baS^gtSKI BH2QB8 ®P BBABBBS ' A 1 1 6 1 2 1 1 iu 4 l mm / &*.: IK HHUftOfO|KW % ft ^v j/jf £va Emery Dye THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES GIFT OF COMMODORE BYRON MCCANDLESS f.fi Captain ROBERT GRAY, entering the mouth of the Columbia. Western Series of Readers. — Vol. VII STORIES OF OREGON BY EVA EMERY DYE, A.M. Author of "McLoughlin and Old Oregon' It seems to rue highly important that as much attention as possible should be paid to the local history of Oregon before the present generation passes from the scene. The history of the Northwest coast region seems to me full of fascinating interest, and you have still the rare privilege of being in touch with the early traditions. I sincerely hope you will be prospered in your attempts to cultivate the study of Oregon history and make it popular. — John Fiske, to Secretary of the Oregon Statt Historical Society. SAN FRANCISCO THE WHITAKER AND RAY COMPANY (incorporated) 1900 COPYRIGHT, 1900 BY Eva Emery Dye F PREFACE. There is not a boy or girl in Oregon who has not at some time been a rapt listener to the fireside tale of "crossing the plains." Grandmother with her knitting, grandfather spar- kling with the fires of youth, spins the tales of long ago. The small boy stands with open-mouthed wonder at what those Indians did "when grandfather came." The girl dreams in the night-time of those fascinating frolics when grandma danced to the tune of " Pretty Betty Martin " on the velvety plains of the Platte. Dr. McLoughlin looms in that magic realm as a veritable knight of chivalry, and Fort Vancouver seems like some fairy castle beside the blue Columbia. When an excursion goes up to the Cascades, how the boys and girls lean to catch a glimpse of where the flag of Britain waved above Vancouver's palisades ! They see there now a United States' military post, with the Stars and Stripes above the barracks. Almost in the realm of myth and fable seems that far time when Governor Abernethy had the finest house in the valley, and mamma and other girls of that day played "shinny" in his front yard. But the very stumps that he painted white, that he might find his way home on dark and rainy nights, have disappeared. The house itself has fallen into the Wil- lamette, and beside the skeleton bricks of Abernethy's old well the school boys and girls of to-day dig and dig in the river sands for those precious bits of arrow-heads that some ancient arrow-maker chipped in the long, long ago. Many a boy and girl has a string of beads gathered by old Indian graves, and holding them up, says, "Tell me, mamma, about those Indians, and how they flattened their little babies' 5 6 PREFACE. heads. And did you hear them cry for weeks until their poor little hrains were numbed? And were they fiatheads ever after?" And for the thousandth time mamma repeats the story of that baby-cradle, and of those moccasins, and of that beautiful beaded pouch that some Indian chieftain wore when he was shot in the war of '55. Bobbie Birnie watching for the ships at old Astoria, Jason Lee and his Indian boys and girls, Whitman and his mission, Spalding and his printing-press, and Pambrun and his pretty children, where Bonneville came on the Walla Walla, are better than fairy tales. They hear about Dr. Barclay, the Hudson's Bay physician that came and settled in Oregon City and had a riding of forty miles up and down the Willamette ; they hear how poor Lady Jane Franklin came through this way, seeking for her husband lost in the Arctic ; how grandma baked bread in a Dutch oven, and entertained the son of England's Premier, Sir Robert Peel, with a bed in the attic loft and a plate of venison steak ; how the friends came to Aunt Mary's wedding on horse- back, through the mud, with their party dresses on, all the way from Tualatin and Rickreall ; how those French-Canadians danced and danced and danced in their cabins at Champoeg ; and how McLoughlin went to hear the priest say mass in the little church at St. Paul's. Young matrons linger at the grave of Anna Maria Lee, and in secret shed tears over her memory. These stories ought to be preserved ; you, boys and girls of to-day, have a precious opportunity that may be gone to- morrow. In a few more years all the pioneers who can tell these tales of the olden time will be dead. Sit by them to-day and write their stories out. Your teachers will be glad to have them for essays in the schoolroom. Historians are dili- gently gathering up tales of Couch and Barlow, and Applegate and Minto, and all the data of those trips across the plains. Can you not be little historians, gathering up the bits of legend that together make the picture of that early time? There may PREFACE. 7 be old letters in the trunks of your attics, — old journals that, if not taken care of, will some day get into the fire. Some of you have aunts and uncles in Massachusetts, Ohio, Missouri, who have bundles of yellow letters written here in Oregon in the long ago. How much they tell ! I have found some of those bundles that were worth their weight in gold. And your friends back there will be glad to gather them up and send them out to you. One man sent me a thin little journal that he valued at fifty dollars. Out of such material history is made. That is the work of the State Historical Society, to gather up and treasure all these records of the past. The Native Sons and Daughters, too, preserve all these documents, and you can help them. This one hundred years in which the American people have been moving west and west is at an end. There is no more west, but into the ocean, or north into Alaska. You, boys and girls, belong to the twentieth century. What wonders may you not see before you die? You may go to New York in an airship yet, or fly to Yokohama. Do not let your speculation on the future cloud your interest in the past. The wisest look both ways. Go to some old pioneer in your neighbor- hood. He leans heavily upon his cane ; but how his eye will brighten when you ask him to tell you what he has seen! Why, he remembers away back before the telegraph, when postboys carried the swiftest messages. He can tell you when Milwaukie rivaled the city of Portland, and of the stage-coach before the Southern Pacific came through, and of the beaver money, and of Kamiakin, Tecumseh of the Coast, and of the Oregon Spectator. Copies of that old paper are priceless now. ' See if you have any stowed away in some forgotten chest. One object of this little book is to enable you more intelligently to ask questions, and find out more than this book gives of all those heroes of the early days of Oregon. Eva Emery Dye. Oregon City, Oregon, June 15, 190O. J OREGON MEMORIAL l>\^s Discovert of the Columbia, Mai II. 1792. Boundary Settlement, June 15, 1846. Admission to THE [Jnion, FEBRUARY II. 1850. CONTENTS. Tin. Wat to [ndia . Ships i bom Boa POS Tin: Btobi "i Lkwib \m> Clakk BTOBl "I JoHM -I M OB A.8TOB 'Jill. BrOBl "i M< I- HI. is IImwiviii.k g tOBI "I in r M [B8ION IBIBS TlIK WOI I Mil PINQB 'I'm. Winning is Wbsi 'I'm Catxtbi Wab . . . ( M; ' : CONGBE86 I'm |)\1 v ,,1 ( ,..i 11 Jo Lank and thb [ndi v\s K VMI AKIN \V \K 111 IBOl B . . . . 'I'm 1. Coming 01 mi: Railboad I PAGE 13 23 33 57 71 s7 91 100 113 L25 134 152 163 174 182 I '.if, ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE ( laptain Gray entering the Month of the < Solumbia Fronlispit ■ ■ Captain Gray's old Sea Chest 22 Pillars of Hercnles, on the Columbia .... 32 CJptaill William Chirk 34 Captain Meriwether Lew La 35 Mount Hood .... 44 Falls of the Willamette 52 Mult in. inah Falls 56 Dr. John McLonghlin, the Father of Oregon 7u Fori Vancouver ,s Fori Walla Walla < >1<1 Mission 1 louse . . 92 Jo Meek, the Trapper M The Old Institute, Salem 96 Old Home of Governor Ibernethy HO Firsl Prote8tan1 Church Weal of the Rocky Mountain- . 114 Where Chloe Boone Taught School 122 Thomas Hart Benton 135 Oregon Beaver Coin. In the Days of Gold .... 155 Table Rock 1,is Sheridan's First Battle-Ground. Cascades of the Colum- bia — Memaloose Island 178 Col. E. D. Baker 183 Brevel Brigadier-General Owen Bummers 190 Chaplain Will 8. Gilbert 192 U THE WAY TO INDIA. " Columbus, seeking the back door of Asia, found himself knocking at the front door of America." — James Russell Lowell. OUR hundred years ago all the world was seeking a seaway to India. For ages, the gold, the silk, the spices, "The wealth of Ormus and of Iud," had been brought to Europe on the backs of camels, through the dusty deserts of Asia. But now the Turks had sent their battle-line across that path. Some other road must be found. Long, long ago, Marco Polo had crossed Asia, and brought back wonderful tales of great kings and rich cities beside a dis- tant sea. "I will find that India," said Christopher Columbus. "In my good ship will I sail that distant sea." And he set out. He found America, but he did not know it. Columbus KEFEBENCE TOPICS. The search for India. Explorers and routes. The Pacific discovered. The River of the West discovered, May 11, 179:2. 14 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. died, thinking he had found India; that close be- side it lay Marco Polo's Cipango (Japan), and the land of the Great Khan (China). Balboa followed Columbus to find the rich cities. He stopped, — " Silent, on a peak of Darien," facing a western sea. Magellan thought he would coast around this barrier shore to India. He came to the strait bearing his name, and sailing bravely through, entered that same Balboa sea. Coleridge sings of it in "The Ancient Mariner" : — "The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The furrow followed free ; We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea.'" Northward, for weeks Magellan lay becalmed. " Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion ; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean." On account of this great calm, Magellan named the sea " Pacific." On, still westward, seeking the islands of spice, Magellan found the Ladrones, and then the Philippines, where he lost his life in a struggle with the natives. His men Avent on and on to Spain, the first to sail around the earth. THE WAY TO INDIA. 15 Tales brought home set Spain on fire. India meant gold, power. For this, Spain, and all the world with her, plunged into unknown perils of land and sea and savage tribes. Their paths were marked by dead men's graves. Cortez, seeking for India, found Mexico, and conquered it. Pizarro stumbled upon the treasures of Peru. Cordova penetrated Nicaragua, where we, to-day, are plan- ning to build the great canal. This idea of a canal for ships is as old as the first explorers, only they expected to find a natu- ral canal through some strait or river. When- ever the Indians mentioned a great water farther on, "Ah, yes, yes," cried the hopeful old explor- ers; "now we have it. That must be the way to India." And away they set out with renewed ardor ; for whatever nation found that short cut from sea to sea would rule the commerce of the world. With what rosy dreams De Soto toiled to the Mississippi, where, worn out, he died, and was buried beneath its dark waters. Looking for In- dia, Henry Hudson sailed up the noble river Hud- son, and afterward into Hudson's Bay, where his mutinous men sent him adrift in that waste of waves. Cartier, the Frenchman, ascended the St. Law- rence, hoping to find an outlet to the land of silk 16 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. and spice. Farther still, the brothers Verendrye discovered the Shining Mountains. For this, Du • luth, La Salle, Marquette, pierced the inner wilds. The old home of La Salle in Canada is called La Chine (China) to this day. John and Sebastian Cabot directed their caravels to Labrador, peering, peering everywhere for a break to seas beyond. Cabeza de Vaca and Fray Marcos journeyed far to the north of Mexico in search of the Seven Cities of Cibola. Alarcon ascended the Colorado River in boats from the Gulf of California. Coronado came up through Arizona. Romancers told of a fabulous northwest passage to the great ocean at the west, and ships and men uncounted sought and sailed in vain. Expedition after expedition crossed the Atlantic, and beat against the shores of this new world, until, in try- ing to find India, all the eastern bays and inlets of America yielded up their secrets. Persistent rumors of a mighty river of the west were early circulated on the Atlantic coast. Many thought this river would solve the problem of the route to India, connecting somewhere with the East. Jonathan Carver, a Connecticut Yankee, traveled to the Dakotas. He said the River of the West was the Oregon, beyond the Shining Moun- tains. How he learned the name, whether an THE WAY TO INDIA. 17 Indian told him, nobody knows, but still more eager explorers set out to find the Oregon. In 1793 Sir Alexander McKenzie and Alexander McKay crossed from Canada by land, and thought they found the Oregon. But no; it proved to be the Fraser, in what is now British Columbia. Some tried by ships, around South America, up and up the Pacific coast, to touch that missing link that bound the seas together. Vitus Bering, at the north, found the end of Asia, and sailed east and east to snowy St. Elias. Spain, Portugal, France, Russia, England, the United States, — six nations, — sent their vessels along the sunset coast to find that hidden stream, the River of the West. How they all missed the Columbia is a curious story. Greek tales say Minerva hid her favorites in a cloud when foes were near. So, perhaps, the Columbia was hid for us. For two hundred years the Spaniards traversed the Pacific, filling their treasure-ships at the Philippines, and claiming every land in sight; but some protecting fog or wind or rain kept them off the Oregon coast. One of them, Bartolome Ferrelo, did discover the rocky headlands of southern Oregon more than 350 years ago. It was in March, the stormy time, and he sailed away. Then Sir Francis Drake came freebooting into 18 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. the Pacific in his stout little ship, the Golden Hind. He chased those Spanish galleons, and plundered them of gold and silver and silks, until his ships could hold no more. Sailing north, he sighted, perhaps, southern Oregon, then striking south and west by way of the Cape of Good Hope, returned at last to England, the second circumnavigation of the earth. While we were fighting the battles of the Revo- lution, the Spaniards were settling California. One of them, Heceta, from Mexico, came up the Oregon coast, and tried to enter the River of the West, but the angry currents beat him back, and in the night drove his ship far out to sea. " I am sure there is a river there," said Heceta, and with- out returning he marked on his map, " Rio de San Roque." By and by, an English captain, Meares, flying the Portuguese flag, came along, and was almost wrecked in trying to enter. " There is no River St. Roc there," growled Meares, and marked on his map, " Deception Bay," and " Cape Dis- appointment." Then England sent the famous Captain Cook, who discovered the Sandwich Islands, and, sail- ing over toward Oregon, he passed the Columbia's mouth unseen on a dark and stormy night. Alas for Captain Cook! North and north he passed to THE WAY TO INDIA. 19 the end of America, only to return and die by the wrathful stroke of a Sandwich Islander. George Vancouver had been with Captain Cook. He was sent to survey the coast. Skirting all the rugged shore, he, too, behind the amphitheater of hills, saw no River of the West. An American nad been with Captain Cook, — John Ledyard of Connecticut. When once again he reached his native land, eagerly in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, he talked with merchants of the fortunes to be gained in furs on that northwest coast. "Go, send there your ships," he said. "It will be the greatest enterprise ever embarked on in this country. It is of the very first moment to the trade of America." Men thought him visionary. The British were chasing Washington down through New Jersey. The times were too un- settled; the hazard seemed too great. The Revolution ended. General Washington was President of the new United States. A com- pany of six wealthy merchants met one evening, in 1787, at the home of Dr. Bulfinch in Boston, and discussed the dream of John Ledyard. "Let us try a venture in those northwest seas," they said. Among them, on the spot, fifty thousand dollars was subscribed, — the first fifty thousand dollars ever spent for Oregon. Robert Gray and 20 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. John Kendrick, two Yankee captains of the Rev- olution, were sent out in the stanch little ships, the Columbia Rediviva and the Lady Washington. The Spanish governor of California heard of the little ships, and sent the following order: — " Should there arrive in the port of San Fran- cisco a ship named Columbia, which, they say, be- longs to General Washington of the American states, and which, under the command of John Kendrick, sailed from Boston in September, 1787, with the design of making discoveries and inspect- ing the establishments which the Russians have on the northern coasts of this peninsula, you will take measures to secure this vessel and all the peo- ple on board, with discretion, tact, cleverness, and caution, doing the same with a small craft which she has with her as a tender, and with every other suspicious foreign vessel, giving me prompt notice, in order that I may take such action as shall be expedient." All unconscious of danger, Gray and Kendrick beat around the Horn in their brave little ships, and passed unharmed the hostile coast of Califor- nia. Captain Gray met Vancouver up near the Strait of Fuca, and told him, "I have been off the mouth of a river in latitude 46 degrees 10 minutes north, where the outflow is so strong it prevented my entering for nine days." THE WAY TO INDIA. 21 Vancouver laughed. "You are mistaken, Mr. Gray. I have investigated that matter further than anybody else in the civilized world. The whole coast presents one solid, compact, nearly straight barrier against the sea. There is no river there." Vancouver passed on into the Strait of Fuca, where Kendrick had already been with his little Lady Washington. The Englishman named the sunlit sound for his trusted officer, Lieutenant Peter Puget, and the snowy peak beyond for the English admiral, Rainier. Captain Gray went back. In a few days, May 11, 1792, the plucky captain sailed over the shin- ing bar into the broad, blue bosom of the mighty River of the West. He named it for his own good ship, "Columbia's River." 1492-1792, — it had taken three hundred years! With the finding of the Oregon, America was all discovered. It was the last point, the end of all this wide world-movement to the West. For twenty-five miles Gray explored the mag- nificent shores, grander than the Palisades of the Hudson. Nine days he remained in the river. The friendly Chinooks came out in boats to trade. When he left, the loyal Yankee named the jutting headlands at the mouth for Hancock and Adams, his famous fellow-heroes of the Revolution. 22 WESTERN SERIES OP READERS. When you are in Portland, it will be worth your while to visit the State Historical Rooms, and ask to see Captain Gray's old sea-chest, and other rel- ics of that voyage, that were sent out by his family from Boston for the great celebration in 1892, — exactly one hundred years from that bright May morning when Captain Gray discovered the Co- lumbia River. BLACKBOARD STUDIES. galleons (gal'le-uns), circumnavigation (ser-kiim-nav-i-ga'- shun), Alarcon (a-lar-kon')- The Strait of Juan de Fuca was named for Juan de Fuca, a Greek navigator, who pretended that he had discovered a northwest passage leading through into the Atlantic Ocean. ^H£$T \19& *$HIP> COLUMBIANS PRESEWTEPTO'P/;G«F;£fra HISTORICAL } SOCiejY OF OREGO^SY THE HEIRS OF tfAPT. ROBERT CRAY. MAYII"I«S2. ' a t fe^P" " CAPTAIN GRAY S OLD SEA CHEST. SHIPS FROM BOSTON. MERICAN commerce began with separation from the mother coun- try. The moment the colonies were free, every skipper longed to skim the main : no land travel of those days could equal the airy dancing of a ship at sea. The Napoleonic wars began; blockaded Europe wanted provisions, that only could come from American shores, in American ships. Commerce blossomed. Unmolested we swarmed over seas, and down to Cuba and South America, and around Cape Horn. Gray and Kendrick first came into the Pacific in 1787. Kendrick remained in the Lady Washington at Vancouver's Island, while Captain Gray, in the Co- lumbia, sailed with a cargo of furs to China. In ex- change he took on tea! tea! over which we had fought our Revolution. No wonder 23 REFERENCE TOPICS. American commerce be- gins. Pacific exploration. Gray carries the flag around the world. American settlement at Hawaii. The first printing-press. 24 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. there was cheering when Gray reached Boston in the summer of 1790, flying the Stars and Stripes, the first to carry that flog around the world! No wonder the cannon boomed, and crowds flocked to the wharves to see what ship was receiving such royal honor. Boston gave a great reception, very like a second Tea Party, and medals were struck in bronze and silver. In six weeks Gray was ready to start again to the Pacific. Others took courage and followed, so that in 1792, when Gray discovered the Columbia River, there were already twenty-one American ships on the northwest coast. "Where are you from?" asked the Chinook chief of Gray. " From Boston," and all the rest said "Boston," until the Indians thought all the land was Boston, and all the people "Bostons," — a magic word in the new Chinook trade tongue. As the Phoenicians of old ventured out of the Mediterranean even as far as the tin mines of Cornwall, on the coast of Britain, so the little Yankee brigs crept down and down the coast, and around the Horn, until every village had its skippers in the far Pacific. Some went for furs, and some for whales, and all for bold adventure. Never again will this land see more hardy sailors than the tars that traveled the seas at the close of our Revolution. SHIPS FROM BOSTON. 25 This maritime commerce built New England into wealth. It gave an outlet to every product, and filled her homes with comfort. If all had kept rec- ord of the shores explored, there need never have been any controversy as to our title. Not only Oregon, but all the north, was ours. McKenzie, in his famous overland trip from Canada, reached the coast in 1793. Our skippers had already been all along those shores. Our American traders dove into every cove and inlet. If furs were found, the locality was kept secret for future exploitation. Venturesome as the vikings in their crazy craft, they left as little record of their findings. Long before Sitka was founded, Yankee ships were buying furs along the Alaskan coast. The very day, May 25, 1799, that Baranoff laid the foundation of his fort in Sitka Sound, the Boston brig Caroline was buying hun- dreds of skins, at two yards of broadcloth 'each, in that same harbor. Several other Boston brigs looked in upon him during the summer. Some- times twenty appeared in a season. Kendrick bought of the Indians large tracts of Vancouver Island before Vancouver ever reached there. In 1792, when Vancouver heard of Gray's discovery of the Columbia River, he came back to take another look. There he f^" T, d the brig Jenny, 26 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. Captain Baker, of Rhode Island, already anchored within the bay. So Americans may be said to have twice discovered the Columbia. Vancou- ver's lieutenant, hurrying up the river, caught sight of two mountains. He named them for Lord Hood and Lord St. Helens, and claimed the whole for His Majesty King George. Those daring little Boston brigs of a hundred years ago were of 150 to 250 tons burden. They generally had a small cannon or two on board, and a blunderbuss on the taffrail, to fight or trade, as need be. Sometimes these brigs were owned by their captains, sometimes by wealthy mer- chants, who sent them out as men to-day grub- stake miners for the Klondike. These trading-ships started out with assorted cargoes of Yankee notions. At the West Indies, rum, tobacco, and molasses were taken on. Around the Horn they sped, stopping long enough at Val- paraiso to exchange Yankee goods for Spanish silver. Here and there the thrifty captains picked up sealskins and oil in the South Pacific. On the Farallones, and on the coast of Oregon, furs began to be gathered in. Winter was spent at the Sandwich Islands, cleaning and drying the furs. Leaving some one there to look after them, with the return of spring the ships went back to SHIPS FROM BOSTON. 27 Oregon, and summered in the north. Finally, over they went to China, to exchange their furs for teas, silks, and nankeens to carry home to Boston. Very well known were the Sandwich Islands to our Yankee skippers one hundred years ago. In 1819, seven missionaries and their wives sailed out from Boston, with a printing-press, in the little brig Thaddeus, that "Mayflower of the Pacific." " That God-forsaken land is no place for women," said the owner of the trading-ship. He put on board a knock-down house, to be set up for them at Honolulu. " And if any of them want to come back, give them free passage," was his parting word. When they touched the Islands, the women turned away and wept at sight of the degraded natives. But the noble women stayed, homes were built and schools were opened, and Hawaii was Americanized before any other Pacific point. No wonder the Islands belong to us; the advance guard of the American college brought them in. In 1839, twenty years later, that historic old print- ing-press came over to Oregon to aid in the infant settlements, — the first press west of the Rocky Mountains. It reads like a romance, the close ties that long ago linked Oregon and "The Islands." 