirty years to get manufactures
started in Oregon and any account of it would fill a book. Many of the people
tanned their own leather and made their own shoes. The first commercial
tannery in Oregon was started at Portland on the spot now occupied as
athletic grounds, called “Multnomah Field.'
The first step toward manufacturing wool in Oregon was taken in 1854,
when a carding machine was erected at Albany, by E. L. Perham & Co. Early

OF
BE
EXPOSITION
Opens June 1. 1905,
Closes October 15. 1905
1905
PORTLAND, OREGON
THE EXPOSITION GROUNDS
LEWIS & CLARK CENTENNIAL
INIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
557
in the Spring of 1855, Barber & Thorpe of Polk county, erected machinery
at Thorpe's Mills on the La Creole for carding, spinning and weaving flannel
cloths. In 1856 a company was organized at Salem for the purpose of erect-
ing a woolen mill. Joseph Watt was the prime mover in the enterprise. Wil-
liam H. Réctor was superintendent of construction, and went east and bought
the machinery on credit. This was the first woolen mill west of the rocky
Mountains. In 1862 the sceond woolen mill in Oregon was projected at Oregon
City, and erected in 1864-5. In 1864 the third woolen mill was started at
Ellendale in Polk county, and got to work in 1866. In 1875 the fourth woolen
mill was erected at Brownsville in Linn county. Iron manfacturers were
started in Portland in 1858 by Davis & Monnastes; and at Oregon City in 1859
by the Willamette Iron Works; and the manufacture of pig iron from Ore-
gon ore was started at Oswego in 1867, and the net cost of producing a ton
of pig iron was found to be $28.97.
In 1909 the state had 2,246 manufactories of all kinds, which gave em-
ployment to an average of 35,000 persons during the year, and paid out in
salaries and wages twenty-four million dollars. These establishments turned
out products of the value of ninety-three million dollars, to produce which
the raw material used cost fifty million dollars.
The manufacture and export of lumber as a distinct commercial proposi-
tion commenced as a regular business with Estes & Stimson in 1866, who
owned and operated a steam saw mill on the bank of the river in North Port-
land. They sold out to Ben Holladay, and Ben turned the property over to
his brother, Joe, who in partnership with George W. Weidler operated the mill
successfully for twenty years, when the mill was destroyed by fire. From
that beginning the business has grown up by both sea and rail until now Ore-
gon makes and sells outside of the state more lumber than any other state in
the Union; and Portland exports to foreign countries more lumber than any
other seaport in the world.
LUMPER AND TIMBER PRODUCTS
This industry, which includes the operation of lumber camps, sawmills,
shingle mills, planing mills, and establishments engaged in the manufacture
of wooden packing boxes, is by far the most important branch of manufacture
in the state. Oregon ranked ninth in the total cut of rough lumber in 1900.
The industry gave employment to an average of 15,066 wage earners, of 52.4
per cent of the total for the state, and the value of its products amounted to
$30,200,000, or 32.5 per cent of the total value of all manufactured products.
Portland shipped to foreign countries in 1911 one hundred and four million
feet of board measure of lumber, valued at one and a quarter million dollars;
and shipped coastwise one hundred and eight million feet.
FLOUR-MILL AND GRIST-MILL PRODUCTS
This industry, which is second in importance among the industries of the
state when measured by value of products, is largely dependent upon the ex-
tensive grain areas of the state. for its raw material. Because of the compara-
558
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
tively simple process involved in the industry and the extent to which these
processes are carried on by machinery, the number of wage earners employed
and the value added by manufacture are not commensurate with the gross value
of products.
CANNING AND PRESERVING
The development of fruit growing and truck gardening in Oregon has greatly
increased the activity of the canning and preserving industry since 1904. While
there has been a considerable decrease since 1904 in the fish products, which
represented about two-thirds of the total value of the output of the canneries
in 1909, the rapid increase in the drying of fruits, especially prunes, so in-
creased the total value of product that the industry as a whole showed a gain
of 10.2 per cent during the five years.
In addition to the industries presented separately, there are 16 industries
which had a value of products in 1909 in excess of $200,000. They are included
under the head of "All Other Industries in the table, because in some cases
the operations of individual establishments would be disclosed if they were
shown separately; in others, because the returns do not properly present the
true condition of the industry, as it is interwoven with one or more industries.
These industries are as follows: Awnings, tents and sails; babbitt metal and
solder; bags, other than paper; boxes, fancy and paper; cars and general shop
construction and repairs by street-railroad companies, coffee and spice, roast-
ing and grinding, cordage and twine, and jute and linen goods; food prepara-
tions; gas illuminating and heating; iron and steel, steel works and rolling
mills; mineral and soda waters; oil, linseed; paint and varnish; paper and
wood pulp; soap, and wood preserving.
PAPER MILLS
At Oregon City there are three paper millsone the third largest in the
world-employing 1,000 men. They have an annual payroll of $750,000, and
produce yearly 72,850 tons of paper, and consume 75,000,000 feet of logs per
annum. Total amount of raw material and finished products handled by these
mills equals 40,000 tons per year.
Industry
All Industries
Lumber and timber products
Flour mill and grist mill products
Slaughtering and meat packing
Printing and publishing
Butter, cheese and condensed milk
Canning and preserving :.
Foundry and machine shop products
Bread and other bakery products
Liquors, malt
WAGE EARNERS
No. of estab- Average
Value of
lishments No.
Products
..2,246 28,750 $93,005,000
713 15,066 30,200,000
114
394 8,891,000
14
366 5,880,000
324 1,459 5,041,000
95
420 4,920,000
71
661 3,207,000
82 1,055 3,135,000
151
613 2,829,000
18
204 1,857,000
.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
559
1.48
Value of
Products
1,629,000
1,611,000
1,215,000
5
No. of estab- Average
lishments No.
Leather goods
353
Copper, tin and sheet-iron products
39 · 431
Confectionery
19
283
Cars and general shop construction and repairs by
steam railroad companies
8
777
Clothing, men's, including shirts.
544
Furniture
19
552
Woolen, worsted and felt goods and wool hats.. 8
469
Brick and tile ..
61
385
Shipbuilding, inc. boat bldg.
24
212
Tobacco manufactures
56
187
Stoves and furnaces, inc. gas and oil stoves 11
86
Mattresses and spring beds
7
83
Marble and stone work
23
76
Ice manufactured
25
69
Leather tanned, curried and finished
8
49
All other industries
303 3,956
1,163,000
1,105,000
1,094.000
929,000
675,000
477,000
474,000
351,000
350,000
297,000
257,000
244,000
15,174,000
BANKS AND MONEY
Banks, bankers, lenders and money changers were in ancient times, and times
not so ancient, considered devices and servants of the Prince of Evil. But if a
farmer was now in this day compelled to translate the produce of his farm into
the payment of his expenses to the city of Portland to see the Rose Show for one
day, his account would read something like the following:
Cab to hotel ..
Tip to driver
Tip to elevator boy
Tip to bellboy
Breakfast
Tip to waiter
Luncheon
Dinner
Room
Six bushels of oats.
Fifteen cabbages.
...Dozen eggs.
Half-bushel of barley.
One-fourth ton of hay.
... Bushel of potatoes.
One sheep.
Bushel of rye.
Half a car of turnips.
And yet that is just about what the farmers of Oregon had to do in purchas-
ing the necessaries of life in 1843. There was no money, no banks and no credit.
The sudden accession of population from the unexpected immigration of 1843
raised the price of the necessaries of life to a price no one could pay. Flour was
four cents a pound and pork ten cents, and game was scarce and poor. Clothing
was worn out, and none obtainable. The women made dresses out of wagon
covers, and some wore buckskin like the men. The circulating medium for the
country was either furs or wheat. If the poor man had neither of these arti-
cles, he must depend on the charity of his neighbors, or the generosity of John
McLoughlin. Happily for many a family the last resource never halted or
560
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
failed to the honest man. In this way, and by a thousand shifts and devices,
the people got along until the gold dust began to come back from California,
and then the Oregon Mint was started at Oregon City, issued coined gold--and
people forgot all their former troubles.
The Oregon mint coining money without authority of any law was the first
semblance of money of the realm. On August 19, 1845, the Legislature of
the Provisional Government passed the following Act, entitled, "An Act to
Regulate the Currency.
“Be it enacted by the House of Representatives of Oregon Territory as
follows:
"That cash, or the following articles, at their current value, shall be a lawful
tender in the payment of all demands in this territory, where no special con-
tract had been made between the parties, viz: Available orders, wheat, hides,
tallow, beef, pork, butter, lard, peas, lumber of other articles of export of this
territory; Provided the same be delivered at such points on the navigable
streams, or such other places as may be established as depots of such articles.''
This act was never approved by Governor Abernethy, but the produce passed
current as good legal tender all the same as if he had approved it. After this
came the “Beaver Money” mint, described in Chapter XII.
The first Bank in Oregon was started in the year 1859 by Charles E. Tilton
and Stephen Mead of New York and W. S. Ladd of Portland, they being kinsmen.
Ladd had started as a clerk in a grocery and whiskey store, and finally bought it
out and made his start in that business. Seeing the opening for the Bank the three
men raised $25,000 and started the First Bank and made money rapidly from the
start. The First National Bank on the Pacific Coast was started in Portland
in May, 1866, by the two brothers A. M. & L. M. Starr, and James Steel, cashier.
In 1869 the Starrs sold out all their stock to Henry Failing and H. W. Corbett;
and they having the entire confidence of the people soon placed the First National
at the head of all the financial institutions of the State, which position it still
holds. There are now sound and substantial banks in every county and town of
any size in the State. And under the able, careful and successful management of
the State Banking Department by State Bank Commissioner, Hon. Will Wright,
the interests of patrons and depositors have been safeguarded and the commercial
prosperity of the state greatly promoted. In his last annual Report the Com-
missioner says:
"The failures which have occurred the past year were banks organized prior
to the enactment of any state banking laws. In each case, investigation develops
the fact that organization was originally effected by parties seeking to promote
personal interests, without regard to the protection of funds entrusted to their
care.
“Conditions of banks at close of business December 5, 1911 (date of last pub-
lished statements), compared with the last published statements for 1910, Novem-
ber 10, show marked increases in total capital, surplus, deposits and resources of
State banks. Stronger reserves are maintained and investments are being more
generally confined to securities with fixed market values, assuring ready liquida-
tion. The large increase in amount of bonds held by State banks indicates in a
degree the tendency toward investment in high class securities."

ALASKA TOTEM POLES
FORESTRY BUILDING
UNIL
OF
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
561
•
.
The following comprise the list of State and private Banks in Oregon, and
their condition at the close of business December 5, 1911:
Surplus and
Total
City or Town
Name of Bank
Capital und. profits deposits
Baker
Baker Loan & Trust Co..$ 50,000.00 $37,987.82 $538,563.39
Haines
. Bank of Haines..
10,000.00 4,957.09 125,940.64
Halfway
American State Bank.... 15,000.00 2,214.78 51,200.64
Huntington . Bank of Huntington. 25,000.00 2,546.49 69,144.89
Richland
Eagle Valley State Bank. 15,000.00 351.26 36,922.55
Monroe
Monroe State Bank... 10,000.00 692.62 54,581.55
Canby
Canby Bank & Trust Co.. 25,000.00 6,144.10 273,608.01
Estacada
Estacada State Bank..... 25,000.00 2,101.85 74,589.80
Milwaukie
First State Bank of Mil-
waukie
25,000.00 2,613.22 68,693.38
Oregon City The Bank of Oregon City 50,000.00 68,907.12 843,149.53
Sandy
Clackamas County Bank.. 10,000 396.35 22,633.00
Wilsonville The Farmers Bank.. 15,000.00 3,271.96 66,996.98
Astoria
Astoria Savings Bank.... 130,000.00 141,471.73 798,007.87
Astoria
Scandinavian-Amer. Sa v.
Bank
50,000.00 18,361.71 341,597.70
Clatskanie .. Clatskanie State Bank.... 25,000.00 3,000.00 199,376.89
Rainier
State Bank of Rainier.. 15,000.00 3,079.32 77,571.92
Scappoose
Farmers' State Bank. 12,500.00 617.64 27,525.27
St. Helens
Columbia County Bank.. 25,000.00 6,789.05 130,258.02
Bandon
Bank of Bandon..: 50,000.00 21,984.89 193,512.51
Coquille
Farmers & Merchants'
Bank of Coquille. 25,000.00 3,731.34 53,655.25
Marshfield ..... Flanagan & Bennett Bank 50,000.00 58,531.57 548,267.53
Myrtle Point Bank of Myrtle Point.... 10,000.00 5,119.93 55,470.92
Myrtle Point Flanagan & Bennett Bank
of Myrtle Point..... 25,000.00 499.60 84,811.23
North Bend ..
Bank of Oregon..
50,000.00 6,028.93 161,884.77
Bend
The Deschutes Banking &
Trust Company
15,000.00 4,374.32 18,289.06
Laidlaw... Laidlaw Bkg. & Trust Co.. 10,000.00 266.69 8,820.93
Madras
..Madras State Bank.. 15,000.00 3,021.24 53,993.94
Metolius
Citizens State Bank of
Metolius
10,000.00 820.34 11,561.12
Metolius
Metolius State Bank. 10,000.00 1,589.49 8,881.53
Prineville
Crook County Bank. 36,000.00 17,211.70 130,886.54
Redmond .. Redmond Bank of Com-
merce
25,000.00 3,162.07 61,915.50
Redmond ... State Bank of Redmond.. 10,000.00 1,328.80 55,115.12
Gold Beach Curry County Bank. 10,000.00 1,485.27 51,692.79
Port Orford Bank of Port Orford.... 10,000.00 598.29 21,710.33
Drain .
Drain State Bank .
15,000.00 1,310.53 45,536.78
Glendale
. Glendale State Bank.. 10,000.00 2,011.78 33,571.80
Myrtle Creek Citizens' State Bank... 10,000.00 2,865.15 57,272.11
Vol. 1-36
562
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Surplus and Total
City or Town
Name of Bank
Capital und. profits Deposits
Oakland
The Commercial Bank .... 15,000.00 1,570.24 58,953.69
Oakland .........E.G. Young & Co., Bankers 25,000.00 33,440.70 336,573.61
Riddle
Riddle State Bank
10,000.00 2,281.14 61,294.75
Roseburg
First Trust and Savings
Bank of Roseburg. ... 15,000.00 251.34 13,763.29
Sutherlin ... First State Bank of Suth-
erlin
30,000.00
38,972.65
Yoncalla
Yoncalla State Bank.... 10,000.00 1,539.77 74,562.42
John Day Grant County Bank... 40,000.00 17,860.42 199,333.08
Hood River ..Butler Banking Co...... 100,000.00 17,563.19 533,089.36
Hood River Hood River Bkg. & Tr. Co. 25,000.00 348.05 65,417.10
Ashland
Citizens' Bkg. & Trust Co. 50,000.00 5,176.68 142,789.82
Ashland
Granite City Sav. Bank.. 25,000.00 2,875.33 70,395.87
Butte Falls Pine Belt Banking Co.... 10,000.00 575.30 10,183.53
Central Point ... Central Point State Bank 25,000.00 3,915.36 145,364.60
Eagle Point First State Bank of Eagle
Point, Oregon
9,850.00 1,137.60 36,167.93
Gold Hill .... The Gold Hill Bank.
10,000.00
93.43 47,288.78
Jacksonville Bank of Jacksonville..... 10,000.00 3,671.48 62,336.46
Jacksonville Beekman's Banking House 50,000.00 23,559.33 90,817.20
Medford
Farmers & Fruit Growers
Bank
50,000.00 4,618.26 148,013.40
Medford
Jackson County Bank.... 100,000.00 81,091.02 576,153.33
Talent
The State Bank of Talent 11,500.00 442.30 24,197.39
Woodville
First State Bank of Wood-
ville
10,000.00 1,180.69 27,020.47
Grants Pass Grants Pass Bkg. & Trust
Company
50,000.00 11,241.52 211,762.26
Grants Pass ..... Josephine County Bank.. 50,000.00
82,603.11
Bank of Bonanza..
20,000.00 2,099.73 46,567.78
Klamath Falls... The American Bk. & Trust
Company
100,000.00 15,145.00 256,003.13
Klamath Falls ... The First Trust & Sav. Bk. 50,000.00 6,217.45 169,196.31
Klamath Falls Klamath County Bank.. 110,000.00 9,634.96 161,616.91
Lake View
Bank of Lakeview... 100,000.00 168,883.92 570,756.84
Lake View Lake County Loan & Sav.
Bank
20,000.00 15,125.55 74,652.77
Coburg
State Bank of Coburg....$ 10,000.00 $ 695.13 $ 34,033.00
Cottage Grove ... Bank of Cottage Grove... 25,000.00 2,737.39 44,520.30
Creswell
Creswell Fruitgrowers Bk. 10,000.00 609.12 64,948.30
Eugene
Bank of Commerce.. 50,000.00 11,958.17 70,792.18
Eugene
Eugene Loan & Sav. Bank 100,000.00 75,913.64 756,217.76
Eugene
Merchants Bank
100,000.00 11,459.67 435,999.40
Florence
Lane County State & Sav.
Bank
10,000.00 492.48 72,535.39
Junction City ... The Farmers & Mer. Bank 25,000.00 8,653.44 162,578.23
Bonanza
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
563
Surplus and Total
City or Town
Name of Bank
Capital und profits Deposits
Springfield ... ..Com’l State Bk. of Spring-
field
30,000.00
21,983.74
Newport
Leese & Scarth, Bankers.. 10,000.00 2,700.61 78,738.07
Toledo
Lincoln County Bank.... 10,000.00 2,026.10 137,779.11
Albany
Albany State Bank... 30,000.00 1,713.06 132,330.20
Albany
J.W.Cusick & Co., Bankers 50,000.00 47,187.40 309,152.36
Albany
First Savings Bank... 50,000.00 3,883.50 360,440.27
Brownsville The Bank of Brownsville.. 30,000.00 8,726.30 178,311.97
Halsey
Halsey State Bank... 10,000.00 4,593.00 67,195.11
Harrisburg Farmers & Mer. Bank of
Harrisburg, Oregon... 30,000.00 994.30 33,279.38
Lebanon
Lebanon State Bank. 25,000.00 5,711.18 178,290.38
Scio
.Scio State Bank ..
10,000.00 4,361.84 88,493.33
Brogan
First Trust & Savings Bk.
of Brogan
25,000.00
50,315.31
Jordan Valley ... Bank of Jordan Valley... 30,000.00 18,744.72 109,394.24
Nyssa
The Bank of Nyssa.
25,000.00 109.75 24,040.76
Nyssa
Malheur County Bank.... 25,000.00 3,356.58 63,722.61
Westfall
Jones & Co. Bankers. 10,000.00 3,511.21 41,381.41
Aurora
Aurora State Bank. 25,000.00 1,170.22 180,597.94
Gervais
The Gervais State Bank.. 10,000.00 3,657.16 90,884.10
Hubbard
State Bank of Hubbard... 10,000.00 2,193.65 82,797.71
Jefferson
Oregon State Bank.
15,000.00 1,217.83 76,625.82
Mt. Angel .
Bank of Mt. Angel.. 12,500.00 5,768.91 226,593.15
Salem
Ladd & Bush..
1,500,000.00 68,239.04 2,278,236.25
Salem
Salem Bank & Trust Co.. 50,000.00 2,168.17 117,612.25
Silverton
Coolidge & McClain. 25,000.00 98,267.62 491,319.56
Silverton
Peoples Bank.....
25,000.00 6,032.33 149,974.46
Stayton..
Farmers & Merchants’ Bk.
of Stayton
25,000.00 941.75 37,074.57
Stayton... Stayton State Bank. 25,000.00 1,340.63 102,897.08
St. Paul
State Bank of St. Paul.. 15,000.00
19,786.36
Turner
Turner State Bank.
10,000.00 126.87 47,217.89
Woodburn
Bank of Woodburn.
40,000.00 25,310.05 340,229.80
Woodburn
Security State Bank.. 25,000.00 1,750.18 66,870.10
Ione
Bank of Ione...
15,000.00 1,619.39 36,969.53
Gresham
Bank of Gresham.
15,000.00
37,976.83
Gresham
First State Bank..
30,000.00 6,149.41 146,616.65
Lents
Multnomah State Bank.. 7,500.00 643.83 29,455.87
Linnton
Linnton Savings Bank... 15,000.00 3,466.47 45,129.39
Portland
American Bank & Tr. Co.. 150,000.00 29,479.39 184,564.43
Portland
Ashley & Rumelin Bankers 50,000.00 7,072.78 347,573.43
Portland
Bank of Kenton..
50,000.00 6,352.18 113,369.65
Portland
Bank of Sellwood..
50,000.00 4,199.34 158,617.99
Portland
Geo. W. Bates & Co., Bank-
ers (West Side Bank). 50,000.00 4,794.56 587,382.62
561
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
ers
Surplus and Total
City or Town
Name of Bank
Capital und. profits Deposits
Portland ... ..Geo. W. Bates & Co., Bank-
ers (Russell St. Branch) 50,000.00
50,000.00 7,714.50 357,638.69
Portland .... ..Geo. W. Bates & Co., Bank-
(Williams Ave
Branch)
50,000.00 9,192.76 418,281.60
Portland ... Canadian Bank of Com-
merce
300,000.00 109,497.16, 3,903,648.46
Portland
The Citizens Bank.. 100,000.00 15,604.42 612,039.98
Portland
East Side Bank..
50,000.00 10,708.25 446,345.23
Portland
Hartman &
& Thompson
Bankers
100,000.00 24,850.04 415,350.96
Portland ... Hibernian Sav. Bank..... 200,000.00 87,181.68 2,158,134.27
Portland
Ladd & Tilton Bank....1,000,000.00 848,236.73 14708578.99
Portland .... Mer. Sav. & Trust Co...... 150,000.00 22,014.28 644,605.80
Portland
.Portland Trust Co. of Ore. 300,000.00 88,522.59 2,455,566.13
Portland
. Scandinavian American
Bank
100,000.00 19,809.19 867,942.75
Portland .... Security Sav. & Trust Co.1,000,000.00 597,174.59 7,723,360.13
Troutdale
. Bank of Troutdale.
10,000.00 1,726.06 18,460.13
Dallas
Dallas City Bank... 30,000.00 11,126.62 299,543.70
Falls City The Bank of Falls City... 10,000.00 2,070.97 57,850.43
Grass Valley .. The Citizens' Bank... 20,000.00 8,795.17 66,491.10
Morrow
Wasco Warehouse Mlg. Co.,
Bankers
25,000.00 8,432.83 89,216.50
Wasco
W. M. Bannett, Banker... 10,000.00
10,000.00. 6,045.53 48,631.18
Wasco Warehouse Mlg. Co.,
Bankers
25,000.00 8,258.56 65,823.39
Bay City ... First Bank & Trust Co... 25,000.00 3,311.82 33,117.18
Nehalem
Nehalem Valley Bank.... 10,000.00 430.22 36,621.64
Tillamook
Tillamook County Bank.. 30,000.00 16,523.07 342,763.99
Echo
The Bank of Echo... 25,000.00 12,859.73 101,836.75
Helix
Bank of Helix..
50,000.00 5,419.82 76,425.05
Hermiston .. Hermiston Bank & Trust
Company
25,000.00 253.93 42,309.70
Milton
Farmers Security Bank.. 25,000.00 579.96 31,816.48
Pilot Rock
The First Bank of Pilot
Rock
15,000.00 1,081.86 34,162.27
Stanfield ... The Bank of Stanfield... 25,000.00 1,325.63 22,020.29
Weston,
The Farmers Bank of
Weston
30,000.00 19,293.16 149,951.66
Cove
Cove State Bank...
15,000.00 2,061.18 35,834.63
North Powder ...Powder Valley State Bank 20,000.00 307.67 63,013.06
Enterprise The Enterprise State Bank 25,000.00 974.85 58,699.11
Joseph
First Bank of Joseph... 50,000.00 26,309.11 106,781.91
Dufur
Johnston Bros., Bankers., 25,000.00 5,640.82 95,692.88
Mosier
Mosier Valley Bank...... 10,000.00 1,089.53 38,523.96
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
565
Surplus and
Total
City or Town
Name of Bank
Capital und profits Deposits
Shaniko
Eastern Ore. Banking Co. 50,000.00 13,799.83 131,628.84
The Dalles French & Co. Bankers.... 200,000.00 136,303.96 800,401.25
Banks
.The Washington Co. Bank 10,000.00 637.04 56,492.25
Beaverton
Bank of Beaverton..
10,000.00 45.31 46,709.04
Cornelius
Cornelius State Bank.... 15,000.00 8,700.13 103,651.06
Gaston... Gaston State Bank..... 10,000.00 1,534.43 44,094.91
Hillsboro
..Hillsboro Commercial Bank 25,000.00 26,389.65 339,350.76
Hillsboro
.Shute Savings Bank...... 30,000.00 4,487.10 266,203.84
North Plains .. North Plains Com'l Bank 15,000.00 48.13 11,152.77
Sherwood ...... Bank of Sherwood..... 14,000.00 155.00 74,546.83
Fossil
Steiwer & Carpenter Bank 25,000.00 18,662.10 133,049.06
Amity
Bank of Amity....
11,500.00 2,514.72 54,653.83
Carlton
Carlton State & Sav. Bank 10,000.00 2,628.96 67,079.64
Dayton
Bank of Dayton.
12,000.00 3,458.93 78,878.33
Lafayette ... Lafayette State Bank. ... 10,000.00 494.04. 18,577.61
McMinnville The First Trust and Sav-
ings Bank of McMinn-
ville
30,000.00
71,705.61
Sheridan .. Sheridan State Bank. 25,000.00 1,702.89, 89,834.35
Willamina Willamina State Bank.... 20,000.00 1,404.19 55,016.00
Yamhill . Bank of North Yamhill... 20,000.00 9,289.55 123,182.28
Number of incorporated banks
Number of private banks
Number of Foreign banks
Number of Branch Banks
156
10
1
2
Total number of banks under state supervision.
..169
CLASSIFICATIONS OF LOANS AND DISCOUNTS DECEMBER 5, 1911.
Loans without security
$22,813,999.81
Loans secured by collateral or personal property
7,425,596.66
Loans secured by real estate mortgages or other liens on realty.... 7,215,557.33
Total Loans and discounts
. $37,455,153.80
CLASSIFICATION OF BONDS AND WARRANTS DECEMBER 5, 1911.
.
Government Bonds
State Bonds
Municipal Bonds
Railway and other public service corporation bonds
Industrial Bonds
Irrigation Bonds and Warrants
$ 249,827.16
85,000.00
2,095,611.92
2,028,875.16
157,986.18
11,709.15
566
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Other Bonds
County,Municipal and other Warrants.
130,681.62
1,678,329.48
6,438,020.67
58,845.63
Discounts
Total Bonds and Warrants
$6,379,175.04
Strong reserve and heavy marked increases in capital stock surplus and
profits, and total deposits, are features of summary of last general report from
Banks of Oregon. Total deposits in the state amounted to $117,166,315.95, in-
crease of $3,256,434.41 over September, 1910. In surplus and profits increase of
$1,120,215.21 was noted. Loans and discounts have increased approximately
$5,000,000. Reserved for month just closed was 36.7 per cent. Legal require-
ment is but 25 per cent. in city Banks and 15 per cent. in country banks. Reports
from Postal Savings Banks were incomplete, because of forms sent out but
$537,714.37 was reported from these.
U. S. NATIONAL BANKS IN OREGON
Last report January, 1912
Name
First National, Albany..
Arlington National, Arlington.
First National, Ashland.
United States National, Ashland.
Astoria National, Astoria.
First National, Astoria.
First National, Athena..
First National, Baker.
First National, Bandon
First National, Bend..
First National, Burns.
Harney County, Burns.
First National, Canyon City.
Condon National, Condon.
First National, Condon.
First National, Coquille..
Benton County National, Corvallis.
First National, Corvallis.
First National, Cottage Grove.
Dallas National, Dallas.
First National, Elgin.
Wallowa National, Enterprise.
First National, Eugene.
First National, Forest Grove...
Forest Grove National, Forest Grove.
First National, Freewater..
Capital
Deposits
$ 100,000 $ 845,000
25,000 138,000
50,000 376,000
50,000 390,000
50,000 766,000
100,000 820,000
50,000 290,000
75,000 976,000
25,000
75,000
25,000
200,000
25,000 365,000
26,000 344,000
40,000 174,000
50,000 117,000
50,000 109,000
25,000 214,000
60,000 376,000
50,000 674,000
25,000 220,000
25,000 238,000
50,000 202,000
50,000 178,000
100,000 1,586,000
50,000 134,000
25,000 423,000
Branch of Milton

U. S. GOVERNMENT BUILDING
It
FOREIGN NATIONS BUILDING
THE VIEW ON GUILD'S LAKE
OF
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
567
Name
.
First National, Grant's Pass..
First National, Harrisburg..
First National, Heppner.
First National, Hermiston.
American National, Hillsboro.
Hillsboro National, Hillsboro.
First National, Hood River
Independence National, Independence.
First National, Joseph..
First National, Klamath Falls..
La Grande National, La Grande.
United States National, La Grande..
First National, Lakeview....
First National, Lebanon.
First National, Marshfield.
First National, McMinnville..
McMinnville National, McMinnville.
United States National, McMinnville.
First National, Medford...
Medford National, Medford.
First National, Merrill..
First National, Milton..
First National, Monmouth.
First National, Newberg.
U. S. National, Newberg.
First National, North Bend.
Ontario National, Ontario..
First National, Ontario...
First National, Oregon City..
American National, Pendleton.
First National, Pendleton..
First National, Portland...
Lumbermen's National, Portland
Merchants National, Portland.
United States National, Portland.
First National, Prairie City.
First National, Prineville.
Douglas National, Roseburg.
Roseburg National, Roseburg.
Capital National, Salem..
United States National, Salem.
First National, Sheridan...
First National, Springfield.
First National, St. Johns..
Peninsula National, St. Johns.
First National, Sumpter.
First National, The Dalles.
Capital
50,000
25,000
100,000
25,000
50,000
60,000
100,000
50,000
25,000
100,000
100,000
100,000
50,000
50,000
100,000
50,000
50,000
50,000
100,000
100,000
25,000
50,000
30,000
50,000
50,000
25,000
75,000
53,000
50,000
100,000
250,000
1,500,000
1,000,000
500,000
1,000,000
25,000
50,000
100,000
50,000
100,000
100,000
25,000
25,000
25,000
50.000
25.000
100,000
Deposits
495,000
101,000
380,000
100,000
230,000
139,000
361,000
426,000
109,000
343,000
671,000
200,000
354,000
219,000
433,000
450,000
475,000
167,000
650,000
475,000
65,000
374,000
180,000
210,000
305,000
110,000
153,000
352,000
350,000
1,080,000
1,765,000
14,000,000
4,017,000
2,801,000
11,000,000
101,000
402,000
870,000
361,000
807,000
1,300,000
189,000
137,000
185,000
182,000
50.000
702,000
.
568
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Name
First National, Tillamook.
First National Union.
First National, Vale..
United States National, Vale.
Stock Growers & Farmers' Nat. Wallowa
First National, Woodburn..
Capital
25,000
50,000
50,000
75,000
50,000
25,000
Deposits
155,000
140,000
200,000
350,000
124,000
.
THE STATE FAIR
It is greatly to the credit of Oregon that its prosperity has come to it mainly
through the efforts of its own people. The legend “Alis volat propriis''-I fly
with my own wings, which was once a part and the most significant part of the
state seal, is no idle or unearned boast. There has been no organized action in
the history of the state that has contributed more to the prosperity of the state
than the annual State fair and the Lewis and Clark Exposition. These two great
expressions of the zeal and sentiment of the state deserves historical record here.
For a suitable record of the origin of the State Fair reliance is placed on the
statement of Hon. John Minto, who has been connected with nearly every good
work for Oregon for over 65 years. On August 5, 1911, Mr. Minto penned the
following:
"The writer was a member of the Marion County Agricultural Society in
1858; also a member and exhibitor before the Oregon Pomological Society, the
merging of which with the State Agricultural Society, formed the basis for the
first State Fair held on the north bank of the Clackamas near its junction with
the Willamette river, in October, 1861.
George Collier Robbins was the first elected president, who, resigning, was
succeeded by Simeon Francis, who delivered the first address.
"The first Fair was begun in doubt, but closed as a success, but the less than a
dozen who had prepared for it were convinced that its locality was not the best,
and three counties of the Willamette valley were left to prepare for the second
State Fair. They were Yamhill, Linn and Marion. The members of the Marion
County Society waited till they were informed that nothing could be done for
the fair in 1862, in Linn or Yamhill counties. Major Joseph Magone canvassed
the then village of Salem for subscriptions one day and received signatures for
over $1,700. It was a good showing of public spirit, and we of the Marion County
Society, only 40 members, paying $1.00 a year in membership, appointed a com-
mittee to prepare grounds for the fair. Louis Byrnes, John Minto and Chas.
Swegle were appointed on the committee, and Chester N. Terry was secretary.
Eighty acres of land was secured, and enclosed by an 8 foot fence, a pavilion and
show pens constructed, and a good fair was held. How it was done I cannot say,
but am sure a better spirit never pervaded any community than that which
existed at the second state fair. It was a pleasure to work with such men.
"I do not know what others did, but I was signed for $1,200 for lumber. Some
of it was hauled from David Newsom's saw mill at the north end of Howell's
Prairie.
"The fair was held and accounts recorded and the Marion County Society
had $3,600 against it, with 40 members with $1.00 a year membership fees; a
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
569
meeting was called and a committee named to sell the grounds and improvements
for the sum of the debt if it could. R. C. Geer was chairman, and I think Chas.
Swegle and the writer served on this committee. I desired to avoid a sale if
possible, and made a slight attempt at a second subscription, making a first essay
with George H. Jones, of the Salem Sash and Door Factory. He said, "No, Mr.
Minto, we gave liberally before, but I'll tell you what I would be willing to do.
Make it a county interest to be held for fairs and militia musters, and we will
willingly pay our share of the tax." I rode home nursing Mr. Jones' plan,
almost sure Mr. Geer would make no written report.
"I tried that night and wrote the following report:
To the officers and members of the Marion County Agricultural Society :
“Your committee finds parties willing to buy the grounds and improvements on
which the last state fair was held for the sum of the present indebtedness on con-
dition that fairs continue to be held there, and the owners of the grounds have
control of the gate fees, but this, in the judgment of your committee, is not the
best means of disposal. We would recommend an appeal to the county court for
the simple business reason that if fifty farmers have to leave this county to attend
the state fair in another county, at the cost of $10.00 each, $500 is taken out of
circulation of this locality. If 500 farmers came to Salem and spend as much,
$5,000 is left here.” This is a low estimate of course.
"The county court listened to reason and paid $3,000 of the debt, leaving
$600 to be paid by friends of the proposition, $100 of which was paid by the
Ladd & Bush Bank, and on the 3rd or 4th year the county court of Marion county
presented the fair grounds to the State Agricultural Society on condition that a
state fair be held on them consecutively for fifteen years.
“Linn county had its full quota of public-spirited men; they bought and
enclosed ground and held county fairs. They sent James H. Douthit and John
Barrell as members of the Board of Directors; they found the condition of
fifteen annual state fairs at Salem legally binding, and became steady friends of
the State Agricultural Society.
JOHN MINTO."
Secretary of the State Agricultural Society for the two most successful fairs
of the first decade of its history.
(Written from memory.)
LEWIS AND CLARK EXPOSITION
The following is the record :
May 14, 1804, Lewis and Clark Expedition starts from St. Louis for Oregon.
August 12, 1805, Lewis and Clark cross Louisiana Territory into Oregon
Territory.
November 7, 1805, the Expedition reaches mouth of Columbia river.
March 23, 1806, Expedition leaves Fort Clatsop on return trip.
April 3, 1806, reaches Linnton and camps on Portland suburb.
April 7, 1806, reaches White Salmon river, and is seen by Indian boy, Tomitsk,
yet alive, picture on another page.
September 23, 1806, Expedition returns to St. Louis.
Circular letter issued in May, 1891, by George H. Himes, secretary of the
570
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Executive Committee of the Columbia River Centennial Celebration Society, in
which reference is made to the probable celebration of the Lewis and Clark Cen-
tennial in 1905.
November 1, 1895, Daniel McAllen proposes Lewis and Clark Exposition to
Henry L. Pittock.
May 1, 1900, provisional committee of arrangements for Lewis and Clark
fair, organized –J. M. Long-chairman.
December 15, 1900, proposition for fair endorsed by Oregon Historical
Society.
February 21, 1901, endorsed by Oregon Legislature.
October 15, 1901, Lewis and Clark Exposition Association incorporated. Cap-
ital, $300,000.
January 21, 1901, stock all taken, H. W. Corbett elected president.
February 14, 1902, capital stock of exposition company increased to $500,000.
July 15, 1902, Guild's Lake chosen for site of Exposition.
January 30, 1903, Oregon legislature appropriates $450,000 to Exposition.
March 31, 1903, Henry W. Corbett dies.
May 21, 1903, corner stone, Lewis and Clark monument in City Park laid by
President Theodore Roosevelt.
July 24, 1903, Harvey W. Scott elected president of Exposition company,
and H. W. Goode, director general.
February 8, 1904, U. S. Senate passed Senator Mitchell's bill appropriating
$1,775,000 to the Exposition.
April 8, 1904, congress passed bill providing $1,000,000 in souvenir Lewis and
Clark gold dollar coins.
May 3, 1904, ground-breaking ceremonies for construction of Exposition
buildings.
August 8, 1904, H. W. Scott resigns as President, and H. W. Goode elected
his successor.
May 1, 1905, Fair buildings completed on contract time.
May 31, 1905, U. S. government building completed.
June 1, 1905, Exposition opened to the world—all buildings completed;
eclipsing all other Expositions on this point.
THE SIZE OF IT
The Lewis and Clark Exposition was shown in three United States government
buildings-first class size.
13 Oregon state buildings—immense size.
Seven other state buildings.
Sixteen foreign nations participated in the Exposition, with large and won-
derfully fine exhibits.
Sixteen other American states participated in the Exposition with large
exhibits.
The total admissions to the fair were three million and forty thousand;
of which 1,834,821 were paid admissions.
The total income of the Exposition association was $1,517,222.61.
Organization and construction accounts consumed $908,319.72; and operat-
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
571
ing expenses were $409,447.89; leaving a cash balance of $111,455; paying back
to the stockholders 21 1-2 per cent on their stock; a financial result never
attained by any other national Exposition.
This exposition was the first financially successful National Exposition in
the history of Expositions in the United States; and it put Oregon and its chief
city on the map and before the world as no other, or any dozen other great
events had; and gave the state, and the city of Portland, an impulse of pros-
perity which has never halted or slackened from the day its gates were closed
down to the making of this record.
The names whose loyalty, talent, genius and untiring industry contributed
most to the success of the Great Fair are Henry W. Corbett, First President
and Capitalist heading the promotion list with $30,000; Henry L. Pittock, pro-
prietor of Oregonian advocating the cause and otherwise personally working
day in and day out; Henry E. Dosch, Oregon commissioner to all other fairs
and commissioned to solicit aid from other states and foreign countries; Henry
E: Reed, secretary, general director of publicity and exploitation, who advertised
the fair to the ends of the earth; and Daniel McAllen--the father of the Expo-
sition—who roused and rallied everybody to action when the cause seemed to
lag or halt for want of the spirit of progress or the sinews of war.
CHAPTER XXI
1834-1912
THE MORAL AND EDUCATIONAL AGENCIES BUILDING THE STATE--THE CHURCHES,
AND CHURCH SCHOOLS-PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES-POETS, HISTORIANS
AND PIONEER EDITORS-AUTOGRAPHIC HISTORY—THE GRANGE-DIVORCES, VICE
AND CRIME.
The settlement of Oregon by Americans was started by a wave of religious
enthusiasm. Prior to the advent of Jason and Daniel Lee in 1834, Oregon had
no place on the map of the world except that of a vast game preserve for the
taking of the furry skins of wild animals. Its native Indian population of
from fifty to eighty thousand had no standing or consideration whatever in
the minds of civilized or Christian men prior to the mission of Jason Lee. To
Spaniard, Englishman and American, all alike, the fur trade was the sole excuse
for any action in relation to the vast territory known as Oregon.
The historical incidents leading up to the planting of Christian missions in
Oregon have already been related. But if the light and experience of the past
seventy-eight years were reflected back on the religious missionary efforts to
Christianize the heathen and establish churches and religions in Oregon, it
might indicate that a vast amount of labor, effort and money had been expended
without compensating results in the propagation of Christianity. At the time
Jason Lee and Marcus Whitman voluntarily cast themselves out into the wilder-
ness of Oregon two thousand miles from a Christian church and commenced
their wonder making missions among the Pacific Coast Indians, the American
people were practically nine-tenths professedly members of Christian churches.
It is within the memory of the author of this book that the people of the
western states in the year of the great gold discovery in California were fully
nine-tenths members of the various churches. They are not so now. And in
the states west of the Rocky mountains there is not one half of the people
affiliated with the churches. It is not the purpose of this work to critically
investigate the causes of this change. The accumulation of wealth, and from
which came a provision for idle and luxurious habits in all directions, and the
exploitation of secret societies—fraternal orders, so-called-has sapped the
foundations of the Christian churches and broken down their ancient influences
on the moral tone and unwavering fiber of human society and organized gov-
ernment.
When the reader goes back to the decade between 1834 and 1844, and takes
a look at the work of Lee and Whitman at short range, we see them confronted
with trials, dangers and opposition that would have paralyzed all the college
professor preachers of Oregon in 1912. To begin with, they found the Oregon
573
574
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Indian anything, almost everything else than the Christ hunting spiritualist
that had started the great wave of missionary sacrifice into the Oregon wilderness
-personified by the Flathead appeal to General Clark at St. Louis in 1831.
The Indian comprehension of the Christian religion was that of a wonder, a
miracle, and not that of a moral code and discipline. And upon such a mentality
"the line upon line, and precept upon precept” of Christian teaching had but
little or no influence. And it was because of this defect in the Indian mind that
the Protestant missionaries failed to influence and control the Indian; while
the striking visual appeal of the Roman Catholic missionary to forms, ceremonies,
vestments, and gowns caught the eye and the imagination of the uneducated
native red man-and secured his friendship and obedience.
In consequence of this attitude of the Indian toward the Protestant mission-
aries, Lee was compelled to abandon his mission in the Willamette valley and
make his plans to secure a permanent position and influence among the American
immigrants; while Whitman by his persistence in a futile effort among an un-
friendly constituency lost his life and wrecked the whole American Board mis-
sionary effort.
This was the start of the Churches in Oregon, The Protestants gained little
if anything of a foothold among the Indian population; while the Catholics
established active missions among all the tribes, many of which have continued
down to this day.
THE METHODISTS
The first effort at colonization in Oregon, is the history of the first missionary
church work in Oregon, and the history of pioneer Methodism in Oregon, and
the record of the pioneer American Colony of Oregon. From 1834 to his death
Jason Lee was the founder, pioneer preacher, and Bishop of the Methodist
church on the Pacific coast-not Bishop by appointment, but Bishop by
virtue of his leadership and headship of the great pioneer work. It was not
until September 5th, 1849, that the first Methodist conference was organized
on the Pacific Coast; and that organization was effected in the chapel of the
old Oregon Institute at Salem, and named “The Oregon and California Mission
Conference. This organization was authorized by the General Conference of
the Church in 1848, and under instructions of Bishop Waugh to Rev. William
Roberts as Superintendent. That was the first united action of churches into a
working organization on the Pacific coast. The superintendents of the Oregon
Methodist missions were, first, Jason Lee, 1834 to 1844; George Gary 1844 to
1847; William Roberts 1847 to 1849, when the conference succeeded the Mission.
This Mission conference included New Mexico, which was wholly disconnected
with Oregon. Under that Mission conference, the following ministers were ap-
pointed to preach the gospel in Oregon; in 1849-50, William Roberts, David
Leslie, A. F. Waller, J. H. Wilbur, J. L. Parrish, William Helm, J. O. Raynor,
J. McKinney, C. 0. Hosford, and J. E. Parrott; in 1851, I. McElroy, F. S. Hoyt,
and Nehemiah Doane were added; in 1852, L. T. Woodward, J. S. Smith, J.
Flinn and J. W. Miller; in 1853, Isaac Dillon, C. S. Kingsley, P. G. Buchanan
and Thos. H. Pearne. The only survivor of this list at this date (June, 1912),
is John Flinn, living in East Portland, over ninety years of age. In 1853,


