3 9002 071 l! ; . YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY HISTORY OF WASHINGTON /rjf./,„. /a '/f',,,,/;/;,, DR. JOHN McLOUGHLIN. Born at Riviere du Loup, in the province of Quebec, Canada, in 1784. Studied medicine in England. Entered the service, of the Northwest Company at Fort William, and on the union of that company with the Hudson's Bay Company, was placed in control of the business of the united companies on the Pacific Coast. He removed the headquarters from Astoria to Vancouver, where he ruled with autocratic power for more than twenty years. He resigned from the company in 1846, and retired^ to his claim at Oregon City, where he made application to be made an Ameri can citizen. He died in 1857. History of Washington The Rise and Progress of an American State By CLINTON A. SNOWDEN Advisory Editors Cornelius H. Hanford, Miles C. Moore, William D. Tyler Stephen J. Chadwick Volume Two THE CENTURY HISTORY COMPANY NEW YORK 1909 Printed by John C Rankin Company for The Century History Company Copyright 1909 By The Century History Company all rights reserved CvYSAO 2- Publication Office 54 Dey Street, New York, N. Y. U. S. A. -y.vJ & CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. CHAPTER XVIII. THE TRAILMAKERS. The Early American Fur Hunters 3 Mr. Irving's Description of Them 4 George W. Ebberts 5 Wilkins, Newell and Meek 6 Early Fur Companies 7 General William Ashley 8 William Sublette 9 The Rocky Mountain Fur Company 10 Captain Bonneville 11 First Wagons Cross the Mountains. 12 Bonneville Reaches the Columbia 13 Nathaniel J. Wyeth 14 Hall J. Kelly 15 Wyeth at Fort Vancouver 16 Returns to Boston 17 Builds Fort Hall 18 Builds Fort William '. 19 Forced Out of the Country 21 Dr. Marcus Whitman's Party 22 First Wagons Reach the Columbia 25 The Barlow Road 26 CHAPTER XIX. DIPLOMACY. The Negotiations of 1804 .' 31 John Quincy Adams at St. Petersburg 33 The Treaty of Ghent 35 The Negotiations of 1826 37 Rush and Gallatin in London 39 First Joint Occupation Convention 40 Power of the Hudson's Bay Company 42 The Florida Treaty 43 Russian Claims in the Northwest 44 The Monroe Doctrine 45 General Jessup's Report 46 The Columbia as a Boundary Line 49 Value of Puget Sound to Great Britain 51 " Fifty-Four Forty " First Mentioned 52 viii THE RISE AND PROGRESS Across the Continent with the Hudson's Bay Express l(>3 First Mass at Cowlitz Prairie l64 A Mission Established on the Willamette 164 First Visit to Puget Sound 165 Priests Arrive from St. Louis 166 Father Blanchet Appointed Archbishop 166 Father Demers made Bishop of Vancouver Island 167 New Missionaries from Canada 167 The Missionary Order of Mary Immaculate 168 Success of the Catholic Missionaries 169 The Catholic Ladder 170 Helpfulness of the Hudson's Bay Employees 172 CHAPTER XXIV. THE WILKES EXPEDITION. Value of Slacum's Visit to the Willamette 1 75 He Helps Settlers to Secure Cattle 177 Value of His Report 1 78 The Wilkes Expedition Organized 178 Arrives at the Strait of Fuca 179 Procures a Pilot from Fort Nisqually 180 Arrival at the Fort 181 Exploring Parties Sent Out 182 The Commodore Starts for Astoria 183 His Trip Down the Columbia 184 Life at Fort Vancouver 185 Hudson's Bay Company's Farm as Wilkes Saw It 186 Peter Skeen Ogden 187 The Hudson's Bay Brigades 188 Wilkes Visits the Willamette Valley 189 Talk of a Provisional Government 100 Reasons for the Commodore's Opposition 191 Helps to Outfit the " Star of Oregon" 103 Returns to Nisqually !o4 Celebrates the Fourth of July I9c Dr. McLoughlin Arrives a Day Late Ig8 A Trip to Mound Prairie I9g The Survey of Puget Sound Igg Loss of the Peacock 200-201 Survey of the Coast Completed 202 A Special Report Hurried to Washington 203 Value of Wilkes' General Report 20. OF AN AMERICAN STATE ix CHAPTER XXV. A CHAMPION APPEARS. Early Friends of Oregon in Congress 209 Lewis F. Linn of Missouri 210 His Early Life and Education 210 His Interest in the West 211 His Attention Early Turned to Oregon 212 His Plans to Secure its Settlement 212 Bill to Establish Oregon Territory 214 The Ultimatum Report 215 Caleb Cushing's Report 215-216 Earliest Germ of the Homestead Law 217 A Bill for the Occupation of Oregon 218 Public Interest in Oregon 219 Lord Ashburton Arrives 221 Northwest Boundary not Settled 222 The Pendleton Report on Oregon 223 Benton Denounces Tyler and Webster 224 Why No Reply was Made 225 Debate on the Donation Law in the Senate 226 Bill Passes the Senate 229 Death of Mr. Linn 229-230 CHAPTER XXVI. THE EARLY IMMIGRANTS. The Farnham Party 235 Its Lack of Harmony 236 Finally Broken Up 237 Various Members of it Reach the Columbia 238 The Migration of 1842 239 Prominent Members of the Party 240 Dr. Elijah White 241 Adventurers on the Trail 242 Medorem Crawford's Story 243 The Burnett-Applegate Party in 1843 244 Moving Cause of the Migration 245 Lieutenant Fremont 247 Dr. Whitman Joins the Party 248 Nesmith's Estimate of his Services 249 Jesse Applegate's Estimate 250 Doubts Arise at Fort Hall 251 Arrival at Whitman's Mission 252 THE RISE AND PROGRESS Perplexities at Walla Walla 253 Sub-Agent White and the Indians 254 His Inexperience Makes Trouble 255 Dr. McLoughlin Restrains the Indians 256 The Simmons Party Arrives 257 CHAPTER XXVII. THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT ORGANIZED. A People Without Government 261 Memorials Sent to Congress 262 A Probate Court Demanded 262 The Court Organized 263 A Debating Club at the Falls 264 Some of the Questions Debated 265 The Politicians Begin Work 266 "The Wolf Meeting" 267 W. H. Gray Makes an Appeal 268 Public Meetings Held 269 Address of the Canadian Settlers 271 Reasons for their Opposition 272 The Famous Meeting at Champoeg 273 The Final Vote Taken 274 Government Organized 275 Laws Adopted 276-277 An Indian Uprising Threatened 279 First Governor Elected 281 Jesse Applegate's Statesmanship 282 Hudson's Bay Officers in a Difficult Position 284 They Join the New Government 285 English Warships Arrive 287 The Texas Question 288 An American Warship in the Columbia 289 The First United States Flag in Oregon 290 CHAPTER XXVIII. THE MASSACRE. Work of the Early Missionaries Reviewed 293 Whitman's Activity 294 Growth of the Colony at Waiilatpu 295 Sad Story of the Sager Family 296-297 The Indians Becoming Restless 299 McKinlay Warns Whitman 300 OF AN AMERICAN STATE xi The Severe Winter of 1846-7 301 Murder of Elijah Hedding 302 Dr. White's Troublesome Interference 303 Whitman Warned by Paul Kane 305 An Epidemic among the Indians 306 Whitman Nourishes a Viper 307 Whitman's Devotion to the Sick 308 His Visit to the Umatilla 3°e Warned of his Danger by Sticcas 310 His Hurried Return Home 310 The Morning of the Massacre 311 The Attack 312 Heroism of Mrs. Whitman 313 Her Last Hour of Life 315 Escape of Hall and the Osborne Family 316 The Women and Children Spared 317 A Night of Terrible Anxiety 3J8 The Day after the Massacre 320 Burial of the Dead 3" CHAPTER XXIX. THE RESCUE. News of the Massacre Reaches Vancouver 327 Forwarded to Oregon City 328 Peter Skeen Ogden to the Rescue 329 Condition of the Captives 33° Their Treatment by the Indians 333 Spalding's Narrow Escape 333 Mrs. Spalding's Experience 334 The Indians Consult Bishop Blanchet 335 Their Anxiety to Make Terms 336 Ogden Summons the Chiefs to Counsel 337 Offers to Ransom the Prisoners 338 The Captives Delivered 339 CHAPTER XXX. RETRIBUTION. The New Government Faces War 345 Its Lack of Resources 34<> First Volunteers Enrolled i 347 Hudson's Bay Officers Asked for a Loan 348 An Appeal to the Merchants 349 Xll THE RISE AND PROGRESS Colonel Cornelius Gilliam 349 The Volunteers Start up the River 3S1 The Advance from the Dalles 352 The First Battle 3S3 Gilliam Asks for Reinforcements 355 Difficulty of Governor Abemethy's Position 356 Gilliam Tricked by the Indians 357 Battle on the Touchet 358 Death of Colonel Gilliam 359 Volunteers Winter on the Walla Walla 36° CHAPTER XXXI. THE BOUNDARY FIXED. The Ashburton Treaty in England 365 Mr. Peel's Government Embarrassed 366 Dr. McLoughlin's Admonition Unheeded 367 President Tyler's Message in 1843 369 The Texas Question Again 369 " Fifty-Four Forty" in Politics 369 Negotiations Resumed 37° Fruitless Correspondence 371 The Boundary Question in Parliament 372 Buchanan and Pakenham Confer 373 Fruitless Negotiations 374 More Correspondence 375 Debates in Congress and in Parliament 376 Joint Occupation to be Terminated 377 Mr. Polk Asks the Advice of the Senate 378 The Advice Given 379 The Treaty Made and Ratified 380 Our Claims to Vancouver Island 382 CHAPTER XXXII. OLD FORT NISQUALLY. Founded by Archibald MacDonald in 1833 385 Advantage of Its Location 386 Its Buildings 389 Progress of Improvement 390 Early Residents 392 A Farm and Garden Established 393 Japanese Castaways Recovered 355 Early Missionary Work at the Fort , 396 OF AN AMERICAN STATE xiii Missionary Work at other Posts 397 The Steamer Beaver 399 The Company's Sailing Vessels 400 Stock Raising Begun 401 Puget Sound Agricultural Company Organized 402 Dr. Tolmie Becomes Manager 405 The Company's Employees 406 An Attempt at Colonization 407 First Colonists Arrive 408 The Enterprise a Failure 409 Protestant Missionaries Arrive 410 Catholic Missionaries Arrive 411 Rev. John P. Richmond 412 Failure of His Mission 413 British Warships at the Fort 414 British Holidays Celebrated 415 CHAPTER XXXIII. THE IRRESISTABLE SETTLER ARRIVES. Hopes of the Hudson's Bay Company 419 Its Employees as Early Settlers 220 The Simmons Party at Vancouver 421 The First Winter at Washougal 422 Simmons' First Trip up the Cowlitz 423 His Enterprise Opposed by McLoughlin 426 First Visit to Puget Sound 426 Meets John R. Jackson 427 The Sound Explored 428 Returns to the Columbia 428 McLoughlin's Opposition Overcome 429 The Whole Party Start Northward 43° Arrival at Tumwater 433 First Winter on the Sound 434 Reinforcements Arrive 435 Mills Built at New Market 437 The First Wedding in Washington 439 A Trip to Whidby Island 439 Migration Checked 441 The Discovery of Gold in California , 442 The Census of 1850 443 Early Settlers and their Settlements 444 Beginning of the Oyster Business 445 Steilacoom Founded 447 xiv Rise and Progress of an American State Regular Troops Arrive 448 John C. Holgate Explores Elliott Bay 449 American Ships Appear 45° The Brig Orbit 451 Colonel Isaac N. Ebey Arrives 451 Olympia Founded 452 The Crosby Party Arrive 453 An Early Public Meeting 456 An Indian Attack on Fort Nisqually 457 Leander C. Wallace Killed 459 The Settlers Alarmed 461 Governor Lane of Oregon Visits the Sound 462 Demand for the Indian Murderers 463 The Goldseekers Return 464 CHAPTER XXXIV. THE GREAT MIGRATION. Its Volume 467 The Oregon Trail 469 Character of the Immigrants 470 Beginning the Long March 471 The Crossing of the Missouri 472 The Perils of the Platte 474 Across the Plains 475 Fierce Storms Encountered 476 Old Fort Laramie 478 First View of the Mountains 479 Across the Great Divide 480 Terrors of the Desert 481 Stories of Some of the Earlier Immigrants 482 Property Abandoned 484 How the Rivers were Crossed 485 Attempts to Float Down Snake River 486 From Snake River to the Columbia 490 The Nachess Pass 491 Encounters with the Indians 493 P. B. Cornwall's Adventures 494 War Parties of the Eastern Tribes 495 The Herds of Buffalo 498 .Facing page 164 ILLUSTRATIONS. Dr. John McLoughlin Frontispiece Fort Walla Walla Facing page 12 Nathaniel J. Wyeth Facing page 14 Joseph L. Meek Facing page 22 Fort Vancouver Facing page 102 Rev. H. H. Spalding Facing page 120 Rev. Cushing Eells Facing page 124 Old Fort Colvile Facing page 126 Rev. Elkanah Walker Facing page 136 Tshimakain Facing page 138 Bishop A. M. A. Blanchet Archbishop F. N. Blanchet Bishop Modeste Demers Rev. J. B. A. Brouillet Rev. P. J. De Smet Catholic Mission at Fort Colvile Facing page 170 Commodore Wilkes Facing page 182 Lewis F. Linn Facing page 208 Thomas H. Benton Facing page 222 James W. Nesmith Facing page 244 George Abernethy Facing page 280 Archibald McKinlay Facing page 300 Home of Dr. Whitman Facing page 308 Peter Skeen Ogden Facing page 334 Map of the Oregon Country in 1846 Facing page 358 Fort George in '45 Facing page 376 Dr. William Fraser Tolmie Facing page 396 Steamer Beaver Facing page 398 Sir George Simpson Facing page 402 Fort Nisqually Facing page 406 Fort Laramie Facing page 478 Fort Hall Facing page 484 Chapter XVIII. THE TRAILMAKERS. WHILE Dr. McLoughlin and all who were asso ciated with him still thought, if they thought about the matter at all, that nothing was less likely than that a practicable route for wagons through and across the Rocky Mountains would ever be found, and while most of our statesmen, including Jackson and Benton, like Jefferson looked upon Oregon as a country lying beyond the natural boundary of the United States, but which would in time be settled by a kindred people, enjoy ing a free government and institutions similar to our own, the roadbuilders were already at work. They were building better than they knew, for they worked without plan, and with no higher or better object in view than to do at the time what the time required. But without realizing it, all that they did was in accordance with a higher design, and helped in its way to lead to greater results that were to be worked out by those who were to follow them. The Hudson's Bay people had an ill concealed contempt of the American fur traders. They invariably spoke of them as "adventurers," and in a sense they were right. They were not organized into a vast fur-trading monopoly, nor were they backed by the unlimited capital which was behind the fur business as it was carried on further north. They oper ated for the most part as individuals, as the members of the Northwest Company had done in their earlier experi ences, and later formed small corporations which pushed their enterprises with vigor and courage, but they were not sufficiently strong to be very formidable, and as a large part of their energies were wasted in a fruitless competition with each other, they were less to be feared by the great monopoly, if they should ever invade its territory west of the moun tains. THE RISE AND PROGRESS But while these small companies and individual traders operated with moderate means, they brought with them into the fur-bearing regions the free American trappers, those adventurous, and sometimes lawless, but always vigorous and daring agents, who rapidly spread the influence of the small concerns they depended upon to supply them, over a wide range of territory. There was a striking contrast be tween these American trappers, and the Canadians and French half-breeds who worked for the old companies. The latter was an employee, or had been for a number of years, working for scanty wages, drudging at any kind of employ ment that was given him, and wholly unaccustomed to think or act for himself. He rarely or never escaped from the Company's employ, and if he did he still remained in a greater or less degree its dependant. The American trapper was an entirely different being. Mr. Irving in his Adventures of Captain Bonneville, says of him that "there is perhaps no class of men on the face ofthe earth, who led a life of more continual exertion, peril and excitement, and who are more enamored of their occupa tions, than the free trappers ofthe West. No toil, no danger, no privation can turn the trapper from his pursuit. His passionate excitement at times resembles a mania. In vain may the most vigilant and cruel savages beset his path; in vain may rocks and precipices, and wintry torrents oppose his progress; let but a single track of a beaver meet his eye, and he forgets all dangers and defies all difficulties. At times, he may be seen with his traps on his shoulder, buffeting his way across rapid streams, amid floating blocks of ice; at other times, he is to be found with his traps swung on his back climbing the most rugged mountains, scaling or descend ing the most frightful precipices, searching, by routes OF AN AMERICAN STATE inaccessible to the horse, and never before trodden by white man, for springs and lakes unknown to his comrades, and where he may meet with his favorite game. " Drop him in the midst of a prairie, or in the heart of the mountains, and he is never at a loss. He notices every land mark; can retrace his route through the most monotonous plains, or the most perplexing labyrinths of the mountains; no danger nor difficulty can appall him, and he scorns to complain under any privation. "Such is the mountaineer, the hardy trapper of the West; and such, as we have slightly sketched it, is the wild, Robin Hood kind of life, with all its strange and motley populace, now existing in full vigor among the Rocky Mountains." Most noted among these free trappers and frontiersmen of those days was "Kit" Carson, the famous scout who served Fremont so well in his later expeditions. Less famous, though more intimately connected with the early history of the Pacific Northwest, were Robert Newell, more generally known as "Doctor" Newell, Caleb Wilkins, Joseph L. Meek and George W. Ebberts. All these, like many others of their class, went to the mountains while still young, and early became inured to the hardships and dangers of life in the wilderness. There was a touch of romance in the earlier years of most, perhaps all, of them. Ebberts was born in Kentucky, and when thirteen years old was apprenticed to a machinist by his mother, who early became a widow. When nearing the end of his seven years' apprenticeship, he fell in love with the daughter of his employer, but their marriage was opposed both by her father and his mother, who thought, as parents usually do, that the ceremony should be delayed until the prospective husband could have time to provide some sort of a home for his wife. But this did not suit the THE RISE AND PROGRESS ardent lovers, and Ebberts resorted to the strangest of means to remedy matters. He ran away from his employer and employment, his mother and his prospective bride, and went to St. Louis, where he easily found work at the trade he had so nearly learned. Here he fell in love again, this time with a French girl. The bride's parents offered no objection — indeed the father proposed to endow her with two lots, which two years later sold for $100,000, but Ebbert's mother, whom he had invited to attend the wedding, again objected. "If you want to kill your mother," she wrote, "marry a French woman, and if you love me and care for me, marry an Ameri can, and first of all a Kentuckian." The boy was loyal to his mother, and again resorted to the remedy, which he had tried once before. He ran away again, and this time went to the mountains where for nine years he followed the life of a hunter and trapper. During these years he married an In dian woman, thereby complying with his mother's demand in one respect at least — he married an American, if not a Kentuckian. Wilkins, Newell and Meek, like Ebberts, married Indian wives during their trapping days, and lived with them until death parted them, long after they had given up their adven turous mode of living in the mountains, and made themselves comfortable homes in the Willamette Valley. They were all chosen from the Nez Perce tribe, whose women were famous in those days as more comely than those of any other. Among the hundreds of young men whom the American fur traders thus distributed over the plains, along the rivers, and wherever fur-bearing animals were found, were many who, like these four, were designed to be very helpful in found ing new States. They were called free trappers because they were in no sense in the employ of anybody. While they OF AN AMERICAN STATE came out originally in the employ of the traders, with whom they engaged for the trip, or perhaps for a longer term, each started out on his own independent account as soon as his term of services had expired. Thenceforth he acted for him self, trapped where he pleased, and at the end of the season brought his pack of furs to the rendezvous, where he met the traders and exchanged the year's catch for clothing, blankets, traps, ammunition and such other articles as he needed or fancied, and returned again to the wilderness. In the pur suit of game, or sometimes for the mere gratification of a desire for new scenes or new adventures, he penetrated far into the mountains, or roamed over the plains, and so con tinually extended the area of the country in which the Ameri can traders were known, and in an irregular and sometimes rather unsatisfactory way, increased the acquaintance of the American people with their own country. The numbers of these wild rovers of the plains and mountains continually increased until the whole mountain region was fully explored, and within less than a quarter of a century after Lewis and Clark had returned from their explorations, there were more than five hundred of them west of the great watershed of the Rocky Mountains, who sometimes traded their furs to the Hudson's Bay Company, as well as a large number who traded only with the Americans. The trading concerns which brought these hunters into the mountains were first the old American Fur Company, still nominally under the control of John Jacob Astor, but now managed by Ramsay Crooks, who had come overland with Hunt to Astoria, and returned two years later with the Stuart party. There was also the old Missouri Fur Company, which Captain Clark and Manual Lisa had formed, and which had been disbanded in 1812, but was resuscitated some years THE RISE AND PROGRESS later, the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, controlled by General William H. Ashley, and various individual enter prises like that of Captain Bonneville and Nathaniel Wyeth. Of all these the most vigorous and the most successful was the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, organized and directed by Ashley. He was a man of great activity and courage, as well as of sound sense and good business judgment, and after amassing a moderate fortune for those days, in the fur business, entered political life and subsequently became suc cessively lieutenant governor of Illinois, and a member of Congress from Missouri. He built a fort on the Yellowstone in 1822, and in 1823, w'tn a party of twenty-eight men, he started for the Rocky Mountains with the intention of cross ing them, but he was attacked in the country of the Aricarees, where fourteen of his men were killed and ten wounded. The next year, in company with a man named Green, for whom Green River was subsequently named, he ascended the Platte and Sweetwater rivers with a pack train, found the south pass, through which the Stuart party had returned from Astoria to St. Louis, and finally reached Green River, the largest fork of the Colorado. This was the first west ward trip, made by any organized party over what subse quently came to be known as the Oregon trail. He established a trading station temporarily on Green River, which he supplied with goods brought by three hundred pack mules. Here he adopted the policy of assist ing the weaker Indians against the incursions of their stronger and more warlike neighbors, especially toward the north. Almost as soon as his party had crossed the mountains and begun their trade, the Indians in the neighborhood were attacked by the Blackfeet, and William Sublette assembled the friendly trappers to the number of three hundred, as it OF AN AMERICAN STATE 9 is reported, and went to the assistance of the Shoshones, who had hitherto been indifferently armed, and had been driven to live in this mountain region, which was but poorly supplied with game, and where their subsistence was very precarious, as it had been found to be by Lewis and Clark on their arrival there. Aided by the Shoshones, Sublette's party were entirely successful. They drove the Blackfeet far to the north and returned to the rendezvous with one hun dred and seventy scalps, having only eight men wounded during the expedition. This policy made the Shoshones and all the other tribes in their neighborhood the firm friends of the Americans, and so they continued. The traders supplied them with arms and ammunition, and they were soon able to maintain them selves in their wars with their old enemies the Blackfeet, the Sioux, and the Crows. It was highly important for the success of the traders that these Indians