28 WESTERN SERIES OP READERS. Sometimes a blacksmith went on these Yankee ships, with a forge on board to make whatever the Indians wanted. Nails were in great demand. Once a Spanish crew was murdered, apparently for no other purpose than to get the nails used in the construction of their boat. At first the Indians had very little idea of what furs were worth. When Gray was at Tillamook, the Indians handed over their skins, and took without a murmur whatever he chose to give. So at Queen Charlotte's Island, one of his men got two hundred of the finest skins for an old file. The Indians were particularly delighted with brass pans, pewter basins, and tin tea-kettles. Sometimes beads and sometimes glass were in great demand. As the Indians became more ac- customed to trade, they asked more for their furs. Sometimes nothing but muskets and ammuni- tion would satisfy an Indian encampment. In such a case the unlucky trader might offer any- thing else in vain. Not a skin could he get, and away he must sail, leaving a harvest for the lucky man who had the muskets. The Spaniards found the Indians would give anything they had for shells from the beach at Monterey. This became their shell money, — haiqua. For a time, seldom an Encrlish flag was seen in SHIPS FROM BOSTON. 29 these waters; rarely a Spaniard, — Europe clus- tered around the theater of Napoleonic wars. In 1801, upwards of eighteen thousand sea-otter skins were collected by Americans alone, and fifteen thousand in 1802. Sturgis of Boston once col- lected six thousand in a single voyage, and once five hundred and sixty of the best quality in half a day. Captain Gray alone got three thousand in that second voyage. Those early navigators, so close to Revolution- ary times, wore their hair in queues. One ship, owned by the Amorys of Boston, was captured by the Indians of Vancouver's Island. John Jewett says: " I was caught by the hair by one of the sav- ages, and lifted from my feet. Fortunately for me, my hair being short, and the ribbon with which it was tied slipping, I fell from his hold into the steerage." Jewett and another man, a sailmaker, were kept to make and mend guns and sails for the chief. All the rest were killed, and the brig was accident- ally burnt. Jewett and his companion saw the Boston brigs go by, saw the Juno and the Mary, but not until the third year, 1806, were they res- cued by the Boston brig Lydia, sent to their relief, and that was the year Lewis and Clark were on the Columbia. 30 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. Some Yankee captains made terms with Baran- off at Sitka, by which they took his Aleuts, with their bidarkas, and hunted fur-seal and sea-otter on shares, bringing away tens of thousands of most precious skins. A regular business sprang up, of supplying Sitka with Boston goods. Once, indeed, they saved the Russians' lives. The winter of 1805 was long. No Russian ship appeared. Provisions we're gone, starvation threatened, when, to their joy, a Yankee ship swung round the point of Sitka Island. She had on board meat, sugar, tea, and flour and rice. Of course Baranoff bought everything the cap- tain had. He even bought his brig, that they might have means of cruising to more favored shores for food. This brig, the Juno, was sent to the Columbia River, with a view of planting a Russian colony there, to raise supplies for Sitka. Three days the Russians tried to cross the Colum- bia bar, that guarded Oregon. Three days they tried, and gave it up, and made their settlement in California. How many times has Oregon been saved ! The Bostonians bought skins, not only of the northern tribes, but also of the padres in Cali- fornia. In former times, the Spanish padres had depended on the Manila galleons' to take their furs SHIPS FROM BOSTON. 31 to China by way of the Philippines; but now they began to carry on a secret and profitable trade with the Bostons, — a trade that grew and grew until California became our own. This Boston trade flourished along the Pacific coast until the War of 1812, when our ships were driven from this shore. No wonder Boston exe- crated the War of 1812: it cut her to the heart. Her northwest commerce never recovered, though later a livelier trade sprang up on the coast of California. BLACKBOARD STUDIES. blunderbuss. A short gun with a large bore, capable of hold- ing a number of balls, intended to do execution without exact aim. taffrail, The rail around a ship's stern. bidarkas. Skin boats of the Alaskan Indians. See Bancroft's " Northwest Coast." PILLARS OF HERCULES, ON THE COLUMBIA. THE STORY OF LEWIS AND CLARK. HOMAS JEFFERSON may be called our first great expansion- ist. His far-seeing eye looked beyond the old Atlantic line of colonies, to a domain from sea to sea. His was the famous Loui- siana Purchase in 1803, that at one stroke joined an empire to our inland border. Even before the flag of France came down, and the Stars and Stripes went up, Jefferson had an expedi- tion under way to explore "the Oregon country." Jefferson was Minister to France in Washing- ton's day. A frequent guest at his table in Paris was John Ledyard, the American who had been with Captain Cook on his northwest voyage. All un- conscious that his words were soon to bear rich fruit in Boston, Ledyard had gone to France. Here Jefferson met him and be- came his friend. 33 REFERENCE TOPICS. Ledyard arouses Jeffer- son. Napoleon sells Louisi- ana. Jefferson sends expedi- tion to find water-way from the Missouri to the Pacific. 34 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. " Why, Mr. Jefferson," he was wont to say, " that northwest land belongs to us. I felt I breathed the air of home the day we touched at Nootka Sound. The very Indians are just like ours. I felt I knew them. And furs, — that coast is rich in beaver, bear, and otter . For old, cast-off clothes we bought a few otter- skins. Six of the finest skins were purchased for a dozen green-glass beads! Bless me! when we got to China, if the man- darins didn't come down and pay us ten thousand dol- lars for that acci- dental stock of furs ! And most of them had been used in the bunks all winter for bedclothes, too. We never thought oi selling them. Skins that did not cost a sixpences old for one hundred dollars. No wonder the men were wild to give up exploring, and turn traders. But CAPTAIN WILLIAM CLARK. From Coue's History of Lewis and Clark's Expedition (1893). By permission of Francis P. Harper. THE STORY OF LEWIS AND CLARK. 35 they would not let us. Depend upon it, Mr. Jef- ferson, untold fortunes lie untouched at the back of the United States. The American Revolution invites to a thorough discovery of the continent. Who but us should have the honor?" Jefferson re- turned to Amer- ica, filled with visions of that un- known west. As soon as he became President, Jeffer- son secured from Congress an ap- propriation to send an expedi- tion to the Pa- cific. Who could say — the Missouri and the Columbia might meet in those far-off wilds. It was part of the old dream, a waterway to India. To the chief command Jefferson appointed his private secretary, Meriwether Lewis, nephew of that Lewis that married George Washington's sis- ter. Lewis himself chose for his companion Cap- CAPTAIN MERIWETHER LEWIS. From Cone's History of Lewis and Clark's Expedition (1893). By permission of Francis P. Harper. 36 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. tain William Clark, brother of the famous George Rogers Clark, that won Indiana and Illinois for us in the days of the Revolution. By happy for- tune, now another of the family was to push that empire on to the Pacific. Lewis and Clark were young, both were brave, both had been with "Mad Anthony Wayne" in his victories over the Ohio Indians. Now their names were to be linked with our northwest land forever. When Lewis and Clark started, Ohio was the most western state. All was wilderness beyond. There were only six million people in the country then. And yet that six million of trapping and hunting and farming Americans required a vast amount of room. They were crossing over the Mississippi;, and into the Spanish country, even before Jefferson made the Louisiana Purchase. He was almost obliged to make it, our people were so determined to control that great river. The idea of being bottled up by a foreign settlement down there at New Orleans was intolerable. So, when Napoleon Bonaparte got hold of New Or- leans, and needed money to carry on his wars, he was more than glad to sell the whole country to us, — enough to make three or four countries the size of France. When Lewis and Clark reached THE STORY OF LEWIS AND CLARK. 37 the Mississippi, the old French-Spanish town of St. Louis had only just been surrendered to the United States government. In May, 1804, Lewis and Clark left St. Louis with soldiers, guides, and supplies. The frontier town turned out to see them start. Hats and ker- chiefs waved, salutes were fired. Their long, light, narrow boats shot up the river, and disappeared in that primeval west known only to an occasional trapper and to Indian tradition. The whole country watched the expedition with keenest interest. Not Livingstone in darkest Af- rica, nor Franklin at the pole, was followed by warmer heart-throbs. Their safety was prayed for, their silence mourned over. National hon- ors waited to be showered upon the returning heroes. Working their way up the Missouri, Lewis and Clark passed the future site of Omaha, and on, on, up into the land where Hiawatha found his Minnehaha. The winter of 1804-05 was spent among the Mandan Indians. In the flare of the winter camp-fires did they see the future Bismarck, with her solid blocks, her million-dollar bridge, and her wheat-fields there to-day? April saw them gliding westward, taking with them Chaboneau, a French interpreter, and his 38 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. Indian wife, Saca-jawea, the wonderful " Bird- woman," who, with her baby, crossed the conti- nent and back again Game was everywhere. Bands of antelope swam the Missouri ; swarms of deer and elk, tame and confiding, scarcely ran at their approach. Buffalo, buffalo, every- where, were feeding on the plains, — sometimes mild as herds of cattle, sometimes bellowing over fords, a seething, struggling, black mass in the waters. •April 26th, they reached the Yellow-rock River, now the Yellowstone. In May they camped upon a river where big-horned sheep were numerous. Chirk named it the Judith. 1 May 26th, Lewis caught sight of mountains, — Shin- ing Mountains, Snowy Mountains, Stony Moun- tains, men had called those vague and far-off heights. Lewis fixed the name forever, — Rocky Mountains. In June, Lewis, who had gone ahead, discovered the Great Falls of the Missouri. The roaring of the cataract he heard seven miles away, carried by the southwest wind. Like Hiawatha, he had — 1 In honor of his future wife It had not been certain that those mountains were in the United States. Sixty-two years before, two sons of the French Chevalier Verendrye had sighted a range and called it the Stonies, — and the Stonies had been marked on some maps of Brit- ish America. The Verendryes turned bark on account of fierce battles between the Snakes and the Sioux(174:s). THE STORY OF LEWIS AND CLARK. 39 "Journeyed westward, westward, Left the fleetest deer behind him, Left the antelope and bison, Passed the mountains of the Prairie, Passed the land of Crows and Foxes, Passed the dwellings of the Blackfeet, Came unto the Rocky Mountains, To the kingdom of the West- Wind." These falls seemed to be a rendezvous for all the wild animals in the country. Thousands of impatient buffaloes pushed each other along the steep, rocky paths to the water; dozens went over the cataract to feed the bears and wolves below. Here Lewis and Clark discovered the ferocious grizzly bear, the king of western beasts. Unlike their smaller eastern brethren, these great Mon- tana bears attacked men unprovoked. It was not safe for one man to go out alone to any distance. They growled around the camp at night, and chased them in the day. Once a huge grizzly chased Captain Lewis into the river. On July 4th they heard strange booming, like cannonading, in the mountains. The French voy- ageurs said it was caused by the bursting of rich veins of silver. Undoubtedly this is the first re- corded booming of Montana silver mines. Cut- ting down a big round cottonwood, they sawed it into wheels and rolled their boats around the falls. 40 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. Again launched, on July 15th they passed through the Gates of the Mountains, to a country where Saca-jawea said the river had three forks. Sure enough, in a short time they proudly named the Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin forks of the Mis- souri. In August they camped beside two little rills, — one found its way to the Mississippi and the Gulf; the other fed the River of the West, Columbia. One of the men straddled the headwaters of the Missouri and thanked God that at last they had come to the end of this " endless river," three thousand miles from St. Louis. For the first time white men stood upon the Great Divide of North America. The water route was ended. The boats were hidden in the rocks. Horses must now be had to carry them over the heights beyond. Saca-jawea said, "This was a camping-spot. Yonder is the battle-field where I was captured. Below is the summer resort of my people, the Shoshones." Eagerly they looked for Saca-jawea's people. Of them the route must be learned and horses pur- chased. A Shoshone horseman came in sight. Paralyzed, he looked upon the white men — then fled like a frightened deer. No calls could bring him back. THE STORY OF LEWIS AND CLARK. 41 Following a well-worn trail, Captain Lewis came upon two women. They could not escape. He loaded them with gifts. Reluctantly they led the way to sixty mounted warriors. A woman looked upon Saca-jawea — they flew into each other's arms. They had been girls together, had been captured in the same battle, had shared the same captivity. One had escaped to her own people; the other had been sold as a slave in the land of the Dakotahs. Captain Lewis appointed a council; summoned Saca-jawea to interpret. With tears of joy she be- *gan, when, lifting her eyes to the chief, she recog- nized her own brother, Cameahwait. She ran to his side, threw her blanket over his head, wept upon his bosom. Of course, after that everything was done that Shoshones could do. Horses were brought, food — roasted salmon. Then Lewis knew he was on waters flowing to the Pacific. He named the stream from which the fish were taken Salmon River. With Shoshone guides they started across the mountains. Snow set in; men and horses fell from exhaustion. No game was there; they lived on dogs and horses. In this trip, across the Idaho of to-day, two great forks of the Columbia were named, — the north W Clark, who saw it 42 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. first, and the south for Lewis, who first approached its rocky shores. In late September, worn out with hardships, cold, and hunger, they reached the land of the Nez Perces, upon the Clearwater River. The Nez Perces brought them food. Indian tradition tells us that they thought the cold made the strangers' faces white, so they built big fires and wrapped their guests in buffalo-robes. When, streaming with perspiration, the men put off the robes, the solicitous Indians ran and placed them back again. Then Captain Clark arose and told them of the Great Father at Washington, who had sent them to visit his children, and presented them with medals prepared for this purpose. The words of that council were handed down for generations. Flags presented were seen by Americans fifty years later. Medals are occasionally dug up to this day. Here Lewis and Clark built canoes, and, leaving their horses in care of the hospitable Nez Perces, embarked for the downward trip to the sea. Day by day they passed by wild, romantic scenes where white man's foot had never trod. Word flew ahead. When they reached the Columbia, two hundred Indians advanced in procession to greet them with drums and singing. The next day they THE STORY OF LEWIS AND CLARK. 43 encountered eighteen canoes, where there were "inconceivable multitudes of salmon." Indians everywhere were drying fish. In the " high countrey " of the Walla Walla they caught sight of a mountain, "of conocal form, covered with snow," which, of course, was Mount Hood. Later, Clark climbed a cliff two hundred feet above the water, and saw what he supposed to be St. Helens, named by Vancouver. Every step was like a story-book, full of new, strange pictures. Yellept, chief of the Walla Wallas, invited them to visit his people ; others stood like shadows and statues in bronze, watch- ing from afar. October 22d, they shot their boats through the Once Captain Clark shot a white crane and a thick. Indi- ans beard the report and saw the birds fall, and at that moment caught sight of the white men. " From the clouds! from the clouds!" was the ter- rified cry. Clark followed the fleeing Indians, lifted the mats that shut their doors, and there, as if expecting instant death, men, women, children, hung their heads and wept. Clark approached, took their hands, spoke. Half -calmed, they look- ed, but all their terrors leaped anew when he lit his pipe with a sunglass. boiling caldron of the Dalles, to the great aston- ishment of the Indians watching from above. On they came, through mighty mountains, past an- cient burial-places of the savage dead, to the wild- rushing Cascades. Past these cascades, five miles of continuous rapids, white with sheets of foam, they made a portage. On either side, the rocky THE STORY OF LEWIS AND CLARK. 45 palisades, "green-mossed and dripping," reached the skies. Tiny waterfalls, leaping from the clouds, fell in rainbow mist a thousand feet below. " Mount Hood stood white and vast. " Below the Cascades, vast numbers of sea-otters slept on the rocks. Swarms of swans, geese, ducks, cranes, storks, white gulls, cormorants, plover, swept screaming by. The hills were green, the soft west wind as warm with rain. " What a wild delight Of space ! of room ! What a sense of seas ! " They had come into a new world, — the valley of the lower Columbia, the home of the Chinook wind. Traces of white men began to appear, — blue and scarlet blankets, brass tea-kettles, and beads. One Indian, with a round hat and a sailor-jacket, wore his hair in a queue, in imitation of the " Bostons." The Virginians seemed utterly unaware of the great Boston trade, now at its height, on these shores, and supposed everything they saw was European. They met Indians going to the mouth of the Columbia to trade. One spoke a few words of English, — said they traded with Mr. Haley; showed things he had given them. 'T is on the 46 WESTERN SERIES OF ERADERS. records that Captain Heale of a Boston brig was cruising on the coast. In November, great was the delight when they heard the roar of breakers. The fog lifted and they beheld "the ocean, — that ocean," says Clark, "the object of all our labors, the reward of all our anxieties." Captain Lewis coasted along the north- ern bank of the Columbia's mouth to Cape Disap- pointment and beyond, where, facing the sea, he wrote in huge letters,— Meriwether Lewis, November 14, 1805. By Land from the United States in 1804-5. Since the morning when Gray entered the Columbia, fourteen years before, the Chinooks had learned the value of furs. On every hand were blankets, sailor-clothes, guns, powder and ball, — the powder in little japanned tin flasks in which the traders sold it. Old King Comcomly had a robe of sea-otter, "the fur of which was the most beautiful we had ever seen." In vain Lewis offered everything he had, — nothing would purchase the treasured cloak but the belt of blue beads worn by Saca-jawea. The rainy season had set in. A sheltered spot on the south bank of the Columbia was chosen for THE STORY OF LEWIS AND CLARK, 47 a winter fort. For the first time axes rang in those primeval wilds, where,— "Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest. " It may read like a romance, but it was hard work, when the constant rains soaked their leather tents until they fell to pieces, when men fell ill from unaccustomed food, and Christmas brought no tokens from loved ones far away. However, they did not sit down like Achilles and pout, — " Beside the sounding sea." By sunset on Christmas Eve, 1805, Fort Clatsop was completed, with comfortable log buildings, fire-places, pickets, gates, and a sentinel "to guard the hearth and hall." At daylight the next morn- ing they fired salutes, and gave each other pres- ents, and made themselves as merry as they could. Here by the sea dwelt the Clatsop Indians, whose kind old chief, Coboway, incorrectly called Como- wool by Lewis and Clark, was unwearied in atten- tion to the white men. The Indians especially wanted blue and white beads, the money of that country, and files to sharpen their tools. No wonder they valued an 48 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. old file: the finest work of their beautiful canoes was often done with a chisel fashioned from an old file. Lewis and Clark had fre- quent occasion to admire their skill in managing these little boats, often out- riding the waves in the most tumultuous seas. One day Captain Clark was walking along the beach with a Clatsop In- dian, looking for sturgeon, that were sometimes cast on shore. " Sturgeon is very good," said the Clat- sop, in excellent English. And yet it seems never to have occurred to Clark that these words were learned from his Boston countrymen. "Beside their green fires burning merrily," the people at Fort Clatsop were busy as bees. Cruzatte played his violin; Chaboneau and his wife were cooks. The hunters killed 121 elk in the vicinity that winter. Some dressed the skins, and made garments and moccasins. Some of the meat was dried. Candles were made of the tallow. Salt was Captain Clark visited Chief Coboway's comfortable village on the south side of a hill. Cobo- way's house, like all the others, was sunk four feet in the ground, rising well above, with walls, roof, and gables of split pine boards. The door was entered through a ladder . Two fires were in the middle. Long boards were fixed two or three feet from the floor, around the walls, for beds. Under the beds were bags, bas- kets, and winter stores. As soon as Clark entered, clean mats were spread. Mrs. Coboway brought fish, berries, and roots on neat platters of rushes. Syrup of berries was served in bowls of horn, and meat in wooden trenchers. For his own housekeeping, Clark bought cranberries, mats, spoons of horn, and beautifully woven water-tight baskets. THE STORY OF LEWIS AND CLARK. 49 made from sea-water, "fine and white, and very good." 1 Books were written. Every day of that winter of 1805-06, Lewis and Clark were prepar- ing voluminous records of Oregon plants and trees, birds and beasts and fishes. Rivers they had named and mountains measured, and with wanderings more than Homer's heroes, were ready now to carry a new geography to the states. The explorers wished to remain at Fort Clatsop until traders came into the river, but in March the elk went to the mountains. Food was scarce. Their old clothes had fallen to rags long since. Now they were "hairy men," clad all in skins, with unshaved beards and unshorn hair. On Sunday morning, March 23, 1806, they bade adieu to Clatsop, and turned their faces eastward. Fort and furniture were given to Coboway, — "the most decent and civilized savage we have seen in these parts," they said. While Lewis and Clark were making prepara- tions to start, all unknown to them that Boston brig Juno, that the Russians had bought, was try- ing to enter the Columbia with the Russian Im- perial Inspector of Alaska on board. "We will found a settlement," he said, "and 1 The cairn where Lewis and Clark made salt has recently been discovered on Clatsop beach. 50 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. drive those Bostonians from the trade forever." "Then," said Rezanof, "in the course of ten years we should be strong enough to make use of any favorable turn in European politics to include the coast in the Russian possessions." After trying three days to enter the river, the Rus- sians gave it up, and left Oregon for the infant re- public then kicking in her cradle on the Atlantic. Not much longer could Rezanof sighted the Columbia March 14, 1806, but the current drove him back. Again, on the 20th, lie tried to enter, and on the 21st, but the gallant river, like a thing of life, behaved as she always did when strangers came, and beat him back, and beat him back, to save the land for us. this Pacific land remain concealed. On the wall at Fort Clatsop, Lewis and Clark left a muster-roll of every name in the expedition, with a brief statement of their journey. Copies were left with the coast chiefs to give to any pass- ing ship, that, in case they perished, some report might reach the civilized world. In July, the Boston brig Lydia, having just rescued Jewett from the savages at Vancouver Island, ran into the Columbia River. Ten miles up, faithful old Chief Coboway gave Captain Hill the document left in his hands by Lewis and Clark. This, sent by way of Canton, reached the United States to find the explorers safe at home. The Multnomah (Willamette) was discovered on THE STORY OF LEWIS AND CLARK. 