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Recollections Boyhood

RECOLLECTIONS OF
MY BOYHOOD

BY

JESSE APPLEGATE
Oregon Pioneer of 1 843

PRESS OF REVIEW PUBLISHING CO.
ROSEBURC, OREGON
1914

CONTENTS CHAPTER I.
Prom the Mississippi to the Columbia.
CHAPTER II.
Down the Columbia to the Willamette.
CHAPTER III.
Our First Winter and Summer in Oregon.
CHAPTER IV.
Experiences in the Willamette Valley.
CHAPTER V.
We Move to the Umpqua Valley.

CHAPTER I.
From the Mississippi to the Columbia.
My father was born in Lexington, Kentucky, my mother
in East Tennessee, but from the time of my earliest recollection
we had been living on the Osage river in Missouri. Our •/
house stood in the edge of the woods which skirted the river
bank. The prairie country from the house lay westward and
up and down the river, and was vast in extent. Our house was
of hewed logs closely joined together, and the spaces between
were filled with limestone mortar. There were two buildings,
one story and a half, under one roof, and a porch on the west
side of the building; there was a hewn stone fireplace and a
chimney for each building. There were two doors and probably
four windows opening on the porch, and a door towards the
river, opening on a short walk to the small house containing
a loom where cloth was woven. Near the river were several
corncribs in a row, and sheds for stock. West of the house
was a large corn field, cotton and tobacco patches, and garden.
I have no recollection of any orchard, probably because as yet
it had not supplied me with any fruit. Of forest trees, between
the house and river, I can name the hickory of three kinds:
black, shellbark, and pignut, the last producing a soft-shelled
nut. This variety grew between the dwelling house and the
corncribs. Several large walnut trees grew between the corn-
cribs and the river; a very large bur-oak, also water oaks, per
simmon and slippery elm, and sycamore trees, grew along the
margin of the river. Of timber classed as brush, there were
red-bud, sassafras, willow, line-bark and hazel. I saw red
cedar, chinquapin oak, pawpaw, and pecan trees growing on
the other side of the river. In the autumn season we always
gathered several bushels of walnuts, pecan and hickory nuts.
There was a wild plum of this country which for sweetness
was equal to the petite prune, while its flavor was superior.
When ripe it was pale yellow, but frosted over with a white,
flour-like substance. It was a size larger than the petite

prune. Wild grapes of good quality were plentiful; a wild
vineyard of the kind called Summer Grape grew along the
brow of a hill about a mile from the house and in a "ruff.
The ripe berry was black, nearly as large as the domestic
catawba, and as sweet and well flavored as that grape. But
there was an herb growing in the woods, the root of which
became so firmly fixed in my memory, that should I live to the
age attained by Moses of old, I would not forget it. It was
known as "Injun Fizic" (Indian physic), the technical name of
the plant being epecaquane. Its usefulness as a medicine was
learned from the natives. A dose of this physic brewed from
the root, for a boy, was a tin cup full; it was brought to the
patient at bed time steaming hot and as black as coffee; no
cream, sugar or salt, or anything else was put into the liquid,
lest it might modify its perfect nastiness. When the boy saw
the cup, and a whiff from the odors of the contents took his
breath, he was seized with a fit of trembling more or less
violent, and cold sweat appeared on his forehead, but kind
hands now supported him, and encouraging words somewhat
restored him, and it was considered that he was now prepared
for the worst. Whereupon he was seized by the nose, and
when, in gasping for breath, his mouth flew open, the physic
was poured down his throat. The boy now, not being able to
stand, was put to bed. I have thought that if Socrates instead
of the cup of hemlock, had had to take a dose of "Injin
Fizic," he would have concluded to take the advice of his
friends, when they told him arrangements had been made, so
that he could escape from Greece to another country where he
could live in safety, and besought him to embrace this oppor
tunity to save his life. The probabilities are that the old
philosopher would have skipped, not to save his life, but to
avoid the dose.
In those days nothing was accepted as medicine unless it
were offensive to the taste, and disagreeable to the stomach,
and the more offensive and nauseating, the greater its medi
cinal virtues were supposed to be, therefore there was no
discount on "Injin Fizic" as a medicine. The opinion also
seems to have been general that the surest way to cure a man
of disease was to reduce him almost to the point of death;
that the less life there was left in a man, the less disease

there would be. Where the disease was said to be in the
blood, the blood was to be drawn off, leaving enough blood in
the body to keep the spark of life burning until new blood
could be supplied. In those days I think it would have been
difficult to find a man or woman without scars from the lance.
Wild turkeys were plentiful in the woods and we often
heard them calling and gobbling near the house; they were
highly prized as a game bird and a hunter could generally bag
all he wanted in a few hours. I often trapped for quail and
other small game; the trap was a small box made of boards set
up on triggers in such a way that pulling at the bait, which
was attached to one of the triggers, would allow the box to fall
and enclose the game. One morning I found a rabbit had been
in the trap but had gnawed out and made its escape. What
surprised me though, was the great size of the hole he had
cut in one side of the trap to crawl out at; it was large enough
for a coyote. He doubtless considered himself much larger
than he was. I knew it was a rabbit by the tracks on the
snow. At another time I visited my trap, and looking through
the cracks from the top of the box, discovered I had caught a
red bird, about the size of a jay bird. I was delighted when I
saw what I had caught, for it is a very pretty bird and I had
often wished I had one; so I raised one side of the trap just
enough to allow me to put my right hand under and seize the
bird. The bird, though, was quicker than I, for he seized me
first with both his feet and made a swipe at my thumb with
his beak, taking out quite a slice. His claws were like crooked
thorns, his bill was as sharp as a tack, and cut like a pair of
scissors. I took hold of the bird with my left hand, but could
not get it to let go of my right. While it dug its claws into
my hand, it worked with its bill on my thumb and fingers, but
I soon stayed the havoc he was making with his beak by secur
ing his head with my left hand, grasping very lightly though,
so as not to aggravate him. This much accomplished, I could
do no more. The situation had become desperate. I would
have gladly surrendered and given the bird his freedom, but
the fight was on and I could not get the enemy off my hands.
Realizing now that I must have help, I ran to the house, which
was not over a hundred and fifty yards away, holding the bird
up as if for exhibition. As soon as I got into the house the

folks seeing my bloody hands and agonized pose of countenance,
came promptly to my assistance, and by carefully withdrawing
each talon, as though it had been a thorn in the flesh, suc
ceeded in separating me and my prize. I was told afterwards
that they managed to give the bird its freedom without it
causing further bloodshed. That ended the sport.
My brothers, Elisha and Warren, the first about four and
the second about two years older than I was, and James, a
cousin about the age of Warren and myself, were often about
the river fishing, wading, wallowing in the mud, and sand,
and trying to swim. And yet I think we were often advised
and even commanded not to go in swimming, as there was
danger of being drowned.
One early spring day, the snow and ice were melting, and
a rivulet wihch poured into the river near the house, was full
of roaring and foaming muddy water, of course about as cold
as ice itself. But the sun was shining quite warm and we
boys were having a jolly time, wading and floundering around
in the angry waters. The excitement had thrown us off our
guard, and we were taken with a sudden surprise and almost
overcome with a feeling of wretchedness when we discovered
mother standing on the bank among our clothes, with a long
switch in her hand. No threat or punishment or cry of despair
was heard above the dashing waters, but every boy, blue and
numb as he was with cold, stuck his toes and fingers into the
muddy bank and made a dash for his clothes. But I do not
think we were much afraid of actual punishment, although
fairly caught in an act of disobedience, for I had never known
mother to cause a child to suffer pain, however alarming her
threats might have been. If she had been stern enough to
punish us, as she probably believed she would, surely this
was her great opportunity, for we were naked and, being
thoroughly wet, could not get into our shirts. My brother
Elisha had thrust his head and hands into his shirt, and
though lie made frantic efforts to get under cover, the garment
stuck fast. Mother probably considering him the most respon
sible party, thought she would make an example of him and
actually gave him a swipe across the shoulders with the switch,
which made him dance around and redouble his comical efforts
to get his shirt on. But the ridiculous and pitiful spectacle

9
had now overcome her resolution, and a smile was seen to
start at tho corners of her mouth, a harbinger of mercy our
eyes were not slow to detect. She finally assisted us in getting
into our clothes, and then warned us that the NEXT time we
would be punished to the full extent of the law.
My mother bribed me with wild plums to go to school.
I rode to school on the teacher's shoulders, sitting astride of
his neck. I was wearing my first trousers with suspenders; it
was play time at school, and the teacher happened to be a
fiddler as well as a pedagogue. I never had seen or heard a
fiddle before. While he was playing I ventured to approach
very near the instrument, thinking I would be able to account
for the wonderful and strange voice issuing from the flat box
with the crooked neck; but I could not, and trembling with
fear said, "Where does the noise come from?" Some one
answered, "The devil makes the noise." Frightened almost
into fits, I fled from the house, and running down the hillside
probably thirty yards, took refuge in a small cave where was
a spring. Some of the children came after me and by assuring
me that the devil was gone, persuaded me to return to the
house. The school house was a rough log cabin, and had a fire
place and flue built of rocks, clay, and sticks. The children
used to pick clay out of the logs and eat it. When I came out
of the cave, I looked up, and on the top of the little hill, about
thirty feet above the cave, I saw a man standing. He was not
a white man nor a negro; as I see him now in memory, he was
dressed in buckspin and carried a tomahawk in his belt. They
said he was an Osage Indian. Before we started to Oregon I
saw a few other Indians, said to be Osages. They looked like
the first one I had seen. They were hunting horses.
It seems to me now that for a long time before we started f
to Oregon, the journey was talked of. Of course I did nqtj
know anything about Oregon. Oregon was, in my mind, af
country a long way off, and I understood that to get there we
would have to travel through a country swarming with wild
Indians who would try to kill us with tomahawks and scalp us.
Some girl cousins, older than I, would take a coffee cup after
drinking the coffee, and turn the mouth down, and after it had
set a short time, look into it for pictures of future scenes.

10
This was often done and we thought we could see covered
wagons and Indians scalping women and children. How little
we guessed of what the future held in store for that train of
courageous people. Little did we dream of the weary days
and weeks and months of that long and toilsome march to
wards the land of the setting sun, a test of courage of soul.
I give here a list of names of heads of families and of young
men considered old enough to do a grown man's work. This
is a copy made from the original roll which was made by a
young man of the party, J. W. Nesmith, afterwards Senator
from Oregon. There were several hundred in the train, men,
women and children, who started on that half year's journey
in the spring of 1843 into an unknown country, down through
the valleys, across the trackless plains, and over lofty moun
tains, always on the watch for savage foes; with a courage
almost sublime they toiled on towards the promised land, and
in the end, "They toiled and builded on the western shore
An empire that shall last for evermore."
Applegate, Jesse
Applegate, Charles
Applegate, Lindsay
Athey, Wm.
Atkinson, Jno.
Arthur, Wm.
Arthur, Robert
Arthur, David
Butler, Anson
Brooks, Geo.
Burnette, Peter H.
Bird, David
Brown, Thomas A.
Blivens, Alex
Brooks, John P.
Brown, Martin
Brown, Oris
Black, J. P.
Bane, Layton
Baker, Andrew
Baker, John G.
Beagle, Wm.
Boyd, Levi
Baker, Wm.
Biddle, Nicholas

Beale, Geo.
Braidy, Jas.
Beadle, Geo.
Broadman Baldridge, Wm.
Carson, F. C.
Carson, Jas.
Chapman, Wm.
Cox, Jno.
Champ, Jacob
Cooper, L. C.
Cone, Jas.
Childers, Moses
Carey, Miles
Cochran, Thos.
Clyman, L.
Copenhaver, Jno.
Caton, J. H.
Chappel, Alfred
Cronin, Daniel
Cozine, Samuel
Constable, Benedict
Childs, Jos.
Clark, Ransom
Campbell, Jno. G.

ChapmanChas, Jas.
Dodd, Solomon
Dement, W. C.
Dougherty, W. P.
Day, Wm.
Duncan, Jas.
Dorin, Jacob
Davis, Thos.
Delany, Daniel
Delany, Daniel, Jr.
Delany, Wm.
Doke, Wm.
Davis, J. H.
Davis, Burrell
Dailey, Geo.
Doherty, Jno.
DawsonEaton, Chas.
Eaton, Nathan
Etchell, Jas.
Emerick, Solomon
Eaker, Jno. W.
Edson, E. G.
Eyres, Miles

11

East, Jno. W.
Everman, Ninimon
Ford, Ninevah
Ford, Ephram
Ford, Nimrod
Ford, Jno.
Francis, Alexander
Frazier, Abner
Fowler, Wm.
Fowler, W. J.
Fowler, Wm.
Fairly, Stephen
Fendall, Chas.
Gaunt, Jno.
Gray, Chiley B.
Garrison, Enoch
Garrison, J. W.
Garrison, W. J.
Gardner, Wm.
Gardner, Samuel
Gilmore, Watt
Goodman, Richard
Gilpin, Major
Gray
Haggard, B.
Hide, W. W.
Holmes, Wm.
Holmes, Riley A.
Hobson, Jno.
Hobson, Wm.
Hembre, Andrew
Hembre, A. J.
Hembre, Jas.
Hall, Samuel B.
Houk, Jas.
Hughes, W. P.
Hendricks, Abijah
Hays, Jas.
Hensley, Thos. J.
Hollery, B.
Hunt, Henry
Holderness, S. M.
Hutchins, Isaac
Husted, A.
Hess, Joseph
Haren, Jacob
Howell, Jno.
Howell, Wm.
Howell, Wesley
Howell, G. W.

Howell, Thos. E.
Hill, Henry
Hill, Wm.
Hill, Almoran
Hewitt, Henry
Hargrove, Wm.
Hoyt, A.
Hoiman, Daniel
Harrigas, B.
James, Calvin
Jackson, Jno. B.
Jones, Jno.
Johnson, Overton
Keyser, Thos.
Keyser, I. B.
Keyser, Pleasant
KelleyKelsey Lovejoy, A. L.
Lenox, Edward
Lenox, E.
Layson, Aaron
Looney, Jesse
Long, Jno.
Lee, H. A. G.
Legur, F.
Linebarger, Jno.
Laswill, Isaac
Loughborough, J.
Little, Milton
Luther Lauderdale, Jno.
McGee Martin, Jas.
Martin, Julius
McClellan, Alex.
McClellan, F.
Mills, Jno. B.
Mills, Isaac
Mills, Wm. A.
Mills, Owen
McGarey, G. W.
Mondon, Gilbert
Matheny, Daniel
Matheny, Adam
Matheny, J. N.
Matheny, Josiah
Matheny, Henry
Mastire, A. J.
McHaley, Jno.

Myer, Jacob
Manning, Jno.
Manning, Jas.
McCarver, M. M.
McCorde, Geo.
Mays, Wm.
Millican, Elijah
McDaniel, Wm.
McKissie, D.
Malone, Madison
McClane, Jno. B.
Mauzee, Wm.
Mclntire, Jno.
Moore, Jackson
Matney, J. W.
Nesmith, J. W.
Newby, W. T.
Neuman, Noah
Naylor, Thos.
Osborn, Neil
O'Brien, Hugh D.
O'Brien, Humphry
Owen, Thos. A.
Owen, Thos.
Otie, E. W.
Otie, M. B.
O'Neil, Bennett
Olinger, A.
Parker, Jesse
Parker, Wm.
Pennington, I. B.
Poe, R. A.
Paynter, Samuel
Patterson, I. R.
Pickett, Chas. E.
Prigg, Fred
Paine, Clayborn
Reading, P. B.
Rogers, G. W.
Russell, Wm.
Roberts, Jas.
Rice, G. W.
Richardson, Jno.
Richardson, Daniel
Ruby, Philip
Ricord, Jno.
Reid, Jacob
Roe, Jno.
Roberts, Solomon
Roberts, Emseley

Rossin, Jno.
Rives, Thos.
Smith, Thos. H.
Smith, Thos.
Smith, Isaac W.
Smith, Anderson
Smith, A.
Smith, Robert
Smith, Eli
Sheldon, Wm.
Stewart, P. G.
Sutton, Dr. Nathan'l
Stimmerman, C.
Sewell, Henry
Sharp, C.
Summers, W. C.
Stout, Henry
StoutStirling, Geo.
StevensonStory, Jas.

12
SwiftShively, Jno. M.
Shively, Samuel
Stoughton, Alexan'r
Spencer, Chancy
Strait, Hiram
Summers, Geo.
Stringer, Cornelius
Stringer, C. W.
Tharp, Lindsey
Thomas, Jno.
Trainor, D.
Teller, Jeremiah
Tarbox, Stephen
Umnicker, Jno.
Vance, Samuel
Vaughn, Wm.
Vernon, Geo.
Wilmot, Jas.
Wilson, Wm. H.
Wair, J. W.

Winkle, Archibald
Williams, Edward
Wheeler, H.
Wagner, Jno.
Williams, Ben].
Williams, David
Williams, Jno.
Williams, Jas.
Williams, Squire
Williams, Isaac
Wilson, Wm.
Ward, T. B.
White, Jas.
Watson, Jno (Belly)
Walters, Jas.
Winter, Wm.
Waldo, Daniel
Waldo, David
Waldo, Wm.
Zachary, Alexander
Zachary, Jno.

The day we started on our journey to Oregon, I do not
remember, but before we reached the Caw River I can call to
mind Harmony Mission, and Grand River, as being the name
of a place and river on or near our route. But I do not remem
ber seeing any mission or river. We came up on the south
side of the Caw River and camped below and near an Indian
town of the Caw tribe. There were huts and cabins ranging
along the river on either side of a street. It was said those
Indians grew corn, beans, and pumpkins. I admired several
of the Indian men I saw here. They were more than six feet
tall, straight, and moved with a proud step; wore blankets
drawn around their shoulders, and leggins. Their hair was
shorn to the scalp, except something like a rooster's comb on
top of the head, colored red. I remember standing and gazing
up into the face of one of those tall Indians, probably to see if
he were a good or bad Indian. I was not afraid of them. I
had lived near the Osage River and I saw that the Caw River
looked to be hardly half as wide. The current was slow and
the water I thought was very deep. The men in some way
made the wagon boxes water tight and used them as boats.
In crossing the river the Indians assisted our people in swim
ming our cattle and horses. I noticed that the Indians did not

13
swim like white men, but with an overhanded stroke, "dog-
fashion," they said. Those Indians were friendly and accom
modating. They told us we would soon reach the country of
the Cheyennes and Pawnees, and that they were bad Indians.
One afternoon, when the sun seemed to be about three
hours high, and we were traveling along at an ox-team gait,
over a level prairie, John East, a good, honest man, also from
Missouri, who was walking and driving his team, was told that
we were then crossing the Missouri line, whereupon, he turned
about facing the east, pulled off his slouched hat, and waving
it above his head said, "Farewell to America!"
I think it was the second day after we had crossed the
Caw River, we met a war party of Caws, marching afoot, about
a hundred of them, painted and feathered, and armed with
bows, spears, war-clubs, tomahawks and knives. Some were
wounded and limping, some with blood on faces, arms in
slings, and bandages around their heads. They seemed to be
tired and in a hurry. They told us they had been out on a
buffalo hunt and had been attacked by a war party of the
Pawnees, and had a fight with them, but that they had de
feated the Pawnees and killed many of them. That evening
or the next, we reached the battle ground, and went into camp.
Several dead Indians were found, and I heard men say they
were Caws. If they were, the Caws were defeated, else they
would not have left their dead.
There was a Mexican in the train, who cut off an Indian's
hand at the wrist and hung it on a stake about three feet high
in the encampment. I saw it hanging there myself, and was
afraid of it, for I saw it was a man's hand. An indignation
meeting was the result of this ghastly exhibition, and the
Mexican was compelled to leave the company.
On this long journey there were many days of marching
and camping, of which I have no recollection. Often, I remem
ber, in the afternoon we were traveling toward the setting sun,
and that is all I can recall of the day or days; and I can not
remember places in the order in which we came to them, but
the next that comes to my mind is Ash Hollow, which appeared
to be only a depression in the usually level plain, where were
scattered ash timber trees. It appears to me now that after
we crossed Ash Hollow a prairie stretched away to the west,

14
and as we traveled along, making a wagon road through the
high grass (it was now early summer), we saw at a distance
of probably a mile, a lone horseman galloping' across the
prairie. They said he was a Pawnee on a pony and that he had
small bells in his ears. I thought I could hear them ring.
In this part of the country we crossed the Big and Little
Blue Rivers; the Little was small and the Big not a large
river. I had heard of the Blue Rivers many days before we
reached them, and expected to find the water really blue, and
my recollection now is that the water was of a blue color.
Which we crossed first, the Little or Big, I don't remember.
We arrived at the Big Blue about sundown, and forded the
stream. It was not deep, as I remember it. We went into
camp on the west shore not far from the river. The weather
was fair, and early in the evening I went to bed in a tent with
an old man of the name of Alexander McClellan, whom I will
now introduce to you. He came to our house in Missouri when
I was quite an infant, too young to remember when he came.
But I was told that when he came I was almost dead with a
fever. The old man was familiar with the herbs and roots
used by the Indians in sickness, and at once took charge of
me and soon restored me to health. He was then between
sixty and seventy years of age; had been a soldier, had been
crossed in love and never married. The first tune I learned
was of a song he sometimes sang when he had me on his
knee. It was called "The Rosetree." This is the first verse:
"A rosetree in full bearing
Had sweet flowers fair to see;
One rose beyond comparing
For beauty attracted me."
Well, I went to bed with the old man, "Uncle Mack," we
called him. I had always slept with him before my earliest
recollections, when he was with us, as he almost always was.
How long I had slept I do not know, but some time during the
night, I suddenly awoke. The rain was pouring down into
my face, my eyes were blinded with the glare of lightning, the
wind was roaring like a furnace, and the crash of thunder was
terrible and almost continuous. I could see nothing but what
looked like sheets of fire, and hear nothing but the wind, the

15
pouring rain, and the bellowing thunder. For a minute I was
dazed and could not realize the situation, and before I had
fairly recovered my senses, Uncle Mack picked me up and put
me into the hind end of a covered wagon, and I well remember
scrambling around in there among pack saddles, etc. I re
member no more of this night, but in the morning the little
river had overflowed its banks and the encampment was
flooded. The next object that seems to have claimed my boyish
attention and a place on the tablet of memory, was Indepen
dence Rock. It was just beyond a small stream which seemed
to wind around its base. We passed quite near it and though
I can now see the picture of it on the pages of memory, I
cannot describe it in a way satisfactorily to myself, but it
looked to be oval on top and in the highest part quite smooth
and slick, as I imagined, so that a person would slide off it. It
was of a light gray color, as high as a house at the middle,
tapering down both ways, and as long as a city block.
A man by the name of Lovejoy came to us some where in
this part of the country, telling what I thought was a very
funny story. He was traveling with a party of trappers, he
said, and they had camped inthe neighborhood of Independence
Rock. Mr. Lovejoy went to explore and examine it, and while
there he was marking his name on the rock and just as he
was writing "joy" a party of skulking Indians captured him.
They took him to the encampment of his party and sold him to
his friends for ammunition and tobacco. Mr. Lovejoy was a
very clever and good looking young man and wore a slouch
hat. He joined our party and came through to Oregon.
It seems that the next object that made a lasting impres
sion on my memory as we traveled westward was Fort Laramie,
of the American Fur Company. I remember seeing the fort as
we approached it. It looked white and that is about all I
remember about it.
I think we were now traveling through the country of the
Platte rivers, a country of level plains it now seems to me and
very little timber. We saw many herds of buffalo, some grazing
quietly on the prairies, and others marching, and moving and
bellowing, and the great herds making a roaring noise as they
tramped along, a half mile or a mile away.