should be friendly, especially in the neighborhood of the upper waters of the great rivers like the Snake and the Colorado, as it was in these regions that furs were most abundant. Here the trains stopped, the trappers dispersed in small par ties, or went singly to prosecute their trapping enterprises, and returned at the end of the season to meet the traders, sell their season's catch, and lay in a new stock of supplies. In 1825 Ashley again crossed the mountains, this time with one hundred and twenty-five men. He went still further into the wilderness, crossed the divide between the Green and Bear rivers, penetrated the Great Salt Lake country and built a fort on Utah Lake, leaving one hundred men in its neighborhood. Two years later a six-pound cannon was hauled by a team of two mules to this fort, and this was the 10 THE RISE AND PROGRESS first wheeled vehicle to pass over the mountains into Oregon, and the Mexican territories. Ashley retired from the fur trade at the close of that year. It is said that during the three years that he was engaged in it he brought to St. Louis furs to the value of $180,000. In the same year that Ashley hauled his cannon across the plains, the Missouri Fur Company sent out a party of forty- five men and one hundred horses, under the command of Joshua Pilcher, who crossed the mountains and went on to Green River. The next spring he went northward along the base of the mountains to Flathead Lake, where he passed a second winter, and in the following year, after discharging all of his party but one man, he went on by way of Fort Col vile, into the main Columbia basin, and crossing the moun tains eastward in company with a party of Hudson's Bay men, returned by the Athabasca and Red rivers to the Missouri. After the retirement of Ashley, the business of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company was reorganized and carried on for several years by William Sublette, Jedediah S. Smith and David E. Jackson, and later by men like James Bridger, Milton Sublette, Frapp, Fitzpatrick and Jervais. In 1829 it sent the first wagon train up the Platte and along the Sweet water to the South Pass, over the trail which the emigrants subsequently followed. This train consisted of ten wagons, each drawn by five mules, and two light mule carts, and was accompanied by eighty-one mounted men. It left St. Louis on the 10th of April, and by the 10th of July had reached the head of Wind River. On the way many difficulties were encountered, all of which were successfully surmounted. It was often necessary to make wide detours in order to get around deep gullies that the wagons could not cross. As OF AN AMERICAN STATE 11 the summer advanced and a region was reached where water was scarce and the rains infrequent, the woodwork of the wagons shrunk so much that it was with difficulty that the wheels were kept from falling to pieces. They were also much shaken by dropping into the paths which the buffalo had worn, sometimes to the depth of a foot or more, in the soil ofthe prairie, which during the season of their emigration was loose and friable, but now from lack of moisture was almost as hard as rock. These paths or trails were some times so thickly covered with the tall grass, that their pres ence was not guessed until the wheels dropped into them. Now and then an axle would be broken, and mishaps of that kind were repaired with the greatest difficulty, because there was so little wood in the neighborhood. But the train was got through in safety, and the fact was reported by a letter to the secretary of war in October 1830. This letter declared the entire practicability of a good wagon road across the mountains, by way of the South Pass, to the great forks of the Columbia, and a copy of it was sent with a special message to Congress by President Jackson in January 1831. The favorable reports made by Ashley, Pilcher, Sublette, Smith and Jackson, of their enterprises in the mountains, which were widely published in government reports and newspapers, and much commented upon in Congress, attract ed the attention of Captain Benjamin L. E. Bonneville of the army, among others, and in 1832, he obtained leave to undertake a fur-trading enterprise into the country west of the mountains on his own account, promising to com bine public utility with his project, "by collecting statisti cal information, for the war department, concerning the wild country and the tribes he might visit." Although his 12 THE RISE AND PROGRESS enterprise was to be conducted without cost to the govern ment, the condition of the leave granted him for two years was that he should collect such information in regard to the country and its native inhabitants as would be useful in case of war. He left Fort Osage, on the Missouri, in May 1832 with twenty wagons, laden with ammunition, traps and trad ing goods, and hauled by oxen or mules. He had a party of one hundred and ten men, mostly hunters and trappers, who knew something of the wilderness, all or nearly all of whom were mounted. They made the journey in safety and without special incident, going over practically the same route that Sublette and Smith had followed, but pushed on across the mountains to the general rendezvous of the fur companies on the Green River. They arrived here late in July, and were the first to take wagons across the Rocky Mountains, and into the Oregon country. Here Bonneville soon learned what competition in the fur trade really meant. The older traders were on the ground when he arrived, and while they received him with many evidences of good fellowship and hospitality, they took every advantage of his inexperience. They enticed his men away, undersold him in trade with both trappers and Indians, and knowing the habits and customs of both, as well as their pecu liar tastes and fancies, while he was entirely ignorant of them, they managed to lose only a small share of their trade on account of his presence, and to render his undertaking almost profitless. Having taken his wagons over the mountains, and so extended the road from Wind River to Green River, by demonstrating that wheeled vehicles could be taken that far, Bonneville did but little more to aid the trailmakers directly. He remained in the wilderness for a whole year after his FO|T WALLA WAfXA? „ Built in 1818 by Peter Skeen Ogden and* Archibald McKinlay, on thl_8 Columbia River, near the present site of Wallula. It waS built of logs, part of which had drifted down the rwS^j and part of which were cut by Hudson's Bay employees ahd floa%e1|*down to it. The picture is from Stevens J iftilroad report. * OF AN AMERICAN STATE 13 leave of absence had expired, where he proved himself to be a poor trader, though a tolerably enterprising and success ful explorer. He made two trips to the Columbia, one of which ended at Fort Walla Walla, where he was hospitably received and entertained by Pierre Pambrun, the trader in charge, who treated him generously as his guest, but when he applied to purchase some supplies of which he stood in need, his genial host "assumed a withering aspect and demeanor, and observed that, however he might feel disposed to serve him personally, he felt bound by his duty to the Hud son's Bay Company to do nothing which should facilitate or encourage the visit of fur traders among the Indians in that part of the country."* On his next visit to the Columbia Bonneville pushed on along the Oregon shore as far as John Day's River, where he was again compelled to turn back by lack of provisions and the lateness of the season. The Indians would furnish him nothing, being completely under the control of the Hudson's Bay Company, and fearful lest they might be deprived of their trade with that concern if they held any communica tion with the Americans. A second application to Fort Walla Walla for supplies was courteously but firmly refused, and finding at last that he could not subsist in the country without bringing supplies overland by pack animals, and that it would be impossible to compete with a wealthy and powerful concern, already established, controlling the Indians and receiving its supplies by sea, upon such terms, he reluctantly gave up the contest. During the years that he was absent on this fur-trading and exploring expedition, part of the time without leave, Captain Bonneville explored a large part of what is now the *The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, Chapter XXXIV. 14 THE RISE AND PROGRESS State of Idaho, and made a trip through Utah and Nevada to California. He also saw something of southeastern Wash ington and more of northeastern Oregon. His journals, subsequently edited by Washington Irving, and published under the title of "The Adventures of Captain Bonneville" in 1837, w'tn tne recommendation of that popular author's name, were widely read and did much to awaken public interest in the far-away country which had now been ours by right of discovery for more than forty years, and by right of exploration and prior settlement for more than twenty, but which was now shown by Bonneville's experience to be in the firm possession of another people. During all the year that Bonneville was roaming through Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and California, a man with a far more definite purpose in view, was making determined and well directed efforts to establish an American trading station on the Columbia. He did nothing to extend the wagon road toward the west, but he did more than anyone else had previously done to locate and open the trail from the point on Green River where Bonneville's wagons had stopped, to the Willamette, and he brought with him more American settlers who remained in the country, than had previously come to it. Nathaniel J. Wyeth was well fitted by nature for such an undertaking as he had planned. Although he knew nothing of the fur business, nor of life in the wilderness, nor had ever had experience as a manager of any considerable under taking of any kind, he succeeded as well in raising capital, organizing his two expeditions, conducting them across the continent and in meeting and opposing the difficulties which he encountered, as he could have hoped to do if he had been prepared by any sort of training or experience. NATHANIEL J. WYETH. This intrepid trader was a native of Boston, and one of the first Americans to make an effort to wrest a share of the fur trade of the coast from the Hudson's Bay Company. His first trip across the continent, made in 1832, failed. A second trip was made in 1834, in which he was accompanied by the first missionaries who came to Oregon. On the way out he built Fort Hall, on the upper waters of the Snake River, which he was later forced to sell to the Hudson's Bay Com pany. ^¦~*r* js swvTr™" OF AN AMERICAN STATE 15 He was a native of Boston, was acquainted with Hall J. Kelly, the enthusiast who has already been mentioned, and the story of whose interest in and work for Oregon will be told more fully in another chapter. He had read his writings, and at one time had contemplated joining with him in organizing a colony to be settled on the Columbia, but finally concluded not to do so, thinking it impracticable for women and children to make such a long, arduous and dangerous journey. Having parted company with Kelly, and aban doned the colonization idea, he determined to organize an expedition of his own for the sole purpose of establishing a trading post at or near the mouth of the Columbia River. His plans were much like those of Mr. Astor. A ship was to be sent around Cape Horn with supplies and trading goods, and as soon as a fort and principal trading station could be constructed, other ships were to follow as occasion required. A party, of which he would be the leader, was to go overland, select a site, build a fort and be ready to receive the ship when she arrived. If the business prospered other stations would be established, to which supplies and goods could be dis tributed by pack animals. As goods could be sent in this way from Boston to the Columbia, as cheaply as they were supplied to the Hudson's Bay Company from London, it was hoped that the new undertaking, although started in this modest and unpretentious way, with a very limited capi tal, might soon be able to compete successfully with the great English monoply. Wyeth had but little capital of his own, but he easily induced a few of his friends and acquaintances to provide a sum sufficient to outfit his expedition, and dispatch the ship Sultana with goods and supplies for the Columbia. Then early in March 1832, with twenty men, he left Boston 16 THE RISE AND PROGRESS by ship for Baltimore, from which point he went by various steamboats and such other means of conveyance as could be found, to Liberty, Missouri. At Baltimore the party was increased by four new members, but by the time Liberty was reached it had been diminished by three who had deserted, and the 27th of May three of the others left him. Falling in with Sublette and Fitzpatrick, the fur traders, who were making their annual trip from St. Louis to their rendezvous on Green River, and who were glad enough to have their small party augmented by eighteen or nineteen enthusiastic young adventurers, they made the journey to and across the mountains in safety, and without encounter ing any noteworthy incident or adventure. At the rendez vous the party was again diminished by desertions, to eleven. These started on July 17th for the Columbia, and ten of them arrived at Cape Disappointment on the 8th of November, the eleventh man having died on the way. Soon after reaching his destination Wyeth learned, very much to his disappointment, that his ship had been wrecked at or near the Society Islands, and its entire cargo lost. He was therefore left without means to pursue his enterprise as he had intended, and all but two or three of his men requested their discharge, which was necessarily granted. Wyeth him self spent the winter at Fort Vancouver, where he was most hospitably entertained, and where the two men who remained loyal to him — John Ball, first and for a short time, and Solomon H. Smith for a much longer time — were employed as schoolteachers. Ball soon returned to the East, because he was not willing to " follow the customs of the country, " where white men took Indian women for their wives, but Smith subsequently married a native woman and remained in the country as a permanent settler. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 17 Although Dr. McLoughlin entertained Wyeth generously as a guest, he was made to understand in various ways that all people who ventured to invade the country for purposes of trade, would be met by the sharpest competition, and that he himself, if he should undertake to renew his enterprise, would be treated in a similar way. But this in no wise dis couraged him, and he set out as early in the spring of 1833 as he could do so with safety, to return to Boston by the way he had come, raise more capital and procure another stock of goods. Although his first undertaking had been disas trous, and all the money invested in it had been lost, he had gained an experience and knowledge of the country that he believed would be worth all it had cost, if he could induce his associates to continue their support, and he was not dis posed to waste it. He made his way back to Boston, accompanied only by one man, during a large part of the journey. Arrived there he secured the capital he required for another adventure, with far less difficulty than he had anticipated, and early in 1834 he dispatched a second ship, the May Dacre, to the Columbia with a cargo of trading goods, and in February left for St. Louis, where he organized a party of seventy men for the return trip. On this second expedition he was accompanied by Prof. Thomas Nutall, lately of Harvard University, then the most eminent botanist in the United States, after Asa Gray, and by Prof. John K. Townsend of Philadelphia, an eminent orni thologist, who had been an associate of Audubon, and his assistant in the preparation and publication of his works. He was also accompanied by Rev. Jason Lee, his nephew Daniel Lee, and two others who were the first American missionaries that ventured into the Columbia River 18 THE RISE AND PROGRESS country, which was now just beginning to be known as Oregon. At St. Louis Wyeth arranged to transport a considerable stock of goods to the rendezvous for Sublette and his part ners, but on arriving there a disagreement arose and he found himself compelled to dispose of the goods direct to the trap pers and Indians. In order to do this he built a fort at a point some two hundred miles or more beyond the rendez vous, and about forty miles northeast of the present city of Pocatello in Idaho, which he named Fort Hall in honor of one of his partners. This fort subsequently became famous as one of the few points where supplies could be obtained, wagons repaired and teams rested on the Oregon trail. The building of this fort consumed more than a month, but after it was so far completed that it could be easily defended, in case of attack, a sufficient number of men were left to defend it and carry on the trade with the Indians, some trapping parties were located in the tributary territory, and the remainder of the party resumed their march for the Columbia, which was reached on the 15th of September. Near Oak Point, where the Winship brothers had attempt ed to establish their station in 1810, Wyeth found his ship awaiting his arrival. She had only recently reached the Columbia, having been eight and one-half months on her voyage, during which she had been struck by lightning and so far injured as to be compelled to put in at Valparaiso for repairs. It had been part of his plan for this second expedition, to engage in the business of taking and salting salmon for the eastern market, as well as in fur trading, but as it was too late to do anything in that line that year, the vessel was sent on a voyage to the Sandwich Islands with a cargo of timber. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 19 She returned in the spring with a supply of cattle, sheep, goats and hogs, sufficient to start a stock farm, and found that during her absence ample preparation had been made to receive them. A site for the main station of the Company had been chosen on Wapatoo, now known as Sauvie's Island, a short distance below the confluence ofthe Columbia and the Willamette. This was the island opposite which the Lewis and Clark party had camped on their way down the river in November 1805, and where their slumbers were much disturbed by "immense numbers of geese, swan, ducks, and other wild fowl, who during the whole night serenaded us with a confusion of voices, which completely prevented our sleeping. " It was a most fertile spot, abounding in game, and had at one time been a favorite resort of the Indians. But the epidemic, which had prevailed so generally among the tribes all along the coast during the three or four years imme diately preceding, had raged with peculiar virulence here, and the place was nearly deserted. In a letter written from this island in April 1835 Wyeth says of it : "On it there is considerable deer, and those who could spare time to hunt might live well, but a mortality has carried off to a man its inhabitants, and there is nothing to attest they ever existed except their decaying houses, their graves and their unburied bones, of which there are heaps. So you see, as the righteous people of New England say, Providence has made room for me, and without doing them more injury than I should if I had made room for myself." Here during the winter, while the ship was absent, the little colony built a fort, which they named Fort William, with houses enough to afford them shelter, shops for working both iron and wood, and barns for their expected animals. They also cleared a considerable tract of ground and in the spring 20 THE RISE AND PROGRESS planted wheat, corn, potatoes, peas, beans and turnips, and some apple and other fruit trees. Every possible prepara tion was made to make their stay permanent, and Wyeth had high hopes that he would be able to maintain successful competition with the Hudson's Bay Company. He expected that the salmon business would be sufficiently profitable to pay all his expenses, and by bringing out goods for trade with the Indians by sea, believed he would be able to send them on pack animals as far east as the rendezvous on Green River, at less cost than the American trappers could deliver them, and that he would even be able to undersell the Hud son's Bay Company, at or in the neighborhood of some of its principal trading stations. But none of these very hopeful expectations were realized. In 1835 Wyeth visited Fort Hall, taking with him a con siderable stock of goods, and in the spring of 1836 returned to Fort William. But the salmon business proved a failure. Even with such help as he could obtain from the Indians, he was not able to secure more than half a cargo for his ship. The epidemic which had prevailed among them now attacked the white men with equal virulence, and some of them, including Wyeth himself, suffered from it for a long time. On the 20th of September 1835, he wrote : "lam now little better from a severe attack of bilious fever. I did not expect to recover, and am still a wreck, and the sick list has been usually one-third of the whole number, and the rest much frightened. Thirteen deaths have occurred, besides some killed in the interior by the Indians. . . . Our sal mon fishing has not succeeded; half a cargo only was ob tained. Our people are sick and die off like rotten sheep, of bilious disorders." In addition to those who thus died from disease fourteen members of the party were lost OF AN AMERICAN STATE 21 by drowning, and other accidents, or were murdered by the Indians. While thus combating disease, disaster in various forms, and disappointment in nearly all of his expectations, he was obliged to meet the sharpest possible competition, with the Hudson's Bay people, in his trade with the Indians. A trading station was opened just across the river from his fort, where goods were sold at prices which he could not well afford to meet, and the Indians, who were thoroughly under the influence of his competitors, soon ceased even to visit him, just as on the opposite side of the mountains they were refusing to visit or trade with Bonneville. But in spite of all his disappointments and discourage ments Wyeth did not complain. The remorseless competi tion of the Hudson's Bay Company was accepted as a thing naturally to be expected. He says of it: "The measures of this company have been conceived with wisdom, steadily pursued, and have been well seconded by their government, and the success has been complete. . . . With out being able to charge on them any very gross violations of the treaties, a few years will make the country west of the mountains as English as they desire. Already the Ameri cans are unknown as a nation, and as individuals their power is despised by the natives of the land. A population is al ready growing out of the occupancy of the country whose prejudices are not with us, and they will decide before many years to whom the country will belong." In 1836 Wyeth gave up the contest and returned to Massa chusetts. The remnants of his property on the Columbia he endeavored to sell in London, to the Hudson's Bay Com pany, and finally did sell Fort Hall, which was subsequently occupied as one of its trading posts for many years. 