51 the return journey. Clark rowed up to the present site of Portland. "Indeed," says Clark, "there is water enough for the largest ship; nor is it rash to believe it may water the land as far as Califor- nia." Afar he saw a peak, and named it Mount Jeffer- son. Indians told him of "the Falls where the Clackamos dwelt," and of the smallpox that, a generation before, had decimated all the tribes of Oregon. William Cullen Bryant had read the re- port of Lewis and Clark when, as a boy of eighteen, he wrote those wonderful lines.— "Lose thyself in the continuous woods Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound Save his own dashings, — yet the dead are there." With the long journey before them, the explor- ers found their stock of trading goods almost ex- hausted. About all that remained was a stock of drugs. From the first the Indians believed the white men "very great medicine." Now they knew it. The sick were brought. Captain Clark turned doctor. He gave them eye-water for inflamed eyes. An abscess was lanced; the patient slept for the first time in days. A paralyzed chief was given a heroic sweat-bath; wonderful to relate, he began to use his limbs. Faith works wonders; simple remedies, and some THE STORY OF LEWIS AND CLARK. 53 knowledge of medicine, worked still more. The grateful Indians piled their tents with choice sup- plies, and a good outfit was made for return. With summer the cavalcade of white men dis- appeared beyond the mountains, and the Indians, left to themselves, talked and talked around their fires of all the things the white men told them. As Columbus and Magellan crossed the seas, so Lewis and Clark had crossed the plains and the mountains, and were now returning from our first great national epic of exploration. Back they came, through seas of buffalo, where tawny calves were frisking by their mothers, all unconscious of impending fate. Once they had to wait an hour for a herd of buffalo to cross the Yellowstone before the boats could go on. The Crows stole Clark's horses. The Blackfeet tried to carry off Lewis's guns and horses. The Captain fired, and killed a Blackfoot. Oh! the rage and fury of the Blackfeet! For fifty years they lay in wait to murder every white man that crossed their track. Floating down the Missouri, Lewis and Clark met two white men, hunters from the Illinois country, the first of all that host that afterward pushed on through to the farthest West. It was a savage-looking lot of men, bronzed and bearded, and with Crusoe locks, that came again 54 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. to St. Louis. They had been given up as dead. Immediately an express was sent to President Jefferson with a report of what they had done. The return of Lewis and Clark was heralded with rejoicing. Two and one half years had elapsed in a journey through eight thousand miles of wilderness, that now can be traversed in a few days. For the first time white men had measured the way to the western sea, between the British possessions on the north and the Spanish on the south. Another link had been forged in our chain of title to "the Oregon country." BLACKBOARD STUDIES. Saea-jawea (sac-ii-ja-we'a). The bird-woman. Shoshones (sho-sho'nez). The Snake Indians. Albert Gallatin. Distinguished American statesman; Sec- retary of the Treasury. Comcomly (kum-kum'ly). Noted Chinook chief. Willamette (will-am' et). Stream of peace. Nez Perces (na-peVcy). The pierced-nose Indians. epic (ep'ik). A heroic poem; as, Homer's "Iliad" and the "Odyssey." STORY OF JOHN JACOB ASTOR. HILE excitement attendant upon the return of Lewis and Clark was at its height, John Jacob ^\f LJ Astor wrote to President Jeffer- son about establishing the fur trade on the Columbia. " You shall have every facility and protection the government can properly af- ford," answered Jefferson. "I look forward to the time when free and independent Americans shall have spread through the whole length of that coast." Already Mr. Astor had a great fur trade on the lakes, and even to the headwaters of the Mis- sissippi. The Napoleonic scheme suggested itself of establishing fur -trading forts along the line of Lewis and Clark to the mouth of the Columbia, where he would set up a vast empo- rium for all the coast and 55 REFERENCE TOPICS. Astor forms Pacific Fur Company. Engages voyage urs in Canada. See Irving' s "Astoria." The War of 1 8 1 2 . Asto- ria lost. Astoria restored, 1818. MULTNOMAH FALLS. STORY OF JOHN JACOB ASTOR. 57 inland waters. From here, shiploads of furs could cross to China, exchange for nankeens, teas, and silks, and, returning around Cape Horn, land in New York to reload with trading goods for the Co- lumbia. It was a magnificent dream, that meant control of the North Pacific, a golden round of commerce pouring wealth from our own wilds into the lap of the republic, and at the same time building a powerful American state on the west. Along with the Colum- bia, the Russian posts at Sitka were to be supplied, in exchange for still more John Jacob Astor, an un- known German immigrant boy, landed in New York in 1783, just at the close of the Revolution. Down Broadway he noted fine houses, the talk of the city. " Some day I '11 build a greater house than any of these, ' ' said the confident youth. He became a furrier's clerk, studied furs, bought furs, married a girl who knew more about furs than he did, sent furs to London, then more furs and more, until now he was exporting in his own ves- sels, returning with merchant cargoes, and rapidly amassing a fortune. furs for China. To make this arrangement, Astor dispatched a special mes- senger to the Russian-American fur directors at St. Petersburg, and sent a large ship, the Enter- prise, around with goods to Sitka. And at his emporium on the Columbia, whom better could Mr. Astor employ than the hardy hunters of Canada, trained in the fur companies of Hudson's Bay and the Northwest? One sum- mer evening in 1810, the gay Canadians engaged 58 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. by Astor came singing down the Hudson, in a birch-bark canoe, to New York City. The leader of these French-Canadian voyageurs was a Scotch- man, Alexander McKay, who had traveled with Alexander McKenzie on that overland journey from Canada to the Pacific in 1792-93. McKen- zie went back to England, where he was knighted by the king, as the first white man that ever crossed the continent of North America. McKay remained a trader in Canada, and now became a partner of John Jacob Astor in his great Pacific Fur Company. In that birch-bark canoe, McKay brought his little son, Tom, who was destined to grow up into a famous hunter in the far-off Ore- gon. Besides McKay, Mr. Astor took several other partners : Donald McKenzie (a relative of Sir Alexander), Duncan McDougal, David and Robert Stuart, and Ramsay Crooks, all Scotchmen of Canada. There were three other partners, — - Americans, — Wilson Price Hunt of New Jersey, Robert McClellan, and John Clark. Mr. Astor agreed to manage the New York end and furnish all the supplies. And well he did his part. It was a bright September day of 1810 when Astor's ship, the Tonquin, sailed out from New York, with McKay, McDougal, the Stuarts, and STORY OF JOHN JACOB ASTOR. 59 clerks, laborers, and supplies, to start a settle- ment at the mouth of the Columbia. Trouble was brewing with British ships; they were impressing American seamen. To make sure that his little Tonquin would get safely away, Mr. Astor soli- cited the aid of the frigate Constitution, and so, far out to sea " Old Ironsides " accompanied the venturesome trading-ship on her way to the dis- tant Pacific. About the same time, Mr. Hunt, with McKenzie, McClellan, Crooks, and hunters, started overland along the track of Lewis and Clark. The Tonquin reached the Columbia at the opening of an Oregon spring, 1811. "It is like Eden," exclaimed Franchere, the clerk. The forests seemed delightful groves; the very leaves were brilliant flowers. Old King Comcomly of the Chinooks, the same friendly tribe that greeted Gray when he discov- ered the Columbia, was on hand to welcome the fur traders. Duncan McDougal and David Stuart spent a night at Comcomly's village. At dawn the waves ran high. Comcomly urged them not to go back to the ship, but they launched their boat. With anxious eye the old chief watched, he followed in his light canoe; just as a gale upset the white men, he skipped across the waves and 60 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. snatched them from the deep. Half-drowned, he bore them back to his cedar hut, built big fires and dried their clothes, and kept them till the storm was past. McDougal afterward married King Comcomly's Indian daughter. Washington Irving will tell you all about that in his charm- ing book, "Astoria." On a green slope over- looking the Columbia, a roomy mansion was built of stone and clay. Clus- tered near, were shops for carpenters, blacksmiths, traders, and warehouses for furs and merchandise. A stockade fifteen feet high surrounded all, with bas- tions furnished with small cannon and musketry. Sloping down to the river in front, ere long a kitchen garden bloomed. Back of all rose the Oregon for- est. And this was Fort Astoria. A little schooner for coast and river use was built, and named the Dolly, for Mrs. Astor. In that first year the busy Astorians explored ten One day, when the Astorians were paddling up the Colum- bia, their curiosity was greatly aroused by the discovery of the remains of a former settlement . At the very time John Jacob Astor was planning his expe- ditions, a Boston sea captain, Jonathan Winship, already on the Columbia, landed his men and began a settlement. Cap- tain Winship and his men built a two-story log house or fortress at Oak Point, forty miles from the sea. Out of his ship, the Albatross, they landed hogs and goats, and dug a garden, — the first soil broken by white men in Oregon. But the Indians made them no end of trouble, and finally the June rise of the river swept all their work away. It was the logs of Winship's house that Astor's people saw at this abandoned settlement. STORY OF JOHN JACOB ASTOR. 61 thousand miles. David Stuart, with eight men and goods, went up the Columbia, and built Fort Okanogan. Leaving one clerk, Ross, there, alone among the Indians, for the winter, Stuart went on up into the Kamloops country, and almost to the Fraser. During Stuart's absence, Ross purchased of the Indians 1,550 beaver-skins at about five- pence apiece, worth in the Canton market not less than $10,000. Some of the men spent the winter up the Willamette, where they built a dwelling and a trading house, and brought home in the spring thirty-two bales of dried venison and seventeen packs of furs. Others penetrated as far as the Umpqua, where beaver were still more plentiful than on the Willamette. During that winter, Hunt's overland party reached the Dalles. Here they heard from the Indians that white men had built a great house at the mouth of the Columbia, and were anxiously looking for their friends who were coming over the mountains. With hollow cheeks and hungry eyes they pushed on to Astoria. A day was spent in jubilee. The Stars and Stripes floated over the fort, and guns and cannon woke the Columbia. Hunt had had a terrible experience in his over- land journey. On account of the hostility of the Blackfeet, he had deflected from the route of Lewis 62 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. and Clark, and endured great hardships of hunger and thirst in the Snake River country. Perishing of thirst, his party wandered along the steep, rocky sides of that river, unable to reach the cool waters in sight far below. Several were lost by drown- ing and by other accidents. A landmark of that weary journey is the John Day River, where poor John Day, a Kentucky hunter, robbed and stripped by the Indians, wandered for days, and almost lost his life. While yet the men were relating adventures by land and sea, a ship was seen cautiously cross- ing the bar. Old Comcomly hauled out his canoe. McDougal and his boatmen followed. What shouts! It was the Beaver, a merchant ship sent by Astor, with reinforcements and supplies. All now was animation. In June, a brigade of sixty-two men left Fort Astoria, in ten boats and two barges laden with all that delights the Indian heart. Robert Stuart started overland for the States, with dispatches; others carried supplies for forts up the Columbia, among the Nez Perces, the Spokanes, and at Okanogan.' In August, Hunt went up the coast on the Beaver to complete negotiations with the Russians at Sitka. Old Count Baranoff spied Hunt's ship in the offing, and saluted with his brazen guns, STORY OF JOHN JACOB ASTOR. 63 and hoisted the Russian flag to the top of his light- house tower. This doughty lord of Fur-land, like an old Norse viking, was now in the prime of his power, driving Alaskan slaves with incessant toil, and making the northern nights ring with his revels. The bearded Baranoff led Hunt into his strong old fort of heavy hewn cedar on the isle of Sitka, and detained him there, an honored guest. On every hand, to his astonishment, Hunt saw mag- nificent furniture that had been brought from St. Petersburg, and a library embracing nearly all European languages. There was a collection of fine paintings in this wild, where no visitor ever came, except skippers of American vessels. There was orchestral music and singing, and Baranoff' s daughter played the piano. Bitterly to Hunt did Baranoff talk of the Boston skippers, who came into his own waters, buying up his skins, and selling dangerous arms and ammunition to the Indians, putting him and his people in constant peril. Gladly would he make a compact with Astor to cut off all this irregular trade, and get the Indians more into subjection. After days of drinking and dancing and dining, Hunt was able to complete his mission in estab- lishing an alliance of trade and friendship between 64 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. the Russian and American fur companies. When at last the Beaver sailed away, priceless piles of seal- skin were snugly stowed in his ship for China. Mr. Astor had directed the Beaver to return from Sitka by way of Astoria and take on furs before proceeding to Canton. The captain, however, in- sisted on running to the Sandwich Islands. Here Hunt heard of the War of 1812. He knew Astoria would be a point of attack. More than anything else, the British fur companies feared the compe- tition of a man like John Jacob Astor. They had met him in the North, had fought him in the East; now they faced him in the West. When Astor engaged those Canadians, the Northwest company hastened to head him off. Before their agents, however, could reach the rich fur-lands of the Columbia, Astor was on the ground and in possession. " You may take the ship to China," said Hunt to the captain; " I will get to Oregon some other way." Weeks rolled by. No other ship appeared. Hunt, anxious, despairing, was imprisoned at Hawaii. The people at Fort Astoria were in a tumult. Through Indians, they heard that the crew of the Tonquin had been massacred by savages at Van- couver's Island. It was too true. McKay had gone on that good ship Tonquin on a trading-trip, STORY OF JOHN JACOB ASTOR. 65 and had lost his life opposite that very coast that he, with McKenzie, had visited from Canada, the first of living white men. Young Tom McKay's heart was nearly broken. Kind-hearted old King Comcomly took him home to his Chinooks to comfort him. And now the Beaver came not. Was she, too, lost? The men at the lonely little Fort Astoria strained and strained their eyes upon the sea. Then came news of the war. Dugald McTavish, a partner of the Northwest Fur Company, came overland from Canada, bringing word that a North- west supply-ship was en route to the Columbia, con- voyed by a British fleet with orders to destroy or capture Fort Astoria and plant the British flag. "We must fight or fly, or make terms with the enemy," said McDougal. McTavish was an old friend of McDougal. He offered to buy them out. " If relief does not come in a ye&v, we will sell," said McDougal. Painful was the suspense of Mr. Astor at his home in New York City. Were his expeditions safe? Were they lost? And now the war. That colony must be sustained. Before autumn the British might blockade New York. In March he fitted out the swift-sailing Lark, and dispatched her to sea. "That may tide them over," he said. 66 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. Gloomily musing at his window, Astor sat one April night. The evening paper was brought. Through the twilight, what caught his eye like a burst of sunshine? "Stuart's party at St. Louis. Hunt and the Beaver safe on the Columbia. All well." Overwrought feelings gave "way. Mr. Astor almost fell on his knees in a transport of gratitude. Filled with new courage, he fitted out a fourth ship, the Enterprise, but before she cleared the harbor a British fleet appeared off Sandy Hook. The Boston merchants, too, were alarmed by the war. It meant the destruction of their Pacific trade. The Winships dispatched their fast-sail- ing Albatross to give warning to all Boston ships in the Pacific. Like little birds when the big hawk comes, the Boston brigs on that northwest coast fled to cover, hiding in nooks and bays where the British warships would never think of looking. It was the Albatross that found Hunt at the Hawaiian Islands and carried him over to Oregon. The Astorians, still straining their eyes out to sea, noted with wonder a strange ship sailing so boldly over the bar. Ah, very well the Albatross knew the way into the Columbia, for she was the gallant ship that the Winships had sent to make a STORY OF JOHN JACOB ASTOR. 67 settlement at Oak Point, before even Astor came into the river. When Hunt arrived at Astoria he quickly grasped the situation. Were not all, or nearly all, of these men British subjects? How could they fight their own people? Hunt decided to hasten back on the Albatross and bring some sort of transport from the Islands to save the property and carry it to Sitka. With Hunt gone again, bugaboos waxed greater: war; no supply-ship; rival Northwesters; battle-ships hourly expected; above all, who could stand against King George? So reasoned Astor's Canadian employees. A few were not frightened. They had done well; prospects were good. "Why not move our effects up the river to some small stream, and let them burn the fort if they want to?" said Fran- chere. "They cannot follow us." But Franchere was only a clerk. "Three years of toil, and then surrender?" ex- claimed Ross. But he, too, was only a clerk. The Canadian partners sold Astor out. Goods worth two hundred thousand dollars went for less than forty thousand dollars. Two weeks after the transfer, the Raccoon, British man-of-war, ap- peared. Great was the disappointment of officers and men when they found the prize had slipped their grasp. 68 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. "The Yankees are always beforehand with us," said Captain Black. When he saw the fort he had sailed half-round the world to reach, "This the enemy's stronghold requiring a navy to conquer?", he thun- dered. " With a single four-pounder I could bat- ter it down in two hours." Nevertheless, the Captain took possession in the name of the King, and Fort Astoria was renamed Fort George. At Hawaii, Hunt found the Lark a wreck. He bought a brig and sped to Oregon. Too late. The fort was sold. Sold ? When Astor heard of it, how he raged! "The very idea is like a dagger in my heart. Had I been on the spot, I should have defied them all." If Astor had succeeded, there is every reason to believe that the Hudson's Bay Company would never have gained a foothold in Oregon, and that in all probability the British flag might not to-day float over British Columbia. When old King Comcomly saw the British man-of-war ap- proaching with her guns, he rigged up his Chinook warriors in great haste and hurried to the fort. "Ugh, ugh, ugh, we hide in bush and shoot 'em when they land," whispered old Comcomly in great excitement to his son- in-law. The British boats were com- ing with the red-coats, all armed with guns. McDougal dissuaded his warlike father-in-law from any act of hostility. The won- dering Indians stood back and watched proceedings. When they saw the Stars and Stripes come down and the flag of Eng- land go up, old Comcomly shook his head. "Ugh, ugh," he grunted. " They try to hide it, but I see. Bostons all slaves. I thought my daughter marry a great warrior. Ugh, ugh, he only squaw-man." STORY OF JOHN JACOB ASTOR. 69 Astor afterward made headquarters at St. Louis, and, in partnership with Ashley, for years sent trapping and trading parties to the upper Missouri, and into the Green River Valley, and along the slopes of the Rocky Moun- tains. He- never rested until Astoria was returned to the United States. But though the Stars and Stripes went up again above Astoria to fly for- ever, the original projector never resumed business at the old stand on the Pa- cific. Mr. Astor found that the Northwesters, and af- terward the Hudson's Bay Company, had so in- trenched themselves in his In 1822, W. H. Ashley built a fort on the Yellowstone. In 1824 he crossed the Rocky Mountains, named the Green River branch of the Colorado, and discovered the famous South Pass, the highway of the nation, where, by and by, the immigrants crossed and the railroad goes to-day. In 1825 he reached Great Salt Lake, built a fort, and left a hundred men. The land was rich in furs. In three years Ashley captured one hundred and eighty thousand dollars' worth of peltries. In 1828, a cannon was hauled on wheels to Ashley's fort on Great Salt Lake. Then the great trap- per went back to die at the town of Daniel Boone, in Mis- souri. old posts, and had added new ones, that it was impossible to make headway against them. For years American traders tried to gain a foothold there, but not until immigrants followed the trail of the traders and set up homes and farms on the old hunting-grounds, could any Americans make headway in Oregon. DR. JOHN MCLOUGHLIN, THE FATHER OF OREGON. THE STORY OF McLOUGHLIN. HE grandest flotilla that had yet appeared at Fort Astoria came down the Columbia in 1824, bearing the new Pacific com- mander of the Hudson's Bay Company, Dr. John McLoughlin. Far to the northeast McLaughl- in was born, just north of the Maine border, in the days of our Revolution. When his father was drowned, his young mother returned with her children to the home of her father, Malcolm Fraser. These are the Frasers who named Fraser River in British Columbia; the Frasers whose daring captains have led Scotch Highlanders over half the world. The old stone mansion stands yet, overlooking the St. Law- rence, the home of Mc- Loughlin's boyhood. John McLoughlin 's brother, David, went into REFERENCE TOPICS. Arrival of McLoughlin. Fort Vancouver founded. Treaty with the Dalles Indians. The Brigades. Boston Ships. American settlers. 72 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. Dr. John McLouglilin was born of Highland Scotch parentage at Riviere du Loup, Canada, in 1784. As a youth he studied medicine and entered the Northwest Fur Company about the year 1800. When the Northwest and Hudson's Bay companies coalesced in 1821 he was one of the delegates to the London council and strove for better terms for those bearing the burden of their work in the fur country. On account of his high character and practi- cal ability he was appointed to the Columbia in 1823, and ar- rived at Astoria the following year. In 1824 he located the site of Fort Vancouver. In 1825 he received one bushel each of wheat, oats, barley, and corn and one quart of timothy seed from York Factory on Hudson's Bay, and these were planted in 1826. In 1828 he advised his re- tired Canadian servantstosettle intheWillametteValley. Inl829 he located the future town site of Oregon City. When mission- aries arrived hegave them every encouragement and assistance, and when settlers flocked in he lent them food, clothing, boats, seed, and implements to open farms. In 1844 he resigned his post with the fur company and removed to Oregon City, became an American citizen, built saw and grist mills, and assisted in the development of the colony until his death in 1857. the wars against Napoleon, but John himself studied medicine and joined the Northwest Fur Company. Very soon his talents led to posts of command. The very year that his friend Alexander McKay went away to join his fortunes with Astor, Dr. McLougli- lin was in command at Sault Ste. Marie. In com- mon with his company, he had met Astor, faced him, fought him in the fur trade on the Lakes ; now, no Northwester watched more eagerly the Oregon adven- ture. News came of McKay's death in that far north- west, but another foe had risen, nearer and harder to meet, a foe that could not be bought out, as Astor's men had been. It was the Hudson's Bay THE STORY OF McLOUGHLIN. 