16
Of the Platte rivers there were the South Platte, Laramie's
Fork, and the North Platte. At times we traveled along the
banks of the rivers, which were low, and the water often
seemed spread over a wide surface and shallow. The pastur
age was fresh and abundant, and I do not remember that we
endured great hardships journeying through this part of tne
country. Buffalo and small game were plentiful and the men
had great sport hunting. We had an abundance of buffalo
meat and venison. Sometimes buffaloes were found among
our cattle of mornings, quietly grazing with them. One day
as we were traveling along the bank of one of the Platte rivers,
a buffalo was seen swimming the river and coming in the
direction of the train. Some of the men got their guns and
when he came up the bank attacked and finally killed him near
the wagons, but they had to shoot so many times to bring him
down that the firing sounded like quite a battle. I think they
said he was an old bull. He had very large shoulders rising
to a hump, which was covered with long dark hair, and he had
a very ugly burly head. I thought him a very dangerous
looking beast. While traveling through this country of rivers
and broad plains, we were, as I remember, never out of sight
of wild game.
I remember crossing two Platte rivers. One crossing where
we forded, the river seemed to be very wide and quite rapid;
the water was so deep in places that it ran into the wagon
boxes and a single team and wagon would have been swept
away, so they formed the entire train in single file, and at
tached the teams and wagons to a chain extending through
the entire length of the train. The crossing here severely tried
the courage and endurance of the men, for they waded the
river alongside their oxen, at times clinging to the ox yokes,
and swimming; at some deep places the teams seemed to swim
and the wagons to float, being held up and in line by the chain
to which they were attached.
Whether at this crossing or another, I do not remember,
but at one place where we forded one of the rivers, mother,
myself, and the other children were in a wagon, whicb we
called the "little red wagon;" it was drawn by one yoke of
oxen, and it appears to me now that our wagon was attached to
the last end of the train. As we were just getting up the

17
bank from the ford our team broke loose and wagon and team
backed into the river. Being swept below the ford, the team
swam and the wagon sank down, and was drifting on the sand;
and I remember the water came rushing into the wagon box
to my waist, compelling me to scramble up on to the top of a
trunk or something of the kind. But several men came to
our assistance immediately, and swimming, held up the wagon,
and soon assisted us to the shore. Probably this was at the
fording of the North Platte.
It seems to me now that the next point of note on our
route was Fort Bridger, but I do not call to mind the appear
ance of the buildings or anything happening thereabout, unless
it was the great number of Sioux Indians I saw either at this
fort or at Laramie. I saw several very pretty squaws with
cheeks painted red, wearing beaded moccasins and beautiful
red leggings, fringed along the outer seams. Some of them
had papooses almost white and very pretty. Some were wives
of white men at the fort, and some belonged to the great war
party I saw there mustering to fight the Blackfeet. As I
remember this army of Sioux warriors, they were all mounted
on nice horses, bucks and squaws all painted about the face,
and armed with bows and arrows encased in quivers slung at
the back. Some had spears, some war clubs, but no guns, or if
any, very few. This war party, as I see the picture now, look
ing back sixty years, marching or halting in close array,
covered several acres of prairie. It was a gay and savage look
ing host, and sometimes when a squadron of those warriors
would break away from the main body and come toward us
shouting the war whoop, urging their ponies at full speed, I
thought it a grand display indeed, although I fancied I could
feel the hair rise on my head. Several of the Amazons of this
war party visited our encampment. They were dressed and
painted and armed like the men. Some of them were very fine
of figure, had pretty faces, and eyes as soft and bright as the
antelopes on those wild plains. They were all young women,
and as I thought made love to our young men with their eyes
like city damsels, but in the excitement of battle I suppose
they became very furies and those lovely eyes flashed fire.
Their small, shapely hands and small feet clad in beaded
moccasins were admired even by our women, and I fear our

18
men, bold as they were, were almost captured already by those
lovely warriors.
The train had been moving along westward across a level
country for days it may have been, where no tree was to be
seen, but looking ahead, far in the distance I saw a bush, which
as we moved along, continued to grow until the shades of
evening began to darken into night and we went into camp.
In the morning about the first object that attracted my atten
tion was that bush, which now appeared to have grown to be
quite a sapling. By noon it had grown to be a tree, and about
sunset we were under its branches, and, I believe, went into
camp near it. It was a very large pine tree, the round straight
trunk towering up like a great column and supporting a
spreading top. This was the "Lone Pine." For several years
after I could hear of the Lone Pine from immigrants following
our trail, but later I was told that it had been cut down for
fire wood. I can remember incidents, places, and things that I find
I cannot locate. In attempting to do so I may be three hundred
miles off. Where was Chimney Rock? Somewhere on the
plains. It was near the line of march and we could see it, it
seems to me, for several days before we passed near it. At
first we could only see a pinnacle afar off, looking much like a
chimney flue or church steeple, but as we traveled on, it ap
peared to be somewhat divided into two or three points at the
top, but one pinnacle was much higher than the others. Nearer,
we could see that the chimney-like pinnacles were on the top
of a mountain or high hill, and that beyond and not far from
it was an irregular range of mountains. I could not form an
opinion as to the heighth of this Chimney Rock, but it seemed
to me to touch the sky. We went into camp not far from it,
as we supposed. Some of the young men that evening visited
the Rock and returned quite late at night. They declared
it was ten miles away. Immigrants afterwards told me that
Chimney Rock had continued to crumble and fall away from
year to year until now there is scarcely anything left of that
unique and far-famed land mark.
We must have traveled across vast stretches of almost
level country where there were no forests of timber and in
fact, where there was very little timber. Where we camped

19
we sometimes had to use small willows for firewood, such as
we found growing along the margin of streams and about
springs. At other times, and quite often too, we had no wood
of any kind and used "buffalo chips" for fuel. What we called
"buffalo chips" was the dried dung of the buffalo.
I had quite an adventure one evening while gathering
"buffalo chips." Several of us boys were out from camp some
little distance, picking them up and throwing them into piles.
Our party had a pile and other parties had their piles, and
as we were not far apart, it seems that we had claimed certain
small districts adjacent to our respective stacks of chips, and
we had to guard against trespassers. We were working hard
and had become considerably excited, when I remember, a boy
about my size with yellow sun burnt hair and freckled face
(at that time I thought he had scales or scabs on his face),
came over into our district and attempted to get away with a
large chip, but I caught him in tbe act and threw another into
his face with such violence as to knock off a scale and make
the blood come. I think I was urged to this by the elder
boys, for I remember they laughed, when I could see nothing
to laugh about.
I think it was in this part of the country we found the
prairie dog towns. The prairie dogs seemed to prefer city life,
for we always found them living in towns and cities. The
population of some of their cities I should think was as great
as that of Greater New York. The dog is about the size of a
very young puppy dog. As we would pass through or near
their towns they would come out of their holes and sit up
straight on their hind quarters, always near their burrow,
and utter something like a yelp, or so it seemed to me, and
on the slightest alarm drop into their holes. I saw owls
sitting among them, and it was said that prairie dogs, owls,
and rattlesnakes lived together in the same holes.
It seems that matches were not in use when we crossed
the plains, for I remember that to get fire at times a man
would rub a cotton rag in powder and shoot it out of a musket,
or put it in the pan of a flint-lock gun, and then explode the
powder in the pan; often a flint steel and punk were used. I
think many of the guns were flint-locks, but I know some

20
were what they called percussion, with nipple and cap,
were all muzzle loaders.
Antelope and long-eared rabbits were everywhere.
Father had two black dogs called grey hounds; they were very
fast runners, and could soon pick up a rabbit, but when ey
chased an antelope it was quite different. One day an antelope
had in some way been separated from the herd, and ran
through the train. One of the dogs, Fleet by name, pursued
the antelope, and the chase led across a level plain. The black
dog as he sped on with all his might, looked like a crane flying
along the plain. We were all excited, for the dog was gaining
on the antelope at every bound, and would no doubt soon over
take him. The dog thought so too, for when he was within a
few yards of the antelope and expected in another bound or
two to seize his prey, he gave a yelp, but that yelp seems to
have been a fatal mistake, for that antelope, in a few seconds
after that bark, was fifty yards away from the dog, and flying
over the plain as if he had been shot out of a gun. He actually
passed over many yards before we could see the dust rise
behind him. The dog was so astounded that he stopped short,
and after gazing at the antelope for a moment, no doubt
amazed beyond expression, turned about and trotted back to
the train. It was said that dog would never chase an antelope
afterwards. At another time we were traveling over a level plain and
on our right hand many miles away, were high mountain
ridges, almost of uniform height, and almost or quite devoid
of timber, stretching away southeasterly in the direction, as I
have since imagined or been told, of Yellowstone Park. They
said these were the Wind River Mountains. While we were
traveling in sight of them there was a continuous and dis
agreeable wind blowing, which I in some way associated with
the name of the mountains.
I cannot now locate the great sage plains, as we called
them, but they were vast in extent and not well watered. In
crossing them, at times we traveled until late at night to reach
water, and a few times we had to camp without it. Those
plains were thickly set wtih sage brush and greasewood shrubs,
growing, generally nearly waist high to a man, and as we had
no wagon road to follow, we had to break a road through this

21
shrubbery. It was hard service for the teams in the lead, so
the strongest teams were put in the van, but these were
changed every day. Part of the time we followed a train for
pack animals and horsemen.
One day, as the train was slowly tramping along over a
wide plain, a party of horsemen appeared in our front about
a mile from us, coming down a little hill toward us. A man
of our party was riding a quarter of a mile in advance of the
train when those horsemen came in sight, and he, supposing
them to be a party of hostile Indians, came galloping back,
Tashing his horse with his hat, which he carried in his right
hand, and shouting at the top of his voice, "Injuns! Injuns!
Corral! Corral! Corral!" The corral was soon formed and all
in readiness to do battle, but there was some excitement and
confusion. I was at that time in the little red wagon with
mother, and I noticed she had a bright brass pistol in her
hand. I think I did not know before that she had a pistol.
I looked at her face and I thought she was a little pale but not
scared. The party we thought were Indians soon came up to
us. They were mountain men or trappers, so the train was
soon on the march again.
I remember one afternoon, when the teams were tired
and some of the oxen limping with sore feet, I was looking far
away in the direction we were traveling, across a dreary sage
plain, to all appearances extending to the end of the earth,
and I got to wondering where we were trying to get to, and
asked the question, when someone said, "To Oregon." I did
not know any more but was satisfied. I think I made up my
mind then and there not to ask that question any more, but to
wait and not draw out that answer, which afforded me no
information. To me, "Oregon" was a word without meaning.
After traveling a long way, it seems to me over a vast
level country almost without timber, we saw broken country
and hills far away in the direction we were traveling, and I
heard it remarked that somewhere in the hilly country we
could begin to see, was the Sweetwater River. This was good
news to me, for I fancied that when we got to that river I
would have all the sweet water I could drink. When we came
to the river, which was a small shallow stream flowing gently
along over yellow sands, I ran down to the water's edge, and

22
bending over, resting on my hands, took a drink of the wa er,
but was greatly disappointed, for the water was very common
indeed, and not sweet. As I remember when we forded this
river, hill slopes, not steep, came down near the river on e
left hand and the water was flowing to the right.
The color name of the next river that comes to mind in
terested me somewhat, too. I was anxious to see it. The name
was Green River, but when we came to it the water was of a
white crystal clearness, and not a dark green river, as I had
expected to see it, running across the country like a broad
green ribbon. It was small and easily forded.
It seems to me now that for several hundred miles ot
travel through this part of the country, there was scarcely
anything so unusual in incident or accident or feature of the
country as to make a lasting impression on my memory.
The Soda Springs seem to come next in the order of my
recollection. We camped very near one of these springs and
nearly a quarter of a mile from Bear River, a rapid stream
about the width of Green River. Here we met Fremont, with
his party, and I thought their large tent, which was spread,
near our encampment, a very nice affair. There was a soda
spring or pool between the camps, and Fremont's men were
having a high time drinking soda water. They were so noisy
that I suspected they had liquor stronger than soda water
mixed with the water. Fremont had a cannon, the first I
had ever seen, a six-pounder, they said, and made of bright
shining brass. It was resting on a low carriage, which was
standing between our camp and Fremont's, and near the soda
spring. I admired this cannon very much and examined it
very closely several times. I discovered a touch hole near
the breech, and looking in at the muzzle could see the ball, or
thought I could. After Fremont's men had been drinking
soda water from that spring, and enjoying it greatly nearly a
whole day, one of our company fished out an enormous frog
from the pool, almost as large as a young papoose, and falling
to pieces with rottenness. Soon after this discovery we noticed
that the hilarity at the Fremont tent suddently ceased. I
thought Fremont was a very fine looking young man. In
fact all his party were pretty well dressed, and jolly fellows.

23
I don't remember seeing Fremont and his party at any other
place than this soda spring.
We probably remained at this camp a day or two. Some
of the women improved the opportunity offered by plenty of
hot water here at the springs to wash a few things. While at
this camp, some of our party visited the river, and found near
the bank of the stream, a spouting soda spring. Like all the
geysers, it threw up water convulsively. This spring would
heave up about every three or four minutes. The mouth of
this spring was at the top of a rim-like formation raised up
about eight inches from the common level. This rim was com
posed of deposit from the water. The mouth was nearly a foot
across, and nearly or quite round. There were puffs of steam
issuing from the mouth. Also eight or ten feet from the
mouth there was a hole in the ground four or five inches
across, and whenever the spring went into convulsions and
commnced throwing up water, gusts of hot steam and spray
would issue from this hole with a noise like that from the
escape pipe of a boiler. This hole evidently connected with
the spring. The boys seemed to regard it as of more interest
than the spring. Some tried to keep it from puffing by closing
it with sods and with grass, but whenever the spasm came the
caulking would be thrown out. One young man had a wool
hat which he placed over the hole, and held there with his
hands and knees planted firmly on the brim. This I suppose
was generally regarded as a "corker," but when the puff came,
the hat crown stretched for a moment and then burst at the
top. This spring was called the Steamboat Spring; it puffed
like a steamboat.
As we returned from this spring to our camp, we passed
by a rock or some compact substance, standing up six or seven
feet above the ground, of funnel shape, three feet across or
more, and nearly the same at top and bottom. I think it was
as hollow as a gun, and I saw there was a hole in one side.
This was the "Bellowing Rock," for we were told that at one
time it bellowed like a bull. How long since it had bellowed
I did not learn, but I visited this, to me, inspiring rock, twice,
while at our soda spring camp, and stood a long time near it,
listening and thinking it might conclude to bellow again. I
remember very little else about this part of the country, but

24
it seems to me the face of the country was broken and in many
places rocky. There were also some scrubby trees, probably
red cedars and hard pine of stunted growth, among the rocks.
From Soda Springs to Fort Hall I can recall nothing.
At Fort Hall we were probably in camp a day or two.
Captain Grant was in command at the fort. It was a Hudson
Bay trading post, and a resort for trappers, mountain men,
Indians of probably the Shoshone or Snake tribes, and other
Indians. The fort was built of sun-dried bricks, "adobe." The
walls were solid on the outside except for portholes and a gate
or two. There was a square court inside, and the houses
opened facing this square on the four sides. I visited the
people in the fort with mother and other folks, and found
women and children living there. They were very kind and
sociable. I think the women living there were Indians or
mixed bloods. I noticed some very pretty moccasins and
other garments of deer and antelope skin, tanned and dressed.
The garments were ornamented with needle work, beads, and
porcupine quills, of different colors, the moccasins having red
and blue colored instep pieces. Those women wore bracelets
of gold or brass on their wrists, broad rings of gold or brass
on their fingers, and a profusion of bright colored, mostly red,
ribbons on their garments. Those bright colors I thought were
In beautiful contrast with the brown skin and glossy black hair
of the women. Between the visitors and these women and
children conversation was very difficult, but by the use of
signs and a few words, all parties managed to make themselves
agreeable. There had been no wagons beyond this fort, and I think
it was the opinion' of the people here that it would not be
practicable to take them further; that we had better leave
the wagons and resort to pack animals, but the emigrants,
after a thorough investigation of the subject, determined to
move on with the wagons.
Though there was no scarcity of wild game, there was a
very large and fat ox slaughtered here by the emigrants. I
don't know whether they had bought the ox of the people of
the fort, or whether the people had made us a present of him.
But he was slaughtered, about one hundred yards from camp,
and during the afternoon, we boys were at the place where

25
the ox had been killed, and found the stomach or paunch, as
we called it, lying there on the ground; the weather being
warm, it was swollen to the size of a large barrel. The game
we played there with the stomach of the ox was both original
and uncanny, and I am sure we never played it afterwards,
for it very nearly ended in a tragedy. The sport consisted in
running and butting the head against the paunch and being
bounced back, the recoil being in proportion to the force of
contact. The sport was found to be very exciting and there
grew up a rivalry between the boys as to who could butt the
hardest. There was a boy by the name of Andy Baker, much
taller than I was; he was slender, had a long neck, and his
hair was cut very near to the scalp. This boy was ambitious
to excel all the others, and backed off so as to have a long
run for it. He backed off much further than anyone had be
fore, and then lowering his small head, charged the paunch at
the top of his speed, and when within a couple of yards of the
target, leaped up from the ground (the boys yelling, "Give her
goss, Andy!"), and came down like a pile driver against the
paunch, but he did not bound back. We gathered around to
see what the matter was> and discovered that Andy had thrust
his head into the stomach, which had closed so tightly around
his neck that he could not withdraw his head. We took hold
of his legs and pulled him out, but the joke was on Andy, and
"Give her goss, Andy," was a favorite joke among the boys
long after. I will add here that many years after we had
settled in Oregon, Andy became a candidate for sheriff of Yam
hill County, and I went down from Polk County, where I then
lived, and told this adventure of his on the plains. Andy was
elected. And now I recall to mind a long march across a dry and
level plain, thickly set with sage brush and greasewood,
through which the breaking of a road was very heavy work
for the now somewhat jaded teams; and the boys walking be
hind the wagons were frequently under the painful necessity of
sitting down and pulling the thorns of the prickly pear out of
their toes. This evening we traveled until late at night, prob
ably ten o'clock, and camped as near as we could get to Snake
River, for the riverbed was in a groove cut more than a quar
ter of a mile deep in the plain. In the morning we could see