The First Protestant Church West of the
Rocky Mountains—The First Methodist
Church at Oregon City, 1842

First Catholic Church Building Erected in
Old Oregon at Vancouver
OF
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
575
Bishop E. R. Ames, visited Oregon and on March 17, organized the Oregon
Annual Conference which included the territory of Oregon and Washington.
This Conference held its first session at Salem, and made appointments of 22
ministers including all those named above, and the following-Gustavus Hines,
Harvey K. Hines, T. F. Royal, G. M. Berry, E. Garrison, B. Close, and W. B.
Morse. The second annual Conference was held at the Belknap settlement on
the Long Tom River, in Benton County. It was presided over by the greatest
Bishop of the Church-Matthew Simpson. His journey to Oregon in 1854
including a sea trip from New York to Panama; a journey across the Isthmus;
shipwrecked upon the Pacific sailing north; transfer to a vessel which brought
him in safety to Portland; thence to Salem by a primitive river steamboat;
thence to Corvallis by a wagon ride (for which in passing it may be noted that
he paid $30.00); thence on horseback with his satchel on his saddle horn; thence
five miles to the log house in which the sessions of the conference were held. It
is recorded that this school house “stood on the top of a butte, in a great
measure surrounded by sloughs and nearly a mile from any house."
The determined Bishop, nothing daunted, went at once to the rude platform,
detailed his experience in storm, shipwreck, mud and darkness, with marvelous
pathos; quoted the stanzas of a well known hymn of Henry Kirk White, begin-
ning:
Once on the raging sea I rode,
The storm was loud, the night was dark;
The ocean yawned and rudely blowed
The wind that tossed my foundering bark.
Deep horror then my vitals froze,
Death struck, I ceased the tide to stem;
When suddenly a star arose;
It was the star of Bethlehem.
The first Protestant church building on the Pacific Coast was the Methodist
church at Oregon City, begun in 1842, by A. F. Waller, and completed in 1844
by Gustavus Hines. Governor Abernethy added the bell in 1851. Abernethy
also at that time purchased three smaller bells for the Methodists, one for the
church in Salem, one for the church in Portland, and one for the Clackamas
Academy at Oregon City. But these were not the first bells in Oregon, the
Catholics having one at Champoeg in a temporary arbor like chapel, where they
held religious services as early as 1836. Religious services were held in Salem,
by the Methodists as early as 1841, in the Chapel of the Oregon Institute which
served for church purposes until the erection of the Church building which
was dedicated January 23, 1853; and was at that time the best Protestant Church
building in Oregon. The Methodist church of Portland was organized in 1848,
and its first building built mainly by the hands of its first pastor–James H. Wil-
bur—one of the greatest of the Methodist leaders in Oregon.
The Methodists were foremost in propagating their principles by means of
schools. At the first annual meeting of the Methodist society in Oregon, in May
1841, a committee was appointed to select a location for a manual labor school.
The site chosen was in what is now North Salem of the State Capital. And here
a building costing in those days, ten thousand dollars, was erected, and an
576
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Indian school kept for nine months beginning in the autumn of 1842. Here
was a substantial building with regular teachers and an effective organization
making it in fact the first school in the State of Oregon.
On the 7th of January, 1842, a meeting was held at the house of Jason Lee,
who had then removed from his first location on the Willamette river bottom to
the new location at Salem. This meeting was called to prepare plans for an edu-
cational institution for white children, A committee was appointed consist-
ing of Dr. Ira L. Babcock, Rev. Gustavus Hines and Rev. David Leslie to prepare
plans. The next meeting was held on February 1st, 1843, at the old Mission
House on French Prairie, and there it was decided to begin immediately to lay
the foundation of the proposed Institution. An organization was effected; and
the first Board of Trustees were selected, consisting of Jason Lee, David Leslie,
Gustavus Hines, J. L. Parrish, L. H. Judson, George Abernethy, Alanson Beers,
Hamilton Campbell, and Dr. Ira L. Babcock, and the name of the first institu-
tion of learning for Oregon was to be "The Oregon Institute.” At this meeting
and co-operating with the Methodists was an independent Congregationalist
missionary named Harvey Clarke, who took a lively interest in the proceedings,
and was placed on the Committee to select a site for the Institute building. After
this site was selected, and $4,000 raised by subscription made almost wholly by
the Methodist missionaries themselves, the erection of a building was commenced
under the superintendence of Wm. H. Gray, Presbyterian; so that in its incep-
tion the Oregon Institute was not wholly a Methodist enterprise.
But this institute formed a nucleus around which all the Methodist senti-
ment and action rallied; and out of it grew the more pretentious enterprise
of the Willamette University. And the University Sun had in turn its satel-
lites, the Wilbur Academy in Umpqua county, the Sheridan Academy, the Dallas
Academy, and the Santiam Academy at Lebanon in Linn county, and the
Portland Academy. A seminary for young ladies was established at Oregon
City, in 1851, and controlled and managed jointly by the Methodists and Con-
gregationalists and of which Rev. Harvey Clark was the first teacher.
The next after the Methodists and Congregationalists, to take up the question
of church schools came the Catholics. The first Catholic school established in
Oregon was St. Mary's Academy, on Fourth street in Portland in 1859. On
October 21, of that year the twelve foundresses reached Portland in their long
journey from Montreal, Canada. These heroic sisters who were to lay the found-
ation of a great teaching order in the northwest, were: Sisters, Mary Alphonse,
Mary David, Mary of Mercy, Adelaide Renauld, Mary Margaret, Mary O'Neill,
Mary of the Visitation, Agiae Lucier, Mary Francis Xavier, Vitaline Provost,
Mary of Calvary, Violet McMullen, Mary Frebonia, Melanie, Vandandaigue,
Mary Florentine, Alphonsine Collin, Mary Perpetua, Martine LaChappelle, Mary
Arsenius, Philomene Menard, Mary Julia, Olive Charboneau, and Sister Mary
Agatha, Celin Pepin. From this first colony of teaching sisters has grown nearly
fifty schools and colleges with over two hundred teachers, all of which are purely
church schools.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
577
THE CONGREGATIONALISTS
The oldest Congregational church in Oregon is that of the First church of
Tualatin Plains, organized by Rev. J. S. Griffin in June, 1842. The second
church is that of Oregon City organized May 25, 1844, by Rev. Harvey Clark;
who also taught the first schools in Washington county, and organized a Congre-
gational church at Forest Grove. And while the Pacific University at Forest
Grove was founded by the Congregationalists, and has been in the main endowed
by members of that church; yet it is and has always been non-sectarian.
THE PRESBYTERIANS
The first member of the Presbyterian denomination in Oregon was Rev. H. H.
Spalding, but as Whitman's mission was primarily to the Indians, and not to
the founding of churches, it is considered in another chapter. The first Pres-
byterian to come to Oregon to preach to white people was Lewis Thompson of
Kentucky, a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, who came to the
Pacific coast in 1846, and settled on Clatsop plains, where the first Presbyterian
church on the Pacific coast was erected. Mr. Thompson on September 19,
1846, preached his first sermon at the residence of Wm. H. Gray, and to a con-
gregation composed of Mr. and Mrs. Gray, and Alva Condit and his wife Ruth
Condit, Mr. Condit being a ruling elder in the church from Missouri. Truman
P. Powers of Astoria was the first ordained elder of the Presbyterian church
on the Pacific coast. On the 19th of November, 1846, Robert Robe, a young
minister from Ohio reached Oregon, and they, Thompson and Robe, together
with Edward R. Geary of Lafayette in Yamhill county, organized the presby-
tery of Oregon at the house of Rev. Geary in pursuance of an order of the
General Assembly of the Presbyterian church made in 1846. By 1853 there were
five Presbyterian ministers in Oregon-J. L. Yantis and J. A. Hanna, in addi-
tion to the three already named.
These efforts now noted were all the work of the old school division of the
Presbyterians. But soon thereafter other branches of the same faith made their
presence known. There were among the pioneers, Cumberland Presbyterians,
Associate Presbyterians, and Associate Reformed. In 1851 James P. Millar of
Albany, New York arrived in Oregon as a missionary of one of these latter so-
cieties. And finding here not more than 200 members and half dozen ministers
of the two societies he proposed a plan of uniting them all in one organization
under the name of the “United Presbyterian Church of Oregon," constituting
one presbytery and being independent of any allegiance to any religious organi-
zation outside of Oregon.
The men who entered into this agreement on October 20, 1852, to form an
independent Presbyterian church were James P. Millar, Thomas S. Kendall,
Samuel G. Irvine, Wilson Blain, James Worth, J. M. Dick and Stephen D.
Gager. They completed their organization on October 11, 1853, with a mem-
bership of 14 persons, Mr. Millar becoming the first pastor of the church. In
1858, they founded the Albany Academy, with Thomas Kendall, Delazon Smith
(afterwards U. S. Senator), Dennis Beach, Edward R. Geary, Walter Monteith,
J. P. Tate, John Smith, James H. Foster and R. H. Crawford, as the first board
of trustees. · This school was superseded by the Albany Institute in 1866, with
Vol. 1—37
578
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Rev. W. J. Monteith as principal; which developed into the Albany College a
year later when Walter and Thomas Monteith donated seven acres of land for a
site, and the citizens generally subscribed $8,000 to erect a permanent building,
and at which time by decision of public meeting and general assent the land and
property was conveyed to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church
for educational purposes.
THE CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIANS
The pioneer of the Cumberland Presbyterians was Rev. J. A. Cornwall from
Arkansas, who reached Oregon in 1846. Cornwall was the only ordained minis-
ter of this church in Oregon until 1851, when Neill Johnson of Illinois and
Joseph Robertson, of Tennessee, arrived. By direction of Synod of Missouri
these ministers met at the house of Samuel Allen in Marion county in 1852, and
organized the Oregon presbytery of the Cumberland Presbyterian church, Rev.
W. A. Sweeney, another minister of that denomination, being present. At this
meeting there were, in addition to the ministers, five ruling elders present who
had partially organized congregations, as follows: John Purvine from Abiqua,
Joseph Carmack from La Creole, Jesse C. Henderson from Yamhill, David
Allen from Tualatin and D. M. Keene from Santiam. There were at that time
four licentiates in the territory licensed to preach, viz: B. F. Music, John Dil-
lard, Wm. Jolly and Luther White; and the whole numbers in communion
was 103.
In 1853 an effort was made to raise funds to found a college in the interest
of this denomination, which resulted in securing subscriptions to the amount
of $20,000, of which $4,000 was available, and was expended in erecting a build-
ing at Eugene City, in which a school was opened in November, 1856, with E.
P. Henderson, a graduate of Waynesburgh College, Pennsylvania, as principal
teacher, with fifty-two students. Within four days after this auspicious open-
ing the building was destroyed by a fire believed to have been set by an incendi-
ary enemy. Another building was rented, and the school continued until a
second building was erected, and the second session of the school doubled the
number of students. The attendance of pupils increased to 150 in 1857; but
again on the night of February 26, 1858, the second building was destroyed by
fire. Determined to defeat the imp of incendiarism that dogged the path of
this energetic church, a third building was commenced to be built of stone. But
before it was completed a division took place in the ranks of the supporters
of the infant college on the question of reading the Bible with prayers in the
school; and being outvoted, the opponents of prayers withdrew their support,
and the unfinished building was sold by the sheriff to pay off the mechanics
liens. After two more terms of school in a rented building, Parson Henderson
seeing no hope for the future, closed the doors of his school, and thus ended the
Cumberland Presbyterian College enterprise. But these labors of the zealous
Presbyterians were not without fruits. Out of this effort germinated the im-
pulse to secure the State University for Eugene. At the legislative session of
1857-8 an act was passed incorporating the Union University Association, sec-
tion 4 of which provides : “That the utmost care shall be taken to avoid every
species of preference for any sect or party, either religious or political."

REV. GEORGE H. ATKINSON
A Pioneer Congregational Preacher and College Promoter
Bic
OF
3
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
579
THE BAPTISTS
The Baptists were a numerous people in the western states when the emi-
gration tide set in towards Oregon. And as a consequence we find this branch
of Protestantism strongly represented among the pioneers. A stern, honest,
sincere, headstrong people they held to their religion as well as their politics
with the same vigor and determination as sent the Puritans to the block and
inhospitable coasts of New England. As early as 1848, a society was organized
and a church building erected at Oregon City; although the first Baptist congre-
gation was organized on Tualatin plains on May 25, 1844, by Deacon David T.
Lenox, in his own dwelling-a log cabin-and known as the West Union church,
The charter members of this church were as follows: David T. Lenox, Mrs.
Louisa Lenox, William Beagle, Lucinda Beagle, Alexander Blevins, Lavina
Blevins and Henry Sewell-all coming to Oregon with the immigration of 1843.
The second Baptist church was organized in Polk county, near Crowley, by Rev.
Vincent Snelling on July 18, 1846. This was known as the Rickreall Church.
The first Baptist minister in Oregon, Rev. Vincent Snelling, came with the
immigration of 1844, and he preached for the first time at the West Union
church in February, 1845, and became pastor of that church for awhile. In the
fall of 1845 Revs. Ezra Fisher and Hezekiah Johnson, duly commissioned by
the American Baptist Home Missionary Society, arrived with their families,
coming across the plains and soon after began their missionary work.
In June, 1860, Samuel Cornelius was sent out by the American Baptist Home
Mission from Indianapolis as a missionary to labor in the Portland field. He
preached, first in the Methodist church, then in a public hall, and organized the
first Baptist church in Portland on August 12, 1860, with twelve members, of
which were Josiah Failing and wife, Joshua Shaw and wife, R. Weston and wife,
and George Shriver and wife. These few members elected Mr. Cornelius
their pastor. Stephen Coffin donated the little church a half of a city block
on which to erect a church building, and it is a singular commentary on the
inconsistencies of this world's affairs, that while the donor of this land died
without property this half block was sold by this church for money enough
to purchase nearly as much land at another point and erect thereon the boasted
“White Temple' costing two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The Lord does
serve his liberal givers with strange recompenses—some times.
The first attempt to establish a Baptist school in Oregon was what was called
in 1856—the “Corvallis Institute." Institutes were the favored institutions in
the early days, but this one never got beyond the act of incorporation. In the
same year the legislature chartered the “West Union Institute” to be located at
the north end of the north Plain in Washington county, about fourteen miles
from Portland. David T. Lenox, Ed. H. Lenox, Henry Sewell, Wm. Mau-
zey, John S. White and George C. Chandler were named as trustees for the
institution, and they built a school house and the church known all over the
Willamette valley as “The Lenox Church.” At the same session of the legis-
lature a charter was granted for the Baptist college at McMinnville. At that
time (1857) there was already at McMinnville a school founded by the Disciples
or Christian church (frequently called the Campbellites, after Alexander Camp-
bell the founder of the sect) and this beginning of a school with all its property
was turned over to the Baptists as a free gift on the condition that they should
!
580
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
organize and keep up a college. Out of this grew the present Baptist college
at McMinnville.
THE CAMPBELLITES
No member of the Christian or "Disciples of Christ" church need take um-
brage at being called a "Campbellite." There are probably but few persons iu
Oregon who ever heard the founder of that church-Alexander Campbell-
preach or knew him personally. The author of this book has the pleasure of
having known and heard that truly great man preach in Belmont county, Ohio,
while he, Campbell, was at the head of the college he founded at Bethany, West
Virginia. Alexander Campbell was born in the Presbyterian county of Antrim
in Ireland in 1788 and came to the United States in 1809. His mind was early
impressed with the importance of religion, but did not find among all the relig-
ious sects any system he could entirely adopt, and subsequently declared against
all human creeds, and commenced forming religious associations with the Bible
as their only rule of faith. He founded Bethany college in 1841; established
the “Christian Baptist and Millenial Harbinger” which became the organ and
advocate of his religious system, and died in 1855. The church he founded now
ranks fifth in number and influence in the United States.
In addition to the school started at McMinnville and turned over to the
Baptists, the Campbellites a little later founded Bethel Academy among the
Eola Hills of Polk county. In 1855 it was chartered by the Legislature as
Bethel Institute, and was opened with great prospects and about sixty pupils.
L. L. Rowland and N. Hudson, familiar names in the history of Yamhill
and Polk counties, were the first teachers. At that early day the school had a
well selected library and apparatus for teaching in the department of science.
But Bethel soon had a rival in the same county. There was an influential
community of Disciples south of the Rickreall who did not relish the estab-
lishment of the Methodist academy at Dallas; and set their wits to work to hold
their church people and rising generation together by establishing a College
of the first class among themselves. No country in the world ever had more
people who were ambitious to start colleges than those of the Willamette val-
ley of Oregon. Accordingly the following persons, to-wit: Ira F. M. Butler,
J. E. Murphy, R. P. Boise, J. B. Smith, S. Simmons, Wm. Mason, T. H. Hutch-
inson, H. Burford, T. H. Lucas, D. R. Lewis, and S. S. Whitman formed an
Association and procured a charter from the Legislature in 1855 incorporating
"Monmouth University.” As a foundation for the ambitious scheme 460
acres of land were donated, Whitman giving 200, Lucas 80, A. W. Lucas 20,
and Elijah Davidson and J. B. Smith each giving 80 acres. On this land was
platted the townsite of Monmouth, and lots sold to all persons desiring to
live in a University town which was yet a wheat field or cow pasture. The
necessity for money as well as land led to the scheme of selling forty perpetual
scholarships in the nascent University at five hundred dollars each, and by
which the institution got a prosperous start. Thomas F. Campbell, a graduate
of Bethany College, was placed at the head of the Institution; a brick build-
ing was erected, and a literary and religious journal entitled the "Monmouth
Christian Messenger” was started. Monmouth started in this way is now a
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
581
!
prosperous town with two railroads, a bank and many wealthy and influential
citizens.
The seed thought, as it were, from which sprang the idea of establishing a
Christian (Disciple) college in Oregon was planted in the mind of Tyrus Himes
in Bradford county, Pennsylvania, in 1838, as the result of a lecture by Rev.
Samuel Parker, D. D., of Ithaca, New York, who returned in 1837 from Oregon.
Late in 1838 Dr. Parker issued his lectures in book form entitled a “Journal
of an Exploring Tour Beyond the Rocky Mountains under the Direction of
the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions in the Years 1835,
1836, and 1837." Mr. Himes secured a copy of this work and became fully
conversant with it and decided he would go to Oregon as soon as he could.
He started with his family—wife and one child—to Oregon in the fall of 1846,
with the expectation of remaining in Stark county, Illinois, visiting some
brothers, during the ensuing winter and resuming his westward journey in
the spring of 1847. Mr. Himes had a severe attack of illness during the winter
and did not recover from it in time to go with the emigration of that year.
In the winter of 1849-50, during a "protracted meeting" conducted by minis-
ters of the Disciple church of which Mr. Himes was a member, a number of
the ministers and lay members of that church were guests at his house one
evening when the question of going to Oregon was discussed. Then Mr. Himes
suggested, inasmuch as it was expected that Congress would pass the Linn
donation land law, that he thought it would be a wise thing if a number of
families would agree to go to Oregon, take up donation claims in a body and
set aside a portion of the same as a nucleus for a fund with which to endow a
Christian college. This suggestion was approved of by all present, as follows:
Rev. John E. Murphy, Rev. Elijah Davidson, William Davidson, Squire S.
Whitman, Thomas and Albert Lucas, Elijah Davidson, Jr., George Barnett,
Ethan A. Shirley, Ira F. M. Butler, and James H. Roundtree. Whitman
and Thomas Lucas came to Oregon overland in 1850, and located at what is
now Monmouth, and the others mentioned came in 1852-53, and settled in the
vicinity.
Mr. Himes intended to have crossed the plains in 1852, but was prevented
by circumstances beyond his control. He did cross in 1853, however, with the
avowed purpose of becoming a neighbor to his old friends and brethren who
had preceded him; but disasters on the plains caused him to accept the offers of
a kindly-hearted Kentucky family, and this led him to settle in northern Ore-
gon, now known as the "Puget Sound country." An attempt, however, to
carry out the original plan was made as above set forth.
THE EPISCOPALIANS
The pioneer of the Protestant Episcopal church in Oregon was St. Michael
Fackler, who crossed the plains to Oregon with the immigration of 1847 to
improve his health rather than to preach the gospel. Mr. Fackler found a few
members of this Church in Oregon City, and held occasional services in 1848
at the house of A. McKinlay, but without attempting to organize a church. The
first missionary of this church from the Eastern States was William Richmond,
appointed by the Board of Domestic missions in April, 1851, to labor in Ore-
582
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
gon; and who organized congregations at Portland, Oregon City, Milwaukie,
Salem and Lafayette. In the autumn of 1852 Rev. Richmond was joined by
James A. Woodward of the diocese of Pennsylvania, who like Mr. Fackler,
made the trip across the plains for his health, aiding in driving and herding a
flock of sheep. The first Bishop of this Church—Thomas Fielding Scott-of
the diocese of Georgia, was elected missionary Bishop of Oregon and Washing-
ton at the General convention of the church held in New York in October, 1853;
but before he could reach Oregon, Richmond and Woodward both returned to
the Atlantic States, leaving only Mr. Fackler and Rev. John McCarty (an
army chaplain at Vancouver) to found the Episcopal church in the vast
country of Oregon, Washington and Idaho. Soon after the arrival of the
Bishop his clerical forces were reinforced by Deacon Johnston McCormac
and two brothers, Revs. John and James R. W. Sellwood. Bishop Scott started
a boys' school at Oswego, and a girls' school at Milwaukie, neither of which
succeeded on account of their distance from any settled membership of the
church. Bishop Scott died in 1857, lamented by all who knew him, and leav-
ing uncompleted the great work he had planned and started. Scott was suc-
ceeded in the wide extended Bishopric by Benjamin Wistar Morris, of German-
town, Pennsylvania. Morris was a lineal descendant of the great financier, Robert
Morris, who powerfully aided George Washington and Ben Franklin to found a
great nation; and he inherited and exhibited in his active career in Oregon for
nearly forty years all the noble principles of courage, integrity and self-sacrifice
which distinguished his great ancestor. Bishop Morris established on firm
and prosperous foundations, hundreds of parish houses and all the institutions
of his church, fully earning the title of “The Great Bishop,” and passed away
heloved by all his people and respected and honored by all citizens.
THE UNITARIANS
This denomination was started in Oregon long enough ago to have his-
torical standing. The first Unitarian church in the state was organized at
Portland in 1865 by Thomas Frazar, E. D. Shattuck and R. R. Thompson.
Its first house of worship at the S. W. corner of Seventh and Yamhill streets,
accommodating about 300 people was erected on a lot costing $7,000. The
Congregation still worships there in a larger house; and the lot has risen in
value from the $7,000 up to $250,000; being such an increase of value that
the most enthusiastic churchman would probably admit that the value of
the lot had far outstripped the growth of the church-or of all the churches;
showing forcibly that the things of this world still holds the minds of men in
preference to the things of the next world. While the Unitarians have not a
large membership in Oregon, they are to have a great College; the gift of one
of their deceased members—Simeon G. Reed; which is further noticed among
the colleges.
THE LUTHERANS
This branch of Protestantism planted a church in Oregon as early as 1867;
Aaron Myers, a local preacher, and patent water wheel promoter, being its
founder. There is now in the state about a half dozen different branches of

RT. REV. BENJAMIN WISTAR MORRIS,
BISHOP OF OREGON
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF. OREGON
583
the Lutheran church in Oregon, all of them tracing their title to preach the
gospel back to the great Martin Luther, who defied the Pope 400 years ago.
CHURCH ORGANIZATION STATISTICS
THE METEODIST EPISCOPAL
Turning now from the churches as educational organizations to their nu-
merical strength as both teaching and religious bodies, the following statistics
have been secured for the year of 1911. All the churches represented in the
state were requested to furnish a statement for this work, and it is greatly
regretted that some of them have neglected to do so:
Beginning with the oldest in the field the Methodist Episcopal Church re-
port One Conference, and parts of two others in the state; six Presiding Elder
districts; one Oregon Conference Laymen's Association; 186 resident minis-
ters; 141 mission churches receiving missionary support; 198 ordained minis-
ters in the state; a total membership of 26,539; 264 Sunday schools; one Uni-
versity; 420 students in denominational colleges; seven Home missionaries; one
Foreign missionary; first annual conference held at Salem, September 5,
1849; one weekly official organ-Pacific Christian Advocate; C. C. Rorich,
secretary of Annual conference,
THE FREE METHODISTS
This denomination reports two Annual Conferences in the state; five dis-
tricts; twelve local missionary associations; 25 churches with resident minis-
ters; 37 ordained ministers; with a total membership of 780; 30 Sunday schools;
5 Home missionaries; Church organized in Oregon June 10, 1885, at Beaver-
ton; Rev. W. N. Coffee, resident District elder.
THE PRESBYTERIANS
Next in order of time after the Episcopal Methodists, came the “Old
school” Presbyterians to teach and preach in Oregon; the first to spy out the
land” being the Rev. Samuel Parker in 1835; and the next the acting and re-
sponsible representative of the church, the lamented Marcus Whitman, M. D., in
1836. The church is now represented in Oregon by five organized Presbyter-
ies; 130 organized congregations; 50 missions in Oregon ;155 ordained minis-
ters; a total membership of 15,557; a Sunday School membership of 15,403;
one denominational college; three foreign missionaries appointed from Ore-
gon; formally organized independent of Missionary Board in 1851.
UNITED PRESBYTERIANS
Reports one Presbytery in Oregon; 9 churches with resident ministers; 4
mission churches; 13 ordained ministers in the state; a total membership of
850; 9 Sunday Schools ; 4 Home missionaries; one in Foreign lands; church or-
ganized in Oregon at Albany, Linn county.
0
584
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
REFORMED PRESBYTERIAN
Here is the genuine article, carrying the reader back to 1638 when Sir
Henry Wotton, a favorite of James VI. of Scotland, wrote in one of his letters
that he was sorry to hear of new "oathes in Scotland between the Covenanters,
who they say will have none but Jesus Christ to reign over them.” Oregon
has but one Covenanter minister, and one church of the covenant, organized
December 2, 1911; but it would be blessing to the state if there was one
such church of these sturdy Covenanters on every hill top, and in every val-
ley of the state.
CONGREGATIONALISTS
This denomination reports one annual conference; four local or district
associations; fifty-nine churches with sixty-three ministers and 5,135 members;
forty-eight Sunday-schools connected with churches, with a membership of
5,161; sixty missionary Sunday-schools; one general state superintendent of
general missionary work; one state superintendent of Sunday-school work.
This report is for the year ending December 31, 1910—the last one available.
THE CATHOLICS
Archdiocese of Oregon City. Rev. Francis Norbert Blanchet, first Bishop,
appointed from the Parish of Les Cedres of the District of Montreal, Canada,
April 17, 1838, to be Vicar General of the Missions of Oregon. Reached Ore-
gon Territory October 13, 1838; consecrated Bishop of Drasa July 23, 1845;
Bishop of Oregon City July 24, 1846 ; Archbishop, July 29, 1850; died June
18, 1883.
Bishop Blanchet, recognized as the great Catholic leader in Oregon, was
succeeded by Rev. Charles John Seghers, who was co-adjutor Bishop of Oregon
City from June 29, 1873, until the death of Blanchet; when he became Archbishop
on December 20, 1880, and held the office until his resignation in 1884, when
he was transferred to Vancouver's Island and died November 28, 1886. The
next occupant of the high office of Archbishop was Rev. Wm. H. Gross, pro-
moted from the Bishopric of Savannah, Georgia, to the Archiepiscopate of
Oregon City, by his Holiness the Pope at Rome on February 1, 1885; died
November 14, 1898. Bishop Gross was succeeded by the present occupant of
the office, the Rev. Alexander Christie, who was promoted by his Holiness the
Pope from the Bishopric of Vancouver's Island to be Archbishop of Oregon
City on February 12, 1899.
The Diocese of Oregon City comprises all the territory of the State of
Oregon west of the west boundary line of Wasco, Crook and Klamath counties;
and the organization and activities of the jurisdiction for 1911 is shown by the
following Digest:
Archbishop, 1; Mitred Abbots, 2; Diocesan Priests, 65;
Total number of Priests of Religious Orders
Churches with resident priests
Missions with churches
Total churches
100
50
50
100
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
585
Mission stations
Chapels
Seminaries of Religious Order Students
Academies for girls and young ladies
Colleges and Academies for boys
Students therein
Parishes and Parochial schools
Pupils therein
Orphan Asylums
Orphans therein
Hospitals
House of Good Shepherd
Home for the Aged ...
Catholic Young Woman's Home
Catholic Population in the Diocese
95
13
10
10
3
450
36
5,000
3
314
5
1
1
1
..55,000
DIOCESE OF BAKER CITY
Charles J. O'Reilly, D. D.; First Bishop of Baker City ordained June 29,
1890.
Diocesan Priests
12
Priests of Religious orders
14
Ecclesiastical students
8
Religious women
88
Churches with resident priests
16
Missions with churches
20
Chapels
9
Academies for young ladies
4
Parishes with Parochial schools
6
pils attending Catholic schools
790
Catholic Indians
500
Orders of women
11
Hospitals
3
Catholic population
.6000
Teaching Sisters
79
Report of schools comprised in the Catholic Educational Association of Oregon
for the year ending June, 1910
Av.
Community
daily
in
Attend-
Name of School
Charge
ance
St. Mary's Academy
Sister of Holy Names, Portland
.295
Columbia University
Congre'tn. Holy Cross, Portland
..135
C. B. Business College
Christian Brothers, Portland
.180
St. Mary's Annex
Sisters of Holy Names, Portland
50
St. Joseph's School (German) .. Dominican Sisters, Portland
110
St. Stephens
.Sisters of St. Mary, Portland
76
St. Mary's
. Dominican Sisters, Portland
.286
St. Ignatius
.Sisters of Holy Names, Portland
93
586
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Av.
daily
Attend-
ance
Community
in
Name of School
Charge
Sacred Heart
Benedictine Sisters, Portland ....
St. Francis Academy
. Holy Names Sisters, Portland
Holy Redeemer School .. Holy Names Sisters, Portland
St. Andrew's....
Immac. Heart of Mary, Portland
Blanchet School (Italian) .... Holy Names Sisters, Portland
Ascension School
Sisters of Mercy, Portland
St. Patrick's School
Holy Names Sisters, Portland
St. Lawrence
Immac. Heart of Mary, Portland
St. Alphonsus Academy ... Sisters of St. Mary, Tillamook
Parochial School
Sisters of Mercy, Roseburg
St. James School
Sisters of St. Francis, McMinnville
Sacred Heart Academy Holy Names Sisters, Salem
Visitation School
Sisters of St. Mary, Verboort
St. Benedict's School
Benedictine Sisters, Woodburn
Sacred Heart School .... Sisters of St. Mary, Gervais
St. Louis' School
Sisters of St. Mary, St. Louis
School 0. L. of Perpetual Help. Benedictine Sisters, Albany
St. Paul's Academy
. Holy Names Sisters, St. Paul
St. Mary's Academy
Holy Names Sisters, Medford
McLoughlin's Institute
Benedictine Sisters, Oregon City
St. Boniface School
Sisters of St. Mary, Sublimity
St. Mary's Parochial
Sisters of Mercy, Eugene
St. Mary's Home
Holy Names Sisters, V. M. Oswego
St. Mary's Home ..
Sisters of St. Mary, Beaverton
St. Mary's Institute
Sisters of St. Mary, Beaverton
Holy Names Academy
Holy Names Sisters, Astoria
Mt. Angel Academy
. Benedictine Sisters, Mt. Angel
Mt. Angel College
Benedictine Fathers, Mt. Angel
St. Andrews' Indian .
. Jesuit, Pendleton
St. Francis Academy
Sisters of St. Francis, Baker City
St. Mary's Academy
Holy Names Sisters, The Dalles
Sacred Heart Academy . Sisters of St. Francis, La Grande
St. Thomas Aquinas Academy.. Dominican Sisters, Condon
Total number of teachers in all the schools, 257.
..170
.180
85
.110
52
. 69
115
185
70
40
56
85
82
95
86
35
60
75
.109
180
.118
75
80
98
90
68
294
.
66
.118
85
50
The Catholic population of Oregon are maintaining two colleges of the
university class, as universities go in Oregon, Columbia University of Uni-
versity Park, and Mount Angel of Marion county. And in addition to this
literary and religious organization the church recognizes with favor the fol-
lowing fraternal, if not secret, organizations which neither Protestant nor sin-
ners may join, to-wit: Catholic Order of Foresters; Catholic. Knights of Amer-
ica'; Young Men's Institute; Ancient Order of Hibernians; Knights of Colum-
bus.
THE BAPTIST CHURCH was organized in Oregon by David T. Lenox who
on May 25th, 1844, gathered into his own house on Tualatin Plains fifteen
miles south west of Portland his neighbors, Eli Blevens and wife, William


REV. AARON LADNER LINDSLEY, D. D.
OF
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
587
Beagle and wife and Henry Sewell, and then and there organized the West
Taulatin Baptist church 2,000 miles distant from any other Baptist church.
From that modest beginning a powerful church has grown up in the state,
undisturbed by divisions or factions, and pursuing its way for the common
welfare of all members of society, until now it has in the state 12 district
associations; 90 churches with resident ministers; 42 churches with regular
services at stated periods; 153 ordained ministers; 119 Sunday schools; 1
College (McMinnville) and one church' journal with regular publication, and
14,174 members of the church in Oregon.
THE CHRISTIAN OR DISCIPLE. This church is frequently called “Campbell-
ite," from the name of its founder, Alexander Campbell. Its operations in
the state is divided into five districts; resident ministers, 63; ordained mem-
bers in the state, 80; total membership, 20,000; Sunday schools, 115; denom-
inational college, Eugene Bible University; organized in Oregon in 1849; state
publication, the Apostolic Appeal.
THE FRIENDS CHURCH—by many called Quakers—was organized in Ore-
gon in 1852, and holds now one yearly meeting, four quarterly meetings
and eleven monthly meetings. The church has in Oregon, 12 resident minis-
ters; 40 ordained ministers, with a total church membership of 1,852; 13 Sun-
day schools; 2 foreign missionaries; one denominational college–The Paci-
fic, at Newberg.
THE EVANGELICAL ASSOCIATION has one Conference, and one District in
the state; 4 self-supporting churches; 12 mission churches with services regu-
larly; and 17 churches with local and pastoral services; 26 ordained ministers
in the state; and a membership of 1,438; 27 Sunday schools; 13 home mission-
aries; church organized in Oregon in 1865; state publication, The Evangelical
Messenger.
THE RADICAL UNITED BRETHREN was organized in Oregon 35 years ago,
has one annual Conference; 7 churches with resident ministers, 2 mission
churches with regular services, 6 missions with local and pastoral services,
18 ordained ministers in the state, a total membership in the state of 800, 15
Sunday schools, one college at Philomath with 50 students, and six home and
one foreign missionary.
THE REFORMED CHURCH has one Classis in Oregon, 11 resident ministers,
2 missions with services at stated periods, 4 local missions with local services,
a membership of 790 in Oregon, and 10 Sunday schools in the state; organized
in Oregon in 1874.
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE church has in Oregon two independent branches
of the Mother Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass.; they both repre-
sent one work with the same history; Mary Baker Eddy being the discoverer
and founder of Christian Science. There are no personal pastors of these
churches; the Bible and Mrs. Eddy's book entitled "Science and Health, with
Key to the Scriptures,” being the only recognized pastor or authority. Mrs.
Lilly, who commenced her work in Portland in 1880, was the founder of
Christian Science in Oregon. The first church of this sect was organized in
Oregon in 1895 by Samuel Hersey, D. H. Cheney and Blanche Hersey Hogue.
THE UNIVERSALIST church was organized in Oregon on February 25, 1894;
having now one church in the state with a resident minister and regular ser-
vices, the corner stone of the church building being laid by President Wm. H.
588
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Taft in 1910. The membership of the church in Oregon is 125; two Sunday
schools, one home missionary, and a monthly, “Messenger of Good Tidings.
THE PENTECOSTAL CHURCH OF THE NAZARENE was organized in Oregon in
1905; has one Northwest District Assembly of Oregon, Washington and Idaho;
eight churches with resident ministers; 11 ordained ministers in the state and
eight Sunday schools.
The following religious denominations and religious organizations have organ-
ized churches in Oregon but omitted to give this history any statement of their
number, history or organization: Apostolic Christian, Catholic in Zion, Beth-
ania Swedish, Church of Christ, Church of God, Church of the Brethren (Dunk-
ards), Divine Truth Church, Free Brethren, Japanese Buddist, Mennoniten
Brethren, Swedenborgian New Church, Adventist, Seven Day Adventist,
Hebrews, Latter Day Saints, Lutherans, Methodist, South, Methodists,
Wesleyan, Salvation Army, Volunteers of America, Trinity Orthodox (Greek),
Church of the Living God, Friends (Quakers).
PUBLIC SCHOOLS
The first school of any kind opened on the great northwest coast of America
called “Old Oregon," was taught at the Hudson's Bay Company's fort at Van-
couver by an American named John Ball. The school was the outcome of the
presence of Ball at Fort Vancouver. He arrived there with the trading party
of Nathaniel J. Wyeth, in 1832. Wyeth had started from the Missouri river with
a party of nineteen men pretty well supplied and provisioned, but on account of
ignorance and inexperience on the plains, had been attacked by the Blackfeet,
and only escaped destruction by the protecting arm of Milton Sublette, the trap-
per and trader. From one trouble to another they finally reached a deep valley
in the Rocky mountains called Pierre Hole, where they got into another battle
with the Indians along with some trappers, in which scrimmage, twenty-six In-
dians, six white men, and thirty-two horses were killed. After this trouble, Sub-
lette and Wyeth pulled out of Pierre Hole and pushed on west in company until
they reached the head waters of the Humboldt river near the south boundary line
of Idaho. Here the two parties separated, Wyeth and what was left of his party
coming on to Oregon, and Sublette going to California. Wyeth and his few
weakened men-our first school teacher, John Ball, among them-struggled
through the mountains, suffering every trial, danger and hardship known to
reckless men, and finally reached Vancouver on the 20th day of October,
1832. Wyeth and his whole party were absolutely destitute. Not a dollar
in money had they. Their clothing was worn out, and in rags and tatters,
they knocked at Fort Vancouver gate for shelter, food and clothing. They
had started from Boston to come to Oregon and put the Hudson's Bay Company
out of business, and now found themselves suppliants at the door of the man
they intended to drive out of the country. It was not a light and trifling
matter, either, to the Hudson's Bay Company people. For if Wyeth could get
across the mountains despite the attack of Indians, this party might be but the
forerunner of a great host of Americans who would take the country. But it was
all the same to the big heart of John McLoughlin. Here were starving men;
and blood was thicker than water. The Americans put on a bold front. They
wanted work, and they would pay for all they got. What could they do?
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
589
Anything that men can do-clear land, run boats, chop wood, preach the gospel,
or teach school. John Ball, the Yankee school master from Boston got the first
job, and commenced teaching at Vancouver the first school ever opened west of
the Rocky mountains, on November 17, 1832, and had for his pupils about two
dozen half-breed Indian children of all ages, from six to sixteen. And thus was
lit the lamp of learning in the far western wilds of America. In a letter to
Elwood Evans, author of the History of the Northwest, Mr. Ball gives the
following account of that first school:
“The scholars came in talking their respective languages—Cree, Nez Perce,
Chinook, Klickitat, etc. I could not understand them, and when I called them
to order, there was but one who understood me. As I had come from a land
where discipline was expected in school management, I could not persuade
myself that I could accomplish anything without order. I therefore issued my
orders, and to my surprise, he who understood, joined issue with me upon my
government in the school. While endeavoring to impress upon him the neces-
sity of discipline and order in the school, and through him making such necessity
appreciated by his associates, Dr. McLoughlin, chief factor, entered. To the
doctor I explained my difficulty. He investigated my complaint, found my
statements correct, and at once made such an example of the refractory boy that
I never afterward experienced any trouble in governing. I continued in the
school over eighteen months, during which the scholars learned to speak English.
“Several could repeat some of Murray's grammar verbatim. Some had gone
through arithmetic, and upon review copied it-entirely. These copies were
afterward used as school books, there having been only one printed copy at Fort
Vancouver. The school numbered twenty-five pupils.'
In his journal Ball gives a somewhat different account of this first school, as
follows: "Not liking to live gratis, I asked the doctor for some employment. He
repeatedly answered me that I was a guest, and not expected to work. But
after much urging, he said if I was willing, he would like me to teach his own
son and the other boys in the fort, of whom there were a dozen. Of course I
gladly accepted the offer. So the boys were sent to my room to be instructed.
All were half-breeds, as there was not a white woman in Oregon. The doctor's
wife was a 'Chippewa' from Lake Superior, and the lightest woman was Mrs.
Douglas, a half breed from Hudson's Bay. I found the boys docile and atten-
tive, and they made good progress. The doctor often came into the school, and
was well satisfied and pleased. One day he said: 'Ball, anyway, you will have
the reputation of teaching the first school in Oregon.' So I passed the winter
of 1832 and 1833.''
John Ball, the teacher of this first school in Oregon, was the youngest of
ten children born on Tenny's Hill, Hebron, Grafton county, New Hampshire,
November 12, 1794. His childhood was spent on this farm. Of schooling he
had but little before he was twenty years old. In 1814 was sent to a clergy-
man in Groton, the next town, to be taught. From there he went to Salisbury
Academy and entered Dartmouth College in 1816, spending his summer va-
cations on the farm, and teaching country schools in the winters. After gradu-
ating, he studied law, teaching school to meet his expenses. He was admitted to
the bar to practice law, at Utica, New York, in 1824. One of his father's neigh-
bors being John Ordway, who had been out here in the Lewis and Clark party
in 1805, and returned safely to his old home, had so filled the boy up with the
590
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
great reports about this Oregon country, that when Wyeth called for men to go
to Oregon in 1832, Ball quickly joined the Wyeth party—and the school teach-
ing experience was the best luck he had in Oregon.
THE FIRST MISSION SCHOOL
The first school south of the Columbia river was the Mission school, taught by
Philip L. Edwards in 1835, near old Champoeg, in what is now Marion county.
Commencing with only a few pupils, twenty-five more were brought in from the
settlers on French prairie, and from native Indians, on either side of the Cas-
cade mountains, until all the persons, pupils, and others at the mission amounted
to thirty persons. These people were all packed into one small house. None
of them were accustomed to such confinement, all having been brought up in
tents, tepees, or the open air. Some were diseased, many became ill from change
of diet, and soon an epidemic of something like diphtheria broke out, and instead
of a school, the place became a hospital with sixteen children lying sick at one
time in one small room. The school was a failure, and nearly broken up for want
of some common sense in regard to the simplest precautions to protect the
health of children. The school was continued amid discouraging circumstances,
the missionaries doing everything in their power to remedy the want of proper
buildings, as Dr. McLoughlin testifies, until 1838. During this time, there never
was at best more than thirty-five or forty pupils, mostly natives or half-breed's,
and of these, one-third died. In Himes' History of Oregon, it is stated, "That
the mission school consisted of twenty-three Indian and half-breed children, ten
of whom were orphans. And besides these, there were twenty-two Indians, and
eight half-breeds who attended the day school. All were taught to speak English,
and several could read. The larger boys worked on the farm in fine weather,
earning at the lowest pay the Hudson's Bay Company, their board, clothing
and tuition."
This first teacher in Oregon, Philip L. Edwards, was a Kentuckian by birth,
and came from Richmond, Missouri, to Oregon when he was twenty-three years
of age. Of more than ordinary attainments, he loved order and refinement.
frontier man, he knew how to accomodate himself to the rough and tumble of
frontier life. While possessed of high moral sense, he was not a missionary or
a professor of religion. After teaching this school, he returned to Missouri,
studied law and married, and during the troubles with the Mormans in 1841,
enlisted in the militia forces against the Mormons, and was appointed a colonel.
In 1850 he emigrated to California, settling in Nevada county, taking an active
part in politics and dying in May, 1869.
To Nathan Dane, of Massachusetts, who was a member of the Continental
Congress from 1785 to 1787, is due the honor of framing the memorable ordi-
nance of 1787 which organized the great northwest territory, prohibited slavery
therein, and declared that "schools and the means of education shall be for-
ever encouraged." By a previous act of the same congress, and in pursuance
of a contract made by the officers of the United States treasury with Rev. Ma-
nasseh Cutler and Winthrop Sargent, of the State of Connecticut, in October
1787, the sixteenth section of public land in each township in all states formed
out of the northwest territory was devoted to the support of public schools.
In framing the act for the organization of Oregon territory, the thirty-