73 Company. In real feudal fashion these rival fur companies, the Northwest and the Hudson's Bay, fought on the plains of North America, and be- sieged each other's castellated forts. The old, aristocratic Hudson's Bay Company claimed the earth. Did they not date back to King Charles in 1670, who gave to his " beloved cousin," Prince Rupert, a monopoly of all the furs of Hudson's Bay? And who were these upstarts, the North- westers, that dared to set their traps on Hudson's Bay preserves ? But McKenzie, the greatest of the Northwesters, had even followed a great river to the Arctic and given to it his name. He had crossed to the Pacific, opening up a whole new world of fur-land. The King had knighted Mc- Kenzie. The Northwesters, proud of their laurels, bold in exploits, defied the Hudson's Bay. But when Parliament, over in England, heard that the two British fur companies in North America were fighting, they put a stop to it. Peace must reign in Britain's dominion. The rival fur companies were persuaded to compro- mise, to unite ; and so John McLoughlin, the Northwester, became a chief factor of the Hud- son's Bay Company, and was sent to Oregon. In that Oregon of the olden time McLoughlin had an empire. Alaska touched it on the north, 74 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. and California on the south, its eastern wall was the Rocky Mountains, its western boundary the Pacific. When McLoughlin reached Astoria, it was in sorry decay. A recent fire had carried off most of Astor's stronghold. So, up the Columbia, one hundred miles, just beyond the mouth of the Willamette, on a beautiful sloping plain facing Mount Hood and the blue sweep of the river, a new fort was built, Vancouver. Fancy can picture old Fort Vancouver as a mediaeval castle beside the blue Columbia. The moated wall was the lofty palisade, twenty feet high, with great chained gates and padlocks. " What, warder, ho! let the portcullis fall," rings in the ear as we think of that guarded gate, cautiously opened to let the trader in. In a little room, close by that gate, slept old Bruce, the porter, who sometimes was roused from his slum- bers at midnight by a signal gun, and thumping on the portal. It might be some belated voyageur, but, as a rule, every one was within when the gates were locked at sunset. Within the great gate there was a small one, just large enough to admit one person; this was a precaution in the case of Indians, who might take advantage and crowd in and seize the fort. THE STORY OF McLOUGHLIN. 75 The donjons were log bastions at the corners, watch-towers and arsenals, where a few old guns and a sentinel guarded the forest fortress. Within this strong inclosure extended a broad, green, grassy court, where the Indians came to do their trading. The Governor's residence loomed grandly beside it, the house of Dr. McLoughlin. There are people living yet who saw it, a grim old structure, built Canadian fashion, with an ample porch in front. Tradition says it was weather- boarded once and painted white, but to the mem- ory of the oldest immigrant it was weather-stained and gray. In the center of the residence was a spacious dining-hall, a sort of council-chamber, where all the Pacific fur-traders met for annual consulta- tion. Around its oaken board high dignitaries sat and royal banquets were spread in the palmy days of the Hudson's Bay Company. McLoughlin was always at the head of the table, a sort of mon- arch, a survival of the mediaeval baron. At his right sat Douglas, chief aid, afterward Sir James Douglas, the first governor of British Columbia, knighted by Queen Victoria. And with them, in various years, were Peter SSkeen Ogden, afterward chief factor; Drs. Barclay and Tolmie, Hudson's Bay physicians; William Glen Rae, the Doctor's 76 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. son-in-law; Finlayson, Allen, John Dunn, Erma- tinger, and others famous in Oregon story. In a vast kitchen connected with the residence, Basil, the baker, held sway, who sent to his master's table the rarest canvasback ducks, Chi- nook salmon, and daily venison. In a great oven, built of fire-bricks brought from England, he baked bread for the brigades, and sea-biscuit for ships going home to England or up to Sitka; for McLoughlin carried out Astor's old scheme of trade with the Russians in Alaska. Around the governor's residence clustered quite a village of storehouses for merchandise, fur- rooms, blacksmith-shops, and barrack-rooms for the employees. One of these, Bachelors' Hall, was the scene of many a backwoods carnival. Here the gentlemen retired to smoke, and with trophies of the chase adorning the walls these knights of primeval time discussed the day's ad- venture. In time, other cabins grew up outside the stock- aded wall, the homes of voyageurs and their half- breed families, close under the guns of Fort Van- couver. Then from this central emporium went the annual brigades north to Eraser River, south to the Spanish land of California, northeast to Fort THE STORY OF McLOUGHLIN. 77 Hall, to the Yellowstone, and to Great Salt Lake; some followed the Cowlitz to Nisqually and the Sound. And when these returning brigades came home with the fruits of a season's hunt, how the hospitable old portals opened to receive the return- ing caravans! For days their advent was waited. With glass in hand Dr. McLoughlin would sweep the Columbia for the first glimpse of the swinging boats. Sometimes an Indian would come to the post with word that they had been sighted far up. Forthwith the fort put on its gala dress, the Brit- ish flag fluttered from the pole, the old chimneys roared with bigger fires than ever, and Basil piled his ovens for the coming banquet. And when the long line of bateaux came in sight, what shrill music broke the forest silence ! With every oar dipping in time to some quaint melody, with every voyageur dressed in his gayest bonnet, with the chief traders' flag flying, down they slid to Fort Vancouver. It was the great carnival of the year. Rough, weather-beaten voyageurs leaped to greet their Indian wives and kiss their Indian babies. Many a treasure from the far Canadian land was pulled from pouch and pocket for these little dark-eyed cherubs of the forest. Night brought the great banquet, and floors ringing to the tread of dancers. Over all, through all, and THE STORY OF McLOUGHLIN. 79 in all wailed the violin, for every French-Cana- dian was an artist with the bow. Scarcely could his faithful squaw believe him home until she heard the violin. Then came the day of departure, with new out- fits, new goods, and new festivity. The bales that brought home furs went out with beads and blankets, and all the thousand bright-hued fabrics that delight the savage. Dashing away a tear, Jean and Gabriel and Frangois kissed their babes, and, leaping to the rowlocks, struck up the re- sounding song of old Canada, — " Fly away, my heart, away," and with fluttering pennons and flashing oars the boat brigade went gliding out of sight. Some of the Columbia Indians were treacherous, robber tribes dogged the white man, fought, and made them pay tribute. In very early days, when the Northwesters were here, some traders wore armor, and fur brigades passed the Cascades and the narrow Dalles with a lighted match above a loaded cannon. They even demanded tribute when McLoughlin came, and attacked him once, at Fort Vancouver, with whoops and yells at mid- night. McLoughlin armed his men and called the chieftains in. Striding through the narrow 80 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. gate, no doubt the}' expected gifts and bribes to buy them off. McLoughlin had a wiser plan. He summoned old Colin Fraser in Highland kilt and plume to play the bagpipes. Strutting up and down, the old Scot played his wildest. So charmed were the savages that they forgot their warlike errand, and while the painted warriors surged outside their chiefs within signed a treaty, drawn up by McLoughlin, to never more molest Van- couver. McLoughlin was a diplomat. Very well he knew the effect of pomp and color on the savage heart: never did his barge float on the stream without the insignia of power, — flags and pennants and royal music. McLoughlin had a daughter, just a tinge of Indian in her cheek, that, clad like a princess, rode by her father's side when the gay brigades of autumn wound up the Willamette on their way to California. Only a few miles he accompanied those horse brigades of autumn, but all the Indian world trooped out to see the state and splendor of the White-headed Chief, who ruled so grandly at Vancouver. And on the waters the best voy- ageurs in the world were his, the fleetest at the oar, and the shrillest singers. Oregon was vocal with their chansons in the forest, ringing at moon- light in the valley, and startling daylight up the Columbia in the shadow of Mount Hood. THE STORY OF McLOUGHLIN. 81 No Indian dared defy the magnate at Vancouver. His arm was swift and terrible, the disobedient slunk away before those fiery eyes as from a wrathful god. McLoughlin had a quick and pas- sionate temper, perhaps even exaggerated for effect upon his savage subjects. A consummate actor, his very hair seemed to spread and swell like a halo in his fits of wrath. A cane in his hand was more to be dreaded than a gun in any other. But oh! how mild and sweet and fatherly he was when pleased and calm. The Indians consulted him, brought him gifts; the first salmon of the season was brought to Fort Vancouver, the choicest otter, the blackest beaver. He settled all their difficul- ties, forbade their waging war, put a stop to many a barbarous practice, and sold them guns until they forgot the use of the arrow. Under McLough- lin 's rule, peace reigned in Oregon. The French voyageurs feared and loved Mc- Loughlin, though he ruled them with a rod of iron. " Eef man haf more nor one wife, 'e old Dogtor would 'ang eem," said the old voyageurs. And very good wives the Indian women made for those happy-go-lucky Frenchmen, whose chief aim in life was to have a good time. But all their song and dance and levity was a blessing in the hard- ships of the laborious hunter's life. Sleeping 82 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. night after night in damp and rain and cold, cor- delling canoes along rocky paths, leaping cataracts and sweeping cascades, — the jollier they were, the less they realized the dangers of their lives. A venison steak, a cup of tea, an hour of sleep, and all were ready again for another day as bur- densome as the last. When his voyageurs grew old, McLoughlin did not ship them home to Canada. If they wished, he let them settle with their Indian families at Champoeg, a garden spot of prairie up the Wil- lamette, where, in their little cottages, they passed the peaceful evening of their lives. Sometimes McLoughlin visited old Champoeg, moving like a father among his children. Whatever he said, that was law in the valley Willamette. They did not care for books, those ex-hunters of old Cham- poeg ; their children enlisted again with the fur- traders, and kept up family traditions of brigade and camp-fire. Now and then a Boston ship came into the Columbia to annoy Dr. McLoughlin. For the Hudson's Bay Company was above all things a monopoly. No notion had they of dividing trade with another. How McLoughlin hated the Yankee skipper, hated his enterprise, hated his omnipres- ence ! How little theii did he realize that before THE STORY OF McLOUGHLIN. 83 the century closed this very Yankee enterprise would take Oregon, take California, take Alaska, take the Pacific. The annual ship from London was due in the river in March. This brought merchandise and carried away furs. Even earlier than this, a train of barges left Vancouver for the Northland, bound for Canada. With gay fare- wells and fluttering plumes they went up the great river, past Hood in her snowy mantle, past cas- cades, dalles, and falls, past shoots and cataracts and gems of islands, past Walla Walla at the river's bend, past Okanogan, on up into the Flathead country, on up into the very head stream of the Columbia, in the Rockies. Over the heights they went on snowshoes, then by portages and little lakes and streams, gained the great Saskatchewan, a river longer than the Mississippi, and floating, floating eastward, came to Winnipeg, where Canadian letters and supplies from York Factory met them for the return trip to Fort Vancouver. The annual ship from London and that over- Once a Boston ship, the Thomas H. Perkins, came into the Columbia with a cargo of whisky. Dr. McLoughlin him- self went directly down to As- toria and bought lip the entire outfit before a drop could get into the hands of the Indians and even leased the ship, to end that whisky business. "'An Indian drunk is a demon," he said; on no account would McLoughlin let liquor get among them. 84 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. land brigade from Canada were the two links of communication with the outside world. News- papers a year and two years old were brought and stored away in chests at Fort Vancouver, to be brought out one by one each morning, that here in the lonely forest these hermit knights of trade might read the Daily London Times. There was a library with good books at Fort Vancouver, and when each leather-bound volume had been well perused, off it went to delight some other fort, deeper, more secluded in the northwest forest. Some of the forts in British Columbia were reached on snowshoes; the one down on the Umpqua was hidden in almost inaccessible mountains. But always their beaver came to Port Vancouver. But the quiet days of beaver, bear, and otter hunting in Oregon were not to last forever. Hunt- ers came from the far-off states, missionaries came, settlers came more and more,until fields and gardens bloomed where the hunter lately set his traps. Of course, the Hudson's Bay men did not like it, but when a needy adventurer actually presented him- self at the gates of Fort Vancouver, the great- hearted Doctor could not send him off. He em- ployed him if he could, or he loaned him food and clothes, and seeds to start a farm. Of course he lost by this a great deal; sixty thousand dollars was the reputed record when McLoughlin died. THE STORY OF McLOUGHLIN. 85 The Indians did not like to see the settlers com- ing; they feared invasion of their lands. The first large immigration came in 1843. As the boats neared the shore at Fort Vancouver, an In- dian said, " Let us kill these Bostons." McLough- lin caught the word. Grasping his cane, he seized the miscreant by the throat. "Who says that? " he cried, shaking the speaker like a rat. " I do not," said the Indian, " but the Dalles In- dians say so." "Well, sir, the Dalles Indians are dogs, and you too, if you talk that way." The In- dian slunk away. In his anxiety lest harm should come to the people in the boats, McLoughlin hastened down to the water's edge and took them by the hands, to show the watching Indians that they were his friends. He ordered bonfires built to dry their clothes, and fed many at his table in the fort. On stormy nights the beds were filled with tired women and little children, and the Hudson's Bay clerks grumbled that the Doctor turned them out of their warm quarters to accommodate " these immigrants." Did not McLoughlin know the coming of these settlers meant the ruin of the fur trade? Did he not know this loosing of the floodgates meant American occupation? He must have known; 86 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. but so long had he lived among Indians that every white man was his brother, and as such was warmed and fed and helped upon his way. In McLoughlin's eyes a white woman was a superior being, and little children of the whites were sacred. The fur company blamed him, and from their head- quarters in London demanded an explanation. " My lords," answered McLoughlin, " how could I refuse food to those starving immigrants? My duty to humanity was superior to my duty even to the fur company." And so McLoughlin lost his place, and the noble-hearted philanthropist became the Father of Oregon and the founder of Oregon City. He sleeps now in the Catholic churchyard on the banks of the shining Willam- ette, where every boat that passes may see the shadow of his tomb. Some day the generous heart of Oregon will build a monument to McLoughlin, the great fur-trader who rescued the Americans and fed their hungry little children. BLACKBOARD STUDIES. flotilla mediaeval warder feudal portcullis palisade voyageurs brigades bagpipes eliansons pennants cordelling portage moated castellated Some posts in the north had moats and drawbridges. BONNEVILLE. HEN Bonneville came." What a legend that has come to be! B. L. E. Bonneville was a United States army officer who wished to emulate the deeds of Lewis and Clark. Obtaining leave of ab- sence, he was fitted out by mer- chants of New York, in 1832, for a trapping and trading expedition. That same year, Nathaniel J. Wyeth of Cam- bridge fitted up his wonderful amphibious wagon, a boat on wheels, that was to cross all the lands and waters to Oregon. The Harvard students called it "The Natwyetheum." Bonneville and Wyeth met beyond the Rocky Mountains. The "Natwye- theum " had been aban- doned far back as imprac- ticable. But Bonneville took twenty wagons, loaded with Indian goods, over the Rockies, and cached 87 REFERENCE TOPICS. See Irving's ''Bonne- ville." First wagons cross the Rocky Mountains. BONNEVILLE. 89 them on the Green River, the first wagons that ever crossed the range. Captain Bonneville was utterly bald. Whenever he pulled off his cap, the Indians rose up to gaze with exclamations of awe and wonder at the shining white pate that could not be scalped. After many adventures among the Blue Moun- tains, and much kindness from the Nez Perces, Captain Bonneville reached Fort Walla Walla, on the Columbia River. Here he was cordially re- ceived by Pierre C. Pambrun of the Hudson's Bay Company. " And now," said Bonneville to his worthy host, " If I can purchase of you a few supplies — The hospitable host of a moment before became suddenly cold and formal. " However I may feel inclined to assist you personally, Captain Bonne- ville, I feel in duty bound to the Hudson's Bay Company to do nothing to encourage other traders in this part of the country." And so Bonneville left, empty-handed. "I will get supplies. I will trade with these Indians," indignantly vowed the Captain Bonne- ville. He did come back with supplies from Green River, but the Indians, once so friendly, tied at his approach. Not a horse, not a dog, not a skin, 90 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. not a fish, would they exchange for all his beauti- ful gifts. They had been warned not to trade with these Americans. Bonneville was obliged to kill some of his horses for food. Absolutely boycotted out of the coun- try, he turned again toward the Rockies. " But I ivill return" said Bonneville. Captain Wyeth had already gone down the Co- lumbia, but somehow his salmon-fisheries did not prosper. The Indians brought him rotten fish. The Hudson's Bay Company hired his men away. He built Fort Hall, on the Snake River; the Hud- son's Bay people built Fort Boise near it, and paid the Indians more for their furs; so in a short time Wyeth was obliged to sell his establishment to the Hudson's Bay people and leave the country. It was always that way; American traders found it hard to compete with the Hudson's Bay Company. STORY OF THE MISSIONARIES. N the same year that Bonneville crossed the Rocky Mountains, four Flathead Indians entered the city of St. Louis and asked to see the Red Head Chief who, a quarter of a century before, had visited their fathers in the far Northwest. General Clark, now Indian agent for all the Western country, shook his silver locks with roars of laughter at this reminder of his youth. Very well he remembered his Flathead friends, and with the winsomeness that had won all the tribes he received these ambassadors of a tribe farther than the farthest that had ever visited St. Louis. "We have been sent by our people," said the In- dians, " to obtain the white man's Book of Heaven." At General Clark's or- der they were feasted and 91 REFERENCE TOPIC'S. Indians send for the Bible, 183S. Jason Lee comes, 1834. White women cross the Rocky Mountains, 1 836. First Anglo-Saxon wed- ding, June, 1837. STORY OF THE MISSIONARIES. 93 shown the city. They visited theaters and churches, saw steamboats and tall houses, but no- where did they find the Book of Heaven. The two old men died. Wearied and disappointed, the two young men started on the long journey homeward. The story got into the papers. " The Indians of the far, far West are calling for the Bible." The churches were startled. " Let us send Jason Lee," said the Methodists. "Let us go," said Marcus Whitman and Henry Spalding, the Presbyterians. "We will go," said the Catholic fathers, De Smet and Blanchet. In 1834, Jason Lee, Daniel Lee, Cyrus Shepherd, and T. L. Edwards came with Wyeth to Fort Van- couver. " Bless me, bless me," said Dr. Mc- Loughlin to Jason Lee. " Are you going to settle among those Flathead Indians? No, no; that is too far away. We need you right here in the Willamette Valley. We have Indians of our own." So Jason Lee went up the Willamette and built his log mission ten miles below the present city of Salem. In 1836, Dr. Whitman and Mr. Spalding came over the Rocky Mountains with their brides, the first white women that ever crossed the continent. JO MEEK, THE TRAPPPR From Mrs. Victor's " River of the West." STORY OF THE MISSIONARIES. 95 "They are white squaws, white as snow," was the word that flew into the Indian country. On the summit of the mountains the flag was unfurled, and under its starry folds the little band knelt, facing the west, and, like Columbus, took posses- sion in the name of God. As they came down from the mountains, Indians — Nez Perces, Flat- heads, Snakes, Bannocks — came out in hundreds to meet them. When the two brides alighted at Green River, scores of Indian women pressed to grasp their hands and kiss their cheeks. "Thar," said Jo Meek, an American trapper in the mountains, — " thar are immigrants the Hud- son's Bay Company cannot drive out." "These teachers have come to bring us the Book of Heaven," said the Indians. They looked at the women, and they looked at the wagon that rolled creaking along. Wonderful sight! They poked it with sticks, and examined the wheels, and named it the " horse-canoe." "The way is so rough, you cannot get tne wagon through," said the trappers. But the Indians said, "Go on," and put their shoulders to the wheels. And that was the first wagop> ever brought through to Oregon. At last they reached the Columbia, and visited Dr. McLoughlin at Fort Vancouver. That story you will find in "McLoughlin and Old Oregon." STORY OF THE MISSIONARIES. 97 Dr. Whitman settled among the Walla Walla Indians, where now stands the beautiful city of Walla Walla and Whitman College, in the state of Washington. It was all a flower-decked prairie then, with Indian wigwams curling up their peaceful camp-fires. Mr. Spalding located among the Nez Perces, on the Clearwater River, near the present site of Lewiston, Idaho. Schools were opened, and orchards planted, and gardens. The Indians learned to cultivate their fields, and went to school to read along with their little children. Soon after the arrival of the Whitmans, a ship came in from sea, bringing more teachers for Ja- son Lee's mission on the Willamette. Among them was a beautiful young lady who became the bride of Jason Lee. This was the first Anglo- Saxon marriage on the Pacific Coast. Some time, when you are in Salem, go to the cemetery and read the inscription upon her tombstone: — Beneath this Sod, The First Ever Broken in Oregon for THE Reception of a White Mother and Child, lie the remains of Anna Maria Pitman, Wife of Rev. Jason Lee, and Her Infant Son. 98 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. Jason Lee was sent back to the States in 1838, in the interests of his mission, and while he was gone she died. In 1840, Jason Lee came back with a mission colony of fifty-seven men, women, and children, — the first large accession of Ameri- can immigrants to Oregon. The mission was removed to a healthier location, and out of it grew the present capital city of Oregon, and Willamette University. Builders of cities and carvers of states were those old heroes of sixty years ago. In 1838-39, Blanchet came from Canada and De Smet came from St. Louis and set up the first Catholic missions. De Smet located among the Flatheads, in what is now a part of Montana, so at last the anxious Flatheads had their prayer granted for a teacher of the Book of Heaven. In 1842, one hundred and nine people on horse- back arrived at Whitman's mission, dusty, sun- burned, ragged, weary. "Where are your wagons?" was Dr. Whitman's first inquiry. " We broke them up at Green River, to make pack-saddles," answered the immigrants. "They told us a wagon could never cross the Blue Moun- tains." "All a mistake, all a mistake," cried the vehe- ment Doctor. " Yonder is my wagon, brought over STORY OF THE MISSIONARIES. 99 the Blue Mountains. Look at your women, tired to death on those hard-riding horses. Oregon never will be settled until we can bring wagons." Then and there, while doing everything he could for the weary people, Dr. Whitman resolved to go back and lead a wagon train to Oregon. It is a long story. He went back for many things, on that wonderful winter ride that has been told in song and story. A brave young law- yer, Asa Lovejoy, went back with him as far as Bent's Fort, on the Arkansas River. Then Whit- man pressed on alone to Washington and to Bos- ton. Meantime the people were gathering on the border. Already the long train of wagons was far out on the river Platte when Whitman joined them in that memorable May of 1843. THE WOLF MEETINGS. ROUND the pack-trails of Mount Hood the immigrants of 1842 came into the Willamette Valley, and paused at the Falls, the fu- ture Oregon City. "What sites for mills and factories! " was the involuntary exclamation. " Here we ought to take our claims; this will be the future metropolis." " This town site is claimed by Dr. McLoughlin of the Hudson's Bay Company," answered the members of the Methodist mission, who had re- ceived them hospitably in their homes. "He lives at Fort Vancouver, on the other side of the Columbia." "Away off there? And a Briton ? How can he hold land here?" "Joint Occupation, don't you remember ? When Great Britain gave Fort Astoria back to us in 1818, 100 REFERENCE TOPICS. Indians and wolves. Shall the Pacific Coast form an independent government i Battle for supremacy. America wins. First legislature. THE WOLF MEETINGS. 