22 THE RISE AND PROGRESS More of those who came with Wyeth to Oregon in his two expeditions remained in it than had previously come to it with all the other parties that had visited it. Chief among these were Solomon Howard Smith, Calvin Tibbets, T. J. Hubbard, and James A. O'Neal, as well as the missionary party composed of Rev. Jason Lee, Rev. Daniel Lee, and Messrs. P. S. Edwards and Cyrus Shepherd. The next party who materially assisted in extending the Oregon trail toward the west was that led by Dr. Marcus Whitman in 1836. This was a missionary party and was composed of Dr. Whitman and wife, Rev. H. H. Spalding and wife and W. H. Gray. They left the Missouri River with two wagons early in that year, but were only able to bring one of them as far as the rendezvous, which Bonneville's train had reached four years earlier, having been com pelled to abandon the other, with most of their goods, includ ing Spalding's classical books and Dr. Whitman's stock of garden and other seeds on the way. The other wagon they managed to take as far as Fort Hall, under the guidance of John McLeod and Tom McKay of the Hudson's Bay Com pany, whom they met at the rendezvous, and who gave them their protection as well as every assistance they could render them during the remainder of their journey. By the time they had reached Fort Hall all of the party, except Dr. Whitman himself, were convinced that it was not worth while to try to take their wagon further. They had already encountered many difficulties on account of it, that they would have escaped if they had been content to pursue their journey with pack animals only, as their guides and everybody else advised them to do. The wagon had been many times overturned, and it had been got over, around or across many obstacles only by the utmost exertions of all JOSEPH L. MEEK. This adventurous trapper was born in Virginia, but early went to the mountains in search of adventure. He was one of a party of four wbo brought the first wagons from Fort Hall to the Columbia. He subse quently settled in Oregon, ' and was active in the organization of itgjajjggjjisional government. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 23 the members of the party, including their guides. But Whitman was unwilling to abandon it, and he accordingly made a cart of the two hind wheels, on which he lashed the other two and so much of the remaining parts as could be fastened to them, one of Mrs. Whitman's trunks and a few other articles, and this was taken through, with even greater difficulty than had been previously encountered, as far as Fort Boise, a station recently established by the Hudson's Bay Company, to compete with Fort Hall. Here the! wagon was abandoned, and so far as can now be ascertained, was never taken further. The remainder of the journey was accomplished on horseback, under the escort of McLeod and McKay, to Fort Walla Walla, whence the missionaries were sent to Fort Vancouver by the Hudson's Bay Company's boats. No further effort was made to take wheeled vehicles over the remainder ofthe route until 1840, when Dr. Robt. Newell, Joseph L. Meek and Caleb Wilkins, all of whom were Ameri can trappers who had been in the mountains for several years, first drove through to the Columbia River. In the preceding year a missionary party from Quincy, 111., composed of Rev. Harvey Clarke and wife, Alvin T. Smith and P. B. Little- john and their wives, had brought two wagons as far as Fort Hall. At Green River they had fallen in with Newell, Meek, Wilkins, George W. Ebherts, William Doughty, or Doty, and William Craig, who traveled with them from the rendezvous to Fort Hall, Newell being their guide. At that point they determined to leave their wagons, and one of them, together with a set of double harness, was given to Newell in pay ment for his services. The other seems to have been left with Ermatinger, who was then in charge of the fort, in the expectation that it would some day be reclaimed. "From 24 THE RISE AND PROGRESS this place to Fort Boise," says Mr. Clarke, "we packed our baggage and supplies, and rode on horseback ourselves. There had been no open road on the plains; but from Boise in there was a plain trail made by Indians and the fur-com pany men." Newell, Wilkins and Meek had been trapping for several years in the mountains, had married Indian wives, and some of them had growing families of children. They were beginning to weary of the occupations which had at first offered them so many attractions, and become anxious to make themselves permanent homes in some more agreeable country where they might find school and other advantages for their chil dren. They had learned something of the attractions of the Willamette Valley. During the winter of 1839-40 they determined to go there, and Ermatinger, who was then in charge of Fort Hall, went with them. They all knew that it would be very difficult to get the wagons through but they had plenty of time, and thinking they could take their wives and children more conveniently that way than on horseback, they resolved to make the attempt. Years afterwards Dr. Newell, in a letter to Elwood Evans, gave this account of their experience on the journey: "At the time I took the wagons, I had no idea of undertaking to bring them into the country. I exchanged fat horses to the missionaries for their animals; and, after they had been gone a month or more for Willamette, and the American Fur Company had aban- noned the country for good, I concluded to hitch up and try the much-dreaded job of taking a wagon to Oregon. I sold one of those wagons to Mr. Ermatinger, at Fort Hall. On the 15th of August, 1840, we put out with three wagons; Joseph L. Meek drove my wagon. In a few days, we began to realize the difficult task before us, and found that the OF AN AMERICAN STATE 25 — j continued crashing of sage under our wagons, which was in many places higher than the mules' backs, was no joke. Seeing our animals begin to fail, we began to lighten up, fi nally threw away our wagon beds, and were quite sorry we had undertaken the job. All the consolation we had was that we broke the first sage on the road, and were too proud to eat anything but dried salmon skins after our provisions had become exhausted. In a rather rough and reduced state, we arrived at Dr. Whitman's mission station, in the Walla Walla valley, where we were met by that hospitable man, and kindly made welcome, and feasted accordingly. On hearing me regret that I had undertaken to bring the wagons, the Doctor said: 'Oh, you will never regret it; you have broken the ice and when others see that wagons have passed, they too, will pass and in a few years the valley will be full of our people. ' The Doctor shook me heartily by the hand. Mrs. Whitman, too, welcomed us; and the Indians walked around the wagons, or what they called 'horse-canoes,' and seemed to give it up. We spent a day or so with the Doctor and then went to Fort Walla Walla, where we were kindly received by Mr. P. C. Pambrun, chief trader ofthe Hudson's Bay Company, and superintendent of that post. On the ist of October, we took leave of those kind people, leaving our wagons, and taking the river trail; but we proceeded slowly. Our party consisted of Joseph L. Meek and myself, also our families, and a Snake Indian, whom 1 brought to Oregon, where he died a year after our arrival. The party did not arrive at the Willamette Falls (Oregon City) till December, subsisting for weeks upon dried salmon^ and upon several occasions were compelled to swim their stock across the Columbia and Willamette." 26 THE RISE AND PROGRESS No attempt was made to take wheeled vehicles beyond Fort Walla Walla until the settlers began to come in ever in creasing numbers, two or three years later. In 1843 tne tfain with which Judge Burnett, J. W. Nesmith, M. M. McCarver, Jesse Applegate, and several others who afterwards became famous in the early history of Oregon, crossed the plains, after a short rest at Whitman's Mission, pushed on down the Oregon bank of the river as far as the Dalles, where, as was done for several years following, the wagons were taken apart, and with their loads transported on flatboats and other floating contrivances of many kinds down to Fort Vancouver. Two years later S. K. Barlow, who thought "God never made a mountain without some place for a man to go over or under it," determined to go over the range near Mount Hood if he could not go around it. Accordingly, with eighteen men and women, some children, thirteen wagons, sixteen yoke of oxen and seven horses, he set out upon this seemingly impossible undertaking. It proved to be more nearly impossible than even he had supposed, and anyone with less courage and resolution than he possessed would have given it up long before the summit of the great flank of the moun tain, over which they finally made their way, was reached. But Barlow was not the kind of man to turn back, or even to look back once he had put his hand to the plow. Born in Kentucky, the son of a slaveholding father, he had early left home, because he hated the institution of slavery. He long believed that his father would disinherit him because of his opinions on the slavery question, but he had not given them up on that account. Going first to Indiana and then to Illinois to make himself a home in a free State, he finally determined to remove to Oregon, joined the emigration of 1845, ancl was made captain ofthe train with which he came. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 27 Arriving at the Dalles and finding it difficult to find boats to transport their wagons and goods, and almost as difficult to obtain material to make rafts, he announced his deter mination to find or force a way over the mountains, and called for volunteers to accompany him. Eighteen men and women, as above mentioned, finally declared themselves willing to make the attempt, and all of them would have turned back and abandoned it many times if they had not been held together by Barlow's unyielding determination. They left the Dalles early in October and did not reach the Willamette until Christmas day, having been nearly three months in making a distance of not more than eighty miles. During the toilsome journey most of their animals died, or were killed for food. At one time their provisions were so nearly exhausted, and starvation seemed so imminent, that the women began to contemplate the necessity of eating the only dog they had left, old Bruno, who had been much petted by the whole party, and was still tolerably fat. They were, however, relieved from the necessity of making an experi ment with a kind of food which Lewis and Clark had so highly recommended, and which in this case would have seemed something akin to cannibalism, by sending a relief party forward to procure provisions. They were compelled to leave their wagons at the summit, and to complete their journey on foot, or on the backs of such of their animals as remained alive and able to carry them, but all got through in safety. In the following years the road was opened, and so far improved as to be passable for teams with considerable loads. Toll was charged and collected from all who could pay, until Barlow had partly reimbursed himself for the labor and money expended, but for many years it presented a very 28 Rise and Progress of an American State uninviting prospect to the emigrants, and many, if not most of them preferred the river route, in spite of its cost, its dan gers and its inconveniences, to the rugged trail which led them so far above the clouds. In this way, and by these means, and with all these attempts and failures, trials and embarrassments, was the way made passable for wheels from the Missouri to the Willamette. Chapter XIX. DIPLOMACY. THE first attempt to fix the boundary between the Columbia River country and that claimed by Great Britain on the north was made in 1804, when it was found desirable to determine more definitely than had yet been done the line separating the Louisiana territory from the country lying north of it. Louisi ana had been ceded by France to Spain in 1762, retroceded by Spain to France in 1800, and by France sold to the United States in 1803, without any definite description as to its boundaries, either on its northern or western sides. Spain retroceded it to France "with the same extent which it now has, and which it had when France possessed it," and Napoleon almost immediately transferred it to the United States, in the name of the French Republic, "with all its rights and appurtenances, as fully, and in the same manner, as they have been acquired by the French Republic." In each case it was transferred as it had been received, the grantor in neither guaranteeing anything as to its northern or western limits. In the negotiation with Great Britain, had in 1804, the United States claimed the forty-ninth parallel as the boun dary, on the ground that it had been adopted and definitely settled, by commissaries appointed agreeably to the tenth article of the treaty of Utrecht, in 17 13, as the dividing line between the French possessions of western Canada and Louisiana on the south, and the British territories of Hud son's Bay on the north. But it was not possible to show that this had actually been done. It was shown to be probable that commissaries had been appointed, as provided by the treaty, but no evidence that could be relied upon or admitted, could be found to establish the fact beyond dispute, that the forty-ninth parallel, or any 32 THE RISE AND PROGRESS other line, had been adopted, or even proposed by them or by either government. As the negotiators could not agree that a boundary had been regularly fixed, it was necessary for them to fix upon one themselves, if they could do so, and accordingly, after fully considering the matter, the forty-ninth parallel from the Lake of the Woods westward to the Stony Mountains was agreed to. In this connection the first attempt was made to fix the boundary between the territories claimed by the United States and Great Britain on the Pacific Coast, but the nego tiators could not agree. They, however, added this proviso to their description of that part of the boundary about which they had agreed: "that nothing in the present article shall be construed to extend to the northwest coast of America, or to the territories belonging to or claimed by either party on the continent of America, to the westward of the Stony Mountains." This article was approved by both governments, though President Jefferson wished that the proviso in regard to the boundary west of the mountains might be omitted, as it "could have little other effect than as an offensive intimation to Spain that the claims ofthe United States extended to the Pacific Ocean. " Always distrustful of Great Britain, he suspected that her negotiators had a cunning purpose in this proviso, "to strengthen Spanish jealousies of the United States," and therefore, however reasonable our claims on the Pacific might be, he thought it impolitic thus to assert them. He did not send the treaty as thus amended to the Senate for confirma tion, and the boundary question therefore remained unsettled, and was not again discussed between the two nations until 1 8 14. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 33 The attention of the authorities in Washington to our interests on the northwest coast was next demanded by Russia. Diplomatic relations between that country and the United States were first established in 1808, and in the fol lowing year complaint was made to our government that certain American traders were supplying the natives on the North Pacific Coast with firearms and ammunition, to the prejudice of the interest of the emperor and his people in that region, and a desire was expressed that Congress would do something, or that some convention might be concluded between the two nations, by which this "illicit trade" might be stopped. But neither Congress nor Mr. Madison's administration manifested any disposition to do either of the things thus suggested, at the time, and the Russian minis ter of foreign affairs then proposed to Mr. John Quincy Adams, our minister at St. Petersburg, an arrangement by which American ships should supply the Russian settlements on the American side of Bering's Sea, with provisions and trading goods, and transport their furs to the Chinese mar kets, on condition that they would refrain from doing the things that had been complained of while enjoying this trade. Mr. Adams replied, pointing out several reasons why our government could not, with propriety* undertake to do what was proposed, and then inquired "within what limits it was expected that the restrictions should be observed." This inquiry seems to have embarrassed the Russian minister, who did not reply for a considerable time, finding it difficult no doubt, in the light of such facts as were then known about the coast, to propose a limit that he would be willing to be bound by, and that would at the same time not seem ridiculous. In time, however, he replied that "the Russian American Company claimed the whole coast of 34 THE RISE AND PROGRESS America on the Pacific, and the adjacent islands, from Bering's Strait southward to and beyond the mouth of the Columbia River." The correspondence here terminated, and no further reference to the matter was made by either nation for several years. It seems probable that Mr. Astor may have gained some hint from Washington, or elsewhere, in regard to the sugges tion thus made by the Russian minister, and that it may have led him to entertain hopes for a larger trade with the Russian settlements, in connection with his Astoria enterprise, than he would otherwise have looked for. We have seen that he had some correspondence with members of Mr. Jefferson's cabinet, in regard to this undertaking, and Mr. Gallatin says "it met with full approbation, and best wishes for its success," in that quarter. Mr. Astor afterwards claimed that it met with something more, and that he was given assur ances that he never realized, but in those times it was not possible for the government to do much in regions so far away, and moreover it was not then supposed to be one of the functions of government to be very helpful to anybody or anything. After this incident the Columbia River country received no further attention, and demanded none from diplomats until the close of the war of 1812. When our five plenipotentiaries were sent abroad in 18 14 to negotiate the treaty by which that war was brought to a close, it was not known in Washington that Astoria had been formally taken possesson of by the commander of a British war ship, who had been sent there to capture it, and that the flag of the United States had been hauled down and the British flag raised in its stead. But Mr. Monroe, then secretary of state, had, in his instructions to OF AN AMERICAN STATE 35 the plenipotentiaries, charged them to have in mind, " that the United States had in their possession, at the commence ment of the war, a post at the mouth of the river Columbia, which commanded the river, and which ought to be com prised in the stipulations, should its possession have been wrested from us during the war." Agreeable to this in struction our negotiators insisted upon, and procured the insertion of, this clause in the treaty : " that all territory, places and possessions, whatsoever, taken by either party from the other during the war, or which may be taken after the signing of this treaty, excepting the islands hereinafter mentioned" (which are in the Bay of Fundy), "shall be restored without delay." Mr. Clay, who was one of the negotiators on the part of the United States, subsequently claimed, in a speech in the Senate, that he had procured the insertion of the word " pos sessions" in this agreement for mutual surrender, for the express purpose of compelling the restoration of Astoria, if it should turn out that it had been captured. Within a year after the treaty of Ghent, containing this provision, had been signed, Mr. Monroe notified the repre sentative of Great Britain in Washington that the president intended to reoccupy the post at the mouth of the Columbia immediately. This notice was given in July, but it was not until September that Captain Biddle, commanding the sloop of war Ontario, and Mr. J. B. Prevost were commissioned to proceed in that ship to the mouth of the Columbia, and there " assert the claim ofthe United States to the sovereignty of the adjacent country in a friendly and peaceable manner and without the employment of force. " A long correspon dence with the British foreign office followed this action. It was claimed, on the part of England, that Astoria had not 36 THE RISE AND PROGRESS been captured, but had been bought by the Northwest Company, and further that all the territory in its neighbor hood had been early taken possession of in the king's name, and "had since been considered as forming part of his Majesty's dominions." But it was finally admitted that we might rightfully claim restoration, and instructions were issued for carrying it into effect. Mr. Prevost, who by this time was in Chile, was given passage to the Columbia in a British frigate, and upon his arrival early in October 1818, the restoration was formally made. This restoration was a mere ceremony and nothing more. Written instruments were exchanged, in one of which, signed by Captain Hickey of his Majesty's ship Blossom, and J. Keith of the Northwest Company, they asserted that, in obedience to the commands they had received from certain named authorities, representing his Royal Highness the Prince Regent, and in conformity with the first article of the treaty of Ghent, they restored " to the government of the United States, through its agent Mr. J. B. Prevost, Esq., the settle ment known as Fort George on the Columbia River" and Mr. Prevost certified that he had received possession of the "settlement designated above. " The British flag at the fort was then lowered, and that of the United States raised in its place, and duly saluted by the guns of the Blossom. Mr. Prevost then left the country, and the Northwest Com pany remained in it, in the full enjoyment of all the rights and privileges it had ever exercised there. A few years later the Hudson's Bay Company, of which the Northwest Company had then become a part, replaced it, and remained in practical possession for twenty-two years, exercising in it all the powers and functions of an actual government, so far as government was needed. The only OF AN AMERICAN STATE 37 law known or recognized in it was an act of the British Parlia ment, made to be administered there, and the rules and regulations of the Hudson's Bay Company. The flag of the United States was nowhere displayed or seen except upon the rare occasions when some American war ship or trading vessel brought it to the coast. The only ensign regularly dis played was that of the Hudson's Bay Company. And yet this simple ceremony was a formal admission, in terms, of our right to the country as one of our "possessions," and it subsequently became an element of strength in our claim of title. It was an element we probably never should have gained if the captain of the Raccoon, who was so disap pointed when he found that Astoria had been betrayed into the hands of his own people, had been content to swallow his wrath and leave things as he found them. But by going on shore, hauling down the flag of the United States and dis playing his own in its stead, and taking formal possession of the country, as a representative of the armed force of his government in time of war, he prepared the way for a just demand, under the treaty which ended the war, to have that possession restored. In subsequent negotiations held in 1826 an attempt was made, by the plenipotentiaries of Great Britain, to show that restoration could not have been legally claimed by the United States, under the treaty, because the place was not a national possession, nor a military post, and was not taken during the war. It was also claimed that Great Britain had consented to make restitution only in order that no shadow of reflection might be cast upon its good faith, and that particular care had been taken at the time to prevent any misapprehension as to the extent of the concession made. In support of this last named contention, copies of two letters of instruction were 38 THE RISE AND PROGRESS produced, which it was claimed had been furnished by the British ministers to those who were to carry out their orders. One of these was from Lord Castlereagh, in which he declared that while his government was not disposed to contest the point of possession, as it stood in the Columbia River at the moment of the rupture, it was "not prepared to admit the validity of the title of the government of the United States to this settlement. " The other was from Lord Bathurst to the partners in the Northwest Company, directing them to restore the post on the Columbia in pursuance ofthe treaty of Ghent, "without however admitting the