es
3
Mrs. Mary
A. Knox
2
Mary Agness
Foster
Mrs. Mary
Evans
1
Matthew Patton
6
5
Eva Cline Smith,
Secretary
Edith F. Delay,
Treasurer
FOUNDERS OF THE FIRST HOME IN OREGON FOR THE AGED
OF
Bicy
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
591
0
sixth section of land in each township was added to the sixteenth for the sup-
port of public schools in Oregon. This provision provoked great opposition in
congress. To J. Quinn Thornton of Oregon is due the honor of getting this
great addition to our educational resources. Thornton spent the summer of 1848
in Washington City as a delegate from the Provisional Government of Oregon,
and by his persistent indefatigable labors not only Oregon, but every state
organized since 1848, has thus been zrandly endowed. And historical record
is here made and attention is called to the fact, that the pioneer Oregonian, J.
Quinn Thornton, stands on the same pedestal of fame as Nathan Dane of Mas-
sachusetts, and that both men together have done more for the cause of popular
education in the United States than all the senators and congressmen since their
day. And this fact is another unfading laurel in the crown of glorious fame
of our Pioneer Provisional Government.
March 3, 1849, Hon. Jos. Lane issued his first proclamation as governor of
the territory. Soon after, a public meeting was called in Oregon City at the
instance of Rev. Geo. H. Atkinson, to discuss some matters of importance. One
question was, “Shall we organize a system of free schools ?” After a lengthy
discussion, a vote was taken which resulted as follows: 37 for and 6 against
free schools. At the request of Governor Lane, Rev. Geo. H. Atkinson pre-
pared the educational part of the forthcoming message to the first territorial
legislature, July 17, 1849. This was the first impulse toward the organization
of our public school system. The first school bill was passed September 5, 1849.
George H. Atkinson, arrived in Portland in June, 1848. He recalls Miss
Carter's school as being then in session. Dr. Atkinson brought with him $200
worth of school books of the latest and best authors. He came to Oregon,
charged especially with the educational interests of the territory. He after
ward imported about $1,700 worth more of school books, and sold out to S. J.
McCormick, Esq.
And since that early day the public school system of the state has had the
conscientious consideration of each succeeding legislative assembly. Possibly a
larger fund might have been made out of the school lands, but a large and in-
creasing fund has been secured.
The common school fund of Oregon now totals between $5,000,000 and
$6,000,000, and it not only supplies a source of income for the public schools of the
state, but it is a source of assistance to farmers and landowners in need of cash
in every county in the state.
This fund has been derived from the sale of school lands of the state, and is
loaned out in the following amounts in various counties, on first mortgages.
Baker
Benton
Clackamas
Clatsop
Columbia
Coos
Crook
Curry
Douglas
$160,801.83
101,787.84
38,150.05
29,100.00
22,609.70
171,634.72
24,350.00
30,846.05
119,703.51
592
.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Gilliam
Grant ..
Harney
Hood River
Jackson
Josephine
Klamath
Lake
Lane
Lincoln
Linn
Malheur
Marion
Morrow
Multnomah
Polk ...
Sherman
Tillamook
Umatilla
Union
Wallowa
Wasco
Washington
Wheeler
Yamhill
399,030.94
185,481.38
200,603.67
140,040.00
162,763.93
104,807.22
130,610.12
25,680.00
210,829.94
68,749.42
94,473.12
248,027.89
297,110.28
249,868.88
114,109.90
53,263.00
200,893.41
259,125.55
403,837.80
292,203.97
216,487.35
272,103.39
32,403.93
236,505.92
86,057.01
Total
$5,374,051.82
The statistics relative to the county supervisors, the number of districts they
represent, and the number of pupils, are as follows:
A
No.
Rural
Districts
62
53
County
Baker
Benton
Clackamas
Clatsop
Columbia
Coos
Crook
Curry
Douglas
Gilliam
Grant
Harney
Hood River
Jackson
Josephine
No.
Super-
visors
3
1
4
1
1
2
2
1
5
1
1
1
1
3
..1
110
28
48
77
68
23
123
32
38
37
13
85
47
No. ch'drn
in Rural
District
2355
1712
5076
2485
1697
3185
1528
647
3281
781
982
735
696
2845
1929
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
593
County
Klamath
Lane
Lake
Lincoln
Linn
Malheur
Marion
Morrow
Multnomah
Polk
Sherman
Tillamook
Umatilla
Union
Wallowa
Wasco
Washington
Wheeler
Yamhill
No.
Super-
visors
1
5
1
2
3
1
3
1
1
2
1
1
3
1
1
2
2
1
2
No.
Rural
Districts
35
171
25
58
112
41
105
40
37
57
26
41
83
53
68
55
87
25
80
No. ch'drn
in Rural
District
1130
5292
658
1310
4907
1528
7655
860
8638
2357
608
1168
3298
2944
1734
2046
4918
659
4904
The figures represent only rural schools and rural school districts, schools
in cities and towns not coming under the work of county supervisors.
Statistics for the year 1910 are as follows:
.
Number of Districts in the State
Average No. Days of School per Year
Average Salary Male Teachers per Month.
Average Salary Female Teachers per Month
Whole amount paid Teachers per annum
Amount received from District Tax
Amount received from County Tax
Amount received from State Fund
Total amount of School Funds
Total value of School Property
...2,266
138
73.53
55.05
2,299,689.42
2,346,555.69
1,322,081.93
320,272.27
6,378,508.20
8,624,731.43
The apportionment of the common school funds to the counties of the State
for the year 1912 is as follows:
The total apportionment is $347,124.48 divided among 180,794 school chil-
dren as follows:
Baker
Benton
Clackamas
Clatsop
Columbia
Coos
$ 10,439.04
6,205.44
19,340.16
8,586.24
6,303.36
10,901.76
Vol. I-38
594
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Crook
Curry
Douglas
Gilliam
Grant
Harney
Hood River
Jackson
Josephine
Klamath
Lake
Lane
Lincoln
Linn
Malheur
Marion
Morrow
Multnomah
Polk
Sherman
Tillamook
Umatilla
Union
Wallowa
4,654.68
1,345.92
11,219.68
2,096.64
3,452.16
2,280.96
3,953.28
13,284.48
6,074.88
4,177.92
2,511.36
20,770.56
3,429.12
14,904.96
4,886.40
23,431.68
2,651.52
83,089.92
8,561.28
1,920.00
3,534.72
11,990.40
10,588.80
5,473.92
7,173.12
13,655.04
1,658.88
12,076.80
Wasco
Washington
Wheeler
Yamhill
Total
$347,124.48
SCHOOL LANDS UNSOLD
The revised list of school lands remaining unsold January 1, 1912, showed a
total acreage of about 500,000. There are no more state lands remaining in
Clackamas, Clatsop, Columbia, Linn, Marion, Multnomah, Polk, Washington and
Yamhill counties. List of counties and acreage of school land remaining unsold
in each follow:
Baker
Benton
Coos
Curry
Crook
Douglas
Gilliam
Grant
Harney
19,840
200
200
940
40,200
950
3,520
21,840
. 145,280

+
M
A
+
THE TWELVE FOUNDRESSES OF ST. MARY'S, OF PORTLAND, AND MANY OTHER
SCHOOLS FOR GIRLS
UNIL
OF
gic
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
595
Jackson
Josephine
Klamath
Lake
Lane
Lincoln
Malheur
Morrow
Sherman
Tillamook
Umatilla
Union
Wallowa
Wasco
Wheeler
440
920
9,220
94,240
120
360
175,520
1,960
1,400
120
4,360
5,120
3,320
3,560
8,160
This land is now sold by the state at a minimum of $7.50 per acre, some of it
selling under bid as high as $15.00 per acre. The receipts go to the irreducible
school fund, which is loaned to citizens of the state on good real estate first mort-
gage security at six per cent interest.
The public school system of Oregon along with that of other states is being at
this time severely criticised by the public press. And not without good reason.
More and more public money is demanded every year, the expense of the schools
increasing faster than the children to be taught; and the results of the teaching in
practical every day life diminishing in value. The number of text books in the
schools are now three or four times as many as a generation ago; and the output
of scholarship so far as success in every day life is concerned is not half so good.
The training of the youth in schools is now all directed to learning something from
books; while fifty years ago the books were a mere instrument to learning how
to do practical every day work. The boy or girl that has to work as well as study
is the pupil that succeeds in the battle of life. As showing public opinion on this
subject in the year 1912, the following extract is taken from a recent editorial in
the widely read New York Independent:
“What we want is an American people trained for American enterprises
and American home life. We have seen the folly of educating our lads and
lassies in such a way that they are less and less qualified to do things most
needed for home and community and state.
In addition to the public schools and the state colleges, a state library sys-
tem is being provided for by public taxation, and free books and free reading
rooms provided at public expense. So that in every way the professional edu-
cators can think of book learning is to be thrust upon the rising generation
of boys and girls. What the result will be in the future may be guessed at from
what has come to pass in the last twenty years.
COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES
The state of Oregon has more colleges and universities of education in pro-
portion to its population than any other state in the Union; and now (1912)
596
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
stands third in rank to those that have the highest percentage of students at-
tending colleges according to population. Kansas is first, with one college student
to every 112 inhabitants, Utah second with one to every 121 inhabitants, Oregon
third with one to every 150. This result was not to have been expected from a
population of men and women who had fewer opportunities for such education
than those of a majority of the states of the Union, and while it is a high compli-
ment to their ambition and appreciation of higher education, it shows their inex-
perience with such expensive embellishment of modern life. In this year, A. D.
1912, college education is coming in for its full share of public criticism in com-
mon with the hackneyed technicalities of the public schools. Of a large class
of young men who support the colleges, Dr. Winship, a prominent educator, says:
"Rich men's sons usually prepare for college in fashionable fitting schools where
fraternities, athletics and society functions consume so much of their energy that
they have not much left for study. They are carried through the course on the
shoulders of the faculty and then go to college because it is the fashionable thing
to do. If it were fashionable to finish with four years in a coal mine they would
do that. They have no purpose in life except to enjoy themselves, and the only
enjoyment they know about is the set routine which wealthy custom provides.
College being included in that routine they go to college, but not with the faintest
wish to learn anything. Indeed, they regard learning with haughty contempt.
Since this is their attitude of mind it would be foolish to expect them to stand
at the head of their classes. They deem it far more desirable to be at the foot.
They scorn intellectual labor as they do labor of any other kind. In order to live
comfortably in their station in life they must be perfectly useless and devote their
entire energy both of mind and body to the pursuit of pleasure.
Of the college fraternities the Daily Oregonian of December, 1911, says:
"It would be interesting to learn the exact number of young men who are
killed year after year at their initiation ceremonies into the Greek-letter fra-
ternities. Of course the greatest pains are taken to conceal each of these
'accidents' or explain them away, but now and then the real facts come out in
all their hideousness. The youth who was burned almost to death at a fashion-
able Philadelphia academy cannot be the only one who has suffered from the wor-
ship of the fetish this fall and winter. There must have been many more.
Loyalty to the class, to the college or school, to the fraternity, naturally closes
every mouth as a usual thing. It is only in cases rarely exceptional that the
truth leaks out in spite of efforts to conceal it. In athletics, class elections,
student parties and the like the fraternities are all-powerful. The honors which
they hold out are preferred by ambitious students far above any intellectual
distinctions. The faculty has nothing to offer which can compete for a moment
with the glory of an election to the leading fraternity.
“In this way the ambitions of the student are perverted. The true object of
attendance at college is forgotten and false standards erected. Intellectual
prowess becomes something to be despised while 'social' and athletic eminence
are all in all. The fraternities stand very high among the influences which have
made the modern college a factor of questionable value in our civilization."
In athletics Oregon colleges are well up in the lead; a local newspaper sums
up the honors and the great men as follows for the year 1912:
"Football popularity increased rather than decreased last season and re-
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
597
mained at the head of the list in major sports. Absence of any football fatali-
ties and the scarcity of serious injuries were factors in maintaining its pres-
tige. The future of football teams for this season appears bright. Washing-
ton retains most of its championship team, as does the University of Oregon,
which has re-engaged Glenn H. Warner, of Cornell as head coach. Oregon
Agricultural College students are pinning their faith upon the ability of Coach
'Rosy' Dolan, an Oregon boy, who was all-western tackle as a member of the
Notre Dame eleven to whip a team into shape from new material. Reports
from other northwest schools express considerable optimism over the football
out look.
“The northwest colleges have developed many athletic stars, among them
being Forrest Smithson, world's champion 120-yard high hurdler; A. C. Gil-
bert, former holder of the world's pole vaulting record; Dan Kelly, sprinter
and jumper; Heston Philbrook and Dimick, football players of national repu-
tation, and the present-day athletic stars, Brailey Gish, Ira Courtney, Edmun-
son and Martin, members of the recent University of Washington and Univer-
sity of Idaho track teams. Washington, Idaho and Oregon universities have been
big factors in upbuilding track and outdoor athletics in the Northwest in the
last few years.
The scholarship of these heroes of football and baseball did not seem to be
worth mentioning. A criticism of another kind comes from the Carnegie
Foundation for the advancement of teaching, which in its last annual report
says:
‘Unnecessary educational institutions continue to 'contribute to the de-
terioration of educational standards.
“The increase in the number of size of post-graduate schools-50 per cent
in the last decade and ten-fold in the last 30 years—has been much greater than
the natural need. Poor and pretentious graduate schools, conducted with the
funds of undergraduate colleges and attended chiefly by subsidized students,
often merely impair the appreciation of good undergraduate teaching and ham-
per real research.
"In legal education there is an improvement in instruction and an increas-
ing emphasis on better standards by authoritative bodies like the American
Bar Association, but poor schools still turn out three times as many lawyers as
the country needs, and one-half of our states have no adequate educational
requirements for admission to the bar. The miscarriage of justice, the law's
delay, the cost of litigation, public disregard of law, and disrespect for the
judiciary, all proceed in no small degree from this multiplication of ill-trained
lawyers.
VILLAMETTE UNIVERSITY
Among the Universities and colleges, in points of age, the Willamette Uni- .
versity stands at the head. It is controlled and managed by the Methodist
Episcopal church, and goes back to the pioneer Oregon Institute and Jason Lee
for its charter and authority to lead and teach. From Lee's Indian mission
school down to the present, this institution traces a direct and unbroken descent,
giving the University a responsible teaching career of seventy-eight years. For
598
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
many years it was the only school offering instruction in collegiate studies;
and its growth has been steady, continuous, sturdy and influential on the thought,
development and uplifting of the whole mass of the population of Old Oregon
embraced in the states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho. For these reasons
this veteran institution of learning has always had a strong hold upon the
affections and substantial support of the people, until now, when it can rely
on the largest endowment fund contributed to any college in the state by the
people of the state. This university has never received one dollar from the
state, or any public tax or emolument; and is now after all these years of
labor able to offer instruction in a college of Liberal Arts, and in schools of
Theology, Law, Medicine, Oratory, and Music, with a corps of fifty-four pro-
fessors and teachers. The activities of the University are carried on in seven
buildings, all of which have been the gifts of enthusiastic Oregon friends.
Recently a cash endowment of half a million dollars has been raised by friends
of the institution in and out of Oregon; with an additional gift of a lump sum of
one hundred thousand dollars by Mr. P. W. Severson of Portland which is to
be devoted to a special purpose. The first president of Willamette was Rev.
Francis S. Hoyt, who served in that office from 1850 to 1860, and who only died
within the past year at the age of 90 years. The present head of the institution
is the Rev. Fletcher Homan.
Among thousands of former students and over a thousand graduates from
her different departments are numbered. preachers, missionaries, teachers, pro-
fessors, congressmen, judges of county courts, of superior courts, of circuit courts,
of supreme courts, of United States district courts, editors, authors, explorers,
municipal officers, physicians, United States senators, Governors, United States
attorneys, Consuls, Secretaries of State, United States Surveyors General, Presi-
dent of State Senate, Speaker of House of Representatives, and scores of promi-
nent and successful citizens.
PACIFIC UNIVERSITY. Next in point of age among the Collegiate institutions
of Oregon is "Pacific University." This institution dates back to 1849 for its in-
corporated authority under the name of “Tualatin Academy;" which was by the
Legislature of 1853 enlarged to ''Pacific University.” This was in the early days
called a Presbyterian institution because of the connection of Rev. Harvey Clark
with it, who was in those days regarded by the people as an independent Presby-
terian missionary. Clark's theology was substantially Presbyterian, but his inde-
pendence led him into the fold of Congregationalism; and where his most effective
labors were displayed. He was unquestionably a very devout and thoroughly
Christian man, unselfishly seeking to help, enlighten, lift up and benefit the
human race without regard to color or social distinctions.
In connection with Pacific Universtiy a nice historical question has arisen
as to which of two persons is entitled to the greater honor of founding that
Institution—the Rev. Harvey Clark, or Mrs. Tabitha Moffat Brown. The facts
' attending the origin of this school are as follows: Mrs. Brown was the widow
of Rev. Clark Brown, an Episcopalian minister of Stonington, Conn., who,
dying in early life, left his widow without property and three small children
to support. To accomplish this task she resorted to teaching, first in the state
of Maryland, and then afterwards removing to Missouri where wages would
be better. In the year 1846, after rearing her family, and at the age of sixty-six,

TABITHA BROWN
A Pioneer Heroine-A Founder of Pacific University
UNIL
OF
3
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
599
in order to be with her sons and grandchildren that had removed to Oregon,
she crossed the plains with an ox team, coming into Oregon by the Southern
route, and suffering the extremity of dangers and trials on the trip. The ex-
perience of Mrs. Brown in her life and death struggle to reach Oregon will be
good for the pupils of Pacific University to read while they are getting an
education in the college she founded, surrounded by every comfort and con-
venience. The following statement is Mrs. Brown's account in her own words:
"In 1843 one of her sons, Orus Brown, made the trip overland to Oregon,
and returning to Missouri in 1845 induced his mother to start for
Oregon in 1846. And with her son and daughter, and their families, they
set out for this country, taking with them John Brown, an aged brother of
her dead husband. Mrs. Brown was now sixty-six years of age. After reach-
ing the head waters of Snake river her son, Orus, fearing they might run out
of provisions, pushed on ahead of the party with a view of getting help and re-
turning to meet the immigrants. And after his departure, she was prevailed
upon, with others of the party, to follow the lead of an unknown guide who mis-
led them into what is known as the southern Oregon route. And here they fell
victims to the direst terrors of travel that ever beset any immigration to this
country. ” In the year 1854, Mrs. Brown wrote out an account of that awful trip,
from which the following has been taken:
"Winter had set in. We were yet a long distance from any white settlement.
The word was 'fly, everyone that can, from starvation; except those who are com-
pelled to stay by the cattle to recruit them for further travel.' Mr. Pringle
insisted on my going ahead with Uncle John to try and save our lives. They were
obliged to stay back a few days to recruit the cattle. They divided the last bit of
bacon, of which I had three slices; I had also a cup full of tea. No bread. We
saddled our horses and set off, not knowing that we should ever see each other
again. Captain Brown was too old and feeble to render any assistance to me. I
was obliged to ride ahead as a pilot, hoping to overtake four of five wagons that
left camp the day before. Near sunset we came up with the families that had
left that morning. They had nothing to eat, and their cattle had given out.
We all camped in an oak grove for the night, and in the morning I divided my
last morsel with them and left them to take care of themselves. I hurried Capt.
Brown, so as to overtake the three wagons ahead. We passed beautiful moun-
tains and valleys, saw but two Indians in the distance during the day. In the
afternoon, Capt. Brown complained of sickness, and could only walk his horse
at a distance behind. He had a swimming in his head, and a pain in his stomach.
In two or three houre he became delirious and fell from his horse. I was afraid
to jump down from my horse to assist him, as it was one that a woman had
never ridden before. He tried to rise upon his feet but could not. I rode close
to him and set the end of his cane, which I had in my hand, hard in the ground
to help him up. I then urged him to walk a little. He tottered along a few
yards and then gave out. I then saw a little sunken spot a few steps ahead and
led his horse to it, and with much difficulty got him raised to the saddle. I then
told him to hold fast to the horse's mane and I would lead by the bridle. Two
miles ahead was another mountain to climb over. As we reached the foot of it
he was able to take the bridle in his own hands and we passed over safely into a
large valley, a wide, solitary place, but no wagons in sight.
600
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
"The sun was now setting, the wind was blowing, and the rain was drifting
upon the sides of the distant mountains. Poor me! I crossed the plains to
where three mountain spurs met. Here the shades of night were gathering fast,
and I could see the wagon tracks no further. Alighting from my horse, I flung
off saddle and saddle-pack and tied the horse fast to a tree with a lasso rope.
The captain asked me what I was going to do. My answer was, “I am going to
camp for the night.' He gave a groan and fell to the ground. I gathered my
wagon sheet, which I had put under my saddle, flung it over a projecting limb
of a tree, and made me a fine tent. I then stripped the captain's horse. and tied
him, placed saddle, blankets, and bridles under the tent, then helped up the be-
wildered old gentleman and introduced him to his new lodgings upon the bare
ground. His senses were gone. Covering him as well as I could with blankets,
I seated myself upon my feet behind him, expecting he would be a corpse before
morning.
THE SITUATION
"Pause for a moment and consider the situation. Worse than alone, in a
savage wilderness, without food, without fire, cold and shivering, wolves fighting
and howling around me. Dark clouds hid the stars. All as solitary as death.
But that same kind Providence that I had always known was watching over me
still. I committed all to Him and felt no fear. As soon as light dawned I pulled
down my tent, saddled my horse, found the captain able to stand on his feet. Just
at this moment one of the emigrants whom I was trying to overtake came up. He
was in search of venison. Half a mile ahead were the wagons I hoped to over-
take, and we were soon there and ate plentifully of fresh meat. Within eight
feet of where my tent had been set fresh tracks of two Indians were to be seen,
but I did not know that they were there. They killed and robbed Mr. Newton,
only a short distance off, but would not kill his wife, because she was a woman.
They killed another man on our cut-off, but the rest of the emigrants escaped
with their lives. We traveled on for a few days and came to the foot of the Cali-
pooia mountains. Here my children and my grand-children came up with usma
joyful meeting. They had been near starving. Mr. Pringle tried to shoot a wolf,
but he was too weak and trembling to hold the rifle steady. They all cried be-
cause they had nothing to eat; but just at this time their own son came to them
with a supply, and all cried again. Winter had now set in. We were many days
crossing the Calipooia mountains, able to go ahead a mile or two each day. The
road had to be cut and opened for us, and the mountain was covered with snow.
Provisions gave out and Mr. Pringle set off on horseback to the settlement for
relief, not knowing how long he would be away, or whether he would ever get
through. In a week or so our scanty, provisions were all gone and we were again
in a state of starvation. Many tears were shed through the day, by all save one.
She had passed through many trials sufficient to convince her that tears would
avail nothing in our extremities. Through all my sufferings in crossing the
plains, I not once sought relief by the shedding of tears, nor thought we should
not live to reach the settlement. The same faith that I ever had in the blessings
of kind Providence strengthened in proportion to the trials I had to endure. As
the only alternative, or last resort, for the present time, Mr. Pringle's oldest son,
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
601
1
Clark, shot down one of his father's best working oxen and dressed it. It had
not a particle of fat on it, but we had something to eat-poor bones to pick,
without bread or salt.
BLESSED RELIEF
“Orus Brown's party was six days ahead of ours in starting; he had gone
down the old emigrant route and reached the settlement in September. Soon
after he heard of the suffering emigrants at the south and set off in haste with
four pack horses and provisions for our relief. He met Mr. Pringle and turned
about. In a few days they were at our camp. We had all retired to rest in our
tents hoping to forget our misery until daylight should remind us again of our
sad fate. In the stillness of the night the footsteps of horses were heard rush-
ing toward our tents. Directly a halloo. It was the well-known voices of Orus
Brown and Virgil Pringle. You can realize the joy. Orus, by his persuasive in-
sistence, encouraged us to more effort to reach the settlements. Five miles from
where we had encamped we fell into the company of half-bred French and In-
dians with pack-horses. We hired six of them and pushed ahead again. Our pro-
visions were becoming short and we were once more on an allowance until reach-
ing the first settlers. There our hardest struggles were ended. On Christmas
day, at 2 P. M., I entered the house of a Methodist minister, the first house I had
set my foot in for nine months. For two or three weeks of my journey down
the Willamette I had felt something in the end of my glove finger which I sup-
posed to be a button; on examination at my new home in Salem, I found it to be
a 6-14 cent piece. This was the whole of my cash capital to commence business
with in Oregon. With it I purchased three needles. I traded off some of my old
clothes to the squaws for buckskin, worked them into gloves for the Oregon
ladies and gentlemen, which cleared me upwards of $30.00.
THE BEGINNING OF PACIFIC UNIVERSITY
“Later, I accepted the invitation of Mr. and Mrs. Harvey Clark, of Tualatin
plains, to spend the winter with them. I said to Mr. Clark one day, 'Why has
Providence frowned on me and left me poor in this world? Had he blessed me
with riches, as he has many others, I know right what I would do.' 'What
would you do?' 'I would establish myself in a comfortable house and receive all
the poor children, and be a mother to them.' He fixed his keen eyes on me to
see if I was in earnest. “Yes, I am,' said I. 'If so, I will try,' said he, “to help
you.' He purposed to take an agency and get assistance to establish a school in
the plains. I should go into the log meeting-house and receive all the children,
rich and poor, whose parents who were able to pay $1 a week, for board, tuition,
washing and all. I agreed to labor for one year for nothing, while Mr. Clark and
others were to assist as far as they were able in furnishing provisions. The
time fixed upon to begin was March, 1848, when I found everything prepared for
me to go into the old meeting-house and cluck up my chickens. The neighbors
had collected what broken knives and forks, tin pans, and dishes they could part
with, for the Oregon pioneer to commence housekeeping with. I had a well-
educated lady from the east, a missionary's wife, for a teacher, and my family
602
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
increased rapidly. In the summer they put me up a boarding-house. I now had
thirty boarders of both sexes, and of all ages, from four years old to twenty-one.
I managed them and did all my work except washing. That was done by the
scholars. In the spring of '49 we called for trustees. Had eight appointed.
They voted me the whole charge of the boarding-house free of rent and I was to
provide for myself. The price of board was established at $2 per week. What-
ever I made over my expenses was my own. In '51 I had forty in my family at
$2.50 per week; mixed with my own hands, 3,423 pounds of flour in less than
five months. Mr. Clark made over to the trustees a quarter section of land for
a town plot. A large and handsome building is on the site we selected at the
first starting. It has been under town incorporation for two years, and at the
last session of the legislature a charter was granted for a University to be called
Pacific University, with a limitation of $50,000.00. The president and professor
are already here from Vermont. The teacher and his lady for the academy are
from New York. I have endeavored to give general outlines of what I have
done. You must be judges whether I have been doing good or evil. I have
labored for myself and the rising generation, but I have not quit hard work, and
live at my ease, independent as to worldly concerns. I own a nicely furnished
white frame house on a lot in town, within a short distance of the public build-
ings. That I rent for $100 per year. I have eight other town lots, without
buildings, worth $150 each. I have eight cows and a number of young cattle.
The cows I rent out for their milk and one-half of their increase. I have rising
$1,000 cash due me; $400 of it I have donated to the University; besides $100 l
gave to the academy three years ago. This much I have been able to accumulate
by my own industry, independent of my children, since I drew 6-14 cents from
the finger of my glove."
On this statement the partisans of Mrs. Brown found her claim to the honor
of starting a college. Give Mr. Clark all the credit he is entitled to; and still the
story goes back to the proposition of the devoted Christian woman to take the
orphan children and be a mother to them, feed, educate and care for them if any.
body would help her. She was fortunate in making the proposition to the right
man; a man who never counted dollars, self-interest or personal convenience
against any proposition to do good to his fellow man.
Other facts throw light on this question. The idea of starting this school
was proposed by Mrs. Brown in 1847. Prior to that time Mr. Clark had in 1842,
co-operated with the Methodists in selecting the site for the Oregon Institute at
Salem ; taught children of settlers on Tualatin Plains in 1842; had acted as
chaplain to the provisional legislature in 1843; taught in the Clackamas Semi-
nary at Oregon City (Methodist) in 1851, leaving Mrs. Brown to hold the Forest
Grove post, Mrs. Clark assisting as teacher. A life like picture of Mrs. Brown
is given on another page. Just as Jason Lee's Indian school was the germ of
Willamette University, in like degree was Mrs. Brown's orphan school the germ
of Pacific University.
Rev. Cushing Eells was the first principal of Tualatin Academy, assisted by
Mrs. Eells. After that he had for an assistant Miss Elizabeth Millar, sent to
Oregon by the National Board of Popular Education, Governor William Slade,
of Vermont, president, through the efforts of Rev. Geo. H. Atkinson. Miss
Millar married Joseph G. Wilson of Salem, who became the first circuit and
supreme judge in eastern Oregon, and afterwards a member of Congress, dying


SIMEON G. REED
Founder of Reed Institute
UNIL
OF
3
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
603
in that office. Mrs. Wilson is still alive and a member of the advisory board for
this history. Mr. Clark gave nearly all of his donation land claim to aid the
academy and college. Rev. George H. Atkinson, the first Congregational home
missionary to Oregon, took an active interest in the school, and fixed its char-
acter permanently as a Congregational institution. In 1853 Dr. Atkinson secured
the services of Rev. Sidney Harper Marsh to take charge of the school. Prof.
Marsh was well adapted to the work; entered upon this duty with great energy
and perseveringly pushed the work of the college for twenty-six years. What-
ever Pacific University is in the world of science and literature is owing to the
life work of Sidney Harper Marsh. The first graduate of this college, 1863, was
Harvey W. Scott, who was for half a century the editor-in-chief of the Daily
and Weekly Oregonian, and by many persons considered the ablest editorial
writer in the United States. The college has twenty-seven professors and teachers,
affording every facility for instruction in the liberal arts, sciences and practical
and professional teaching. William Nelson Ferrin is president of the faculty,
1912.
McMINNVILLE COLLEGE. To the Rev. Ezra Fisher is due the honor of sug-
gesting the first Baptist educational work in Oregon. His work was the organi-
zation on paper of the Oregon City College at Oregon City in 1849. Mr. Fish-
er's college was eclipsed by the gold mining rush to California in that year;
and the good man was afterwards engaged in keeping a respectable hotel at
Salem in 1864. The first Baptist school incorporated in Oregon after Fisher's
effort was the “Corvallis Institute" incorporated in 1856. It also ended with
the Act of Incorporation. In 1857 the Legislature chartered the "West Union
Institute” in Washington County, with David Lenox, E. H. Lenox, Henry
Sewell, Wm. Mauzey, John S. White and George Chandler as Trustees. This
school would have been located about fifteen miles from the city of Portland.
At the same session of the Legislature a charter was granted to the Baptist
college at McMinnville, a school already founded by the Christian (Campbell-
ites) and turned over to the Baptists with all its property and franchises, six
acres of ground and a school building, as a free gift, upon the condition that
the Baptists should maintain in operation a collegiate school. Here is found
the origin of McMinnville and its college. In 1852-3 W. T. Newby, whose like-
ness appears on another page, cut a water ditch from Baker creek (a branch
of Yamhill river) to Cozine creek, upon his own land, and erected a flouring
mill. In 1854, Sebastian C. Adams, whose farm was four miles north, took a
grist of wheat to Newby's mill, and in the course of conversation remarked to
Newby the favorable location his place afforded for a townsite. Whereupon
Newby replied that if Mr. Adams would start the town he (Newby) would give
him a block of lots and select his own location, from which point the survey should
start. Adams accepted the proposition and in the spring of 1855 hauled lumber
to the ground for a house to be erected 200 yards from the Newby mill, and
when completed Adams made the house his home. Immediately afterwards
Adams, who was a teacher, begun to agitate the starting of a select school as a
nucleus for a settlement; and as he and most of the settlers in that vicinity were
members of the Christian church, the school became a Christian or Campbellite
institution. Dr. James McBride, Adams and Newby worked up the scheme,
and Newby gave six acres of land for a home for the school; laid out the town
and named it McMinnville after his native town.in Tennessee, and Adams be-
604
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
But pay-
came the first teacher in the school that developed into McMinnville College.
John R. McBride, afterwards member of congress and chief justice of Idaho,
George L. Woods, governor of Oregon, and L. L. Rowland, superintendent of
the state insane asylum, were pupils at that first McMinnville school.
ing pupils were scarce in those days and Adams had much difficulty in keeping
the school going. The Baptists were likely to take away some patronage for
their proposed school at West Union; and as the main purpose was to establish
a high school at that point Adams proposed to his associates to turn the enter-
prise over to the Baptists, and thus prevent them from starting their school
down in Washington county. This was agreed to and the school building and
six acres of land was turned over to Henry Warren, James M. Fulkerson,
Ephraim Ford, Reuben C. Hill, J. S. Holman, Alexis N. Miller, Richard Miller
and Willis Gaines, who were, in January, 1858, incorporated as a Board of
Trustees of McMinnville College. The Washington county (West Union) school
was dropped, and McMinnville College was launched with Rev. George C.
Chandler as principal, and Mrs. N. Morse assistant in charge of the preparatory
department. To this foundation additional land was donated by Samuel and
Mahala Cozine; and McMinnville College has kept its doors wide open to all
students ever since that day. It now has a corps of twenty-one professors and
teachers, is housed in a new and substantial college building with ample facili-
ties to give all needed collegiate instruction in the Liberal Arts, Literature and
the Natural Sciences. The college has never received a dollar of public money;
but has secured a substantial endowment from friends and occupies a safe and
sane financial position. Leonard W. Riley, D.D., is the present president of the
institution.
ST. MARY'S ACADEMY AND COLLEGE. This institution of learning was founded
in Portland in 1859 by twelve Catholic sisters known as the twelve foundresses,
an engraving of their faces appearing an another page. They were brought to
Oregon from Canada through the agency of the first Catholic Bishop of Oregon
-Francis Norbert Blanchet. This college, which is a college for women, was
incorporated as an academy in 1866, and as a college in 1893. It has a large
corps of teachers, and furnishes instruction in all studies in English, and in
the Latin, French, German and Spanish languages and in music, drawing and
painting, as well as in all the sciences including domestic science. Its huildings
and grounds will accommodate 500 pupils; has no public funds or endowment
and is supported wholly and liberally by the tuition fees of its patrons.
St. Mary's Academy and College, under the direction of the Sisters of the
Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, is pre-eminently a Catholic school. Its aim
is to educate young women by the growth, development, and discipline of their
physical, mental, and moral powers. That woman may attain to the ideal of
her highest self, that she may be prepared for the larger life stretching beyond
the realms of her school life-knowledge and religion must go hand in hand
in the formation of her character.
St. Mary's claims the distinction of being the first permanent Catholic insti-
tution of higher learning in the Pacific northwest. From the humble little school
in the pioneer Portland of 1859, it has become an educational force in the
greater Portland of today with an influence that is far-reaching.
The Catholics have three other colleges in Oregon besides this woman's
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
605
college, viz: Columbia University, Mt. Angel College, and the College of the
Christian Brothers; but of which the managers of such institutions were not
disposed to give this history any account of. And in this same position was
found the Young Ladies' Seminary named St. Helen's Hall, and conducted by the
Sisters of the Episcopal church.
PHILOMATH COLLEGE. Next in order of time comes the college of the United
Brethren located at the town of Philomath in Benton county. From the annual
catalogue is copied an authorized statement.
Educational work in Oregon under the auspices of this church, began in
1865, when Philomath college was founded. From the first it has been a school
of the distinctly Christian type. The aim in its founding and maintenance
has been to make it a character factory as well as an institution of learning.
While the ideals of its founders, real pathfinders of education and progress
on the Pacific Coast, may not have been fully realized, yet the institution has
achieved much, and hundreds of young people have in it received their training
and equipment for useful and honorable living. The history of these years,
though marked by great struggles and sacrifices, furnishes a record of which
its friends and patrons may be justly proud.
The first board of trustees of Philomath College was elected by the Oregon
nference of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, September 16th,
1865. Limited resources and burdensome debts greatly hindered the progress
of the college for many years. A new era in its history, however, was reached
in 1901, when its debts were fully liquidated, and in June of the same year
the articles of incorporation were so amended as forever to prohibit the man-
agers of the institution from contracting any debts against the incorporation,
or mortgaging the property of the college. Thus the funds and interests of the
institution are wisely and permanently safeguarded.
The school is supported from its annual income, which consists of the interest
on permanent and temporary endowment, gifts, and the tuition of students.
Though this is by no means adequate to meet the growing needs of the insti-
tution, it is, nevertheless, most gratifying to record that through careful and
economical management and the self-sacrificing devotion of its faculty and
friends, it is able to carry on a high standard of educational work.
The control of the college is vested in the board of trustees, composed of
fifteen members, whose term of service is three years. The board determines
the general policy of the school, confers degrees, elects the faculty and other
administrative officers, and is, therefore, responsible for the character and
work of the school.
During the early years of the institution it received partial support from
public school funds, as it maintained elementary instruction in all the grades.
That has long been discontinued, however, and since strong courses in secondary
and higher education have been furnished. The college now has a faculty
and equipment of sufficient capacity to make it a strong, educational factor
in the wise and practical training of young people for lives of highest worth
and usefulness. It enjoys an excellent reputation for the work it does and the
influence it exerts in developing a dependable manhood and womanhood. The
friends of higher Christian education, therefore, will find Philomath College
606
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
an institution where investments insuring incomparable returns in educated
minds and hearts may be made.
The college has a faculty of eleven professors and teachers, giving instruction
in all standard college branches of studies; and making a specialty of careful
and thorough religious instruction. The college work is divided into the fol-
lowing departments: The Academy. The College of Liberal Arts. The School
of Pedagogy. The Summer School. The College of Music. The Business
College. The School of Oratory. The School of Art. The School of Physical
Culture. The College of Liberal Arts maintains standard courses requiring
four years for their completion, and leading to the degree of Bachelor of Phil-
osophy, Bachelor of Arts, and Bachelor of Science. Marion R. Drury, D. D.,
is the president.
ALBANY COLLEGE. The next Oregon college in order of time is the Albany
college already referred in connection with the founding of the Presbyterian
church.
Albany college was founded through the efforts of early Presbyterian mis-
sionaries in the Willamette valley. Rev. Edward R. Geary, D. D., came to this
coast with a commission from the Board of Domestic Missions to found and
maintain churches, and with another commission from the Board of Education
to establish an academy or college wherever he should feel justified by the con-
ditions in doing so. An effort was made to start a college in 1855, but it was
unsuccessful. Several years later attempts were made, and in 1865 one or
more mass meetings were held in the court-house in Albany, to plan for starting
a college. Messrs. Walter and Thomas Monteith donated seven acres of land
and a subscription of $8,000 was raised for a building. The building was begun
in 1866; the college was chartered by the legislature of Oregon in 1867, and
formally opened in the new building in the fall of that year with Rev. Walter
J. Monteith, brother of the donors of the land, as the first president. The col-
lege building was much enlarged in 1892. There have been fourteen presidents.
Rev. Wallace H. Lee; A. M., held this office from 1895 until 1905, since which
time the president has been Harry Means Crooks. For many years the college
was under the control of the Willamette Presbytery. It is now under the
control of the Synod of Oregon.
During the past year a movement has been under way that is now approach-
ing completion to secure $250,000 of endowment. The trustees have recently
purchased a new campus of forty-six acres in the edge of Albany. Plans for a
group of college buildings, dormitories, gymnasium, etc., have been drawn by
the Architects, and it is expected that the college will move to the new campus,
ocupying at least three new buildings, by September of 1913. This college has
a corps of fifteen professors and teachers furnishing instruction in all the stand-
ard college studies, specializing on Economics, Sociology, Political Science, Con-
stitutional History of England, France, Germany and the United States. The
responsible head of the institution is Harry Means Crooks, president, and a
graduate of the University of Wooster.
THE OREGON AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. The 0. A. C. is really older than the
date of its incorporation. Its history goes back to the year 1868, when the
legislature of the state of Oregon selected Corvallis as the most promising place
in the great Willamette valley for the seat of a school of agriculture; and