101 it was agreed that both countries should jointly occupy the Oregon country for ten years, and when that ten years was up the time was extended indefinitely. Now whoever settles the country first, theirs will it be." Captain Couch, the father of Oregon commerce, had lately left the Willamette with the Boston brig Chenamus. The Captain had established a store at the Falls, — a corner grocery, that "demo- cratic palladium of American liberty." Here, as ever with corner groceries, eager Americans met to discuss the political situation. Scarcely a month had passed before disquieting news came down from those Indians at the Whitman mis- sion. "They are not angry at the King George men, nor at the Hudson's Bay Company, but at the Bostons that come to take their land," was the word brought down from the upper country. "Some one has excited those Indians," said Dr. McLoughlin. "Yes; renegade half-breeds have told them that Dr. Whitman has gone after more white people, who will come and take the country," said another. Accident increased the alarm. The careless Cayuses, fishing in the Walla Walla, permitted 102 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. their camp-fires to spread to the mission granary. Conflagration followed; the mill and fifteen hun- dred dollars' worth of hard-earned property went up in smoke. "Mrs. Whitman has fled to the Dalles. The Indians are coming down to the valley to cut off all the Bostons," was the next report. A panic ensued. Some men of the mission, and Tom McKay of the Hudson's Bay Company, went up there to quiet the excited tribes. No one felt safe; in the face of danger the settlers drew near to one another. Daily caucuses met at the corner grocery. With the American instinct for self-govern- ment, "We must organize," they said. "We cannot; the Hudson's Bay Company will oppose." "Who shall rule in Oregon? Shall it be Eng- land? or shall it be America? Let us have a Pacific empire," said some. The long, dark evenings were enlivened by a debating society among the lonely cabins in the rainy woods. Dr. McLoughlin was interested. He sent a question from Fort Vancouver. " Re- solved, that it is expedient for the settlers of the Pacific Coast to form an independent govern- ment." THE WOLF MEETINGS. 103 The question was warmly discussed; a Pacific empire looked feasible, but George Aberneth/ of the mission vehemently opposed it. Despite his effort, the resolution carried by a great majority. "We are drifting from the Union," said Aber- nethy. Leaping to his feet before anybody else had a chance, he offered for the next debate, " Re- solved, that if the United States extends its juris- diction over this country within the next four years, it will not be expedient to form an inde- pendent government." The night came. The house was packed. Anxious men were there with their wives and children, listening, in the nickering flare of the tallow-dip and the chimney-fire, to what might be their fate. American feeling came uppermost, patriotism stirred. Abernethy's loyal resolution carried all before it. A wild hm-rah arose that rang beyond the cabin door. Secession died in Oregon that night. Unconsciously to himself, George Abernethy had won a place in the hearts of his assembled countrymen that was not to be forgotten. An uneasy reaching out for safety stirred through all the valley. Rumors of conspiracies among the Molallas, the Callapooias, and the Klickitats were circulated. Guns were kept 104 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. loaded, doors were barricaded. Now and then the scowl of a painted savage chilled the heart. Jason Lee had been instrumental in organizing a cattle company, that had bought eight hundred head of cattle at three dollars a head of the Spaniards in California, and with infinite trouble they had been driven up the rough and rugged trails to Oregon. Some were lost in swimming rivers, some strayed, some were killed by Shasta Indians, but six hundred reached Oregon alive. Now nearly every settler had his little herd. Wolves, wolves, wolves, how they came down from the mountains and carried off the mission herds! Wolves and bears and panthers kept up continual depredation. The French-Canadians, even the Hudson's Bay people with all their watchfulness, suffered from these destructive mid- night prowlers. Of late, so bold had the beasts of prey become, that even in the daytime they stole into the farmer's yard and carried off his pigs and chickens. About the time the heroic Whitman was enter- ing Washington, at the end of that desperate winter ride, the settlers on this far-off Oregon stage were enacting a most significant drama. In that drama were men who had first crossed the continent with Lewis and Clark, men who came THE WOLF MEETINGS. 105 with Astor's people, remnants of Wyeth's expedi- tion, trappers of the American Fur Company, adventurers that had drifted down from the mountains and up from the seas, Hudson's Bay French-Canadians, and missionaries, all vowing ' vengeance on the wolves. They met at old Champoeg, at the cabin of Joseph Gervais, one of Astor's Canadians, who now for thirty years had trapped in Oregon. O'Neill, of Wyeth's crowd, presided. Le Breton, who came with Captain Couch in the brig Maryland, was secretary. "Hurry over the wolf business," an American whispered to O'Neill; "we have other work in hand." In short order, wolves, bears, and pan- thers met their death sentences, and bounties were voted to every one that brought a scalp. " No one will question for a moment that this is right," rang out the voice of William Gray, who came with Whitman's party in 1836. "This is a just and natural protection for our property. How is it, fellow-citizens, with you and me, and our wives and children? Is there any power to protect us and all we hold dear on earth? We agree to defend our animals. Now, fellow-citi- zens, I move that we may have protection for our persons and lives as well as for our cattle and herds. 106 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. "Resolved, that a committee be appointed to take measures for the civil and military protec- tion of this colony. "Resolved, that said committee shall consist of twelve persons." Without a dissent the resolution went through, and the immortal twelve were appointed that set rolling the cog-wheels of Oregon state machinery. Even in this primeval wild, the news that the Americans were going to organize flew on the wings of the wind. "Has not Canadian law been extended here by act of Parliament," said some old voyageurs. "That is good enough for us. Why are these Yankees always trying to turn the world upside down?" Some opponents to the Americans prepared to combat the movement. A series of seventeen objections was drawn up in English interests. Many a faithful vassal of the reigning fur com- pany agreed to be on hand and vote "no" on any measure that was presented. "We want men, women, children, and domes- tic animals to hold this country, instead of bears and wolves and panthers," said one gruff old mountaineer. " Americans raise wheat and plant schools. Fur companies raise beaver." THE WOLF MEETINGS. 107 The crucial day arrived. The settlers assem- bled in an open field at old Champoeg, the very citadel and center of opposition, so eager were the Americans to enlist the sympathy and co- operation of the Canadians. Motions were put. "No, no, no," steadily voted the opposition. Le Breton's quick eye took in the numbers. "We can risk it. Let us divide and count," he said. Quick as tongue could speak, "Second the motion," cried William Gray. " Who is for a divide? " rang the stentorian note of Jo Meek, the mountain-man. "All for the re- port of the committee and organization, follow me." Every American stepped out behind the stanch Virginian. A few Canadians swayed, hesitated, then followed the American side. Fifty-two against fifty lined up for the Stars and Stripes. "Three cheers for our side!" cried Jo Meek, and with a will over French Prairie rolled one long, loud shout for America. No bells were rung, No paeans sung, No banners flung, No booming cannon pealed, — but Oregon was ours. 108 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. The opposition, disconcerted, withdrew into the fence corners, watched proceedings for a while, then, mounting their Indian ponies, cantered slowly homeward, ruminating on the perform- ances of these self-guided Americans. "And as solemn about it, too, as if 'twere Judgment Day," said one who returned to Fort Vancouver. No bullets sped, No blood was shed, No fallen dead Marked that fair battle-field. The committee of twelve reported for organi- zation and a provisional legislature. Eight days later, the legislature elected on Champoeg sod that day held its first meeting at Oregon City. The Methodist mission at the Falls fitted up its old granary for their accommodation. Summoned by the howl of bears and wolves and panthers, and the fiercer howl of Indians, they came. Here, in the granary-capitol, beside the sound- ing Falls, beneath the whispering firs, on the shores of the Farther Ocean, gravely as of old the Continental Congress, Oregon's first legisla- ture reared anew the institutions of their sires. The preamble of that pioneer constitution de- clared. " That we, the people of Oregon territory, THE WOLF MEETINGS. 109 for the 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 shall extend their jurisdiction over us." On July 5, 1843, the precious document was presented to the people for ratification. On July 4th they began to gather at old Cham- poeg. By boat they came, on foot and horseback, from Oregon City and upper Willamette, and from far-off Clatsop plains. Almost all the male population of Oregon came and camped upon the ground to vote upon the charter of their liberties. The Frenchmen came, too, so that on July 5th the largest assembly of white men that had ever gathered in Oregon was called to order. It was a New England meeting transferred to Pacific shores. A lively discussion followed the reading of the legislative report. "A governor or no governor," was the hitch in proceedings. Again Gray came to the rescue with a ringing speech for no gov- ernor. A vote was taken and the constitution adopted. Many of the more independent French settlers joined in the deliberations on this day, and voted for ratification. All classes contributed to the expense of the flllF ill- JlV THE WOLF MEETINGS. Ill new government. And thus, without a gover- nor, without a treasury, and with but one law book, — a copy of the Iowa Code that some one had chanced to bring across the Plains, — the first American state slept in its cradle on the Pacific. In a short time even the Hudson's Bay Com- pany became reconciled to the new order, and some of its members occupied seats in the Oregon legislature. Officers recommended by the com- mittee were all elected, among them the trapper, Jo Meek, for sheriff. And yet, all told, there were not two hundred Americans west of the Rocky Mountains. In place of a governor, an executive committee of three was elected to veto bills and execute laws. But they soon tired of this, and three years later George Abernethy, who had stood so loyally for the Union, was elected Oregon's first governor. Oregon's first State House, the old granary- capitol at Oregon City, had a roof of cedar bark and sides of split timber, suitable for fence rails. Upon the puncheon platform sat the president. Legislators occupied seats of slab, bark side down, around the room. The secretary kept his records on a bench of rough, uncovered plank. Here, one day, a law against dueling was passed in haste, to keep two angry immigrants from blow- 112 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. ing each other's brains out. Laws were passed against slavery. Some had left the South to get away from slavery. Prohibition was the law of the land, for with whisky in the country, no man's house was safe against Indian massacre. By the time Whitman came with the immigra- tion of 1843 — one thousand men, women, and children, one hundred and twenty wagons, and five thousand head of cattle — everything was or- ganized and ready. That turned the tide over- whelmingly in favor of the United States. As the old thirteen colonies exterminated bears and wolves and panthers under bounty to build up Boston, Providence, and Pittsburg, so now the first Pacific colony was preparing the way for the then unnamed. Salem, Corvallis, Eugene, and Portland. BLACKBOARD STUDIES. Champoeg (cham-po'eg). From Callapooia word champooick, wild celery. Chenamus (che-na'inus). Named for the chief, son of old Comcomly. Salem (sa'lem). Located on site of old Indian Che-mek-e-te. THE WINNING OF THE WEST. " The gull shall whistle in his wake, the blind wave break in fire, He shall fulfill God's utmost will, unknowing his desire; And he shall see old planets pass and alien stars arise, And give the gale his reckless sail in shadow of new skies. Strong lust of gear shall drive him out and hunger arm his hand. To wring his food from a desert nude, his foothold from the sand. His neighbor's smoke shall vex his eyes, their voices break his rest; He shall go forth till south is north, sullen and dispossessed ; He shall desire loneliness, and his desire shall bring Hard on his heels a thousand wheels, a people, and a king. He shall come back on his own track, and by his scarce cool camp There shall he meet the roaring street, the derrick, and the stamp; For he must blaze a nation's ways, with hatchet and with brand, Till on his last-won wilderness an empire's bulwarks stand." — Rudyard Kipling. OTHING in American history, excepting, perhaps, crossing the Atlantic, equals the crossing of the plains. Three thousand miles by sea came the Pilgrims to Plym- outh Rock. Two thousand miles by land came the pioneers to Ore- gon. The year 1843 brought a thousand people into Oregon. Before their let- ters had gone back, 1844 113 REFERENCE TOPICS. England alarmed. "Fifty-four Iforty, or fight." The boundary settled, June 15, 1846. The Mexican War. California won. THE WINNING OF THE WEST. 115 was on its way. Books cannot hold the story. It is one of the world's great movements, — the trans- portation of a people. Little did those immigrants of 1844 realize the journey before them. Gayly, as on a summer's holiday, they started with insufficient outfits. But Heaven took care of that. The year 1844 was a rainy year, and drenched, and drenched, and drenched were they. Clothes wore out, babes were born, and people died. Along the Platte, on the hunting-grounds of the old Pawnee Loupes, they chased the buffalo. The hunters shot them down by hundreds, to divide among the families. Through ignorance, thousands of pounds of meat spoiled before they learned the proper method of preservation. For five hundred miles they lived on buffalo; seldom were the ranging herds beyond their sight. Swift-footed antelopes crossed their track, some- times wild turkeys and mild-eyed deer, and by and by the mountain sheep. Almost before they knew it, they had climbed the gentle slope of the Rockies and were descend- ing the western side. They camped in beautiful groves on Green River, in the present AVyoming, where the lush, green grass was an endless meadow. In their enthusiasm they even thought L 116 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. the Western waters tasted better than those on the other side. Even from the Snake they looked forward to Oregon City. To those earlier trains the Indians were kind. They came among them well dressed, and sometimes bearing banners. Plump up at Fort Hall came the army of 1844. " Can we take our wagons to the Columbia River?" "Do not ask me to answer that question," growled Captain Grant, in great irritation. " Last year men came here, just as you do now, and asked the same question. I told them they could not go with their wagons. We found it very difficult to pass with pack-ponies. They went on, however, just as though I had not spoken. The next I heard of them they had reached Walla Walla and the Dalles. You Yankees can go any- where you want to." And on they went. Whitman's Indians built their bonfires on the hills to guide them in. With almost superhuman effort, Dr. Whitman had raised a great crop, and could supply the passing trains. Amazed as he was at this incoming tide, Dr. McLoughlin could not refuse help to this tattered but heroic army. James Douglas of Fort Van- couver was afterwards knighted by Queen THE WINNING OF THE WEST. 117 Victoria, " but," says an immigrant of 1844, "John McLoughlin held the patent for his honors immediately from Almighty God." Just in time to meet the immigrants of 1844., Captain Couch with his Boston brig was in the river. He foresaw the future. By the next year he had laid the foundation of the town site of Portland on the banks of the Willamette, at the head of ship-navigation. Two others joined him, — F. W. Pettygrove of Portland, Maine, who had come with a sailing-ship of goods around the Horn, and Asa L. Lovejoy of Boston, who made that winter trip with Whitman. "What shall we call our new town?" said they. "Portland," said Pettygrove. "Boston," said Lovejoy. And then and there they nipped a penny, and " Portland " won. That same year the Methodists dedicated the first Protestant church west of the Rocky Moun- tains, at Oregon City. Somebody was even then in Washington working for a steamboat route across the Isthmus of Panama to shorten the route to Oregon. The year 1845 brought three thousand people with " Fifty-four forty, or fight," blazoned on their wagon covers. " Yes," they said, " Polk is elected; and we will fight for Oregon." 118 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. The brother of the Earl of Aberdeen was in Puget Sound with a British fleet awaiting events. Sir Robert Peel, Prime Minister of England, sent his son, William Peel, and Captain Parke of the Royal Marines, to investigate the Oregon problem. They saw the incoming caravans. " Hopelessly Americanized, hopelessly Americanized," was their frequent exclamation. Parke and Peel rode up the Willamette Valley, and were entertained by the settlers. "Tell us how you came to Oregon," they asked at the house of Applegate. He gave them the story of 1843. " Such men would make the finest soldiers in the world," said Peel. They stopped at Nesmith's. He staked their horses on the grass, and invited them into his cabin, fourteen feet square, with puncheon floor, mud chimney, and not a pane of glass. The furniture had been made by the future Senator himself with an ax and auger. Boiled wheat and jerked beef was the extent of the larder. The scions of nobility slept in their own blankets on the cabin floor. Twenty-five years after, Senator Nesmith met one of those officers in Washington. "Do you recall that I was once your guest in Oregon?" he said. THE WINNING OF THE WEST. 119 Nesmith attempted an apology for the brevity of their bill of fare at that time. "My dear sir," interrupted the polite English- man, "the fare was splendid, and we enjoyed it hugely. You gave us the best you had; the Prince of Wales could do no more." From Nesmith's house Lieutenant Peel returned to Puget Sound and took a special ship to London. What he told his father, the great Sir Robert, we do not know, but we had no war with England. Captain Barlow was the first of the train of 1845 to reach the Dalles, that stopping-place for wheels. "Let us cut a road through the timber," said the undaunted Captain. " Impossible," said the settlers at the Dalles mission. " You must make rafts, or wait for the Hudson's Bay boats." " Let the rest go down by boat. We will hunt a road," said persevering Barlow. And he and W. H. Rector started into the forest. Over fallen giant trees they climbed, over precipices, ravines, and streams. Days passed, snow fell, food gave out. They were lost in the wintry foothills of Mount Hood. Captain Barlow, who was an elderly man, fell exhausted. The younger man 120 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. helped him on. Hope was almost gone, when lo! they heard the tinkle of a cow-bell. It was their own herdsmen leading cattle along an Indian trail over the mountain. The next year, the plucky Mr. Barlow went back and opened the famous Barlow road around Mount Hood, enabling settlers to bring their wagons and effects directly into the Willamette Valley. Says Judge Deady, "The opening of railways since has been of less importance than the opening of that road." With 1845 came, too, William B. Ide, who led a company off to California, where, next year, he raised the world-famed Bear Flag at Sonoma. In 1846 two thousand more people came into Oregon. Part of them turned off by a new route to enter southern Oregon, and suffered incredible hardships. In rough mountains, amid hostile savages and swollen streams, most of them lost everything they possessed, and barely escaped to the settlements with their lives. For years the Umpqua Canon was strewn with wrecks of wagons and crockery. The Spectator, the first newspaper on the Pacific Coast, had been started in February, at Oregon City. In November came the joyful word, "The boundary is settled, and Oregon is ours." Every THE WINNING OF THE WEST. 121 fir of the green hills shook with the anvils of that colony by the sea. But when the settlers learned it was on the 49th parallel, a great cry rose, "A third of Oregon gone? We have been betrayed. Oregon reached Alaska." Unknown to Oregon then, the Mexican War was on, Fremont was in California, the Stars and Stripes were up at San Francisco. Amer- ica had opened wide her western window to the sea. The year 1847 was a record-breaker. The Indians on the plains began to be frightened at the never-ending tide. Between May and November, five thousand people, with their flocks and herds, marched from Missouri to the sea. They crossed the Platte by fords, by wagon-beds lashed together, and on rafts, darkening the stream for days. Before their hunters, innume- rable herds of buffalo made the earth tremble where Grand Island, Lincoln, and Hastings, Nebraska cities, are to-day. They came from everywhere, and brought everything. Many of them were born on the Atlantic coast, had seen the opening of the Erie Canal, had followed the tide up the Ohio, came surging across Missouri, and on to Oregon. If America was peopled by the specially culled brave hearts of Europe, so THE WINNING OF THE WEST. 123 Oregon was settled by the picked brave few of their descendants. As one of that year says, "We had preachers with their Bibles, doctors with their medicine- chests, lawyers with their law books, school teachers, merchants with their goods, millers, wheelwrights, carpenters with their chests of tools, blacksmiths with anvils and bellows, ready to do all kinds of repairing at any time and place, gunsmiths and silversmiths, tailors with their geese, shoemakers with lasts, saddlers, dressmakers and milliners with their needles, a lumberman with his heavy log- wagon, and last, but not least, farmers with and without families." In that train there were Durham cattle from Illinois, Kentucky horses, Saxony sheep. A miller from Missouri brought a pair of burr- stones for a mill. Thomas Cox and son brought dry goods for the first store in Salem, and peach pits originating the Cox cling peach of Oregon and California. Robert Caufield of Ohio brought a stock of goods for a store at Oregon City. Dimick of Michigan brought seeds from which sprang the famous Dimick potato. Ralph C. Geer 1 of Illinois brought a small wrought-iron 1 Uncle of the present governor of Oregon. 124 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. cannon that was made to celebrate the election of Henry Clay. That cannOn, that never celebrated Clay's victory, was fired from the top of Indepen- dence Rock on the Fourth of July when the Stars and Stripes were hoisted to the Rocky Mountain breeze. And there was the "Traveling Nursery." Henderson Luelling of Missouri had planted in earth in his wagon boxes seven hundred shoots of apples, pears, plums, cherries, quinces, grapes, berries, and flowers. " It is a very hazardous undertaking to draw such a heavy load all the way over the Rocky Mountains," said some. "They will dry up and die on the plains." " The overwork will kill your oxen." "You can never keep up." "You endanger your family." " You had better leave them here on the Platte." But against every protest the nurseryman turned a resolute ear. He brought his treasures in triumph to Oregon. Along with them came a bushel of apple seeds and a half-bushel of pear seeds. From that stock sprang orchards and nurseries until Oregon became "the Land of Big Red Apples." THE CAYUSE WAR. HE year 1847 came on like a mighty drama. The withdrawal of British claims created such a rush of immigration that no accurate record of it could be kept. Five thousand people are estimated to have crossed the ^orders of Oregon in 1847. Away back in Missouri somebody had the measles. It spread among the caravans. White people know how to treat the disease, but to In- dians it was death. The tribes around Whitman's mission were ad- vancing rapidly in civilization. Already they had vast herds. Dr. Whitman had built them a saw-mill and a grist-mill. Many of the promised im- provements had become realities. But the immi- grants trampled down the Cayuse pastures, burned up their fuel, and killed 125 REFERENCE TOPICS. Causes of the war. Distrust of the whites. Fear of losing lands. Superstition. Sickness. The massacre. 