right of that government to the possession in question. " It was not claimed or pretended that these conditions had been admitted by the United States, or even that copies of the letters containing them had ever been shown to, or served on, their representatives during the negotia tion, or that they had been informed of them, except verbally. They could not therefore be held to have any authoritative or binding force, and were never seriously regarded. While the arrangements for the restoration of Astoria were still pending and incomplete, Albert Gallatin and Richard Rush were appointed plenipotentiaries, and dis patched to London to negotiate a settlement of several ques tions still pending between the government of the United States and Great Britain. Among these was the question of the northern boundary of Louisiana, and the Columbia River country. The first was not very difficult to arrange at that time, since it had been agreed upon once before. The British negotiators endeavored, for a time, to secure to Brit ish subjects the right of access to the Mississippi and of navigating that river, but finally agreed to accept the OF AN AMERICAN STATE 39 forty-ninth parallel, precisely as it had been described in the treaty of 1804 which had never been given effect. As to the boundary west of the mountains there was more difficulty. Messrs. Rush and Gallatin proposed to make the forty-ninth parallel the boundary there, as well as on their eastern side. The United States had not yet acquired the rights of Spain in that quarter, and therefore they " did not assert that the United States had a perfect right to the country," but they did hold "that their claim was at least good against Great Britain," and in support of this position they cited the discovery of the Columbia by Gray, the ex ploration of it from its source to its mouth by Lewis and Clark, and the first establishment of settlements in the country through which it flows by American citizens. The British representatives on their part based their claims upon the discoveries made by Cook and earlier explorers, and urged with particular emphasis that Sir Francis Drake's voyage had extended as far north as the forty-eighth parallel, a claim which could not, by any means, be satisfactorily established. They also asserted that certain purchases of territory from the natives had been made by British naviga tors, even farther south than the Columbia, prior to the Amer ican revolution. They did not make any specific proposition for a boundary, but indicated that the Columbia was the most convenient which could be adopted, and positively declared that they would not agree to any which did not give them the harbor at the mouth of that river, in common with the United States. As they were not able to show that Cook had seen any part of the coast south of Mount San Jacinto, which had not previously been observed, and in some cases actually visited by Spanish explorers, and as they could present no proof 40 THE RISE AND PROGRESS that purchases had been made from the natives south of the Columbia, these pretensions were not received as having much force, or as being entitled to grave consideration, but their determination to accept no boundary that did not give Great Britain the mouth of the Columbia was so positive, that no argument by the American negotiators could move them from it. After a long discussion of the matter, it was agreed on the 20th of October 1818: "that any country that may be claimed by either party on the northwest coast of America, westward ofthe Stony Mountains, shall, together with its harbors, bays, and creeks, and the navigation of all rivers within the same, be free and open, for the term of ten years from the date of the signature of the present conven tion, to the vessels, citizens and subjects, ofthe two powers; it being well understood that this agreement is not to be con strued to the prejudice of any claim which either of the two high contracting parties may have to any part of the said country, nor shall it be taken to affect the claims of any other power or state to any part ofthe said country; the only object of the high contracting parties, in that respect, being to pre vent disputes and differences among themselves." This convention has commonly been known as the agree ment for joint occupation of the country. Mr. John Quincy Adams, who was secretary of state at the time it was made, subsequently insisted, in a speech in the House of Represen tatives, that it was really an agreement for non-occupation, as its purpose was to leave the queston of title exactly as it was for a period of ten years, during which neither country could, by the acts of its citizens or subjects, gain any advan tage in it. Mr. Greenhow, in his history of Oregon and Cali fornia, defends it as "perhaps the most wise, as well as the most equitable measure which could have been adopted at that OF AN AMERICAN STATE 41 time: considering that neither party pretended to possess a perfect title to the sovereignty of any of those territories, and that there was no prospect of the speedy conclusion of any arrangement with regard to them, between either party and the other claimants, Spain and Russia. The agreement could not certainly, at the time, have been considered unfa vorable to the United States for, although the Northwest Company held the whole trade of the Columbia country, yet the important post, at the mouth of that river, was re stored to the Americans without reservation, and there was every reason for supposing that it would immediately be occupied by its founders; and it seemed, moreover, evident that the citizens of the United States would enjoy many and great advantages over all other people in the country in ques tion, in consequence of their superior facilities of access to it, especially the introduction of steam vessels on the Missis sippi and its branches. " This may have seemed to be good reasoning in 1818, or even in Mr. Greenhow's time, but it left out of account the important consideration that a strong British fur-trading company was already established in the country, while no American was yet within a thousand miles of it. The foreign company had its lines of communication across the mountains established : the trails by which the Americans could reach it were not yet even explored. While the treaty provided that the country should be open equally to the citizens and subjects of both nations, it was impossible, under the cir cumstances, that it could be so. The struggle between the Hudson's Bay and Northwest Fur companies in Canada, which was not ended when this treaty was made, had clearly demonstrated that rival trading concerns could not subsist in the Indian country upon equal terms. The one first on 42 THE RISE AND PROGRESS the ground, especially if backed by the largest capital, had an immense advantage. If it managed the Indians as skil fully as it might, its advantage could be immensely in creased. Its ability to crush out opposition would be absolute, as was amply proved by the experience of Wyeth and Bonneville, whose efforts to establish trade were every where rendered futile, while at the same time their lives, and those of their people, as well as their property, were protected so far as possible by all the influence of their competitors. As individuals they were refused nothing that humanity demanded for them. "Guidance and rest, and food and fire" they never sought in vain. They were hospitably received and even generously entertained upon occasion, as both have abundantly testified. The established company could easily afford all this, because it had abundant resources for its own defense, that it never had occasion to call upon. The Indians supposed at that time to number a hundred thousand, were every where their allies. There was no need to encourage them to make war upon the newcomers. If their inclinations had not been steadily restrained, as there is no lack of proof that they were, the company would have had but little annoy ance from rival traders. Its power to assist or resist the advance of the settlers was as great, or even greater than to crush out its competi tors. It had only to withhold its supplies and settlement would have been next to impossible. It is not pleasant to contemplate what might have been, if it had even no more than refused to help those who could not pay. If the settlers had been left to depend only upon such equal privileges as they could claim under the joint occupation treaty — the priv ilege of coming and remaining as long as they could without OF AN AMERICAN STATE 43 other resources than their own — the settlement of Oregon by Americans would have been long delayed, if not made alto gether impossible. On the other hand if Dr. McLoughlin's enterprises had been encouraged by his company — if a few industrious and thrifty Canadians had been added to the little colony on French prairie, or if some more Scotch high- landers and Orkney men, such as Lord Selkirk had sent to the Red River country a few years earlier, had been sent to the Willamette before 1840, the organization of a provisional government of any kind would have been impossible. It would not then have needed the "thirty thousand settlers, with their thirty thousand rifles," of which Senator Tappan of Ohio spoke in 1843, to have settled the matter. A few hundreds would have accomplished it, and for bringing these few hundreds into the country the Hudson's Bay Company had every advantage. Within a few months after the convention of 1818 had been signed a treaty was concluded between the governments of the United States and Spain by which the latter ceded to the former all its rights and claims of every sort to the possession of the country on the Pacific Coast, north of the forty-second parallel. By this same treaty the United States acquired Florida and the treaty is usually called the Florida treaty. It was concluded after a long negotiation for the settlement of certain claims for indemnity preferred by Americans against Spain, and by Spanish people against the United States, and for the determination of certain matters com plained of by the Spaniards in the way of violations of the neutrality laws by American sailors, in the wars which Spain was then waging upon her revolted American colonies, as well as for the adjustment of the southern and western boundaries of the Louisiana territory. These questions 44 THE RISE AND PROGRESS were so involved that much time and a vast amount of corre spondence were required for their adjustment. It is not necessary to review the entire negotiation here. In the end and as the only part of the result reached which affects the history of Oregon, it was agreed that the western boundary of Louisiana should be fixed on a carefully described line from the mouth ofthe Sabine River to the forty-second paral lel and thence west to the South Sea, Spain ceding to the United States "all its rights, claims, and pretensions to any territories north and east of said line. " Had the long negotiations which resulted in this treaty been concluded a few months earlier, it is hardly probable that the treaty of joint occupation would ever have been made. The claims of the United States, having been strengthened by the addition of those of Spain, would have been too strong to be successfully disputed by Great Britain, and our representatives would not have been justified in con senting to any postponement of their recognition, and although it in effect did do so ten years later, Congress could hardly at this time have consented to admit, as it did by confirming the convention, that our title to the Columbia River country was still subject to question. The charter of the Russian American Fur Company which was originally granted for twenty years, was renewed upon its expiration in 1819, and in 1821 the emperor issued an imperial decree laying claim to all the west coast of North America north of the fifty-first parallel, and all of Asia north of the latitude of 540 40' with all adjacent and intervening islands, and prohibited all foreigners from approaching within a hundred miles of any of these coasts under heavy penalties. When this decree was officially brought to the notice of President Monroe, an explanation of the grounds on which OF AN AMERICAN STATE 45 these pretensions were based was asked for, and a correspon dence followed, which ended in a suggestion from our depart ment of state that a joint convention might be concluded between the three powers having claims to territory in the North Pacific. The suggestion did not meet with favor, and was not accepted by either of the European powers, the prin cipal reason being that President Monroe, in communicat ing to Congress the information that our ministers to Russia and Great Britain had been instructed "to arrange by amicable negotiation the respective rights and interest of the three nations on the northwest coast of the continent," had also announced that "the occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle, in which the rights and interests ofthe United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for colonization by any European powers. " This was the famous Monroe doctrine, though it ought more property to be called the John Quincy Adams doctrine, as Mr. Adams, who was then secretary of state, had expressed it, months earlier, and in similar terms, in the instructions sent to Henry Middleton, our minister to Russia, and Richard Rush, our minister to England.* While it was a general notice to all powers, it was a special and particular notice to England that she was not to attempt to gain any advantage, under the joint occupation treaty, by colonizing the disputed territory on the Columbia, and that was its principal purpose. Against this declaration both Russia and Great Britain protested, and as it did not seem probable that the three powers could reach any conclusion, all hope of making a joint *In letters dated July 22, 1823. 46 THE RISE AND PROGRESS treaty was abandoned, and it was determined that separate negotiations should be continued, as they had been begun, at London and St. Petersburg. At London they were not carried far, nor were they long continued. The English ministers were in no temper to consider any proposals, but their own, with favor. Closely following Mr. Monroe's declaration a select committee had been appointed by the House of Representatives to inquire into the expediency of occupying the mouth of the Colum bia, and the quartermaster general of the army had been called on for a report as to the force likely to be required, and the means that would be necessary, to establish and main tain control there. This was regarded in London as an addi tional cause of offense and General Jessup's reply as another, for he expressed the opinion that the possession and military command of the Columbia and upper Missouri were neces sary for the protection, not only of our fur trade, but also of the whole western frontier which was still practically in the possession of powerful and warlike tribes of savages. He advised that a force of two hundred men should be dis patched overland to the Pacific, while guns, ammunition and other necessary supplies should be sent them by sea, and that four or five intermediate posts should be established at suitable points between Council Bluffs, then the most remote outpost occupied by American troops, and the station on the Columbia. "By such means," said General Jessup, " present protection would be afforded to our traders, and, on the expiration of the privilege granted to British subjects to trade on the waters of the Columbia, we should be enabled to remove them from our territory, and to secure the whole trade to our own citizens." The suggestion that any other government than that of Great Britain could grant privileges OF AN AMERICAN STATE 47 in any country to which it laid claim, and particularly that any persons whom it had favored by such grants might be removed from it, was received with particular disfavor, and following so closely, as it did, the president's frank declar ation in regard to colonization, made negotiation next to im possible. Nevertheless the conferences were begun. For the first time in all the negotiations with Great Britain in reference to the northwest territory, the representatives of the United States were in position to name definite boundaries for the country claimed. The cession by Spain of all its claims and pretensions in this neighborhood had cleared the way for this, and Mr. Rush began by claiming the whole coast from the ocean to the mountains, and from the forty- second parallel on the south, to the fifty-first on the north, which boundaries, as was then supposed, included all or nearly all the territory drained by the Columbia and its tributaries. He based this claim, as before, on the discovery of Gray, the exploration by Lewis and Clark, the settlement by the Astor party, and in addition upon the restitution formally made by Great Britain to the United States after the war of 1812, as well as upon the cession of all the claims of Spain, which had been made after the close of the negotiations in 1818, and he insisted, as he had been instructed to do, "that no part ofthe American continent was thenceforth to be open to colonization from Europe." The English negotiators, Messrs. Huskisson and Canning, on their part, denied that the visit of a trading ship to a river hitherto unknown could give any claim of title by discovery to the country whose flag it carried. Moreover they insisted that earlier discoveries had been made in that neighborhood, and along the coast, by British ships "fitted out under the authority and with the resources of the nation. " They also 48 THE RISE AND PROGRESS insisted that British subjects had made settlements on the Columbia, or its tributaries, as early, or perhaps earlier than any made by Americans. They contended that the restora tion of Astoria had been made in fulfillment of the treaty of Ghent, and that it did not affect the question of the rights of the two powers in any way. As to the claims of Spain, they professed to believe them of such doubtful value as to be quite unworthy of recognition, and as in former negotia tions, they referred to the voyage of Drake, which they again claimed had extended as far north as latitude 480, which was several degrees farther than any Spaniard had pretended to have reached at that early date. As to the later Spanish explorers they refused to admit that any title could be derived from what they had done, since at most it could only be shown that they had observed the shore from a distance, and no where set foot on it. Finally they positively asserted that their government would never assent to the claim set forth by Mr. Rush respecting the territory watered by the Colum bia and its tributaries, for besides being objectionable in its general bearings, it in effect interfered with the actual rights of Great Britain, derived from use, occupancy and settle ment. At the same time they asserted that " they considered the unocccupied parts of America just as open as heretofore to colonization by Great Britain, as well as by other European powers, agreeably to the convention of 1790, between the British and Spanish governments, and that the United States would have no right to take umbrage at the establishment of new colonies from Europe in any such parts of the American continent. " There being little hope of a final definite agreement, Mr. Rush at length proposed that any country west of the moun tains that was claimed by both powers, should be free and OF AN AMERICAN STATE 49 open to the citizens and subjects of both, for ten years from the date of agreement, provided that during this period no settlements should be made by British subjects north of the fifty-fifth or south ofthe fifty-first parallels, nor by Americans north of the last named line; and this proposition he subse quently amended by substituting the forty-ninth for the fifty- first parallel. The British negotiators then, for the first time, definitely proposed that the boundary line between the territories of the two nations should be the forty-ninth parallel, from the mountains westward to the northeasternmost branch of the Columbia, then called MacGillivray's River, and thence down the middle of that stream to the Pacific, the British to have the country north and west of that line, and the United States that on the east and south; provided that the citizens or sub jects of both nations should be equally at liberty, during the space of ten years, to pass by land or water through all the territory on both sides ofthe boundary, and to retain and use their establishments already formed in any part of them. This they said was a proposition from which Great Britain would positively not depart, and as no agreement could be reached by parties whose views differed so widely, the negotiation was broken off. The proposition thus made by the British plenipotentiaries in this negotiation, to make the Columbia River the boundary, seems to have been regarded by the officials ofthe Hudson's Bay Company as an expression of a fixed determination to ask for or at least to expect no more than the territory lying west and north of it. Perhaps that was the determination, for Dr. McLoughlin in his memoir says he was officially informed in 1825, by the Hudson's Bay Company, "that in no event could the British government claim extend south of the 50 THE RISE AND PROGRESS Columbia." All that the British negotiators claimed in addition, in subsequent negotiations, they seem to have claimed only as a means of strengthening their hold upon that region. It was for a long time feared, indeed it was by many confidently asserted, that the ultimate intention of the British ministers, and the Hudson's Bay Company, was to secure all of Oregon. It was even asserted long after the boundary question was finally settled, by some who pretended to write history, that subtle influences were long at work with the purpose of defeating our claims to any part of the country, and that those who were for the time being charged with the duty of guarding our interests thought so lightly of them that they would willingly have seen them sacrificed. But there is absolutely no ground for such statements. The suggestion made by our representatives in the first negotia tion for fixing the northern boundary of Louisiana in 1804, that the forty-ninth parallel be extended to the Pacific, was never varied from, except to suggest a line further north. It is easy now to understand why England so ardently desired the free navigation of the Columbia, and possession of the country west and north of it, and why she should so willingly resign all on the east and south. The value of the great interior valleys of Washington, Oregon and Idaho, were not known or guessed before the boundary question was finally settled. The great sagebrush plains were sup posed to be nothing better than a desert, and were so repre sented even to a much later day, on all maps. The Hudson's Bay agents and trappers found some good hunting ground in the Snake River valley, and along the upper waters of the Columbia and its tributaries, but its possession was not essential to their business. There was abundant fur-bearing OF AN AMERICAN STATE 51 territory elsewhere, and so long as they could keep the Colum bia as a means of access to it, they could spare all the country lying south and east of it, when in time they should be re quired to give it up. Of the value of the Willamette and western Oregon they were not ignorant, but the river was the natural dividing line : it was better to sacrifice a part, how ever desirable, rather than jeopardize all that was most desirable. Even before the eighteenth century began England was a vast workshop. Her factories rapidly increased their produc tive power; her home market was limited. To keep the facto ries going, and so provide employment for people who would otherwise be idle, it was necessary to give them assistance and encouragement of a kind precisely the opposite of that which the United States has found desirable. New markets must be found, and access to them provided, and so ship building was encouraged and England rapidly became the dominant power of the world. As