26
the river from our camp, so far down that it looked like a
small stream. The slope down to the river was very steep, but
there was bunch grass in abundance and some of our cattle
were grazing on the slope and along the river. Some boys
were rolling rocks down this slope into the river. They did
not seem to consider the danger to cattle below them, and
were enjoying the sport of seeing the large stones rush and
bound down the long and steep declivity and plunge with a
tremendous splash into the water, sometimes throwing water
twenty-five and thirty feet high. How long this sport had
been going on, I had not noticed, not having been invited to
take a hand, but it was going on when the train was ready to
take up the line of march. Just at that time a boy known by
the name of Warne Hembre had started a large stone which
went with the velocity of a cannon ball in the direction of a
yearling calf grazing near the foot of the slope, and just as the
rock struck the calf, Warne was heard calling it to get out of
the way. Of course the calf was killed as dead as if it had
been struck by a bolt of lightning.
We were now approaching the Salmon Falls in Snake
River, and heard the roar of the waters a long time before we
saw them. The first sound that struck my ear seemed to jar
the earth like distant thunder. As we approached, many In
dians were seen, and long lines of something of a red color,
which I thought were clothes hung out to dry, attracted my
attention; but as we came nearer I learned that those lines
were salmon which the Indians were drying in the sun. The
company made a halt here, whether for noon or over night, I
don't remember. Many Indians visited our camp, bringing
fish, both fresh and dried, which they exchanged for old
clothes, and a number of them strutted around dressed in their
newly acquired garments, seeming to enjoy their often absurd
appearance as much as we did, for when we would laugh, they
would laugh and jabber among themselves. They were almost
naked, some of them quite so. When one would get a garment
he would put it on at once. A naked Indian would put on a
shirt and step around as though he thought himself in full
dress; another would seem delighted with nothing but a vest;
another big buck with only a hat on would grin and seem as
pleased as if he were "dressed to kill." This was grand sport

27
for us children, and the Indians did not seem to object to our
fun at their expense. The fish which the Indians brought no
doubt were very acceptable to the emigrants, as I do not re
member having any before, except at Bear River, where the
men caught an abundance of very large trout.
These Indians were Snakes and Shoshone, and our visit
with them had been pleasant and entertaining. But in getting
away from this place we had a narrow escape. We had to
follow the "Devil's Backbone," and it may have been a mile or
more; it is a very narrow ridge with a gorge a thousand feet
deep on the left hand and a sheer preciipce on the right down
to Snake River, which looked as though it might be a mile or
more away. Indeed, it was so far away that it looked like a
ribbon not more than four inches wide. The danger was so
great that no one rode in the wagons. As I walked behind a
wagon I would often look into the gorge on the left and then
down to the river on the right, and as I remember it now, at
many places there was not a foot to spare for the wagon wheels
between the bottomless gorge on the left and the precipice
down to the river on the right. It is said in the Bible, "Strait
is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life."
"But wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to
destruction, and many there be which go in thereat." But
this Devil's Backbone was worse than either, for it was both
narrow and crooked, and it was hard to tell what it might
lead to. But we passed it in safety, and again were slowly
tramping along over a broad and level expanse of sage brush
and greasewood. One afternoon somewhere in that level country, when
there were only father's three wagons in the party — I think
there had been a dispersion and confusion of tongues soon
after passing the Devil's Backbone, and father had pulled out,
preferring to face the dangers of the wilderness alone, to civil
warfare — off in an easterly direction we could see horsemen
coming towards us. When we first saw them, the ponies did
not look larger than grasshoppers, and there were only a few
of them visible, but directly more appeared in sight, and the
numbers continued to increase until the plain was swarming
with them. They approached us at a gallop and gathered into
a hoard as they came nearer. They did not whoop nor gesti-

28
culate as they approached; they were not painted and bad no
weapons in their hands. They did not slacken their pace until
they had completely surrounded our little party. They were
in such great numbers and crowded so closely about the
wagons and teams that we could not move on. But they were
very friendly and we learned in some way that they were
visiting us to see white women and children, for they had
never seen any before. They peered into all the wagons from
the ends and both sides, and caught hold of the wagon covers
on the sides and raised them so they could look in. There
was a host of them around the wagon I was in, lifting the sides
of the cover and peeping in at mother and us children. We
were not afraid of them for they all looked pleasant and much
interested. Some were squaws, riding astride of saddles which
had very high horns before and behind. The women's saddles
were decorated with large headed brass tacks, and long flowing
fringes. Some of the squaws had infants encased in sacks
made of dressed hide of some kind, with a board attached so
as to fit on and support the back of the child. They looked
like cocoons of some kinds of insects and were swinging from
the front horn of the saddle, like a holster pistol. There was
nothing to be seen of the papoose but its little round chubby
face. While they were crowding about our wagon, a squaw,
with a youngster hanging to her saddle bow was trying to get
a peep into the wagon when a horseman swung his horse
against the child, which commenced crying. This drew forth
such a volley of Snake lingo that the offender appeared very
suddenly to lose all interest in the show and got away from
there in a hurry. Besides a desire to see women and children,
it seems they wanted tobacco, which was given in small quan
tities to a few, who appeared to be big Snakes. We were not
detained by them more than thirty minutes, I should think.
They rode away and we traveled on.
We passed through, on our way, the Rocky Mountains,
but when or where I am not able to say. I do not remember
climbing mountains until we came to the Blue Mountains.
Several times before reaching Fort Boise I saw mountains at
a distance, and at one place I saw what might have been a
mountain range quite near the line of our route. A mountain
almost without a tree, nearby and on our left hand seemed to

29
ascend to the clouds, and its slope to be within a few degrees
of perpendicular. The sides in many places were broken into
crags, at other places, smooth. In some places were enormous
gorges and canyons, dividing the immense walls and peaks.
These may have been the Rocky Mountains, but I do not re
member traveling through any canyon here, or over any very
steep or rough country. I think we must have reached the
divide or backbone of the Rocky Mountains by a very gradual
ascent of hundreds of miles, seeming to be generally level.
but gradually rising. The descent though, was probably not
so regular, for I remember going down several very steep and
long hills.
It must have been in this part of the country that a
grizzly bear was killed, and an animal they said was a moun
tain sheep. I did not see the carcass of the bear but I ate of
the meat. I did not like it, for it seemed to be almost all fat
and quite strong, of a flavor new and unpleasant to my taste.
The carcass of the mountain sheep was brought into camp and
I saw the animal myself, but I was disappointed in its appear
ance, for I could not recognize it as a sheep. The horns were
like those of the ibex, and it was not covered with wool, but
hair. But the flesh when cooked, I thought about as good as
the best of venison.
When we arrived at Boise River we were again with a
considerable company. The river we found to be about a
hundred yards wide, quite rapid, and too deep to ford, though
the banks were low and not precipitous. How the crossing of
the river here was effected I do not remember, but it was
difficult and very dangerous, and one man was drowned. When
we had crossed the river, we were at Fort Boise, for the fort
was near the river. It was also a Hudson Bay post. It was
probably while camping in the neighborhood of this fort that
we children were much surprised and delighted to find beads,
generally small and white in color, in ant hills. We picked up
many of them, but while searching for more presently came to
a place where the ground was white with them, and looking
up discovered that we were under a broad platform raised on
posts seven or eight feet high, and that the platform above our
heads was thickly strewn with the decayed corpses of dead
Indians. We knew then where the beads came from. Many of

30
the bodies were yet rolled up in blankets and robes. Some had
been torn into fragments by carrion crows and other scavenger
birds, and skulls and other bony parts of the body lay bleach
ing in the sun; a few had fallen to the ground. After this
ghastly find we did not tarry long, for the shades of evening
were now creeping along the ground, and the Bannock, Sho
shone, Crow, or Blackfeet spooks may have been already con
gregating to hold their nightly "wake" at this Golgotha. We
fled to camp with the jackrabbit speed of barefoot backwoods
children, to report our strange discovery and exhibit our beads.
We were greatly disappointed that our report did not create
a sensation in camp and decidedly grieved that the "old folks"
did not admire our beads, but reproved us for having them,
and made us throw them away. I don't remember another
time on the plains when I thought the parents as unreasonable
as on this occasion about the beads. I felt so hurt about it
that I did not sleep well that night and several times almost
made up my mind to run away and go back home. I knew the
place where I had thrown the beads, and had not given up hope
of being allowed to get them again. For in a case when mother
had all the facts before her and fairly tried the case on its
merits, I regarded her judgment as very nearly infallible. So
I concluded that in the morning I would very easily convince
her that she had made a mistake by showing her that as the
Indians who owned the beads were dead, they would have no
use for them any more, and that so far as the ants were con
cerned, there were plenty left for them. But as the morning
came, probably some new adventure diverted my thoughts
from the things of the day before, for I have no further recol
lection of the matter of the beads.
Our family had a very strong wagon we called the meat
wagon. It was heavily laden with provisions, the bulk being
flour and bacon. It was drawn by a team of two yoke of oxen,
driven at the time I now speak of by a man by the name of
George Beale, a dark-skinned, black-eyed young man, the son
of a slave owner in Missouri. Mother told me not to ride in
this wagon, but one day while we were traveling through this
part of the country, I was walking, as I frequently did, and
climbed into this wagon and up beside the driver on the top
of a skin covered trunk, which was placed against the foregate

31
of the wagon bed. The lid of the trunk was very slick and
rose several inches above the foregate. The day was warm
and the oxen were walking slowly. George Beale was drowsy
and in some way I got hold of the ox whip, which had a stock
about five feet long, and a lash six or seven feet long. Feeling
now the importance of my position as teamster, I swung the
whip around and then forward with all my strength to make it
pop over the oxen's backs. But the effort to jerk it back
pulled me forward and I slid off the trunk, over the foregate
of the wagon, and fell down between the oxen's heels, and the
front wheels of the wagon, one of which ran over the small of
my back. I tried to escape the hind wheel, but it rolled over
my legs. I now saw the team just behind and only a few feet
away, approaching me, and made several vain attempts to get
on to my feet. The man driving this team was walking and,
seeing me, stepped quickly forward and, picking me up, put
me into a wagon. I am not now able to say whether he put
me into his wagon or the one I had fallen out of. I was badly
hurt and soon became very thirsty and felt very uncomfortable.
It was in the afternoon, and I waited anxiously for the train
to go into camp. But I think I suffered more mental than
physical pain, for I had disobeyed mother and got hurt by it,
and I feared that I was so badly hurt that I would not be able
to conceal the fact, and mother would find out all about the
accident. The disobedience did not seem to trouble me much
until the danger of exposure stared me in the face, and this
is not saying much for my honesty.
The train went into camp soon after sunset, I think. The
place was fresh and grassy. The wagon I was in seems to have
been one of the hindmost, for several wagons were already
there and people were busy at their evening camp chores when
we arrived. I saw mother on her knees, or sitting down, sort
ing some things from some baggage that had been taken out
of the wagon. She was only a few yards from where our
wagon stopped, and I kept an eye on her, resolving at the same
time to behave myself in such a way that she would not suspect
that anything unusual had happened to me in consequence of
my disobedience, which probably she was already aware of.
As soon as the driver had taken the team from the wagon, he
lifted me out and put me down by a forewheel, to which I

32
caught for support, as I discovered that I could not stand
alone. Mother now looked over at me, but I straightened up
and made a great effort to appear in fair condition as usual.
When she took her eyes off me I caught hold of the front of
the wagon box, and thus supporting myself, managed to reach
the wagon tongue and straighten up just as mother looked at
me again. My last desperate effort was to walk along the
wagon tongue, having it for a support. But my scheme failed,
for at that moment mother rose quickly to her feet and utter
ing some cry of alarm, caught me in her arms. Oblivion claims
the balance, for of this day, this accident, and this encamp
ment, memory fails to recall another thought or impression.
Having found it convenient to mention George Beale in
my story, I will say further of him that he came to Oregon,
but I do not remember seeing him after the day I had the
misfortune to supercede him as teamster of the meat wagon.
However, about twenty-five years after arriving in Oregon,
George Beale and a confederate named Baker (not Andy)
were convicted of the murder of an old man by the name of
Delaney, who crossed the plains in 1843. The murder was
committed for money, and Beale and Baker were hanged for
the crime in Salem, Oregon. This man Beale taught a little
school near our house in Missouri when I was about four years
old, and had struck me with a switch because I could not dis
tinguish between the letters "B," "P," "Q," and "D." When
he struck me I was very much frightened, and grabbed the
stick, broke it, jumped out at the door, ran home and never
returned to that school. This was the only time I was ever
struck in school, and I don't remember that I was ever insulted
in school by a teacher but this one time. After the hanging
of Beale I sometimes remarked that the only teacher that
ever dared to strike me was hanged. My children when they
were attending school heard me say this, and one day while
we were living in Salem, one of my little boys, who had heard
me say this while we were at supper, spoke up and said, "Pa,
why don't they hang my teacher; she struck me today with a
ruler, and you said that the teacher that struck you was
hung?" We descended a long steep hill into Grande Ronde Valley,
so late in the evening that we had no view of the valley as we

33
went down and camped on or near a small river. The morning
came clear and quite cool and we found ourselves in a fine
valley probably fifteen miles long and wide enough to be
called round. Early in the morning, soon after sunrise, look
ing in a northerly direction several miles away we could see
a column of steam arising from the ground like a white cloud.
This they said was from a hot spring or small lake. I think
I fancied this was quite a good country, though it was then
inhabited by Indians only.
Some things of the crossing of the Blue Mountains I re
member quite well. The timber had to be cut and removed
to make a way for the wagons. The trees were cut just near
enough to the ground to allow the wagons to pass over the
stumps, and the road through the forest was only cleared out
wide enough for a wagon to pass along. I think we made one
camp in the mountains and probably it was at this camp that
the men so admired the abundance of fine timber. The people
of this emigration even talked about the possibility of a rail
road being built across the plains, and yet there were few of
the party that had actual knowledge of what a railroad was;
but it seems that at this camp they were talking on this sub
ject, when John East, the same man I have mentioned in con
nection with the Missouri line, pointed to a very fine grove of
fir or pine timber and remarked that when they got to building
the railroad he wanted the contract of making the rails, and
said he, "I will split the rails right there in that grove."
In passing across these mountains, we were overtaken by
a snow storm which made the prospect very dismal. I remem
ber wading through mud and snow and suffering from the cold
and wet. But the camp on the Umatilla was a very pleasant
place; this we soon reached after passing the mountains. The
Umatilla was a small stream with sandy banks and bottom.
About the stream were quaking asp and black haws. I dis
tinctly remember noticing the quaking asp trees here for the
first time. A camp fire on the bank of the creek was burning
near one of these trees and as the sparks and smoke went up,
the great wriggling among the leaves attracted my attention
as I lay on my back looking up into its foliage, and I asked
some one the name of the tree. None of the trees were large,

34
but they were shapely like orchard trees and afforded a pleas
ant shade. The fruit of th black haw was in demand, for we had not
had any berries for a long time. They were black and near
the size of buckshot, with a single seed, very sweet and other
wise pleasant to the taste. It was a thorny tree and grew ten,
fifteen, twenty, and twenty-five feet high. The people ate
large quantities of this fruit. It was told for a fact in camp
that a woman died during the night we stayed there, from the
effects of a gorge of black haws. I ate about all I could get
my hands on, but experienced no bad results — they were ripe
and mellow. The Indians in this country were the Kiuse (Cayuse),
who had many horses and some cattle, and the grass was
scarce. The Indians were friendly and even sociable and
brought late vegetables from their gardens to trade for clothes
and trinkets, scraps of iron, and probably ammunition. There
were pumpkins and potatoes; the latter I call to mind with
feelings of special gratitude. They had no price on anything,
but would take all they could get, and one Indian wanted much
more. He had a yellow pumpkin not larger than a man's head,
which first one and then another made a bid for, until the
Indian's head was completely turned as to the value of his
vegetable. After refusing a new suit of clothes worth twenty-
five dollars, he went away with the pumpkin under his arm.
Many old timers will remember the saying, "Like the Indian
with his pumpkin," even unto this day.
On account of the lateness of the season — we had already
had a snow storm — and the scarcity of feed, we probably did
not stop at this place more than one night. Journeying from
our camp on the Umatilla, we passed across what seemed to
me to be a kind of sandy desert, with at times rocky ground,
sage brush, greasewood, and occasionally a few willows.
We passed Whitman's Mission (some called it a station),
situated in about such a country as last above described. There
was nothing cheerful or inviting about the place; a low and
very modest looking house or two, the doctor in the yard and
one or two other persons about the premises, are about all I
remember of this hostoric place where the slaughter was to be
three years later. I think we did not halt here but just passed

35
along by the place. Some years after reaching the Willamette
Valley where the Applegate families settled, I heard this same
place, Whitman's Mission, or station, called Wailatpu, or saw
it printed Wailatpoo.
After passing Whitman's the aspect of the country con
tinued about the same to the Columbia River. Drifts and
hummocks of dry sand, sage brush occasionally, and everything
dry, dusty, and dreary all the time. At this place on the Col
umbia was another Hudson Bay post, Fort Walla Walla. It
was built mainly of sun-dried bricks, and the plan was about
the same as of the Hudson Bay forts we had passed on our
journey.

CHAPTER II.
Down the Columbia to the Willamette.
The train which arrived here at this time was a detach
ment of the company which came out to Oregon this season
and numbered ten families and probably twenty wagons. The
entire emigration of 1843 has been computed at about a
thousand souls. This detachment included the three Applegate
families; families of three brothers, Charles, Lindsay and
Jesse. I call to mind also the names of Alexander McClellan,
Wm. Wilson, Wm. Doke, Robert Smith, Benjamin Williams,
Mr. Clyman, John G. Baker, Elijah Millican, Thomas Naylor,
Almoran Hill, Miles Cary, and Daniel Holman.
Besides the oxen of the teams, there was a small herd of
stock cattle. Jesse Applegate had probably thirty head and
others had a few cows and calves. There were also a few
horses. This train of wagons corraled for the last time about
one hundred yards, so it appears to me, up the river from the
fort and very near where the Walla Walla River flows into
the Columbia. A train of wagons with their once white, now torn, grease
and dust stained covers, parked on the bank of the Columbia
River, was a novel spectacle. Such had never been seen there
before. The faithful oxen, now sore-necked, sore-footed, and
jaded, which had marched week after week, and month after
month, drawing those wagons with their loads from the Mis
souri River to the Columbia, had done their task, and were
unhitched for the last time, and I hope, all recovered from
their fatigue and lived to enjoy a long rest on the banks,
"Where rolls the Oregon and hears no sound save his own
dashing." Mr. McKinley was in charge of the post of Walla Walla,
and was very kind and accommodating to the emigrants. There
were many Indians here: bucks, squaws, and papooses, and
these were often visitors at our camp. Some of the bucks
talked English fairly well, and all were clever at sign language.
There had been at this place mission establishments, both
(37)

38
Catholic and Protestant, and this trading post had been for
several years in this part of the country, and so the Indians
were to some extent accustomed to modify their manners and
dress. They were not naked like Indians we had been among
before. A young Indian whose English name I think was Ellis,
and whose dress was like that of a white man, had his hair
shingled or cut short, and was very civilized in his manners.
It was said he had been sent East to school when a boy and
was well educated. I think he was a son of the high chief of
the Nes Perce tribe, and would succeed his father. He ap
peared to realize the fact that he was an important man, and
conversed fluently in English with our best talkers.
The Indian tribal names were Cayuse, Nes Perce, and
Walla Walla, and we had many visitors from all these tribes.
I think there was no hostile feeling among these people against
us, but some of the emigrants were prejudiced against Indians
of whatever kind, and were annoyed by the familiarity assumed
by them in their intercourse with the whites. This probably
came near leading to very serious consequences. We boys, I
think, were more or less tinctured with this prejudice, and
besides, did not realize the fact that to arouse a spirit of
vengeance among this horde of barbarians, who could muster
a thousand painted warriors in a single night, meant certain
destruction to every man, woman, and child of our little party.
The first unpleasantness was between us white boys and
the Indian boys. One day we were trading nails and scraps of
iron of all kinds to the Indian boys for a root they called
yampa — a small root half an inch thick, or less, and two or
three times as long as thick — which, when dried, was almost
as white as chalk, and easily ground between the teeth. Of
the parsnip family, it is sweet and rich and very pleasant to
the taste. This barter was going on on the sand drifts some
three feet above the common level; it looked like an abrupt-
sided sand drift. The barter was going on very sociably. We
were munching yampa with great humor, and filling our
pockets with the surplus roots. But some of the boys did not
have pockets (some mothers will not make pockets in their
boys' trousers because if boys have pockets they fill them so
full of rocks, strings, dead beetles, dried fish worms, chewing