126 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. their game. The smoldering fires of resentment were beginning to blaze. They were no longer friendly to the incoming tide. And then came the deadly measles. All along the Walla Walla the Indians lay sick. Dr. Whit- man passed among them, relieving, encouraging, advising, but they turned their faces to the wig- wam wall. Their beloved leader had brought this great affliction upon them. Had he not gone to the white man's country and started this never- ending army of Bostons toward the setting sun? Despite Whitman's advice and precautions, in the midst of their suffering, to allay the burning fever they leaped into the cold Walla Walla, to pop up dead. Many died before they left the water. Some crept home to breathe their last in lingering agony. In every lodge the death-wail sounded. And still the immigrants kept coming over the mountains. The chiefs drew together, they whispered; evil- disposed half-breeds helped on the discontent, " Dr. Whitman has done this. He has brought poison from the States to kill you all, that he may take your lands." But Dr. Whitman, though warned by his faithful Sticcas, would not desert his post. He could not leave. His house was fall of sick THE CAYUSE WAR. 127 ones. Several of his own family of eleven adopted children were in bed with the measles. Strangers were tarrying there, fair young women, and mothers and little children. One November morning, when he was busily engaged in prepar- ing medicine for a sick Indian, the blow fell. The heroic Doctor was struck down. The moth- erly Mrs. Whitman followed. Whoever tried to resist sank beneath the tomahawk. Some fled, some hid under the floor, some were captured and carried off to Indian lodges. A faithful Indian carried the word to Mrs. Spalding, in the Nez Perce country, at Lapwai. She was in her .school with the Indians and her children. Two Nez Perce chiefs carried her in safety to their lodges. But the mission at Lapwai was immediately plundered by excited renegades. Mr. Spalding, at that moment on his way to Whitman's, was turned back by a friendly hand in the fog, and reached unharmed the lodge where his wife was hidden. A messenger sped down the Columbia to Fort Vancouver. Without delay, Peter Skeen Ogden, one of the noblest of all the Hudson's Bay factors, started in a canoe, with blankets and trinkets, to ransom the captives held by the savages. James Douglas sent word to Oregon City. The 128 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. legislature was in session when the panting mes- senger landed at the Falls. That very morning Governor Abernethy had been discussing their dangerous situation with the Indians. Now, when he reported an actual massacre, excitement leaped to fever heat. Before the announcement had fairly left the governor's lips, Nesmith was on his feet with a resolution to dispatch fifty riflemen to protect the mission at the Dalles, '"It carried with a roar. In fifteen hours from the time they enrolled their names, the Spartan band ofMifty were on their way to the Dalles. Five hundred volunteers rendezvoused at Oregon City on Christmas Day. Those whom Whitman had befriended leaped to avenge his death, — heroes who had toiled at his side in '43, and immigrants of succeeding years, who had hailed his mission as the first civilized landmark west of the Rockies. Applegate, Lovejoy, and Abernethy, on their personal credit, purchased arms and ammunition at Fort Vancouver. The women of Oregon City baked, and sewed, and out of bits of bunting made a flag. Farmers came hurrying through the woods with beans, and bacon, and lead, and blankets, — whatever could be spared to fit out the little army. Cornelius Gilliam, an immigrant of THE CAYUSE WAR, 129 1844, was placed in command. Jo Meek, the trapper, resigned his seat in the legislature to carry the news to Washington. "Will people at Champoeg join their Indian kindred?" queried the anxious settlers. But Tom McKay settled that. Up and down French Prairie he called them to his banner, and they marched with him to the war. At the peril of his life, Ogden, the Hudson's Bay trader, went into the Indian country. Seventy- two people had been at Whitman's mission; thir- teen were massacred. Some escaped, but Ogden succeeded in ransoming forty-seven, mostly women and children. He brought these, with Spalding and ten others, down to the Willamette Valley. Portland was a village in the woods, but it tired a salute as the boats went by. And again a salute rang out as the gray-haired old hero landed his precious freight at the settlement by the Falls. Governor Abernethy received the rescued ones, and in the name of humanity thanked the coura- geous chief factor for his inestimable service. The painted Cayuses were out on their painted horses. All the land was alive when the ill- equipped and devoted little army dragged their only piece of artillery, a rusty nine-pounder, around the Cascades in a driving snow into the hostile country. 130 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. On all the hills the demoniac Indians shouted, "The Bostons are women! the Bostons are women!" In all the valleys they hid in am- buscade. Some of them crept along the ravines to the Willamette Valley to stir up the Indians there, while the volunteers were gone from the settlements. The Americans advanced; battle opened. Some boasters fell before the Bostons' deadly fire. In the twinkling of an eye the Indians vanished, only to rise again with the fusee's deadly click and the arrow's whizz from every little knoll, from behind each hillock and every clump of verdure. Harassed, picked off by an unseen enemy, night and day the dauntless volunteers pressed into the heart of the enemy's country. Governor Aber- nethy's peace commissioners were hastily cement- ing friendship with outlying tribes. Spalding had printed a letter with his pen in Indian talk to his Nez Perces: — QUICK MEET THEM, WITH THESE FLAGS MEET THEM. FROM US, FROM THE AMERICANS, FIVE GO TO MEET YOU. THESE MEET YOU, WITH GOOD HEARTS THEY MEET YOU. THEY BEAR A MESSAGE, FROM THE GREAT CHIEF THEY BEAR IT. THEREFORE THEY CALL YOU TO MEET THKM. KEEP QUIET, YE YOUNG MEN, DO NOT GO OVER TO THE CAYUSES. THE CAYUSE WAR. 131 And they did not. Chief Joseph, father of the famous Chief Joseph of a later day, retired with his people and herds to their home in the Wallowa Valley. Five Crows, his handsome, fiery Cayuse cousin, was shot by Tom McKay in that very first battle, and crept away to die in the lodge of Chief Joseph. And the little child, Chief Joseph the Second, heard them talking day by day of the Bostons that came to take the country. Only a heap of ashes marked the site of the Whitman mission. Poor old Sticcas! He gath- ered up what he could of the Doctor's property and delivered it to the volunteers. "And where are the murderers?" demanded Colonel Gilliam, as Sticcas hastened to depart. With frightened, sidelong glance, he waved his hand and whispered, "Fleeing up the Tucanon." Up the Tucanon the volunteers surprised an Indian camp, apparently just making its toilet for battle. "We Palouses, we friends," pleaded the Indians. "Where are the murderers?" thundered Gil- liam. " Fled to the land of Red Wolf, on the Snake." said the Indians. " Here are their cattle. Take them." The hills were covered with Cayuse herds. The 132 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. volunteers set out to drive rive hundred head before them. A flash, a whoop, and the land was afire with Indian battle. The painted camp was out, the Palouses sprang from the very earth. The herds were lost in the fierce, running battle of the Tucanon. For thirty hours the firing never ceased. At last the struggling, fighting, fleeing remnants of the almost entrapped Americans escaped beyond the Touchet. Behind, sounded the dismal death- wail of the Indian. Nothing but superior arms and ammunition saved the Americans on that day. And there they were, in the heart of the enemy's country, almost without ammunition, and wholly without bread. Without tents, with- out shoes, they lived on what they could find in Indian caches, and on horse-meat, and slept on the ground. But help came from the settlement by the sea. With dismay the Indians beheld a second army ;nlvancing into their territory. Already their herds were ruined, ammunition gone, their fami- lies scattered. The Cayuses, as a people, had no heart in the war. Every day at sunset the mothers lamented the wicked act that had brought this trouble upon them. THE CAYUSE WAR. 133 Gradually the opposition narrowed down to the few who had participated in the massacres, and some sympathizers who had assisted in their es- cape. They sued for peace. All the Cayuse lands were forfeited to the United States, a garrison was left at a rude fort thrown up on the site of Whit- man's house, and the volunteers returned to the valley. But no word yet from Washington. Unaided, Oregon had fought it out alone. Unaided now, she dug her gold and paid her volunteers. What does not America owe to her Indian- fighters, explorers, hunters, trappers, missionaries, and adventurers? They, before all others, took the land, and held many a dark and bloody ground for civilization. Never, never, did the bold, un- flinching heroes yield. They held, in trust, a home for us. To these our nation owes its homage. Our institutions are their monuments. OREGON IN CONGRESS. HEN England gave back Astoria in 1818, there was an agreement for a "Joint Occupation" of the ( >i egon country for ten years. " A great mistake, a great mis- take," cried out Thomas Hart Ben- ton, a young lawyer of St. Louis. '• In ten years that little nest-egg of 'Joint Occupa- tion ' will hatch out a lively fighting chicken." Missouri was qo1 ye1 a state, but Benton would not be still. He felt a responsibility for all that Western country; and why should he not? Mis- souri and Oregon touched borders on the sum- mit of the Rockies. Were they not next-door neighbors, hobnobbing over the fence, as it were? Benton set out for Wash- ington by one of the first steamboats that ever ran up the Ohio. Kamsay Crooks and Rus- sell Farnham of the Astor expedition were in Wash- 134 REFERENCE TOPICS. JointOccupatlon Treat J . Monroe Doctrine. Oregon a colony. Battle over slavery. Oregon a territory. OREGON IN CONGRESS. 135 ington that winter, quartered at the same hotel with Floyd of Virginia and Benton of Missouri. Many an evening, beside their whale-oil lamps in Hotel Brown, did the founders of Astoria recount the glories of the Columbia beside the distant sea. Benton wrote for Oregon; he made a noise in all the papers. In 1820, Dr. Floyd presented in Congress a bill for the occupation of the Columbia River. Staid Sen- , ators smiled at the visionary scheme. Missouri was just coming in as a state. The moment Benton, her first Senator, was seated, he flew to Floyd's support. "We must occupy the Columbia," said the young Senator. "Mere adventurers may enter upon it as ^Eneas entered upon the Tiber, and as our forefathers came upon the Potomac, the Del- THOMAS HART BENTON". 136 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. aware, and the Hudson, and renew the phenome- non of individuals laying the foundation of future empire. " Upon the people of eastern Asia the establish- ment of a civilized power upon the opposite coast of America cannot fail to produce great and won- derful results. Science, liberal principles and government, and the true religion, may cast their lights across the intervening sea. The valley of the Columbia may become the granary of China and Japan, and an outlet to their imprisoned and exuberent population." Men called Benton a dreamer. We call him a prophet. Few, if any, Senators have ever been more faithful to their duties than was Thomas H. Benton, the champion of Oregon. For thirty 3'ears England and her fur companies enriched themselves in Oregon waters; for thirty years the champion stood in his place and fought to save us Oregon. His is a heroic figure that should adorn our State House. In one of the public squares of St. Louis there is a bronze statue of Benton as he used to stand in Congress, with one hand pointing toward the Columbia, saying ever those prophetic words, " There is the East. There is India." From the bedside of the dying Jeffer- son, Benton took up the great enterprise of an overland highway to India. OREGON IN CONGRESS. 137 Members of Congress knew little of Oregon. They talked of it as some do of Alaska to-day. " The only part of the territory fit to occupy is that part lying upon the sea-coast, — a strip less than one hundred miles in width; the rest consists of mountains almost inaccessible." "Why, sir, of what use will this be for agricul- tural purposes?" asked Mr. McDuffie of South Carolina. " I would not for that purpose give a pinch of snuff for the whole territory. I thank God for his mercy in placing the Rocky Moun- tains there. Do you think your honest farmers of Pennsylvania, New York, or even Ohio or Missouri, will abandon their farms to go upon any such enterprise as this? God forbid." But New England generally stood by us. Said Senator Baylies of Massachusetts, " Gentlemen, we are talking of natural boundaries. Sir, our natural boundary is the Pacific Ocean." That was in 1823. " The spirit of migration should be repressed," said Breckenridge of Kentucky. Some thought a commercial or military post on the Columbia would be sufficient. You have all heard of the famous Monroe Doc- trine. Did you know that it was first promulgated in connection with Oregon? President Monroe, in his message of December, 1823, referring to Ore- 138 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. gon, said, "The American continents are hence- forth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers." And that statement has stood from that day to this, a protecting aegis over North and South America. Even at that early day — - 1823 — eighty farmers and mechanics of Maryland petitioned Congress to pass the bill of occupation, that they might emigrate to Oregon. Three thousand people in Massachusetts followed with another petition, and a company in Louisiana asked for a grant of forty square miles. If Congress had listened to these petitions, Oregon might have been settled long before it was. But, by and by, people grew tired of petitioning and went in without petition. ■• We have not adopted a system of colonization, and it is to be hoped we never shall. Oregon can never become one of the United States," said Senator Dickerson of New Jersey in 1825. " Has any one calculated the expense of getting a member of Congress from Oregon to the Potomac? Will he double Cape Horn, or come by a new route explored under the North Pole? Or will he come over lofty mountains with twelve feet of snow on their summits in July? " Of course the Senators laughed, but the champion was ready. Benton was a tighter in the days when Oregon needed a fighter. OREGON IN CONGRESS. 139 Some said the colonial system was foreign to the principles of the American republic; some denied the right of Congress to colonize; others said the land must be governed by a military chieftain, and this was unconstitutional. Some objected to the policy of occupying Oregon. Others said it was wrong to despoil the natives of their territory; it would be better to leave it as a per- petual retreat for the red men; the only purpose to which the plains could be devoted was a range for buffaloes. " Admit that you shall succeed in planting a colony," said another. " Sir, they will suffer by famine, and famine will quickly bring pestilence in its rear. A barren soil, an inclement sky, the want of all things, — and } r ou will see a destruc- tion of human life unparalleled in history." So tremblingly has the republic spread, always fear- ing disaster, begging delay, yet passing by leaps and bounds to unknown shores. Along in the thirties another great friend of Oregon arose, — Lewis F. Linn of Missouri, one of the most lovable Senators that ever sat in Con- gress. In 1839, Dr. Linn introduced a bill for the occupation of the Columbia River, and in it was that plea for grants of land to settlers suggested by Jason Lee, the missionary, who had proved 140 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. that Americans could live in Oregon. No people in the world are more eager for land than Ameri- cans. Pioneer sons of pioneer fathers from Maine to Kentucky read Linn's bill with delight. Again a chorus of objectors in Congress cried, " What do we want with that country so far away? " The old lion Benton came in with a stroke of the paw now and then when too many opponents arose against his young colleague. " Is it demanded," he roared, " What do we want with this country so far from us? I answer by asking in my turn, What do the British want with it, who are so much farther off? They want it for the fur trade; for a colony; for an outlet to the sea; for communication across the continent; for a road to Asia; ... to command the commerce of the North Pacific Ocean, and open new chan- nels of trade with China, Japan, Polynesia, and with the great East. They want it for these rea- sons, and we want it for the same; because it ad- joins us, belongs to us, and should be possessed by our descendants." With all the ardor of his nature, Linn pleaded for a chain of military posts to protect emigrants traversing the plains, and for grants of land to intending settlers. " Wait; time is acting for us; wait," said Calhoun of South Carolina. OREGON IN CONGRESS. 141 "We have waited," said Benton. "I go now for vindicating our rights on the Columbia; and as the first step toward it, passing this bill and making these grants of land, which will soon place thirty or forty thousand rifles beyond the Rocky Mountains." Just then, in the thick of the battle, Linn, the beloved apostle of Oregon, died, in December, 1843. But Whitman and that first train of wag- ons had already crossed the Rockies. "The saving of Oregon devolved upon the peo- ple," says Benton in his "Thirty Years' View." And they saved it. " The maddest enterprise that has ever deluded foolish man," said the Louisville Journal. "None but the wild and fearless trapper can clamber over those precipices and tread those deserts in security," said John Dunn, a clerk of the Hudson's Bay Company, in a book just then published in London. "Oregon will never be colonized overland from the United States. The world will assume a new face before the American wagons can make plain the road to the Columbia as they have to the Ohio," said the Edinburgh Review. However dilatory and deprecatory we were our- selves, the moment England said a word all 142 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. America was up in arms. Not in vain had Con- gress listened to this interminable Oregon ques- tion. For years the siates had been born in pairs. Now the great state of Texas was coming in. Statesmen cast their eyes to the North for a companion to the "Lone Star" of the South. Oregon caught their eye. All at once the coun- try kindled with the cry of "Fifty-four forty, or fight," "All of Oregon, or none." And Polk was elected on that battle-call. There was a great deal said across the water, too, and in the papers of both countries, inflaming the people. It looked then as if Congress might have a war on her hands, and she did, but not for Oregon. We settled the boundary line with England in 1846. Great, then, was the disappointment in Oregon when the immigration of 1S46 and then of 1847 arrived, and still no evidence of govern- mental jurisdiction came to the far-off colony. Grave and graver grew the situation in those autumn days of 1847, when the Indians were sick with the measles. Dr. Whitman had been to the Willamette Valley; he foresaw as no other could the possible impending tragedy. Closeted with Governor Abernethy and John Quinn Thornton, supreme judge of the colony, he revealed his OREGON IN CONGRESS. 143 hidden fears. "You must go to Washington and do what you can," he said to Thornton. " Nothing but a strong territorial government will save me and my mission, and perhaps all these settlements, from falling under the murderous hands of sav- ages." With bated breath trains of frightened immi- grants hurried over the trails to the Willamette.. They told of constant insults. The sickness and the anger of the Indians appalled the valley. Men met in whispers. None were safe. Governor A bernethy hastened from point to point to soothe excited tribes. In vain. Home again, he placed in the hands of Judge Thornton a letter to Presi- dent Polk, saying, — " You are our only hope. There is a bark in the river. Go at once to Washington." There was no money in the colony, but among the principal men a collection was taken in per- sonal notes, flour, and drafts on Eastern mission boards. The bark Wkiton sped down the coast, The flour was sold in San Francisco. Judge Thornton was carried on to Lower California and left, stranded. The Mexican War was on. Near a small fort that had been captured by the Americans lay a sloop of war, the Portsmouth. To its commander the almost despairing dele- gate applied for aid. 144 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. " In case I find a United States minister or dip- lomat stranded as you are, it is my duty to render him any assistance in my power," said Captain Montgomery when he had examined Thornton's papers. "Yours is a national mission. Under the rules, I shall not hesitate to take you to the States." And so the captain of the sloop took on the delegate as an honored guest, turned prow, and hurried with him around the Horn to Washing- ton. Eight days after the departure of Thornton came the frightful Whitman massacre. " We can- not wait for one to travel around the Horn; some one must cross the mountains," was the quick decision. As quickly every eye turned to Jo Meek, the daring mountain-man. It was winter, the snows were on the trails, but Meek, undaunted, set out with the first volunteers of the Cayuse war. His own little daughter, Helen Mar, born in the mountains, of an Indian mother, and named for the heroine of "The Scottish Chiefs," lay dead at that Whitman mission. Dressed in the red belt and Canadian cap of the Hudson's Bay Company, Meek and his com- panions, two other mountain-men, passed the hostile Bannocks and the threatening Sioux, deep in their snowy camps of winter. Here and there OREGON IN CONGRESS. 145 in a hollow of the Bear or Green River he met Bridger and other old comrades of the mountain time. In two months they reached the settlements. Of course, hotels were closed to savage-dressed men of the mountains without money. Meek re- membered that he had a letter in his pocket from two Oregon volunteers to their father at St. Jo. He hunted him up. Gladly the old gentleman took them in, conveyed them in his own carriage to Independence, and secured steamboat passage to St. Louis. Here, with the good luck that ever attended the rollicking, jolly Jo Meek, he met at the landing an old friend in a Rocky Mountain trader. To him he told the news. The next morning the St. Louis papers were full of the Whitman massacre. Jo Meek telegraphed to Washington. "Come on," answered President Polk. Down at the wharf steamboats were calling for passengers. Boldly Meek walked on one, and, mounting the hurricane deck, shouted in trumpet tone, " This way, gentlemen; come right on board if you want to hear the news from Oregon. I 'm just across the plains, two months from the Columbia River, whar the Injuns are killing your missionaries." Of course, in a few minutes that boat was crowded, 146 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. and the astonished captain gave this surprising helper free passage to the end of his route. So it was everywhere. To the inquiry, " Who are you?" Meek's reply, "I am Envoy Extraor- dinary and Minister Plenipotentiary from the Republic of Oregon to the Congress of the United States," always brought electric admission to hotels and coaches. At Washington, Meek hastened to the White House. A mulatto, with whom he played as a boy on the old Virginia plantation, admitted him at the door. The colored man spoke to Knox Wal- ker, the President's private secretary. Bounding forward, that high dignitary grasped both hands of the Oregon trapper. " Why, Uncle Jo ! " he cried. In a few moments Polk dismissed his other visitors and turned to Jo Meek, his relative, long lost in Oregon wilds. The special message, with which he had traveled three thousand miles over mountain, plain, and winter snows, was delivered into the hands of the President. " Now you must see Mrs. Polk," said the Presi- dent, as Meek arose to go. " And you must stop at the White House." A mist came over the trapper's eyes. " When I heard the silks rustling in the passage, I felt OREGON IN CONGRESS. 