such she quickly recog nized the value of a great inland sea like Puget Sound, the one ample harbor in a long and otherwise unbroken line of coast. It was easy of access, and Vancouver's report of his voyages had shown that there was but one other, that in any way approached it in value, on the whole western side ofthe continent. By making the Columbia River the boundary of her claims she would secure the free navigation of that river, as well as the grander harbor, with an abundance of the best shipbuilding material, of the kind then used, con veniently at hand. Possessing these she might rest secure, and in time control the commerce of the Pacific, as she al ready controlled that of the Atlantic and so continue to extend the markets for the ever-increasing products of her factories. These were the objects she steadily had in view 52 THE RISE AND PROGRESS in all negotiations pertaining to the coast, and to secure them it is not surprising that she should be willing to relin quish all others. While the negotiations above described were going on in London, a convention with Russia had been arranged by our minister resident at St. Petersburg, and it was signed in that city on April 5, 1824. It consisted of five articles, four of which pertained to matters of trade and navigation, and the third as numbered in the instrument itself, provided that neither the United States nor their citizens should, in future, make any settlements on the coast of North America, north of the latitude of 540 40', and that the subjects of Russia should make none south of it. The Russian govern ment construed this agreement as giving it the absolute sov ereignty of all the country north of the limit specified. It did not however regard it as giving the United States a similar sovereignty south of it, and in the February following con cluded a similar convention with Great Britain. The latter more particularly defined the boundary ofthe Russian posses sions on their eastern and northeastern side, and yet it was not so indisputably fixed but that it became the subject of arbi tration between the United States, as the successor of Russia, and Great Britain, in 1903. When the ten-year limit, specified in the convention for joint occupancy of 18 18, was about to expire, a new negotia tion became necessary. John Quincy Adams was then presi dent and Henry Clay was his secretary of state, while Mr. Gallatin was our minister to Great Britain. All these were thoroughly familiar with our claims to the Columbia River territory. All had taken part in or directed the earlier nego tiations in regard to them. But conditions had materially changed since the first convention had been signed. The OF AN AMERICAN STATE 53 Hudson's Bay Company and the Northwest Company had composed their difficulties and were now united. The new and stronger company had established itself in the territory in dispute, had in it several trading posts and forts, some of which were well provided with war material, and could easily be defended in case of attack. It had acquired great influence over the Indians, and established a very profitable business among them. It had cultivated farms and stocks of cattle. On the other hand no citizen of the United States had been able to found a permanent abiding place in the country. Some two or three hundred American trappers pursued their calling in the eastern part of it, but if they strayed far away from their base of supplies on Green River they soon became aware that they were in a country not their own. A foreign corporation was supreme in it. Foreign law, made by the British Parliament especially to be administered in it, was the only law known or recognized. A single individual, living in a palisaded fort on the north bank of the Columbia, near the mouth of the Willamette, governed it as autocratically as if he had been a feudal lord in the time of Charles Martel. " To the difficulties occasioned by the clash of such material interests, in this particular case, " says Mr. Greenhow, " were added those arising from the pride of the parties, and their mutual jealousy, which seems ever to render them adverse to any settlement of a dis puted point, even though it should be manifestly advantageous to them both." Under such circumstances it did not seem probable that a settlement ofthe boundary question would be reached, even by the able and experienced diplomats who were to direct the negotiations on our part, and it was not. Knowing each other so intimately; understanding so thoroughly, all the details of the matter in controversy, as 54 THE RISE AND PROGRESS Messrs. Adams, Clay and Gallatin undoubtedly did; antici pating all the difficulties that were likely to be raised by the opposing negotiators, as from long experience they would be able to do, there was perhaps less need for formal instruc tions to the one member of this trio who was to meet the British plenipotentiaries face to face, in their own capital, where they could so readily confer with their superiors, and where they would have the added advantage of easy access to all records and documents that. could have a possible bearing on the subject to be considered, than in any previous nego tiation of equal importance. And yet formal instructions were duly prepared by Mr. Clay, no doubt with the willing assistance ofthe president, and they were ofthe most positive and definite kind. " You are then authorized to propose, " says the letter which is dated June 19, 1826, "the annul ment of the third article of the convention of 18 18, and the extension of the line on the parallel of forty- nine, from the eastern side of the Stony Mountains, where it now terminates, to the Pacific Ocean, as the permanent boundary between the territories of the two powers in that quarter. This is our ultimatum, and so you may announce it." This was the first announcement of an ultimatum of either side, and it will be well to observe that our government never wavered in regard to it until the controversy was finally settled. Strictly, the extension of the line "to the Pacific Ocean" would have given us a part of Vancouver Island, but to insist upon this would be to contend for a bad boundary line, when a natural and most excellent one could be had by accepting the Strait of Fuca, as was done, or by contending for all of Vancouver Island, as with excellent reason, we might have done. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 55 At the first conference the British negotiators, Messrs. Huskisson and Addington, announced that their govern ment was willing to abide by the proposition made in 1824, which was to accept the forty-ninth parallel as far west as the northeastern branch of the Columbia, and the middle of that river from that point to the sea. Mr. Gallatin, as he had been instructed to do, repeated the offer that he and Mr. Rush had made in 1818, for the adoption ofthe forty-ninth parallel from the mountains to the ocean. But he offered to stipulate in addition, that if this line should be found to cross any navigable branch of the Columbia, the navigation of such branch, and of the river itself, should be perpetually free and common to the people of both nations. He also proposed that all settlements already formed by the people of either nation — and none but the English had formed any — within the limits of the other, might be occupied for a period of ten years, and no longer, during which all the remaining provisions of the existing convention should remain in force. But the British commissioners would not accept this, nor any other proposition that would deprive them of the north bank of the river, and the country beyond it, together with the right of navigating the river throughout its whole length. They proposed, however, to set off to the United States a "detached territory" comprising all ofthe Olympic peninsula west of the east shore of Hood's Canal, and north of Gray's Harbor, and also to agree that no works should be erected by either party at the mouth of, or on the banks ofthe Colum bia, calculated to impede the free navigation of that river. Neither of these propositions could be accepted and all at tempt to fix the boundary was again postponed. Effort was then made to find some ground for an agree ment to extend the arrangement for joint occupancy. The 56 THE RISE AND PROGRESS British negotiators proposed an extension for fifteen years; that during those years neither power should assume or exerr cise sovereignty, and that no settlements then made, or that might be made thereafter, should ever be adduced in support of such sovereignty. This proposition Mr. Gallatin referred to his superiors in Washington although confident it would not be accepted. While awaiting an answer, which could not be hoped for for several months, the whole question was reviewed and con sidered much more fully, and seemingly in far better temper than ever before. All the former contentions by both par ties were restated and discussed, both orally and in writing, and some new ones offered. Among those presented by the British negotiators are some that are so curious and incon sistent, that it seems hardly probable that they could have been seriously offered. For example they urged that Meares had discovered the mouth of the Columbia four years before Gray saw it, and yet admitted that "Mr. Gray, finding him self in the bay formed by the discharge of the waters of the Columbia into the Pacific, was the first to ascertain that this bay formed the outlet of a great river, a discovery that had escaped Meares." How Meares could have discovered a river, from the ocean, without finding the bay through which it flowed to the ocean they did not explain. The president declined the proposition for renewing the joint occupation arrangement for fifteen years, with the con ditions proposed by the British plenipotentiaries, for the reasons, as stated by Mr. Clay, that in so far as they tended to prevent the United States from exercising exclusive juris diction at the mouth ofthe Columbia River, it would be con trary to their rights as acknowledged by the treaty of Ghent, and by the restitution ofthe place made in accordance with it; OF AN AMERICAN STATE 57 that the proviso did not define what might be regarded as an exercise of exclusive sovereignty, and that from the nature of the institutions of the United States, their rights in the territory must be protected, and their citizens must be secured in their lawful pursuits by some species of government, differ ent from that which it has been or may be the pleasure of Great Britain to establish there. In the many conferences between the negotiators, held while waiting for this answer from the United States, and in their written statements, Messrs. Huskisson and Addington frankly admitted that their government claimed no exclusive right of sovereignty over any territory lying between the forty-second and forty-ninth parallels. All that it claimed was a right of joint occupancy in common with other nations, and that all it sought to do for the present was to establish its rights of trade, navigation and settlement therein. They admitted that the right of the United States was equal to that of Great Britain. Evidently their hope was, and that of their government was, that by claiming an interest in the whole, in common with others, they would finally secure the smaller part which they were now definitely committed to accept. Various proposals were next made by both sides for extend ing the joint occupation agreement for a definite term, but all were rejected. Notice was given by both sides that they would no longer be bound by the definite proposals they had made for a boundary line. Finally on the 6th of August 1827, a new convention was signed, by which the whole country in dispute was left free and open, as before, to the citizens and subjects of both countries, but for an indefinite period, though it could be terminated at any time by one govern ment giving a year's notice to the other. 58 Rise and Progress of an American State This convention remained in force for nearly nineteen years. No further negotiation between the two countries in regard to boundaries was had until 1843, when the question of the boundary between Maine and Canada was settled, by what was known as the Ashburton treaty, which was negotiated by Mr. Webster, who was then secretary of state in the cabinet of President Tyler. In this negotiation the question of the Oregon boundary had no part, but many people thought it had, and much interest was felt in it for that reason. For many years after it had been concluded, and had become a part of the supreme law of the land, it was asserted that Mr. Webster thought so little of Oregon, that he had even offered to abandon it to England in exchange for some disputed fishing privileges on the Atlantic side, but there is no evidence of this in the record, and the charge has been frequently denied by those who ought to have known, and doubtless did know, what the facts were. The truth is that we were never in danger of losing any part of Oregon through the fault of our negotiators or executive officers. At no time did they offer to accept any boundary south of the forty-ninth parallel, and on one occasion at least they claimed one much farther north. The danger of the situa tion lay in the joint occupation agreement, and the advan tages that Great Britain might have gained under it. Had she made any effort to colonize the country with permanent settlers, or had Chief Factor McLoughlin's plans received even moderate encouragement from his company, the whole history of the settlement of Oregon might easily have been different. Chapter XX. EARLY DELIBERATIONS IN CONGRESS. FROM the time of Gray's discovery until the year 1820, the Columbia River country received but little attention from Congress. The fact that any such discovery had been made was known only to a few people in the United States, until Vancouver announced it in the report of his voyages, published in 1798. Five years later President Jefferson suggested that a modest expedition be sent out to explore the line of possible trade along the upper Missouri, "and even to the western ocean." Twenty-five hundred dollars, "to be used for the purpose of extending the external commerce of the United States," were appropriated for this purpose, and the Lewis and Clark expedition was started on its long journey. Then the matter was dropped again, except when some member of the opposi tion rose in his place to criticise the president for sending good soldiers and brave men on such a perilous undertaking, that promised so little return, or for blindly hoping to find a habitable country in a region so remote as that lying along the shore of the Pacific Ocean. The negotiations begun or concluded in the admin istration of Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison, in regard to the boundary question, required but little attention from the legislative branch. But during the last year of Mr. Monroe's first term, some members of the lower house began to arouse themselves to the fact that we had some interests on the Columbia that deserved their attention. From that time forward the subject was not neglected. There is no longer any ground for a charge of want of atten tion; the difficulty was not that our claims were not fully considered, but that little was done about them. Measures of various kinds for strengthening them, for taking actual 62 THE RISE AND PROGRESS possession of the country, for encouraging trade in or settle ment of it, were proposed and ably and fully discussed. The reports of these debates as contained in the Annals of Congress, or even in Benton's Abridgement and his Thirty Years' View occupy many pages, and have a peculiar interest at the present day, because they show that many statesmen of that time were much better informed in regard to the nature and value of Oregon, and the advantages it offered to the settler, than is now generally supposed, and also that their views varied widely as to what its future destiny should be. The sources from which reliable information could be obtained, when it was first proposed that Congress should legislate for or about the country were few. Vancouver's report of his voyage described the coast, the shores of Puget Sound, of Fuca's Strait, and of the Columbia River for a short distance only above its mouth. The journals of Lewis and Clark, and Sergeant Patrick Gass, described with some detail the physical features of that part of the interior through which the expedition had passed, its flora and fauna, and its climate. Hall J. Kelly, Harvard graduate and Boston schoolteacher, one of those curiously energetic people, who do much to arouse others, and induce them to undertake good or evil enterprises, but who accomplish little or nothing themselves, had published part of the much he wrote during his life to awaken interest in the country which his fellow townsmen had discovered, less than a generation earlier. There were still living members of the Astor party from whom information could be had by letter or otherwise, and a few ship captains who had seen the coast and some of its principal harbors, and knew much about the fur trade and whale fisheries. But our own fur traders had not as yet passed OF AN AMERICAN STATE 63 the mountains and remained there. Ashley, Lisa, and the Choteaus, Sublette, Smith, Jackson, Dripps and Fitzpatrick were still following the Missouri, and had not begun to ex plore the Platte. Neither Long nor Pike, nor any other of our earlier explorers, had yet started westward. Missouri, the first State formed west of the Mississippi, was knocking at the door of Congress, but not yet admitted. Mr. Benton, in his Thirty Years' View, says that Ramsay Crooks and Mr. Russel Farnham, both of whom had been in the Astor expedition to the mouth of the Columbia, were at the hotel in Washington at which Dr. John Floyd of Virginia lived during the winter of 1820-21. Dr. Floyd'was a member of the House of Representatives and like Benton, who was a fellow boarder, was much interested in the conversation of these fur traders, who had traveled so far through lands about which so little was then known. He listened atten tively to all they had to say, and although the joint occupa tion agreement, made in 1818, still had eight years to run, he resolved to bring up the question of occupying the country, and on December 19th he moved for the appointment of a committee of three "to inquire into the settlements on the Pacific Ocean and the expediency of occupyiny the Columbia River." The committee was granted and Dr. Floyd was made chairman, with Thomas Metcalf of Kentucky and Thomas V. Sewearingen of Western Virginia as the other two members. Within six days after their appointment they had prepared a bill "to Authorize the Occupation of the Columbia River Country, and to Regulate Trade and Inter course With the Indians," and they presented it to the House, accompanied by an elaborate report, containing much infor mation in regard to the fur trade, the whale and other fisher ies, and the resources of the new country, particularly that 64 THE RISE AND PROGRESS part of it lying on the coast and along the Columbia River. They held that our title to this country was complete, as in accordance with the usage of nations, " the power which dis covered a country was entitled to the whole extent of land watered by the springs of the principal river, or water course passing through it, provided there was settlement made, or possession taken with the usual formalities. " This report was not discussed at that session, but at the opening of a new Congress in the following December, Messrs. Floyd, Baylies of Massachusetts and Scott of Missouri were appointed a committee to make inquiry, as the former committee had done, and they reported a bill which was debated at considerable length in committee of the whole, Floyd, Baylies and Wright of Maryland speaking in its favor and Mr. Tucker of Virginia opposing. Mr. Floyd and Mr. Baylies presented a surprising array of facts in regard to the fur trade and fisheries of the country, and urged the import ance of taking immediate possession, so as to secure the trade with China, the Russian possessions and the islands of the Pacific, then just in its infancy, though certain to become important. Mr. Floyd contended that the route to the mouth ofthe Columbia was easy, safe and expeditious, and pointed out that the country could now be almost as readily reached as Louisville and other points on our western frontier could have been only a few years previously, for steam navigation had already reduced the time of a journey from Louisville to New Orleans and return, from one hundred and twenty, or one hundred and thirty, to twenty-three days, and he believed that in point of time, the mouth ofthe Colum bia was already not farther distant from our present settle ments, than Louisville was thirty years ago from New York, or St. Louis twenty years earlier from Philadelphia. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 65 Mr. Tucker of Virginia alone opposed the measure with argument. He had no wish to accelerate the progress of population toward the west, although he considered it inevit able that it must continue to increase. It was in the nature of things, he thought, that there must be a permanent separa tion of interests between the people on the east side and those on the west side of the Rocky Mountains, when the country there should become settled. Those living on the west coast would have no inducement to trade with those on the east; they would have no interest in common; their connection, if they could remain connected, would be an inconvenience and burden to both. He did not believe in a system of colo nization; if we established settlements on the Columbia it would be necessary to give large discretionary powers to those who would govern them, and he had no wish to see introduced among us those distant praetorships whose existence was so pernicious in the days of the Roman Empire. It is noteworthy that in this early debate mention was made of a canal through the Isthmus of Panama. Mr. Wright of Maryland said that such a waterway would be of so great value, and of such importance, that the world would not long permit it to remain neglected. The bill which the committee presented, and which had been so ably debated, did not succeed. The final vote on it in the House, taken on January 27, 1823, resulted in sixty-one votes in its favor to one hundred against it. It was doubt less never intended or expected that it would become law. The joint agreement with England still had more than six years to run, and many believed that any attempt on the part of the United States to take possession, as proposed, would have been an act of bad faith, and would almost certainly 66 THE RISE AND PROGRESS have resulted in war. At this stage no one seemed to per ceive what Mr. Everett clearly pointed out in a later debate, that the United States had a clear right to take possession in the same form as Great Britain had. The object of the committee in presenting the measure doubtless was to arouse interest and thoroughly inform the country as to the value of our rights on the Columbia. At the beginning of the next session, in December 1823, Mr. Floyd again moved for the appointment of a committee, and seven members were named, with himself as chairman, after the usual custom. This committee reported a bill in January 1824 which subsequently passed the House by a vote of one hundred and thirteen to fifty-seven, but like the former measure, it was thought to be so plain a violation of the con vention of 1818 that it was laid on the table in the Senate by a vote of twenty-five to fourteen, after a debate which occu pied a large part of two days. In this debate Mr. Barbour of Virginia and Mr. Benton of Missouri favored the bill, while Mr. Dickerson of New Jersey opposed it. Mr. Benton, who was the last speaker, ably reviewed the whole history of the negotiations, so far as they had taken place, and all the circumstances out of which the claims of title of both countries arose. Both he and Mr. Barbour contended that the claim of Great Britain was without foundation, and that the United States could yield no further than it had done. Mr. Barbour believed that our title could be held "as unques tionable many degrees to the north of the proposed settle ment," which was the forty-ninth parallel. He reviewed the objections urged, first among which was that the posses sion of the Columbia River country would give us "an unwieldy extent of empire." He held that we must either settle the country ourselves, or give it to some European OF AN AMERICAN STATE 67 power, and that, he was confident, no senator would propose. The territory was not to be kept as a jungle for wild beasts. That was not in the order of providence. The movement of population toward the west was already irresistible. Fifty years earlier the valley of the Mississippi was as wild as that of the Columbia now was, and yet it was already "teeming with a mighty population — a friendly and happy people." Its history would without doubt be repeated in the valley ofthe Columbia. Mr. Dickerson said this country had never adopted a sys tem of colonization and he hoped it never would. Oregon could never be one ofthe United States; if we extended our laws to it we must consider it as a colony. The Union was already too extensive. To further enlarge it would plant the seeds of dissolution. Every member of Congress ought to see his constituents once a year, but at the rate of travel by which senators now reached the capitol and returned from it, a representative of Oregon would require four hun dred and sixty-five days to come to the seat of government and return, and if he were not inclined to travel on Sunday, he would require five hundred and thirty-one days. If, by hard travel, he should be able to make thirty miles a day instead of twenty, the usual rate, and should rest on Sundays, three hundred and fifty days would be re quired, and he would only be able to remain at Wash ington a little more than two weeks each year, and would have no time to spend with his constituents after he should return. During the course of his reply Mr. Benton used the fol lowing language, which sounds strangely to those who are familiar with the positon he so strongly maintained during the later years of his life : 68 THE RISE AND PROGRESS " In planting the seeds of a new power on the coast of the Pacific Ocean it should be well understood that, when strong enough to take care of itself, the new government should separate from the mother empire as the child separates from the parent at the age of manhood. The heights ofthe Rocky Mountains should divide their possessions, and the mother Republic would find herself indemnified for her cares and expenses about the infant power, in the use of a post on the Pacific Ocean, the protection of her interests in that sea, the enjoyment of the fur trade, the control of the Indians, the exclusion of a monarchy from her border, the frustration of the hostile schemes of Great Britain, and above all in the erection of a new Republic devoted to liberty and equality, and ready to stand by her side against the combined powers of the old world. Gentlemen may think this is looking rather deep into the chapter of futurity, but the contrary is the fact. The view I take is both near and clear. Within a century from this day a population greater than that of the present United States will exist on the western side of the Rock Mountains. "* The entire population of the country would then be one hundred and sixty millions, of which "one hundred millions will drink the waters which flow into the Mississippi, and sixty millions will be fed on the lateral streams which flow east and west toward the rising and setting sun. " In closing he said : " The proposition is to execute the Ghent treaty; to expel the British from the Columbia River; to perfect our title by reducing the disputed territory to pos session; and whatever use we may make of it afterwards, whether we shall hold it as a military post or naval station, settle it as a colony or found a new republic upon it, there are ?Debate in Congress— Eighteenth Congress, Second Session, Vol. I, pp. 699-713. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 69 certain preliminary points on which he believed that both the Senate and the people of the United States would cordially agree, viz., neither to be tricked nor bullied out of their land, nor to suffer a monarchical power to close up upon it. " It was in the opening of this session of Congress that President Monroe had, in his message, made the declaration in regard to the colonization of this continent by European powers, that had so much interfered with the negotiations then about to begin between the United States, Great Britain and Russia, and it was in answer to an invitation from Mr. Floyd's committee of seven, that General Jessup of the army had presented his report which had also given much offence abroad. This report contained a great deal of valuable information, not only in regard to the country and its natural resources, but also as to the routes by which it might be reached, and the difficulties of making them practicable for travel. "These difficulties are not impossibilities," it said. We had only to refer to the chapters of our own history to learn that many undertakings, infinitely more arduous, had been accomplished by Americans. He believed he could say without fear of contradiction "that the detachment might be supplied during the whole route with less difficulty than, in the war of 1756, was experienced in supplying the forces operating under Generals Washington and Braddock. " In the debate in the House which took place in December 1 824, Mr . Floyd again urged the passage of his bill, in a forcible speech, in which he reviewed the arguments formerly made, and urged more at length than he had previously done, the value ofthe country, both on account ofthe natural resources it contained — on which subject he displayed a surprising amount of information for that day — and because of the desirability of taking possession of it at once, in order that 70 , THE RISE AND PROGRESS we might control the trade with China, whence would come the riches of the East, which had been sought by all the great commercial powers of the world from the time of Solo mon. He was supported by Mr. Buchanan of Pennsylvania, afterwards president, and Mr. Taylor of New York, by Mr. Smyth of Virginia and by Mr. Trimble of Kentucky, the latter contending that if we delayed much longer in asserting our rights, England might, at the expiration of the treaty, say to us, "Your mutual right of trade and navigation have been accorded thus far, and you have enjoyed it for the full term stipulated; but now the rights of both parties are re turned back to their actual conditions at the date of the treaty at London. At that day we were in possession and, your mutual privileges being now ended, you must cease to trade with the Indians, or navigate these waters, until the king shall grant you the renewal of the favor in another treaty." Thus our rights will cease . . . and instead of our people having the exclusive right to trade there, after October 1828, we shall be excluded from the trade entirely. In his last message to Congress at the opening to the session in December 1824, President Monroe suggested the establishment of a military post at the mouth ofthe Columbia, and President John Quincy Adams renewed the suggestion in his message in December 1826, and further recommended that a public ship be equipped " for the exploration of the whole northwest coast of the continent. " This part of the latter message was referred by the House of Representatives to a select committee, by which two reports were subse quently made, that were so full and complete, and contained so much information not previously accessible, that they were frequently referred to and quoted in subsequent debates. OF AN AMERICAN STATE .71 They were also printed for general distribution, and helped in a material way to inform the people as to what Oregon really was. All that Lewis and Clark had said of it was carefully summarized, in the latter report, which was the more valuable of the two, and the climate, products and all the other natural advantages, particularly ofthe great interior portions of the country, were carefully described. "These advantages," the report says, "great as they now are, will be trifling in comparison to what they will be, whenever a water communication between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, through the Isthmus, dividing North and South America, shall have been effected. Of the practicability of this com munication there is no doubt. If Humboldt is to be believed, the expense at one place would not exceed that of the Dela ware and Chesapeake Canal. Should it be done, a revolu tion in commerce will be effected, greater than any since the discovery of America; by which both the power and the objects of its action will be more than doubled. The Indian commerce of Europe will pass through the Americas, and more commercial wealth will be borne upon the ample bosom of the Pacific, than ever was wafted over the waves of the Atlantic, in the proudest days of the commercial greatness of Spain, Portugal, France, Holland and Eng land. If it were given to a civilized, commercial and manufacturing people where to choose their place of rest, the world affords no position equal to this, and it requires no prophetic spirit to foresee the wealth and grandeur of that fortunate race, whose happy destiny shall have placed their ancestry in this beautiful region. " After discussing at considerable length Great Britain's policy of extending her dominion in every sea, the report continues: "What then remains to enable her to encompass 72 THE RISE AND PROGRESS the globe ? Columbia River and de Fuca's Strait. Pos sessed of these she will soon plant her standards on every island in the Pacific. Except the Columbia there is no river which opens far into the interior on the whole western shore of the Pacific Ocean. There is no secure port or naval station from 39 degrees to 46 degrees. The possession of these waters will give her command of the North Pacific, enable her to control the commerce and policy of Mexico, Central America and South America. "These rich nations will be her commercial colonies. " She will then gather to herself all nations, and her ambi tion will span the earth. " These reports, and the debates in the House and Senate are quoted thus fully here to show how well informed many of our leading statesmen were, not only in regard to our rights on the Columbia, but in regard to the value of the country as well. These reports and debates were printed, and quite generally circulated, considering the means of distribution which existed at that time. Copies were not as lavishly distributed as now, but in those days a single copy was suffi cient for a neighborhood. It was passed from hand to hand until many had read it, for there was little else to read. We may therefore easily believe that people generally were at the close of the Twentieth Congress, beginning to under stand that the Oregon country belonged to the United States, and that it was worth claiming and defending. And yet notwithstanding this general understanding the treaty of joint occupation was renewed, and indefinitely extended about this time. Its confirmation was opposed by a few members of the Senate, and most vigorously of all by Benton, but the Senate ratified it by a vote of thirty-one to seven. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 73 Soon after the second session of the Twentieth Congress had convened in December 1828, Mr. Floyd again called the attention of the House to the claims of Oregon, which he had now so ably and persistently championed for a period of nearly eight years. For the first time his measure was entitled "a bill to authorize the occupation of the Oregon River." Several important changes had taken place since the subject had last been discussed by the House. A new convention extending the term of joint occupation indefi nitely, but making it terminable upon a year's notice from either party to it, had been made and ratified. Any measure which Congress might adopt could therefore be put into effect after the expiration of twelve months. Hitherto it had been proposed only to occupy the country by building a fort at some harbor near to the coast, to which our ships might resort in time of need, and which would afford protection to American trappers and fur traders, similar to that furnished by the Hudson's Bay posts to the British Canadians. The encouragement of actual settlement by gifts of land to indi viduals of colonies had not as yet even been suggested. The public lands were then looked upon as a principal source of revenue. No statesman had begun to realize that the best and most profitable disposition that could be made of them, would be to give them outright to those who would subdue and make use of them, or provide the means by which their products could be cheaply and quickly delivered to those who would consume them. There had been no indication that anyone cared, or was likely to care to go so far to till the soil and make a home. But now Congress was informed, by memorial, that a considerable number of people in New Orleans had asso ciated themselves together for the purpose of going to the 74 THE RISE AND PROGRESS Columbia to make actual settlement. Another and similar company, which Mr. Edward Everett thought might ulti mately number two or three thousand persons, was forming in Boston, under the lead of Hall J. Kelly, and notice of still another was received from Ohio. These people wanted land and they asked, or it was asked in their behalf, that a tract forty miles square might be given them when they should take possession of it. The debate on the bill and the several amendments pro posed ran through the better part of seven days, and was participated in by several members, among whom two, Mr. Polk of Tennessee and Mr. Buchanan of Pennsylvania, were afterwards president, and two, Everett of Massachusetts and Bates of Missouri, were members of the cabinet. Mr. Floyd, who became governor of Virginia in the following year, subsequently received votes in a Democratic national convention for presidential nominee. He was by far the ablest, as well as the most persistent and untiring, advocate of the claims of Oregon in Congress, until Lewis F. Linn of Missouri arrived in the Senate in 1833. Among those who, after Mr. Floyd, most heartily favored the measure, were Messrs. Everett and Richardson of Massa chusetts, Ingersoll of Connecticut, Cambreleng of New York, Drayton of South Carolina, Buchanan of Pennsylvania, and Gurley of Louisiana; those most vigorously opposing were Bates of Missouri, afterwards attorney-general in Mr. Lincoln's cabinet, Polk and Mitchell of Tennessee, Gorham of Massachusetts and Strong and Taylor of New York. By none of these was our title to the country, at least as far north as the forty-ninth parallel, questioned or doubted. Some, including Mr. Everett, who was the close friend and confidant of Mr. Webster, and his successor in the cabinet OF AN AMERICAN STATE 75 of Mr. Fillmore, and also in the Senate, believed it could be maintained as far north as 540 40', the southern boundary of the Russian possessions. Mr. Floyd led the debate in support of his bill. He reviewed the arguments he had previously made, and pre sented a new array of facts in regard to the value of the country, its fur trade, fisheries, and other natural resources, and dwelt with particular force upon the value of the com merce that would sometime exist in the Pacific, and of the importance of possessing Oregon in order that we might procure a proper share of it. He pointed out that this com merce had already begun, and displayed an intimate knowl edge of its present condition. Such a station as the bill proposed to establish at the mouth of the Columbia was already needed by our ships engaged in that trade, and the need would increase as time passed. In case of war with Great Britain it would be the base of operations for our ves sels to attack her East India trade. Then after describing the nature of the coast, its physical advantages, the mildness of the climate and the fertility of its soil, he insisted that it was a most desirable spot for colonization. There was no other place where every interposing difficulty would more easily be overcome by the hardy pioneer. Mr. Everett ably supported the representations made by Mr. Floyd. He believed the country to be fertile, and valu able for all the purposes of trade claimed for it, and he thought something should be done immediately to assert and strengthen our claims to it. There were two main points in the bill — the erection of a military post, and the estab lishment of a civil authority. We had a right to establish the post, and could do so without violating the joint agree ment. It had been recommended by Mr. Monroe, when he 76 THE RISE AND PROGRESS was president, as well as by Mr. Adams, his successor, under whose instructions the convention had been negotiated. The British had taken actual possession of the country, and now had an unbroken chain of posts extending from one of its borders to the other. The British authorities could right fully make no objection to our doing what they were doing themselves, and he was informed by Mr. Gallatin, that they would probably make no objection to any fort that did not command exclusively the commerce of the Columbia. The question of civil jurisdiction was a matter of more delicacy. He would certainly be the last to propose anything that would seem to do violence to any international agree ment, unless the interests or the honor of the country de manded it. The British had their posts on the Columbia; let us have ours. They had, by an act of Parliament in 1821, extended their civil and criminal jurisdiction "to all parts of America, not belonging to other powers, and not within the civil jurisdiction of any of the United States. " Something should be done on our side to keep pace with what Great Britain was doing and had done. Under a nominal joint occupancy they were monopolizing it. They were in actual possession of the country and were keeping all American competitors out of it: If it should happen that a British hunter should be shot by an American, the act of Parliament would warrant the British hunting parties in arresting him and sending him to Canada for trial. Would the courts of Canada protect our citizens ? Ought we to leave our citi zens to their protection ? Ought we to forbid our citizens from going into the territory, especially while British sub jects were given free range ? He was for allowing our citi zens to go, and for protecting them while they were there. There might be some difficulties in the way, but our rights OF AN AMERICAN STATE 77 were clear, and he was in favor of asserting and defending them. He was willing for the present to confine what we were to do, to acts of occupancy, similar to those in which the British government had already preceded us. Of such it could not complain. If it did he would be willing to go far ther, and terminate the convention in the manner prescribed by the instrument itself. Mr. Bates of Missouri opposed the measure with some vigor. He thought the proposed grant of land to companies of colonists too nearly resembled the proprietary governments that existed in some ofthe American colonies before the revo lution. He hoped nothing of the kind would now be estab lished. It would, in his opinion, sanction foreign coloniza tion. He did not believe in setting up a colony of any kind, at a point so remote, and separated from the settled part of the country, as this would be, by thousands of miles of desert wastes. It could not be under the superintendence of the general government, and would be entirely dependent upon the will of the individuals for whom grants and powers were now asked. Besides, such a colony would be the resort of lawless and desperate characters, who would seek refuge from the punishment which their crimes demanded, in the bosom of that wilderness, to the exclusion of peaceable and orderly settlers. He did not believe in the favorable reports presented in regard to the character of the country. He did not believe in trying to build up any trade there. While he firmly believed that our claims to the country were just, they were still disputed by Great Britain. He did not believe in taking the risk of bringing on a long and expensive war, "for the sake of making an experiment on the hemlock forests of the Columbia," and he could not repress the utterance of "his solemn wish that the base of the Rocky 78 THE RISE AND PROGRESS Mountains were an ocean bounding the United States, in stead of the vast wilderness which extended beyond them." The opposition of Mr. Mitchell of Tennessee was even more emphatic. He believed the disputed territory was "a country which we ought never to inhabit, and I hope we never shall inhabit. " It was situated at such an immense distance "that there never can or will be any intervening links suffi cient to unite it with the residue of our country. " "It is a country from which we shall never export anything of value, or import to any considerable amount. We may indeed bring some small amount of goods into the narrow and miser able strip of territory which intervenes between the moun tains and the sea, but it is a trade which can never be disseminated in its benefits through the United States." This emphatic statement sounds strangely now, and doubt less sounded as strangely to those who had taken care to inform themselves as to what was really going on, at the time it was uttered. But it must be remembered that there was no such thing as a railroad at that time, and steamboats were still something of an experiment. Oregon was indeed far away. The utmost westward station on our western frontier was at Council Bluffs, on the Missouri. That very year the first wagons had crossed the Missouri, and been taken, with many a jolt, across the hidden buffalo trails, and around the deep gullies, bordering the lower Platte, or with creaking and shaking wheels over the prickly pear and bunch grass studded plains through which it flows in its upper part. The only Americans who had seen Oregon as yet were a few sailors, and the members of the Lewis and Clark and Astor parties. Of the stories they told on their re turn, those pertaining to their adventures among the Indians, or in which their toils and sufferings were described, were OF AN AMERICAN STATE 79 most eagerly listened to by the multitude, most talked about and longest remembered. Only a few whose discriminating minds selected the more valuable facts pertaining to the country, its character, resources, climate and possible advan tages, from among the more generally engaging details of these narratives, and by calm reflection had endeavored to realize their value, not only at the time, but to future and grander times, were prepared to appreciate the possibili ties that lay hidden in the future. These few — such men as Floyd, and Everett, and Ingersoll, and Benton, Drayton, Cambreleng, Gurley and others, were the pioneers who laid the foundation for the salvation of the Columbia River country. With these must also be remembered Jefferson, Madison, John Quincy Adams, Rush, Clay and Gallatin, who as presidents or diplomats dug those foundations deep and wide. But for the work they did, and did so well in their day, the whole Pacific Coast of the United States might today, like Canada, be a British province. Several attempts to amend the bill were made as the debate on it progressed. One of these was by Mr. Drayton, who pro posed that the president be authorized to establish and gar rison a line of forts between the mountains and the coast, between the parallels of forty-two and fifty-four degrees; and also that he be authorized to send out a suitable expedi tion to further explore the country, the establishment of the forts to be delayed if it should be best, until the exploration had been completed. Mr. Ingersoll also offered an amendment providing that if any citizen of the United States should commit a crime or misdemeanor in the territory west of the Rocky Mountains, lying between the parallels of forty-two and fifty-four degrees, or if any person should