39
wax, nails, tops, toy pistols, crulls, doughnuts, fishing tackle,
bullets, buttons, jews-harps, etc., that the strain on the sus
penders often becomes too great), and were holding the surplus
roots in one hand help up against the stomach. When the
hand was full of yampas, they would spill and fall to the
ground, and this much I know to be true. I saw some fall and
picked them up and put them into my pockets, for I did not
want such valuable property to "waste its sweetness on the
desert air." I saw other boys, both white and Indian, picking
up somethnig, and then I saw an Indian picking himself up.
It appeared from the official report of this battle after
wards that the Indian who was picking himself up, had stooped
down to pick up a yampa, when one of our boys attacked him
in the rear with his foot, and the young warrior toppled over
on his head. A race war now broke out instantly and the
battle became general. Cries of vengeance arose from the
whites and yells of defiance from the reds. It was now a
hand to hand fight, for we were all mixed up together when
the battle began. How we became separated I never knew, but
presently we were some distance from the enemy and throwing
pebbles about the size of black walnuts and Irish potatoes at
them. They returned the fire with arrows and pebbles. The
arrows at first alarmed us a little, and to admit the truth, I
believe that if the Indians had charged us just then, we would
have been routed, but we very soon discovered that we could
see the arrows approaching and dodge them, as the range was
not very close. As we pressed forward towards the enemy,
throwing finger stones with great fury and dangerous precision,
they fell back to the shelter of the potato house. As we had
no field artillery heavy enough to batter down a sand hill, we
charged over and around the ends of the potato house, taking
the enemy in front and on both flanks. This assault was made
at a speed of about four double quicks, and was so impetuous
as to be irresistable. The enemy now became demoralized and
fled into the fort through an open gate. But we were not far
behind and entering the court yard of the fort, gathered up
more dangerous weapons and proceeded to slay and spare not.
We found a pile of pack saddles, and one of the boys armed
himself with a cinch, with which he attacked an Indian, strik
ing him on the head with the iron ring on one end of the cinch,

40
and another Indian boy was cut on the head by some kind of a
projectile, put in motion by the sinewy arm of one of our boys.
But this ridiculous affair was not allowed to proceed further,
for McKinley, the commander of the fort, in some way, very
suddenly pacified us and sent us to our corral. Our boys
began the fight, as before stated, but it was claimed that the
Indians were picking up the yampas that fell to the ground
and selling them to us again. However this may have been,
relations between us and the Indian boys became so strained
by this affair that we got no more roots.
The boys also had a skirmish with a young buck who was
mounted on a pony. This was on a sand flat some distance
from the camp, and I only remember that the Indian came
galloping his pony towards us with his spear poised in his
hand and pointed towards us; that we gave him and his pony
a volley of finger stones; that he threw the spear in our direc
tion and it stuck fast in the sand. I also remember that he
got away from there as fast as his pony could carry him and
left his spear behind.
After the battles of the "tater-house" and of the sand flat
had been fought and won by the kids, we noticed that the
Indians visiting our camp were sulky and not talkative. One
evening after the camp fires had been burning some time, and
it was fairly dark, Indians began to drop in singly or by twos,
with that noiseless tread peculair to that people. So snakelike
was their approach, that a big Indian with a blanket drawn
around him would be seen standing or squatting by the fire
before his approach had been noticed by us. After a while
there were a half dozen or more of them about the camp
fires and each one had his blanket over his shoulders and
it completely enveloped his body. I don't know that this
alarmed the whites or caused them to suspect danger, but the
big bucks were sometimes standing and squatting in the way
of people about the fires, and were indifferent to the fact.
One of our young men, who did not like Indians, gave a
buck a push to get him out of his way, and when the Indian
resisted, seized a brand from the fire and struck him a severe
blow with it on the shoulders. I heard the blow and saw the
sparks fly. The blow was probably aimed at the Indian's head,
but he ducked and saved his cranium. This somewhat rough

41
affair, coming up so unexpectedly, created some excitement in
camp for a moment, but it was soon over, for some of our
party caught the young man who was now fairly on the war
path with his "brand snatched from the burning," and pacified
him. The chances are that had not this been done promptly,
there would have been a sanguinary battle fought then and
there, for thre were probably many Indians skulking near our
corral, prepared for mischief and only waiting for a signal
from the Indians in camp, who were spies and had weapons
under their blankets. By the time the trouble arose in camp,
I think the spies had discovered that our men were on the alert
and prepared for anything the redskins wanted, and having
become satisfied of this, they did not wish to precipitate a
fight, so were willing to drop the matter as it was.
Probably this scrimmage at the camp fire, between the
white man and Indian did not much alarm me, for soon after
quiet was restored, I became drowsy, went to bed, and Went
to sleep, listening to a monotonous song and grunt accom
panied by a tapping noise on the spoke of a wagon wheel.
Years afterwards I heard the same song and noise made by
Indians gambling.
Probably the next day, the commander of the fort, Mc
Kinley, visited our camp and remained quite a while. I
understood afterwards that he invited, or rather advised, us
to sleep in the fort, as the Indians were not well disposed to
ward us. I remember sleeping in the fort after this, and think
it probable that the women and children retired to the fort
of nights while the men remained in and guarded the corral.
During the time we remained at Walla Walla, probably
two weeks, the men were busy sawing lumber and building
small boats. They called them skiffs, and one of average size
would carry a family of eight or ten persons. The lumber was
sawed by hand with a pit-saw or whip-saw, from timber that
had drifted to that place when the river was very high. To
carry out the plan of descending the Columbia River to the
Willamette country in those small boats, it was of course,
necessary to leave the wagons and cattle behind. The cattle
and horses were branded with the Hudson Bay Company's
brand, "H. B." and the property was understood to be under
the protection of that company.

42
I well remember our start down the river, and how I
enjoyed riding in the boat, the movement of which was like a
grape vine swing. Shoving out from the Walla Walla canoe
landing about the first of November, our little fleet of boats
began the voyage down the great "River of the West." Whirl
pools looking like deep basins in the river, the lapping, splash
ing, and rolling of waves, crested with foam sometimes when
the wind was strong, alarmed me for a day or two on the
start. But I soon recvoered from this childish fear, and as I
learned that the motion of the boat became more lively and
gyratory, rocking from side to side, leaping from wave to wave,
or sliding down into a trough and then mounting with perfect
ease to the crest of a wave, dashing the spray into our faces
when we were in rough water, the sound of rapids and the
sight of foam and white caps ahead occasioned only pleasant
anticipation. Often when the current was strong, the men
would rest on their oars and allow the boats to be swept along
by the current.
Children left to themselves and not alarmed by those
they look to for protection, do not anticipate danger; as a
rule they do not borrow trouble. "Sufficient unto the day is
the evil thereof," is their motto, and so when not goaded with
hunger, yanked up with colic, or tortured by a stone bruise or
sore toe, a boy on pleasant autumn days, who had been travel
ing all summer bare foot through the desert sands, through
sage brush, grease wood, and cactus, and had been often
broken of his rest, mayhap being tortured by prickly pears
between his toes, now haply being rocked as in a cradle at his
mother's knee, might peradventure be overcome with drowsi
ness, and while dreaming of unromantic things, butter and
bread for instance, pass in total ignorance of the presence of
all that grand panorama-like scenery along the river, which
so many clever tourists have admitted they were not able to
describe. But I did see some ugly cliffs of rock, black and
forbidding in appearance, along the banks of the river, some
high and some not so high, some rough, barren and precipitous,
while others were thickly set with timber and brush. Neither
did the grown up people seem to be delighted with the scenery
along the river. At least I never heard any expressions of ad
miration. A jaded immigrant, however, might gaze upon the

43
face of a precipice a thousand feet high, with a crack in it
extending from top to bottom, without being struck dumb with
awe and admiration, or pass by a lousy Indian and never
realize that he had met one of Fennimore Cooper's noble red
men. Now of nights we encamped on the bank of the river,
sometimes on the north, and sometimes on the south side. I
remember especially a camp we made on the south shore.
There was a very narrow strip of sand and rock almost level,
between the river and a high bluff, with a high mountain
rising above it. Here we were, I well remember, with this
precipitous bluff and lofty mountain at our back, and the broad
river before us. We must have landed here quite early in the
afternoon, for the unusual occurrence which underscored this
camping place on memory's tablet took place before the sun
was low; for it may have been a nooning place. Now at a
venture I will say that our people, for frontiersmen and women
of those days, were unusually free from superstitious whims.
I had never seen a horse shoe over the door; they never spoke
of looking at a hog's melt for a forecast of the weather, did
not believe in lucky or unlucky days, nor that dropping the
dishrag was a sign that the family would have company at the
house. But mother, meaning to make sport of superstitious
notions, no doubt, sometimes spoke of a belief among the
people that seeing the new moon over the right shoulder was
an omen of good luck, and to be candid I must admit that
when I know the new moon is out, I sometimes put myself to
a little trouble to get first sight of it over my right shoulder.
That indicates a trace of superstition. Ghost stories, stories of
haunted houses, of goblins, of witches and fairies, were current
among the people in those days, but were not told as truths
by our folks.
The unusual occurrence referred to was this. Although
we had now been several days on our voyage down the river,
I had not heard any one complain of hardships or express fear
of hardships or dangers to be encountered, and for my part I
had come to feel as safe on the water as on land. But at this
camp I heard remarks that renewed my apprehensions of
danger. There was a drift wood camp fire burning and the
women folks were about it doing the kitchen work (quite a

44
roomy kitchen it was), and talking. I don't remember what
they said except that my aunt Cynthia, uncle Jesse Applegate's
wife, said, "There is going to be a death in the family," or
words to that effect. She was standing, and pointing upward,
added, "See that raven flying over the camp?" I was lying
upon the sand, and hearing the remark, looked up and saw a
black bird, a raven or crow, flying about one hundred feet
above us and going in the direction of the river. Now this
thing of reading the future from the flight of birds was then
new to me, and as my aunt's countenance, gesture, and tone of
voice, bespoke alarm and distress, the event made a lasting
impression upon my mind. And yet the prediction must have
been passed over lightly, for when the calamity overtook us
a few days after, I never thought of the omen and did not hear
any one speak of it.
Occasionally we saw Indians on the river in canoes. Each
canoe was wrought of a single log cut from a pine, cedar or
fir tree, and excavated mostly by burning, but the finishing
work was done with edge tools, originally of stone and bone
perhaps, but now of iron and steel. The canoes I saw here on
the upper river were shapely, and neatly finished, but quite
plain in appearance and generally large enough for only two
or three persons. One day, however, a large canoe carrying
six or seven natives shot out of a little cove on the north shore,
and passing across our bows slowed up, while the man in the
bow of the craft, lifting his hand towards his mouth, spoke
and said, "Smoke six!" which literally translated is "Tobacco,
friend!" The spokesman was a large stout man with more black
in his skin than a red man. His eyes were not really black,
but looked at our distance like burnt holes in a blanket. He
was bare headed, I do not mean bald headed, but that he wore
no unnatural covering on his head. He surely did not need
any, for this son of an African sire, and a native daughter of
the Walla Walla, Cayuse, Klickitat, Chemomichat, Spokane or
Wascopum tribe, had an immense shock of grizzly, almost
curly hair, which grew down to his ears and to within an inch
of his nose, making his head seem unnaturally large. Some
of our party gave them a little tobacco and they passed on.
Now, who was this shock-headed heathen? They said he was

45
the son of a negro man who came to the coast with Lewis and
Clark's expedition as cook, about forty years before the time
of which I am speaking, and who, peradventure, because of his
black skin, woolly head, large proportions, thick lips,
"And lusty beauty
Such as none
Might safely dare
To look upon,"
was so petted by the squaws that he left the expedition in the
Walla Walla country, and remained with the native daughters.
I was now wide awake, for I had expected to see some
thing grand when we got in sight of Mount Hood. When we
had reached a point on the river where they said we would
get a first sight of it, I was on the lookout, but although I
was scanning the sky in the direction where it was supposed
to be, I did not see it. No doubt others in the boat had been
looking at it for some time, for some one said to me, "What
are you looking for away up there?"
"Mount Hood," said I.
"Well, it ain't up in the sky," some one said.
Now I had never seen a snow peak but had seen pictures
of them and had been told they were very high, so I was look
ing for a kind of obelisk-shaped thing, towering up into the
heavens almost as high as the moon, but upon this remark I
began to look more towards the earth. I saw the tops of ordin
ary forest-clad mountains, and looking again yet lower and not
high above the tops of fir trees skirting the river on the south
side, I discovered what appeared to be a mere hill, it looked so
low, with a dome or rather hood-shaped top as white as a
lump of chalk. And this appeared to stand on an immense
mass of snow as wide across as the biggest corn field I had
ever seen. The mountain appeared to be only a few miles
away and yet the wide expanse of snow could frequently be
seen as we passed down the river, shining through gaps be
tween the hills. What I saw seemed to be the best evidence,
Mount Hood was, after all, only a snow covered hill. How
did I account for that hill's being always snow clad, while the
high mountains near by were not? Well, I didn't account for
it at all. It might be I never thought of that, or it may be I

46
thought it was God's white throne or foot stool, or that it was
a miracle God had provided to show men His contempt for the
laws of Nature. Remember now, I was looking at this scenery
through the inexperienced eye of a seven year old. The reali
zation of what we see depends very much on what we already
know. Of course I was yet a novice in perspective. I saw
as a child and my understanding was at fault.
We had an Indian pilot, probably selected by McKinley
at Fort Walla Walla, although I do not positively remember
noticing the pilot before we entered the rapids we were now
approaching. At the head of those rapids the river bears from
a west course a little northerly, making a very gradual curve.
As we approached this bend I could hear the sound of rapids,
and presently the boat began to rise and fall and rock from
side to side. When we began to make the turn I could see
breakers ahead extending in broken lines across the river, and
the boat began to sweep along at a rapid rate. The pilot
squatted low in the bow. An old red handkerchief was tied
around his head and his long black hair hung down his back.
There were now breakers on the right and on the left, and
occasinally foam-crested waves swept across our bows. The
motion of the boat had never been so excitingly delightful
before — it was an exaggeration of the cradle and grape vine
swing combined. I began to think this was no ordinary rapid,
but felt reassured when I noticed that the older people sat
quietly in their places and betrayed no sign of fear. Rocked
on the heaving bosom of the great river and lulled by the
medley of sounds, the two babies had fallen asleep in their
mother's arms. Our boat now was about twenty yards from
the right hand shore, when looking across the river I saw a
smaller boat about opposite to us near the south bank. The
persons in this boat were Alexander McClellan, a man about
seventy years old, William Parker, probably twenty-one, and
William Doke, about the same age, and three boys: Elisha
Applegate, aged about eleven, and Warren and Edward Apple-
gate, each about nine years old. This boat now near the south
shore, it would seem, should have followed our boat as the
pilot was with us, and this was a dangerous part of the river.
But there was little time to consider mistakes or to be troubled
about what might be the consequences, for presently there was

47
a wail of anguish, a shriek, and a scene of confusion in our
boat that no language can describe. The boat we were watch
ing disappeared and we saw the men and boys struggling in
the water. Father and Uncle Jesse, seeing their children
drowning, were seized with frenzy, and dropping their oars
sprang up from their seats and were about to leap from the
boat to make a desperate attempt to swim to them, when
mother and Aunt Cynthia, in voices that were distinctly heard
above the roar of the rushing waters, by commands and en
treaties brought them to a realization of our own perilious
situation, and the madness of an attempt to reach the other
side of the river by swimming. This was sixty-seven years
ago, and yet the words of that frantic appeal by the women,
which saved our boat and two families from speedy and
certain destruction, are fresh in my memory. They were,
"Men, don't quit the oars. If you do we will all be lost." The
men returned to the oars just in time to avoid, by great exer
tion, a rock against which the current dashed with such fury
that the foam and froth upon its apex was as white as milk.
I sat on the right hand side of the boat and the rock was so
near that I thought if we had not passed so quickly I might
have put my hand upon it.
Having escaped the present danger, the next thought no
doubt, was to effect a landing at the earliest possible moment,
but the shore was rock-bound, rising several feet perpendicu
larly and presenting a serried line of ragged points against
which the rapid current fretted and frothed, and the waves,
rearing their foam-flecked heads aloft, rushed to destruction
like martial squadrons upon an invincible foe. Ah! That half
hour's experience, this scene so wild, so commotional, so fear
ful and exciting, had not death been there, were worth a month
of ordinary life.
Lower down the river, however, there was a break in the
line of the shore and here the boat was landed, the women and
children going ashore. It has often been said that "Truth is
stranger than fiction," and it is true, for an author manufact
uring a story will avoid what would appear to be absurd, but
in telling a true story, facts must be stated regardless of ap
pearances. This is a case in point, for it is a fact that just as
our boat touched the shore, father grabbed his gun from its

48
place in the boat to shoot our Indian pilot, but he had disap
peared, a fact which under the excitement of landing the boat
I presume, he had not noticed. In fact it seemed that no one
noted his disappearance, or knew what had become of him;
we never knew. A suspicion seems to have been aroused only
a few minutes before our boat landed that our pilot meant
treachery, intending to lead us into these rapids with the ex
pectation that the whole party would be destroyed. If there
was evidence to justify this suspicion I never heard what it
was, and can only attribute it to the delirium of excessive
grief and the natural inclination to blame some one for the
great calamity. I presume the first impulse was to hold the
pilot responsible and execute vengeance upon him, and, carried
forward by the intense excitement which amounted to frenzy,
there was no time for reflection.
From the south shore of the river there was a level tract
of ground running back to the hill probably fifty yards wide,
and extending along the river a considerable distance. Many
Indians were seen there, a few mounted on ponies, and some
in canoes along the shore, and were seen to put out after the
floating bedding, clothes, and various articles of furniture
from the foundered boat. It was said the Indians did not make
any attempt or show any desire to assist our people in the
water. William Doke could not swim and had taken hold of
a feather bed-tick which carried him safely to the foot of the
rapids, between which and what was called the main Dalles
there was a short interval of quiet water. Here Mr. Doke
floated clinging to the bedtick. The Indians passed by him
In their canoes, and though he called for help, they did not
offer any assistance. He was picked up by one of our boats
as he was about to enter the second rapids. Now the appear
ance of so many Indians at the time may have encouraged
the suspicion of treachery against the pilot, but I learned
afterwards that there was a large Indian town in that vicinity,
so the appearance of many Indians was not significant. A fact
favorable to the good faith of our pilot is that but one boat
was lost and that if it had followed the pilot it would have
been safe. It is my opinion, probably founded on the explana
tions of those who were saved, that those who had the man
agement of the boat intended to follow in the track of the

49
pilot boat, but at the time they entered the rapids, their boat
was caught in a strong current bearing towards the south
shore, and when they saw they were being swept away from
the safe channel indicated by the pilot boat, were unable, on
account of the intervening shoaly bed of the river, to pass
across to that channel.
After going ashore, as I said before, the little party of
women and children, the men remaining with the boat, climbed
up the river bank, which at this place was not steep and only
a few yards high, to a narrow plateau running parallel to the
river. From this place we had a good view of the river, but
could not see anything of the foundered boat or of those who
had been in it. An Indian footpath ran along this plateau and
we followed it down the river, very slowly, all the time search
ing the river with eager eyes, Now and then one would stop
and point to the river and say, "I see some one's head there,"
and then we would all bunch up and look for the object pointed
at. But it was only the top of a rock occasionally exposed by
the ebbing of the waters. Several times we were deluded in
this way. Mother and Aunt Cynthia were weeping. While
we were yet walking along the river bank, some one came and
told us that Parker, Doke, and brother Elisha were safe, but
that McClellan and the two boys, Warren and Edward, could
not be found. Then we understood that Elisha had saved
himself by swimming. No doubt the fact that mother had
always objected to the boys going swimming now flashed
across her mind, and as the fact appeared that he had learned
to swim by disobeying her orders, and had thereby saved his
life, she felt a momentary pang of remorse, poor stricken soul!
for she said, "I will never object to the boys going swimming
any more." Looking from where we were a person could get but a
very imperfect knowledge of the tragic scene on the other side
of the river, but those who escaped said that as their boat was
being swept along down the rapids it was caught by one of
those currents which, whirling in its course like a cyclone in
the air, increased in velocity as the radius of the circle
diminishes, until, with a roaring noise, it seems to sink, form
ing an open funnel-schaped vacuum in the water to the bottom
of the river, often called a whirlpool. After being spun around