3
2
DO
5
4
6
No. 1- Frances Fuller Victor.
No. 2-Wm. H. Gray.
No. 4-J. Henry Brown.
No. 3-George H. Himes.
No. 5—Horace Lyman.
No. 6-Harvey K. Hines.
HISTORIANS OF OREGON
OF
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
607
asked the trustees of Corvallis college, entering into contract with them, to in-
corporate into the curriculum of their institution, the distinctive features of such
a school. Corvallis college was then under the control of the Methodist Episco-
pal Church, South. While the Corvallis Methodists were as good as any, the
terrible ordeal of the Civil war had cast a shade of suspicion over everything,
and almost everybody hailing from the southern confederacy. For that reason
the college under the southern Methodists was literally dying out by inches.
But its managers did not lack ability, shrewdness or courage.
Congress in 1862 set aside 90,000 acres of land in Oregon, the proceeds of the
sale of which were to constitute a perpetual fund for the support of an agricul-
tural college. And to this bonus the managers of the Corvallis college promptly
laid siege, and by deft management of the legislature of 1868 induced that
august body to come to Corvallis as an humble suitor and ask the Southern
Methodist church to kindly enlarge its list of studies and take in agriculture
along with the proceeds of the land grant. This was done, but it never gave
satisfaction to the public, and much less to the patriotic members of other
churches. So that by the year 1885, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South,
voluntarily relinquished its claim on the funds of the college; and the state,
through a board of regents, assumed full control of the institution. The legis-
lature then permanently located the agricultural college at Corvallis, Benton
county, on condition that the citizens of said county "within four years, erect
on the farm containing 35 acres, immediately west of the city limits, known as
the agricultural college farm, a brick building for the accommodation of said
agricultural college at a cost of not less than $20,000.” This the citizens agreed
to do; and on August 17, 1887, the governor of Oregon was invited to lay the
corner-stone. Removal from the old college buildings was effected in October
of 1888, and this date really marks the beginning of a new era for the institu-
tion, an era of growth and prosperity.
President B. L. Arnold, who had efficiently directed the affairs of the insti-
tution since 1872, following President Finley, was called by death into an early
grave in 1892. He was succeeded by President John M. Bloss, former state
superintendent of public instruction of Indiana, who was president for four
years, or until 1896, when he resigned. . The next incumbent was President
H. B. Miller, a practical horticulturist and man of affairs, who introduced new
ideas and effected salutary reforms. He resigned in 1897, and was succeeded
by President T. M. Gatch, for ten years previous president of the University
of Washington. President Gatch proved to be an educator, tried and thorough,
who believed, preached, and practiced that nothing so much helps and advances
a student as sustained efforts and strict attention to his studies. When Presi-
dent Gatch resigned in 1907, the attendance had passed the 800 mark.
With the advent of President W. J. Kerr, the present incumbent, who came
in 1907 from the presidency of the agricultural college at Logan, Utah, the
scope of the work has been greatly enlarged. From the class-room and labora-
tory, the distinctive work of the institution is now carried all over the state.
Into every county, town and hamlet, the specialist and research worker takes
his message of helpfulness, proffering assistance to the stock-raiser, wool-grower,
horticulturist, miner and business man. During his inactive season the farmer
is invited to attend a winter course at the institution. Every school, every de-
608
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
partment, every individual factor, connected with the institution is placed at
the disposal of the citizenry of Oregon. In co-operation with the great trans-
portation companies, demonstrating trains are sent out to the very ends of the
great iron highways to give popular demonstration to the ambitious husbandmen
of "how to do things" in the most approved way.
While the farmer benefits in a material and substantial way in his particular
sphere, the farmer's wife and daughter are by no means neglected. In the
department of domestic science and art at the college the daughter learns to
cook, to sew, to make and fit her own dresses, to launder, to take care of the
sick, to plan houses, and to practice hygienic living; she also studies etiquette.
This information she takes home with her to the farm, and proceeds to put
into practice to the benefit of the family, thus helping to render social conditions
on the farm as ideal as they are in the most cultured families in the city.
All these advantages are appreciated, for the attendance in the five years of
Dr. Kerr's administration has grown beyond 2,000. With this increase the
number of buildings has, of course, multiplied also, until today, the whole plant
in size represents a miniature city.
This, then, is the part the Oregon Agricultural College has been, and is
now, taking as a sociological factor in the growth and development of the state,
and partly also of the nation, for many of the graduates reside outside the
boundaries of Oregon. The college, though established primarily as an agent
for the improvement of conditions among the industrial classes of the state,
is, through its extension course, open to every one, regardless of position or occu-
pation; for since it is at least partly maintained by state taxation, its ultimate
purpose naturally is, service to all.
The enrollment of pupils for the current year is about 2900. The History is
indebted for this information to Mr. H. M. Tennant, the registrar of the college,
and should like to have had more. As for example, the income and the expenses
of the institution; the number of professors and teachers, and what they teach.
THE UNIVERSITY OF OREGON. In the month of July, 1872, five citizens of
Eugene met in the old school-house in Eugene to consult upon plans to secure the
location of the state university at that town. Prior to that time, and especially
during the period when the state capital was on wheels or up in the air, the
university had been a mere pawn upon the political chessboard of the state,
offered and shifted around from town to town to influence votes in favor of
the greater interest involved in the location of the capital. The five men com-
posing that little meeting, and entitled to honorable mention here, were Judge
J. J. Walton, B. F. Dorris, John M. Thompson, John C. Arnold and S. H.
Spencer; and a search through the annual catalogue of the university for the
year 1911-12, containing 300 pages and an introductory sketch of the institution,
makes no mention of these worthy pioncers of higher education.
The first thought at this pioneer meeting was that of a high school; but on
the suggestion of Mr. Thompson, it was finally agreed that an effort should be
made to secure the location of the state university at Eugene. Subsequently, and
in pursuance of this primary meeting, in August, 1872, the Union University
Association was incorporated for the purpose of securing the location of the
university. The incorporators of this association were J .M. Thompson, J. J.
Walton, W. J. Scott, B. F. Dorris, J. B. Underwood, J. J. Comstock, A. S.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
609
V
Patterson, S. H. Spencer, E. L. Bristow, E. L. Applegate and A. W. Patterson;
and the capital stock was fixed at $50,000. J. J. Walton was made secretary of
these incorporators. And in consequence of this selection, and the duties laid
upon the shoulders of Walton he prepared a bill to be presented to the ensuing
legislative assembly in September, offering grounds and buildings for the uni-
versity to be located at Eugene. The legislature took Walton's bill and amended
it so as to require the university association to provide a suitable building site
for the university buildings, and erect thereon a building which with its furni-
ture and the grounds should be worth not less than $50,000 cash, and the prop-
erty to be conveyed by deed to the board of directors of the state university free
of all incumbrances. After a prolonged and strenuous effort these conditions
required by the legislature were complied with. The law provided that the first
board of trustees for the university (now termed regents) should be composed
of six appointed by the governor and three elected by the university association.
On the part of the state Gov. Grover appointed Matthew P. Deady, Portland;
Lewis L. McArthur, The Dalles; Reuben S. Strahan, Albany; Dr. S. Hamilton,
Roseburg; John M. Thompson, Thomas G. Hendricks, Eugene; and the associa-
tion elected Benjamin F. Dorris, George Humphrey, Joshua J. Walton, Eugene.
At the first meeting of this board held in April, 1873, Deady was elected presi-
dent and Walton, secretary. Eighteen acres of land was secured; and a three-
story building 80 by 57 feet in size was erected; John W. Johnson was appointed
president and professor of ancient classics, Mark Bailey, professor of mathe-
matics, Thomas Condon, professor of natural sciences, and Mrs. Mary P. Spiller,
principal, and Miss Elizabeth Boise, assistant, in charge of the preparatory
school, and the university ship was launched on September 16, 1878, with 89
pupils in the collegiate and 123 in the preparatory department.
The University has had a steady if not a rapid growth. The last published
enrollment of pupils shows 648 in the regular college of literature, science, arts
and engineering. While the young men and women attending the theological
school at Eugene, and the law and medical schools at Portland are enrolled as a
part of the university activities, they are not herein counted as part of the con-
stituency which the state should undertake to educate.
The University is now possessed of 80 acres of land adapted to its uses; and
housed in eleven buildings devoted to distinct purposes, as follows: Deady Hall,
a three-story building, was presented to the state by the citizens of Lane county,
and was named in honor of Matthew P. Deady, the first president of the board
of regents. It contains the biological and physical laboratories, and the depart-
ments of Latin, Greek, Romance, Languages, German, and modern English
Literature.
VILLARD HALL, erected in 1885, was named in honor of Henry Villard, the
greatest individual donor to the university endowment. It contains the offices of
the president, the steward, the assembly hall of the University, the Condon
geological collection, and the departments of early English, Literature, Geology,
and Mathematics.
MCCLURE HALL was built in 1900. It is devoted to the departments of Chem-
istry and Mining. It has three floors, with laboratory facilities for 200 students,
and contains the latest appliances for research work in all lines of mining and
of manufacturing chemistry.
MECHANICAL HALL, erected in 1901, contains the central heating and lighting
"
Vol. I-39
610
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
plant of the university, and the departments of electrical and mechanical
engineering. The shops are run by electricity and equipped with tools and
machinery.
THE TIMBER TESTING STATION was established in 1905. The testing laboratory
is equipped with machines and appliances necessary for testing the strength of
timber, stone and metals.
THE GIRLS' GYMNASIUM is a brick building fitted with suitable apparatus
for the use of the women of the university only. The basement is fitted with
shower baths, steel lockers, and dressing rooms.
THE MEN'S DORMITORY, erected in 1893, is a three-story brick building,
equipped with electric lights, steam heat, hot and cold baths.
THE LIBRARY BUILDING, completed in June, 1907, is a two-story with base-
ment building, containing the university library, a general reading room, a
general reference room. a consultation room for faculty and students, and the
offices of the librarian and the cataloguer.
MARY SPILLER HALL, erected in 1907, will accommodate about 200 girls. It
is a two-story and basement building, heated and lighted and comfortably fitted
for living. Cost of board and room in the hall is $4.50 and $5.00 per week.
ENGINEERING HALL was completed in February, 1909, is a two-story building,
designed especially for engineering instruction. It houses all of the departments
of civil engineering. The general university repair shops (plumbing, carpenter
and paint) are located in the basement.
THE MEN'S GYMNASIUM. The new gymnasium for men is fitted completely
with all modern conveniences, the best apparatus, an indoor running track, a
swimming pool, shower baths, lockers, etc.
The athletic field has a four-lap track surrounding a football field. The grand
stand and bleachers will seat 3,500.
Excluding the professors, teachers and lecturers in the biblical, law and
aedical departments the university has now a corps of forty-six professors and
teachers of literature, the arts, sciences, music and athletics, not counting student
assistants. From 1878 down to the present the university has had but four presi-
dents: John W. Johnson, of Yamhill county, Oregon, from the opening day to
1893; C. H. Chapman, of Portland, from 1893 to 1899; Frank Strong, of Law-
rence, Kansas, from 1899 to 1902; P. L. Campbell, of Polk county, Oregon from
1902 to date.
PACIFIC COLLEGE. Last, but not least, turning from the abundant promises
and ambitious claims of the larger, older and wealthful educational institutions
of the state to the modest and unpretentious little Bulletin of the Friends
(Quakers), we find their Pacific College at Newberg, in Yamhill county, a very
interesting proposition. The authors of this bulletin are fully justified in saying
that education has always been the handmaid of religion among the Friends.
The history of Oregon Quakerism was no exception to the rule. When Friends
began to settle in this part of the country, they at once began to provide for
the education of their children and long before the public school furnished
the means for elementary education here, the Society of Friends had provided
schools for the primary education of the children.
But the need for higher education soon became apparent. In 1885, accord-
ingly, the Friends' church established Pacific Academy.

2.
3.
4
No. 14Samuel A. Clarke, Poet and Historian
No. 2–Orvil Dodge, History of Coos and Curry
No. 3—Valentine Brown, native son. printer, poet and lawyer
No. 4-Miss Frances Kemp of Woodburn, Oregon. The first woman to make a success of
practicing law in Oregon
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
611
Soon the academy became inadequate to meet the growing demands for
higher education, and in 1891 the course of study was advanced, the institution
was equipped for college work, and opened for students September 9, 1891.
In January, 1895, a joint stock company for the maintenance of the school
was organized and incorporated, with a capital of $40,000. In 1906 the stock
feature was abolished and the stockholders became life members of the corpora-
tion which elects the board of managers. New members are elected to this
corporation by Oregon Yearly Meeting of Friends. The board of managers
is elected by the members of the corporation, part of them being nominated by
the Yearly Meeting and part by the alumni of the college.
While denominational in auspices, Pacific College is unsectarian in policy.
An annual report is prepared by the president and is submitted to the Yearly
Meeting, and this body appoints a visiting committee, whose duty is to visit
the college frequently, to keep in touch with the work and to offer any sugges-
tions, advice or encouragement they may deem proper. The college is controlled
by a board of managers, twelve in number, divided into three classes, each serv-
ing three years. The board of managers, together with the president of the
college, has entire control of affairs of the college, electing the members of the
faculty, administering the finances of the college, conferring degrees and out-
lining its general policy.
To the faculty is delegated all the details of college work in instruction and
discipline. They also recommend to the board those suitable to receive degrees
and certificates.
Pacific College is the child of Christian sacrifice, and its prosperity is owing
to the enterprise and generosity of its friends, who have faithfully stood by it
from the first. No institution can have a stronger guarantee of permanence
than the united devotion of its friends.
PURPOSE
It is the purpose of the college to offer to young men and young women the
benefits of a liberal Christian education. Its courses of study are arranged to
give the broad culture which should be the possession of every intelligent man
and woman. The founders recognized the great importance of religious train-
ing, and the work of the class-room is not merely consistent with Christianity,
but decidely Christian in its tendencies.
1
REGULATIONS
Every student is expected to be diligent in study and to deport himself in
an orderly, courteous and moral manner, both in the college and in the commun-
ity. When a student enters the college it is assumed that he agrees to have
due regard for all the regulations of the institution. All the requirements are
designed to promote the welfare of the college community. It is intended to
allow the fullest liberty consistent with efficient work. It is taken for granted
that the purpose of college attendance is earnest, persistent work, and that
social enjoyment must always be subordinate to the regulations made for the
accomplishment of the most efficient work. The patronage of students who are
612
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
0
already seriously demoralized is not solicited. . When the faculty is satisfied that
a student is not filling the expectations placed in him, his parents or guardian
will be notified of the fact, and then, if there is no reformation, his removal
from the college will be requested.
The same course will be pursued when a student does not appear to be bene-
fited by the advantages offered or shows an unwillingness to assist cheerfully
in maintaining good order, or indulges in practices detrimental to himself and
others or to the reputation of the college.
Students who are guilty of habitual profanity, the use of intoxicants, playing
cards, carrying concealed weapons, or attending dancing parties, forfeit their
rights to the privileges of the college. The use of tobacco in all its forms is
forbidden, and the students who cannot cheerfully accept the conditions here.
outlined are requested not to apply for admission
This model institution of education has thirteen professors and teachers,
teaching all branches of the arts and sciences usually taught in standard colleges,
as well as music, domestic science, and the French and German languages. Wil-
liam J. Reagan is acting as president; and the institution has about one hundred
students.
REED COLLEGE. The latest candidate for favor among the patrons of col-
legiate education in the northwest is Reed College, of Portland, Oregon. The
author of this book had the honor of an intimate personal acquaintance with
the founder of this institution having been a partner in business with him for
years. And from such acquaintance is enabled to say that Simeon G. Reed
would not have planned the great work to commemorate his name on the
exceptional and esoteric lines proposed by its trustees. Mr. Reed was eminently
a practical man, a friend to the common man and a discerner of the things and
the education that would most benefit the mass of mankind. He thoroughly
believed in the idea that work, employment, with practical education that the
great mass could reach and appropriate in practical every day life, was the
safeguard of society and the salvation of the individual man. No person knew
of this desire and trend of Mr. Reed's thoughts and plans better than his noble
wife who had largely aided in the accumulation of their fortune. The clause
in her will, planning to carry out the intent of her husband, which recited that
she gives to the trustees of their fortune the three million dollars for a special
purpose, was not void for uncertainty, and could not have been misunderstood by
practical men. That clause reads as follows:
"All the rest, residue and remainder of my estate and property of every
kind, real, personal and mixed, whatever its character, and wherever the same
may be situated, I give, devise and bequeath to my friends * * * and their suc-
cessors, in trust, to use the same and the income therefrom arising in the found-
ing, establishment and maintenance at the city of Portland, Oregon, of an institu-
tion of learning, having for its object the increase and diffusion of practical
knowledge among the citizens of said city of Portland, and the promotion of
literature, science and art. Such institution hereby provided for shall be named
and known as The Reed Institute,' in memory of my departed husband,
Simeon G. Reed. In it shall be established such departments of learning, gal-
leries of art, natural and technical museums, appliances for manual training and
other appliances and appurtenances, as such trustees or their successors in the
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
613
trust hereby created may from time to time prescribe. Such instruction shall be
given therein by competent teachers and lecturers in literature, music, the
arts and sciences, and such classes created for the people, and especially young
men and women earning their livelihood, as said trustees and their succes-
sors may from time to time direct.
"It is my desire and intention that the institution so founded and established,
shall be a means of general enlightenment, intellectual and moral culture, the
cultivation and development of fine arts, manual training and education for the
people.
“I desire and direct that it forever be and remain free from sectarian influ-
ence, regulation or control, permitting those who may seek its benefits to affiliate
with such religious societies as their consciences may dictate.”
And while this College is not to be what its founder proposed, yet it is to be
something different from everything else in Oregon. And to begin with its
catalogue and announcement is to have a new style of spelling that will certainly
banish Noah Webster and all his works to the dark ages of the world. The
new college opened its doors on September 19, 1911, with a corps of seventeen
professors and instructors and a roll of forty-six pupils, thirty-nine of them
being residents of Portland and seven from points outside the city.
Here follows the college announcement in its new style of orthography.
“Reed College purposes to take full advantage of its splendid freedom from
harassing traditions. While endeavoring to profit by the rich experience of other
institutions, it plans to study exhaustively the peculiar needs of Portland and
of the Northwest, and so to develop each department that it will serv the com-
munity more effectively than could any merely transplanted institution. What
this involvs in the way of original constructiv work will be explained from time
to time as present plans mature.
"The College reservs the right to limit the number of students, at any time,
in the interests of efficiency. As the instruction of each student will cost several
times as much as his tuition fee, and as the primary interest of the College is in
the quality of the work done, and the character of its graduates, nothing what-
ever will be sacrificed in the interests of mere numbers.
"It is the policy of the Reed Institute to establish and maintain, with the
income from its present endowment, only a college of liberal arts and sciences,
and to extend its work only when it received further resources. It will attempt
to do only as much as it can reasonably expect to do as well as such work is
done anywhere. Accordingly it will not overburden its instructors, allow its
errolment to increase more rapidly than its resources, or entrust any of its teach-
ing to temporary, underpaid assistants, whose interests do not center in their
students. It aims to appoint and retain only those who are devoted to their stu-
dents and their teaching, who know how to teach and can not but inspire, and
whose whole life is imbued with the professional spirit.
"The chief compensation that Reed College offers such teachers is the freedom
to pursue their ideals, as members of a faculty thus selected, in an institution
with such avowed purposes, having before it an absolutely clear field, and splendid
opportunities for servis. It must not be supposed, however, that the College is
unfriendly to research. On the contrary, the College desires only teachers who
are eager to make independent studies in their favorite fields, chiefly for the
614
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
invigoration of their teaching. Schedules and equipment are arranged accord-
ingly."
The editor of the College presents their president with rare confidence and
enthusiasm as follows:
"William Trufant Foster, President of Reed College, is scarcely more than
thirty years of age. He was born in Boston, in 1879, and attended the Boston
public schools. Harvard University gave him the degree of A. B., and from Har-
vard University he received the degree of A. M. in English language and litera-
ture, and from Columbia University the degree of Ph. D. in education and
sociology. He taught English at Bates College for two years. In 1905 he
became Professor of English and Argumentation at Bowdoin College, and later
Professor of Education. In 1909 he was lecturer in the Principles of Education
at the Harvard Summer School, and in 1910 lecturer in Educational Adminis-
tration at Columbia University. He was for one year Fellow in Education at
Teacher's College, Columbia University. He is the author of 'Argumentation
and Debating' and 'Administration of the College Curriculum'”
And of the College itself, this editor proceeds:
“Reed College proposes to take full advantage of its splendid freedom from
harassing traditions.". It will be, if the ideal of its president is realized, a 'col-
lege free to pursue its mission as the maker of men and women and enlightener
of mankind, with unobscured vision of the truth and power to proclaim the
truth without fear or favor of politicians, or religious sects, or benefactors, or
public cries, or its own administrative machinery."
Good! Very good! And let there be hope that this new and brave, if not
boastful announcement will bring great good to Oregon. And while we hope
let us not forget that there is nothing new under the sun; that Solomon wrote
the book of Proverbs 2,927 years ago; that there has been but one Homer, and
he gave the world the Iliad nearly 3,000 years ago; that Plato, the father of all
philosophy, was only 500 years the junior of Homer; that Julius Cæsar gave
the Pagan world laws and institutions before the birth of Christ which have
not been repealed to this day; that there has been but one Shakespeare, but
one George Washington, but one Benjamin Franklin, and but one Abraham
Lincoln ;—and that none of these mighty men were collegians.
THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT
In making this review of the unexampled effort of the people of Oregon to
give not only a common school education to every child without respect to race,
nativity, sect or religious belief, but also to bring within reach of the great mass
the advantages of a collegiate education, it seems to the author that the effort has
developed a very serious question for the future to decide. For if the purpose of
human effort and education is to be the development of a composite but individu
ally independent character, then our system of public schools and independent
sectarian colleges is well adapted to that end. But, if the purpose be to carry
into successful effect a great scheme of morals and unified action in church and
state, then our Oregon system of education is at war therewith. So far in the
history of so-called civilized nations the world has but one example of the second
proposition; and that is found in the career of the Roman Catholic church. For

H. R. Kincaid.
Editor, Historian, and Collector of Autographs
OF
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
615
centuries it has steadily pursued the policy of centralizing all the agencies of
teaching and education under the control of the Church, to the end that all its
children and believers may accept and act upon the doctrine that it is the one
true church and infallible guide for the individual man, human society, and
temporal power. Protesting church organizations, schools and governments,
have been arrayed against this propaganda, but not in any combined and con-
crete organism; and the result is seen in the increasing power of Catholicism in
all Protestant countries. This shifting of the balance of power from the sep-
arated and independent organizations of Protestantism to the concrete organism
of Catholicism, will in the ordinary course of human activities go steadily for-
ward until the predominate secular power of the church impinges upon the civil
power of the state. Modified by the spirit and institutions of the republic, the
antagonism between the orthodoxy of the church and the sectarianism of its op-
ponents may never be so acute in this country as in European nations. But that
there will be, sooner or later, a trial of strength in some form or another for the
mastery and direction of all the activities of political power in favor of or against
the dominant clerical organization, there can be but little doubt. In the funda-
mental nature of all human organizations, power is continually stealing away
from the weaker to the stronger. Two diverse agencies of human action cannot
exist, grow and expand within the same area of human effort without contact,
contest, and strife.
LITERATURE, ART AND SCIENCE
THOMAS CONDON. At the head of Oregon's distinguished list of literary men
and women, and who, for everything that stands for the welfare of his fellow
man, and for comprehension of the works of the great Architect of the Universe,
stands the sublime character of Thomas Condon. As a man of science he stands
in the front rank in the United States. In his study and elucidation of the
geology of Oregon and adjoining regions he stands apart from and far above all
other students of nature. His patient and persevering study of the testimony of
the rocks in the formation of the earth, his clear and indisputable reasoning
thereon, and his volume on "Two Islands'' has given him not only a national
reputation, but a world-wide fame among students of science. His likeness ap-
pears on another page, and his biography in another volume.
THE POETS, HISTORIANS AND EDITORS. Some wise man has written: “Let me
write the songs of the people, and I care not who writes their laws.”
the observation of a by-gone age; an age when books were few and far between,
and when songs were the common heritage of all, and when fireside tales—folk-
lore—was as good as a circulating library. Now in this year of 1912 when scholar-
ship, literature, and learning is waiting at the street corners for printing presses
to hurry off to the news stands millions of copies of books, essays, poems—cheap
as a song—the time-honored songs, the Lay of the Last Minstrel, and the folk-lore
of the ages have little or no influence in moulding the thoughts or character of
the people. But no state in the Union has produced greater talent, or more
distinguished men and women in literature in proportion to population than
Oregon.
JOAQUIN MILLER. The Poet of the Sierras, is wrongfully claimed by Cali-
fornia. But he is an Oregon boy, an Oregon man, and an Oregon poet; and no
This was
!
616
+
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
poet of his era has produced lines as great as his Ode to Columbus, or equal to
his “Bravest Battle Ever Fought." The lines to Columbus are made a part of
the engraving to Columbus on a former page. In a recent critical article the
London Atheneum pays this compliment to Miller:
"In point of power, workmanship and feeling, among all the poems written
by Americans, we are inclined to give first place to 'Columbus,' by Joaquin
Miller.
Miller's other greatest poem is preserved here as follows:
"The bravest battle that ever was fought!
Shall I tell you where and when ?
On the maps of the world you will find it; no-
’T was fought by the mothers of men.
Nay, not with cannon or battle shot,
With sword, or nobler pen;
Nay, not with eloquent word or thought,
From mouths of wonderful men;
But deep in a walled-up woman's heart-
Of woman that would not yield,
But bravely, silently bore her part-
Lo! there is that battle-field.
No marshalling troops, no bivouac song,
No banner to gleam and wave;
But, oh! these battles, they last so long-
From babyhood to the grave.
Yet faithful still as a bridge of stars,
She fights in her walled-up town-
Fights on and on in the endless wars,
Then silent, unseen-goes down.
Oh, spotless woman in a world of shame,
With splendid and silent scorn,
Go back to God as white as you came,
The kingliest warrior born!”
The first poems of Joaquin Miller to be issued in book form were a number
that he employed George H. Himes, of Portland, to print in the spring of 1869,
the leading one being entitled "Loua Ella," an Indian maiden. The work was
about four by six and one-half inches in size, and contained perhaps sixty-four
pages, and was entitled “Specimens." Of this volume three hundred copies
were printed.
In the spring of 1870 Mr. Himes printed a second volume of the same size,
containing one hundred and twenty-eight pages. The leading poem was “Joa-
quin." The title-page of this work was Joaquin, Et Al., by C. H. Miller, Port-
land, Oregon. S. J. McCormick, Publisher, 1870.
“Joaquin," Mr. Miller's hero, was Joaquin Muriata, a noted Gringo of Cali-
fornia, who fought the Americans desperately for what he conceived to be his
rights. He was killed, with a number of his band, by the California State Rang-
ers, under Captain Love, in the wilds of Tulare county, California, in the sum-
mer of 1853. It was this volume that gave Mr. Miller the name of “Joaquin.”
Eugene, oregon, July 22, 1912.
Hon. Joseph Guston
dear sir:
your representative has received
from
om lorg
mi a large mmber of autographs of
many of the most distingnished men in the
United States during the last loo years,
which I collected while a clerk in the
u. S Senate.
The mannes cut from letters in the
U.S. Senate which were being destroyed were
mostly written between 1840 and 1860-
The names signed to letters recommend
-ing signed in 1879+
The letter containing signatures
of Senators was written by benator
Niliam A. Wallace of Pennsylvania,
Temocrat, who obtained as the signaturest
The letter signed by the Representatives
was written by delegate ThomosX.Buentes
of Washington Zerritory, Republican, who
obtained all the signaturede
It contains the names of two who were
afterwards Presidents and avere both
assassinated, borfield omd Me Kinley
me nu
Very truly yours,
H. R. Kincaid.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY 617
OF
OF OREGON
a
A few years later he prepared a third volume, which he called “The Songs of
the Sierras," the manuscript of which he took to London, England, and had pub-
lished. With that publication his fame began to grow, until now it is world
wide.
Miller has been sketched by a friend, Mr. A. H. Harris, as follows:
"Joaquin Miller was Cincinnatus Heine Miller, a son of a modest Oregon
farmer, when, in 1861, he left his father's home near Eugene to make his 'stake'
in the mines of Idaho. But once in the lifetime of Miller did the lure of gold
appeal to him, but once did he listen to the call of ambition to make money. For
years he lived the life of the Bohemian in California, in Nevada, in remote
sections of the new west. Wanderlust had taken possession of him, and about the
country he aimlessly went. During the winter of 1860-61 an awakening oc-
curred, and as the warm days of spring came to the quiet Willamette valley,
sudden impulse struck young Miller to seek gold and secure it at any cost. With
his usual impetuosity he was gone in a day, and the next that was heard of him
was from Oro Fino, on the Clearwater river above Lewiston, where the great
gold excitement was at white heat.
“Cincinnatus had made the best of his nomadic life in learning the ways of the
world, and once in Oro Fino he saw a great light. The country was filled with
prospectors and the byways with 'road agents.' To carry money, or what was
better than money (gold dust) about was to court death with one's boots on. Des-
perate, and determined, Miller saw his opportunity to make a small fortune and
he grasped it.
"In a night Miller gathered three Indian ponies worth a trifle more than 15
cents each, a saddle, saddle bags and a bridle. With a crude shed to protect his
'stock' he was owner, manager, agent and rider for the 'Miller Pony Express,
organized, equipped and doing business within 24 hours. Miller was 20 years of
age, long, lank, ungainly, uneducated, yet an expert horseman and a dead' shot
with anything that would carry powder and lead.
"Fearless under the most trying conditions and showing it in his demeanor,
Miller was soon doing a heavy express business in gold dust between Oro Fino
and Boise on the south and Walla Walla on the west. With thousands of dollars
worth of the precious metal in his saddle bags, with a bundle of letters and light
express packages from merchants and miners, with determination in his eye and
two trusted guns in his clothes, Miller would set out through the wilderness to
Walla Walla, 150 miles over trails that would have puzzled a redskin.
The season had been prosperous, even beyond the wildest dreams of the young
rider. The fame of his 'express' had spread, and he was carrying the bulk of
the gold dust for the rich Idaho diggings. Between $3,000 and $4,000 in bright
gold had been hidden away as the earnings of the hazardous rides, when the
shortening days of autumn overtook Miller. The frosty mornings told him to
"retire' with his wealth, but the lure of the gold still held him firmly.
"In the summer's riding Miller had heard of and dreamed of 'road agents;'
of being robbed, even of being killed. But with the most precious of his burdens
he had made the trip safely–no one had disturbed him in the least.
"On his last trip he was followed by two 'road agents'-robbers—determined
to kill him for what he was carrying. But the speed and nerve of his pony
2
618
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
saved him; and nine years later we find him in London, where a fashionable
publishing house was publishing his poems, making permanent his fame."
Minnie Myrtle Miller, Joaquin's wife, was also a poet—in some respects equal
to her husband. But being abandoned by her husband, sank beneath the blight
of poverty and woman's inability to grapple with the human throng of thought-
less selfishness which surges over and tramps down those who faint by the way,
and the gentle spirit in the prime of her powers passed over to the silent land.
SAMUEL L. SIMPSON is the popular poet of Oregon. He had the happy faculty
of embodying in his lyrics the beauties of Oregon, and will for this reason be
longer remembered than those who appealed to sentiment. While not born in
Oregon he came to the state in childhood and was educated at Willamette Uni-
versity. His lines on the Oregon river made his fame, and a few stanzas are
given here:
From the Cascades' frozen gorges,
Leaping like a child at play,
Winding, widening through the valley,
Bright Willamette glides away;
Onward ever,
Lovely river,
Softly calling to the sea,
Time, that scars us,
Maims and mars us,
Leaves no track or trench on thee.
**
*
In thy crystal deeps inverted
Swings a picture of the sky,
Like those wavering hopes of Aidenn
Dimly in our dreams that lie;
Clouded, often, drowned in turmoil,
Faint and lovely, far away-
Wreathing sunshine on the morrow,
Breathing fragrance round today,
Love would wander
Here and ponder.
Hither poetry would dream;
Life's old questions,
Sad suggestions
Whence and whither throng thy stream.
On the roaring waste of ocean
Shall thy scattered waves be tossed,
'Mid the surge's rythmic thunder
Shall thy silver tongues be lost.
Oh! thy glimmering rush of gladness
Mocks this turbid life of mine,
Racing to the wild forever
Down the sloping paths of time.
Onward ever,
Lovely river,
1 Soru bukausa
5 dne 1837
2 Andr
nem Jolano
Geppudonid
4 trenge
has
Amiskestane
8
6 Ohio e Reise
7 Riomas Houton
Temple
9 Dane Neliter
Beoban
u D. Milun
mw
9
10
الى ال
12 Hamsteht
hebla
13
Jame It Gorfield
14
Slimites
is Kelaud
73. Free in Mame
ther
hugby
efar
16
~
са an
zn 로
​18
19
Brinelt
129
20
"Thaisa fie
21
22
OP
Malone
By bosatta
23 HP Danko
Ardmund
250 m' pornolo Asa B.
B
24
C
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
619
Softly calling to the sea;
Time that scars us,
Maims and mars us,
Leaves no track or trench on thee.
EDWIN MARKHAM. Next to Joaquin Miller, if not even his superior in power
of expression, comes Edwin Markham, poet, writer and lecturer, who was born
in Oregon City in 1852. In 1867 Markham went to California where he worked
as a farm hand, at blacksmithing, herding cattle, earning money to pay his way
through the San Jose normal school and Santa Rosa college. We claim him for
Oregon. He is now a professor in the University of California, Berkeley. His
most remarkable poem is “The Man with a Hoe"-a part of which are the fol-
lowing lines :
Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes at the ground
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back the burden of the world.
Who made him dead to rapture and despair,
A thing that grieves not, and that never hopes,
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?
Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?
Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?
Whose breath blew out the light within this brain ?
Is this the thing the Lord God made and gave
To have dominion over sea and land;
To trace the stars and search the heavens for power;
To feel the passion of Eternity ?
Is this the dream He dreamed who shaped the suns
And pillared the blue firmament with light?
Down all the stretch of Hell to its last gulf
There is no shape more terrible than this-
More tongued with censure of the world's blind greed-
More filled with signs and portents for the soul !
More fraught with menace to the universe.
Time's tragedy is in that aching stoop;
Through this dread shape humanity betrayed,
Plundered, profaned and disinherited,
Cries protest to the judges of the world-
A protest that is also prophecy.
O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
How will the future reckon with this man?
How answer his brute question in that hour
When whirlwinds of rebellion shake the world!
How will it be with kingdoms and with kings-
With those who shaped him to the thing he is—
When this dumb Terror shall reply to God
After the silence of the centuries?
620
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
OTHER POETS. The grand mountain scenery, the peaceful vales, the umbra-
geous woods, the magnificent water falls, the mighty Columbia, and the exciting
incidents of Oregon history have all:
Conspired to tempt the Muse in Oregon.
Three poets in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy and England did adorn,
But; here lies the land of song;
Here lies the poet's native land."
The poet's harp should not be discouraged. His talent appeals to the best in
the hearts and minds of men and women. A wise man has said "let me write
the songs of the people, and I care not who writes their laws." "The Star Span-
gled Banner'' sent out more soldiers and armed them with a fiercer patriotism to
crush the Southern Confederacy, than all the speeches of law makers, and all the
laws of Congress, and all the appeals of president and cabinet.
Worthy of record in this history are the efforts of many Oregon writers of
verses. One who has never thrust his productions on the market place is Valen-
tine Brown, of Portland. Probably not a hundred persons knew that Mr. Brown
was a composer. A printer, poet and lawyer, he found, like Lee or Budgel, he
could“ rhyme print;" and did rhyme and print his own productions, comprising
four volumes; one of his poems 336 pages, issued in 1900; one of Armageddon,
150 pages, issued in 1902; one of Satires, 200 pages, issued in 1903; one of tales in
verse, 175 pages, issued in 1904. Mr. Brown is a native Oregonian, and his four
volumes should be in every library. The following lines bespeak the loyalty to
his native land:
“Hail, land of valleys, plains and hills,
of rivers grand, and crystal rills;
Snow-covered mountains, slopes of green,
And lakes enrobed in silvery sheen,
Of boundless groves and bounding sea-
My native land, dear land to me."
72
Entitled to notice in any Oregon book, and a niche in the ladder of fame, are
the two poet sisters, practically natives to the soil, Mrs. Ella Higginson and
Carrie Blake Morgan. They were each far above the ordinary in their com-
positions—serious, thoughtful, and helpful in all they wrote. The following lines
from the latter named sister could not be made more expressive by any pen:
"To feel the failing power; to sit and note
The slipping cogs within the mental wheel;
To strive to hold a thought, and see it steal
Away; to watch each golden fancy float
Beyond our reach. To be no longer bold,
And sure and free; to falter and to grope;
Until the struggle ends-and we are old."
.
Mrs. M. L. T. Hidden, president of the Woman's Press Club of Oregon, has
also done great work along the lines of increasing woman's influence on social
** billion , Luty
muWlewany
1
. P.thare
29
30 Chaes Purwah
31 H Homlin
32
hatchuss
28 Hottlere
34 Wermus
36
35 Imroubamein
Monly
37 Inoreco
38 Amount
39 Alaply
40 SR Helena
41 Ben Sitzean
42
Р- thindon
43c
Ay Ramby
44
eneo Harlan
45
a
Z
"
46 MMG Miliem
47 lidney Preise
Ambullom
Pocherhoukutte
sro Bright
so AS Lane
52/2. Livon Tumhels
ODA
*S. bollanny's,
Rat
PE 긷
​ol
M Honand In
49
51
52 Davro
Hamra
53
atos
54
56
57
и и
ovirane
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
621
and political questions, by her active pen and platform addresses. Mrs. Hidden
is one of the many thousands of good women given the United States by fair
Canada, being a native of Trenholm in the Province of Quebec.
Another Miller in addition to Joaquin, and his talented girl bride, entitled to
notice here as a poet and writer of unusual ability, is Mrs. Lischen Miller, wife of
Joaquin Miller's brother. Mrs. Miller was Miss Lischen Cogswell, the daugh-
ter of a Lane county farmer, and one of the founders of Oregon's first and only
great magazine, the Pacific Monthly.
Another representative of Oregon's native poetical talent is June McMillen
Ordway, daughter of Captain J. H. McMillen, a veteran in the Indian wars of
Oregon. Mrs. Ordway's writings have been mainly devoted to the Oregon pio-
neers and their services to the state; and in this she has written much that will
remain the permanent literary wealth of the state. Captain McMillen was presi-
dent of the North Pacific History Company which published in 1889 a valuable
history entitled "History of the Pacific Northwest," edited by Hon. Elwood
Evans of Olympia, Washington.
And last, but not least, to be recorded here as an Oregon poet, is the veteran
pioneer, farmer, stock-breeder, herdsman, legislator, mountain explorer, road
builder, magazine writer and model citizen-Hon. John Minto. From an inti-
mate acquaintance for half a century it is a pleasure to record here that no other
citizen of Oregon has done as much for the general welfare of all classes of its
people as this worthy man, now passed on beyond his four-score and ten years
filled to the overflowing with useful labor, and still in the harness to help along
every good work. His “Farmer's Songs” and “Rhymes of Life”' have the genu-
ine Ben Franklin flavor of 1776.
THE HISTORIANS. FRANCIS FULLER VICTOR fills a large page in Oregon history,
not only as an historian but also as a poet of great merit. The late Harvey W. Scott
being once asked who was the most reliable historian in Oregon, replied: "Oregon
has but one historian-Mrs. F. F. Victor." This was high praise from a com-
petent judge. Mrs. Victor's work as a writer of Oregon history is greater than
that of all others combined; and as a collector of Oregon history her work is
second only to that of George H. Himes. Mrs. Victor died at Portland, Ore-
gon, November 14, 1902, and after her death Mr. Wm. A. Morris prepared with
great care a sketch of her literary work as follows:
A book of poems in 1851.
Florence Fane Sketches, 1863-5.
The River of the West, 1870.
All Over Oregon and Washington, 1872.
Woman's War Against Whiskey, 1874.
The New Penelope, 1877.
Bancroft's History of Oregon, 2 Vols., 1886.
Bancroft's History of Idaho, Washington and Montana.
Bancroft's History of Nevada, Colorado and Wyoming.
Bancroft's History of California.
History of Oregon Indian Wars, 1893.
Atlantis Arisen, 1896.
A second volume of Poems, 1900.
Mrs. Victor had collected all the material for the Oregon history when the
Bancroft Publishing House offered her ten years' work on their histories on
)
622
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
66
condition that she would turn over her collections to Mr. Bancroft—who wrote
history by proxy. Mrs. Victor accepted this proposition because she had not
the money to bring out her own book. Frances Fuller was born in Rome, New
York, in 1826, and thirteen years later was carried to Wooster, Ohio, with her
family, and commenced writing verses at the age of fourteen. In 1885 she was
married to Henry C. Victor, a naval engineer, who was ordered to the Pacific
coast in 1863. Mrs. Victor followed her husband in 1865, and they settled on
land in Columbia county and tried to develop a salt spring, and did make some
salt. Mr. Victor was drowned in the sinking of an ocean steamship--The Pacific,
November 4, 1875, southbound from Victoria, B. C.—and his widow commenced
then to write Oregon history.
WILLIAM H. GRAY, the author of Gray's History of Oregon, will forever
hold a unique place in the history and early literature of the state. Always in
the forefront of the battle for what he conceived to be cause of truth and justice
to the pioneers of Oregon, he will be recognized and remembered as one of
Homer's heroes:
'Oh friends, be men, and let your hearts be strong,
And let no warrior in the heat of fight
Do what may bring him shame in others' eyes.''
Gray will not be remembered so much for his History of Oregon as for the
facts and experiences which made the book. While he may not have planned
the battle at Old Champoeg on May 2, 1843, he was undoubtedly one of the
most active partisans of the American cause at that history-making contest. Mr.
Gray was imbued with the idea that the Hudson's Bay Company was scheming
to beat the United States out of Oregon Territory, and that the Catholic church
was partner in the scheme. And so impressed, he was big with an irrepressible
disposition to give battle to these recognized opponents of American occupation
of the country, whenever an opportunity offered.
SAMUEL A. CLARKE'S Pioneer Days of Oregon History" is one of the first
and best contributions to Oregon history, because Mr. Clarke writes of matters
"all of which he saw and much of which he was a part. Mr. Clarke was essen-
tially a literary man with versatile tastes and talents. He could write history,
poetry and magazine articles, and edit a political newspaper or a farmer's
journal equally well. He was editor of the Daily Oregonian for a time, editor
of the Oregon Statesman for years, and editor and proprietor of the Willamette
Farmer when that journal had a larger circulation than any other agricultural
paper ever published in Oregon.
BROWN'S POLITICAL HISTORY. The documentary and political history of Ore-
gon, from the treaty between Great Britain and Spain signed in October 1790,
down to the organization of Oregon Territory in 1848, prepared by J. Henry
Brown, is one of the most valuable additions to the history of Oregon. Brown
was a printer, and conceived the idea of compiling all the official documents,
treaties, laws and letters relating to the protracted negotiations between the
United States, England and other nations for the possession of the old Oregon
territory. With the help of a friend he succeeded in publishing one volume
covering the period above named, but ill health and want of means prevented
him from completing his long cherished purpose.
66
Y auhing
59 ons tou king
Motere fredag te
WP_Jofundes
Wakes me
zer
Morney
165 Dinle
M Na
Ihnen
cient Х
67
Creswell
eldunes
به
a
Son otala
69-
한
​58
Simm
ons
و میدید . دانی
thing
ae
Jueu
arry on
somoc Im Eyck
Ә Inf
*/ Pimng 123.0
" for mapatan be
on
95
anan
Barroan
"Deudeuawd
G.
78
99
Chester On
Mauls
RooW Ghison
2
secara
S
89
hugas
so you hans
Tom. Meyhan
hilda
Per malley
gal
Joot bligh
nah
Morfikishwa
6886 lec
on Anorton
Cae
89
а ac
Spuren donazoel
Ridu
del to 8. Ragnard
93
meel
Q
94 C. d. Drako
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
623
LYMAN'S HISTORY OF OREGON. This is an elaborate work in four volumes pre-
pared by Horace Lyman in the year 1903, and for which Messrs. Harvey W.
Scott, C. B. Bellinger and W. D. Fenton stand as sponsors. The work was pre-
pared with that care which characterized all of Mr. Lyman's literary work. The
son of the pioneer minister and college professor, Rev. Horace Lyman, Sr., and a
graduate of the pioneer college at Forest Grove, Mr. Lyman was endowed with
that enthusiasm for the old pioneers which prepared him to comprehend and
appreciate the character and great work of the pioneers, and to fully and faith-
fully portray their services to the state in his history. Mr. Lyman spent years in
traveling about interviewing the old pioneers in their homes and getting their
story of Oregon from first hands, much of it given to the world in his work,
and much more published in the Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society.
HIMES AND LANG'S HISTORY, generally known as Himes' history of the Wil-
lamette Valley, was prepared and published in the year 1885 by George H. Himes
and H. O. Lang. Mr. Himes had been then, and is yet, an indefatigable collector
of historical material for the Pioneer Society and Historical Society of Oregon;
and Mr. Lang acted more as an editor of this material than as an historian of
Oregon. The work contains over 900 pages of historical matter, one-third of
which is biographical; and the highest compliment the author of this volume
can pay to his predecessor and co-laborer herein, is to work out the Centennial
History on the plans of Himes and Lang. For first hand sketches of the
old pioneers the Himes' history is invaluable, and in this matter will always be
accepted as standard authority.
HINES' HISTORY OF METHODISM. This is the standard authority upon the
early history of Methodism in Oregon. Harvey K. Hines was one of the pioneer
Methodist missionaries, and shared in all their trials, labors, victories and disap-
pointments in their grand scheme of civilizing and Christianizing the native
Indians. He lived to see and enjoy in an honored old age the fruits of his labor
and the happiness of having largely contributed to making his church the
dominant factor in the religious and educational work of the state. These old
servants of the church who gave up all, and sacrificed all to promote the welfare
of their fellow men, are worthy of and richly deserve the honor and veneration
of posterity.
HOLMAN'S MCLOUGHLIN, is a biographical sketch of the life and work of John
McLoughlin. There can be very little history of pioneer Oregon written without
giving large space to the subject of Mr. Holman's sketch. But to establish the
conviction, and the record, that John McLoughlin was the greatest of the pio-
neers, and in fact “Father of Oregon,” has been a labor of love with Frederick
V. Holman, president of the Oregon Historical Society. That Mr. Holman was
amply equipped to say the last word on the character and position of his hero
in the history of the state, is evident from the facts that he is a pioneer himself,
the son of a pioneer, and the owner of many historical books, pamphlets and
published writings relating to the history of this state. The book was prepared
and published in first-class style at large expense, and with no idea of ever getting
remuneration for the work in any other way than the satisfaction of rendering
justice to the name, fame and good works of a most honorable, unselfish and
worthy man. For doing this public service to the state, and to one of its chief
founders, if not the chief of all founders, Mr. Holman deserves the thanks of all
good citizens, and every man and woman who loves justice.
624
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
OTHER WRITERS OF HISTORY. Oregon has had many contributors to the
record of its history who have not printed their works in books; but not the less
valuable for that reason. The Oregon Pioneer and Historical Societies have
been the stimulus to many writers, who, but for the aid and encouragement
which these associations afforded, would never have given to posterity the great
mass of incident and facts which make up the unique history of this state. The
inost active and effective among these collectors and interpreters of Oregon
history have been Professors Young and Schafer, of the State University, Prof.
Horner, of the Agricultural College, and Prof. Robertson, of Pacific University,
and to the writings of all these men this work is greatly indebted.
THE EDITORS. With three exceptions the notice of the editorial fraternity in
this work will be limited to men who have fought their battle, run their race
and passed over the Great Divide. And they are noticed here only incidentally
to illustrate the power of the press as an educator.
It has long been current thought that the newspaper has a large influence in
moulding the opinions of men and their action in organized parties. And this
influence of the press was far more pronounced and effective in the early days
of Oregon than it is now. The reason for this is easily found. When the Oregon
Spectator and Free Press were struggling for existence at Oregon City, and the
Statesman was barely paying expenses at Salem, and Tom Dryer was half
starving with the Oregonian in Portland, there were no full page department
store advertisements, no street railway and electric light subsidies, and no boom
town paid for reading matter in the Oregon papers. Editors and proprietors
looked to their subscribers and very meagre advertising for their support. They
honestly advocated their own views of the right and wrong of all public ques-
tions; and the people took them for what they professed to be; and the editor
in the old days was a power in the land. Now this is all changed. The editor
and publisher looks to his advertisers and not to his readers for his expenses and
profits. The business office on important questions controls the editorial chair;
the boom town advertiser must have his write up; the swindling orchard com-
pany pays for roping in its victims; the public service corporation is represented
as a purely benevolent enterprise not fully understood; every trash theatre is the
greatest show on earth, and the press is gauged accordingly.
Yet, notwithstanding this venality of both patron and press, the newspaper
is withal the most powerful agent of education in forming the common mind
at the present day. It is a mirror of everything being talked about or being
done. Good, bad, and in different, all goes into the newspaper hopper and is
ground out in the most palatable form to please the fancy and cater to the
taste of every sort of a man and woman. It is this education
"That forms the common mind,
Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined."
And it is this education, everywhere in vogue in the large cities from the
Atlantic to the Pacific, which has enabled corrupt politicians to loot the tax-
payers of the municipalities as the gambler robs his imbecile victim. The news-
papers of the pioneer era of Oregon would quarrel and fight about seeming
trifles, but they would not sell out."
е IMCockrell-95
97
War Crim, trhyle 96
hare
Fraues Kirrunr.98
Jooneller -99
DHS
teloge 1,-101
Million Phralowe-
fres Meryrе-103
m-100
-102
se
-704
105
106
Sham Harris
ŞB. maney
ch k
A
My blue
708
109 077 Platt" menuer
"Po detele
و
113
115
116
117
JIRU Mittau-112
Auqua Cameron
Atlapdoet,
A fillonice
in Brithony
Ingalla
Alpunti – 118
Mi milling
Prviviya
A Saundus
Satukuwon
Poblanatnit 123
Rho A Lagan
ho
at Slater - 125
>
Mitt bapente 126
«9
119
-- 120
121
122
124
a
B6 Brud
127
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
625
The first printing press was brought to Oregon from the Sandwich Islands in
1839, having been sent to the American Board missionaries in the Islands from
Boston between 1821 and 1830. This little press, with its type was carried from
Vancouver up the Columbia river to Wai-il-et-pu in a canoe in April, 1839;
and from that point it was carried on pack animals to Lapwai missionary
station on Clearwater river above Lewiston, where it was set up on May 18,
1839, and the first proof sheet ever taken off a printing press in Old Oregon
territory was struck off. The first printing done on the press was 400 copies of a
dictionary of the Nez Perce language.
This press was afterwards sent down to Old Wascopum (The Dalles), where
it laid in the mission house for two years, and after the Whitman massacre
it was sent to Rev. John S. Griffin's farm near Hillsboro, where Griffin issued
eight numbers of a magazine called the “Oregon American and Evangelical
Unionist,” in the year 1848.
Charles F. Putnam, who came to Oregon in 1846, was the printer of this pub-
lication, and taught his wife, Rozelle Applegate Putnam, the oldest daughter of
Jesse Applegate, who came to Oregon in 1843, how to set type; thus she became
the first woman compositor on the Pacific coast.
The first newspaper devoted to secular affairs was issued at Oregon City,
Feb. 5, 1846, by the Oregon Printing Association, of which W. G. T'Vault was
president, J. W. Nesmith, vice-president, John P. Brooks, secretary, George
Abernethy, treasurer, and Robert Newell, John E. Long and Capt. J. H. Couch
were directors. T'Vault was the editor of this first newspaper in Old Oregon.
Col. T'Vault was a unique character; and while he was editing this first Oregon
newspaper he was also postmaster general under the provisional government and
started the post office department of the government with a capital of fifty
dollars. But Oregon soon got too large for one newspaper, and George L. Curry,
afterwards governor of Oregon, and whose sons now reside in Portland, started
the "Free Press” at Oregon City, sailing under the patriotic standard of
"Here shall the press the people's rights maintain,
Unawed by influence, and unbribed by gain.”
Mr. Curry had neither type nor press, but bought or borrowed a few fonts
of French type from the Canadians, that had no w's and made a press out of
lumber, and whittled his w's out of hard wood with a pen knife; and issued
the first number of the "Free Press” in March, 1848. In 1853 Editor Curry
was appointed secretary of Oregon Territory by President Pierce; soon became
acting governor vpon the resignation of Gov. Lane; and when John W. Davis
was appointed to succeed Lane, Gov. Curry became secretary under Davis; and
when Davis resigned as governor in 1854, serving only a few months, Curry
became acting governor of Oregon for the second time, and was in a short time
appointed by President Pierce governor de facto; having been in substance
three times governor of Oregon.
The first daily paper in Oregon was started at Portland by S. A. English
and Wm. B. Taylor on April 18, 1859, and named “Portland Daily News."
Its first editor was Alonzo Leland, who was soon succeeded by E. D. Shattuck,
who came to be the most useful, reliable and honored judge of the circuit court
ever holding the office in Multnomah county.
Vol. I-40
626
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Returning to the pioneer “Spectator," it is found to have run a life and
death struggle for existence for over ten years-suspending publication several
times and finally permanently suspended in March, 1855. Soon after this the
plant was purchased by W. L. Adams, of Yamhill county, a pioneer of 1848,
who started the "Argus." Mr. Adams was much like T'Vault, a remarkable
character, but with more common sense, a caustic, bitter, sarcastic writer and
always ready for battle. The most important and useful act in the editorial
career of Mr. Adams was his introduction of D. W. Craig to Oregon journalism.
Mr. Craig, born near Maysville, Kentucky, and now living at Salem, is a third
cousin of the noted Confederate general of the Civil war-Jubal Early. But
notwithstanding his southern birth, parentage and associations, transplanted to
Oregon he became virtually the founder of the republican party in Oregon.
While working on the Argus he composed and set in type in the same act, the
editorials which made “Billy Adams” famous and generated the political senti-
ment which culminated in the organization of the republican party in this
state. In 1859 Craig became the owner of the Argus, and in 1863, consolidated
the paper with the Oregon Statesman which had been founded by Asahel Bush.
Of the pioneer newspaper men Asahel Bush, founder of the Oregon States-
man, still living at Salem, a millionaire banker, and Thos. J. Dryer, founder
of the Oregonian, were the most influential factors in the politics of Oregon
from 1850 down to the election of Lincoln in 1860. The election of Lincoln
resulted in giving two Oregon editors good jobs-W. L. Adams, was appointed
collector of customs at Astoria, and Dryer, United States commissioner to the
Sandwich Islands. Dryer will be remembered in Oregon history as the founder
of the Oregonian, although in this he had the financial support of Stephen
Coffin and W. W. Chapman, both interested in the Portland townsite. Dryer
was a hard worker, a good fighter, and mentally able to hold his own both as
an editor and popular stump speaker. Asahel Bush was a different man. A
dangerous antagonist in the editorial columns, he could plan a political cam-
paign for one or five years, and move the local politicians around to serve his
purpose quite as easily as the master of the chessboard could move his pawns.
He was the founder and manager of the famous “Salem Clique,” the head and
front of the Douglas democracy, and the man that oiled the machinery that
sent General E. D. Baker and James W. Nesmith to the United States senate,
in spite of all opposition in 1860. These two senators represented the insur-
gency” of the republican and Douglas democratic parties fifty years ago, as
against the whiggery and pro-slavery democracy then passing down to the tombs
of the Capulets.
The school master of the Press of Oregon--the one great comprehensive mind
of the two generations of men since the Spectator made its editorial bow—was
Harvey Whitfield Scott. Mr. Scott was a voracious absorber and consumer of
all other men's thoughts, writings and works. He was equipped by nature to do
a great work. He read all history, poetry, commentary and philosophy, embodied
it in his own mental resources and freely gave it out modified to suit the hour
and promote his own purpose. Positive, impatient, energetic, indefatigable and
aggressive, he pushed his ideas of political economy, social responsibility and
public policy with a vigor and ability which has given the Oregonian all the
reputation it has;--and that is nation-wide, and equal to any other newspaper