commit a crime or misdemeanor upon 80 THE RISE AND PROGRESS the property or person of a citizen of the United States in said territory, that he should be tried in the district where he was apprehended, or into which he might first be brought, and if convicted should be punished as the federal or terri torial laws in force at the place of trial should provide. Mr. Ingersoll said he did not advocate exclusive occupa tion of Oregon by the Americans, nor did his amendment, or that offered by Mr. Drayton contemplate such a thing. They only asked to occupy the country as the British were occupying it, not to exclude them. Our people could not find the country free and open to them, as it was to the sub jects of Great Britain, unless forts and laws were provided for their protection, similar to those Great Britain had al ready provided on its part. It was not proposed to send a garrison into the country to drive the British out, but merely to let our own citizens in. If an occupancy protected by a military post was inconsistent with the terms of our engage ments, as had been urged, then it was the duty of Great Brit ain, after signing the article in question, to dismount her guns and abandon her posts. In closing the debate Mr. Richardson expressed far more radical opinions. "If," said he, "the territory be ours, it is better for the British that their posts should be at once excluded. Sir, I am opposed, in a case like this, when on all hands the right to the territory is admitted to be ours, to a course that by its indecision invites resistance." Both amendments were adopted and the bill passed by a decisive vote. But it did not pass the Senate; it was doubt less not expected that it would. But it had nevertheless served a useful purpose. The discussion of it in the House had informed its members and those of the Senate, and ofthe administration, as well as the public generally, more fully OF AN AMERICAN STATE 81 than they had ever before been informed, in regard to the value of our possessions on the Pacific Coast, as well as to the dangers that then menaced them on account of their occupation by a foreign power. From that day forth it was better understood than it had been, both in and out of Con gress, that a country which we owned by every right which should give us claim of title, was dominated by a foreign cor poration, and that while our citizens were guaranteed equal privileges there by solemn treaty agreement, they were not accorded, nor could they obtain them on anything like equal terms. Congress paid very little attention to the Columbia River country for nearly ten years after the close of John Quincy Adams' administration, nevertheless it secured and distri buted among the people a considerable amount of valuable information about it. In 1831 President Jackson sent to the Senate, at its request, a report from the secretary of war on the state of the British establishments in the valley of the Columbia, and the state of the fur trade as carried on by the citizens ofthe United States and the Hudson's Bay Com pany, and accompanying documents, which were letters from such prominent fur traders as Gen. W. H. Ashley, Joshua Pilcher, W. L. Sublette and his partners Smith and Jackson. These letters contained a vast amount of new and valuable information, including the story of the first wag on trip up the Platte, Smith's account of his tour through California and Oregon to Vancouver, and Pilcher's three years' experience in the mountains of what is now Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington and British Columbia. This report was printed for the use of the Senate, and in addition fifteen hundred copies, an unusually large number for that time, were provided for general distribution. 82 THE RISE AND PROGRESS Soon after Captain Bonneville returned to Washington, President Jackson determined to send a competent man by sea to the mouth of the Columbia to ascertain what condi tions prevailed there, and elsewhere in the country claimed by the United States in that region, so far as they could be observed. Lieutenant William A. Slacum was chosen for the undertaking. He was carefully instructed as to what he was to do, by John Forsyth, then secretary of state. At the Sandwich Islands he chartered the brig Loriot, in which he visited the Columbia and Willamette rivers, and later sailed along the coast southward as far as the Bay of Bodega. He examined the country with sufficient care to be able to make a report of very considerable value. In it he speaks with enthusiasm of the fertility of the soil, the salubrity of the climate, the abundance of timber, and of rivers teeming with fish and woods abounding with game. According to his estimate the river valleys above "contain at least fourteen million acres of land of the first quality, equal to the best in Missouri and Illinois." He was particularly urgent that Puget Sound should never be abandoned. "In a military point of view," he says, " it is ofthe highest importance to the United States. . . . We should never give it up, nor per mit the free navigation ofthe Columbia, unless a fair equival ent is offered, such as the free navigation ofthe St. Lawrence." This report was frequently quoted in subsequent debates in both the Senate and House. Less than a year after it was received by Congress Lieutenant Charles Wilkes was sent out in command of the largest exploring expedition that our government had ever, up to that time, undertaken. It con sisted of six ships carrying nearly six hundred men, and was instructed to spend one whole summer, from April to October, in exploring the Columbia River and contiguous waters, and OF AN AMERICAN STATE 83 the shore of California as far south as San Francisco Bay. How faithfully these instructions were carried out, how well the work was done and how important the results secured were, will be told in another chapter. Chapter XXI. "COME OVER AND HELP US." THE first American settlers to arrive in the Oregon country, who were not hunters or trappers, or employees of the fur companies, were the mission aries. Their attention, and that of the Christian world, was attracted to it by a most singular occurrence, that is well worth considering in some detail, not only because of its own peculiar and intense interest, but because much has been added to the original accounts of it, in recent years, that leaves an entirely erroneous impression in the public mind, as to the nature ofthe incident itself, and does grave injustice to the character and memory of a great figure in our earlier history, who deserves to be held in the highest estimation. The perversions of the story have already intruded them selves into our literature, and even found a place in our school books, from which they cannot be too quickly eradicated. In the fall of 1831 a small party of Indians, from the Flat head and Nez Perce tribes, made the long journey overland from the homes of their people, in what is now northern and central Idaho, to St. Louis in search of religious instruc tion. They traveled in company with a party of fur traders and trappers as far as Council Bluffs, or some other point on the Missouri, where some of them turned back, having seen their companions safely over the most dangerous and toil some part of their journey, and the remaining four, two Flat- heads and two of the Nez Perces, continued on to their des tination. At St. Louis they sought out General William Clark, who had visited their country a quarter of a century earlier, and to him made known the object of their visit. He received them kindly and provided for their support and com fort during their stay of several months in the city. The first published account in America, of this strange journey, and its stranger purpose, was in the New York THE RISE AND PROGRESS "Christian Advocate," then the leading journal of the Metho dist church in the United States, in its issue for March i, 1833. It was in the form of a letter from G. P. Disoway, who was engaged in some way with the removal and settle ment of the Wyandotte Indians on their new lands west of the Mississippi River, and who enclosed with his letter an other from William Walker, one of his agents or interpreters, giving the story in the subjoined form. Walker's letter was dated at Upper Sandusky, O., Jan. 19, 1833, and after stating that, on his way to explore the regions west of the Missouri River, he had called on Gen. Clark to present letters of intro duction to him, and get letters from him to the various Indian agents in the upper country, proceeded: " I will here relate an anecdote, if I may so call it. Imme diately after we landed in St. Louis, on our way to the west, I proceeded to General Clark's, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, to present our letters of introduction from the Secre tary of War, and to receive the same from him to the different agents of the upper country. While in his office and trans acting business with him, he informed me that three chiefs from the Flathead nation were in his house, and were quite sick, and that one, the fourth, had died a few days ago. They were from the west of the Rocky Mountains. Curi osity prompted me to step into the adjoining room to see them, having never seen any, but often heard of them. I was struck with their appearance. They differ in appear ance from any tribe of Indians I have ever seen; small in size, delicately formed, small limbs, and the most exact sym metry throughout, except the head. I had always supposed from their being called 'Flatheads,' that the head was actu ally flat on top. But this is not the case. . . . The distance they had traveled on foot, nearly three thousand miles, to OF AN AMERICAN STATE 89 see General Clark, their Great Father, as they call him, he being the first American officer they ever became acquainted with, and having much confidence in him, as they said, upon very important matters. General Clark related to me their mission, and, my dear friend, it is impossible for me to de scribe to you my feelings while listening to his narrative. I will here relate it as briefly as I can. It appeared that some white man had penetrated into their country, and had hap pened to be a spectator at one of their religious meetings, which they scrupulously perform at stated periods. He in formed them that their mode of worshiping the Supreme Being was radically wrong, and instead of being acceptable and pleasing was displeasing to Him. He also informed them that the white people, away toward the rising sun, had been put in possession of the true mode of worshiping the Great Spirit. They had a book containing directions how to conduct themselves to enjoy His favor and converse with Him, and with this guide no one need go astray. Upon receiving this information they held a national council to take this subject into consideration. . . . They accord ingly deputed four of their chiefs to proceed to St. Louis to see their Great Father, General Clark, to inquire of him, having no doubt but he would tell them the whole truth about it. "They arrived at St. Louis and presented themselves to General Clark. The latter was somewhat puzzled, being sensible of the responsibility that rested upon him. He, however, proceeded, by informing them that what they had been told by the white men in their own country was true. He then went into a succinct history of man, from the crea tion down to the advent of the Savior, explained to them all the moral precepts of the Bible, expounded to them the 90 THE RISE AND PROGRESS decalogue, informed them of the advent of the Savior, His life, precepts, His death, resurrection and ascension, and the relation He stands to man as mediator, the judgment, that He will judge the world, etc. " Poor fellows, they were not all permitted to return home to their people with the intelligence. Two died in St. Louis, and the remaining two, although somewhat indisposed, set out for their native land. Whether they reached home or not is not known. The change of diet and climate operated very severely upon their health. If they died on the way, peace to their manes! I was informed that the Flatheads as a nation have the fewest vices of any tribe of Indians on the Continent of America. " The story as thus published appealed strongly to the Chris tian sentiment of the whole country. It was made the sub ject of many sermons, and was discussed at many Christian firesides, from the Atlantic to the remotest borders of the Western settlements. The publications of other denomina tions reprinted it, and the secular press did not neglect it. The Rev. Wilbur Fisk, president of Wesleyan University, then the most influential educational institution ofthe Metho dist church, urged that immediate response should be made to this Macedonian cry. The "Illinois Patriot," in October 1833, announced that Walker's letter, strongly endorsed and urged upon public attention as it was by Disoway, had aroused so much interest in a recent meeting of the Presby terian Synod, that a committee had been sent to St. Louis to investigate and report. A report subsequently made, con tained a description of the Oregon country, which the paper added, " is at no distant day to be occupied by citizens from all parts of the United States. " The committee found that it was a fact that the Indians had visited General Clark, and OF AN AMERICAN STATE 91 that they had remained several months, during which they had visited all the places of worship in the city. During the winter two of them had died, and in the spring the others had returned to their homes, very favorably impressed, and highly gratified with the kind treatment they had received from General Clark. Walker's letter gives the date of the visit of these Indians as 1832, but it was really in 183 1, as all existing contemporary evidence clearly shows. On the last day of that year the Catholic bishop of St. Louis, Rt. Rev. Joseph Rosati, wrote an account of their arrival, and the object of their visit, which was first printed in Lyons, France, in a Catholic journal. A translation of this account is as follows : "Some three months ago four Indians, who live at the other side ofthe Rocky Mountains, near the Columbia River, arrived in St. Louis. After visiting General Clark, who, in his celebrated travels, had seen the nation to which they belong, and had been well received by them, they came to see our church, and appeared to be exceedingly pleased with it. Unfortunately there was no one who understood their language. Sometime afterward two of them fell danger ously ill. I was then absent from St. Louis. Two of our priests visited them, and the poor Indians seemed delighted with their visit. They made signs of the cross, and other signs which appeared to have some relation to baptism. This sacrament was administered to them; they gave expres sion of their satisfaction. A little cross was presented to them; they took it with eagerness, kissed it repeatedly, and it could be taken from them only after their death. It was truly distressing that they could not be spoken to. Their remains were carried to the church for the funeral, which was conducted with all the Catholic ceremonies. The other 92 THE RISE AND PROGRESS two attended and acted with great propriety. They have returned to their country. "We have since learned from a Canadian, who has crossed the country which they inhabit, that they belong to the nation of Tetes-Plates (Flatheads) which, as with another called the Pieds-Noirs (Blackfeet), have received some notions of the Catholic religion from two Indians who had been to Canada, and who had related what they had seen, giving a striking description of the beautiful ceremonies of the Catho lic worship, and telling them that it was also the religion of the Whites; they have retained what they could of it, and have learned to make the sign of the cross and to pray. These nations have not yet been corrupted by intercourse with the others; their manners and customs are simple, and they are very numerous. We have conceived the liveliest desire not to let pass such a good occasion. Mr. Condamine has offered himself to go to them next spring with another. In the meantime we shall obtain information on what we have been told, and on the means of travel. . . ."* The Catholic account of the visit of these Indians, and the object of it, has not often been quoted heretofore by those who have written about the early missionaries in Oregon, probably for the reason that it has not been easily accessible. It is nevertheless undoubtedly authentic. That the date is correctly given is shown by the letters of George Catlin, the painter of Indian scenes and portraits, who spent eight years among the Indians of the Northwest, while engaged in the work that made him famous. He was a passenger on the *The Bishop's letter was first published in "'Annals de 1' Association de la Propagation de la Foy," in Lyons. It is copied by Father L. B. Palladino in his "Indian and White in the Northwest." Father Palla- dino was a missionary among the Flatheads for twenty-five years. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 93 steamboat by which the two survivors of the party left St. Louis, and traveled with them two thousand miles up the Missouri in the spring of 1832. The bishop's account is also confirmed by the register of burials of the Cathedral in St. Louis.* That these, or any other Indians, should make a long journey in search of religious instruction was considered very surprising, and it was so, though it is now known that some of the Hudson's Bay agents and traders had for years previ ously been doing missionary work among the natives in the neighborhood of their trading posts. Dr. Tolmie, and some of his predecessors, who were Episcopalians, and Presby terians, were accustomed to hold services regularly at Fort Nisqually, for the benefit of all who would listen to them, and their testimony is that their listeners were attentive, and often asked to be instructed farther. Pierre Pambrun, who was a Catholic, much earlier began to hold some sort of Sunday service at Fort Walla Walla, which the natives regularly attended. The effect of this teaching Captain Bonneville noted with surprise on his first visit to the Nez Perces. They refused to hunt with him on Sunday, and when he inquired the reason, "they replied that it was a sacred day, and the Great Spirit would be angry if they devoted it to hunting." They were without food at the time and nearly starving. When he arrived at Walla Walla everything was explained. Mr. Pambrun informed him, as Mr. Irving says, that " he had been at some pains to introduce *This register shows that one of these Indians — Narcisse — a name doubtless given him by the priests, in baptizing him before his death — ¦ was buried October 31, 1831, Rev. Edmond Saulnier officiating, and the second — Paul, another baptismal name — was buried November 17, 1831, Rev. Benedict Roux officiating. See Records American Catholic His torical Society, Vol. II, p. 190. 94 THE RISE AND PROGRESS the Christian religion, and in the Roman Catholic form, among them, where it had evidently taken root, but had be come altered and modified to suit their peculiar habits of thought and motives of action; retaining, however, the prin cipal points of the faith, and its entire precepts of morality. The same gentleman had given them a code of laws, to which they conformed with scrupulous fidelity. Polygamy, which once prevailed among them to a great extent, was now rarely indulged. All the crimes denounced by the Christian faith met with severe punishment among them. Even theft, so venial a crime among the Indians, had recently been pun ished with hanging, by sentence of a chief. " From this it is certain enough, even if there were no other proof, that Pambrun had begun his teaching long before Bonneville's visit — which was in 1832 — for it had made so much impression as to induce his pupils to give up polygamy and stealing. "Simply to call these people religious," says Bonneville, "would convey but a faint idea of the deep tone of piety which pervades their whole conduct. Their honesty is immaculate, and their purity of purpose and their obser vance of the rites of their religion are most uniform and remarkable. They are certainly more like a nation of saints than a horde of savages." Finding at length that he could give them further instruction on their favorite subject, they asked the officer to teach them. He often did so, finding that he had quite a fund of Christian doctrine and ethics to impart. "Many a time," says he, "was my little lodge thronged, or rather piled, with hearers, for they lay on the ground one leaning over the other until there was no further room, all listening with greedy ears to the wonders which the Great Spirit had revealed to the white man. No other subject gave them half the satisfaction, or commanded half OF AN AMERICAN STATE 95 the attention, and but few scenes in my life remain so freshly on my memory, or are so pleasurably recalled to my con templation, as these hours of intercourse with a distant and benighted race in the midst of the desert. " The instructions given these people by Pambrun is there fore quite sufficient to account for the visit of their repre sentatives to St. Louis. But Father Palladino thinks the desire of the Flatheads for religious instruction was awakened by the visit of some Iroquois Indians from the Caughnawaga mission near Montreal, who wandered across the Rocky Mountains somewhere between 1812 and 1820, and made their home among the Flatheads. The leader of this band was Ignace La Mousse, better known among the Indians as "Big Ignace," or "Old Ignace." He became prominent among the Flatheads and, being a zealous Catholic, taught them what he could of that faith, and excited among them so strong a desire for "Black Robes" (i. e., priests) that in the spring of 1831, a deputation of two Flatheads and two Nez Perces started to St. Louis, to obtain priests, and arrived there in the autumn of 1831.* But whether this famous delegation was prompted to go east in search of religious light — as all other seekers for it have done — by the teachings of Pambrun, or by the visit of "Old Ignace," it is reasonably clear that it was by the teaching of some Catholic, or by suggestion of some one who was familiar with the Catholic forms of worship. They naturally sought for robed priests, and the ceremonials which had been described to them, and readily recognized them when they saw them. This accounts for the fact that two of them were buried from a Catholic church, and con firms the statement of Bishop Rosati, that they had accepted * Indian and White in the Northwest, p. 9. 96 THE RISE AND PROGRESS baptism before their death, as without it they would not have been given such burial. It was this visit of these Indians to St. Louis, and these two accounts of it, that first led to the establishment of Christian missions, both protestant and Catholic, west of the Rocky Mountains. Thirty years or more after the publication of Walker's letter, and after many, if not most of those who really knew what the Indians had asked for and how they had been treated, had died, additions to and perversions of the story began to appear, and have been so widely published as to leave an entirely false impression as to what these simple- minded seekers for religious light really did or sought to do. It has been asserted that they made their long journey, of more than fifteen hundred miles, to ask specifically for the Bible; that they first sought out General Clark, whom the two older members of the party had met when he visited their country in company with Lewis in 1805, and whose visit was still well remembered and much talked about among their people; that Clark, being a Catholic, had cunningly prevented them from getting what they sought, and had taken them to churches where the form of worship was something they did not care to see, and to low resorts where they were shocked by exhibitions that were revolting even to savages; and finally that on parting from him one of them had made a speech bitterly reproaching him for having been the means of defeating the pious object of their visit. In support of these additions which so completely change the nature, pur pose and result of this famous incident, the painter Catlin is quoted as confirming, upon the authority of Clark himself, the statement that these Indians could not get the Bible in St. Louis, and went home greatly saddened by the failure OF AN AMERICAN STATE 97 of their visit. But Catlin says nothing whatever about their having asked for a book, nor does he say anything about Clark having defeated the object of their visit, or done any thing to displease or disappoint them in any way. On the contrary what he does say leads exactly to the opposite impression.