50
for a few seconds, the boat was swallowed up in the roaring
vortex. The boat came up presently and all the crew except
Warren Applegate, succeeded in getting into it, but very soon
after it was caught by another whirlpool and swallowed up
again, to be seen no more. The last time the boat went down,
end foremost, the boy Elisha, as it descended, climbed to the
upper end and leaped as far as he could, to avoid being taken
down with the boat. Towards the south shore, some distance
below where the boat went down, there was what some spoke
of as a rock island, a lava rock, which stood table-like from
five to ten feet above the water, very rough and broken in
appearance, and in area probably a quarter of an acre. This
island rock was connected with the south shore by a very
narrow causeway of rock, and the north side of the island
seems to have been hollow so that a part of the river flowed
into it.
When Elisha rose to the surface, he discovered that he
had one foot thrust into a pocket of his coat and while ex
tricating it, sank and rolled in the water until he was almost
exhausted; but as soon as his feet were free he struck out
boldly for the upper point or head of the rock island, avoiding
the force of the waves which came meeting him by diving
under them.
William Parker, soon after escaping from the whirlpool,
took hold of a feather bedtick floating near him, and being a
strong swimmer, guided it towards the head of the island. It
chanced that Elisha overtook Parker when near the shore,
and taking hold of the tick they both together succeeded in
reaching the island, from which they with great difficulty,
being very weak, followed the narrow causeway of rock to
the main land.
The boy Warren was never seen nor heard of after the
boat went down the first time. The old man McClellan was
seen the last time trying to reach the head of the island where
Parker and young Applegate were. He had placed the boy
Edward on a couple of oars, and carrying him this way, was
trying to reach the shore, but being hampered with a heavy
coat and boots, falling a little short of the point he attempted
to reach, the old man and boy disappeared under projecting
cliffs and were seen no more. The brave old soldier could have

51
saved himself by abandoning the boy, but this he would not
do. Of the three persons drowned no body could be found,
and the search had to be given up. The boat was never seen
after it went down into the roaring throat of the second whirl
pool. That afternoon a wind storm, with cold rain burst upon
the wretched and broken-hearted women and children while
they yet lingered upon the bank of the river. We camped that
night at the Perkins' Mission. Late in the evening a man from
Peter Burnette's camp came to ours and said that a little negro
girl was lost. She had been sent to the river where the boats
were, to get a bucket of water. The storm had continued and
the boats on the beach were wildly rocked and tossed by the
waves. Some thought the girl had entered one of the boats to
dip up the water, and had been thrown into the river and
drowned. Others said the girl had been taken by the Indians.
She was never found.
The next dangerous part of the river we had to pass was
The Dalles. At that place the banks of the river approach to
within a few yards of each other, and are faced with over
hanging cliffs of volcanic stone as black as pot mettle, between
which the river pours with fearful swiftness, and the channel
is not only narrow, but crooked also, making this part of the
river dangerous to navigation by boats or canoes. I cannot
describe the picture I have in mind of that part of the river
except to say it must have looked like the place the old Hebrew
Elohim fixed his eye upon when "His wrath waxed hot and he
said Anathema Maranatha!"
Passing The Dalles was spoken of as "shooting the
rapids." I think only men enough to man each boat were
detailed to take them through that crooked and narrow way.
Two boats, I know, were manned by two men each, the one
known as the "big boat" was taken through by Charles Apple-
gate and L. Clyman. Uncle Charles was an athlete and stood
six feet in his stockings, and was a bold and strong swimmer.
The other boat, not so large, was manned by Tom Naylor and
Hiram Strait, and they started down the narrow channel some
time before the big boat. This was done to avoid danger of
a collision. On account of the winding course of the river, the
boats were often not in sight of each other. And so it happened

/

52
that while the small boat had slowed up and tacked to follow
a curve in the shore line, the big boat rounded a point only a
few yards above it, and was bearing down upon it with the
speed of a toboggan on ice. Now at this critical moment, when
a collision seemed certain, and the lives of four men were in
jeopardy unless the course of the big boat could be changed,
the pin which held Clyman's oar in place, gave way. Clyman,
with that high courage and steady nerve that goes to make
the hero, threw the beam of his oar in front of Uncle Charles'
big immovable knee, and with a single stroke changed the
course of the big boat enough to avoid the other. I have
heard Uncle Charles say, "When Naylor and Strait saw our
boat coming right at them, their faces were as white as if
they were dead." I did not see those boats passing through
the Devil's Gullet (Dalles). We had passed over the "Devil's
Backbone" on Snake River, and now the boats were passing
through his gullet.
We were following a footpath which ran along the north
bank, but could not often see the river. We saw only one boat
passing down the channel. Following the path, we children
came out of the woods into a small glade, perhaps a hundred
feet above the river, and about fifty yards from it. At this
place we found a stick fire almost burned out. Throwing the
brands together we soon had a cheerful blaze. From this
point we saw probably a hundred yards of the river. A boat
was gliding down the river with only one man in it and he
seemed to be standing. While following the path down the
river, we came to a thicket of wild rose bushes. They bore a
large crop of seed pods or berries, which were ripe and red,
and we ate of them freely. Poor as they were, they were fruit,
and the girls carried a quart or two to camp. Aunt Melinda
(Mrs. Charles Applegate) made a pudding of them for the
children, using in the making what was left of some home
made starch.
Farther on, the path led across the Island known as
"Mimaluse," which connected with the main land on the north
shore when the river is low. We passed a pond or small lake
on which were floating many rafts made of logs on which were
dozens of dead bodies rolled in blankets or Klisques mats.
While I stood looking at the ghastly spectacle, my companions

53
passed into the woods. Seeing I was alone with the dead, I
hurried after them. I came to a pen built of logs and in this
were bodies rolled up like those on the rafts. This did not
frighten me, but near the pen was an object that did. A
little old black man stood there. I took a long breath and
stood for a moment to see If the thing were alive. It seemed
to move, and I ran for my life. Others who passed that way
across the island said they saw dead bodies everywhere, on
rocks, on rafts, in old broken canoes, and these little wooden
devils were legion. Some one said they were put there to
protect the dead, a sort of scarecrow. No beast or bird would
face that diabolical array for the sake of a feast. * Mimaluse
Island was the Golgotha of the Waskopum tribe.
Still following the path along the river, we seemed to be
getting through the mountains, for there was quite a stretch
of beach sloping to uplands and foothills overgrown with
shrubs and oak timber. We passed a few native huts and a
store house containing, among other provisions, acorns of the
white oak, which were sweet and quite palatable. We helped
ourselves, and being very hungry, ate many of the nuts. It
was a fair day, and after our acorn feast we felt quite cheerful.
We soon came to a place where the Waskopum Indians were
drying fish eggs. The eggs were hanging in festoons on poles
that were supported by forks stuck in the ground. Of course
this sort of dry house had no attractions for us and we held
our noses and fled.
Robert Shortis met us at The Dalles with supplies. He
came in a canoe with two Indians. He lived at Tamchuk (the
falls), now Oregon City. I don't remember what he brought
besides flour and sugar. I suppose the reason we children
grew tired of sugar was because the quantity was too great in
proportion to the supply of other food. Shortis did not come
as a speculator, but as "a friend indeed to friends in need."
He had made his home with the Applegate families before he
came to Oregon. He had written letters from Oregon to his
friends, advising them to come to the new country, giving as
reasons the healthful climate and mild winters of the north
west coast. His letters were published in the newspapers and

*Dead, in Chinook language.

54
widely read with that deep interest we always feel when we
hear tidings of a better land. The "Oregon fever" followed.
When we passed the Cascades the river was at the lowest
stage and the water covered only a part of the river bed. On
the north side the stone floor of the bed was covered with soft
green moss. Being barefoot, I enjoyed walking on this soft
carpet, where in the early summer the waters roll fifty feet
deep. I passed men who were dragging a boat over this moss
covered stone floor. Getting past this obstruction was called
"The Portage of the Cascades." The boats had to be drawn
or carried over the rocks a considerable distance. I remember
meeting an Indian at this place. Some one must have spoken
to him for he stood still and striking one hand on his breast
said emphatically, "Waskopum!"
When the boats had been launched below the Cascades,
we had navigated the river from old Fort Walla Walla to the
head of navigation, and had an open and safe water way to the
sea. Below the Cascades there were seals in the river. None
were seen on the shore, yet I never saw one swimming. We
would see heads sticking up out of the water, but they would
vanish before we could get near. But I felt that I knew
something about seals, for had I not worn a seal skin cap
three years, until it was almost as slick and hard as a steel
helmet. And it would have been almost as good as new, had
not the brim parted company with it on the night of the
thunder storm on the Big Blue.
Some where in this part of the country an effort was made
to get a colt for food. I saw the animal they were bargaining
for; it was fat and sleek and almost grown. Some one said,
"It will make good eating." For some reason the colt was not
secured; why? I did not learn. We had been without flesh
of beast or bird for a long time. There were not cattle, sheep
or hogs in that part of the wilderness in those days. I cannot
say that we had plenty to eat at all times, neither was there
a time when we were in danger of starving, but we skirmished
/for food and ate what we learned the natives had found good
to feed upon: berries, acorns, tender plants, the yampa and
cammas, tubers, bulbs, and roots. We drew the line, however,
at a few of the Waskopum luxuries and dainties, namely,
caterpillars, the larvae of yellow jackets and tainted fish eggs.

55
Emigrants were hungry all the time. Children seated in the
boats would enjoy themselves for hours gnawing off the fat
coating from the dried salmon skins. An emigrant not hungry
was thought to be ill.
Now it was noised around that we were approaching Fort
Vancouver, a Hudson Bay station or trading post. We had to
pass Cape Horn on the way. We were advised to pass in the
night, as there would be less danger of a storm at that time.
Some time in the night the boats were moving slowly along
near the north shore; there was no wind and the rain had
moderated into a mist. It seems that I alone of all the child
ren was awake. I was waiting for the show, and had just
begun on another salmon skin, when Cape Horn was an
nounced. Our boat passed within a few feet of the Horn. I
could see it quite distinctly. It looked quite smooth, but
seemed to be standing on end and sticking up out of the water.
I could not see the upper end. I was told it was a rock.
Then I must have fallen asleep, for I awoke on the beach at
Fort Vancouver the next morning. What I had expected to
see before closing my eyes, tired, hungry and sleepy though I
was, was a genuine horn sticking out of the river bank, with a
cape of some kind spread about it. Of all my disappointments
on our long journey to Oregon, this last was the greatest.
The first talked of wonder I had been anxious to see was<
Red River, a river not on our route. Next came the Missouri
line, which I did not see, although I thought we must have
crossed it somewhere. Arrived at "Ash Holler" I did not see
any ashes, nor did I hear anything "holler." Later on I was
looking for the Black Hills. Hills I saw, but they were not
black. Blue River had faded out, Chimney Rock was only a
sharp pointed rock on the top of a hill, not a chimney at all.
The "Devil's Backbone" was only a narrow ridge on Snake
River. Green River was not green, and Sweetwater was a dis
appointment, too, for I took a drink of it. It was brackish
but not sweet. What a string of disappointments for a small
boy, who had his mind made up to see all these marvelous
sights. It was broad day when I awoke that morning at Van
couver. Our camp was near the river and the fort was a little
farther inland. Breakfast was being served when I opened

56
my eyes, and the roast fish and potatoes were the first things
I saw. I think it was the smell of something to eat that first
aroused me. When I arose and threw back the covering, a
mist seemed to arise from my body, there were puddles of
water on the bed where I had lain, the bedding was as wet as
if it had been dragged from the river, and yet I had slept
soundly all night while a pouring rain had drenched my bed.
Dr. McLaughlin, of the Hudson Bay Company at Van
couver, had not known of our arrival until he visited our
camp that morning. I well remember his kind face and pleas
ant manner. When he came near to where I was standing,
smiling, bowing gracefully and talking pleasantly, he won me
entirely. This was while he was being introduced to the young
ladies and their mothers, who were but young women them
selves. Of the young ladies introduced, two were my cousins,
Lucy and Rozelle, each about fourteen years of age. In those
days girls from twelve to seventeen were young ladies. Over
that age they were called old maids. Old maidenhood was
frowned upon. Some "Inglorious Milton guiltless of a rhyme"
had expressed the prevailing sentiment of the times in this
stanza: "Old age is honorable but
Old maids are abominable."
Small families were not in vogue. A family of five or six
children was considered small.
The Doctor invited the immigrants to visit him at the
fort, and some of them did so. He was a valuable friend to
the needy. I never saw him afterwards, but always heard good
reports of him.
The object here that fixed my attention, and that I gazed
upon with admiration and astonishment, was a ship lying at
anchor in the river a short distance below our camp. The
hull was black and rose above the water, and the mast was like
a tree. I had never before seen a water craft larger than our
big boat or a * Chinook Kinnim. So great was its size and
beauty, I would have believed it to be one of the wonders of
the world, had not some one told me it was only a schooner.

"Indian canoe.

57
We were at this camp one day, and discovered that the
river rose and fell two feet. We had reached tide water and
were on the western margin of the continent. Our small fleet
of boats had kept within supporting distance of each other on
the way down the river, but here there was a parting of the
ways. The Applegate families, with the Straits and Naylors
started across the river from the camp at Vancouver intending
to go direct to the mouth of the Willamette River. But there
came on such a storm of wind and rain it was thought best to
land the boats at Sovey's Island, where two or three deserted
houses acorded shelter. Our departure from Vancouver had
been emphasized by an unpleasant circumstance. When the
big family boat was passing under the bow of the schooner,
the sailor boys tossed big red apples to the oldest of the young
ladies, Cousin Lucy. She tried to catch the apples in her
apron but they all bounded into the river and were lost. I
heard Cousin Lucy speak of this experience when she was over
seventy. She said it was the disappointment to the children,
who had depended on her, that made her failure painful to her
then, and unpleasant to remember.
The Straits and Naylors parted company with us at
Sovey's Island, where we remained three or four days. Passing
across from Sovey's Island and near a low point of land on
our left, our boats entered the mouth of the Willamette River.
Continuing up the stream we passed the place where Strait
and Naylor had established a camp on the west bank of the
river. They called the place Linton. They told us Mr. Strait's
daughter had died there. Not long after passing Linton we
landed on the west shore, and went into camp on the high bank
where there was very little underbrush among the pine trees.
No one lived there and the place had no name; there was
nothing to show that the place had ever been visited except a
small log hut near the river, and a broken mast of a ship
leaning against the high bank. There were chips hewn from
timber, showing that probably a new mast had been made
there. We were at this place a day or two and were visited
by two men from the prairie country up the river, then known
as the "plains." These two men, Thompson and Doty, had
been trappers but had taken native women for wives and

58
settled down to steady habits. Doty had gone to the moun
tains with the *Ashley party when a boy. Father and Doty
were boys together and had started to the mountains with
Ashley at the same time, but father, falling sick, had to return
home. Where we should locate? was the all-absorbing topic of
conversation at this camp in the woods. It seemed to be
difficult to decide where to settle down in such a vast un
appropriated wilderness. We were then actually encamped
on the site of the city of Portland, but there was no prophet
with us to tell of the beautiful city that was to take the place
of that gloomy forest.
From this camp we were two days getting up the river
to Tum-Chuk, now Oregon City. We passed the Klackamas
rapids on our first day up the river. The men, women and
children not needed in the boats went ashore at the foot of
the rapids, and followed along the river bank, while men with
the boats, some poling and others on shore towing, brought
the boats safely through the rapids. The camp that night was
near the bank of the Klackamas River. The second day we
reached Turn-Chuck, and the boats were hauled around the
falls to the river above by a French-Canadian with one yoke
of long-horned steers. We made camp on the east shore
nearly opposite the main cataract. There were less than a
dozen houses at Tum-Chuk including a tinshop, blacksmith
shop, saw mill, and probably a grist mill. We spent one night
at this place. In the morning two or three Kanakas helped to
launch the boats above the falls and to clear the rapids. In
the evening of the same day we landed at Champoeg and re
mained there one night in a long shed in one end of which was
a bin of peas. I never saw our boats again, and do not remem
ber how they were disposed of.
From Champoeg we traveled by land. The baggage was
hauled on a cart drawn by one yoke of oxen. I think the cart
was hired from a French settler. Mrs. Charles Applegate and
four small children rode in the cart while the rest of our party
followed on foot. All day we traveled and it was quite dark

•"American Fur Company.

59
when we saw a light. The light was in a window at *Doctor
White's house. It seemed to me we were a long time getting
to that light. Arrived at the house I forgot I was tired, for
the Doctor, having notice of our coming, had a bright fire in
the fire-place and supper on the table in the kitchen. The
smell of frying pork was sweet to my nostrils. From Doctor
White's place we had to travel another mile and our long
journey was ended. We called this place the Old Mission. It
was at this place that the first Methodist mission in the Wil
lamette Valley was located. The missionaries must have lived
here two or three years, for there were peach trees there in
blossom the next spring. When another location, called "The
Mill," now the city of Salem, had been made higher up the
river, this place was abandoned. The town of Gervais now
stands on the site of the Old Mission. There were three log
cabins under one roof at this place. We went into them on the
29th day of November, 1843, and here we passed our first
winter in Oregon. It was our home until after harvest of the
following summer.
Previous to this we had been in the rain most of the time
for twenty days. Oh! how we could have enjoyed our hospit
able shelter if we could have looked around the family circle
and behld the bright faces that had accompanied us on our
toilsome journey almost to the end. Alas, they were not there!

¦"Superintendent of Indian Affairs.

CHAPTER III.
Our First Winter and Summer in Oregon.
The absorbing thought of this winter was keeping up the
food supply. The men were out at work in all kinds of weather,
not for money, but for food. Father built a ferry boat for A.
Beers or James O'Neil. He first caulked the openings between
the planks in the bottom of the boat, and then poured in hot
pitch. As it was a large boat he used a bushel or two of
literature he' found in the old house. Tracts and other pamph
lets that had been left there by the missionaries were forced
into the cracks with a chisel and hammer.
For building the boat father took his pay in provisions;
pork and peas constituted the greater part of these provisions.
The French settlers seem to have grown peas extensively. I
remember wading around in a large bin of peas for an hour or
more while we were in camp at Champoeg. These peas were
white and very hard. The Indians were very partial to peas,
or lepwah, as they called them. They used them for making
soup which was called liplip.
I believe there were no dry goods or clothing stores nearer
than Fort Vancouver. There was no place where shoes could
be gotten. The older people wore buckskin moccasins pur
chased from the Indians, while the young people went bare
footed. Fortunately this proved to be a warm winter, but
wet, as a Willamette winter usually is.
I had already learned a number of Indian proper names.
We saw Indians on the Columbia River who said they were
Spokane. Others said they were Waskopum, Walla Wallas,
Kince-Chinook, Klackamas, Klickitat and Chemomachot. After
we had settled in the valley we had visitors from the tribes
living on the Columbia. When asked where they came from,
or where they lived, the answer would be "Katchutehut." I
could speak those names just as they were spoken by the
Indians, but it is difficult to tell the reader how they should
61

62
be pronounced. We learned to speak the Chinook *Wa-Wa
that winter. The mission children spoke it as habitually as
they did their mother tongue. We talked Chinook every day
with the Indians and half-bloods. There was one Indian who
spoke both English and Chinook. He had a droll way of speak
ing in Chinook and then in English. He would say, "Nika
tik-eh chuck," "I want water." "Nika hyas olo," "I am very
hungry." "Potlatch tenas piah sap-po-lil," "Give a little
bread," and so on. But we could not have had a better teacher
than this waggish Indian. There were a few missionaries and
Canadian families in the neighborhood. There was a school
kept during the winter near where we lived. The children of
the three Applegate families, with the French and mission
children, made up a school of about twenty-five pupils. No
Indian children attended this school. A pious young man,
Andrew Smith by name, presided over this religious training
school. As soon as a child could spell out words, however
indifferently, he or she was required to read religious tracts,
which were intended to make the child realize it was wicked
and in danger of punishment. These tracts were alarming,
more alarming and most alarming. They were our first, second
and third readers. Occasionally our teacher would select a
tract containing a choice lesson and read aloud to the school.
One evening he read one that alarmed me greatly. I can recall
the substance of it, which was as follows. There was a little
boy whom his parents had never taught to pray to the Lord
before retiring to rest at night. He did not know how to ask
the Lord to forgive his sins and protect him from the evil one
whilst he slept. One night he went to bed and fell asleep. He
never awoke and was lost. I was a very small boy and that
evening, after I retired I was thinking of the lost boy. It
seemed plain that I was in as much danger as he. The chances
would surely be against me should I fall asleep. The thought
of awakening and finding myself in the "bad place" kept me
from sleeping. After suffering for an hour or two from this
conflict between drowsiness and fear, I got out of bed and
sat down on the hearth of the old fireplace. I scraped together
a few live coals from the ashes, intending to sit there until I

*Talk or language.