JOAQUIN MILLER
UN,
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
627
in the forty-eight states of the Union. From the nature and fiber of his constitu-
tion Mr. Scott was compelled to make war upon the free coinage of silver and
issues of legal tender paper currency as substitutes for gold coin money. His
service as an educator in this regard was the great achievement of his career.
But in every phase of public opinion, or proposed social or political reform, Har-
vey Scott was the leading factor in Oregon for forty years. And because of this,
and his uncompromising manner of pressing his arguments and opinions, he
excited the opposition of those who disagreed with him to the extent that his
party could never give him the recognition or honors to which his ability and
his services entitled him.
Of the pioneer editors and newspaper educators yet living, and to be noticed
here, is Harrison R. Kincaid, of Eugene, founder, editor and proprietor of the
Oregon State Journal. For more than forty-five years Mr. Kincaid and his
Journal were a power in Oregon politics and educational affairs, aiding largely
in the establishment of the State University, and building up Lane county
and the state. And by reason of being one of the secretaries of the United
States senate for many years, and afterwards secretary of state for the
state of Oregon, Mr. Kincaid's acquaintance and associations with the public
men of his state and of congress has been larger than that of any other citizen
of the state, and by means thereof has largely aided in securing from congress
great aid to Oregon educational institutions and internal improvements. In
connection with this notice, and as an incident of educational and political
history, is given a series of original autographs never before published, and
which cannot be found elsewhere, of presidents, senators and congressmen, which
but for this work would never have been preserved and published. Mr. Kin-
caid's activities in this connection covers practically the first half century after
the close of the pioneer period, and might be called an autograph history of
that period while Oregon was making its place as the first of the states in the
so-called progressive ideas and schemes of the times.
AUTOGRAPH HISTORY
The following autograph letter and index is inserted here for the convenience
of the general reader.
(Engraved copy of Kincaid's letter.)
14James Buchanan, fifteenth president of the United States.
2-Andrew Johnson, seventeenth president.
3—Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America.
4Stephen A. Douglas, familiarly known as the “Little Giant"_senator
from Illinois, 1847-1859.
5—Samuel Houston, member of Congress, 1823; governor of Tennessee, 1827;
captured Texas from Mexico, 1836; U. S. senator from Texas, 1845; gov-
ernor of Texas, 1859; and supported the Union and Lincoln when Texas
seceded in 1860—died in 1862.
6—Thomas J. Rusk, secretary of war of republic of Texas; commanded the
Texas army after Houston was wounded; U. S. senator from Texas, 1845.
628
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
7—Thomas H. Benton, U. S. senator from Missouri, 1821-1831; familiarly
called sometimes the "Lion of the West," and sometimes “Old Bullion”
(from his advocacy of metal money)—and always the steadfast friend of
Oregon.
8-James Semple, U. S. senator from Illinois in 1843-1847; and friend of Ore-
gon and the Oregon pioneers.
9—Daniel Webster, the great constitutional lawyer, secretary of state under
President Tyler-familiarly called—“The god-like Daniel."
10—Lewis Cass, U. S. senator from Michigan, 1847-1849; brigadier general in
War of 1812 ; secretary of state to President Buchanan, and the first states-
man to suggest the doctrine of "Popular Sovereignty” in the new terri-
tories.
11—David Wilmot, member of Congress from Pennsylvania in 1844-48, and
while in Congress proposed the “Wilmot Proviso," which declared, “That
as an express and fundamental condition to the acquisition of any terri-
tory from Mexico by the United States, neither slavery or involuntary serv-
itude shall ever exist in any part thereof." ) And over this “Proviso” the
battle between the anti-slavery and pro-slavery men raged until after the
acquisition of Texas and California. Senator, 1861-1863.
12–John M. Clayton, United States senator from Delaware, 1829-1836; chief
justice of that state, 1839; United States senator again in 1849; Secretary
of State to President Zachary Taylor, and negotiated the celebrated Clay-
ton-Bulwer treaty with England in 1850, and was again sent to the senate
in 1853-1856.
13–James A. Garfield, the twentieth President; assassinated while in office by
Gitteau.
14—Wm. McKinley, twenty-fifth President, assassinated in his second term of
office and succeeded by Theodore Roosevelt.
15--Columbus Delano, member of Congress from Ohio, and secretary of the
Interior to President Grant.
16-Benjamin Franklin Wade, United States senator from Ohio, 1857-1868, a
bitter anti-slavery man, and called "bluff Ben Wade."
17—James A. Blaine, member of Congress and United States senator from
Maine, and Republican candidate for the Presidency in 1889.
18—John Sherman, United States senator from Ohio for eighteen years and
Secretary of the Treasury to President Grant.
19–Schuyler Colfax, member of Congress from Indiana for eighteen years,
vice president with President Grant, and author of the "Degree of Re-
becca" in Odd Fellowship.
20—Thaddeus Stevens—the great anti-slavery leader in Congress from Pennsyl-
vania-called “Old Thad Stevens.”
21-Oliver P. Morton—War governor of Indiana, United States senator from
that state, and one of the committee visiting Portland in 1872 to investigate
the election of Gov. Grover to the senate from Oregon.
22—Benjamin F. Butler, of Massachusetts, a great lawyer, the major general
of the Union army who first set the slaves to work for the Union under the
name of "contrabands;" and afterwards captured New Orleans and tamed
the "fire-eaters” of the South.
f

SOME OREGON POETS
June MacMillan
Mrs. M. L. T. Hidden
Samuel L. Simpson
Ella Higginson
OF
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
629
23-Nathaniel P. Banks--member of Congress from Massachusetts, and a major
general in the Union armies.
24—George F. Edmunds, United States senator from Vermont, 1870, and
chairman of the judiciary committee of the senate.
25—Lot M. Morrill, United States senator from Maine for two terms, 1863 to
1875, governor of Maine, 1860. Justin S. Morrill, author of the Morrill
tariff, was a senator from Vermont at the same time.
26-Asa Biggs, member of Congress of North Carolina.
28—William H. Seward, Secretary of State under Lincoln and Johnson-
purchased Alaska of Russia.
29-Salmon P. Chase, governor of and United States senator from Ohio;
Secretary of the Treasury under Lincoln and raised the money to put down
the southern rebellion; and lastly chief justice of the Supreme Court of the
United States.
30—Charles Sumner - the great anti-slavery United States senator from
Massachusetts.
31—Hannibal Hamlin, vice president of the United States with Lincoln, and
was congressman and senator from Maine before election as vice president.
32–James Shields, born in Tyrone county, Ireland, 1810; served in Mexican
war as brigadier general; United States senator from Ilinois in 1849,
and from Minnesota in 1857; major general in Union army and defeated
the rebel General Stonewall Jackson in a pitched battle in Virginia in
1862.
33-Henry Wilson, United States senator from Massachusetts in 1870. He
opposed the admission of Oregon into the Union in 1859.
34–Robert Toombs, from Georgia, 1855.
35—-Simon Cameron, United States senator from Pennsylvania for four terms,
first secretary of war under Lincoln.
36—Pierre Soule, United States senator from Louisiana in 1847.
37—John Bell, six times a congressman from Tennessee; speaker of the house
of representatives; twice United States senator; secretary of war to Presi-
dent Harrison; candidate for President in 1860 on the native American
ticket.”
38—R. M. T. Hunter, member of Congress and United States senator from
Virginia, secretary of state to the Southern Confederacy, and a senator
in the senate of the Southern Confederacy.
39-Arthur P. Bagby, a United States senator from Alabama in 1842 to 1849.
40—David R. Atchison, a United States senator from Missouri in 1835; took
sides with Calhoun against Benton on the slavery question, and took a
leading part in the bloody work of driving free-state men out of Kansas
in 1856.
41–Benjamin Fitzpatrick, governor of Alabama from 1841 to 1845, and
United States senator from 1848 to 1859.
42—William Windom, born in the same town and in the same house as the
author of this book (Lloydsville, Belmont county, Ohio), removed to Min-
nesota in youth, became governor, member of Congress, United States
senator from that state, and secretary of the treasury under two presi-
dents.
630
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
43—Alexander Ramsey, a pioneer governor of Minnesota, one of the found-
ers of the city of St. Paul, and afterwards United States senator.
44-James Harlan, a United States senator from Iowa in 1862.
45-James W. Grimes, a United States senator from Iowa, 1860.
46— William B. Allison, another United States senator from Iowa.
47--Sidney Breese, a United States senator from Illinois.
48—Shelby M. Cullom, United States senator from Illinois.
48—John Wentworth, known as “Long John,” from his great height; a
great friend of Abraham Lincoln, member of Congress from Chicago, and
mayor of that city for many years.
50—Jesse D. Bright, an influential United States senator from the state of
Indiana who was expelled from that body in 1861 for treasonable corre-
spondence with Jefferson Davis, president of the Southern Confederacy.
51—Henry S. Lane, member of Congress, governor and United States sena-
tor from Indiana, 1861.
52—Garrett Davis, United States senator from Kentucky, 1862
521–Lyman Trumbull, one of the ablest statesmen that ever honored a seat
in the United States senate. Represented Illinois in the senate when
Williams represented Oregon.
53_Richard Yates, governor of, and United States senator from Illinois.
54–Jacob Collamer, chief justice of, and United States senator from Ver-
mont; postmaster general in 18-
55—Solomon Foot, member of Congress in 1842, and United States senator
from Vermont from 1856 to 1862.
56—James M. Howard, a United States senator from Michigan in 1866 to
1872.
57-Timothy 0. Howe, a United States senator from Wisconsin in 1861.
58_Your guess? Our guess is Daniel S. Dickinson, who was United States
senator from New York from 1844 to 1851. He was the leader of the
"Hunker” Democrats, an able debator, an adroit politician, and to New
York what J. H. Mitchell was to Oregon.
59—Preston King, a United States senator from New York.
60%Roscoe Conkling, the United States senator from New York who advo-
cated a third term for President Grant.
61-Wm. Pitt Fessenden, a United States senator from Maine, and secretary
of the United States treasury.
62—John W. Forney, secretary of the United States senate in 1870, and
founder of the Philadelphia Press.''
63-James Cooper, United States senator from Pennsylvania in 1850, and
brigadier general in the Union army.
64-Oakes Ames, member of Congress from Massachusetts, and promoter of
Union Pacific railroad.
65_Wm. D. Kelley, member of Congress from Pennsylvania and great high
tariff advocate, getting the name in Congress of “pig-iron Kelley.'
66-Reverdy Johnson, United States senator from Maryland, and attorney gen-
eral under President Taylor-great lawyer.
67—John A. J. Cresswell, senator and member of Congress from Maryland, and
post master general in 1869.

7
Right Hand-JENNIE LIND, the great singer of 1850, dressed in the fashion of that day
Left Hand-Lady in fashion of 1912
OF
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
631
68—A. Kennedy, member of Congress from Maryland.
69—John P. Hale, one of the first anti-slavery men sent to the United States
senate from New Hampshire. He was the candidate of the "Liberty' party
for the presidency in 1852, receiving 155,000 votes.
70—John C. TenEyck, United States senator from New Jersey in 1859.
71—Waitman T. Willey, United States senator from West Virginia, and gov-
ernor of that state.
73–S. C. Pomeroy, a United States senator from Kansas who having actively
solicited aid for the people when their crops failed, acquired the name of
“Beans Pomeroy." He was not a great statesman.
74-H. Johnson, a senator from Louisiana, 1845.
75—Alexander Barrow, a senator from Louisiana in 1841.
76—John MacPherson Berrien, attorney general of the United States under
President Andrew Jackson; and twice elected United States senator from
the state of Georgia.
77—John B. Henderson, a United States senator from Missouri in 1862.
78—Chester Ashley, United States senator from Arkansas in 1845; an able
lawyer, and chairman of the judiciary committee of the Senate.
79– Willard Saulsbury, United States senator from Delaware for eighteen
years, acting with the extreme pro-slavery wing of the Democratic party.
80—Richard W. Johnson, born in Kentucky in 1827, graduated at West Point
in 1849, United States senator from Arkansas in 1858, took sides with the
Union in the Civil War, joined the Union army and commanded a division
at the battle of Stone River, and served under General Sherman in 1864.
81–J. Speight, United States senator from Mississippi in 1845
82_William Upham, United States senator from Vermont in 1849.
83–J. T. Morehead, a member of Congress from Pennsylvania.
84-S. R. Mallory, a United States senator from Florida in 1855; and secretary
of the navy of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865.
85—Dixon H. Lewis, member of Congress and United States senator from
Georgia from 1830 to 1848.
86—Thomas L. Clingman, member of Congress and United States senator from
North Carolina from 1873 to 1858.
87—W. K. Sebastian, United States senator from Arkansas.
88—Clement C. Clay, born in Virginia in 1789, moved to Alabama in 1812,
elected governor of that state in 1835; and United States senator in 1837.
His son, Clement C. Clay, Jr., was elected United States senator from
Alabama in 1853 and in 1857, and a senator of the Southern Confederacy
in 1861. The autograph is that of the son.
89-Jackson Morton, United States senator from Florida in 1854.
90—John A. Kasson, a prominent member of congress from Iowa for many
years, and minister to Barraboolagay.
91-Spencer Jarnigal, United States senator from Tennessee in 1844.
92—Henry J. Raymond, born in Livingston county, New York, in 1820; asso-
ciate editor New York Courier in 1843; founded New York Times in 1851;
elected lieutenant governor of New York in 1854; elected to Congress in
1864; and tried to start a new political party to support Andrew John-
son for the presidency in 1866; died in 1869.
632
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
93—John Bidwell, a pioneer to California in 1841; great farmer and land-
holder; founder of town of Chico; member of Congress in 1866.
94-C. D. Drake, United States senator from Missouri in 1862.
95—Francis M. Cockrell, United States senator from Missouri in 1893.
96%Wm. Pinckney Whyte, United States senator from Maryland in 1880.
97-A. H. Garland, United States senator from Arkansas in 1886.
98–Francis Kernan, United States senator from New York in 1879.
99–J. D. Walker, United States senator from Arkansas in 1879.
100—T. W. Ferry, United States senator from Michigan in 1879.
101_Wm. Pitt Kellogg, a "carpetbag" senator from Louisiana during the
reconstruction era.
102—Wm. H. Wallace, a delegate to Congress from Washington Territory.
103—John T. Morgan, a senator from Alabama in 1893, and largely the author
of the “Interstate Commerce Commission” to regulate railroad traffic;
and the author of the Panama Canal bill.
104—-Don Cameron, son of Simon Cameron, and succeeded his father in the
United States senate from Pennsylvania.
105—Isham G. Harris, a governor of and United States senator from the state
of Tennessee.
106-S. B. Maxey, United States senator from Texas in 1880.
107—Frank Hersford, United States senator from West Virginia in 1882.
108_N. P. Hill, United States senator from Colorado in 1880.
109-0. H. Platt, United States senator from Connecticut in 1893.
110-H. M. Rice, a senator from Minnesota.
111–James R. Doolittle, United States senator from Wisconsin in 1862.
112-S: J. R. McMillan, a senator from Minnesota in 1880.
113-Angus Cameron, United States senator from Wisconsin in 1880.
114A. S. Paddock, United States senator from Nebraska in 1880.
115—Justin S. Morrill, a member of Congress and a United States senator from
Vermont in 1866.
116–Henry B. Anthony, United States senator from Rhode Island in 1862.
117-John J. Ingalls, school teacher, lawyer, poet and statesman. United States
senator from Kansas in 1870.
118--Ambrose E. Burnside (and you could not have guessed that). Born in
Indiana in 1824; graduated from West Point in 1847; brigadier general
in command of a brigade at first battle of Bull Run; succeeded General
McClellan in command of Army of Potomac; fought with Sherman in
Tennessee, and with Grant at battle of the Wilderness; was three times
elected governor of Rhode Island, and then sent to the United States senate
from that state.
119_H. W. Blair, member of Congress from New Hampshire in 1870.
120-E. H. Rollins, a member of Congress from New Hampshire.
121-Allen Saunders, United States senator from Nebraska in 1890.
122—Samuel J. Kirkwood, secretary of the Interior and United States senator
from Iowa.
123—Zachariah Chandler-familiarly called "Old Zach Chandler," a United
States senator from Michigan from 1857 down to the close of reconstruc-
tion of the Southern states after the Civil war. He was a public official
that feared no man or party, and a “terror to evil-doers.'
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
633
124-John A. Logan, member of Congress and United States senator from Illi-
nois; was a major general in the armies of the Union; and candidate for
vice-president on the ticket with James G. Blaine in 1884. Was familiarly
known as "Black Jack Logan."
125—Jaines H. Slater, United States senator from Oregon in 1878.
126—Matthew H. Carpenter, United States senator from Wisconsin in the
seventies. He was an able lawyer, and fine orator, and jocosely named
"the corn-fed Webster of the West.'
127-B. H. Bruce, and is the only negro man ever occupying a seat in the United
States senate; being elected senator from Mississippi during the recon-
struction period.
THE PATRONS OF HUSBANDRY
known generally as "The Grange,” is proving to be an educator of the most
practical and useful character. Never heretofore noticed in any history of the
state, the Grange has quietly, steadily and conscientiously pursued the object
of its membership and still greater benefit to the state of Oregon. By its con-
tinued discussion of public questions within the gates, by its continued and un-
selfish appeals to the patriotic spirit of all citizens of the state without regard
to sex, and by the conscientious use of the ballot the Grange has protected the
public treasury from the corrupt schemes of selfish politicians and the useless
fads of impractical schemers.
This nation-wide organization of farmers and their wives was founded
December 4, 1868; attained great popularity in Oregon as early as 1875, with
183 subordinate granges in the state. Then followed a relapse produced by
the career of the Populist political party and the rise of direct legislation proposi-
tions which promised great reforms in the public service; so that by the year 1898
the number of local granges had decreased to 61 in the state. But time and dis-
cussion soon convinced the farmers that mere political parties and professedly
political reformers were not a reliable substitute for the Farmers' Grange, and
re-organization of old granges and formation of new ones rapidly took place;
so that by 1910 the number of local granges had increased to 144; and now in
1912 the number has risen to 192 local granges with 10,000 members. The order
is now the most influential, as it is the most conservative and patriotic organi-
zation in the state; and has repeatedly shown its power and disposition to pro-
tect the tax-payers from the rapacious demands of professional exploiters of
selfish schemes. The present officers of the State Grange are:
C. E. Spence, Oregon City.
.... Master
T. L. Lee, Looking Glass
Overseer
H. A. Darnall, Lents
Lecturer
R. S. Grant, Waverly
Steward
H. Hirschberger, Independence
Treasurer
C. H. Walker, Albany
Chaplain
Mary S. Howard, Mulino
Secretary
C. D. Huffman, La Grande; E. A. Bond, Irving, and C. E. Spence. ...
Legislative Committee
634
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
SUICIDE, VICE AND CRIME
The story of the pioneer and his virtues has been told. The rise of the pio-
neer state in the midst of the continuous woods where rolls the Oregon” has
been rehearsed. The vast increase of wealth and all the comforts and polishing
agencies of education therewith obtainable has been set forth. The self-sacrificing
labors of the noble men and women of the churches to lift up and help their fellow
travelers through this vale of tears has been fully portrayed; and now the veil
must be lifted from the reverse picture. The makers of our laws, the founders
of our schools and colleges, and the exhorters from a thousand pulpits must face
the fearful record and answer the dread question—whose work is this?
In the year 1887 there were 27,419 divorces granted in the United States,
268 of them in Oregon. The rate for the nation was about 330 to the million
population; the rate for Oregon was 50 per cent above that. In 1911 the num-
ber had grown to 85,000 in the nation and 1,800 in Oregon. The increase in the
number of divorces in Oregon is greater than the increase in marriages. In
Multnomah county the marriage licenses issued for January, 1911, were 245,
and the divorces in the county for the same month were 36, while for January,
1912, the marriage licenses were 265 and the divorces 62.
In the United States the homicides and murders for the year 1885 were
1808; while the executions for murder were 108, not one in ten; while in 1910
the homicides and murders had risen to the appalling number of 8,975, with only
104 executions for murder, or one murderer executed for each 88 innocent per-
sons killed.
In Chicago, the last two years, where nobody was hanged, there were 653
murders, most of them cold blooded, while in London, with a vastly greater
population than Chicago, but where law is law, there were 19 murders, five of
whom committed suicide to escape public hanging, four were swung by the
neck as they richly deserved, the others being found at the time of committing
homicide, as crazy as bedbugs. England hangs murderers and as a result has
few to hang.
From year to year suicide increases in the United States until now it has
reached a ratio of 20 for each 100,000 people in 100 principal cities, as shown
by statistics collected by the New York Spectator. Taken by five-year periods,
beginning with 1891, the figures evidence a steady increase. In 1891-5 the ratio
was 14.5 per 100,000; in 1896 to 1900 it was 16.2; in 1901-5 it was 18.8; in
1906-10 it was 20.
Oregon has its full proportion of self-murder.
Demoralization of children in Oregon's principal city is shown by the annual
report of the Juvenile court for the year 1911, as follows:
That 531 children, 378 boys and 153 girls, were brought before the court for
various offences. Proof that Juvenile Judge Gatens' honor system is working
out well is said to be shown by the fact that only 95 boys and eight girls who
were paroled or whose cases were continued pending good behavior, were
brought before the court a second time. There was a total of 634 minors dealt
with by the judge. Of this number 185, 84, boys and 101 girls, are classed as
dependents and the others, 449, as delinquents.
Under the head, "Age of Children,” the record shows the following: Ten

OF
STATE CONVICTS AT WORK ON PUBLIC ROADS
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
635
years and under, 161; 11 to 13, inclusive, 185; 14 and 15, 162, 16, 69; 17, 57.
The charges against the children are classified as follows:
Burglary, 17; larceny, 162; violation of miscellaneous city ordinances, 19;
malicious mischief, 15; smoking cigarettes, 4; destroying property, 27; assault
and battery, 7; curfew law, 6; pool room ordinance, 3; violating state laws,
including school law, child labor law, carrying concealed weapons, attempted
holdups, shooting animals and chickens and one boy, and drunkenness, 26;
persistent truancy, 42; incorrigibility, 57; immorality, 18; running away from
home, and Frazer home, 20; breaking parole, 4; other causes, 15.
And during the period covered by these statistics wealth has increased in
the United States, and in Oregon more rapidly than in any other country in
the world, or in any other period in this country—forcibly recalling the lines
of Goldsmith :
.
"Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay."
That wealth has increased in Oregon at a very rapid rate is evident from the
reckless manner in which it is wasted. Public records show that there is now in
the state of Oregon 2,000 retail liquor dealers (whiskey saloons); 54 wholesale
liquor dealers; 60 cigar factories ; 10 tobacco factories, and 10,000 retail tobacco
shops. There are 10,000 automobiles in the state, costing over 30 million dol-
lars, and most of them used for pleasure rather than business. Not less than
ten million dollars is annually wasted in Oregon for whiskey and tobacco.
Associated with this waste and largely a result of it, is the insidious cor-
ruption of social vice. And on this point is copied the
REPORT OF THE VICE COMMISSION
In response to a general demand from a large number of people having the
interests of society at heart, a commission composed of the following citizens of
Portland, Oregon, to-wit: Rev. Henry Russell Talbot, chairman; L. L. Levings,
secretary; Rev. H. J. McDevitt, Rev. W. G. McLaren, David F. Morrison, John
H. Stevenson, Dr. S. A. Brown, H. M. Patton, E. 0. Sawyer, Jr., George A.
Thacher, Rev. Delmer H. Trimble, Arthur E. Wood, Mrs. Millie R. Trumbull
and William S. Biddle, was organized to investigate the haunts of vice in that
city. This commission was provided with ample means and procured from New
York and other cities persons familiar with the subject to be investigated, and
took nine months of time to get to the bottom of the business. The following is
a summary of their published report:
"That a person might stand on the roof of one of the principal churches
of the city and throw a stone into any one of 14 immoral places, ten of which
are wholly immoral.
"That nine places were investigated, immediately surrounding one of the
principal department stores of the city, and only one of them was found to be
moral. Four were wholly given up to prostitution or assignation and the re-
maining four were of the intermediate grades of immorality.”
The report classifies the 547 places visited into apartments, hotels, rooming
and lodging houses and gives the following general analysis as to their charac-
ter morally:
636
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Apartments
22
9
1. Moral
2. Doubtful
3. Immoral-
(a) Wholly given up to prostitution or assignation
(b) Immoral tenants desired or preferred
(c) Immorality countenanced or ignored
0
10
30
Total
80
Hotels
5
3
1. Moral
2. Doubtful
3. Immoral-
(a) Wholly given up to prostitution or assignation
(b) Immoral tenants desired or preferred
(c) Immorality countenanced or ignored
6
17
28
Total
59
Rooming and Lodging Houses
71
6
1. Moral
2. Doubtful
3. Immoral-
(a) Wholly given up to prostitution or assignation
(b) Immoral tenants desired or preferred
(c) Immorality countenanced or ignored
107
88
136
Total
408
VICE MONOPOLY REVEALED
Discussing the subjects of vice monopoly, the members of the commission in
their report, said:
"Closely allied to the element of profit in commercialized vice in relation to
the conduct of hotels and rooming-houses, is an observed tendency on the part of
individuals and realty firms to acquire and either manage or control properties in
which immorality contributes to the revenue. This tendency is manifested from
instances where one person owns or controls two such properties, to that wherein
a dozen or more such places are owned or controlled by one real estate firm.
The insidiousness of this evil is evident. As commercialized vice spreads
through houses of public accommodation, its demoralizing influence is exerted in
a most insidious way. It tempts the cupidity of proprietors. It furnishes a con-
venient and comparatively safe field for the lecherous exploits of the libertine.
It subjects the vanity of weak women to terrible temptation, which too often
leads them, for the sake of gayety and good clothes, to take the plunge into the
underworld. It opens up new territory in which men and women who trade and
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
637
>>
barter in prostitution may conduct their business with greater profit and safety.
It develops abnormal phases of viciousness and dangerous deceit, as this commis-
sion discovered and can show by its records—cases wherein apparently respect-
able lodging-houses and hotels have been converted into centers of activity for a
wide circle of depraved people; where debauchery of almost unbelievable charac-
ter is practiced; where blackmail is hatched against those who have money and
social position. Even beyond all this, the evil of commercialized vice has been
found by this commission flourishing virulently in a house of refined and respecta-,
ble surroundings under the managerial control of a minister of the gospel who
lives outside the city, and on the list of one of the city's benevolent institutions
as an applicant for the patronage of young women who were seeking respectable
rooming places."
This shameful record of the one great city of the state was but the out crop.
ping evidence of other and greater dangers and enemies to social order and the due
execution of the laws. This demoralization of the public conscience soon passed
beyond the phase of private immorality to that open defiance of the laws to prc-
tect the lives and liberties of decent and law-abiding people. Public officials were
either bribed or cowed and bullied into silence in the presence of rape, robbery and
murder. To such an extent were these outrages carried that the governor of the
state, Oswald West, was compelled to invoke the last resort of his power and
authority under the state constitution, and demand that the laws be honestly
and vigorously enforced, or the officials set to do that duty must be removed
from office. This demand was made upon the mayors of Huntington and Ma-
dras; and upon the sheriff and district attorney of Multnomah county. The
sheriff failing to act, the governor issued a proclamation of martial law, as
follows:
General Orders No. 20
Headquarters Oregon National Guard, Adjutant-General's office, Portland,
Oregon, July 1, 1912.
The following proclamation is published for the information and guidance
of all concerned:
By the Governor of the State of Oregon-A proclamation :
Whereas, it appears that a certain roadhouse, inn or tavern, located near Mil-
waukie, Clackamas county, Oregon, and known as the “Milwaukie Tavern,
for some time and is now being maintained, conducted and operated without
due regard for the laws of decency or the laws of this state, much to the discom-
fort and embarrassment of good people living in that vicinity and to the detri-
ment of the whole state, and
Whereas, it appears that local officials charged with the enforcement of
the laws of this state are either unable or unwilling to perform that duty;
and
Whereas, the governor is charged by the constitution with the duty of see-
ing that the laws of this state are duly enforced and is authorized to call out
the militia to assist him in the performance of that duty; now, therefore,
I, Oswald West, as governor and commander-in-chief of the militia of the
state of Oregon, having found it necessary to call out the military forces of
the state to assist in the enforcement of law, do hereby proclaim and establish
martial law in, on and about the said premises and until further notice the said
638
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
premises and tavern will be under the control of the military authorities of the
state and all persons are warned not to frequent the said tavern or trespass
upon the said premises.
Done at Salem, Oregon, this first day of July, 1912.
OSWALD WEST,
Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Military Forces of the State of Oregon.
Attest: W. E. FINZER, Adjutant-General.
By Order of the Commander-in-Chief,
W. E. FINZER, The Adjutant-General."
Under the above order a high and impassable fence surrounding the road-
house" was torn down by the national guardsmen, and the house taken posses-
sion of and held until the owner yielded obedience to the governor and entered
into an agreement to conduct his place in a decent and law abiding manner.
After this, on August 27, 1912, the governor removed from office George
Cameron, district attorney for Multnomah county, because the said Cameron
had, in the judgment of the governor, been derelict in enforcing the laws against
crime in said county and appointed to take said office Mr. Walter H. Evans.
CHAPTER XXII
1843-1912
THE EVOLUTION OF LAWS, CONSTITUTIONS AND POLITICS-THE UNDERLYING PRIN-
CIPLES AT STAKE AT OLD CHAMPOEG-THE POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY DOCTRINE
THAT OVERRULED ALL OTHERS-TAXATION, PROHIBITION AND SLAVERY—THE RISE
OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY- THE CONTEST BETWEEN THE PROGRESSIVES AND CON-
SERVATIVES OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY THE CIVIL WAR PERIOD
LEADERS,
BOSSES, AND CORRUPT PRACTICES. FINALLY PRODUCING POPULISM, DIRECT
PRIMARY AND DIRECT LEGISLATION
The beginning of human society in all ages, and in all parts of the world has
already been a subject of profound interest to all reading and thinking persons.
The unceasing drift of the centuries which has carried the leading race of man-
kind continuously around the earth with its face to the west, and its back to the
rising sun, while producing the vigorous and aggressive nations of the world,
shows also the varying influences of environment. Transplanted to the western
hemisphere, the Caucasian is not the same man on the St. Lawrence that he is on
the Hudson, and not the same in Virginia that was developed in Massachusetts.
And confronted by the savage foes of the Ohio valley the Scotch-Irishman is not
the same man that raised his oats and turnips in Scotland or mined his peat and
roasted his potatoes in Ireland. And passing over the dividing line between the
"east” and the "west”-The tall and pillared Alleghenies,”—is found a
people in the great valley of the Ohio and Mississippi as diverse in thoughts
and inclinations as was ever Puritan and Cavalier. The modern Ben Franklin
(Horace Greeley) achieved a great reputation he little deserved in reiterating
the advice"Go west young man! go west; and grow up with the country.'
The American man was going west, and still further west to Oregon, before
the sage of the Tribune promulgated his panacea for hard times and sure for-
tune. It took the Teutonic tribes of ancient Germany fifteen hundred years
to work their conquests of time and space across to England and down to the south
end of the Spanish peninsula. And after Columhus had spanned the Atlantic,
and England and Spain had made peace and divided up the New World be-
tween the royal sovereigns in 1606, it took one hundred and sixty years for the
English colonists to possess and hold the region between the Atlantic ocean and
the Ohio valley. But after the “Go West Americans”' had thrown off the British
yoke, and achieved their freedom to go west, they covered the great space
between the Allegheny mountains and the Missouri river--four or five times
the area between Philadelphia and Pittsburg-in less than 25 years. And after
planting their stakes west of the Missouri and raising a few crops of corn, they
loaded up their wagons, hitched up their oxen and cleared the remainder of the
639
640
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
way to the Pacific, two thousand miles, and founded a new state in a single
Whatever lesson there is in this unparalleled achievement in the history
of the world, must be found, if it can be discovered, in an examination of the
lives, character and conduct of the men and women who wrought this great
work.
When the pioneers met at old Champoeg on the banks of the Willamette on
May 2, 1843, they were impelled to decisive action by two overmastering senti-
ments—first, that of implacable hostility to control of Oregon by the English
government; and, second, the vital necessity of organization for the sake of
mutual protection in a wild Indian country two thousand miles from help by
kinsmen or nationality. That there was hostility to the rule of the Catholic
priesthood there can be no doubt. But there is no evidence that there was any
objection to settlers of the Catholic religion—the French Canadians. And the
opposition to the Catholic priesthood did not arise out of the question of religion,
but out of the fact that the priests were supposed to be in the pay of the Hudson's
Bay Company, and assisting that company, to make Oregon a British province
like Canada. There was manifest jealousy and opposition between the Protestant
and Catholic missionaries arising out of the control of the Indians; but this
feeling was not participated in by the great mass of the American settlers. And
the fact, that upon seeing the Americans successful in organizing a provisional
government, the Canadians promptly expressed a willingness to join hands in
supporting that government, and the Americans as promptly amended the oath
of allegiance to allow the Canadians to take active part in the government, shows,
that as between the actual bona fide settlers of the country there was genuine
friendship and a unanimity of sentiment to maintain the provisional government.
And while it is the fact that the French Canadian (Catholic) farmers did
come in and support the provisional government, it is equally true that the
Catholic clergy and the Hudson's Bay Company did not support it. Dr.
McLoughlin recognized the provisional government by applying to it for ferry
franchises and other considerations; but whether he would have done so if he
had not been the claimant of the Oregon city townsite, is not clear. As repre-
sented by the ruling power in London the Hudson's Bay Company cared nothing
for the Catholics, their religion or their church. But as the priests could con-
trol the Indians and keep them at work hunting furs and trading them to the
company, it became the settled policy of the fur company to favor the Catholics
and subsidize their ministers of religion. This close relation between the fur
company and the Catholic church aroused the opposition of both the Methodists
and the missionaries of the American Board, drove McLoughlin into the member-
ship of the Catholic church, and aroused the bitterness that resulted in wrong-
fully depriving McLoughlin of his just title to the Oregon city land claim.
It may be asked why the Protestant ministers, being first in the Oregon mission
field, did not secure the confidence of the Indians. They certainly did a great
work for the Indians in the way of teaching beneficial knowledge and open-
ing of schools for Indian children, and submitted to great personal sacrifices
in that respect. Why did not the Methodist and American Board missions suc-
ceed as well as the later coming Catholics? The reason is plain. The Protestant
missionaries attempted to teach the Indians theological ideas they could not
comprehend. They sermonized and printed books. They opened farms and