147 more frightened than if a hundred Blackfeet had whooped in my ear," was Jo Meek's confession long years after. Whitman in his old fur coat, burnt and full of holes, before Daniel Webster; Jo Meek in moun- tain blankets and wolfskin cap; Thornton with- out a dollar in his pocket, — ■ of such stuff were the heroes of early Oregon, worthy sons of Revolu- tionary sires. Lewis and Clark stranded among the Oregon Indians, our immigrants in rags and tatters, but come to build a state, — what were clothes to men like these? Of course, Polk put Meek into the hands of bar- ber and tailor. Scarcely could the Oregon trap- per recognize himself in that fashionable gentle- man in the tall looking-glass. Both Meek and Thornton reached Washington in May. Congress received with welcome these two representatives of that far-off land beyond the Great American Desert. They came, as it were, with a gift in their hands, — the gift of a fair, young, future state, snatched by those emi- grants, not only from savage tribes, but from a rival power. News of the Whitman massacre shocked Con- gress into action. And yet, who would ever .suppose that the fate of Oregon hung on slavery? 148 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. Thornton drew up a memorial for the people of Oregon. Benton presented it to Congress. "Withdraw that clause against slavery, and your bill for territorial government will pass without opposition," said the friendly Southern Senators. " But I cannot do that," said Thornton. " The people of Oregon adopted that in their Provisional Government." And then the Senators seemed to forget all about Oregon in their wrangle over slavery. " The slave is property which its owner may carry with him into any part of the Union," said Jefferson Davis of Mississippi. " Slavery, like the waters of the Nile, has spread its fertilizing influences over all the world," said Calhoun of South Carolina, with more to the same effect. He talked all one forenoon. That dulcet voice almost carried away the listening Senate. Both Davis and Calhoun threatened disunion, " if the North is determined to destroy slavery." " I am not apprehensive of disunion," answered he whom they called "the godlike Daniel," — Web- ster. " I never contemplate its possibility; I never accustom myself to think of such a contingency." Benton, a slave-owner himself , said," If Oregon does not want slavery, it shall not be forced upon her." OREGON IN CONGRESS. 149 " We know where Benton may be found," said Calhoun in a mocking voice. " I shall be found," answered Benton, flashing back a reply that men remember yet, — " I shall be found in the right place, on the side of my country and the Union." Weeks flew. Congress was to adjourn at twelve m., Monday, August 14th. It was now Saturday, and }^et nothing had been done about Oregon. All the time had been wasted in slavery disputes. Imagine, then, the breathless suspense with which the Oregon delegates entered the Senate hall of the nation on that memorable 12th of August. Benton, Douglas, "the Little Giant," of Illinois, and Hale of New Hampshire called them aside, saying, "We have agreed upon a 'golden silence,' but we shall vote against every motion to adjourn until your bill is passed." The bill had come back from the House, but was now so clogged with amendments that Benton moved that the Senate recede from its amendments. " A few years ago," said Benton, " we were ready to fight all the world to get possession of Oregon. Now we are just as willing to throw her away. She is left without a government, without laws, while at this moment she is engaged in a war with the Indians. Can this Senate satisfy 150 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. itself that it will have performed its duty while it sits with folded arms and declines to do any- thing? It is a duty, enforced hy the awful solem- nity of our oaths, to provide a government for Oregon." About ten o'clock that Saturday night, Senator Foote of Mississippi, the colleague of Jefferson Davis, arose and said, " I can speak two entire nights and days, if necessary, to defeat this bill." And he began. Friends of the bill prepared for a night of it. Some steadfastly kept their seats. Others posted trusty pages at the doors and retired for rest and lunches. The night wore on. At intervals Foote paused for a motion for adjourn- ment. The pages roused the sleeping Senators. In they rushed to vote " No," and retired again to their couches. All night Foote talked, with occasional assistance. All night and far into Sunday morning the friends of Oregon watched. At eight o'clock Foote said no further opposition would be made. At nine o'clock every amend- ment was receded as Benton asked, and at half- past nine o'clock that Sunday morning, August 13, 1848, the bill was passed that made Oregon a territory. Benton went home that morning, crowned with the victory of a lifetime. A few hours later, p - -ident Polk signed the OREGON IN CONGRESS. 151 bill. Jo Meek was appointed United States mar- shal for Oregon territory, and was delegated to carry a governor's commission to General Joseph Lane, the "Marion of the Mexican War." "How soon can you be ready?" asked Meek when he arrived at Lane's farm in Indiana. "In fifteen minutes," was the reply. Three days later, with a mounted escort, Jo Meek the marshal and Jo Lane the governor set out on horseback for the far-away land of Oregon. BLACKBOARD STUDIES. Benton's "Thirty Years' View." Jo Meek's journey to Washington: Mrs. Victor's " River of the West." Judge Thornton's journey to Washington: Oregonian, May 24, 1885. Thornton's Hist. Prov. Govt., Pioneer Transactions, 1874. THE DAYS OF GOLD. » VER the Santa Fe trail and through the drouth-stricken regions of Ari- zona, Jo Meek the marshal and Jo Lane the governor traveled on the road to Oregon. Day by day their horses died. One by one the bag- gage - wagons were abandoned. Their men deserted, until of the fifty-five that started from Fort Leavenworth only a straggling, footsore few remained. In January they crossed southern California to the coast. A ship was found to San Francisco. But what is this? The shores of San Francisco were crowded with ships, ships, ships, and people. On the sands two hundred Oregonians stood with bags in their hands, vainly seek- ing a passage to Oregon. "What has happened?" cried Jo Meek to his ac- REFERENCE TOPICS. Territorial government, 1849-69. PacificTTniversity found- ed, 1848. The Oregonian started, December, 1850. The Statesman, March, 1851. The Umpqua Gazette, 1854. The Lot Whitcomb launched, 1850. 152 THE DAYS OF GOLD. 153 quaintances on every hand. Happened? Why, he had landed in the very midst of — " Those days of old, The days of gold, The days of '49." Nothing but " gold, gold, gold," conld be heard in San Francisco. During those months while Meek and the governor were toiling across the conti- nent, all Oregon, all the world, had been rushing madly to California. Already one winter's work had filled the sacks of the Oregonians, and they were going home. For a fabulous sum an old East India teakwood ship was chartered, that carried them to tin Columbia River. In boats they came up from Astoria, and on March 3, 1849, the last day of Polk's administration, Governor Joseph Lane en- tered into office at Oregon City. That was the beginning of ten storm}' territorial years of growth and expansion in the days of gold. It was James Marshall, an Oregon immigrant of 1844, that found the gold. He went to Sutter's mill. Working there, one day he caught the glit- ter of golden rock. He called Sutter aside and showed the treasure. Of course the secret could not be kept. The very winds whispered it. Swift little sailers sped to Oregon, the nearest port, for 154 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. picks and pans and shovels. The lately returned volunteers of the Cayuse war left their sickles in the harvest and poured into California, pell-mell, fully a year before the rest of the world received the news. By land, by sea, afoot and horseback, south- ward poured the population, leaving mothers, wives, and daughters to keep the homes and farms and workshops. Only five old men were left at Salem. Only a few women, children, and some Indians were left at Oregon City. The Oregon Spectator suspended for want of printers. There was not a quorum for the legislature. Oregon bid fair to be depopulated. Even the immigrants turned from the Oregon trail to California. And now the spring of 1849 found every home-bound vessel filled with returning Oregonians. The Oregon to which Jo Meek came back was not the Oregon from which he had hastened with disastrous news one year before. Now the Indians were cowed and still. Money circulated in hand- fuls. Under an act of the colonial legislature, fifty thousand dollars was minted at Oregon City to pay the volunteers of the Cayuse war. Where, of old, two or three ships a year had en- tered the Columbia River, now fifty arrived in 1849. Twenty vessels stood waiting at once for cargoes. THE DAYS OF GOLD. 155 Portland, from a village in the woods, leaped to a city. Flour taken down to California sold for one hundred dollars a barrel. Butter, eggs, vegetables, were worth their weight in gold. Apples from those early Oregon orchards brought a dollar OREGON BEAVER COIN. IN THE DAYS OF GOLD. apiece. In 1851, Luelling of Milwaukee sold four bushels of apples for five hundred dollars; the next year, forty bushels brought him two thousand five hundred dollars. Direct trade opened with China, and tea, coffee, sugar, and syrups were brought to Portland. 156 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. In the spring of '49 the United States govern- ment sent a mounted rifle regiment to Oregon. In January, three hundred of them deserted for the California gold-fields. In the same way the Hudson's Bay hunters from Fort Vancouver ran away, leaving the fort deserted. James Douglas, who has succeeded McLoughlin, could stand it no longer. He, too, packed up and moved away to Vancouver Island, where he started a new fort, Victoria. And Bonneville, who had been driven away, came now to command the new United States military post at the old Hudson's Bay stronghold. In the days of gold, Ulysses S. Grant, a young lieutenant, was sent to Fort Vancouver. Provis- ions were so high that he and his brother officers plowed up a patch of the old Hudson's Bay ground and planted a crop of potatoes, hoping to make a fortune in their sale. In December, 1850, Thomas J. Dryer started the Oregonian at Portland. The following March, the Statesman was started at Oregon City. When the capital was changed to Salem, the Statesman followed; when it went to Corvallis, there, too, went the Statesman. Some laughed at the "paper on wheels." " Wherever the seat of government is, there is the Statesman" answered Asahel Bush, THE DAYS OF GOLD. 157 the editor, and back with the legislators it went to Salem for a permanent home. In the old mission days Jason Lee brought Spanish cattle into Oregon. Now, in the days of gold, descendants of those cattle were driven back over the Siskiyous to feed the miners in California. As the cattle trains moved along, their drivers spied and spied each gulch for gold. In 1851 a miner struck gold on a creek; he named it for his little daughter, Josephine. A whole county in southern Oregon bears to-day the classic name of Josephine. Two drivers of a cattle train camped in a gulch. That night they found placers of extraordinary richness. Miners trooped in by the thousands, and Jackson's gulch became Jacksonville. Nug- gets of ten dollars, forty dollars, one hundred dol- lars, and even nine hundred dollars, were picked up. Ah, those were great days. A man might be penniless at daybreak, and before night the richest man in the valley. Men that came for gold brought their families and planted their homes on the hillsides of the Rogue and the Umpqua. Curious little pockets were found where veins of gold seemed to cross, and sometimes, in a space not much larger than a cubic foot, as much as ten thousand dollars 158 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. could be taken out at once. Over thirty million dollars in gold has been taken out of Jackson County alone. Literally, the streams of southern Oregon flow over golden sands. The next discovery was that the sea-beach sands were full of gold. Men to-day are sailing to Nome. Oregon, too, has a gold beach, richer than Nome. Thousands flew to the shores of Oregon. Coos Bay and the mouth of the Rogue and Ump- qua and Coquille rivers were filled with prospec- tors. Claims were taken, homes founded; Port Orford, Ellensburg, and Empire City grew. Roads were opened, steamers began to touch at those shores. In 1854 the first newspaper of southern Oregon, the Umpqua Gazette, was started at Scotts- burg. For a hundred miles they found the black magnetic sand, a sort of disintegrated iron, full of flakes of finest gold. It was not uncommon for a man to extract one thousand dollars in a day, and for many to gather from twenty to one hundred dollars. For forty years now, miners have been working at these gold-beach sands. After every storm, people watch the beach to see if they can pick up a bank account at once under the disintegrated, falling cliffs. Fortunes have been taken away, but the sands a're as full of gold THE DAYS OF GOLD. 159 as ever. There they lie, kissed by the sun and the sea, waiting the inventive genius that can find a quicker process of extracting the gold than any known at present. Immigrants now began to remember that in coming to Oregon by the southern route in 1846, in passing through the Malheur country they had come across an unfamiliar metal which they had hammered out on a wagon tire. " Where was it? Where was it? " they asked in vain, for no one could remember. Some even went back and tried to find the lost gold country. Similar reports flew about the Spokane land. Now it was said the Indians were picking up nuggets on the Yakima. All at once it seemed as if every gulch and canon hid the precious possibility. Gold was sought on many a stream. Parties scattered over the John Day and Powder rivers, where Bonneville camped in the long ago. Many a stray nugget kept up the story of the lost dig- gings. In a wonderful manner, traces, and even diggings, of gold were found all over eastern Ore- gon. On the Powder River, one claim yielded six thousand dollars in four days, and one pan of earth contained one hundred and fifty dollars. At one time a thousand miners were digging and trading on the headwaters of the John Day 160 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. River, getting from fifteen to twenty dollars a day. As the miners went along they picked out their claims, erected their cabins, and so eastern Oregon was settled. Grain was sown, and the land that once seemed desert began to blossom as the rose. In the charming Grand Ronde Valley, a city grew in a night, — La Grande, — and, a little later, Baker City took its rise. Every road from Baker City leads to a gold mine. To-day, out of those Blue Mountains, where struggled the heroes of '43, millions are taken every year. Roads were opened and counties organized, — the magical result in the wake of gold. One day a Nez Perce Indian said to an old gold-hunter, " One night, with two of my people, I slept in a canon deep and dark. High in the rocky sides we saw an eye of light. It watched us all the night, and we watched it. In the morn- ing we looked. It was fast in the rock; we could not move it. It was great medicine, and we left it there." That old gold-hunter rested not, seeking for that "ball of light" in the land of the Nez Perces. From his discoveries came the Salmon River rush and the settlement of the future Idaho. In 1856, gold discoveries on the Fraser River settled British Columbia and located thousands THE DAYS OF GOLD. 161 on the shores of Puget Sound. Among others who went was M. M. McCarver, who laid out Burlington, Iowa, and came to Oregon in 1843. He looked for the site of the future city of Oregon, and missed Portland by only ten miles. With the tirst rush he went to California and laid out Sac- ramento. Now he went to the Sound. "I will find the site of the terminus of the future North- ern Pacific railroad," he said. Where his cabin stood now stands Tacoma. Gold cropped out in the mountain borders of the Willamette Valley. Curious little " eagle's- nests" were found on the Satiam, — some of the most beautiful specimens of arborescent gold the world has ever seen. Buried away under rocks and trees, in the crumbling, rotten quartz, little cavities as large as a man's hat were found filled with sticks and straws of finest gold. The wire- like skeins crossed and criscrossed in every di- rection, and attached to the edge of the nest as if some wondrous bird had builded there her golden home. No wonder the effect was surprising and magnificent. And yet, who knows how many other "nests" may lie undiscovered still, like little fairy palaces, at the foot of those grim old trees? The thick forest-growth of ages has been a great deterrent 162 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. of effort. Some of the earliest diggings have not even wagon-roads into the primeval wild. There is no doubt that under the forestry of the Cascades many a well-filled pocket, many a treasure-vein of gold, lies waiting the pick of the future miner. This Pacific range, from Cape Horn to Point Bar- row, hides in its heart the coin of the future. Men, to-day, dredging the sandy bed and banks of the river Snake say there is fine flour of gold enough in those drifts and bars alone to pay the national debt over and over again. Projectors of enterprises came into Oregon. On Christmas Day, 1850, the Lot Whitcomb was launched at Milwaukie, — the first steamer of all the fleets upon these inland waters. Gold, found all the way from southern Oregon to British Co- lumbia, led to the organization of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company. To help the gold- hunters, steamboats began to run up the Colum- bia, and then up the Snake to Lewiston. From Lewiston, pack-trains carried supplies far over to the scattered miners of Montana. BLACKBOARD STUDIES. Idaho. Gem of the mountains. Montana. Spanish for " mountainous country." Yakima. Indian, eyakema, black bear. Santiam. From san-de-am, medicine-man. arborescent gold. Branching like trees. JO LANE. AND THE INDIANS. ABLE ROCK is a flat-topped moun- tain overhanging Rogue River, in southern Oregon. From this watch-tower, sweeping the valley for miles, the Indians noted in- coming immigrants and the movements of gold-seekers. Thus, with accurate knowledge of their strength and movements, the Indians could swoop down with unerring aim and annihilate whole encampments. They became expert robbers, bandits of as wild exploits as any ever celebrated in song or story. Strangers entering the lovely valley of the Rogue little imagined that picturesque peak of the Table Rock sheltered the deadliest foe of settlement and of civilization. In the days of the gold rush, large companies passed in comparative safety, but many a strag- gler, many a group of three or four, went out never to return. In the spring of 1850, Governor Jo Lane, the " Marion of the Mexican War," decided to go down 164 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. and quiet those Indian banditti. With an escort of fifteen men, a pack-train bound for the mines, and a few friendly Klickitats, — born foes of the Rogue Rivers, — he made a descent on their coun- try. Camping near some Indian villages, Gen- eral Lane sent word to the principal chief, "I want a ' peace talk.' Come unarmed." The chief and seventy-five followers came and sat in a ring on the grass around the Hyas Tyee of the whites. Lane very flatteringly and with great ado brought the Indian chief into the cen- ter with himself. Just behind sat his Klickitat aides. Before the conference began, seventy-five more Indians appeared, fully armed. " Put dowr your arms and be seated," said Lane to the new comers. They sat down. General Lane, the here of many a battle, made a great peace talk. " I hear you have been murdering and robbing my people. It must stop. My people must pass through your country in safety. Our laws have been extended here. Obey them, and you can live in peace. The Great Father at Washington will buy your lands and pay you for them." He paused for a response. The Rogue River chief uttered a stentorian note. His Indians leaped to their feet with a war-cry, brandishing their weapons. At a flash from the General's eye the JO LANE AND THE INDIANS. 165 Klickitats seized the chief. Motioning his men not to shoot, with utter fearlessness Lane walked into the midst of the warriors, knocking up their guns with his revolver. "Sit down," he sternly motioned. The astonished chief, with the Klicki- tat's knife before his eye, seconded the motion, and the savages grounded their arms. As if nothing had happened, Lane went on talking. "Now," he said, "go home. Return in two days in a friendly manner to another council. Your chief shall be my guest." The crestfallen Indians withdrew, leaving their chief a prisoner with General Lane. At sunrise an anxious squaw came over the hills to find her lord. Jo Lane brought her in and treated her like a lady. For two days Lane talked with that savage chief and won his friendship. When the warriors came a treaty was easily concluded. " And now bring the goods you stole from my people," said General Lane. The Indians bun- dled away and soon brought in whatever was left. But the treasures of a recent robbery were gone beyond retrieve. Ignorant of their value, the savages had emptied the precious sacks of gold- dust into the river. " What is the name of this great chief?" asked the Indians of the interpreter. The General him- self answered, " Jo Lane." 166 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. " Give rue your name," said the Indian chief. " I have seen no man like you." " I will give you half my name," said Lane. "You shall be called Jo. To your wife I give the name ' Sally,' and your daughter shall be called Mary." General Lane wrote a word about the treaty on slips of paper and signed his name. Giving them to the Indians, he said, " Whenever any white man comes into your country, show him this. Take care of my people." As long as those precious bits of paper held together the Indians preserved them. Whenever a white man appeared they went to him, holding out the paper, saying rapidly the magic password, "Jo Lane, Jo Lane, Jo Lane," — the only English words they knew. For about a year Chief Jo tried to keep the peace with the ever-increasing flood of white men. After a while, when all the other Indians around him were fighting, Chief Jo went again on the warpath. General Lane, no longer governor, was building a home on his claim in the Umpqua Valley, near the present site of Roseburg, when he heard the news. Hastily gathering a small force, he hurried to the scene of hostility. For a hun- dred miles up and down the California trail the JO LANE AND THE INDIANS. 167 Indians were slaughtering and burning. Houses were destroyed and the woods were on fire, and a dense smoke hid the enemy's track. As soon as Lane appeared, he was put in com- mand. They traced the Indians, and a great battle was fought at a creek near Table Rock. Chief Jo had been proudly defiant, and boasted, " I have a thousand warriors. I can darken the sun with their arrows." But when he saw his warriors falling, and their women and children prisoners, the old chief's feathers dropped. He heard that Jo Lane had come, and sent for a "peace talk." "Jo Lane, Jo Lane," all the Indi- ans began to call, — "Jo Lane, Joe Lane," — from bush and hollow. The General, wounded in the battle, and faint from the loss of blood, ordered a suspension of hostilities. Not wishing them to know that he was wounded, he threw a cloak over his shoulders to conceal his arm, and walked into the Indian camp. His men were amazed, and censured this rash ex- posure of his life. Far off, as soon as Chief Jo caught sight of Lane approaching, he cried his griefs across the river: "The white men have come on horses in great numbers. They are tak- ing our country. We are afraid to lie down to sleep, lest they come upon us. We are weary of war, and want peace." JO LANE AND THE INDIANS. 169 Lane sat down by his namesake, Chief Jo. " Our hearts are sick," said the despondent chief. " We will meet you at Table Rock in seven days," was the final conclusion, " and give up our arms." Lane agreed to this, and took with him the son of Chief Jo as a hostage. During the armistice, reinforcements were ar- riving, — among them a howitzer and muskets and ammunition, — in charge of young Lieutenant Kautz of Fort Vancouver. Also, a guard of forty men, led b} T Captain Nesmith, from the Willamette Valley. General Joel Palmer, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, came, and Judge Deady, who was on his way to Jacksonville to hold court. The Indians heard of the howitzer long before it arrived. " Hyas rifle," they said; "it takes a hatful of powder, and will shoot down a tree." They begged that the great gun might not be fired. The reinforcements were wild to have a chance at those Indians whose camp-fires nightly shone from Table Rock, but General Lane held them to the armistice. The day of the council arrived. In the language of Judge Deady, an eye-witness, " The scene of the famous ' peace talk ' between Joseph Lane and Indian Joseph — two men who had so lately met in mortal combat — was worthy of the pen of Sir 170 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS, Walter Scott and the pencil of Salvator Rosa. It was on a narrow bench of a long, gently sloping hill lying over against the noted bluff called Table Rock. Lane was in fatigue dress, the arm which was wounded at Buena Vista in a sling, from a fresh wound received at Battle Creek. Indian Joseph, tall, grave, and self-possessed, wore a long black robe over his ordinary dress. By his side sat Mary, his favorite child and faithful companion, then a comparatively handsome young woman, unstained by the vices of civilization. Around these sat on the grass Captain A. J. Smith, who had just arrived from Port. Orford with his com- pany of the First Dragoons; Captain Alvord,then engaged in the construction of a military road through the Umpqua Canon; and others. A short distance above, upon the hillside, were some hun- dreds of dusky warriors in righting gear, reclining quietly on the ground. The day was beautiful. To the east of us rose abruptly Table Rock, and at its base stood Smith's dragoons, waiting anx- iously, with hand on horse, the issue of this at- tempt to make peace without their aid." Captain Nesmith, on account of his knowledge of Chinook, was chosen interpreter. " But those Indians are rogues," interposed Nesmith. " It is not safe to go among them unarmed." JO LANE AND THE INDIANS. 