63
could make up my mind what to do. My mother's bed was in
the same room. She had been watching me all the while and
now asked me if I were ill. I denied being sick and told her
why I could not sleep. I do not remember her words, but the
substance of her speech was this: that I was a good boy and
there was no reason why I should be frightened; that I had
done nothing to be punished for, only the wicked were
punished. She told me to go to bed and think no more about
it. I had confidence in mother; besides, what she said was
common sense. I went to bed and to sleep immediately.
There were about twenty-five persons, men, women, and
children, living in the three cabins. The three Applegate
families, and three or four young men who came out with
them as help. The wagons, teams and all the cattle and
horses had been left at Fort Walla Walla. Much of the furni
ture, cooking utensils and bedding had been lost in the disaster
on the Columbia River. The families had reached the place
where they were to pass the winter almost destitute of furnish
ing goods or food supplies and without visible means of sup
port. I am not prepared to say how nearly destitute they
were, but I remember that mother did her baking all that
winter on a skillet lid found in the house.
There was in tbe neighborhood a small settlement of
French Canadians, trappers and mountain men, who had con
sorted with native women and become ranchers. They had
cleared small farms and were growing grain and vegetables.
They had horses, hogs, and chickens, and, being kindly disposed
toward the emigrants, assisted them, through barter and other
wise, to provide subsistence; that is, the food sufficient to live
upon, for luxuries were not thought of. The conditions were
hard, and but for the unflinching perseverance of those upon
whom the burden fell, there must, of necessity, have been
many days of fasting.
We found a tribe of Kalapooyas living along the river at
this place. They were not numerous. There were a few
families of them living in miserable hovels near us, and down
the river, less than a quarter of a mile, was a small village.
There were a few huts at other places. But little skill was
made manifest in the design or construction of their houses.
These Indians were poor in every sense of the word. A few

64
miserable ponies were all the live stock they had — save vermin
and fleas. They were spiritless and sickly and seemed to be
satisfied with a miserable existence. Many died that winter,
and the hideous wail of the mourners, as they conducted the
funeral services, was heard almost daily. If any effort had
been made to civilize or Christianize this tribe, there was no
evidence of it. That they could hardly have been more
wretchedly housed, poorer in property, more degraded morally
or more afflicted mentally with demonology, was plainly to be
seen. ,
When speaking of live stock, I forgot to mention the dogs
with which these Indians were abundantly supplied. A canine
adjunct to the family, of cayote descent, lean, lank, and
cadaverous, they were neither useful nor ornamental. These
people needed no watch dogs, for the squalid and forbidding
appearance of their hovels and the noxious fumes floating
from them were a sufficient protection.
One evening in the early winter, while we were eating
our frugal supper, a great commotion was heard in the direc
tion of the Indian village; loud talking, screams of women
and barking of dogs. Then we heard the war whoop and the
'report of a gun. But before any one had time to make a
remark, the face of an Indian appeared at a small window
back of the table where we were eating. When he saw we
had discovered him he shouted "Billy, Molalla," "Billy,
Molalla," and immediately disappeared. Billy Doke was a
young man who made his home with us that winter. The
Indian, who was from the village down the river, had learned
his name and had rushed to warn us to prepare to defend
ourselves from hostile Indians, the Molallas. All the light we,
had was furnished by the feeble flame of a twisted rag im
mersed in a puddle of grease in an old tin plate. This flame
was snuffed out instantly, the doors and windows fastened, and
preparations made for defense. There were five men to defend
the house, and being pioneers, were ready to do battle.
The women and children went to the loft, where the
children were put to bed on blankets and quilts spread on the
floor. Efforts were made to put the little ones to sleep and to
keep them quiet. One child, I distinctly remember, was hard
to pacify and caused much anxiety. Some of the men kept

65
watch below. Very few words were spoken, but I heard enough
to know that the pioneers were not afraid to fight, but were
afraid the Indians would set fire to the house. I must have
fallen asleep as soon as the fretful child was quiet, for I can
recall nothing more of that night. Shortly after sun-up next
day the Kalapooyas prepared to follow the Molalla raiders,
who had taken a number of ponies. About twenty warriors
made up the party. I saw them march away in pursuit of the
*"Mesahche Molallas." War paint was smeared on their faces,
and some had tied cords and red bandages around their heads
from which feathers of many kinds and colors waved and
fluttered in the morning breeze. Feathers also decorated the
manes and tails of their ponies.
I had seen a great army of the Sioux on the war path
against the Blackfeet when we crossed the Dakota plains on
our way west the summer before, and I did not think very
highly of this war party of Kalapooyas. They returned that
same day, having no scalps to show us. They failed to overtake
the raiders. A few days after the raid mentioned we heard of
a fight at Turn-Chuck in which a Molalla was killed. A white
man by the name of Lebreton was shot in the arm with a
poisoned arrow and died of the wound. A number of others
were struck by arrows but not seriously wounded. We decided
that the same Indians made the attack at both places. The
stream which flows into the Willamette River a short distance
above Oregon City is now known as the "Molalla." In those
days all the country round about the Molalla River and its
branches, even to the great white mountain eastward, and far
south of it, was the land of the Molallas.
I have said our first winter was mild. I can recall but
one snow storm and this snow disappeared in a few hours.
There was ice on a few mornings, but it was no thicker than
window glass. I might have forgotten that little snow storm,
had it not been necessary for me to gather sticks and chips for
fuel; picking them out of the snow made my hands ache, and
when I went to the fire to warm them the agony brought the
tears to my eyes. We had no team nor wagon and could not
borrow. The home of the man who lived on the mission farm

* Obscene in Chinook.

66
was less than half a mile from our place. This man refused to
let father use his yoke of oxen to haul a load of wood. He
said he would not allow strangers to use them, as they might
be spoiled. I went to school all that winter. We children followed
a foot path through wild shrubbery higher than our heads.
After a rain we were well sprinkled from the wet bushes, and
often arrived at the school house thoroughly soaked. The
school room being a cold and cheerless place, we considered
ourselves fortunate if we were dry by noon. I can remember
no play time, no games, not even tag. The last school day I
recall must have been near the close of the term, for I went
from the old well near the school house door to the fence on
the mission farm and saw that the wheat was as high as the
fence. Our people harvested on the mission farm, using sickles
and scythes to cut the grain, which was afterwards bound into
bundles or sheaves. My work was to stack the sheaves into
shocks. A vine known as the ground blackberry had grown
with the grain. When they cut the grain they failed to separate
it from the vines, which were bent and twisted into loops all
through the stubble, and were also in and around the bunches
of bound up wheat and oats. My poor, bare feet had to wander
in thorny paths and the scratches on my hands made me forget
that I was tired and hungry. Sometimes I would find a sheaf
securely bound to the earth by vines; in that case I had to
pull the vines out of the ground before I could get the sheaf.
By harvesting this crop our people supplied themselves with
grain to take to the new settlement. The wheat was the red
bearded variety.
Many families arrived in the Willamette Valley in Novem
ber and December, and located in different parts of the country.
The Waldoes, Kaisers, Looneys, and others went up the river
and settled on the Waldo Hills, Chemeketa and valleys of the
Santiam. The Millicans, Bakers, Holmans, Hembres, Hesses,
Birds and others crossed the river and established settlements
in the rich valleys of the north and south Yamhill.
When our families had been established in winter quarters
in the deserted mission houses, the country west of the river
was explored, and places for settlement selected on a stream

67
called Salt Creek, at the eastern base of the Coast range. In
December Uncle Jesse Applegate established himself there in
a shanty or hut. Here he, with one or two young men, re
sided during the winter, making improvements and preparing
a home for his family. The settlement in Salt Creek Valley
was about three miles north of where the city of Dallas, Polk
County, now is. The three Applegate brothers located on three
adjoining sections, since known on the township map as the
donation claims of James Frederick, A. H. Whitley and George
Brown. When our families started west again, we crossed the
river in the ferry boat which father built during the winter.
Taking a southerly course between the hills and the river to
Salt Creek Valley, then west through a low gap in the range
of hills six miles north of The Mill, now the city of Salem,
we traveled west about nine miles and kindled our last camp
fire on the bank of a branch of Salt Creek under the brow of
the Coast Mountain range. In order to make this move, a
team had been hired or borrowed. There may have been more
than one team, although I can recall but one. This was the
beginning of the first road in Polk County. The road was laid
out before there was a county. It was difficult to break a
road through the prairie on account of the luxuriant grass.
Wild game was not scarce, for that afternoon some of the
young men killed a deer and a bear and the two carcasses
hung on a tree in our camp that night. No other camp scene
of pioneer days is so deeply impressed upon my mind as that
of that evening, our first night in our new home.
Our camp was in a grove of large oak trees. The three
camp fires were close together and lighted the avenues between
the trees up to a dark canopy of leaves overhead. We children
playd games in the grove early in the evening. One game I
remember was "Miley-Bright." We chose sides and then one
party called out, "How many miles to Miley-Bright?" The
answer came from the other side, "Three score and ten."
Then the question, "Can I get there by candle light?" and
the answer, "Yes, if your legs are long and your body light,
but look out for the witches on the way." Then away we
would all go as fast as we could run, on our way to "Miley-
Bright." We were all around the camp fires when bed time

came, when a sound of mighty wings was heard and an awful
voice came from overhead saying, "Chuchonnyhoof-ouf ! ouf!
ouf!" Again came that awful voice crying, "Who! Who!
Who are you?" The three younger children.trembling with
fear, clung to mother's skirts, but she laughed and told us it
was only an owl. That is what I believed, too, until I had
become learned in the religion of the *Kommema and was told
all about the great Kalapooya goblin, Chuchounyhoof.
Our second camp scene in the grove of oaks was brilliant
while it lasted. Uncle Jesse Applegate's hut was covered with
fir boughs which had become very dry. In the evenings it was
his custom to read and write by the light of pitch splinters, a
substitute for candles. While so engaged, quite late one even
ing, the volume of flame suddenly increased, the tongue of
fire shot up and instantly the roof of boughs caught fire, with
an explosion like gunpowder. All the upper part of the shanty
burned away before the fire could be checked. I doubt if
Uncle Jesse considered this sudden combustion of the roof of
his "study" as a capital joke, but I heard laughter in the grove
after the illumination.
The native population in our neighborhood was a tribe of
the Kalapooya and near and far, even to the sea, were the
Tillamook, Tawalatin, Chemeketa, and Luckyuke**tilikum, all
seeming to be one tribe and speaking the same language. They
were a degenerate and priest-ridden people, but their language
was remarkably smooth and musical. It was a custom of these
Indians, late in the autumn, after the wild wheat, ***Lamoro
sappolil, was fairly ripe, to burn off the whole country. The
grass would burn away and leave the sappolil standing, with
the pods well dried and bursting. Then the squaws, both
young and old, would go with their baskets and bats and
gather in the grain. The lamoro sappolil we now know as
tar-weed. It is probable we did not yet know that the Indians were
wont to baptise the whole country with fire at the close of
every summer; but very soon we were to learn our first lesson.

*Red man or Indian.
* ""'People" in Chinook.
** * "Bread" in Chinook.

69
This season the fire was started somewhere on the south Yam
hill, and came sweeping up through the Salt Creek gap. The
sea breeze being quite strong that evening, the flames leaped
over the creek and came down upon us like an army with
banners. All our skill and perseverance were required to save
our camp. The flames swept by on both sides of the grove;
then quickly closing ranks, made a clean sweep of all the
country south and east of us. As the shades of night deepened,
long lines of flame and smoke could be seen retreating before
the breeze across the hills and valleys. The Indians continued
to burn the grass every season, until the country was somewhat
settled up and the whites prevented them; but every fall, for
a number of years, we were treated to the same grand display
of fireworks. On dark nights the sheets of flame and tongues
of fire and lurid clouds of smoke made a picture both awful
and sublime. In the summer of 1844, the cattle, horses and wagons
left at old Fort Walla Walla were sent for and the remnants
arrived at the settlement late in the fall. A part of the cattle
were not found. A few it was supposed, had been appropriated
by the Indians. Probably fifty head reached the settlement,
a majority of which belonged to Jesse Applegate. What was
recovered of the wagons I don't know, except that of the three
left by Lindsay Applegate only four wheels were found and
brought down, and they were all hind wheels. Those wheels
were used to make two carts.
Wagons were made wholly of wood. The wheels were
without hub, spoke, or felloe; they were simply short sections
of large trees, three or four feet in diameter, sawed off and
holes made in the center for the axles. This wagon was called
a truck, a very clumsy affair, which without a load, a small
yoke of oxen could not draw with ease even on level ground.
The friction on the spindles in the wheels, though they were
well tarred, was such that, even with a load of rails requiring
three yoke of oxen to draw them, the truck did not need any
brake going down a steep hill. Under a heavy moving load,
the spindles, if not abundantly tarred, would send forth a
fearful scream with variations that could be heard for miles.
One evening after dark we heard loud screaming or yelling
a mile and a half away across the prairie, and presently a fire

70
was seen to start up like a flash. Some one said it must be
a band of Indians on the war path, whooping, and firing the
grass, for it was autumn and the grass was dry. The facts
were, as we learned next day, that Uncle Charlie's truck
heavily loaded and drawn by three yoke of oxen was enroute
across the valley and one of the spindles took fire and burned
off before the teamster, who was busy with the cattle, noticed
that anything unusual had happened.
Sleds were also used for hauling. They were very heavy
to draw on the ground and there was hardly ever any snow.
Fifty green rails on a sled were a load for two yoke of oxen.
As we had much fencing to do, the hauling of rails was a very
common occupation. At times we worked three yoke of oxen
to the sled and could haul a hundred dry rails, and with such
a team we could haul all the firewood we could load onto the
sled. One day my oldest brother and myself were sent to haul
a load of rock from a place in the hills a mile or so from the
house; we had never hauled rock. As we had a team of three
yoke, we piled rock on the sled till the bulk appeared to be
about as big as a hundred rails. My brother had a long whip
lash braided of rawhide with a buckskin thong for a cracker
and with a straight wild cherry sprout for a stock. When he
whirled the whip around and applied it to an ox, the cracker
popped like a toy pistol and cut the hair like a glancing bullet.
The sled being loaded, my brother spoke to the oxen to move
on and cracked his whip, but though the team surged forward
a little, the sled did not move; then the long lash of the whip
performed rapid circles through the air and the cracker became
a terrible scourge. The oxen sprang forward, wavered, then
stood still. But the sled had not moved an inch. That team
had never balked before. We were indignant, and after a
short consultation, concluded that the use of the whip was
not sufficient for the occasion; so it was laid aside and we
both went to a hazel thicket and cut switches about nine feet
long. With these we attacked the team in the rear, on the
flanks, and all along the line, shouting the while words of
encouragement and threats that awoke the echoes of the hills
far away to the spurs of the Coast range. Every steer was
by this time mad all over and resolved to move forward if he

71
had to burst his yoke; every ox at the same moment lowered
his head, lashed his tail spitefully, and with all his ponderous
bulk and mighty strength advanced. The power exerted now
was almost irresistible; something must give way or the sled
move. For just one second there seemed to be a doubt, then
the tongue parted from the sled. This trial of sterngth sug
gested a fact which we well knew, but had not made a practical
use of in this case, namely, that a load of stone is much heavier
than a load of wood of like bulk. Putting the team into
position again, we attached the tongue to the sled with log-
chains and began throwing off rock; and after the load had
been considerably reduced in this way, we started up the team
again but as the sled did not move, we threw off more rock.
We continued to reduce the load in this way until we had
thrown off all but about two wash tubs full of rock; and with
this load we managed to reach home late in the afternoon.
Since the broken sled could not be hidden, an explanation was
demanded which led to our making a full confession of this
very foolish affair.
The pioneers in the beginning had to make their own
agricultural implements, such as plows, harrows, and all kinds
of implements to clear and cultivate the ground. My father,
Lindsay Applegate, was handy with carpenter's tools of the few
and simple kinds they had, and Uncle Charles was a rough
blacksmith, who shod horses when it was necessary, made bars,
shears, coulters and clevises for plows; rings and clevises for
ox yokes, and repaired broken ironings of wagons; and gen
erally speaking, did all kinds of frontier blacksmithing. Father
did the wood work in making plows and harrows and in
repairing wagons. Every part of the plow was wood except
the bar, shear, coulter and clevis. Tough oak was used in the
beam and the mould-board was of ash timber. Ash was also
generally used in ox yokes.
The prairie lands fenced for cultivation were more or less
heavily sodded and set with tufts of brushwood and strong
roots of various kinds, and it was necessary to have very
strong plows to break the lands. A strong two wheeled truck,
with a large strong plow attached to it, drawn by four yoke of
oxen, was an outfit often seen breaking prairie. To the
largest plow supported by a wheel attachment, which was

72
necessarily very strong and heavy, I think they used a team
of six yoke of cattle; and with this outfit broke three and four
acres of prairie land in a day. Horses were seldom used to
work in harness. In crossing the plains I remember seeing
only one team in which a horse was used. That team was
made up of a yoke of milch cows on the wheel and an old roan
mare in the lead. The outfit belonged to Henry Stout and its
uniqueness and economic makeup was not overlooked nor soon
forgotten. When we arrived at the place where we settled on Salt
Creek in September, we had no time to spare from the building
of cabins and other preparations for winter to make plows;
and so it happened that the first plow to break ground in that
country was one brought by Lindsay Applegate from the Old
Mission where we had passed our first winter in Oregon. This
plow was probably purchased from a missionary or French-
Canadian settler, but there were no names or figures discovered
on it, telling where, when or by whom made.
After the first rains had softened the ground, about the
last week in November, 1844, prairie was broken with this.
plow for spring wheat and a garden patch, and I think plowing
was done from time to time during the winter where the
ground was a little rolling and not too wet.
The wild country I am now speaking of was afterwards
named Polk County, and this plow being the very first to poke
its nose into the virgin soil of that county, should be entitled
to some distinction, and its mysterious origin, private life and
tragic end should be noted. The beam and handles were wood;
all the balance was metal, cast in sections and fastened to
gether with bolts and screws. The bar was one piece and the
knee, shear, heel, coulter and nose were each separate. The
first piece that broke disclosed the fact that it was pot-metal.
All of the pieces were of the same metal. Each had been cast
in a mould. When one of the sections was broken a new
section had to be hammered out of iron at the blasksmith shop.
In the course of four or five years all the parts had been
broken and replaced with wrought iron sections, except the
mould board; and the beam and handles had been removed,
but it continued to be the same plow; and as we had named
it the Cast-plow in the beginning, we never changed its name,

73
and it never changed its habit of trying at times to stay on
top of the ground, or of trying to go to the center of the earth;
and it was this habit that made us boys wish it might some
times wear out; although the prospect was discouraging in
view of the renewal of its parts. To cultivate old ground with
it, where there were no sod and roots, was bad enough, for it
was like dragging an anchor, since the mould board was never
known to scour. But although the mould board was of such
shape that sod rolled up before it like a scroll, it turned up its
nose at every root it approached and, unless prevented by the
person at the handles, would glide over the top of it, or, if
prevented, would try to go under it.
Now we boys knew all the tricks of this veteran imple
ment, and one day in the early summer time of 1849, we were
required to break a small tract of sod ground with it. We
had two yoke of heavy steers and their gait on a warm day,
without urging, was very slow. Several times when the plow
had struck a root and was prevented from jumping out of the
ground, it had turned its point downward and balked the team.
There was only one thing we could do then: dig the plow out
and take a new start. After several hours spent in stopping
and digging up the plow, we talked the matter over and con
cluded that the team stopped because the oxen moved so slowly,
so the next time we were approaching a root, a large wild
sunflower, I urged the team forward till the oxen were almost
ready to break into a trot, while my brother put his arms
under the plow handles and raised them to his shoulders to
prevent the plow from jumping out of the ground. This time
when the plow struck the root and turned its nose down, the
team did not balk; it walked right along dragging a shattered
plowbeam and the old "Cast Plow" was a total wreck. There
we left its remains buried in the soil of the valley. If, as the
pioneer plow of old Polk, lt had anything to do with "Saving
Oregon," it builded much better than it plowed.
The hills of the Coast range rose like a continuous wall
four thousand feet high along the line of the ocean. Covered
over with a dense evergreen forest, vast, dark and as yet
unexplored, they marked the western line of our horizon.
Being now comfortably fixed, father concluded to go on a
hunting and exploring trip into these mountains. Supposing