THOMAS JEFFERSON DRYER
Founder of The Oregonian
UND
OF
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
641
urged the Indian to abandon the chase and live by raising domestic animals,
potatoes and wheat. This was in direct opposition to the interests of the Hud-
son's Bay Company. The Catholic priests taught by signs and symbols. That
suited the mind and imagination of the red man. He could understand the sacri-
fice on Calvary, but not the Trinity of the Godhead. He was content to have the
priest do his praying and save his soul while he could still roam the forest and
sell his skins to the fur company. It was a perfectly human proposition; and
quite as well suited to the majority of white men of this day as to the wild
Indian who massacred Whitman and his family without a single regret or
remorse of conscience.
POLITICS IN THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT
That Jason Lee, W. H. Gray and John S. Griffin-one Methodist, and one
Presbyterian, and one Congregationalist, were the men who "stirred up the
strife," agitated the question, and pulled the wires that led up to the meeting at
Champoeg and the formation of a Provisional government, there can be but little
doubt. Lee and Babcock planned the scheme, and Gray and Griffin rode all over
the country stirring up the Americans to come out and vote. And with all their
efforts they did not get more than half the Americans to attend the meeting;
while Bishop Blanchet as leader of the opposition to a Provisional government
had every Catholic in Oregon there to vote against an organization, and put their
protest on record. It is necessary to the record to note that such influential men
as Abernethy, who became the first governor, although not more than twenty
miles from the place of meeting, did not take interest enough in the matter to
attend the meeting. Gray, Babcock, LeBreton, Newell, Meek, Griffin and Lucier
bore the brunt of the battle in snatching a victory from apparent defeat on that
memorable day. And it was fortunate for the success of the infant state that the
responsibility for it was thrust wholly upon the Americans. For had there been
an element of disloyalty to it in its conduct, strife would soon have put an end to
it; and the last estate of the American hopes would have been worse than if no
attempt to organize had been made. The very fact that there was opposition to
the Provisional government, but outside of its management, put the new born
statesmen on their conscience to do the best they were capable of.
Aspiring politicians in the Oregon of 1912 make a shibboleth of the referen-
dum in politics, as if it were some new discovery or invention of superior wisdom.
But in this matter they are about 70 years behind the real referendum
Oregonians of 1843. After organizing a legislative committe to prepare a code
of laws the people in mass convention at Champoeg on May 2, 1843 adjourned
to the 5th day of July to meet again as a mass convention to adopt or reject
the work of their committee. At this adjourned meeting the people en masse
voted for and against the report of their committee, section by section including
the adoption of the statute laws of the state of Iowa covering thirty-seven dif-
ferent subjects. This was a matter of necessity more than choice; because the
pioneers had no means of printing the laws they adopted, and were compelled
to limit their statutes to the fewest possible number of subjects to make and
preserve a government of sufficient power to preserve public order and main-
tain public defense. There was but a single printed copy of the laws of Iowa
Vol. I-1
642
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
in the territory of Oregon; but that was sufficient for honest law abiding
citizens.
Organization being secured, and a legislative body provided for, division
of sentiment began to crop out. The large immigration of 1843 did not reach
Oregon until nearly five months after the Provisional government had been
organized. But with that immigration came in a number of forceful men who
would have made their mark in any state, and did make a profound impression
on the future of Oregon. The most vigorous and forceful character added to
Oregon in 1843 was James W. Nesmith. But there were others of varied
character, and all of them courageous, patriotic and useful citizens. Lindsay
and Jesse Applegate, Peter H. Burnett, Wm. T. Newby, Samuel Cozine, the
Lenoxes, Waldos, Hembrees, Garrisons, Howells, Mathenys, Fords, Almoran
Hill, T. G. Naylor, Orus Brown, Hugh D. O'Bryant, P. G. Stewart and many
other good men. Of these new men Nesmith and Burnett were successively chosen
to the office of supreme judge of the Provisional government. P. G. Stewart
became one of the executive committee, Jesse Applegate was a member of the
legislature. All these new men from "The States," as the immigration of '43
was called, were indifferent to the contentions which had prevailed between the
Methodists and American Board missionaries on one side and the Catholics on
the other. In fact, Burnett, who came to Oregon as a Protestant and a lawyer,
like McLoughlin who came out as a church of England man, went over to the
Catholics to the great disgust of the Protestants.
Another man that came in from the States three years after the formation
of the Provisional government and soon secured influence with it was J. Quinn
Thornton. Thornton was the most thoroughly book educated man in Oregon
at that time having had all the advantages that colleges, foreign travel and
study, and law office experience could afford. Coming into Oregon by the
southern Oregon route he suffered many hardships, lost his movable property,
and lost no time in denouncing the Applegates and others for inducing him
to come by the southern route, ascribing their conduct to unworthy motives.
This got him into a hot discussion with Jesse Applegate who had about the
best command of the king's English of any man of letters in Oregon. Thornton
being a Methodist, or pretended to be, a polished gentleman in his manners,
and withal very much a pecksniff according to the Dickens standard, he soon
insinuated himself into the good graces of the Methodist party and within a
year after his arrival became supreme judge of Oregon. Soon after Thornton's
arrival another energetic and successful politician arrived from "The States,
in the person of Samuel R. Thurston, who afterwards became the first congres-
sional delegate from Oregon.
Now the line of cleavage starts and political lines begin to take form. The
legislators of the new state had fought wordy battles over the right or power of
the legislature to levy taxes without a referendum to the people; over the wicked-
ness of making moonshine whiskey in the Chehalem valley where the Quaker vil-
lage of Newberg now stands; and had exhausted the whole arsenal of reasons for
and against the introduction of negro slavery in Oregon. But on all these ques-
tions they could fight and quit friends. But there was a great future ahead.
Certainly there would soon be offices and honors of value and substance to dis-
tribute, and party lines began to form. Nesmith, Newell, Meek, the Applegates,

D. W. CRAIG
First advocate of Republican party in Oregon
OF
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
643
Burnett, Dr. Wilcox and their friends to one side, and Governor Abernethy,
Thornton, Thurston, and the Methodist leaders to the other side. Thornton had
attacked Jesse Applegate on the southern Oregon road question, and Nesmith
and all the immigrants of 1843 had rallied to the defense of “Uncle Jesse." The
battle raged with great bitterness; and as an evidence of the temperature of the
political atmosphere about Oregon City in June, 1847, this History is able to
bring to the daylight of 1912 a document never before published, as follows:
"To the World:
"J. Quinn Thornton, having resorted to low, cowardly and dishonorable mean's
for the purpose of injuring my character and standing, and having refused hon-
orable satisfaction, which I have demanded; I avail myself of this opportunity
of publishing him to the world as a reclaimless liar, an infamous scoundrel, a
black-hearted villain, an arrant coward, a worthless vagabond, and an imported
miscreant; a disgrace to the profession and a dishonor to his country.
"JAMES W. NESMITH.
“OREGON CITY, June 7, 1847."
But notwithstanding this furious blast Governor Abernethy in the succeeding
October appointed Thornton as a secret agent to go to Washington and represent
Oregon interests to the president and Congress. Thornton resigned the office of
supreme judge, went to Washington, labored faithfully and most usefully for
Oregon; but the manner of his appointment, and his quarrel with Nesmith and
his friends, excited so much opposition that he got nothing from the organization
of the territorial government but the office of sub-Indian agent, which he soon re-
signed and retired into private life for twenty years. Thornton's friend Thurston
was able to get into Congress as Oregon's first delegate in a contest which gave
Thurston 4,700 votes, Columbia Lancaster, 321, Meek and Griffin, 46, and J. W.
Nesmith, 106. Nearly everybody in Oregon was a democrat in those days; all the
above candidates were democrats except Lancaster, who was a whig. Thurston
ran nominally as a democrat, while L. F. Grover (afterwards governor and sena-
tor), who knew Thurston well both in his college days and afterwards, says
Thurston ran for Congress on the issue of the missionary party against the
Hudson's Bay Company. While in Congress Thurston took an active part in
shaping the donation land law, and got in a provision that debarred John Mc-
Loughlin from getting title to his Oregon City land claim; and when this fact
became known to Oregon it effectually killed all future hopes for political hon-
ors to Thurston, and completely destroyed the so-called missionary or the Meth-
odist party in Oregon. With the death of Thurston in April, 1851, on his way
back to Oregon, the existing party lines that sent him to Congress were forever
destroyed.
The act of Congress organizing a territorial government for Oregon closed
the era of the pioneer provisional government on August 13, 1848; and the great
work of the pioneers can now be clearly seen in the perspective. The declara-
tion of rules of action and elementary principles adopted by the pioneers
at their mass meeting on July 5, 1843, has already been given in Chapter VIII.
But after two years' experience it was decided by the Provisional legislature
that the original declaration was not sufficient; and accordingly on June 25,
644
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
1845, the legislature appointed a committee consisting of H. A. G. Lee, Robert
Newell, Jesse Applegate, J. W. Smith and John McClure to revise the organic
laws. That committee on July 2, 1845, submitted their report to the legislature
in the form of a “Provisional Constitution of Oregon;" and which was there-
upon approved by the legislature, and ordered to be submitted to the people
for adoption or rejection, at a special election to be held on July 26, 1845. The
legislature then adjourned to meet on August 5, 1845, and the first entry on
the journal of August 5, is Applegate's inquiry about the vote on the consti-
tution; and the clerk informs him that the constitution was adopted by a ma-
jority of 203 votes in favor of the same. As that Provisional first constitution
of Oregon is out of print and not printed in any history of the state, it is here
given, as follows:
PROVISIONAL CONSTITUTION OF OREGON
Preamble
We, the people of Oregon territory, for purposes of mutual protection, and
to secure peace and prosperity among ourselves, agree to adopt the following
laws and regulations, until such time as the United States of America extend
their jurisdiction over us:
Be it enacted, therefore, by the free citizens of Oregon territory, that the
said territory, for the purpose of temporary government, be divided into not
less than three nor more than five districts, subject to be extended to a greater
number when an increase of population shall require.
For the purpose of fixing the principles of civil and religious liberty, as
the basis of all laws and constitution of government, that may hereafter be
adopted,—
Be it enacted, That the following articles be considered articles of compact
among the free citizens of this territory:
Article I
Section 1. No person demeaning himself in a peaceable and orderly manner,
shall ever be molested upon account of his mode of worship, or religious senti-
ments
Section 2. The inhabitants of said territory shall always be entitled to the
benefits of the writ of habeas corpus and trial by jury, of a proportionate rep-
resentation of the people in the legislature, and of judicial proceedings, accord-
ing to the course of common law. All persons shall be bailable, unless for capi-
tal offences, where the proof shall be evident, or the presumption great. All
fines shall be moderate, and no cruel or unusual punishment inflicted. No man
shall be deprived of his liberty, but by the judgment of his peers of the law of
the land; and should the public exigencies make it necessary for the common
preservation, to take any person's property, or to demand his particular ser-
vices, full compensation shall be made for the same; and in the just preserva-
tion of rights and property, it is understood and declared, that no law ought ever
to be made, or have force in said territory, that shall, in any manner whatever,

BRIGADIER GENERAL STEPHEN COFFIN
Organized the Union League in Oregon to oppose a Pacific Republic
and maintain the Union
OF
3
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
615
interfere with or affect private contracts or engagements, bona fide and without
fraud, previously formed.
Section 3. Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good gov-
ernment and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall
be forever encouraged. The utmost good faith shall always be observed toward
the Indians; their lands and property shall never be taken from them without
their consent; and in their property, rights and liberty, they shall never be
invaded or disturbed, unless in just and lawful wars, authorized by the repre-
sentatives of the people; but laws founded in justice and humanity, shall, from
time to time, be made for preventing injustice being done to them, and for pre-
serving peace and friendship with them.
Section 4. There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in said
territory, otherwise than for the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall
have been duly convicted.
Section 5. No person shall be deprived of the rights of bearing arms in his
own defense; no unreasonable searches or seizures shall be granted; the freedom
of the press shall not be restrained; no person shall be twice tried for the same
offense; nor the people deprived of the right of peaceable assembling and dis-
cussing any matter they may think proper; nor shall the right of petition ever
be denied.
Section 6. The powers of the government shall be divided into three distinct
departments - the legislative, executive, and judicial; and no person or persons
belonging to one of these departments, shall exercise any of the powers properly
belonging to either of the others, except in cases herein directed or permitted.
Article II
Section 1. The legislative power shall be vested in a house of representatives,
which shall consist of not less than thirteen, nor more than sixty-one members,
whose numbers shall not be increased more than five at any one session, to be
elected by the qualified electors at the annual election, giving to each district a
representation in the ratio of its population (excluding Indians), and the said
members shall reside in the district, for which they shall be chosen; and in case
of vacancy by death, resignation, or otherwise, the executive shall issue his writ
to the district where such vacancy has occurred, and cause a new election to be
held, giving sufficient notice, at least ten days previously, of the time and place
of holding said election.
Section 2. The house of representatives, when assembled, shall choose a
speaker and its other officers, be judges of the qualifications and elections of its
members, and sit upon its own adjournment from day to day. Two-thirds of
the house shall constitute a quorum to transact business, but a smaller number
may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized by law to compel the
attendance of absent members.
Section 3. The house may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its
members for disorderly behavior, and with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel
a member, but not a second time for the same offense, and shall have all powers
necessary for a legislature of a temporary government, not in contravention with
the restrictions imposed in this organic law.
646
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Section 4. The house of representatives shall, from time to time, fix the
salaries of the different officers appointed or elected under this compact, pro-
vided the pay of no officer shall be altered during his term of service; nor shall
the pay of the house be increased by any law taking effect during the session at
which such alteration is made.
Section 5. The house of representatives shall have the sole power of im-
peaching; three-fourths of all the members must concur in an impeachment.
The governor and all civil officers under these articles of compact, shall be liable
to impeachment for treason, bribery, or any high crime or misdemeanor in office.
Judgment in such cases shall not extend further than removal from office, and
disqualification to hold any office of honor, trust or profit, under this compact;
but the party convicted may be dealt with according to law.
Section 6. The house of representatives shall have power to lay out the terri-
tory into suitable districts, and apportion the representation in their own body.
They shall have power to pass laws for raising revenue, either by levying and col-
lecting of taxes, or the imposing of license on merchandise, ferries, or other ob-
jects,—to open roads and canals, either by levying a road tax, or the chartering
of companies, to regulate the intercourse of the people with the Indian tribes,--
to establish post offices and post roads,-to declare war, suppress insurrection or
repel invasion,--to provide for the organizing, arming, and disciplining the mil-
itia, and for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of Oregon,—to pass laws
to regulate the introduction, manufacture or sale of ardent spirits,--to regulate
the currency and internal police of the country; to create inferior tribunals and
inferior officers necessary, and not provided for by these articles of compact, and
generally to pass such laws to promote the general welfare of the people of Ore-
gon, not contrary to the spirit of this instrument, and all powers not hereby
expressly delegated, remain with the people. The house of representatives shall
convene annually on the first Tuesday in December, at such place as may be pro-
vided by law, and shall, upon their first meeting after the adoption of this instru-
ment of compact, proceed to elect and define the duties of a secretary, recorder,
treasurer, auditor, marshal or any other officers necessary to carry into effect
the provisions of this compact.
Section 7. The executive power shall be invested in one person, elected by
the qualified voters at the annual election, who shall have power to fill vacancies,
to remit fines and forfeitures, to grant pardons and reprieves for offences against
the laws of the territory, to call out the military forces of the territory to repel
invasion or suppress insurrection, to take care that the laws are faithfully exe-
cuted, and to recommend such laws as he may consider necessary to the represen-
tatives of the people for their action. Every bill which shall have been passed by
the house of representatives shall, before it becomes a law, be presented to the
governor for his approbation. If he approve, he shall sign it; if not, he shall
return it, with his objections, to the house, and the house shall cause the objec-
tions to be entered at large on its journals, and shall proceed to reconsider the
bill; if, after such reconsideration, a majority of two-thirds of the house shall
agree to pass the same, it shall become a law. In such cases the votes shall be
taken by ayes and noes, and entered upon the journals. If any bill shall not be
returned by the governor to the house of representatives within three days
(Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall
+

ADDISON C. GIBBS
War Governor of Oregon, 1862-6
OF
Pic

JAMES W. NESMITH
Pioneer of 1843-Supreme Judge in provisional government-U. S. Senator
and member of Congress
OF
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
647
become a law in like manner as if the governor had signed it, unless the house of
representatives, by its adjournment, shall prevent its return, in which case it
shall not become a law. The governor shall continue in office two years, and until
his successor is duly elected and qualified; and in case of the office becoming va-
cant by death, resignation or otherwise, the secretary shall exercise the duties of
the office until the vacancy shall be filled by election. The governor shall receive
the sum of ------- dollars per annum, as full compensation for his services, which
sum may be increased or diminished at any time by law; provided, the salary of
no governor shall be altered during his term of service. The governor shall have
power to convene the legislature on extraordinary occasions.
Section 8. The judicial power shall be vested in a supreme court, and such in-
ferior courts of law, equity and arbitration, as may by law, from time to time be
established. The supreme court shall consist of one judge who shall be elected by
the house of representatives, and hold his office for four years, and until his suc-
cessor is duly elected and qualified. The supreme court, except in cases otherwise
directed by this compact, shall have appellate jurisdiction only, which shall be
co-extensive with this territory, and shall hold two sessions annually, beginning
on the first Mondays of June and September, and at such places as by law
directed. The supreme court shall have a general superintending control over
all inferior courts of law. It shall have power to issue writs of habeas corpus,
mandamus, quo warranto, certiorari, and other original remedial writs, and hear
and determine the same. The supreme court shall have power to decide upon and
annul any laws contrary to the provisions of these articles of compact, and when-
ever called upon by the house of representatives, the supreme judge shall give
his opinion, touching the validity of any pending measure. The house of repre-
sentatives may, hereafter, provide by law for the supreme court having original
jurisdiction in criminal cases.
Section 9. All officers under this compact shall take an oath, as follows,
to-wit:
-I do solemnly swear that I will support the organic laws of the provis-
ional government of Oregon, so far as said organic laws are consistent with my
duties as a citizen of the United States, or a subject of Great Britain, and faith-
fully demean myself in office, so help me God.
Section 10. Every free male descendant of a white man, inhabitant of this
territory, of the age of twenty-one years and upwards, who shall have been an
inhabitant of this territory at the time of its organization, shall be entitled to
vote at the election of officers, civil and military, and be eligible to any office in
the territory; provided, that all persons of the description entitled to vote by the
provisions of this section, who shall immigrate to this territory after organization,
shall be entitled to the rights of citizens, after having resided six months in the
territory.
Section 11. The election of all civil officers, provided for by this compact,
shall be held the first Monday in June annually.
Article III
Section 1. Any person now holding, or hereafter wishing to establish a claim
to land in this territory, shall designate the extent of his claim by natural bounda-
ries or by marks at the corners and upon the lines of such claim, and have the
648
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
extent and boundaries of said claim recorded in the office of the territorial re-
corder, in a book to be kept by him for that purpose, within twenty days from the
time of making said claim; provided, that those who shall be already in posses-
sion of land, shall be allowed twelve months from the passage of this act, to file a
description of his claim in the recorder's office; and, provided further, that the
said claimant shall state in his record, the size, shape and locality of such claim,
and give the names of adjoining claimants, and the recorder may require the
applicant for such record, to be made to answer, on his oath, touching the facts.
Section 2. All claimants shall, within six months from the time of recording
their claims, make permanent improvements upon the same by building or enclos-
ing, and also become an occupant upon said claim within one year from the date
of such record, or in case not occupied, the person holding said claim shall pay
into the treasury the sum of five dollars annually, and in case of failure to occupy,
or on failure of payment of the sum above stated, the claim shall be considered as
abandoned; provided, that no non-resident of this territory shall have the benefit
of this law; and, provided further, that any resident of this territory, absent on
his private business for two years, may hold his claim by paying five dollars
annually to the treasury.
Section 3. No individual shall be allowed to hold a claim of more than one
square mile, or six hundred and forty acres, in a square or oblong form, accord-
ing to the natural situation of the premises. Nor shall any individual be allowed
to hold more than one claim at the same time. Any person complying with the
provisions of these ordinances, shall be entitled to the same recourse against
trespass, as in other cases by law provided
Section 4. Partnerships of two or more persons shall be allowed to take up
a tract of land, not exceeding six hundred and forty acres to each person in said
partnership, subject to all the provisions of the laws; and whenever such partner-
ship is dissolved, the members shall each record the particular parts of said
tract as may be allotted to him, provided, that no member of said partnership
shall hold a separate claim at the time of the existence of said partnership.
Section 5. The boundary lines of all claims shall hereafter conform, as near
as may be, to the cardinal points.
Section 6. The officers elected at the general election, held on the first Tues-
day in June, 1845, shall be the officers to act under this organic law, and their
official acts, so far as they are in accordance with this compact, are hereby
declared valid and legal.
Section 7. Amendments to this instrument may be proposed by the house of
representatives, two-thirds of the members concurring therein, which amend-
ments shall be made public in all parts of Oregon, and be read at the polls at the
next succeeding general election, and a concurrence of two-thirds of all the mem-
bers elected at said election, may pass said amendments, and they shall become a
part of this compact.
I, John E. Long, secretary of Oregon territory, do hereby certify that the
foregoing is a true and correct copy of the original law, as passed by the repre-
sentatives of the people of Oregon, on the fifth day of July, A. D. 1845, and
submitted to the people on the twenty-sixth day of the same month, and by them
adopted, and now on file in my office.
J. E. LONG, Secretary.

HARVEY W. SCOTT
Editor of "The Oregonian" for Forty-five Years
UN
3
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
649
This organic law, the fundamental authority and rule of action in a little state
located in the wilderness two thousand miles distant from any other state, friends
or aid, worked out and drafted by pioneer men not one of whom had ever seen an
institution of education better than a common country school, will compare
favorably with the best work of the greatest statesmen in the most enlightened
nations. Under these circumstances, and under this law, these pioneers preserved
public order, defended their frontiers against savage foes, raised armies, estab-
lished courts, coined money, levied taxes, administered justice, punished crime,
apportioned the public lands, and promoted education, industry, agriculture,
commerce and manufactures. What more has any other state ever done with all
the facilities of accumulated wealth, old established institutions, kings, parlia-
ments and armies
With these pioneer Oregonians the doctrine of popular sovereignty was su-
preme. They announced that idea here in the wilderness before Stephen A.
Douglas declared in its favor in the United States senate on the Kansas and
Nebraska contest. They declared against taxation of the people without the
consent of the people. They were invoking the referendum more than fifty
years prior to the direct legislation people of the present day.
The organization of a territorial government by Congress brought nothing
to the pioneer Oregonians but the feeling of safety and protection under the
national flag against the schemes of England. The new governor found a people
educated to rule, and qualified for discharging any public trust or duty. He
brought with him some new men, but no new ideas. Gov. Lane came to Oregon
with a fine reputation as a man and a brilliant military leader. And he was him-
self a most gracious gentleman with high principles of honor and integrity—and
he came to serve as well as rule, and in every sense of the word to be one of the
people. He secured the hearty support of the people; and if he had not made
the fatuous mistake of accepting the nomination for vice-president on the Seces-
sion ticket in 1859, he might have served out his days as a U. S. senator from
Oregon.
THE RISE OF POLITICAL PARTIES
With Governor Lane came other men also to administer the government-
governors, judges, and Indian agents. The popularity of Lane excited great
interest among ambitious men already on the grounds; and it was not long until
there were signs that the leaders would organize parties. The followers of Lane
took possession of the political field from his advent. And as there were “not
offices enough to go around,'' to quote a notable phrase of “Lish” Applegate, the
unprovided for began to organize against the "Lane party.'
Matters were further complicated by the fact that Lane had scarcely got
seated in the saddle before his friend, President Polk went out of office and was
succeeded by the Whig administration of Taylor and Fillmore. The Whig party
being quite as greedy for offices as the Democrats, demanded immediately the
official plums in distant Oregon, and John P. Gaines was appointed in October,
1849, governor to supersede Lane, but did not reach Oregon until August,
1850. Gaines was the opposite of Lane in everything and made no friends for
the new administration. The Oregonians in 1850 were nearly all Democrats, and
650
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
all of them in favor of home-made talent; and to be governed by foreign ap-
pointees was distasteful at best; and by one not of their political faith and with
austere and unsocial manners was inciting to rebellion; and it is not surprising
to find a public meeting at Portland in 1851 passing resolutions demanding of
the president the appointment of Oregonians to the territorial offices. And thus
dissatisfaction from various causes, with ambitious men and aspiring towns, had
been steadily growing until the strain of suppressed discontent was ripe for a
break at some point. The territorial legislature met at Oregon City, in Decem-
ber, 1850, with the new governor, to provide much needed legislation. The loca-
tion of state capital and state institutions was the excitement of the day from
Portland to Jacksonville. Oregon City was the existing capital and demanded
to be made the permanent capital. Salem wanted the capital and was the more
central location. There was no eastern or central Oregon in those days. The
legislature passed a bill giving Salem the capital, Corvallis the university, and
Portland the penitentiary, and Oregon City got nothing. The Whig governor
rightfully objected to the act as containing more than one subject, which was a
violation of the congressional enabling act. But the representatives of the people
would not be criticised by a foreigner and a Whig, if he was the governor, and
paid no attention to his objections. And on this issue was raised the agitation
which resulted in the first organization of political parties in Oregon. The next
spring in March, 1851, Asahel Bush launched at Salem the Oregon Statesman
newspaper as an organ of the Democratic party in Oregon. Bush was a shrewd
observer, a cool-headed business man and superbly equipped by nature and edu-
cation as an organizer and manager of state politics. And he had for a competi-
tor in political leadership, already in the field, Thos. J. Dryer of the Oregonian,
who had in the first issue of his paper, December 4, 1850, announced his support
of the national Whig party. These two men were substantially the founders of
the Democratic and Whig parties in Oregon. Both were able writers, and Dryer
was a stump speaker of much more than ordinary ability. During the legislature
of 1852 a caucus of the Democratic members was held at which a resolution was
passed declaring that "it was expedient to organize the Democratic party in
Oregon,” and a central committee was selected of which J. W. Nesmith was made
chairman. The Whigs did not formally organize until after the election in 1853;
the results of which proved they could not successfully oppose the Democrats
without an organization. In June, 1853, the Oregonian appealed to the Whigs
to organize, declaring on June 18, “that the good of the whole people demands a
partisan course." To this appeal, Bush, in the Statesman, replied, July 4, 1853,
"The sewer man (Dryer) is in favor of organizing the Whig party. Greeley of
the New York Tribune, says the Whig party is dead in the states. But like all
animals of the reptile order, it dies in the extremities last; and him of the sewer
(The Oregonian) is the last agonizing knot in the tail.” To this blast from the
Statesman, the Oregonian replied, saying: “Heretofore, the Whigs have not
deemed it expedient to organize in opposition to this band of political marauders
(Democrats), supposing themselves to be in a hopeless minority. But the time
has now come when further submission to the locofoco party would be highly
criminal. Therefore we ask every Whig in Oregon to come out from among the
Durham wolves. Let us take our position—unfurl our banners—proclaim our
principles and charge manfully into the Philistine camp.” The reference to

ABIGAIL SCOTT DUNIWAY
Editor, Reformer, and Leader of the Equal Suffrage Movement on the Pacific Coast
OF
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
651
37
Durham wolves” was a thrust at the Democratic district judge, 0. C. Pratt,
who, having bought a lot of Spanish cattle from a man named "Durham,
turned about and sold the cattle as thoroughbreds from the English county of
Durham, making a scandalous, rascally trick which Dryer charged up against
the whole Democratic party.
Such was the segregation and organization of the first political parties in
Oregon. So far as any good work for the state is concerned their history is not
worth writing. Not a single large and useful measure can be pointed to as the
exclusive work of either of these old parties. The same can be said of the ephem-
eral organizations in favor of the adoption of the Maine (liquor prohibition)
law, and the secret political order known as the "Know Nothings'' in 1854. The
Whig party, as such, never accomplished anything for the state, except to form a
stepping-stone for the organization of the Republican party. The rival organiza-
tions contended for the offices, for location of capital or state buildings, and for
or against speedy statehood. On the slavery and temperance questions men
divided without regard to party lines up to the date of the great contest between
Lincoln and Douglas in Illinois in 1858. There were so many men in Oregon who
were personal friends and acquaintances of those two great leaders that they took
an intelligent interest in the contest and began to align themselves politically for
or against “Squatter Sovereignty," which quickly led them to consider the slav-
ery question in its demand for extension into new territories. And this was the
school that paved the way for an organization of the Republican party in Oregon;
and into which nearly all the leaders of the Whig party went when Lincoln and
Douglas became rival candidates for the presidency in 1859. And now the long
suffering Whigs, as new born children in the Republican organization, get their
revenge upon their old time tormentors. The Democratic party splits in twain.
Bush, Nesmith, Ben Harding and their wing of the Democracy espouse the cause
of Douglas, while the "old liners" who favored slavery go with Gen. Lane to
the pro-slavery ticket, and to defeat and utter destruction as a party. The
slavery question wrecked the ambitions of more than one great man in Oregon.
George H. Williams, Matthew P. Deady, James W. Nesmith, Gen. Lane, 0. C.
Pratt, Peter H. Burnett and R. P. Boise were all leading men of fine talents;
and all were greatly embarassed by the question of slavery. Bush was not
friendly to Williams whom he knew to be looking to the future for a position in
the United States senate; and very adroitly induced Williams to write a public
letter on the slavery question. Williams wrote the letter (July 28, 1857),
able document in which he opposed slavery on questions of political economy,
and said nothing about the moral side of the question. And for this position he
was opposed by the pro-slavery Democrats on one side, and the anti-slavery men
on the other side because of the low moral tone of his letter; and in the first two
elections of U. S. senators Williams got no support worth mentioning. Burnett
went to California and became the first elective American governor, running as
the miner's candidate. Deady got an appointment as U. S. district judge, was
president of the constitutional convention, sought no other preferment than the
bench and became the great jurist of the state, prepared its second code of laws,
and was the author of many of its most important statutes. And notwithstand-
ing slavery was the burning issue in Oregon politics for years, and in the consti-
tutional convention, it never was a question of practical politics for the reasons
an
652
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
given by Judge Williams. The institution of slavery was so wholly unsuited to
the people and circumstances of Oregon that it would have died out of its own
weakness if it had been recognized by law. The following letter recited all of the
African slavery that ever existed in Oregon:
"SALEM, OREGON, June 4, 1906.
“Hon. T. W. Davenport, Silverton, Oregon,
“MY DEAR SIR—Yours of the 2d inst. is just received. Colonel Nat. Ford
came to Oregon from Missouri in 1844 and brought with him three slaves—two
men and one woman. The woman was married to one of the men and had some
small children. Ford claimed these children as slaves and continued to claim
them until 1853. One of these children, a girl-had prior to that time been
given by Ford to Mrs. (Dr.) Boyle, a daughter of Ford. Prior to 1853 the
parents of these children (Robbin and Polly) had claimed their freedom and left
Ford, and in 1852 were living at Nesmith's Mills, but Ford had kept the children.
In 1853 Robbin the father of the children, brought a suit by habeas corpus to get
possession of the children. This case was heard by Judge Williams in the sum-
mer of 1853, and he held that these children, being then (by the voluntary act of
Ford) in Oregon, where slavery could not legally exist, were free from the bonds
of slavery, and awarded their custody to their father.
"Yours truly,
“R. P. BOISE.'
There were pro-slavery men in Oregon prior to the adoption of the state con-
stitution, but their support of that institution was a sympathetic feeling inher-
ited from former associations, and not a devotion to a real interest. For this
reason, Judge Williams' “Free State Letter,” as it was called at that time, was
effective to defeat slavery in the constitution, although it aroused the hostility
of the pro-slavery men and laid the judge on the political shelf for seven years.
That celebrated letter was useful for another reason, and that was that as it could
not be answered by the pro-slavery men, the subject of slavery was shoved into
the background, the great mass of the voters uniting in selecting able men for
members of the convention, and the people got the best constitution that the pop-
ular sentiment of that era could produce. But notwithstanding the strength of
Williams' letter as a political document of that time, and his ability as a public
man, it painfully exhibits his want of courage on moral questions and his fear of
unreasoning prejudices. Two extracts from the letter will show the difference
between such men as Lincoln, Seward and Sumner and the writer of this his-
torical letter. Towards the close of the letter Judge Williams says:
“I contend. that we have a perfect right to have slavery or not, as we
please, but we know what the sentiment of the North is upon this question,
and we must take things as they are, and not as they should be **** What-
ever may be inferred from my arguments against slavery in Oregon, I dis-
claim all sympathy with the abolition agitators of the North and deprecate
and denounce all sectional organizations upon that subject. The general gov-
ernment has no right to interfere with slavery except to carry out the fugitive
slave law, and maintain the opinion that each state and territory has the abso-
lute right to establish, modify or prohibit slavery within its borders."
1

DAVID LOGAN
Great Advocate-Brilliant Lawyer—"Master of the Twelve"
from 1850 to 1870
UND
OF

MATTHEW P. DEADY
The Great Judge
N
3
OF
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
653
Man proposes, but God disposes. Oregon held its state constitutional con-
vention, adopted its fundamental law, was quietly admitted to the great union
of states, and within four years from the date of Judge Williams' celebrated
letter the armies of the slaveholders' Southern Confederacy were thundering at
the gates of the national capital to overthrow the National Union. And all the
fine spun theories of the right of one man to make a slave of another had vanished
into the limbo of forgotten and hateful things.
While Oregon was far removed from the stirring events and bloody scenes
of the great Civil war, its people took an exciting interest in its origin and
progress. Men quickly placed themselves on opposite sides of the question
of crushing or treating for peace with the rebels of the southern states. Quite
a number of Oregonians joined the armies of the Southern Confederacy to destroy
the Union. Gen. J. K. Lamerick, of Jacksonville, the Indian fighter, a delegate
to the Charleston convention that nominated Breckinridge and Lane for the
presidency, joined the rebel army and became commissary of a Louisiana regi-
ment; D. B. Hanna, who had been U. S. marshal was a captain in the rebel
army; J. B. Sykes, of the territorial legislature, was a quartermaster of a Vir-
ginia regiment; R. B. Metcalfe, an Indian agent, joined the rebel army in Texas;
and Benjamin Stark, who Governor Whiteaker appointed United States senator
to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Senator Baker, was charged with dis-
loyalty to the government, and Senator Sumner offered a resolution to expel
Stark from the senate. A committee consisting in part of senators Sherman,
of Ohio, Willey, of West Virginia, and Howard, of Michigan, was appointed and
took evidence on the charges and reported to the senate on April 20, 1862:
"First-That for many months prior to November 21, 1861, and up to that
time, the said Stark was an ardent advocate of the cause of the rebelious states.
Second-That after the formation of the constitution of the Confederate States
he openly declared his admiration of it and advocated the absorption of the loyal
states of the Union into the Southern Confederacy under that constitution as the
only means of peace, warmly avowing his sympathies with the south. Third-
That the senator from Oregon is disloyal to the government of the United States."
The session of Congress expiring in two weeks after the committee reported,
and before the senate could take action, the Oregon senator escaped expulsion.
On the momentous issues of the war the people of Oregon quickly divided
and party lines were for the first time in the history of the state severely and
sternly drawn. The Republicans and Douglas Democrats organized all over the
state as Union men. The Pro-slavery Democrats adhered to their old organiza-
tion, and were denounced by their opponents as "seceshers."
On this line up of the voters a Union convention was held in April, 1862,
which nominated for representative to congress, John R. McBride, of Yamhill
county; for governor, Addison C. Gibbs, of Jackson county; for secretary of
state, Samuel E. May, of Jackson county; for state printer, Harvey Gordon, of
Marion county; for state treasurer, Edwin N. Cooke, of Marion county; for
judge of fourth judicial district, E. D. Shattuck, of Multnomah county; for
prosecuting attorneys, first district, James F. Gazley, of Douglas county; second
district, A. J. Thayer of Benton county; third district, J. G. Wilson, of Marion
county; fourth district, W. C. Johnson, of Clackamas county. About the same
time the Democrats held their convention at Corvallis and nominated the fol-
651
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
lowing ticket: For congress, Aaron E. Wait, of Portland; for governor, John
F. Miller of Salem; for secretary of state, George T. Vining, of Jacksonville; for
state treasurer, Jerome B. Greer; and for state printer, Anthony Noltner. When.
election day came around the Oregonian of May 31, 1862, made the following
appeal.
"This day will determine whether Oregon is a secession state or whether she
is true to the Star-spangled Banner and the Union. Words are worth little now.
Every man has made up his mind how he will vote. We are certain that Union
men will stand by the Union and vote for the ticket which is for the Union with-
out condition. When the stars shine forth this evening they will shed their luster
over a redeemed and glorious Union state."
It was the warmest election ever held in Oregon, if Columbia county was a
fair expression, and the Oregonian correspondent is to be credited when he
writes that St. Helens had a jolly time on the day of the election. About 40
fights, no less, are said to have occurred; 67 shirts badly torn, 36 bloody noses,
24 black eyes, 18 backs dusted, 140 buttons lost, 12 pairs of suspenders bursted,
8 kegs of lager and 19 gallons of whiskey consumed, the ground considerably
torn up, besides innumerable scratches, kicks, bites, etc. etc., are said to have
been the result of the day's disturbance. That election placed the Oregon democ-
racy in the discard for many years, and not until all the results of the war
policy of the Republicans had been fully accepted as the settled policy of the
nation did the Democratic party again carry a state election in Oregon by the
election of L. F. Grover to the office of governor. To record all the thrilling
incidents of the exciting contest between the Republicans and Pro-slavery
Democrats in Oregon during the years 1861, 2, 3 and 4, would fill a volume. On
July 3, 1861, William F. Eastham, of Clackamas county, raised a home made
national flag with all the Stars and Stripes on it, to celebrate Independence day
at his own home. A number of horsemen rode down in front of his house on the
morning of July 4th, and demanded that the flag be pulled down. Eastham with
his rifle in hand placed himself between his flag and the secessionists and defied
the crowd, saying the first man that dares to pull down that flag will die. That
flag was not pulled down, and can be seen now at the rooms of the Oregon
Historical Society. The secret society known as “Knights of the Golden Circle”
was organized to help the disunionists. Gen. Stephen Coffin promptly organized
the “Union League" all over the Willamette valley to offset the “Knights.
Rifles in cases were secretly smuggled into Oregon and concealed in barns in
Benton and Lane counties, to be used in a hoped-for uprising in favor of the
Southern Confederacy if the success of its armies in the field would justify the
move. Provost marshal, Captain J. M. Keeler, with a corps of detectives, was
sent to Oregon to watch the movements of certain men, and promptly arrest
them at any attempt to organize armed opposition to the government.
The triumph of the Union armies, and the overthrow of the Southern Confed-
eracy, and all the ideas it stood for, resulted in a powerful and exultant republi-
can party in Oregon. Its marked success immediately attracted to its fold all
the place-hunters, self-seekers and mercenary soldiers of fortune in the state.
And as that class of recruits could not by themselves control the party they were
compelled to organize secret combinations within the party to control and direct
its organization and monopolize its favors. This resulted in the packing of


WILLIAM STRONG
Justice of the Supreme Courts of Oregon and Washington

UNIL
BicW

ERASMUS D. SHATTUCK
A Greatly Honored and Trusted Judge for Twenty-five Years
3
OF
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
655
primaries, stuffing of ballot boxes, packing of party conventions, selection of
hireling legislators and the election of corrupt judges. This aroused bitter oppo-
sition within the party lines, and strenuous efforts were made by such men as
A. C. Gibbs, Gen. Coffin, W. D. Hare, J. D. Lee, Reuben P. Boise, D. W. Craig,
W. C. Johnson, E. D. Shattuck, T. W. Davenport and many others to defeat
the scheines of the corruptionists and make the Republican party stand for honor,
justice and equal rights to all. And this opposition to the corrupt schemes of
the "bosses and rings" within the party went so far as to refuse to elect
Mitchell's friend, Solomon Hirsch, to the U. S. senate in 1885, although sup-
ported by a majority of the Republicans, and adjourned the session without
electing a senator. And again in 1897 the house of representatives refused
to organize in order to defeat the re-election of Mitchell to the senate. And at
the special session in 1886, twenty-three Republican members of the legislature
refusing to go into the caucus of Republican members and have their hands tied
by the partisans of Mitchell; he went into the Democratic camp and bought
up seventeen Democratic members of the legislature with money furnished by
the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, and forced his re-election to the United
States senate. Ben Holladay, who has been mentioned in Chapter XIX., was
the pioneer in the infamous business of corrupting the Oregon legislature; having
bought up the legislature of 1868 to designate a fictitious and fraudulent railroad
company to receive the Oregon and California railroad land grant. After this
success he became a candidate for U. S. senator; and failing to elect George H.
Williams to the senate in 1870 as a reward for Williams' support of Holladay's
fraudulent railroad company, Holladay became a candidate for the senate him-
self in 1872. John H. Mitchell, the Republican "boss," and Holladay's attorney,
was also a candidate; and to get Mitchell out of the way Holladay offered him
$15,000 to withdraw and support his (Holladay's) pretensions. This Mitchell
refused to do, although he had to sacrifice all of his property to raise money
to silence the legislative cormorants who demanded money for their votes. And
although Mitchell was three times elected to the U. S. senate after that, and was
an attorney whose services were in demand and well paid, he remained a poor
man the balance of his days, and now reposes in an unmarked grave.
Those high-handed measures of Senator Mitchell and his partisans produced
such demoralization and disorganization of the Republican party in the state that
in the year 1892 the opposition to the Mitchell Republicans held a state conven-
tion at Oregon City to organize the “People's Party” of Oregon. This move-
ment aroused bitter opposition from both the Republican and Democratic parties.
But it steadily increased in strength until it had elected one presidential elector
in the state (Nathan Pierce, of Umatilla county), and in 1896 the vote on the
office of supreme judge was 40,451 for the Republican candidate, Robert S. Bean;
26,135 for the Populist candidate, Joseph Gaston, and 18,623 for the Democratic
candidate, John Burnett. Alarmed by the growth of the Populists, and unable
to check their increasing influence, both of the old parties—Republican and
Democrat-made haste to adopt the principles of the Populists; and have kept
on adopting them, until there are now three great National parties each claim-
ing to be the only safe and reliable conservators of the progressive” prin-
ciples proposed by the despised Populists thirty years ago. In reviewing this
656
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
item of history the editor of the East Oregonian of Pendleton (Mr. Bert Huff-
man), made the following record on June 20, 1904:
SHAKE, OLD MAN”
"J. Gaston, of Portland, one of the most tireless and indefatigable reformers
in the state, who has been pioneering in Oregon politics for almost half a cen-
tury, pours out a few hundred words of enthusiasm in a communication to the
Portland Oregonian over the success of the direct primary nominating amend-
ment.
"The passage of this amendment is the realization of one more of Gaston's
dreams and he celebrates the jubilee in the following happy strain:
'Portland, Ore., June 8.—(To the Editor.)—The Oregonian has duly re-
corded the great victory of John Manning and Tom Word, the great victory of
Mr. Nottingham and the great victory of the Republican party on the state ticket;
but it says nothing of the far greater Populist victory in the success of direct
nominations by the people.
“This measure became possible only after the adoption of the initiative and
referendum, and that amendment to the constitution was wholly a Populist
mieasure, and the very "head and front of their offending."
'Through every species of opposition, ridicule, ånd abuse did the pioneer
leaders of populism give their time and money in advocacy of the right of the
people, not only to dictate the nomination of their public servants, but also to
instruct and compel them to enact laws in obedience to the popular.wish.
'And it is not forgotten with what fine scorn and vehement sarcasm, the
Oregonian and the other old party papers assailed the Populists as “impractical
visionaries, "crack-brained fools,” anarchists and other epithets of coarser
vein, for daring to offer their views in opposition to the statesmen who support
the Republican party "that thrift may follow fawning."
"'The Populist leaders—who gave their time and money to promote these
popular measures-got no offices or reward for their unselfish labors.
‘But they have the satisfaction of living to see their measures enacted into
the fundamental law of the state; and the rejected stone of populism become
in 12 brief years the chief corner-stone of popular rights in Oregon.
"Neither of the old parties can point to such a grand victory as this in all
the history of the state, and whether the direct nominations result in promoting
the public welfare depends wholly on the use the voters make of these revolu-
tionary weapons of political power.
“'But the fact is now, on this June morning, patent to every Oregon poli-
tician, that a new and Herculean political force has arisen in the state, and one
which cannot be suppressed in backroom caucuses.
""The despised Populists have now their inning. Good-bye old political
hacks. He laughs best who laughs last.
"'J. GASTON.'"
39
The reformers of Oregon, and especially eastern Oregon, well remember the
beginning of the movement which has finally resulted in giving to the people
the initiative and referendum, favorable expression on the popular election of