171 " I have promised to go into their camp with- out arms, and I shall keep my word," said Lane. Nevertheless, one man, Captain Miller, did keep a pistol concealed beneath his coat. In the midst of the council a young Indian rushed panting in, made a short harangue, and threw himself upon the ground, exhausted. A band of white men, led by one lawless Owens, had that morning broken the armistice, and shot a young chief. Every Indian eye flashed; they began to uncover their guns. In the face of that band of fierce and hostile sav- ages, every white man thought his time had come, and whispered a prayer for wife and children. Some muttered words that were not prayers. Captain Smith leaned upon his saber and looked anxiously down upon his beautiful line of dra- goons, sitting, with their white belts and bur- nished scabbards, like statues upon their horses in the sun below. And yet no word could reach them of that imminent peril on the mountain side. General Lane sat with compressed lips on a log. Another and another Indian spoke, belaboring back and forth their anger. As if stopping the mouth of a volcano, General Lane stepped out, calling in a loud tone above the Indian murmurs, " Owens is a bad man. He is not one of my sol- 172 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. diers. When we catch him he shall be punished. You shall be recompensed in blankets and cloth- ing for the loss of your young chief." The red men caught the winning words. As Lane went on talking the excitement gradually subsided and the conference went on. The treaty was concluded, the Indians ceding the whole of Rogue River Valley and accepting a reservation at Table Rock. They were to give up their arms, except a few for hunting; to have an agent over them; and to be paid sixty thousand dollars by the government, to be expended in blankets, clothing, agricultural implements, and houses for chiefs. When all was over the white men wended their way down the rocks. The bugle sounded, and the squadrons wheeled away. As General Lane and party rode across the valley they looked up and saw the rays of the setting sun gilding the summit of Table Rock. Nesmith drew a long breath. " General, the next time you want to go unarmed into a hostile camp, you must hunt up somebody besides my- self to act as your interpreter." With a benignant smile General Lane responded, "God bless you, Nesmith; luck is better than science." Nevertheless, twenty years later, in JO LANE AND THE INDIANS. 173 just such a case, General Canby lost his life at the Modoc camp. Wonderful to relate, in all the fierce and fright- ful Indian wars that followed, the treaty Indians of Table Rock forever kept the peace. When all other tribes around them were on the warpath, they alone kept quiet on their reservation. BLACKBOARD STUDIES. Klickitats. The Yankees of the Coast Indians. They often traveled as far east as Dakota, shooting buffalo and trading horses. Hyas Tyee. Chinook for " great chief." reservation. An allotment of land set apart for Indian occu- pation. Chinook jargon. A polyglot of Indian-French-English and other tongues, that grew up among the traders on the coast. It has gradually extended from Oregon up among all the tribes to the Arctic Ocean. KAMIAKIN. HE white man's rush for gold was overturning all Indian tradition. The territory of Washington was set apart (1853), and its ambitious first governor, Isaac I. Stevens, went over the mountains, survey- ing a route for a northern Pacific railroad. Then with Joel Palmer of Oregon he summoned the tribes to the famous Indian council of Walla Walla. "We wish to purchase your lands," said Gover- nor Stevens, " and settle you on reservations. You shall have mills, and plows, and food, and schools, and blankets. Houses shall be built for your chiefs." Dimly each pro- phetic Indian saw the end. They must retire before the coming race. They begged delay, — "We do not understand." Then General Palmer 174 REFERENCE TOPICS. Survey of the Northern Pacific. Council of Walla Walla. Plea of Kamiakin. Indian outbreak. Decisive battles. Civilization. KAMIAKIN. 175 • explained to them the benefits, the wonders, of civilization, the magic of the railroad, the tele- graph. "What have I to be talking about?" retorted Kamiakin, chief of the fourteen allied tribes of the Yakima nation, when they called on him to speak. But in the night-time, at the Indian camp-fires of Cayuse and Umatilla, of Spokane and Yakima, Walla Walla and Nez Perce, " Do not surrender your lands," pleaded Kamiakin. " These pre- tended treaties are a ruse to get us out of the way." But when, in spite of all his pleading, the white man won over nearly all the tribes, the great Kamiakin leaped to his feet and stamped the ground in despair. " Sign the treaty if you want to. Sign," he cried. "Let us all sign, and get what we can. These officers of the Great White Chief are lying to us. If they pay, it is well. If they pay not, get powder, get lead, get provisions. Be ready. When the rivers are frozen, when the mountains are deep with snow, strike. The sol- diers are few. The Bostons beyond the mountains are far away. Strike in the dead of winter." And they all signed, — Kamiakin, Pio-pio-mox- mox, and all the chiefs of the great Columbia tribes. And the Indians went home, five thou- sand of them, from the council of Walla Walla. 176 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. Governor Stevens went on up among the Black- feet to make a treaty with them, opening the way for his northern Pacific railroad. Three months from the signing of the Walla Walla treaty, gold mines were opened in the Col- ville country, and the rush began through the treaty lands. Settlers began to stake their claims. "Go, or be shot," said Kamiakin. "No white man can settle in our country until the lands are paid for." He sent his runners flying from Puget Sound to Klamath. Red signal-tires glowered on all the hilltops, the oriflamme of Kamiakin. Then occurred the most terrible uprising in all the history of Indian conflict, — the fateful war of 1855. Massacre followed massacre in rapid succes- sion; immigrants were slaughtered on the Snake; settlers fell in conflagrations on the Sound. October 9, 1855, was a dark and memorable day in southern Oregon. On that day Chief John started on the warpath. Frenzied by the rapid influx of white population, every white man in his path was shot on sight. Farmers with their wagons on the road never came home again. For miles the land was left in ashes. Riders came dashing into Jacksonville and quickly told the tale of havoc. Men leaped to their saddles, fol- lowing the track of desolation. All the outlying KAMI AKIN. 177 settlers hurried to Jacksonville; farms and flocks and fields were left. Then followed the battles of Galice Creek and Hungry Hill, the devastation of the Umpqua settlements and the Gold Beach. After furious battles and bloodshed, old Chief John was brought to bay. "You are a great chief; so am I," said John to Colonel Buchanan. "This is my country. I was in it when these trees were very small, — not higher than my head. My heart is sick fighting Bostons, but I want to live in my country." On the Columbia, General Haller was sent into the Yakima country to inquire into the causes of Kamiakin's hostility. Step by step, Kamiakin, the strategist, wary, unrelenting, drew Haller's handful of soldiers into the Indian country and cut them to pieces. " I can fight them five years," said the confident chief, and all the more tribes rushed to his standard. Governor Curry sent the Oregon volunteers into the Walla Walla country. Pio-pio-mox-mox met them with a flag of truce. " I will not fight the Bostons," said the dark-faced chief, but already his people had sacked the fort of Walla Walla. He held his flag of truce while his people fought on the hills. Electrified, he heard the sound of guns. They thought he was trying to escape, and KAMI AKIN. 179 then in a rush, a scuffle, Pio-pio-mox-mox fell, shot dead beneath his flag of truce. Back from his treaty with the Blackfeet came Governor Stevens, to' find the country in an up- roar. He was at the camp of the Nez Perces when news came of a four-days' battle and the death of Pio-pio-mox-mox. For a moment the wild war- cry kindled Nez Perce hearts, but the winning Governor Stevens happily enlisted them under the flag of the United States. He reached his capital, Olympia, to find the country depopulated and the people living in blockhouses. Kamiakin's emissaries were on the Sound. The British Co- lumbia Indians came down in their war-canoes and laid waste the country. Seattle itself was besieged, and was saved only by the appearance of United States gunboats in the harbor. Kamiakin attacked the Cascades. Men were working upon a wooden railway around the Cas- cades when Indian bullets whistled in their ears. Some fled to a storehouse near, some to a block- house. For two days and nights the naked, painted savages on the cliffs above pelted them with shots, rocks, and burning pitchwood. The third morning dawned, when, lo! two steamers hove in sight, and Phil Sheridan with his first little command of forty dragoons. The savages were routed. 180 WESTERN SERIES OP READERS. The war seemed over when Colonel Steptoe was sent up to Colville with 150 men on a friendly mission to the miners. " They come, the Bos- tons, to make the survey," was the watchword that flashed from Spokane to Palouse and Cceur d'Alene. " Go back! " was the red man's warning call. "Ah, ha! we have them now," laughed Kamiakin, as Steptoe's retreat grew into a flight. But Chief Timothy, one of Spalding's old pupils, led Steptoe's fugitives through an unguarded pass, and ninety miles at a gallop, without rest, to the crossing of the Snake, out of the trap of Kamiakin. " No favor to any tribe that harbors Kamiakin," was the watchword of Colonel Wright, who now came carrying terror into the Indian country. ( )n the first day of September, 1858, was fought the great battle of Four Lakes. Wherever danger was thickest, there was Kamiakin, but the white man's long-range rifles flashed, and the Minie balls whistled in the wind. Dust whirled in clouds as the Indians sped in one wild flight. Again, on the fourth day, Kamiakin rallied his shattered forces. He set the grass on fire, but the white dragoons leaped through and fought, inch by inch, for fourteen miles, the battle of Spokane Plains. Kamiakin fled over the border into British Columbia, to return no more. His KAMIAKIN. 181 deluded followers came in and sued for peace, and laid down their arms in submission. The last flash of Indian valor came when Chief Joseph rose in 1877 to fight for his ancestral val- leys. But he, too, learned that he must give up the vast areas over which he was wont to roam, and come under the laws of civilized life. BLACKBOARD STUDIES. Kamiakin (ka-me-ah'kin). See " Life of Gov. I. I. Stevens," by his son, General Hazard Stevens. WAR HEROES. HEN President Taylor was ready to appoint a successor to General Jo Lane as governor of Oregon \A/ *D territory, he offered the place to Abraham Lincoln. " No, sir-ee," was the reply that came back over the telegraph wire. Ten years later, Abraham Lincoln was President of the United States. The Civil War broke out. Oregon had become a state in 1859. Lincoln sent a requisition for " a full regiment of Oregon cavalry to be organized, and report to Col. E. D. Baker on the Potomac." Col. E. D. Baker was Oregon's first Republican Senator, who, together with James W. Nesmith, his col- league, had gone on to Washington. Oregon was stirred to its center. The drum -beat was heard in every village. Young men leaped at the REFERENCE TOPICS. Lincoln and Oregon. The Civil War. Col. E. D. Baker. Sheridan at Yamhill. Sheridan at Winchester. The War with Spain. 182 WAR HEROES. 183 country's call. In a short time the regiment was ready and waiting for word to join its colonel on the Potomac. But while they were waiting a message flew over the continent: " Colonel E. D. Baker fell at Ball's Bluff, bravely righting for his country." Just before his death in October, 1861, in the uniform of a colo- nel, fresh from the camp of his regiment, Colo- nel Baker thrilled the Senate of the United States with a speech in support of the Union. In his "Twenty i Years in Con- gress," Blaine says, " From the far - off Pacific «> L - e. d. baker. came E d w a r d Dickinson Baker, a Senator from Oregon, a man of extraordinary gifts of eloquence; lawyer, sol- dier, frontiersman, leader of popular assemblies, tribune of the people. In personal appearance 184 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. he was commanding, in manner most attractive, in speech irresistibly charming. Perhaps in the history of the Senate, no man ever left so brilliant a reputation from so short a service." While inspiring his men to loftiest heroism on that fateful field of Ball's Bluff, Oregon's Senator- soldier laid down his life forever. Immediately all the regulars in garrison on the Coast were summoned East. Oregon's cavalrymen, who had enlisted for the Potomac, were now de- tailed to fill the vacant posts of the regulars in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. The Indians had heard of the war beyond the mountains, and the Northwest could not be left unguarded. Colonel Joseph Hooker left his Oregon farm to become General Jo Hooker of the Union army. Grant had already gone, leaving his name indeli- ble on a mountain pass where he camped for a night, — Grant's Pass. Sheridan, who, since the battle at the Cascades, had been stationed on a reservation, and many others, were soon en route to Eastern battle-fields. All the world has heard of Sheridan at Win- chester, but few know anything about Sheridan at Yamhill. After the battle of the Cascades, Sheridan, with his little detachment of dragoons, was ordered to WAR HEROES. 185 the reservation in the Coast mountains, including the Grand Ronde, in Polk and Yamhill counties, and the Siletz, north of Yaquina Bay. Sheridan arrived there in April, 1856. The Rogue Rivers, with Old Chief John, had just ar- rived. The Table Rocks were sent there under a guard of one hundred soldiers. So excited were the settlers through whose territory these Indians were to pass, that they talked of an armed force to resist their coming. Soon other tribes — Coquilles, Klamaths, Modocs, and Chinooks — some thou- sands altogether — found homes on the shores of the Pacific. It was no small work to get these wild Indians all into civilized clothing. John F. Miller, the agent, set to work teaching the Indians to plow and sow. The girls were taught to do housework and use the needle. In the schoolhouse, boys and girls were taught to read and write. Lieutenant Sheridan, for a time the only army officer present, was busily engaged in erecting Fort Yamhill. Three pretty white houses were built for the officers, among the green oak trees. The Grand Ronde in a state of nature was a lovely spot, like the park of an English nobleman, and here, at any time, Sheridan might have been seen with his dogs and his gun, roaming all over the 186 WESTERN SERIES OP READERS. reservation. Sheridan was a great hunter, and often went fishing in the Yamhill River. Genial, approachable, he was always ready to stop and chat with the employees, and pat the sunny curls of the agent's little daughter, Culla-culla. Very soon, Chief John, over on the Siletz, got up a rebellion, and Sheridan and his troopers were sent to quell it. Sheridan found that on account of some failure of the commissariat, the Indians were out of food, and in danger of starva- tion. Blaming the agent for this, they had be- sieged him for days in a log hut, and Sheridan arrived just in time for rescue. Sheridan had driven with him over the moun- tains a few head of beef-cattle, and ordered them killed at a little distance from his camp. The Indians rushed up like wild men and drew their knives. Immediately Chief John leaped to Sheri- dan's side and bade the Indians "Back," and in his rude eloquence held that hunger-crazed crowd at bay until Sheridan's company could hasten up from camp. Sheridan always felt grateful to Chief John for his loyalty on that occasion, and often secretly aided his family with gifts of coffee and sugar. That winter was very rainy; the Indians were homesick, and many of them died. " It is not WAR HEROES. 187 your wars, but your peace, that kills my people," said Chief John solemnly. Soon after, a plot was discovered among the Indians to run away from the reservation and get back to their old home in southern Oregon. Chief John and his son, the leaders, were arrested and put on a steamer to be sent to California. When the steamer arrived off Rogue River, old Chief John and his son nearly captured the vessel in their effort to escape and swim to the shore they loved so well. In July, 1856, to their mutual grief, Sheridan's troopers were ordered away. They had made long and tiresome marches with Sheridan, fought Indians, forded swift mountain streams, and swum deep rivers, ferrying their baggage on rafts and bundles of reeds, " and in all and everything had done the best they could for the service and their commander." " They little thought," says Sheridan, in his "Memoirs," "when we were in the mountains of California and Oregon, — nor did I myself then dream, — that but a few years were to elapse before it would be my lot again to command dragoons, this time in numbers so vast as of themselves to compose almost an army." The greatest work that Sheridan was called to do was to put a stop to some of the Indians' bar- 188 WESTERN SERIES OP READERS. barous customs. One of these was the practice of killing the doctor when any one died. In extrav- agant grief they would burn their houses, destroy their clothing and furniture, kill their horses, and pile their rations into the grave of the dead. Of course there could be no progress in civilization so long as such barbarities prevailed. Sheridan could speak Chinook, the "court language" of the tribes, like a native, and took the case in hand. At first he tried to argue with them, and explain the uselessness of such conduct. They only shook their heads. " You are a white man. You are not like us." Finally, one day an old Indian woman doctor was killed just as she was fleeing to Sheridan's house for protection. Sixteen In- dians were after her and sixteen wounds were in her body. Sheridan knew every man of the Rogue River tribe. He went to their village and called a coun- cil. No one was with him but the sergeant who held his horse. He commanded them to give up the men who shot the woman. The Indians re- fused. Sheridan insisted. Hot words followed, and the Indians crowded up. Sheridan put his hand to his hip for his pistol — it was gone. They had stolen it. Modifying his demand to gain time, Sheridan moved toward his horse. WAR HEROES. 189 Mounting, he sped toward the Yamhill, fast as ever he rode at Winchester, and called from the farther bank, " The sixteen men who killed the woman must be given up, and my six-shooter also." Only laughter floated across the Yamhill River. Sheridan resolved to march with fifty men to their village the next morning and bring them to terms. At daylight, Princess Mary, the daughter of Chief Jo of Table Rock, came to Sheridan's house. " They are armed and painted for war," said Mary. " I cannot persuade them to obey." With this information, just before daylight the next morning Sheridan surprised them in the rear and captured their chief. Thousands of In- dians rushed out on the hills to see what the boastful Rogue Rivers would do. The sixteen culprits came in and laid down their arms at the feet of Sheridan's men. They were set to work with ball and chain. From that day no more doctors were killed and no more property destroyed. Fifteen years later, when Sheridan came back to visit his old post, he found those Indians, he says, " transformed into industrious and substan- tial farmers, with neat houses, fine cattle, wagons, BEEVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL OWEN SUMMERS. WAR HEROES. 191 and horses, carrying their grain, eggs, and butter to market, and bringing home flour, coffee, sugar, and calico in return." From the day that Sheridan heard of the firing on Fort Sumter, he was deeply anxious to return to the States. Greatly exaggerated reports of the first battles reached Oregon, creating intensest excitement. Mail arrived at the reservation only once a week, by express from Portland. On the day of the mail, Sheridan would go out early in the morning to a lofty hill, where he could see a long distance down the road of the Yamhill Val- ley, and there he would watch and watch for the messenger. He was afraid the war would end be- fore he could get there. Finally, one day the call came for him to go. Confidentially he whispered to a friend, " I am determined to win a captain's commission, or die in the attempt." Little did he or any one else know that Phil Sheridan would become one of the greatest heroes of that or any other war. Who would have supposed that just as the cur- tain was falling on the nineteenth century, Ore- gon would send an expedition along the path traced by Magellan? that Oregon would send the CHAPLAIN WILL S. GILBERT. WAR HEROES. 193 first troops from the United States to a foreign land, and that the Orient? May 1, 1898, Dewey sunk the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay. May 25th, a regiment of Oregon volunteers weighed anchor for the Philippines. It was the Oregon boys that Honolulu first feted; the Oregon boys that came to the Ladrones and disembarked to effect the surrender of the islands; the Oregon bo}^s that anchored off Cavite sixty days after Dewey's famous battle. With the sunken ships of Admiral Montojo's fleet lying in the harbor before them, they watched the walled city; in forty-four days the Oregon boys were the first Americans to enter the gates of Manila; to them was detailed the honor of receiving the sur- render of the Spanish army, and that night they were quartered in the Palace. In the following Filipino war the Oregon boys acquitted themselves with credit in twenty-two engagements; in the vanguard of all our brave Americans they captured Baliuag, San Idlefonso, Maasin, San Miguel, and San Isidro, the insurgent capital. Oregon boys made the gallant charge at Malabon and swept the trenches supposed to be impregnable. " Where are your regulars? " General Wheaton was asked at Malabon. " There are my regulars," 194 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. he answered, pointing to the Oregon volunteers. No wonder the General called them his " Oregon greyhounds," — nothing could hold them back. They have made the name of the American vol- unteer respected to the ends of the earth. Where all were heroes, who shall be named? Never will Oregon forget General Owen Summers, whose " Move Forward " was the watchword of the army. Never will she forget Thornton, commanding Lawton's scouts, who crossed the burning bridge at Tarbon to capture San Isidro. Never will she forget Povey, who, when Manila was taken, though the bay was lashed with storm and his launch sank under him, landed forty thousand rations safely in Manila for distribution to the exhausted volunteers. Never will she for- get the warrior-chaplain, Will S. Gilbert, who nursed her boys in camp and swamp and battle, who, with the bullets flying around him at Malabon, went down into an old well to bring them water, — the only chaplain in the whole division that went on the firing-line and followed the thirty-four days' inarch of continual battle from San Isidro to Calumpit. These are heroes, moral heroes, physical heroes, who have woven a wreath of immortal glory around " The Second Oregon." WAR HEROES. 195 BLACKBOARD STUDIES. Yamhill. Corruption of Che-um-il, a ford. Yaquina. Name of a female Indian chief. Culla-culla. Chinook for " bird." Baliuag (bade-ob'ag) ; San Idlefonso (san e-dle-fon'so) ; Maasin (ma-ah-sen') ; San Miguel (san ine-gaT) ; San Isidro (san e-se'dro). THE COMING OF THE RAILROAD. ■*$& V£©' «w *w "^ T^ '"?■' v^ ^ -»^ v^ **•? «w 'H4r '•sKr HE first railroad boom struck the United States in 1830. Asa Whit- ney, away over in China, heard of it. He collected statistics of our trade with China, and came home to present to Congress the plan for a railroad to the Pacific. He was met with ridicule. " A railroad across two thousand five hundred miles of prairie, of desert, and of mountains?" exclaimed Senator Dayton of New Jersey. " The extravagance of the suggestion seems to me to outrun everything which we know of modern scheming." Asa Whitney made the promotion of a Pacific railroad from the Great Lakes to the ocean the business of his life, trav- eling, lecturing, writing, year in and year out, until at last a committee of Con- BEFEREXCE TOPICS. Whitney's scheme. Early surveys. The Union Pacific. The Northern Pacific. The O. R.