74
the natives were in the habit of roaming through these moun
tains, father wished to have one go with us as a guide. But
no Indian wanted to go. Numerous as they were, no considera
tion would induce one to go with us into this vast wilderness.
We went without a guide. Traveling west four or five miles,
through open woods of white oak timber, we began the ascent
of a spur of the Coast range. Following a winding foot path
made by wild beasts, the ascent was not difficult. Traveling
through an unbroken forest all day, we made camp near the
summit of the range just as the sun went down. There was
a spring of good water here and a meadow covered with grass
and clover which afforded good pasture for our horses. It
may have been the fear of getting lost which caused me to
take this precaution, but before dark I took my hatchet and
blazed a tree which stood near our camp fire. I marked the
tree exactly on the reverse side from where I saw the sun go
down that evening. I was up early the next morning and soon
dressed. I greased my feet with marrow from the shank of a
deer, they being a little sore, and put on what was left of my
seal skin cap, which was not much; the brim had been lost on
the "plains," and we boys had used the crown a number of
times for a target when practicing archery with our bows and
arrows. I looked east, as I supposed, for the sun to rise, when
it came up directly behind me. I went to my witness tree but
no blaze was there. I walked around it and found the blaze
on the other side. We left our horses in the meadow and
climbed to the summit on foot. In some places the trees were
so close together we had to turn sidewise in order to pass
between them. I blazed the way as we went. We found a
broad district of almost level country. At the highest point
on the summit brother Elisha climbed a tree, and from this
lofty perch could see the Pacific Ocean. We found a vast
district of burned and fallen timber. The logs were covered
with dewberry vines bearing the largest and sweetest berries I
have ever eaten. We found also hundreds of acres of salal
berries. Bear are very fond of these berries, but we found
them sweet and insipid. We returned home in less than a
week. That we returned unharmed seemed to astonish the
natives. They asked many questions as to where we went and
what we saw. Some of the Indians assured us, as their reason

75
for not going with us, that there was a very dangerous goblin
in the Coast mountains, whose awful name was Chuchonnyhoof.
When we expressed no fear, saying we would shoot him if we
found him, just as we would a deer or a bear, they said, "Wake
klietan kokshot. Skin hyas kull kahkwa chickamin," that is,
"His hide is bullet proof; it is as hard as iron." Our parents
did not seem to regard this story as of any consequence; they
said it was only an Indian superstition. But my training in the
school at the Old Mission had developed the bump of curiosity
in my head and I absorbed this story eagerly. I had been
taught that there was an evil spirit roaming about this earth,
and I thought this goblin the Indians told us of might be he.
I interviewed many Indians on the subject, but gained little
information. I discovered that the low caste native had faith
in the existence of the goblin and that it was greatly feared.
Their priest, Dickadowdow, said it would be a fearful thing to
fall into the hands of Chuchonnyhoof.
Although slow in making the discovery, I eventually
learned that there was among the natives a professional class
possessed of all the learning not considered necessary in the
ordinary affairs of life. These professors were known in the
Chinook language as Lamachin, that is, Medicine men or
doctors. The Klamath and Modoc name for these learned men
was Keyox, meaning one skilled in healing by the use of
natural remedies or by magic. They were supposed to be
learned in the law, and in every branch of a religious or super
stitious character. I became acquainted with two or three
professionals. But when I introduced Chuchonnyhoof as a
text to be expounded, I found them averse to discussing the
subject without the assurance that I was not prompted by idle
curiosity or other unworthy motive.
Of all the men of the priestly order the patriarch of the
tribe we found inhabiting the country between the south Yam
hill and north Luckyuke was probably the deepest learned in
mythological and mystic lore. This was Dickydowdow. His
forehead had been flattened when he was an infant; it re
treated in a line from his brows to his crown and was as flat
as the board against which it had grown. The flattening pro
cess had made his head unusually high above his ears. He had
numerous wives, as poligamy was not prohibited by the Kala-

76
pooya code. Though well acquainted with the patriarch I was
not so with his family, and can now recall but one of his
children, a daughter who had reached the age of young woman
hood. This girl wore an ornament thrust through her nose
and resting on her upper lip. The ornament looked like ivory,
was about four inches long and tapered to a point at each end.
All agreed in calling it a spindle, and so this ornament won
for her the name she was proud of, Spindle. I frequently saw
shells, various in size and color, worn by the natives in this
manner, but this ornament worn by "Spindle" was unusual in
shape and size. Dickydowdow, with his family and relatives,
had permanent quarters on the Rickreol. Here he had his
winter house, and some of his relatives had a fish trap. There
was a tradition that a long time ago, even before the patriarch
had reached years of wisdom, the Cleopatra of the northwest
coast lived at this old village. She was said to have been the
child of Kalapooya and Mexican parents and very beautiful.
She became known as La Creole. At this place the Indians
built their best houses; and moving from place to place during
the dry season, returned to them as winter approached.
Father built his first cabin on the point of a ridge a
hundred and fifty feet above the valley. He said that in the
river bottom where we lived in Missouri we had chills and fever.
He wanted to build where we could get plenty of fresh air. In
this he was not disappointed, for the sea breeze kept the boards
on the roof rattling all through the autumn season, and the
first storm of winter blew the roof off. I awoke that night to
find the rain pouring down into my face. I could see nothing
overhead but darkness. The wind was blowing a gale while
the rain poured down in torrents. The house being no longer
a shelter or protection, we left it and retreated down the
eastern slope of the hill to a big black stump. This place was
not so much exposed to the fury of the gale and a fire was
kindled against the stump. There was an abundance of wood,
logs, tree tops and broken branches, and we soon had a roaring
bonfire which lighted and dried the ground more than fifty
feet around and made us so comfortable we children laughed
In the face of the furious storm. Darkness gave way before
the blaze and stood like a black wall around our brilliant fire.

77
We remained in camp here while the cabin was being made
habitable. We had had no bread since we had lived at the Old
Mission where mother did her baking on the skillet lid. Father
loaded a horse with two or three sacks of wheat, and taking
as a companion a young man by the name of Alby Shaw,
started to a grist mill at the mission settlement on the other
side of the Willamette River, about fifteen miles from' where
we lived. The weather was stormy and, having no tent, they
camped under a fir tree on the bank of the river. Here they
worked for two or three days making a canoe, as there was no
way to cross the river. When the canoe was almost completed
one of their axes struck a knot with such force as to make a
hole in the bottom of the boat. They were made almost
desperate by this misfortune, and knowing a new mission had
been establish across the river, set up a loud cry for help.
After hallowing themselves hoarse, a man came with a canoe
and took them with their grain across the river; and when
the grain was ground brought them back again. Father
returned at the end of a week, getting home late at night.
We had all retired and I had been fast asleep, but was awak
ened by the smell of baking bread. A sack of flour had been
opened and mother was making pancakes. This was my second
realization of perfect bliss; the first had been the smell of
frying pork at Doctor White's. The flour was coarsely ground
and there being seven in our family, and two men employed on
the place, our supply did not last long. Various substitutes for
bread were tried. Wheat scalded with lye made from wood
ashes was used as hominy. Some tried to provide flour by
grinding wheat on a coffee mill, while others resorted to the
mill used by the Indians. This mill was a stone basin and a
pestle, but was abandoned after a few trials, as the flour was
very coarse and the quantity obetained in this way small.
The settlers now resolved to have a mill in the neighbor
hood, and it was through their influence that James O'Neil
came to our house in the spring of 1845 to consult about the
matter. Father went with him to show him the mill site on
the Rickreol. The place is a mile above where the city of
Dallas now is. The mill operated one run of stones. These

78
stones were made from a granite boulder found about two
miles from our home. A man by the name of Williams split
this stone with steel wedges and made the pair from the halves.
This was the work of an entire winter.

CHAPTER IV.
Experiences in the Willamette Valley.
In the course of three or four years after we began life
in the wilderness of Salt Creek, we had pastures fenced, grain
fields and gardens, small apple and peach orchards grown from
the seed, comfortable log cabins, barns and other outhouses,
and quite a number of cattle, horses, hogs and chickens. We
had grain growing and in store and vegetables in abundance.
But many things we had always considered necessities were
not to be had in the wilderness where we lived. Coffee, tea
and sugar were among these. Having an abundance of good
milk, a family could do without tea or coffee, and even an old
coffee drinker could be consoled by a beverage made of roasted
peas crushed in a buckskin bag. Habitual tea drinkers soon
became reconciled to what was generali known as "mountain
tea," a drink of a spicy odor made from the leaves of a vine
found growing in the woods. Many people came to prefer
this tea to any tea of commerce. But there was no substitute
for sugar. Father and mother had been in the sugar camps
in Kentucky and Tennessee and knew how sugar was made
from the sap of maple trees. Our spring was surrounded by
a grove of maple trees and though the sap was not as sweet
as the sap of the sugar maple, they believed sugar could be
made from it. The experiment was tried and proved a success
and we had plenty of sugar, syrup and candy.
The problem of clothing had become a very serious one.
Tents and wagon covers that had seen service from the Mississ
ippi to the Columbia would shed rain when made into coats.
Lined with the remnants of some old woolen garment, and
with a broad collar and cuffs faced with the fur of beaver or
otter, these garments would pass without criticism even though
their ancestry might be known to every one by indelible marks
that had been on the tent or wagon cover. It would be a
mistake to suppose that this was regarded as humiliating or a
(79)

80
real hardship. Necessity demanded very plain attire among
the first settlers and custom sanctioned it. Buttons for these
coats were made of pewter cast in moulds cut in blocks of
soapstone. Old spoons, plates and other pieces of worn out
table ware that had seen service around many a camp fire on
the plains and in the mountains were used for this purpose.
Garments were sometimes made of the wool-like hair of the
wolf. At the time we lived in Missouri there were in almost
every family a spinning wheel and loom and the women folks
spun yarn of wool and cotton out of which they knit socks,
stockings and other garments, and wove cloth for family use.
They were therefore skilled manufacturers on a small scale in
this line, but for some years after settling in Oregon there
was neither cotton nor wool to be had, and the hair of the
wolf was resorted to as a substitute for wool. It was a poor
substitute, for the yarn spun of it was coarse and not strong.
Another drawback was that wolves could not be fleeced so
long as they were alive, and a man could not kill a sufficient
number of the kind that were common, the prairie wolf or
coyote, in a month, to make a sweater. The yarn spun from
the fleece of one pelt would hardly make a pair of slippers
for a child. The attempt to provide clothing in this way was,
of course, an experiment which was not successful. But my
Aunt Melinda had brought a pair of wool cards with her from
her home in Missouri. She had some one make a spinning
wheel, and after carding the fleece of wolves into rolls and
spinning these into yarn she knit garments. One garment, a
jumper or sweater, I often saw Uncle Charles wear. The skin
of the deer, when tanned by the Indians, was soft and pliable
and was used by the pioneers. Coats and trousers of buckskin
were worn, but I confess to a prejudice against buckskin. I
have seen poems printed on this material, notably "The Days
of 49," and I have heard men talk of having notes written on
it to hold against parties notoriously slow to meet their obliga
tions, for a note written on buckskin will not wear out. In
a climate where it never rains a buckskin suit might be com
fortable, but in the climate where we lived, such garments
often proved wretchedly disagreeable. Trousers, after frequent
wettings and dryings would assume a fixed shape that ad
mitted of no reformation. This malformation did not appear

81
when a man was sitting, which was, for this reason, his favorite
posture; but when he arose the appearance to an inexperienced
eye was that he was not yet up, for the knees of his trousers
did not respond to the straightening of his legs but held the
shape of the sitting posture, and the seat of the trousers did
likewise. We boys, ever heedless, were caught in the grasp
of buckskin trousers about every other day all through the
long winter season. Coming in wet and cold, we would natur
ally go to the fireplace to warm our hands and feet, and the
wet buckskin would immediately begin to shrink as it began
to dry and the result was anything but comfortable for us.
After a time a heavy unbleached muslin, commonly called
"factory cloth," could be gotten at Oregon City or from the
Hudson Bay trading posts; this my mother and aunts dyed a
light brown, using for this purpose the bark of the alder tree
which was boiled in water until the desired shade was ob
tained. This cloth was then used to make dresses for the
girls and skirts and trousers for the boys. Hats were made
of braided oat straw that were both comfortable and becoming.
Shoes, as I have said before, could not be purchased, and the
pioneers wore buckskin moccasins when they first settled in
the new country, but after a time an attempt was made to
manufacture shoes of a rough sort. Some one in almost every
family could hew out a last, make pegs and rough shoes which
were a tolerable protection, to the feet and fairly comfortable.
But there was no competent tanner and the material used was
rawhide, a very poor substitute for tanned leather. If we
boys waded in mud or water these rawhide boots became soft
and many sizes too large so that we sometimes left them
sticking in the mud. When they were finally recovered it took
many hours of drying and cleaning to make them fit to wear.
Notwithstanding our privations and many hardships we
children found much pleasure in life. We lived close to nature
in the early days. We hunted and fished and gathered wild
berries and nuts in the woods and along the streams. We dug
the many toothsome roots found on the hillsides and in the
valleys, and contrived in many ways to find amusement and
pastime in inventions of our own. My brother Elisha was an
inventive and mechanical genius, and from the instructions he
got from reading some old book on mechanics made a gyro-

82
scope, having cast the heavy wheel in a soapstone mould. This
toy, when in operation, astonished the children, and the In
dians regarded it with superstitious awe. When the wheel
was put in motion and one end of the axle placed on the
upright support and they saw that the other end did not fall,
although there was no visible support, they would gaze at it
with open mouths and breathless attention. When the wheel
and axle began to move on a horizontal circle around the pivot,
a deep grunt expressed their involuntary applause and satis
faction. The occult power they saw manifested, I think they
regarded as a hopeless mystery, for only one among many ever
demanded an explanation of it. Occasionally one would ven
ture to say, "Iktah mamook?" or what makes it? or who
makes it? Many Indians came to see the, to them, wonderful
creation. My brother also cast a cannon of lead. It was about ten
inches long and weighed five or six pounds. It carried a ball
the size of a buckshot and the touchhole was just large enough
to admit a grain of gunpowder. Of course we had it mounted
on a carriage. We used two kinds of projectile; the regular
buckshot and a long bullet we moulded especially for the
cannon. We began testing the gun with very small charges of
powder and as our confidence in the strength of the metal
grew, the charge was augmented 'till we reached the maximum
of the quantity the gun would burn. In all those experiments
we loaded with only one ball. Having settled the question
as to the maximum charge of powder, we entered upon a series
of experiments to find the maximum weight of projectile or
projectiles the metal would bear — two buckshot did not appear
to make much difference. A long bullet and a buckshot was
all right, so we loaded with a buckshot, several paper wads,
some ashes, a wad, a long bullet and paper wad all being
tamped into the barrel very tight. The gun stood this severe
test without injury, but the recoil carried the carriage back
about five feet, and though we suspected that this drawback
saved the gun, we were satisfied with the tests and that there
was no danger in firing any ordinary load. The testing took
several days, because the business had to be frequently sus
pended, on account of calls to do other work, and it consumed
a large quantity of powder. It was not safe to be near the

83
cannon when it was undergoing a test of its strength. The
gun was placed near the wall of an old unoccupied log cabin
and our place of safety was around the corner of the house, so
that the corner would protect us if the gun should burst. So
a train of powder had to be laid from the touch-hole long
enough to reach a little distance past the corner, so that we
could reach it with a fire-coal on the end of a long pole from
our place at the end of the house. A train of powder therefore
five or six feet long had to be burned every time the weapon
was discharged. The gun being safe, the next thing in order
was to find its range. We tried it at the side of a barn a
hundred yards away, but there was no evidence that the
projectile hit the barn, though we tried several tests at that
distance both with buckshot and the long bullet; in fact v/e
could not tell where the bullets went. Continuing our advance
upon the target, firing occasionally as we approached, we hit
the barn several times with a round shot at a distance of forty
yards; we never could find where a bullet struck but we could
hear it rattle. The chickens might have suffered at short
range, but we never could get one to stand still long enough to
get the cannon unlimbered and sighted.
Finally a circular powder stain about two inches big was
made on a foot broad board and put up for a target at a dis
tance of twenty steps. We fired many shots at this target of
both kinds of bullets, but only succeeded in piercing the board
with three or four round shot. The long bullets never hit the
board and we concluded that as soon as a long bullet left the
gun, it began to turn end over end and both velocity and
direction were lost in richocheting; and as luck would have it,
this theory was verified by a mere accident. We had put a
maximum charge in the gun, using a long bullet, and tamped
the wad down on it very hard. Just then there happened to be
an Indian coming up the path from the spring and when he
was about twenty yards to one side of the target and about
the same distance from the battery, the gun was very carefully
sighted and discharged. The report had just reached the
edge of the woods sixty yards away, but the echo had not had
time to return, when the Indian came running toward us and
crying out in a frightened tone of voice, "Mika tika pu nika pe
kotta?" "Do you want to shoot me? for what?" We pointed

84
to the target and assured him we were shooting at it, but he
looked at it and then in the direction he had come, and said in
Chinook and sign language "that the bullet was coming right
at his head but he heard it whiz just in time to dodge and
avoid it." We were reloading and had put in the powder and
wad and I had a long bullet in my hand when our visitor held
out his hand and said, "Nuh! nika nanich," — "Say! let me
see." Examining it for a moment, he uttered a grunt of satis
faction or disgust, coupled with the remark: "Cultus piltin
colitin nowitka" — "It is a bad crazy projectile sure enough."
We then discovered for the first time what the true quick eye
of the savage had seen at a glance. The long bullet was a
little smaller at one end than the other, a little bent and
slightly beveled on one side of the larger end; it was almost
a perfect model of the Australian boomerang, a veritable
boomeranglet. Having made this discovery, I put a round shot in the
gun, for it was plain that the boomeranglet was liable to come
back to the place it started from and we might not be so lucky
in dodging it as the Indian had been. This shot missed the
board, and the Indian, now in a good humor, being satisfied
that the close call on him was an accident, and having his
bow and arrows with him, strung his bow and as he did so,
said, "Ulta nika pu.'- — "Now, I shoot," and the next instant
the arrow sped. He was so alert I didn't even see him place
the arrow in position, but it was launched with such force that
it whizzed as it left the string. The board was split and fell
in two pieces and the arrow passed on over the brow of the
hill. The target had been hit nearly in the center. We all
laughed, and as the Indian was a young fellow and had be
haved so well after having to dodge one of our bullets, I gave
him a plug of tobacco, about the size and shape of a squeezed
lemon. I had had the tobacco in press under the corner of the
fence a week or two. This was when we were growing and
manufacturing our own tobacco. The Indian, now very much
pleased with his day's sport, for when he came to us he had
been hunting and had several birds he had killed, left us and
went home. The small village where he lived was only a
quarter of a mile from our house, up on a bench of a hill,
where there was a spring in a grove of wild cherry trees. He

85
was in fact one of our next-door neighbors. Some one in the
settlement had named him Jacob, or Jake for short. He was
a typical Kalapooya. The men of the Kalapooya tribes were
not working men; they were sportsmen, or idlers, while the
squaws were industrious and did all the work. Aside from
game furnished by the men, which they killed as much for
sport as anything else, the squaws had to provide all the food.
They had to get the wood; sometimes carrying great bundles
of sticks on their backs quite a distance. In moving from
place to place they carried all the goods, provisions, wares and
"plunder" of every kind. It was not unusual to see a squaw
with a pack on her back heavy enough for a pony, with a child
riding on top of it, and trudging along behind a man mounted
on a pony, who was carrying nothing but his bow and arrows,
or an old "pil-pil musket" — a kind of short musket with a red
stock which the Hudson Bay Company traded to the Indians
for furs. The squaw was a slave; her husband was her master.
The only battle we were in, where our cannon was taken
onto the field, was an engagement with a skunk. Our dogs
were very courageous and watchful, for they would not permit
an Indian to approach the house even in the daytime to within
less than thirty or forty yards. Many times I have heard an
Indian calling for protection against the dogs and would find
him standing on the fence holding to a stake for support, or on
top of a hog-house on a bench of the hill, about forty yards
from our dwelling. The dogs would fight a bear on panther,
and two of them would kill a prairie wolf; but they would
shun a skunk, though if under orders, they would make short
work of one notwithstanding the disagreeable job.
One evening after supper we were sitting about the fire,
some engaged in a game of fox and geese, when one of the
dogs came and stood in the door and after wagging his tail
and looking over his shoulder a time or two, uttered a couple
of short yelps, which was to say, "There is a nasty thing in the
yard you should be looking after, I don't want anything to do
with it myself." When he saw we understood him, he turned
and stood on the porch looking into the yard. The moon was
shining and as soon as we looked out we saw a skunk, nosing
around in the yard. Our cannon was already loaded with a
maximum charge of powder, a wad, a buckshot, a wad, another

86
buckshot and a wad on top of it; the long bullet, for reasons
before stated, had been condemned. It was our plan to shoot
at very short range and kill the animal so suddenly that it
would not be able to retaliate; for the weapon a skunk fights
with was as much dreaded by us as by the dogs. Speaking of
the cannon being already charged, suggests the remark that all
our firearms were kept loaded and ready for immediate use.
Game was liable to be seen near the house at any time —
dangerous wild beasts were near by at all times. The deep
basso growl of the gray mountain wolf was heard of nights,
as also the scream of the prowling panther, cougar, and Cali
fornia lion; we were few in number in the Indian territory,
surrounded by their villages, never quite sure of their friend
ship, and frequently had cause to fear their hostility. Though
we had tested the gun severely and considered it safe, we did
not care to be very near it, when it went off. The gunner
whose business it was to discharge the gun, for that reason,
always put the coal of fire used for that purpose on the end
of a very long and slim pole. When the skunk saw us ad
vancing, it turned about and with its tail waving over its back
came toward us hopping backwards, as all skunks are wont
to go into action. Seeing this move on the part of the enemy,
we planted the battery and I immediately sighted the gun and
sprang behind the gunner, who on the spur of the moment,
thrust his pole forward to apply the fire coal to the touch-hole,
when the enemy discharged his battery with fatal effect, ex
tinguishing the fire coal and routing us entirely. The gun of
course fell into the hands of the enemy and we made no
attempt to recover it that night. The loss of the battle was
easily accounted for — we had too much tactics. We had to
plant our gun, sight, and apply the fire coal, while all the
skunk had to do was to plant himself and fire. What was
the next thing to be done after the battle? Bury the dead?
No! There was no dead except the dead fire coal and that was
left on the field where it fell, probably near the touch-hole.
The next thing was to bury our clothes. We went to the
garden and stripped off our clothes, and buried them, then
went to the house and to bed. Just before I fell asleep I
heard the gunner say, "By George, warn't that skunk loaded
for bear?"