2
E
1
5
THE CODE MAKERS
2-James K. Kelly
3-Charles Byron Bellinger
1-Matthew P. Deady
5William Paris Lord
4-William Lair Hill
OF
UNIL
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
657
United States senators, a direct primary amendment and a prospective flat
salary law.
A soulful confession will not be amiss here. The editor of the East Ore-
gonian was a boy of 20, the youngest delegate in attendance at that Oregon City
Populist convention of 1892, at which Umatilla county had the largest delega-
tion outside of Portland, and headed by that pioneer warhorse, Nathan Pierce.
J. Gaston was at that convention talking direct primaries, initiative and
referendum, equal suffrage and popular election of United States senators.
That was the beginning. There were no newly blacked shoes in that con-
vention. Not a solitary man in that gathering parted his hair in the middle.
There was but one Prince Albert coat, three striped neckties, and "nary” silk
hąt among the 100 delegates, but it started a movement for reform in Oregon
which the 8,000 to 20,000 republican majority has complimented and indorsed
year by year by ingrafting them into the organic law of the state.
When equal suffrage is adopted next year the old Populist program will have
been completed in Oregon.
PROHIBITION PARTY
I
During the period above considered there has been a precarious organization
of the anti-liquor men under the name of the Prohibition party, which has for
twenty years kept up an agitation of the temperance question, with regular
state tickets in the field, and county tickets in many counties. The promoters
of this reform have attested their devotion to their principles by large sacrifices
of time and money for the good of society and the state; and have in many
places succeeded in closing the liquor saloons and making orderly quiet and
decent many town and counties that had been cursed with the saloon nuisance.
The Socialists have also increased in numbers sufficient to have a state organi-
zation; but have not yet exercised any noticeable influence in state politics.
The question of equal rights to women in the exercise of the right of suffrage
has been twice submitted to the electors of the state, and failed to receive votes
sufficient to incorporate the proposition in the state constitution. It is now
again to be voted upon at the ensuing election, the result of which will not be
known in time to be included in this History. The great leader of the move-
ment in Oregon, whose likeness appears on another page, a leader with a national
reputation, and a record of fifty years of unfaltering and courageous advocacy
of equal rights to all persons—Abigail Scott Duniway—is at this time unfortu-
nately confined to her home from the infirmities of age. But with an intellect
that leads that battle of justice, and a dauntless spirit that halts not at opposi-
tion or defeat, from her home in the city of Portland still goes out to every
hamlet in the state the inspiring command-
"Oh watch and fight and pray
The battle ne'er give o'er
Renew it boldly every day
And help divine implore.
Vol. I-12
0
658
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
THE EVOLUTION OF LAWS AND LEGISLATION
The most noteworthy incidents in the development of state government in
Oregon are the original compact and declaration of principles adopted by the
pioneers at the mass meeting at Champoeg on July 5, 1845; and the Provisional
constitution adopted by the people by a majority vote at the election on July
26, 1845. Both of these era-marking popular sovereignty measures have already
been reviewed. The making and adoption of the state constitution by the con-
vention of sixty delegates of the people meeting at Salem, September 18, 1857,
was a more considerate and deliberate act than the previous documents. It was
made so by the greater population represented by these delegates; by the ample
time given for discussion of every question; by the facility of consulting the
constitutions of other states; and by the more educated and trained men com-
posing the convention. And while the document they produced was for more
than forty years the undisputed and unaltered fundamental and supreme law
of the state, it added nothing to the substantial rights and immunities of the citi-
zen which he had not possessed under the Provisional government, except the
right of appeals to appellate courts. Several vigorous efforts were made to
amend the state constitution to give the right of suffrage to women, and to
regulate the liquor traffic either by local option or state-wide prohibition, but
all met with defeat from the conservative electorate. But in 1890 a state-wide
campaign was commenced by a determined band of men, nearly all of them
members of the Republican party, to secure such amendments to the state con-
stitution as would disarm the primary ballot-box stuffing and state con-
vention packing "bosses” of the old parties, and restore to the people the
power to dictate and control legislation. These agitators and innovators met
with bitter opposition from both of the old parties, and were denounced by all
the leading newspapers, office holders and office seekers as “calamity howlers."
But they would not retreat, nor keep quiet, but kept up the “howl” until within
ten years from the time they effected a state organization under the name of the
"People's” or “Populist" party, the voters of the state had endorsed their
propaganda of reform and amended the state constitution so as to secure direct
nomination of candidates for office by registered voters; direct legislation by
the people by initiative propositions proposed by registered voters; and a refer-
endum to the people of any act passed by the legislature on the petition demand
of registered voters. This was the most radical departure from the universal
methods of legislative bodies ever proposed or enacted in the United States. And
it was proposed and pushed to final success by the despised Populists, and incor-
porated into the laws of Oregon prior to its adoption by any other state in the
Union. These are now, in 1912, called the "Progressive" laws, and three presi
dential candidates, and their respective parties--the Republican, Democratic
and Roosevelt (progressive) parties, are each claiming to be the only true and
trustworthy representatives of these old Populist reforms.
While this History is in course of preparation, two propositions, entirely new
and distinctive in American governments, are now being pressed upon the voters
of the state for a decision. First: an initiative bill to substitute a tax upon the
rental value of land in lieu of all other taxes upon property. This proposition
goes by the name of "The Single Tax." Second: an initiative bill to substitute
>>

WILLIAM S. U'REN
The leading advocate of the "Oregon System” of direct primary nomination
of public offices and direct ballot-box law-making
UNIO
3
*
'CH

JOHN H. MITCHELL
Twenty-two Years in U. S. Senate from Oregon
UNIE
Bic
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
659
a cabinet form of government for the state in place of the political elective form
of government now in force. These measures are proposed by the People's Power
League of Oregon, of which Wm. S. U'Ren, is the secretary.
BALLOT TITLE DESIGNATION OF INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM MEASURES
There are now before the people for adoption or rejection at the next election,
the following initiative measures.
Equal suffrage amendment, exteuding the right of suffrage to women.
For constitutional amendment of Section 8, Article V., for the purpose of
creating the office of lieutenant-governor who shall act as governor in case of
the inability of the governor to perform his duties, and also act as president of
the senate; and providing for the president pro tem of the senate to act as gov-
ernor in case of the inabílity of both the governor and lieutenant-governor, and
in case of the inability of the governor, lieutenant-governor, and president pro
tem of the senate, the speaker of the house to act as governor.
For an amendment of Section 1, Article IX. of the Oregon constitution, pro-
viding for a uniform rule of taxation except on property specifically taxed, pro-
viding for the levy and collection of taxes for state purposes and for county
and other municipal purposes upon different classes of property.
. For an amendment of Section 32, Article I. Oregon constitution, for the
purpose of permitting taxes to be levied upon different classes of property at
different rates.
For constitutional amendment to repeal all of Section 1, of Article IX. except
that part prohibiting poll and head taxes in Oregon, and instead of the portions
repealed to add a provision prohibiting the declaration of an emergency in any
act passed by the legislature regulating taxation and exemptions.
For amendment of Section 1, of Article XVII. of the constitution so as to
require for the adoption of any proposed constitutional amendment a majority
vote of all the electors voting at such election,
For constitutional amendment of Section 3, Article XI. of the constitution,
making stockholders in banking corporations liable to pay for the benefit of
depositors an amount equal to the par value of the stock held by any stockholder
in addition to having originally paid the par value therefor.
An act vesting the railroad commission with power and jurisdiction to super-
vise and regulate every public service corporation and utility in the state of
Oregon, as to the adequacy of the service rendered and facilities provided, the
fairness of rates, tolls, and charges, to be collected from the public therefor, and
also as to interchange of business between such public service corporations and
utilities.
An act appropriating $50,000 for building, furnishing and equipping a
dormitory at the Oregon State Normal School at Monmouth.
A bill for an act to create out of the eastern part of Clackamas county,
new county to be called Cascade county.
A bill for an act creating a single board of regents for the University of
Oregon and the State Agricultural College.
For the amending of Section 1, Article IV. of the constitution of the state
of Oregon so as to require a majority vote of all electors voting at any election
а.
660
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
to adopt constitutional amendment and pass initiative measures, and a majority
vote only of electors voting thereon to reject measures referred to the people.
A bill for an act authorizing any county in this state to issue bonds for the
construction of permanent roads.
A bill for an act to create a state highway department, authorizing the gov-
ernor to appoint a state highway engineer at an annual salary of $3,600.
A bill to put chapter 266, laws of 1911, into effect December 1, 1912, instead
of January 1, 1915, which chapter creates a state printing board consisting of
governor, secretary of state, and state treasurer, fixes salary of state printer
at $4,000.00, and secretary of the board at $2,000.00.
A bill for an act creating the office of hotel inspector, prescribing his duties,
appropriating $7,000 per annum for salary and traveling expenses.
A bill for an act making eight hours a day's labor in all cases where labor
for the state, county, school district, municipality or other subdivisions of the
state are interested.
A bill for an act to protect purchasers of stocks and bonds and providing for
the regulation and supervision of corporations selling or negotiating for the sale
of corporate stocks and securities.
A bill for an act prohibiting the employment of convicts of the state peni-
tentiary by any private person, firm or corporation, and authorizing their use
on public highways.
A bill for an act prohibiting the employment of county, city or town convicts
by any private firm, person or corporation, and providing for their employment
on public highways.
A bill for an act creating a state board authorizing it to issue and sell
state bonds, payable in 30 years from date of issue, for building public roads,
not to exceed $1,000,000 per year, creating the office of state highway commis-
sioner.
For amendment of Section 7, Article XI. of the Oregon constitution prohib-
iting the state from increasing its indebtedness for road building in excess of
two per cent. of the taxable property of the state.
A bill for an act authorizing the respective counties of the state of Oregon
to issue twenty-year bonds for building roads within the county.
For amendment of Section 10, Article XI. of the constitution of Oregon
prohibiting counties from voting any indebtedness for roads, in excess of two
per cent of assessed valuation of all property in the county.
A bill for an act providing for the consolidation of contiguous incorporated
cities and towns.
For amendment to Article IX. of the Oregon constitution by inserting therein
a section providing for the taxation of incomes from whatever source or sources
derived.
A bill for an act amending sub-division S of Section 3554 of Lord's Oregon
Laws so as to exempt from taxation all household furniture, domestic fixtures,
household goods and effects actually in use in homes and dwellings, and all
wearing apparel, watches, jewelry and similar personal effects actually in use.
A bill for an act to exempt from taxation all debts of every kind whether
on contract, note, mortgage, bond or otherwise, either within or without this
state.

GEORGE H. WILLIAMS
U. S. Senator, U. S. Attorney General, U. S. District Judge, and
Mayor of the City of Portland
N
OF
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
661
A bill for an act revising the inheritance tax laws.
A bill for an act fixing the percentage that freight rates on less than car
load lots shall bear to car loads, and to establish minimum weights and maximum
freights.
For amendment of Section 10, Article XI. of the constitution of the state of
Oregon empowering the court of any county to issue and sell bonds or other
securities to build and maintain roads within the county when authorized by a
inajority of the voters of the county.
For the amendment of Article IV. of the constitution of Oregon abolishing
the state senate; providing none but registered voters be counted on initia-
tive or referendum petition; increasing state and municipal referendum powers;
house of representatives to consist of sixty elective members, and the governor
and unsuccessful party candidates for governor to be ex-officio members; gov-
ernor to introduce all appropriation bills, legislature not to increase the amounts
thereof, four-year terms, annual session; proportional election of members;
proxy system of voting on bills, and those introduced after twenty days to go
to the next session; control and revocation of franchises.
For amendment of Section 2, Article IX. of the constitution of Oregon,
providing for specific graduated taxes, in addition to other taxes, upon all
franchises and rights of way, lands and other natural resources in excess of
$10,000 under one ownership, and assessing water powers in the counties where
situate; exempting from taxation all personal property of every kind, and im-
provements on, in and under land, except a county may enact a county law to
tax the same.
A bill for an act to abolish capital punishment in the state of Oregon.
A bill for an act prohibiting boycotting or picketing any industry, work-
shop, store, place of business or factory, or any lawful business or enterprise,
and prohibiting enticing, persuading or attempting to persuade or induce any
person working therein from continuing such employment, and providing a pen-
alty for violation of the act.
A bill for an act prohibiting the use of the public streets, parks and public
grounds, in any city or town of a population of 5,000, or over, for holding meet-
ings for public discussion or speech-making purposes without a written permit
from the mayor thereof.
An act appropriating $175,000 for building and equipping an administra-
tion building and extending heating plant to the same, for the University of Ore-
gon, and also, appropriating the further sum of $153,258.92 for the purchase of
additional land, equipment and apparatus.
An act appropriating $175,000 for the construction, equipment and furnish-
ing a modern fire-proof library and museum building, and the extension of the
heating plant to the same, for the use of the University of Oregon.
THE CODES, AND CODIFIERS
As has already been stated, the people in mass convention acting as a Provis-
ional government, on July 5, 1843, in addition to their organic act adopted at
that time, also enacted or adopted as the laws of Oregon, the laws of the terri-
tory of Iowa on thirty-seven leading subjects of legislation. Afterwards, on June
662
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
27th, the Provisional government legislature declared that "all the statute
laws of Iowa territory, passed at the first session of the legislative assembly of
said territory, and not of a local character, and not incompatible with the con-
ditions and circumstances of this country, shall be the law of this government,
unless otherwise modified.” Laws of 1843-49 p. 100. This action of the
Provisional legislature does not appear in Grover's compilation of the proceed-
ings of that legislature called the “Archives ;' but that does not necessarily
discredit it, for it is known that Grover's compilation was very imperfect. In
organizing the territory in 1848 Congress continued the laws of the Provisional
government in force until they should be altered or repealed.
THE CHAPMAN CODE
On February 1, 1851, the territorial legislature passed an act adopting
certain portions of the revised statutes of Iowa, designating them by their titles
and dates of passage. W. W. Chapman, one of the founders of the city of
Portland was a member of that legislature, and had been a member of the Iowa
constitutional convention, and legislature, and Iowa's first delegate to Con-
gress, and he was the author of the bill to adopt the Iowa statutes in Oregon,
and on this account this collection of Iowa statutes in book form was called
"The Chapman Code." Here, then, were three different compilations of statute
law adopted: First, the thirty-seven laws enumerated by the Provisional legis-
lative committee of July 5, 1843 ; second, that all the laws of Iowa territory passed
at the first session of the legislative assembly of said territory; third, the revised
statutes of Iowa enumerated in Col. Chapman's bill and adopted by the legis-
lature on February 1, 1851. There were three U. S. territorial judges holding
the courts in Oregon at that time-Thomas Nelson, chief justice, and 0. C. Pratt
and William Strong associate justices; and each of these judges enforced in
his district a different code from the other judges. This uncertainty of the law
forcibly called for a revision of all these laws and codes; and accordingly the
territorial legislature at its session in 1853 passed an act providing for the
election of three code commissioners to prepare an entirely new code. Under this
law James K. Kelly, afterwards U. S. senator and chief justice of Oregon's
first separate supreme court; Reuben P. Boise, for thirty years a circuit judge of
the state; and Daniel R. Bigelow of Thurston county, Wash., (then a part of Ore-
gon), were elected this first code commission, and prepared the first code of
Oregon laws, and which was entitled the “Oregon Code," and which was printed
in New York in 1854 and sent to Oregon via the Isthmus of Panama. In pre-
paring the Oregon code the New York code of practice was adopted, with a
separate court or jurisdiction for equity proceedings; Kelly and Boise taking
the position that the organic act of Congress contemplated a separate system
of equity proceedings when it declared that “each district court or judge thereof
shall appoint its clerk, who shall be the register in chancery."
This Oregon code was in force for eight years and until the code prepared
by Judge Matthew P. Deady was enacted into law in 1862. And following the
adoption of Deady's code of civil procedure he prepared the code of criminal
procedure which the legislature adopted in 1864. He also afterward, by author-
ity of the legislature, collected, revised and re-arranged the laws of Oregon with
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
663
notes and references which were published in book form in 1874. Many of the
important statutes of Oregon are the work of Judge Deady, notably that pro-
viding for the formation of private corporations. All the legal and judicial
work of Judge Deady, commencing with his appointment as U. S. district judge
in 1853, until his death in 1893, which cannot be enumerated here, and which
would fill a volume, has entitled Matthew P. Deady to be regarded as the greatest
man and greatest lawyer and judge in tủe legal profession west of the Rocky
mountains. Commencing life at the bottom of the ladder he worked his way up
without the aid of wealth or friends, and wholly by his own exertions, until
all men in and out of the legal profession honored and respected him not only
for his talents and judicial abilities but more so for his honor as a man and his
unswerving integrity and impartial justice as a judge. He was in every sense
Oregon's greatest citizen; and his statue, and not that of another, should have
been chosen to represent his state and honor the nation in the hall of fame in
the national capitol.
OTHER CODES
)
The next work of codifying the laws of Oregon was that of William Lair
Hill. Mr. Hill is still a practicing lawyer at Oakland in the state of California,
and his code takes him out of the category of those that cannot be noticed in
history until they are dead. Hill's code was commenced as an independent
enterprise of his own, but was afterward recognized, indorsed and purchased by
the legislature of the state. Coming in after Justice Deady's work, and after
most of the states of the Union had adopted the reformed practice and had created
codes of civil procedure, Mr. Hill had the advantage of a large body of material
to draw upon in preparing his work for the legal profession. And being well
equipped, both from education, literary attainment, professional study and
large practice, he was enabled to and did produce a very valuable work entitled,
"Hill's Annotated Statutes of Oregon,” which was published in 1887. Many
of the young lawyers in Oregon have started in practice without much more of
a library than Hill's book, and done good work in the profession; Hill's citations
being very full and always to the point. Mr. Hill's work remained the author-
ity on statute law for about fifteen years, and entitles the author to a high
place and permanent fame among the lawgivers of Oregon. Mr. Hill also pre-
pared a code of the laws of the state of Washington, which was adopted by the
legislature of that state, making him the only lawyer preparing codes for two
separate states.
Judge Deady was succeeded on the bench by Charles Byron Bellinger, a
member of the law firm of Dolph, Mallory, Simon and Bellinger. As it was a
great dignity, high honor, and life position, there was a scramble for the office
among the democratic lawyers, Grover Cleveland being president. Bellinger
was always a protege of the banker, Asahel Bush, of Salem. Bush was personally
acquainted with the president, and was the sort of a man that could get the
presidential ear. So that in this contingency, Banker Bush wasted no time in
making a visit to Washington to see the president and recommend a man for
U. S. judge of the district of Oregon. It is also supposed that the two United
States senators from Oregon-Mitchell and Dolph-did not fail to support the
664
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
man who was a member of the law firm they had erected. And so Mr. Bellinger
was appointed U. S. judge.
The most notable and useful service Judge Bellinger performed while on the
bench was the preparation of a new edition or code of the laws of Oregon; which
he did prepare in connection with Attorney W. W. Cotton. This work was
commenced about the year 1898 and completed soon after; and was approved
and purchased by the legislature and used by the profession and the courts.
Judge Bellinger took great pride in and bestowed great labor on this work. It
is very much larger than any former edition of the laws of Oregon; and the
vast number of decisions of the supreme court of the state requiring for greater
time and study to apply them to the interpretation of the statutes, placed upon
Judge Bellinger a load of care and labor that told heavily on his physical
strength, and possibly hastened the breakdown which resulted in his death May
9, 1905.
Judge Bellinger had for a short time filled the office of circuit judge for the
district of Multnomah county. He was quick, bright and alert in the practice
of his profession, with a great fund of humor that made him a delightful com-
panion and universally popular with his professional brethren; and his demise
was greatly mourned by all who knew him.
The work of Mr. W. W. Cotton on the “B. & C." code as it is now cited, wa
very considerable. His very extensive practice, robust constitution and great
capacity for hard work enabled him to accomplish more work than Judge Bel-
linger and in less time, and with less wear and tear of body and soul. Unlike
Bellinger, Cotton had never wasted any time on politics, but had been, ever
since his admission to the bar, continuously storing away mental capital in the
form of fundamental principles of law and leading precedents of judicial deci-
sions.
With this equipment, his part of making the great code was not a
laborious job.
After the B. & C. another edition of the code of the Oregon statutes was
authorized by the legislature. An act was passed authorizing the supreme court
to select a suitable person to revise the laws, arrange it in the form of a code
and superintend its publication, and William P. Lord was selected by the court
to do that work.
William Paris Lord was born at Dover, Delaware in 1838, a graduate of
Fairfield College, N. Y., and a graduate of the Albany law school, 1866. Joined
the Union army on the breaking out of the southern rebellion and served as major
in the Delaware cavalry under Gen. Lew Wallace; and after the war, at Forts
Alcatraz and Steilacoom, and in Alaska. Resigned his commission in 1868, and
commenced practicing law at Salem, Oregon, Member of state senate in 1878;
member of supreme court in 1880-served twelve years; elected governor of the
state, served four years; and was then appointed by President McKinley as
minister to the Argentine republic; served four years.
LAWYER POLITICIANS
Oregon, like every other state, has had a full supply of the lawyers who
essayed political distinction. From the earliest times, the majority of public
men have been taken from the ranks of the lawyers. This statement holds good

WILLIS C. HAWLEY
The Republican Representative in Congress from Oregon, 1912
OF
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
665
from the presidency down through congress; cabinet ministers, governors, for-
eign ministers and legislatures east of the Allegheny mountains. The Oregon
legislatures have always had a majority of farmers and tradesmen. Of the
thirty-six men who have represented Oregon in congress, thirty have been mem-
bers of the legal profession. Of the governors under the territorial government
none of them were lawyers; but of the governors under the state organization,
seven have been lawyers, two farmers, one merchant and one saw mill man.
It is not intended to go into the record of any living lawyer of Oregon who has
made politics the main object of his ambition. And of those deceased, the great-
est of them have already been noticed. But as this book is written to not only
tell the facts of life and progress or decay, as affecting this state, it is necessary
to refer to at least one, and that one the most remarkable career that has ever
transpired in any American state.
And there could be no justification in referring to the life of John H. Mitchell
if it did not teach a great lesson. And while charity should spread its mantle
over the faults of him that has fallen, justice to all and the safety of society
requires, that those who supported and contributed to the corrupt system, or
tamely surrendered to the vicious public opinion that made Mitchell's career
possible, should be shown the evil of their own guilty part. The misfortune of
it all in this world is, that we love the evil we do until we suffer from it; and
that the evil we do does not die with us. If we could see the end from the be-
ginning, we might, as Shakespeare says:
"Gather honey from the weed,
And make a moral of the devil himself."
For forty years it was an open secret that Mitchell's political ethics justified
any means that would win the battle. And he could not have succeeded in the
face of all the bitter opposition to him if the majority of the electors in the state
were not either openly in favor of his style of politics or silently consenting to
it. He was seven times a candidate for United States senator before the Oregon
legislature and won in four of the contests; and if he had lived to serve out his
time in the senate, would have served twenty-four years in the senate—twice
as long as any other senator from Oregon.
Mitchell was not a great orator; he was not a profound reasoner; he was not a
statesman; he was not consistent in anything but his personal desires for public
office. But he accomplished more for the state, and had more influence and suc-
cess in the senate, and satisfied more people by his public service than any other
man ever sent to the senate. He was handicapped by changing his name; he was
kept poor by the political leeches that fed upon his bounty and threatened his
ruin unless they were fed; he was bitterly opposed by men of great wealth; and
by men in his party of great power and influence, and by newspapers read by all
the people; and over and against all of it he triumphed against all odds and
against opposition that would have destroyed any other man. When republicans
rebelled at his leadership and repudiated his acts, he called in democrats and
beat down his own party leaders with the club of their political opponents. What
was the secret of it all? A kind heart, a generous disposition, a friendly sympa-
thetic handshake, untiring industry and sleepless vigilance and persistence. He
has imitators, and some of them are succeeding with precisely the same tactics.
666
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
.
But not for long. There was but one Mitchell, and there won't be another for a
hundred years.
John H. Mitchell was born in Washington county, Pennsylvania, June 23,
1835, and baptized in the name of John Mitchell Hipple. He was admitted to
the bar in Butler county, Pennsylvania, in 1857; came to Oregon in 1860,
quickly secured a large law practice; was elected to the U. S. senate in 1872, and
had his name legally changed by the county court to John H. Mitchell in 1874,
although passing under that name from the time he came to the state.
The best sketch ever made of Mitchell's political career was that made by Mr.
Scott, former editor of the Oregonian, and which is hereto appended :
“It would perhaps be difficult in all the history of American politics to find a
man whose political career equaled that of Senator John H. Mitchell. Men whose
political careers have been as full of turmoil and strife as that of the dead sena-
tor have sprung before the nation's eye, but they only bloomed and flourished
for a brief time, and their names became forgotten with the flight of time. Not
so with Senator Mitchell. He became a factor in Oregon politics when the '60s
were young, and almost from the day on which he was elected state senator, his
name has been one to conjure with in the history of things political in Oregon.
“When Senator Mitchell first made his hand felt in Oregon politics, he entered
a tempestuous conflict. How he weathered those storms that repeatedly broke
around him, how he persistently fought and overcame the apparently overwhelm-
ing political tides which ever threatened to destroy him, made men marvel for
almost half a century. Beginning with the famous bolting caucus of September,
-1866, Senator Mitchell has been an issue in Oregon politics to this day. But a
handful of men who mixed and mingled in the political strife at that time are
alive today. Only a few of the men whose names are at present on the political
horizon are familiar with that part of Oregon's political history. Mitchell had
been elected state senator, had served one term. That was the beginning. It
was in 1862. In 1864, just two years after he was elected president of the senate.
Even as early as this, Senator Mitchell had his political star directed to the
United States senate. His political aspirations were in the nature of a whirl-
wind, and the harvest of that whirlwind was reaped when he was finally elected
to the upper house of congress. Before his ambitions were gratified came the
tempestuous days of the legislature, which met in September, 1866.
BOLT DEFEATS GIBBS
"Salem, then as now, was the center of all political storms. Addison C. Gibbs
was then governor, and the avowed candidate for senator. It was claimed that
Governor Gibbs was the choice of forty-five republicans, and this was borne
out when he was nominated at the caucus. Mitchell was also a candidate, and
he was charged with having engineered the bolt which followed the nomination
of Governor Gibbs at this caucus. Not only that, but from that day to this,
certain republicans have followed this lead, and have never felt bound to follow
out the mandates of a caucus. Mitchell's plan of overriding the wishes of that
republican caucus was unique. He was charged with having manipulated the
primaries of Multnomah county, had elected the men he had nominated. It is
a matter of record that Multnomah delegates voted straight through the caucus
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
667
for Mitchell. In joint conventions four men—all Mitchell's supporters—bolted.
Two of these were from Multnomah.
“It was suspected that Mitchell was behind a revolt, and a trap was laid to
catch him. A deal was made with two democrats with the understanding that if
Governor Gibbs received enough votes to elect him, their votes were not to
count. Again the vote was taken. W. W. Upton, a prominent Multnomah county
lawyer in those days, was the last to vote. He voted blank, and it was found
that Governor Gibbs was short one vote. The story of that day had it that Senator
Mitchell gathered around him seventeen faithful adherents. It was agreed
that all but five would remain silent, and that five were to stand outside and
that if there was a defection among the five, one of the silent twelve was to step
into the breach. It was this which caused the political pot to boil over, and
with this incident began the factional fights in the republican ranks, which
have never been healed. The result of the "boiling was the election of Senator
Corbett.
"The campaign of 1872 saw Senator Mitchell and Senator Corbett the prin-
cipal figures of one of the most bitter political fights in the history of the state.
The factions were lined up for deadly combat. At that time, and for that mat-
ter, for many years previous, Ben Holladay was Oregon's railroad king. Holla-
day was behind Mitchell. Mitchell was the issue of this battle. The Holladay
crowd charged Corbett with having opposed certain railroad measures. Corbett's
friends disputed this with might and main, and declared that Mitchell was tied .
hard and fast to Holladay. Then the Corbett followers, as a campaign slogan,
quoted an utterance made by Mitchell which was, “Whatever is Ben Holladay's
politics, is my politics, and whatever Ben Holladay wants, I want.
MITCHELL DEFEATS CORBETT
“In spite of this Mitchell was elected to the senate and Senator Corbett was
defeated. This was the beginning of his long senatorial career. His term
expired in 1878. Here the political map of Oregon was changed, and the demo-
crats went into power. Mitchell was a candidate, but the toga went to James
H. Slater, a democrat. In 1880 there was no session and the battle was stilled
until 1882 Once more the candidacy of Senator Mitchell was an issue in
Oregon politics. The struggle between the Mitchell faction and the Corbett
followers was bitter, but the contest which followed in 1882 caused the memor-
able event to pale into insignificance. Many republicans opposed to the candi-
dacy of Senator Mitchell were elected, but Mitchell had the majority of repub-
licans. The solid eighteen was born, nine of them came from Marion county.
Neither side would give or take, and the battle waged throughout the entire
session of the legislature. It took forty-six to elect, and Mitchell started out with
forty votes, and held them with hardly a single loss.
"The result was that Mitchell went down to defeat and J. N. Dolph was elected.
When it came time for the next senatorial election, the time of the meeting of
the legislature had been changed. January was set for the time of holding the
election in the odd year, so the 1885 election took place in January instead of
September. Senator Mitchell was not a candidate, but he held a political hand
that was formidable. He rallied his forces for Sol. Hirsch.
. Here followed
668
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
another struggle. So determined and unyielding was the character of the fight
that the session adjourned without electing a senator.
DEMOCRATS VOTE FOR MITCHELL
"The following fall Governor Moody called a special election and right early
in the session the politicians being weary of the protracted turmoil, Senator
Mitchell was elected by a combined republican and democratic vote, some seven-
teen democrats casting their ballots for him. In 1891 Senator Mitchell was
returned to the senate without opposition. Then followed the free silver craze.
Senator Mitchell became a conspicuous and persistent advocate for the white
metal and another schism in the republican party followed. In 1897 the legis-
lature met. A caucus was assembled and nominated Mitchell for senator. But
the gold republicans joined with the democrats and populists in a refusal to
organize the lower house, and what was called the famous legislative hold-up
came into being. There was no election of senator from Oregon.
“In the special session called in 1898, Mitchell was not a candidate. Joseph
Simon was elected by the gold wing of the party. In 1901 G. W. McBride, an
ally of Senator Mitchell's was a candidate for re-election. He was supported
by Senator Mitchell, but he was defeated, and he turned his strength to Mitchell.
The session lasted forty days and Senator Mitchell was elected at the last hour.
He was serving his term when he died. Four times he was elected to the senate,
thrice he was unsuccessful. In all of his contests but one, there was much
strife and acrimony."
)
GEORGE H. WILLIAMS
Next to John H. Mitchell, George H. Williams has been the most prominent
lawyer-politician in the state. Both of them were men of striking and unusual
talents, and both had their limitations as to ability and integrity. And it is
fortunate for the lesson to be drawn from their careers that these two men can
be lined up in the shadow of Matthew P. Deady. Both Williams and Mitchell
had the advantage of an academic education, but not collegiate training. Deady
had only the opportunities of the village school and books to read. Williams
went to Iowa in 1847 and was district judge before he was twenty-four years
of age; came to Oregon in 1853 with the commission of a federal judgeship in
his pocket; and probably never would have come but for the gift of the office.
Mitchell came to Oregon in 1860 at twenty-seven years of age, and got into the
legislature and politics within two years after landing in Portland, and practi-
cally dominated or damned the politics of Oregon for over forty years contin-
uously. Deady came to Oregon in 1849 working his way as a pioneer across
the plains, without office, acquaintances or friends, and attained that honor:
The honor proof to place or gold
To manhood never bought or sold.
which cannot be given to the politician-lawyer. George H. Williams attained
the highest office (U. S. senator) within the gift of the people of Oregon, and
was afterwards twice refused the same honor by the same people. He was made
For Experts Ony
Datele
nam Tou sahna
No. 1. The Glasgow (Scotland) voter has only one namelis Ward councilmanto vote
for, and he has the best city government in the world.
No. 2. The Des Moines (Iowa) voter has only five men on his ticket, and has the best
city government in the United States.
No. 3. The Portland, Oregon, voter has in this year of our Lord 1912, about 100 can-
didates for office on his ticket; and 39 long initiative and referendum proposed state laws,
and 22 proposed city lawsmand altogether proposing an indebtedness on the taxpayers of
forty to fifty millions of dollars. It is safe to say that all this proposed law making will
not even be read by one-fourth of the voters—and no man can know what his rights or
obligations may be under these circumstances.
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
669
attorney-general of President Grant's cabinet, and a member of the joint high
commission to settle disputed claims between the United States and England,
growing out of the fact that England had permitted privateering ships (pirates).
to issue from the ports of that country to prey upon American commerce during
the southern rebellion. Upon the death of Salmon P. Chase, chief justice of
the supreme court of the United States, the president nominated Judge Wil-
liams for that high and honorable office-an office esteemed by many great
statesmen to be of higher honor and dignity than that of the presidency. The
nomination was not promptly acted upon by the senate, as is always the custom
of that body with nominations to office of men who had been members of the
senate. And very soon opposition to the appointment was made from Oregon
to New York. This opposition increased in force and acrimony, without making
definite and serious charges until' Judge Williams requested the president to
withdraw the nomination. The soul-racking strain and humiliation which must
have afflicted Williams before he was brought to the point of giving up the
highest honor in the government, which apparently was within his grasp, can
neither be conceived or expressed. The trial was enough to extinguish any
ambitious man, and peculiarly mortifying to the victim who had planned his
whole life to the attainment of political honors.
For forty years the question has been asked by men familiar with the public
career of Judge Williams—why did he withdraw his name from the senate after
President Grant had nominated him for chief justice of the supreme court of
the United States? Senator Nesmith and various other parties had made oppo-
sition to the confirmation of Williams; but there was nothing serious, and nothing
sufficient to influence the action of the Senate in all that was trumped up against
him. Some persons imagining they possessed the secret have alleged that Wil-
liams withdrew because the society ladies of the capitol disliked his wife and
made war on him through their senatorial husbands in order to humiliate Mrs.
Williams. This is puerile and ridiculous, when we consider that the nomination
depended on the good will of such senators as George F. Edmunds, of Vermont,
chairman of the judiciary committee, and Allen G. Thurman, of Ohio—the old
“bandana" leader of the democracy, an Andrew Jackson man in every drop
of his blood. A "woman's fuss" was made against the wife of a member of
Andrew Jackson's cabinet, and it has passed into history how “Old Hickory”
literally politically exterminated every man who gave the subject the least con-
sideration. And precisely the same result would have come to pass from the
indignation of General Grant had any person objected to the wife of George H.
Williams. No, it was not objection to Mrs. Williams, who was a good woman
with an unassailable character; but it was the fatal weakness of Williams him-
self, that led to his undoing. For near forty years the secret of this Waterloo
defeat of Judge Williams' political career has been locked up in the mind of a
single Oregonian. And it was never known to but one other man besides Judge
Williams himself; and that man passed away thirty-five years ago. What was
that secret?
The taking of testimony in a great law suit involving the title to seventy-five
million dollars worth of land in Oregon has recently uncovered the dusty records
in the offices of the Secretary of the Interior for nearly a half century past. This
has laid bare the old skeleton that was the ruin of Oregon's greatest orator
670
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
and popular statesman; and there can now be no reason why the truth of
history should not be vindicated on this subject. It will be remembered that in
the fight before congress for possession of the Oregon and California railroad
land grant, Judge Williams took sides with Ben Holladay and J. H. Mitchell
to rob the Oregon Central Railroad Co. of that grant and give it to a fraudulent
and fictitious Salem company organized in the same name; and that by Williams
aid in the United States senate Holladay and Mitchell succeeded in that scheme.
After so succeeding the Holladay Company, reorganized in the name of the
Oregon and California Railroad Company, as soon as they had built twenty
miles of railroad, sold out the entire land grant from Portland to the California
line to another corporation controlled by Holladay, which was called "The
European and Oregon Land Company." This new company then started in to
sell the land to anybody and everybody in violation of the terms of the grant
which provided that the land could only be sold to actual settlers in tracts of
160 acres each. To get rid of these conditions of the land grant, Holladay's
new company, by their general manager, Jos. S. Wilson, who had been formerly
commissioner of the U. S. general land office, prepared an opinion, which was
endorsed as good law by J. H. Mitchell, attorney for the R. R. Company, arguing
that the provision requiring the land to be sold only to actual settlers in tracts
of 160 acres each, applied only to the settlers on the land at the date when
congress made the grant to the railroad company; and that all other lands of
the grant, after supplying those first locators, might be sold in any sized
tracts and for all the company could get for them. This learned opinion was
then delivered to George H. Williams, then attorney general of the United States,
and Williams sent it to Columbus Delano, then secretary of the interior in
Grant's cabinet along with Williams, together with an opinion and ruling on
the points desired which Williams asked Delano to agree to and make it the
order and ruling of the secretary of the interior, and by which the Holladay
Railroad Company could do as they pleased with the land grant. Secretary
Delano took time to investigate the matter, and after such investigation he
made an official order and ruling on the points raised by Wilson, Holladay,
Mitchell and Williams, and over-ruled their opinions and request in every
particular, and ordered the general land commissioner to limit the sale of the
railroad lands to actual settlers only, and in tracts of 160 acres only; and then
sent a copy of this order and ruling to Attorney General Williams and to Holla-
day's land company. To this letter of the secretary of the interior Attorney
General Williams replied, arguing in favor of the railroad company and asking
Secretary Delano to retract his opinion. To this second letter of Williams,
Delano replied, refusing to retract his opinion, and again reiterating his opinion
that the act of congress meant just what it said, and that the railroad lands
should not be sold to speculators, but only to actual settlers, and in tracts of
only 160 acres each. To this second letter of Delano's Attorney General Wil-
liams wrote another letter asking the secretary of the interior to return to him
(Williams) all the correspondence on the subject-and Secretary Columbus
Delano flatly refused to grant the request.
Now it had so happened in the course of human events that this man, Col-
umbus Delano, had as one of a committee examined the qualifications of the
writer of this book upon an application for admission to practice law in the
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
671
supreme court of the state of Ohio. And had in that way made the personal
acquaintance and become the friend of the author of this book; and that after
this aforesaid correspondence with Attorney General Williams, he (Delano)
wrote a letter to the then president of the Oregon Central Railroad Co., the
author of this book, who had before that date removed from Ohio to Oregon;
and in this letter detailed the facts of the above mentioned correspondence with
Attorney General Williams. And when after Ex-Senator Nesmith and others
had failed to influence President Grant to recall the nomination of Judge Wil-
liams for chief justice, and when, after Senator Edmunds had held up that
nomination for two weeks to enable Nesmith to make all the opposition he
could and had practically failed, the author of this book wrote a letter to Judge
Williams, saying: that while he greatly regretted to do so, yet, considering their
former relations, unless he, George H Williams should immediately withdraw
his name from the senate as the nominee for the office of chief justice, a copy
of all the aforementioned. correspondence with Secretary Delano would be
given to George F. Edmunds, chairman of the judiciary committee of the senate.
Within twenty-four hours after that letter reached Williams his nomination to
the high office was withdrawn from the senate.
When George H. Williams was a candidate for the office of U. S. senator he
was entertained at the home of the author of this book in Jacksonville, Oregon;
and who spent his time and money to elect Williams to the senate under a promise
from Williams that he would, if elected senator, favor this writer in securing the
railroad land grant. This promise Judge Williams did not keep, but on the
contrary went over to the other side and by his great ability and influence as a
senator robbed the Oregon Central Railroad Company of its land grant, gave
it to Ben Holladay and ruined the man who had been his friend and served his
ambition-Joseph Gaston struck back, and George H. Williams lost the greatest
honor within the reach of any American citizen.
The character of Judge Williams was singularly inconsistent. With unques
tioned mental abilities of a high order, but more showy and superficial than
substantial, he took notice of his immediate surroundings rather than the legiti-
mate consequences of his acts in his public career. A genial kind-hearted man,
often sacrificing his own real interests to promote the selfish demands of others,
he became a prey to the unscrupulous and aggressive schemes of Ben Holladay
and J. H. Mitchell, for which he was condemned by the popular vote of his
constituents at the election in 1870; and which proved the turning down point
in a noble career and the blighting of a worthy and commendable ambition.
Judge Williams took the senatorial office from the republican party of Oregon
as the most popular man in the state; and returned in six years to find that all
his old friends that had lifted him up had now turned their backs upon him.
All that he had left was the venal support of Holladay and Mitchell; and this
was a curse rather than a benefit. He had taken their commands largely in all
his recommendations for official stations, and had neglected, if not turned his
back upon the men who had stood by him for years. His career in the senate
on the reconstruction of the states lately in rebellion had given him honor and
distinction throughout the nation; but his short-sighted policy about the local
affairs of Oregon had made enemies of such republicans as B. J. Pengra, S. G.
Reed, Col. Cornelius, Wilson Bowlby, Judge Whitson, Gen. Coffin, Wm. Lair
672
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
Hill, Captain Flanders, W. S. Ladd, W. C. Johnson, Judge Chenoweth, James
F. Gazley and many others of equal standing and influence, who either de-
clined to further support him or openly opposed him. The consequence was
that the democrats controlled the legislature of 1870 and elected James K.
Kelly to the senatorial seat of George H. Williams.
CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS
In the development of states and nations under free institutions persons and
personalities are in themselves of but slight account; and at most, like drift-
wood on the mighty stream, show the general course and eddying currents
of human thought, action and responsibility. The characters sketched in this
book, far from being all those deserving of notice, or the most worthy of
notice are yet sufficient to show the fickle fortunes of the human actors upon
the surface of the stream which carries the whole fabric of society to good
or evil ends. Commencing seventy years ago with a handful of bold adven-
turers into a vast and unknown wilderness, we see the soldiers of the Cross
and the rough fortune hunters of the chase, make common cause in that primal
instinct which is the first law of nature-self preservation. Nowhere else on the
American continent, or under the insignia of Anglo-American ideas and insti-
tutions, has the experiment of self-government been so clearly defined by isola-
tion and self-dependence as in Oregon. Whatever, then, has been accomplished
here can be attributed to definite causes. Neither the acquisition of a livelihood
or defense against a common enemy, brought the pioneers to Oregon. But
having risked all the trials and dangers of getting to Oregon, defense against
common enemies compelled them to unite; bread-winning and home-making
united them in a common bond, while poverty and industry compelled them to
be sober, virtuous and studious. The government they formed and maintained
ever since did not of itself confer blessings. While it enabled them to work
together for common defense and education, it conferred no fees or rewards.
In writing to Gen. Lafayette, just after the adoption of the constitution in
1789, George Washington said: "I expect that many blessings will be attributed
to our new government, which are now taking their rise in that industry
and frugality into the practice of which the people have been forced by
necessity.” The Oregon pioneers were successful in founding a model state,
in laying deep and broad the institutions of education, morality, religion,
justice and equal rights before the laws, because they were industrious, frugal,
honest and just. If the laws are not now enforced with justice and impartiality;
if it has become necessary for the governor of the state to resort to the extra-
ordinary powers of his office to compel sworn officials to do their duty to
society, it is not because the laws are not good, but because society itself is
permeated with the germs of its own destruction. A distinguished author
(Chateaubriand) has observed that "every institution passes through three
stages utility, privilege, and abuse.” The Oregonians commenced as the severest
of utilitarians. They made wise and just laws, and established uplifting insti-
tutions. But their fat soil, their wealth of mines and forests and commerce,
poured out unexampled wealth, which begat luxury, idleness, display, pride, van-
ity, vice and crime--and the old, old battle is here, as everywhere. Where the car-
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON
673
cass is, there will the eagles be gathered. And where civilization ceases to dispense
rewards to industry, honesty and virtue, the backward movement towards
anarchy and barbarism again sets in; because man cares less for life than the
things for which he lives.
Vol. 1-43
INDEX
Atlantis, lost island of, 2.
Aubrey, Thomas N., 340.
Avery, Thomas W., 351, 352.
Abernethy, George, a saver of Oregon, 276.
Abiqua, the battle of, 390.
Adams, Ephraim, 347.
Adams, W. L., pioneer editor and politician,
626.
Agent, real-estate, first in Oregon, 201.
British, play to the hands of slave-lolders,
228, 229.
Agricultural societies, the first, 332.
Agriculture, started in Oregon, 539.
Aikin, H. L., 347.
Ainsworth, Capt. J. C., starts transportation
company, 371.
Alaska, discovered by Russians, 6.
Albany Academy, founded, 577.
Albany College, 606.
Allen, Samuel, 346.
Allphin, William, 348.
America, how named, 17.
American rule, germ of, in Oregon, 160.
Ancient times, gold and silver in, 487.
Anian, Strait of, 4; hunted for 200 years, 5.
Animal industries, 544, 545.
Animals, domestic, when introduced, 326;
predaceous, 479.
"Apex," the law of, 489.
Applegate, Jesse, his account of the emigrant
train, 247, 248.
Apples, first planting, XVIII, 330.
Astor, John J., birth and education, 101;
expeditions of, 45-47; betrayed by part-
ners, 51; great work of, 62; commended by
Thomas Jefferson, 102; tries to organize
a company at St. Louis, 102; seeks part-
ners in Canada, 103; organization of Oregon
Co., 104; builds forts on upper Columbia
107; last chapter of Astoria venture, 108;
his great work, 62.
Astoria, founding of, XVII; named Fort
George, XVII; now located, 105; at the
gate. 445.
Atkinson, G. H., prepares Gov. Lane's mes-
sage on public schools, 591.
Baker County, 459.
Ball, John, first school teacher, 588.
Banks, and money, 559; list of, in 1912,
560-568.
Baptists, select schools started by, 579.
Barker, William S., 347.
Barlow, Samuel, saves lives, 252, 253.
Barnes, George A., 351.
Battle, bravest ever fought, 616.
“Battle Rock," battle of, 397, 398.
Baum, John, 342.
Beaver money, 493.
Bees, colonies of, 548.
Belknap, Mrs. Jane, 353.
Bellinger, Charles B., his code, 663, 664.
Bellinger, J. H., 342.
Bennett "Bill” starts business, 360.
Benton County, 445, 446.
Benton, Thomas H., prediction of, XI; pro-
claims the right to Oregon, 220; friend of
Oregon, 267; appeals for Oregon, 388.
Bethel Academy, The, 580.
Bewley, Isaac W., 347.
Biographies, use and value of, XIV.
Blair, Mrs. Emeline Buell, 341.
Blanchet, 584.
Blanco, Cape, discovered by Spanish, S.
“Blue Bucket Mines," 495.
Bonneville, Lieut., expedition of, 57.
Bonser, Stephen, 350.
"Book of Heaven," Indian messengers seek-
ing, 279.
Bozarth, Mrs. Asenath M. Luelling, 348.
Bridger, Jim, explorer and friend of Oregon
emigrants, 52, 53.
Briggs, Albert, 343.
Bristow, W. W., 352.
Brown, J. Henry, historian, 622.
Brown, Mrs. Tabitha M., a founder of a col-
lege after an awful experience, 598, 599.
675
676
INDEX
Brown, Valentine, 620.
Buchanan, James, proclaims the right to the
whole of Old Oregon, 220.
Buchtel, Joseph, secures the land at Champoeg
for a memorial site, 205.
Buell, Elias, 341.
Building, city, 321.
Burkhart, Leander C., 348.
Burns, Hugh, troubles of, financing Indian
war, 200.
Bush, Asahel, pioneer editor, 626.
Calhoun, John C., pawns Oregon to keep
England from seizing Texas, 228.
California, an island, 5, 6.
Campbell, Alexander, 580.
Campbellites, The, 580.
Canby, Gen'l, murder of, with others, 418, 419.
Capital, State, battles for, 426.
Capitol Building, burned down, 428.
Cardwell, Dr. J. R., planted first commercial
orchard in Oregon, 541.
Carver, Jonathan, names Oregon, 25, 26.
Cascades, Indian attack at, 409-415.
"Catholic Ladder," The, 380.
Catholics, The, 584; French, oppose organiza-
tion of government, 172; statistics of,
584, 585; societies of, 586.
Cattle, imports of, 545.
Census, first taken in Oregon, 424; first under
United States authority, 425.
Chamberlain, Mrs. Olive Warren, 349.
Champoeg, the historic site, 205.
Chandler, Rev. George C., first principle of
McMinnville College, 604.
Chapman Code, The, 662.
Chapman, W. W., buys an interest in Port-
land, 365; railroad work of, 530.
Cheese factories, 546.
China, tribute on traders to Oregon levied
by, 210.
Cholera, the great scourge, 250.
Christian Science, 587.
Churches, organization of, in Oregon, 575;
United Presbyterian, of Oregon, 577; Sta-
tistics of, 583; notes of, 586, 587; making
no reports, 588.
City, the now located, 321.
Civilization, advance of, by fur trading, 111;
two types of, clash on Columbia, 377.
Clackamas County, 443.
Clark, George Rogers, captures, Old Vincennes,
150; Clark and George Washington, 150,
151.
Clark, Rev. Harvey, 577; comes to Oregon,
124; the Christian, 602.
Clarke, Mrs. Anna, 341.
Clarke, Samuel A., historian, 622.
Clatsop County, 444.
Clay, Henry, holds title to all of Old Oregon
good, 217.
Cleavage, line of, starts, 160; Protestant v.
Catholic, American v. British, 161.
Code Commissioner, the first, 662.
Codes of Laws, 661.
Coffey, Nebuxardan, 345, 346.
Coffin, General Stephen, organizes “Union
League," 655; Coffin, Chapman and Lowns-
dale, notices of, 366-368; buys an interest
in Portland, 365; gives a church site, 579.
College athletes, 596, 597.
College decadence, 597.
College fraternities, 596.
Colleges and universities, 595, 596; Catho-
lic, 604, 605.
Collegiate fads, 596.
Collins, Luther, 344.
Colnett, Capt., of English ship, arrested by
Spanish captain, 211.
"Colonial Period,” The, 261.
Columbia County, 456, 457.
Columbia River, first put on map, 6; named
"River of the West," 6; discovered by Capt.
Gray, XI, 16; discovery of, not recognized
by Congress, 217; free navigation of, con-
ceded to England for ten years, 218.
Columbus, his connection with Oregon, 1.
Colvig, W. W., review of the Rogue River
wars, 404, 405.
Comegys, Jacob, 346.
Commerce, commencement of, 333.
Commercial City, locations of, 320.
Condon, Thomas, 132; great scientist, 615.
Congregationalists, start of, 577.
Congress, first Oregon bill in, XVII; first
memorial to, from Oregon, 163; first propo-
sition in, to occupy Oregon, 163, 164; sec.
ond memorial to, from Oregon, 164.
Conser, Mrs. Jacob, 352.
Constitution, provisional, 644-648.
Constitutional Convention, The, 429; members
of, 429, 430; personnel of, 431; character
of some of its members, 432.
Cook, Capt., character of, 10, 11; started Pa-
cific coast fur trade, 11; voyage to Ore-
gon, 209; nakes known to world rich furs
of Oregon, 209.
Cooper, Chandler, 341.
Coos County, 455, 456.
Coquille, discovered by Spanish, 7.
Corbett, H. W., first wholesale merchant, 371,
372; elected senator, 667.
Corvallis gets and loses the Capital, 427, 428.
Couch, John H., starts commerce in Oregon,
333, 334; locates the Oregon metropolis,
INDEX
677
334; a founder of Portland, 361; Couch
and Flanders start Oregon Central Railroad
with depot grounds, 373.
County organizations, 443.
Court, Supreme, decides Salem Railroad Com-
pany to be a fraud, 523.
Covenanters, The, 584.
Cowan, Robert, 346.
Cox, Joseph, 343.
Cox, Thomas, 343.
Craig, D. W., pioneer editor and founder of
the Republican party in Oregon, 626.
Crain, J. H., 342.
Crater Lake, how formed, 142; and forest,
479.
Crawford, John David, 344, 345.
Crook County, 460.
Crops, value of, 548.
Crosby, Capt., builds first frame house in
Portland, 362.
Cumberland Presbyterians, a college started
by the, 578.
Curry County, 457.
Curry, George L., pioneer editor and gover-
nor of Oregon, 625.
Cyanide gold saving, 501.
Eells, Rev. Cushing, missionary to Oregon,
124; first principal of Tualatin Academy,
602.
Election, first held in Oregon, 422, 423; first
four officials under U. S. authority, 426;
first congressional, 643.
Elliott, S. G., railroad promoter, 520.
Empire, march of, XI.
England, claims nothing by Drake's discovery,
7; claims Oregon, 9; piratical expeditions
of, 12; English and Spanish claims con-
flict, 15; claims the Ohio Valley, 24; war
with, in 1812 ruins Astor, 51; trading mo-
nopolies incorporated by, 209, 210.
Episcopalians, The, 581; history in Oregon,
582.
Evangelism, era of, 113.
"Evans Creek," battle of, 398.
Everett, Mr. and Mrs., 344.
Evolution, effects of, seen in Oregon history,
XIII, XIV.
Executive Committee, message, 184.
Expeditions, independent, 52; first Spanish
to Oregon coast, 208; second Spanish to
Oregon coast, 208.
Exposition, Lewis & Clark, 569-571.
Express carriers, 509, 510.
Daily paper, first in Oregon, 625.
Dairy produce, 545.
Davidson, James, 345.
Davis, Henry W., 342.
Davis, Leander L., 349.
Deady, M. P., 431, 432; codes of, 662, 663;
greatest lawyer of Oregon, 662, 663; Deady,
Williams, and Mitchell contrasted, 668, 669.
Democrats resolved to organize, 650, 651.
Des Chutes River, most wonderful stream,
485, 486.
Dillon, William H., 349.
Dimick, A. R., 350.
Doctor, the first in Oregon, XIX.
Dolph, J. N., elected senator, 667.
Douglas County, 452.
Drake, Sir Francis, when on Oregon Coast?
XV.
Dryer, Thomas J., notice of, 437; founder of
The Oregonian, 626; Dryer and Busch, their
battles begin, 426.
Dundee, center of walnut crops, 542.
Duniway, Abigail Scott, 657.
Fackler, Rev. St. M., 342, 343,
Fackler, Samuel, 344.
Failing, Henry, a great merchant and bank-
er, that was "a just man and loved mercy,"
372, 373.
Fairs, State, 568, 569.
Farley, John T., 344.
Farm products, the first, 325.
Farmers, the, how they started, 325; increase
of debts of, 550; nativity of, 550.
Farms, number and value of, 548, 549.
Fields, Hugh, 350.
"Fifty-four, Forty, or Fight,” 220.
Finley, W. L. protector of bird life, 479,
480.
Fisher, Mrs. John, 349.
Fish hatcheries, 477, 478.
Fiske, Rev. Wilbur, appeals for mission-
aries to Oregon, 117; and Evangelism, 117.
Flanders, Capt. G. H., locates in Portland, 362.
Flax, culture of, 540.
Flouring mill, first American, 556.
Floyd, John, works for Oergon, 236.
Ford, Mrs. R. A., 349.
Forests, the great, 482.
Fraser, Simon, expeditions of, 39-41.
Fremont, Lieut., expeditions to Oregon and
California, 59-61; his part in making Cali-
fornia an American state, 61.
Friends, The, (Quakers), 587.
Earth, the, views of its shape by Plato, 2;
Ptolemy, 1; Marco Polo, 2; Toscanelli, 2;
Columbus, 2; maps of imaginary regions
of, 5.
Eastman, William, defends the flag, 654.
Edwards, Philip L., first school teacher in
state of Oregon, 590.
678
INDEX
Fruit, first planting, 330; crops of, 1911, sta- visional, value of, 260; provisional, politics
tistics of, 543; packing of, 558.
in, 641-643; provisional, powers of, 646.
Fuca, Straits of, discovered by? XV; wrongly Governor, his message of December 1, 1846,
named for an imposter, 5.
194.
Fulton, James, 347.
Grange, The, 633.
Fur companies, arbitrary rule of, in the Grant County, 459.
wilderness, 98, 99; wars between, 99, 100; Gray, Captain Robert, goes around the world,
Mackinaw, 100; Astor's, 101, 102; the XVI; discovers Columbia River, XVI, 16.
service they rendered to civilization, 111; Gray, William H., accompanies Whitman to
fur hunting opened new regions to settle- Oregon, 124; first to propose public school,
ment, 91, 92.
190; the irrepressible agitator, 204; his-
Fur hunters and trappers, 98; their rendez- torian, 622; “Great Spirit.” Indian idea
vous and fandango, 98.
of, 73.
Fur trading, first on Pacific coast, IV, XVI; Greeley, Horace, his opinion of the Oregon
contrasted with gold mining, 14.
emigration, 249.
Greenwood, William, 353.
Game, destruction of, 476, 477; wild, de- Griffin, Burrell B., 351.
struction of, 479; reserves, 480.
Griffin, Rev. John S., missionary to Oregon,
Gass, Patrick, member of Lewis and Clark 124.
party, 35, 36.
Groseilliers and Radisson open Great Lakes
Gaston, Joseph, his railroad work, 527.
region, 92.
Geer, Joseph Carey, 350.
Grover, L. F., compiler of Archives, 662.
Geer, Ralph C., 350; his account of the battle
of "Abiqua," 391.
Hamlin, Nathaniel, 352.
Geology, Oregon, 132-145; economic, 145, 146. Hanging, first on Pacific coast, XVII.
George, Fort, renamed Astoria, XVII.
Harney County, 461, 462.
Gilliam, Col., Indian fighter, 384, 385. Harrison, Hugh, 349.
Gilliam County, 461.
Hau, Mr., 350.
Glover, William, 349.
Headrick, Samuel, 346.
Goat, The, comes to Oregon, 327, 328.
Heceta, explorer, 208; sees mouth of Columbia
Gold, mining of, contrasted with fur hunting, River, 208.
91; discovery of, 334, 369, 370, 490; Hendricks, J. M., 352.
United States laws and gold come at same Hennepin, Father, denounced as a fakir, 21.
time, 337-339; excitement at Portland be- Henry, Andrew, expedition of, 41, 42.
cause of discovery of, 369; great value of, Heroes, the real thing, 388.
to world, 491; discovered by an Oregonian, Hicklin, John L., 352, 353.
491; discovered in Oregon, 494; discovery Hidden, Mrs. M. L. T., 620, 621.
of, in eastern Oregon, 495.
Higginson, Mrs. Ella, 620.
“Golden Circle," Knights of, 654.
Hill, J. J., his work in Oregon, 537.
"Goose Hollow," 370.
Hill, Wm. Lair, his code, 663.
Government, first move for, XIX; first steps Himes, George H., 623.
to organize a provisional, 165; second meet- Hines, Harvey K., historian, 623.
ing to promote organization of, June 1, History, unity of, XIII; autograph, 627-633.
1841, 166; provisional, first meeting for, Hodges, Jesse Monroe, 342.
February 18, 1841; 166; provisional, mect- Holgate, John C., 344.
ing at Champoeg, May 2, 1843, 175; voters Holladay, Ben, comes to Oregon, 522; char-
in favor of, 175, 176; opponents, 177;
acter of, 526.
provisional, first steps toward, 178, 179;
Home, first American, west of Rocky Moun-
provisional, first principles of, 181, 182;
tains, 284.
Hood River County, 462.
provisional, military force of, 183, 184;
Hood River, first to, export apples, 542.
provisional, treasury, first report from,
Hops and beer, production of, 544.
187; treasury report of provisional, 196;
Horticulture, 540.
provisional, bonds of, 200, 201; provisional,
House, first in Old Oregon, 14, 211.
last acts of, 201; provisional, supported by
House-building, in Old Oregon by English ob-
McLoughlin, 202; provisional, character of
jected to by Spain, 211.
founders of, 203; provisional, foundling Houston, Robert, 348.
state, lines by Joaquin Miller, 203; pro- Hubbard, Charles, 348, 349.
INDEX
679
Hudson's Bay Company, 92; charter of, 92,
93; great powers of, 94; territory of,
larger than United States in 1842, 94;
fur trade of, 95, 96; government of, 96,
97; claims sovereignty over Oregon, 110;
why it favored the Catholics, 129; manage-
ment of Indians by, 96, 97; not dis-
franchised, 189; early farming of, 539, 540;
strife between Catholics and Protestants
induced by, 639-641.
Huffman, Bert, records origin of the People's
party, 656, 657.
Hunsaker, Joseph, 346.
Hunt, G. W., his work on railroads, 536, 537.
Hunt, Wilson Price,, expedition of, 47-49;
terrible trials of, on Oregon trail, 50.
Huntington, C. P., agrees to build railroad to
Oregon, 528.
Hurford, Susanna T., 341.
fame, 265; on national union, 266; his
opinion of the English, 266.
John, Chief, the great fighter, 402; last
speech of, 402, 403; character of, 404.
Johnson, James, 341.
Johnson, William, a notable man and honor-
able character in Portland history, 363.
Joint Occupancy, treaty of, 216; treaty of,
extended, 217; held to be a treaty of non-
occupation, 218.
Josephine County, 458, 459.
Justices of the Peace, appointed by Meth-
odists, 162.
Kamm, Jacob, first in steamboat develop-
ment, 371.
Kelley, Hall J., arrives in Oregon, XIX; starts
missions, 115; informs the churches about
Oregon, 233; first Oregon promoter, 232,
268, 269; an educator of the people, 271; a
saver of Oregon, 272.
Kelly, Rev. Clinton, 352.
Kincaid, H, R., pioneer editor and publisher,
627.
King, Amos N., locates King's addition, 359.
King, Colonel William, first politician, 361.
Kinney, Robert Crouch, 346.
Klamath County, 460.
Immigrants, trials and effects of, XIII.
Improvements, internal, 503.
Indian Lands, purchase of, 414, 415.
Indians, not benefited by missionaries, 59;
their tribes and families in Oregon, 63-71;
native character, 71, 72; ideas of Great
Spirit,” 73; confidence in the coyote, 73;
belief in Supreme Being, 75; population of,
in 1842, 77, 78; jargon language, 178-80;
sign language of, 82; the white men who
demanded justice for, 82; his complaints of
injustice, 83; his land question, 83, 84;
speeches of great Indian chiefs, 84, 85;
Judge Story's opinion, 87; fear of losing
land, 87, 88; Great Council of, 88; popu-
lation of, in 1910, 88, 89; fear of smallpox,
107, 108; the appeal for the Book of
Heaven, 116; answered in 1840 by De
Smet, 118, 119; the Indian, a stone age
man, 72; had no standard of values, 72;
good Indians, 76,77; Iroquois, seek religious
teachers, 118; habits of, 73; the names of
the white men who contended for justice
to, 82, 83; Indian demoralization, 391;
Rogue River, 392; murders of white men
by, 395, 396; idea of religion, 573, 574.
Lake County, 460.
Land, first proposition of, to Oregon settlers,
238; free, and "lick the British," settled
Oregon, 233; foundation of the colony, 316;
titles to, 317, 647, 648; irrigation of arid,
481.
Lands, mineral, sale of, commenced, 488.
Lane County, 450, 451.
Lane, Governor, his first treaty with Rogue
River Indians, 393; his Indian passports,
394; compared with Ogden, 394, 395;
second treaty of, 398; in desperate straits,
401; appointed first United States governor
of Oregon, 422; issues first proclamation as
governor, 591.
La Rocque, George, 349, 350.
La Salle, great French explorer, 20, 21; gives
the Mississippi Valley to the French king,
22; death of, 23.
Laughlin, Samuel, 348.
Lausanne, the, and passengers sail for Ore-
gon, 1.13.
"Jack, Captain," leader of desperadoes, 416.
Jackson County, 452, 453.
Jackson, President Andrew, explains why
England would not settle the boundary
line, 226, 227.
Jeffers, Joseph, 341, 342.
Jefferson, Thomas, letter to Astor: 102;
writes to Clark about exploring the west,
151; and John Ledyard's scheme, 152;
becomes president, 152; sends a secret
agent to old St. Louis in 1802, 153; his
Lava-bed massacre, the, 418.
Lee, Jason, selected as first missionary to
Oregon, 119; why did he not answer the
call of the Flatheads, 120, 121; see him at
work building his log cabin in Oregon, 121;
services of, 130; why did he not attend the
Champoeg meeting? 205; Lee, Whitman
680
INDEX
and McLoughlin, contrasted, 277, 278;
birth and ancestry of, 281, 282; chosen for
the Oregon mission, 282; memorial to Con-
gress, 287, 288; second visit to the presi-
dent, 291.
Lee, Nicholas, 352.
Leese, Jacob P., his adventure, 326; sends
the first sheep to Oregon, 326.
Legal Tender, what was, in 1845, 560.
Leslie, David, first American judicial officer
in Oregon, 162.
Levee, public fight over, 535.
Lewis, C. H., first wholesale grocer, 372.
Lewis, Joe, the Indian rascal, 386.
Lewis and Clark, cross continent, name rivers
etc., XVI; expedition of, 31; leave St.
Louis in 1804, 32.
Lincoln County, 462.
Lincoln and Douglas, 651.
Linenberger, David, 353.
Linn County, 446.
Linn, David, 453.
Linn, Senator, bill in Congress, for Oregon,
1841, 59; bill to organize Oregon territory,
237.
Live stock, census of, 547.
Locke, A. N., 348.
Lord, William Paris, his code, 664.
Louisiana, secretly sold to France, 153; sale
of, to France and excitement of people over,
153; offered to Jefferson by Napoleon, 154.
Lovejoy, A. L., crosses the mountains with
Whitman, 296; founder of Portland, 355,
356; character of, 356, 357.
Lownsdale, D. H., buys half interest in Port-
land townsite, 359.
Lucas, John Baptiste Charles, secret agent,
153.
Lucier, Etienne, first settler in East Portland,
XVIII, 364.
Luelling, Henderson, founder of fruit indus-
try, 330, 331.
Lumber, first cargo from Oregon, 236; manu-
facture of, 557.
Lutherans, The, 582, 583.
Lyman, Horace, historian, 623.
of rival traders and others, 308; starts
first school west of Rocky Mountains, 308;
his treatment of the missionaries, 309;
aids starving immigrants, 311; his life by
Frederick V. Holman, 623.
McMinnville College, 579, 580, 603, 604.
Mackenzie, first white man to cross continent
to Pacific Ocean, an Indian before him,
XVI, 27; discovers Arctic Ocean, 28; crosses
Rocky Mountains, 30; reaches Pacific
Ocean, 31.
Magazine, first in Oregon, 625.
Mails, first, 504.
Malheur County, 461.
Malone, Patrick, notice of, 437, 438.
Man, but one species of, 71; his age on the
earth, 144, 145.
Manufacturers, hard start in Oregon, 555.
Marion County, 449, 450.
Markham, Edwin, 619.
Marks, John, 340.
Marquam, P. A., the “Good Citizen,” 374.
Marquette, Mississippi River discovered by,
20.
Marriages, first on coast, XVII.
Marsh, Sidney H., president of Pacific Uni-
versity, 603.
Martial law, proclaimed by the governor
against vice, 637, 638.
Massey, E. L., 351.
Matthieu, F. X., a saver of Oregon, 274.
Meek, J. L., appeals for American Flag, 173;
appointed messenger to Washington City,
200; a saver of Oregon, 274; his winter
dash across the continent, 387.
Meeker, Ezra, his account of the emigrant
train, 249.
Men, uncommon, great, horny-handed, 240.
Merchandise, prices of, 318.
Merrill, Ashbel, 350.
Merrill, Joseph, 349.
Message, Governor's, December 1, 1846, 191.
Methodists, their work in Oregon, 574.
Miller, Joaquin, 615-617.
Miller, Mrs. Lischen, 621.
Miller, Minnie Myrtle, 618.
Minerals, 501.
Miners, mere slaves in other countries, 487,
488; laws of, adopted, 489; code of, first
in Oregon, 494, 495.
Mines, the rush to, 491, 492.
Mining, commencement of, in United States,
488.
Mining laws, origin of, 488, 490; Mexican,
abolished in California, 489.
Mint, the Oregon, 336, 492; a private, 493.
Minto, John, 621; his account of the emigra-
tion, 252.
McBride, G. W., candidate for senator, 668.
McBride, Dr. James, 344.
McCormick, Rev. P. J., 347.
McCornack, Ellen Condon's work on Oregon
geology, 132.
McKean, Samuel T., 349.
McKinney, William, 347.
McLoughlin, John, condemned by British
agents, 162; his position and opinion on
organization, 162; family and ancestry,
305; comes to Oregon, 306; his treatment
INDEX
681
come
Missionaries, Oregon, rank higher than all
others, 114; Catholic, arrive, XV, 125; why
did they come to Oregon? 115; Lee, the
first, 1834, the Congregationalists in 1835,
XIX; their high rank in self-sacrifice, 114;
why did they come to Oregon? 115; the call
from the Flathead Indians, 117; De Smet
answers call, 118; Jason Lee selected first,
119; Jason and Daniel Lee and Philip L.
Edwards selected, 119; reach Oregon, 120;
why did they not answer the call of the
Flatheads ? 120, 121; what good did they
for the Indians ? 126; Protestant, justified,
129.
Mission school, the first, 590.
Missourians, why they came to Oregon, 238.
Mitchell, John H., buys seat in senate, 655;
career, character and services of, 665, 666.
Modoc War, 415.
Mohair and goats, 547.
Money, coined in Oregon, 336.
Monmouth University, The, 580.
Monroe Doctrine, The, foreshadowed in Ore-
gon case, 225.
Monteith, Walter, 345.
Morgan, Carrie B., 620.
Morris, Bishop, 582.
Morrow County, 460, 461.
Mosier, Mrs. Alice Claget,. 341.
Multnomah County, 457, 458.
"Omnibus Bill," The, 426, 427.
Oregon Agricultural College, The, 606-608.
Oregon, contended for by other nations, XII;
history of, a fruitful field, XII; settle-
ment, of, exceptional, XIII; discovery of,
XV; river of, XV; discovered by Capt. Cook,
XV; region of myths, 3; named "New Al-
bion,” 6; discovered by Drake, 6; discov-
ered by the Spanish, 7; title to, by right
of discovery, 9; claimed by England, 9;
contest for, by England commences, 45;
end of myths about, 8; coast of, 13; coast
of, seen first by Americans (Capt. Gray) in
1788, 13; Catholic priests
to,
XX, 125, 126; Canadian rule in, 163; first
jury trial in, 162; heroic age of, 204; titles
to, Indian, Spanish, England and United
States, 207; English traders under false
colors sail for, 210; contest for, begun by
Spain and England, 211; English and Span-
ish treaty about, 212; sovereignty of,
never surrendered by Spain, 213; Spain's
title to, unbroken, 213; ceded to the United
States by Spain, 213, 214; Russia recog-
nizes right of United States to, 214; title
to, from France and England, 214; Jeffer-
son's efforts to send boundary line of, 215; .
in congress, 216, 217; a country of free
trade but not free settlement, 218; a "no-
man's land," 219; Americans in, compelled
to act, 219; saved by pioneers, 219, 220, 229,
230; denounced as the riddling of creation,
222; title to, shown by facts, 224; claims
and counterclaims to, contrasted, 224, 225;
the ulterior purpose of England in fighting
for, 225; knowledge of, in 1842, 231; emi-
gration to, compared, 231; could not be
populated, 235; fit only for rogues and
scoundrels, 235, 236; land schemes of, 236;
military post to be erected on route to, 237;
people, what sort of started for, 239; start
for, 240; trail on to, 240-244; the outfit
for the trip to, 240; who was to own it,
315, 316; life in early, 318; the first Epis-
copal clergyman drives sheep to, 327; or-
ganized into United States territory, 421;
land grants to, 480; free lands, schools,
canals, etc., to, 480, 481; mountains of, 483;
vast water powers of, 484; coins money,
492; metal production in, 501; railroad
system of, 532; against the world on
apples, 542, 543; apples of, beat all crea-
tion, 542; commerce of, 550-555; Baptists
start to, 579; school system of, criticised,
595; popular sovereignty, announced first in
Oregon, 649; slaves in, 652; goes for the
union, 654; scrapping at the polls in, 654;
code of, 662.
Napoleon, prophecies the maratime suprem-
acy of the United States, 155.
Natural resources, 475.
Negro, rights of, submitted to people, 431.
Nesmith, J. W., judge of Oregon, 188; his
account of the start to Oregon, 245; bears
testimony to Whitman's services, 304;
protests against Indian treachery, 398, 399.
Newby, W. T., a founder of a college, 603.
Newspapers, first in Oregon, XX, 625; the first
hard struggle for support of, 624.
Nootka Sound, headquarters of fur traders,
14, 15.
Northwest Company, 97, 98; seeks to fore-
stall Astor, 106; has control of fur trade
west of Rocky Mountains, 109, 110.
Oat meal, first produced in Oregon, 540.
Officials, territorial and state, lists of, 438,
441.
Ogden, Peter S., rescues prisoners from In-
dians, 379; his speech to the Indians, 380,
381.
Old Oregon, democratic party proclaims right
to the whole of, 220; size of, 221; given up
for fear it might become a free state, 221.
“Old Soap, Socks and Pickles," 556.
Vol. 1-44
682
INDEX
Prettyman, Dr. Perry, 340.
Primary, the direct, 658, 659.
Printing press, first in Oregon, XV.
Prohibition party, 657.
Pruett, J. H., 346.
Prune orchard, 540.
Oregon Central Railroad Company, history
of, 526.
Oregon City, located by McLoughlin, XVIII;
loses the capital, 427, 428.
Oregonian; first paper so named, XIX.
Oregon Institute, The, 576.
Oregon and California Railroad Company,
The, organized, 524.
“Oregon Rifles," the first defenders, 382.
O'Reilly, Bishop, 585.
Overton, William, first settler on Portland
townsite, 355.
Quartz, mining of, begins, 500.
Pacific College, 610-612.
Pacific Ocean, discovery of, 4.
Pacific University, 598, 599; beginning of,
601, 602.
Panama Canal, first mention of, 237; pro-
tests against, 237, 238.
Paper, manufacture of, 558.
Parker, Rev. Samuel, sent to Oregon, 122.
Parrott, Rev. Joseph E., 353.
Patton, Mrs. Polly Grimes, 341.
Payne, Aaron, 343, 344.
Pengra, B. J., his railroad work, 528.
People, first character of, 340.
Peoria party arrives, XX.
Perez, explorer, 208.
Pettygrove, F. W., an owner of Portland
townsite, 357.
Philomath College, 605, 606.
Pike, Lieutenant, expedition of, 38.
Pioneers, original Oregon, 144; unselfishness
of, 202; take trail to Oregon-all aboard,
245.
Political parties, rise of, 649.
Politicians, lawyer, 664.
Politics, the first 426; in 1849—-Busch and
Dryer, 649, 650.
Polk County, 445.
Polk, President, backs down, 220.
Polo, Marco, his connection with Oregon, 2.
Population, white, in 1840, 234; brought over
by ox teams, 253; Indian, 475, 476.
Populist party organized, 655.
Porter, Wm., 352.
Portland, how named, 358.
Postal carriers, 503, 504.
Poujade, Dr. John P., 346.
Poultry, increase of, 547, 548.
Preaching, first in Old Oregon, XIX.
Presbyterians, start of the, 577; Cumberland,
578.
President, he refuses to recognize British
rights west of the Rocky Mountains, 215,
216.
Press, The first Oregon, 625.
Racial character, the evolution of, and ideals,
147.
Railroad contract, S. G. Reed and Company's,
527.
Railroad, transcontinental, 1846, 194; pio-
neer, Oregon proposition, 511, 512; first
bona fide proposition, 513, 514; location of,
517; Oregon Central, history of, 518; con-
test between rival companies begins 520,
521; construction work of, begins, 521;
second land grant to Oregon Central, 527;
mileage, 537, 538.
Ralston, Jeremiah, 344.
Rebel army, some Oregonians join, 653.
Rector, W. H., saves lives, 252, 253.
Reed College, 612-614.
Reed, S. G., founder of Reed College, 373, 374.
Reid, William, railroad work of, 535.
Religious influence, decadence of, 573.
Republican organization, place-hunters seize
the, 654.
Republican party, evolution of, in Oregon,
651.
Reservations, red man and white man on,
486.
Reynolds, Frances Ella, 352.
Robbins, G. C., heart breaking experience
of, 239.
Robinson, Rev. William, 340.
Rogue River Indian War, last battle of, 403.
Rolfe, Tollman H., 348.
Ross, John E., 351.
Rupert's land, 93.
St. Helens to the front, 654.
St. Mary's College, 604.
Sacajawea (Suh-ka-gowea) pointed the way,
37.
Salem, founded, XX; first legislature at, by
private agreement and in Oregon Insti-
tute, 427.
Salmon pack, export of, 477.
Saloons, increase of, 635.
Sanborn, Charles, 347.
Savage, Luther, 350.
Savage, Morgan Lewis, 342.
Sawmill, first in Oregon, XIX.
Scholl, Peter, 341.
School, first in Old Oregon, XVIII, 588; first
INDEX
683
of, sells to N. P. Railroad, 507, 508.
Steamship, first in Oregon, XIX; first to Port-
land, 366.
Stein Mountain, how formed, 143.
Stewart, Benjamin E., 341.
“Sticcus," pilots the emigrants to Oregon,
247.
Stone, David, 351.
Strowbridge, Joseph A., first apple exporter,
331.
Sturges, Mrs. Susan, 352.
Suicide, vice and crime, 634-636.
"Table Rock," battle of, 396; treaty of
peace, 401.
Catholic, 576; public funds for, and for
each county, 591-595.
Scotch traders beat British pirates, 108, 109.
Scott, Bishop, 491, 582.
Scott, Harvey W., 626, 627.
Sea-beach gold, 495.
Secession, some Oregonians join, 653.
Settlements, where first made, 320.
Settlers, how they lived, 317, 318.
Shannon, George, member of Lewis and Clark
party, 36, 37.
Sheep, first importation of, XVIII; first
brought to Oregon, 327.
Sherman County, 462.
Ship, first built in Oregon, XX.
Simmons, Andrew J., 344.
Simon, Joseph, elected senator, 668.
Simpson, Bishop, holds conference in Ore-
gon, 575.
Simpson, Samuel, L., 618, 619.
Slater, J. H., elected senator, 667.
Slavery, question of, submitted to people,
430; wrecks great men, 651.
Smallpox trick, The, 107, 108.
Smith, Buford, 353.
Smith, Delazon, notice of, 436.
Smith, Mrs. Elizabeth, 353.,
Smith party, Jedediah, massacred, XVIII; ex-
pedition of, 53; robbed by Indians, 54; be-
friended by John McLoughlin, 54.
Social conditions in 1848, 337.
South Pass, Rocky Mountains, discovered by
Stewart, XVII.
Spain, renews explorations of Northwest
Coast in 1774, 8; makes strong claim to
Oregon, 8, 9; silent on discoveries on Oregon
coast, 209; war on, threatened by England,
212; appeals to France for aid, 212; Old
Oregon ceded to United States by, 216.
Spalding, Rev. H. H., missionary to Ore-
Tallentine, Mrs. Agnes, 344.
Tannery, the first west of the Rocky Moun-
tains north of Mexico, 359,
Taylor, John F., 347.
Telegraph, first in Oregon, 510.
Tenures, land, original, 128.
Territorial legislature, first under United
States authority, 426.
Terwilliger, James, starts the first business
in Portland, 358.
Thompson, David, expedition of, 43-45; posts
notice of England claim to Old Oregon, 44;
reaches Astoria, July 15, 1811, 44.
Thornton, J. Q., delegate to congress, 387;
promotes great school land aid, 591.
Tillamook Bay, Battle of, 13; named "Mur-
derer's Harbor," 13.
Tillamook County, 453-455.
Timber grabbers, 482.
Timber, vast resources of, 482; conservation
of forests and, 483; monopoly of, 483.
Timotsk, Indian chief, one hundred and
seventeen years old, 88.
Tobacco, native to Oregon, XVII.
Tonquin, The, blown up, XVII, 106; sails for
Oregon, 104.
Townsite, the first in Oregon, XIX.
Townsites, 319.
Trail, the Oregon, 254; located by Hunt and
Stuart, 254; the Oregon, who made it, 256.
Tuality District, 444.
T'Vault, made postmaster-general, 190.
gon, 124.
Spanish sailors explore northwest, 8; claim
the Oregon region, 8, 15.
Specht, Jonas, 342.
Stage coaching, 510.
Stampede, The, to the gold mines, 335, 336.
Stark, Senator Benjamin, charged with dis-
loyalty, 653.
Starr, Rev. John W., 353.
State Capital, on wheels, 427; four towns
compete for, 428.
State, germ of a great, 163; free and slave
state balance must be maintained, 226.
State Officers, the first, 430.
State Organization, strife for, 429.
State University, The, 608-610.
Steam-boat, first on Upper Missouri, 279; the
first, 504, 505; monopoly of, 506; monopoly
Umatilla County, 459.
Umpqua County, 451, 452.
Umpqua River, discovery of, XV.
Union County, 459, 460.
Union party, organized, 653, 654.
Unitarians, The, 581.
Vice monopoly, 636, 637.
Victor, Francis Fuller, historian and poet,
621, 622.
1
684
INDEX
Victor, Mrs., her account of the immigration,
252.
Villard, Henry, comes to Oregon, 508; at
work in Oregon, 529; secures the Northern
Pacific Railroad, 531, 532; character of,
533.
Wagons, the first on the old trail, 255.
Walker, Rev. E. and wife, missionaries to
Oregon, 124; his opinion of reforming an
Indian, 127.
Walker, Robert J., in Polk's cabinet, true to
Oregon, 229.
Waller, Mrs. Jane L., 345.
Wallowa County, 461.
War, Indian, Cayuse, 383; munitions of, in
early days, 386.
Warren, Henry, 345.
Wasco County, 458.
Washington City, Meek, and Thornton at,
388.
Washington County, 446, 447.
Washington, Lady, ship, first to carry Amer-
ican flag around the world, XVI.
Washington and Jefferson join hands to se-
cure Oregon to the United States, 155.
Watson, Mrs. Mary, 342.
Watson, Mr., 350, 351.
Watson, W. P., started fruit growing at
Hood River, 542.
Watt, Ahio S., 351.
Waymire, Uncle Fred, “pizen” to corpora-
tions, 433, 434.
Waymire, John, a character, 359.
Webster, Daniel, gives up old Oregon, 222;
on Oregon boundary, 222.
West, the settlement of the, 19; explorers
of, 19, 20.
Wheeler County, 462.
Whiskey, first factory of, in Oregon, XIX.
governor's message on prohibition of, 194,
195,
White men, first murder of, on Pacific coast,
XV.
White, Mrs. Susan Bowles, 341.
Whitley, Samuel, 347.
Whitman, Dr. Marcus, turns back, 123; sec-
ond start of, 123, 124; massacre of, 87,
128, 301, 375, 376; his over-mountain
winter ride, 130; services of, 130; aids
emigrants, 246; Applegate's praise of, 251;
character and work of, 292, 293; his idea ·
of Indians, 294; and the Catholics, 294,
295; with first wagon on trail, 255; visits
Washington city, 296; his services to emi-
grants, 297; corresponds with government,
297; pioneer of the ox-team and wagon
road, 298; prepares a bill for Congress, 302;
aids emigration, 302, 303; warned of his
danger, 377; why the massacre, 377; mas-
sacre of, opening chapter of seven years
of Indian wars, 382.
Whig party, 651.
Whitney, William, 347.
Wilbur, "Father," cuts news, builds, heals
and preaches, 369.
Wilcox, Dr., the first Portland physician, 360.
Wilkes, Capt., expedition of, 57; travels in
Oregon, 57, 58; his report on Oregon, 59.
Willamette University, 576, 597, 598.
Willamette Valley, future of, XI; natural
beauty of, 131; in 1842, 234.
Williams, Judge, letter on slavery question,
652; why not appointed chief justice of
United States Supreme Court, 668-672.
Wilson, John, 350.
Winnemucca, branch of, defeated by Senator
Williams, 528.
Winship, Jonathan, at Oak Point, XVII; ex-
pedition of, 42, 43.
Wolf meeting, 167-170; to provide bounties
for scalps of wild animals, 168; paved way
for Champoeg meeting, 172.
Woman, white, first on Pacific coast, XVII;
the heroic pioneer, 249, 250; first school
teacher west of Rockies, 262.
Women, the bravest on trail, 252, 253; first
white, over trail, 255.
Woods, Mrs. Margaret McBride, 341.
Woolen mills, start of, 556, 557.
Wyeth, N. J., first shipper of salmon, XVIII;
expeditions of, 55, 56; memoir to congress,
56; starts a town, 56; packs salmon, 56.
Yakima Indian War, 408, 409.
Yamhill County, 447, 448; first settler in
XVIII, 447.
Yamhill Railroad, 533.
Yaquina Bay, discovered by Capt. Cook, 10.
Ho longpr property
Doover Iublie i
II
fi
M
NARXA ENEOSAMIA SZERENSE
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
3 9015 07026 7896
A Mata
...
1
wei
th
܂
;
. .