87
A boy in those days always wore his best clothes, not
because he was vain, but because he had only one suit; so
when we got out of bed in the morning we did not have to
dress before breakfast, and we enjoyed this change; for we
had been required to dress before breakfast so long that it
had become monotonous. Our appearance at the table the
first time attracted some attention and was the subject of
several remarks, but they do not belong to this story. After
breakfast we skipped out to the garden, dug up our clothes
and dressed. Then we visited the battlefield; the cannon was
there but the skunk had gone. We removed the gun to the
garden and left it to deodorize at leisure. There was no
danger of anything with a nose disturbing it. Abount noon,
becoming ahungered, we approached the house and had reached
the porch when we were warned away with threats of violence
and told to go to the kitchen window. There our dinner was
handed out to us in a squaw-cap on the end of a pole.
The full text of the law in our case was now promulgated:
Our garments must be buried in the earth three days and
three nights. If the clothes were in the ground only of nights,
then the program to be carried out would take nearly a week —
we chose the longer horn of the dilemma. In the course of
three or four days, being confined from day to day to our own
society, we began to feel lonesome and made several attempts
to enlarge our circle. We tried to approach the dogs, but they
declined our advances. We discovered Jake passing by one
day and tried to engage him in social chat, but before we got
very near him a zephyr passed by and gave him our wind and
he began to make off talking back in Chinook, saying among
other things, "Uh! hyas humm, skukum humm now witka;
clonas mika muckamuck humm-ena"— "Uh! big smell, strong
smell you bet; may be you eat skunk." He also made warlike
signs, such as taking hold of his hair at the crown with his
left hand and putting an arrow in his teeth with his right. The
cannon stood there heavily charged and we would have taken
a shot at the impudent and ungrateful savage, if we'd had a
live coal, but we hadn't and we didn't have time to disrobe and
run into the house after one. I think I might have been
justified in shooting him on the spot, for you know it hadn't
been long since I had given him a whole plug of tobacco I had

88
manufactured myself. However, on the fifth day in the even
ing a committee visited us and we were allowed to enter the
house in full dress.
The reader must not infer from the foregoing that we were
always idle and bent on amusing ourselves. We were each
required to do our share of work of whatever kind we were
capable of doing. Every boy had to put his hands to the plow
as soon as he was old enough to guide a yoke of oxen or plow
a straight furrow. Rails had to be cut and split, for all the
fences were built of rails. There were the hundred and one
chores to be done on a farm, and so we earned our hours of
leisure. We were also required to attend school throughout
the winter season, and we had some very excellent teachers
during the seven years we lived in the Willamette Valley.
In the year 1846 my father, with a number of other
pioneers, resolved to go on an exploring expedition, the object
being to find a more direct route for immigrants coming to
Oregon. They hoped to find a route by which others might
reach the new country without having to suffer the hardships
they had endured but could never forget. Another reason
which had much influence in determining the pioneers to
undertake the expedition was the fact that the question as to
which power, Great Britain or the United States, would event
ually secure a title to the country, had not been settled. In
case war should occur, and Great Britain be successful, it was
important that we should have a way by which to leave the
country without running the gauntlet of the Hudson Bay Com
pany's forts, or falling a prey to the Indian tribes which were
under British influence. Fifteen men were found who were
willing to undertake the hazardous enterprise, father and
Uncle Jesse making two of the party. Each man had a saddle
horse and a pack horse. After making arrangements for the
subsistence of their families this little party started out into
an unexplored wilderness among tribes of hostile Indians.
They left their homes in the Willamette Valley on the 20th day
of June, 1846. The route they followed led across the Kala
pooya mountains into the valley of the Umpqua, thence south
through the mountains into the Rogue River Valley to the
base of the Siskiyou mountain chain, thence east over the
mountains into the Klamath country between the upper and

89
lower Klamath lakes, across Lost River and along the shore
of Tule Lake, and thence around the south end of Goose Lake
and over the mountains in a southeasterly direction to the
Humbolt River. After more than three months of perils,
privations and hardships they reached home in October, having
blazed a route by which immigrants could reach the Willamette
country. I give here a short extract from father's account of
this road expedition, written in 1878, thirty-one years after
the event. This sketch takes up the narrative of the experi
ences of the party when on the return trip:
"No circumstances worthy of mention occurred on the
monotonous march from Black Rock to the timbered regions
of the Cascade chain; then our labors became quite arduous.
Every day we kept guard over the horses while we worked the
road, and at night we dared not cease our vigilance, for the
Indians continually hovered about us, seeking for advantage.
By the time we had worked our way through the mountains to
the Rogue River Valley, and then through the Grave Creek
hills and Umpqua chain, we were pretty thoroughly worn out.
Our stock of provisions had grown very short, and we had to
depend, to a great extent, for sustenance, upon game. Road
working, hunting and guard duty had taxed our strength
greatly, and on our arrival in the Umpqua Valley, knowing
that the greatest difficulties in the way of the immigrants had
been removed, we decided to proceed at once to our homes in
the Willamette. There we arrived on the 3rd day of October,
1846, having been absent three months and thirteen days.
During all this time our friends had heard nothing from us,
and realizing the dangerous character of our expedition, many
believed in the rumor which sometime before reached them,
that we had all been murdered by the Indians. As soon as we
could possibly make the arrangements, we sent out a party,
with oxen and horses, to meet the immigrants and aid them in
reaching the Willamette settlements. For this assistance we
made no demand; nor did we tax them for the use of the road,
as was alleged by parties inimical to our enterprise. It had
been the distinct understanding that the road should be free,
and the consciousness of having opened up better means of
access to the country than was afforded by the expensive and
dangerous route down the Columbia which we had tried to

90
our sorrow, would be ample compensation for all our labors
and hardships in opening the south road. Of course our enter
prise was opposed by that mighty monopoly, the Hudson Bay
Company, whose line of forts and trading posts on the Colum
bia afforded them rare opportunities for trade with the immi
grants. Many of the immigrants who followed us during the
fall of 1846, had a hard time, though not so hard as they would
probably have experienced on the other route; and some of
them, not understanding the situation fully, became infected
with the spirit of persecution which had its origin with the
Hudson Bay Company, and joined in charging us with leading
the travel away from the northern route for purposes of per
sonal speculation. Certain members of the party were singled
out to bear the burden of persecution, whereas, if any member
of the party was animated by improper motives in seeking to
open the road, all were equally guilty, as the party was gov
erned in all its proceedings by a majority vote of its members.
"The efforts of the Hudson Bay Company to put down the
road proved an eminent failure. Its superior advantages were
better and better known and appreciated every year. It never
ceased to be an important route of travel, and a large portion
of the population of our state entered by this channel. It is
a very significant fact that the great thoroughfare of today,
from the Willamette to the Siskiyou chain, and thence out
through the Lake country and on to the Humbolt, departs
rarely from the route blazed out by the road company 31
years ago."
In 1847 occurred the tragedy of the Whitman massacre,
and the Cayuse Indian war followed. A number of young men
who had come to Oregon in our train in 1843 aanswered the
call for volunteers. These young men had followed the for
tunes of the Applegate families and had been faithful and
loyal friends and helpers, and I recall with pride their ready
answer to the call for volunteers to follow the treacherous
Indians who had murdered the whites at the Whitman mission.
Whatever was lacking to complete the equipment of these
young men, father and my uncles supplied. We boys were
too young to go to war, but we turned over our little lead
cannon to Billy Doke to be melted and moulded into bullets.
I believe it is well understood that the discovery of gold

91
in California was made on January 24th, 1848, in a mill race
that General Sutter was having excavated on the Sacramento
River. Means of communication were poor, and it was some
time before the news reached our straggling settlement in the
Willamette Valley. When it did, it caused great excitement
and an exodus for the mines. Father, with a large percentage
of the male population, left for the gold fields. The party
prospected a little on the Rogue River in the Rogue River
Valley, and on a smaller stream now known as the Applegate,
then pushed on to California. After spending a number of
months in the mines of California, the Oregon party, number
ing about 40 men, chartered a small sailing vessel at San
Francisco, intending to return by water to the Columbia. We
often heard father tell the thrilling story of the dreary voyage
in winter weather, of how for weeks the little craft was
buffeted by chilling winds until the sails and ropes were
covered with ice, and the passengers were half starved and
half frozen. Of how they were tyrannized over by a heartless
captain and crew until they believed they were in the hands
of pirates whose purpose was to starve them to death and
throw them overboard in order to gain possession of the gold
they had accumulated in the mines. Of course the Oregon
men would not stand this. They organized a rebellion and took
the ship. The captain and crew were put on short rations,
along with the other men, and were required to make the
mouth of the Columbia River in as short a time as possible.
This they did, landing the Oregon party at the old pioneer
town of Astoria.

CHAPTER V.
We Move to the Valley of the Umpqua.
We had lived in the Willamette Valley seven years when
father and my uncles decided to move to the Umpqua country.
Father and Uncle Jesse had admired this part of Oregon very
much when they passed through it while on the southern road
expedition in 1846. Uncle Jesse settled there first and built
the first cabin. When we had crossed the Kalapooya moun
tains he came to meet us and escorted us to his new home. We
camped near his house for about ten days while father and
Uncle Charles located their claims. They chose two sections
lying directly east of Uncle Jesse's section. Father's section
was the easternmost while the home of Uncle Charles was
midway between the two, and was the gathering place of the
young people of the three families. Looking back across the
years, I still can see that gathering of happy young people.
Days of toil were nothing, for we had that greatest of life's
possessions, youth, with its hopes and dreams. Our first
dwelling was built of logs, but in about two years after we
settled in the valley a frame house was built, Brother Elisha
doing the greater part of the carpenter work. After we were
comfortably located, father built a flouring mill on a small
stream not far from our dwelling. With the knowledge ac
quired from his old book on mechanics, Brother Elisha was
able to do all the reckoning necessary in laying off the work
to be done in making the machinery for the mi'l. This was the
first mill for grinding grain built south of the Kalapooya
mountains. A half mile from our house was an Indian village. Here
lived a small tribe called the Yangoler or Yoncalla Indians.
They belonged to the Kalapooya tribe and spoke the same
language. Our grist mill was only a few paces from this village
and the footpath used by the Indians passed near the door of
the mill. They were frequently in and about the mill and
(93)

94
looked upon it as a marvelous thing. We gathered many
interesting stories and traditions from these neighbors of ours.
The Indian's theory of the origin of the red man is interesting.
I first heard this tradition from the lips of a venerable
Chemomochot priest or doctor, sixty or more years ago, and
I have never found an Indian who was able to add a word
to it. All the priests or "medicine men," and I believe, all the
people knew this much of their origin. This is the tradition:
"In the beginning was a mountain, and on the mountain top
was a table of stone. On this table was a deposit of some
kind of matter jelly-like in consistence — we would call it
protoplasm — and out of this protoplastic mass grew a living
being in the form of, and was, a woman. She held in her arms
a male child, and when she was fully grown she descended,
carrying the child on her bosom, to the base of the mountain,
where the two were joined by a wolf. The woman placed the
boy astride on the wolf's back and passed a strap around the
child and over the wolf's head above his eyes." This ends the
story of the beginning of the red man. It ends abruptly with
the group of three persons: Snowats, Iswukaw and Quartux
(woman, boy and wolf). Some of ahe Indians believed that
when a man died he became the same as a clod of earth or
kahte (a stone). Others seemed to believe in the transmigra
tion of souls. I recall a number of times when an Indian,
pointing to a wolf which was often seen near the village,
suggested that the Quartux was some person, naming some
one who had recently died. They regarded the wolf as a
sacred animal.
Indians from the village were frequent visitors at our
home. One day when a number were there I was reading in
a small book which was illustrated. I read from the book and
showed some of the pictures to the Indians, expecting them to
be greatly surprised, but they were not, and it appeared from
what they said to me and to one another that they had seen
"paper that talked," as they expressed it, or had some informa
tion in regard to books. This discovery aroused my curiosity
and led to the following tradition which I gathered after much
labor and many interviews with the Indians. Squiyowhiynoof
was a man, a foreigner, of what nationality I could not learn,
who came to the tribe from they knew not where. He was a

95
doctor or priest and healed the sick, but I could not learn
anything about his methods. He had a book or books which
he read and he showed the Indians pictures of a good country
up in the heavens. He told them good people would go to
this country after death. Another picture was of a place down
below where the wicked would go for punishment after death.
This priest must have gained considerable influence over the
tribe, for he undertook the punishment of those who did not
obey his teachings. He had those who took what did not
belong to them severely whipped with hazel sprouts. This was
a fatal mistake on the part of the priest or doctor, and event
ually led to his death. The Indians feared their own native
doctors and sometimes put them to death when they failed
to restore some patient to health. It seems that a number of
Indians came across the hills to the priest's abode intending
to kill him, and did kill him. They left his body filled witb
arrows and fled back across the hills in the direction from
whence they had come. When they had reached the hill top
they were overtaken by a storm and sought shelter under a
large spruce or fir tree whose drooping boughs protected them
from the rain. An immense black cloud was seen to hang
directly over the tree, and a great flash of lightning was seen
to drop from it onto the tree; there was a crash that made
the very earth tremble, and a column of white smoke shot up
to the very heavens. Then the cloud and smoke passed away
and the sky was clear. But the towering tree was gone. When
the frightened people came near they saw the broken and
shattered tree and all around were the scorched and blackened
bodies of the half score of assassins who had sought shelter
under the branches and had been punished for their sin by a
bolt of fire from the heavens. We children were frequently
at this place where a broken and shattered stump still stood.
I finally found the grave of the murdered man, doctor or mis
sionary, he must have been. This lonely grave was in the
valley, a sunken place six or seven feet long, overgrown with
heavy sod, and at one end a slab of wood probably five feet
high. Lolokes-psis was the name of a native doctor of the
Yangolers. This name means literally fire nose (Lolokes, fire
and psis, nose). This Indian had a nose almost as red as fire.

96
He was a very interesting man and I frequently whiled away
my leisure hours in his company. One day I went with him
to visit a fish trap some of his people had in a small stream.
As we were walking along a foot path I saw a large rattlesnake
crawling slowly across the path directly before us. I immedi
ately began a search for a stick or stone, intending to kill the
snake, but Lolokes-psis objected, assuring me the snake was
friendly as he would soon prove. He gathered a reed stalk
about two feet long, then began chanting or singing a most
peculiar song, at the same time stroking the back of the snake
with the wand. Back and forth, very gently, went the wand
and more weird became the song, until the snake ceased to
move and lay at full length as straight as a rod. The doctor
then sank slowly to his knees near it, placing his right hand,
palm upward, in front of the snake. Incredible as this may
seem, it is nevertheless a fact, that the snake began moving
slowly up the Indian's arm to his shoulder, then doubling
back, lay along his arm with its head in the palm of his hand.
He carried it this way a few paces. When I ventured near
the snake shot out its forked tongue in a threatening manner
and Lolokes-psis said to me, "Wake tenas siah," that is, "not
so near." He then dropped on one knee and slowly lowered
his arm until his hand rested on the ground when the snake
slid down without showing any signs of anger or fear, and
crawled away into the grass. Unreasonable as this account
may appear, it is faithfully and truly told. Like the Moqui
Indians, and some other tribes in New Mexico and Arizona,
Lolokes-psis seemed to have had power to charm and render
harmless the rattlesnake.
In this village near us lived the chief of the Yangolers.
He was universally known as Chief Halo. His was a noble
character; he awoke early to an appreciation of the great
advantages enjoyed by the white man. The food afforded by
the cultivation of the soil, the growing of grain and vegetables,
were to him a revelation. He often expressed his gratitude for
the rich gleaning the settlers' grain fields afforded his people,
and for the abundant supply of vegetables given them. He
was pleased when he saw us plowing up the soil of his beautiful
valley. No effort had been made to treat with the natives for
their land at the time we settled in the Umpqua Valley, and

97
nothing was done for a number of years afterward, but the
chief never complained that we came and established homes.
Five or six years after we settled in the country Chief Halo
built a new house. We furnished him with raUs to fence a
few acres and were always ready to assist and encourage him
in his ambition to become a "Boston," the Indian name for the
white people. When we were helping him to harvest his first
crop of wheat he was very proud. He tried three languages
in his efforts to express his appreciation and his idea of the
evolution accomplished in him since the coming of the white
man. Finally an agent appeared to treat with the Indians and
purchase the country of them. There had been peace between
the settlers and these natives from the first, and our title to
the country was good as far as they were concerned. How
ever, the Indians were invited to assemble, a fat ox was
slaughtered and a feast prepared. The Indians responded with
alacrity. Of course they were not much enlightened as to the
important business to come before the assembly. The promise
of houses, farms and agricultural implements and a yearly food
supply to be given them on the reservation appealed strongly
to the majority of the Indians. Of course the agent spoke to
the Indians through an interpreter, and the Indians answered
through the same medium. Chief Halo said, "I will not go to
a strange land." This was not reported to the agent. When
the tribe arrived on the reservation without the chief the
agent was troubled, and came to our house to get ¦ father to
go with him to visit the chief. We boys went with them.
When Halo saw us coming he came out of his house and stood
with his back against a large oak tree which grew near the
door. We approached in our usual friendly fashion, but the
chief was sullen and silent. He had lost faith in the white
man. The agent said, "Tell the old Indian he must go to the
reservation with the other people, that I have come for him."
The chief understood and answered defiantly, "Wake nika
klatawa," that is, "I will not go." The agent drew his revolver
and pointed it at the Indian when the chief bared his breast,
crying in his own tongue as he did so, "Shoot! It is good I
die here at home. My father died here, his grave is here. 'Tis
good I die here and am buried here. Halo is not a coward, I
will not go." "Shall I shoot him?" said the agent. "No!"

98
cried father, his voice hoarse with indignation. The chief,
standing with his back against the giant oak, had defied the
United States. We returned home leaving the brave old man
in peace. Father and my uncles protected the old chieftain
and his family and they were allowed to remain in their old
home. I have read histories of Oregon, volumes of memoirs
and many tales of the early days, but have never found any
thing relating to Chief Halo. He was a character worthy to
be remembered. Should coming generations learn to know
him as he was, they will see a noble figure standing with face
uplifted and eyes wide with wonder and delight to behold the
coming of civilization. This noblest and last sachem of the
natives of the Umpqua Valley has slept with his fathers "Lo
these many years." And his people; where are they? Their
war songs, and their songs of exultation and lamentation these
hills and valleys will hear no more.
In the summer of 1853 the Rogue River Indians swept
down upon the straggling settlements in Southern Oregon,
murdering the inhabitants, burning homes and carrying away
captives. There was a call for volunteers and father organized
a company or detachment known as "Captain Lindsay Apple-
gate's company of mounted volunteers." Brother Elisha was
then twenty-one years of age, I was seventeen, and we both
enlisted for the war. The tribe inhabiting the Rogue River
Valley was small and has been estimated at eight hundred
people; less than half were warriors. This tribe was divided
into small bands or tribes under sub-chiefs. Chief John, as
he was called by the whites, was head chief of all these tribes,
their great war chief. A treaty was made with these Indians
in September, 1853, at our encampment, which was between
the upper Table Rock and Rogue River. After the treaty had
been made Chief John and his son visited our camp. The
son was about my age, only a boy. We had many interesting
talks together, and I liked and admired the young chief.
But here my little story must end. Of those courageous
men and women who made that half year's journey to Oregon
in 1843, only a little handful are left, like the last leaves on a
tree. But those who have gone on their last long journey
lived to see the wilderness bloom — lived to know that the

99
railroad trains were flashing across the plains and mountains
over which they had toiled with their weary ox teams in the
long ago. May their sleep be sweet in the bosom of the land
they struggled so hard to gain and loved so well.