* From this it is perfectly clear that what Catlin really asked General Clark about, was whether these Indians had made the long journey they claimed to have made, to inquire whether "our religion was better than theirs." The gener al's reply convinced him that it was so, and he already knew from the survivors of the party themselves, that they were returning home fairly well pleased with the results of their journey, and the assurances they had received. * What Catlin says on this subject is as follows, letter No. 48 : speaking of the two young men who were his traveling companions he says they were "part of a delegation that came across the Rocky Mountains to St. Louis, a few years since, to inquire for the truth of a representation which they said some white men had made amongst them 'that our religion was better than theirs, and that they would all be lost if they did not embrace it.' The old and venerable men of this party died in St. Louis, and I travelled two thousand miles companion of these two young fellows toward their own country, and became much pleased with their manners and dispositions. The last mentioned of the two died near the mouth of the Yellowstone River on his way home, with disease which he had contracted in the civilized district, and the other one I have since learned arrived safely amongst his friends, conveying to them the melancholy intelligence of the deaths of all the rest of his party; but assurances at the same time from Gen. Clark and many reverend gentlemen, that the report which they had heard was well founded; and that missionaries, good and religious men, would soon come amongst them to teach this religion so that they could all understand and have the benefits of it. When I first heard the report of the object of this extraor dinary mission across the mountains I could scarcely believe it, but on con versing with Gen. Clark, on a future occasion, I was fully convinced of the fact; and I, like thousands of others, have had the satisfaction of witness ing the complete success of Mr. Lee and Mr. Spalding, two reverend gentle men who have answered, in a christian manner, to this unprecedented call . ' ' 98 THE RISE AND PROGRESS Dr. Whitman heard something of the party while on his way from the Missouri to the mountains with Parker in the summer of 1835. In a letter, which is in the nature of a journal of the trip, he says he was told " by the fur trader under whose protection they came and returned, that their object was to gain religious knowledge."* General Clark was not a Catholic. He was an Episco palian and a free mason, which latter fact, to those who may be familiar with any of the several pastoral letters issued by various popes, from Clement V to Leo XIII, will be irref utable evidence that he could not also have been a member ofthe Catholic church. And he seems not only to have been a mason, but to have been a fairly active member of the order, as he was a charter member of two lodges, which would indicate that he had joined the order before helping to organ ize either of them.-f- * All that Dr. Whitman says about this party in this letter is as follows : "The following is the history of those Indians that came to St. Louis to gain a knowledge of the Christian religion, as I received it from the trader under whose protection they came and returned. He says their object was to gain religious knowledge. For this purpose the Flat Head tribe delegated one of their principal chiefs, and two of their principal men, and the Nez Perce tribe a like delegation, it being a joint delegation of both tribes. In addition to this delegation a young Nez Perce came along. When they came to Council Bluffs two of the Flat Heads and one of the Nez Perces returned home, and the other Flat Head the chief, and the Nez Perce chief, and the remaining one of the delegation, and the young Indian came to St. Louis where they remained through the winter. At St. Louis two of them died and the only remaining one of the dele gation died on his return at the mouth of the Yellowstone, so that there was no one left to return but the young man. " — W. I. Marshall: Acqui sition of Oregon and the Long Suppressed Evidence About Marcus Whitman MSS. t Dr. Vincil, grand secretary of the grand lodge F. & A. M. of Missouri, and the historian of Masonry in Missouri, wrote to Prof. Marshall as follows on this subject: "Gen. Wm. Clark was a charter member of St. Louis Lodge No. in chartered by the grand lodge of Penn. Sept. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 99 That he was also an Episcopalian, Prof. Elliot Coues thinks is established by evidence that is at once "conclusive, final and beyond the shadow of doubt." Prof. Coues examined all of Clark's papers, while preparing his monu mental edition of Lewis and Clark's journals, and found no evidence in them that he had ever been a Catholic. He also wrote to his son Jefferson K. Clark, two grandsons, and one of their cousins, as well as Mrs. Phil Kearney, who was a descendent of Gen. Clark, and herself a Catholic, and all agreed that he had never been a Catholic* Mr. Reuben Gold Thwaites says: "It is an interesting revelation of one phase of his private character to find him, in docu ments of the period, assisting in the establishment of Christ Church in St. Louis, and thus becoming one of the founders of the Protestant Episcopal communion west of the Missis- sippi.f In Christ Church Cathedral, an outgrowth of that early parish, there can today be seen a beautiful memorial window placed there by his daughter-in-law, Eleanor Glas gow Clark, in memory of his son and her husband, George Rogers Hancock Clark." The supposed speech, which one of the surviving members of this Indian party is represented to have made to General Clark at parting, and in which the assertion is made that they came for "the white man's Book of Heaven," and were 15, 1808. This lodge went down during the war of 1812. He was also a member of Missouri Lodge No. 12, chartered Oct. 8, 1816, by the Grand Lodge of Tenn. This Lodge was one of the three Lodges that United in forming the Grand Lodge of Missouri on Feb. 22, 182 1, and was the first Lodge chartered by the Grand Lodge of Mo. under the name and number of Missouri Lodge No. 1 by which name and number it still exists on our register. " * W. I." Marshall MSS. t "Washington Historical Quarterly," July 1907, p. 249. 100 THE RISE AND PROGRESS beguiled by various devices from persisting in their demand, until they were finally compelled to go home without it, al though they had spent a whole winter in St. Louis in attempt ing to get it, and in which they reproached the general for their failure, is as follows: " I came to you over a trail of many moons from the setting sun. You were the friends of my fathers, who have all gone the long way. I came with one eye partly opened, for more light for my people who sit in darkness. I go back with both eyes closed. How can I go back blind to my blind people ? I made my way to you with strong arms, through many enemies and strange lands, that I might carry back much to them. I go back with both arms broken and empty. The two fathers who came with me — the braves of many winters and wars — we leave asleep here by your great water. They were tired in many moons and their moccasins wore out. My people sent me to get the white man's Book of Heaven. You took me where they worship the Great Spirits with candles, and the Book was not there. You showed me the images of good spirits and pictures of the good land beyond, but the Book was not among them. I am going back the long sad trail to my people of the dark land. You make my feet heavy with burdens of gifts, and my moccasins will grow old in carrying them. When I tell my poor blind people after one more snow, in the big council, that I did not bring the book, no word will be spoken by our old men or by our young braves. One by one they will rise up and go out in silence. My people will die in darkness, and they will go on the long path to the other hunting grounds. No white man will go with them, and no white man's book to make the way plain to them. I have no more words." OF AN AMERICAN STATE 101 Prof. William I.Marshall of Chicago, whohas, with marvel ous patience and industry, hunted out and copied everything written or published in regard to the Whitman Mission, says that this speech, in a much abridged form, first appeared in the Walla Walla "Statesman" of February 16, 1866. It was then given on the authority of Rev. H. H. Spalding, who claimed to have received it from the surviving member of the original party of four. It next appeared four years later in the "Advance," a religious paper published in Chicago. Since then it has been widely reprinted in histories of Ore gon and other books, in which it is claimed to have been taken down by a clerk in General Clark's office, as it was interpreted to the general at the time of its delivery. It may be stated generally in regard to all these perversions of the original account of the visit of these Indians to St. Louis, that none of them appeared until long after the mis sionaries who were attracted to Oregon by it had gone there, and until some of them had died and several others had returned to the East. Not one of them mentions any such thing as a demand for the Bible or any book in any letter, journal or other writing until years after the event. Dr. Samuel Parker, who was sent out by the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions — the organization which subsequently sent Whitman, Spalding, Eells, Walker, Smith and Gray to Oregon — and with whom Whitman traveled as far as the fur traders' rendezvous on Green River, and who made the remainder of the journey to the Columbia River with a company of Nez Perce Indians, to whom he preached regularly every Sunday, and with whom he held many conversations on religious subjects, does not mention it. The Indians spoke to him often of their pleasure at hav ing "a man near to God," with them. They were delighted 102 THE RISE AND PROGRESS with the prospect that they were to have teachers, but if they ever spoke of the Bible, or their wish to get it, he has made no mention of the fact. And this is not strange. They had never seen a printed page or word : they could make no use of a book if they had one. They could not possibly know what a bible was or meant. If shown to them or explained to them, they would get no other idea of it than that it was some charm, or medi cine, or fetich of some sort, that might have some hidden power to do them good. They were not seeking something of that kind. They were making a far more sincere and intelligent inquiry. They were looking for somebody to teach them, by means that they could understand. The desire to know, which is in every healthy human mind, had been awakened and greatly quickened in theirs, by such teaching as they had received, or by the reports they had heard of people who were better informed than they were, and they were making use of the best and only means they knew, to increase their own knowledge. The first response to this call from the wilderness for religious instruction, was made by the Board of Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Urged to activity by the preaching and writing of Rev. Wilbur Fisk, and other more or less eminent ministers of that communion, this board, very soon after the appearance of Walker's letter, asked for volunteer missionaries to go to Oregon. It also appropriated three thousand dollars to provide for their outfit and transpor tation. Rev. Jason Lee, and his nephew Daniel Lee. who were members of the New England conference, though then living in Canada, were the first to tender their services. Their offer was accepted and the former was appointed super intendent ofthe mission. The mission board also authorized FORT VANCOUVER. The famous stronghold of Dr. John McLoughlin on the Columbia. From 1824 to 1846, as the head quarters of the Hudson's Bay Company, it was in fact the capital of the coast. OF AN AMERICAN SRATE 103 the employment of two lay members, and Cyrus Shepherd of Lynn, Massachusetts, and P. L. Edwards of Richmond, Missouri, were selected. Courtney N. Walker of the latter place was also hired for one year. Jason Lee was admirably fitted, both by nature and by his experience and education, for an undertaking of this kind. He had been born on a farm in a part of New England which was still but thinly peopled, and had early removed with his family to an unsettled part of Canada. All his earlier experience had been that of a farmer. He had been fairly educated, and while still young had been licensed to preach. He had already done missionary work, and was thoroughly imbued with the missionary spirit. Tall and strong phys ically, zealous in spirit, patient and hopeful, he seemed to be efficiently equipped to teach the Indians in things practical as well as spiritual. As soon as possible after the matters pertaining to their employment had been arranged, the two Lees repaired to Boston to consult with Captain Wyeth, who had only recently returned from his first trip to Oregon. They found that he was already preparing to send the brig May Dacre to the Columbia River, and that he proposed to lead a party across the continent during the following year. They arranged with him to send their outfit by his ship and to travel over land in his company. On the 28th of April following, the small missionary party left Independence, Missouri, with the second Wyeth expedi tion, and arrived at Fort Vancouver on the 13th ofthe follow ing September. At Fort Walla Walla they left their horses and were sent down the river in Hudson's Bay Company boats. At Fort Vancouver they were given a most cordial and hearty welcome. They found that the school which 104 THE RISE AND PROGRESS John Ball had established at the fort two years earlier, and which Solomon Smith had continued, had prospered, and that another had been started by Smith at French Prairie, for the education of the children of the ex-employees of the Company who had settled there. The chief factor was anx ious to have both these schools continued, and he welcomed the opportunity thus offered to have religious instruction provided, both for the people at the fort and for those at the settlement, in whom he always retained a kindly interest. On the first Sunday after the party arrived, the first religious service, in regular form with prayer and sermon, was held at Vancouver, and as a result of it one hundred and thirty dollars were contributed by the chief factor and other officers and employees of the Company, for the establishment of the mission. While the original purpose of this first missionary party undoubtedly was to carry religious instruction to those who had asked for it, it was changed after a conference with Dr. McLoughlin. The Nez Perces lived more than three hun dred miles east of Fort Vancouver, and the Flatheads still farther away. They were more or less nomadic tribes, the chief factor said, and if the missionaries went to live among them it would be impossible to make settled homes, teach them to cultivate the ground, and to live more comfortably than they had been accustomed to do, and at the same time to give them religious instruction. They would also be so far away from any of the Hudson's Bay stations, that the Company would be unable to afford them protection, or to give them the assistance they could give if they established themselves in some more convenient locality, where there was equally good opportunity for missionary work, and where the Company could readily reach them in time of need. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 105 Dr. McLoughlin was undoubtedly anxious to have them settle near the little colony which he had established at French Prairie. These ex-employees had long been anxious for reli gious advantages, and while they were all Catholics, and these missionaries could not offer them the kind of service with which they were familiar, or the consolation they would require in case of death, they could at least instruct their children and rescue them from the barbarism which every where surrounded them. After reflecting upon the advice given by Dr. McLoughlin, Lee changed his plans, and accepted the doctor's advice to establish himself on the Willamette. Accordingly, with the assistance ofthe Company's boats, manned by its employ ees, the missionaries removed their goods from the May Dacre which had already arrived. They ascended the Willamette River for a distance of about sixty miles, and on the 6th of October 1834, established the first regular missionary station in the Oregon country. A building thirty-two by eighteen feet was soon ready for their occupancy, and a manual labor school was immediately opened for the Indian children. This school throve, and in the second year following addi tional buildings were provided. Mr. Shepherd also reestab lished the school at Ft. Vancouver. The usual religious services were regularly held. These were attended not only by the settlers and their families but by a large number of Indians. Farming was also begun and such of the Indians, both old and young, as could be induced to receive instruc tion of that kind, were taught how to clear the ground and to plant and cultivate it. The missionaries themselves worked in their fields, instructed their assistants, and shared the productions of their labor with the Indians. They also taught them both by precept and by example, so 106 THE RISE AND PROGRESS far as they could be taught, how to live more cleanly and comfortably, to clothe themselves more properly, and to abandon some of the more objectionable practices of their savage life. In their farming enterprises the missionaries were assisted by the chief factor, with seeds of every kind for planting, with such farming implements as he was able to provide, and with a loan of cattle. He was still watching the increase of his small herd of domestic animals with jealous care, and never willingly parted with any of them. He realized that the missionaries would have urgent need for them, and for this he provided by loan, always arranging that the Company should have the increase. Subsequent experience demon strated the wisdom of this prudent management, since it enabled the Company to provide more liberally than other wise would have been possible, for the wants of the settlers, when they began to come more numerously, and to protect them from extortion. Two years after the mission had been thus established Dr. Elijah White and wife, Dr. William H. Willson, Alanson Beers and wife and the Misses Downing and Johnson arrived. They had sailed from Boston in June 1836, in a whaling vessel, by which they had reached the Sandwich Islands and had come thence in one of the Hudson's Bay Company's ships. In September still another party arrived. It was composed of Rev. David Leslie and family, Rev. H. K. W. Perkins and Miss M. J. Smith. On Christmas following a general meeting of these missionaries and lay members was held, at which the Oregon Missionary Society was formed. A new station at the Dalles, among the Wasco Indians, to be called Wascopam, was arranged for and Revs. Leslie and Perkins were assigned to it. It was decided also that OF AN AMERICAN STATE 107 Superintendent Lee should go east to solicit aid for, and an increase of, this missionary force. In the following March Lee, accompanied by two Indian youths and P. L. Edwards, returned to the States, in accor dance with this arrangement. As soon as he reached the settlements he began to hold meetings, which were every where largely attended. He visited most of the northern States and everywhere was given an eager hearing. His Indian companions attracted much attention, and the short addresses they were able to make assisted greatly to arouse interest in his work, and procure the assistance he asked for. So successful were his efforts during the winter of 1838-39, that more than forty thousand dollars were contributed, or appropriated by the mission board, for the advancement of his work. A considerable supply of agricultural implements, trading goods, and the machinery for a saw and grist mill were purchased and forwarded by sea, and on the 9th of October, 1839, fifty-two persons sailed from New York in the ship Lausanne, commanded by Captain Spalding, for the Columbia. Prominent among these were Revs. J. H. Frost, A. F. Walker, W. W. Kone, L. H. Judson, Josiah L. Parrish, J. P. Richmond and Gustavus Hines, Dr. I. L. Bab cock, physician, George Abernethy — afterwards the first provisional governor — steward and accountant, Messrs. W. W. Raymond, H. B. Brewer, James Olley, H. Campbell, and their families, and Misses Ware, Clark, Phelps and Lankton, teachers. There were sixteen children in this party. They arrived at Fort Vancouver on June 1, 1840, and on the 13th a general meeting of the mission was held at which Mr. Frost was assigned to open a missionary station at Clatsop, Messrs. Hines and Kone to a station on the Ump- qua, and Dr. Richmond to Fort Nisqually on Puget Sound, 108 THE RISE AND PROGRESS where David Leslie and W. H. Willson had already made a visit, held religious services and arranged to establish a per manent missionary station. This addition to the little missionary colony, which was subsequently known as the great reinforcement, together with J. S. Griffin and Ashael Munger, who had been sent out the year before as independent missionaries, by a Con gregational church in Connecticut, increased its numbers to seventy-five persons, twenty of whom were children. A few months later Rev. Harvey Clark and wife, Rev. Alvan T. Smith and wife, and M. P. B.Littlejohn and wife arrived. They, like Griffin and Munger, were Congregationalists, and came out in the confident hope that the Indians would gladly adopt habits of civilization, as soon as they were shown its superior advantages, and provide them a living in return for the instruction they were prepared to give. It was this party who left the wagons at Fort Hall which Newell, Meek, Wilkins and Ermatinger subsequently brought through to the Columbia River. The hope of these missionaries that the Indians would easily be prevailed upon to give up their savage and precari ous mode of living, and adopt the habits and customs of civil ized life, with their surer rewards and superior comforts, was never realized. That they had some reason to cherish such a hope cannot be doubted, when the incident which first drew their attention toward them is remembered. But the Indians west of the Cascades had taken no part in sending the delegation to St. Louis in search of religious instruction. They were as ignorant of it as the Esquimaux or the inhabi tants of Patagonia. Had they known about it, or taken part in it, the case would probably not have been far different, for the experience of Whitman and Spalding, and of Eells and OF AN AMERICAN STATE 109 Walker, among the tribes who had been concerned in, or knew about the sending of the delegation, as we shall see in a succeeding chapter, was not such as to justify the belief that they had any very clear idea of what they were sending to seek. They seemed to want light. But they did not want nor were they willing to receive anything that required them to abandon their lazy and indolent habits. They were will ing to be entertained. They would listen to bible stories as attentively as children, but they could not comprehend the plan of redemption. They had no words in their lan guage in which the great doctrines of Christianity could be expressed, and therefore no such ideas as words of that kind express, nor could they be made to conceive or comprehend them. No effort of mind or body that did not produce imme diate and practical rewards seemed worth the making, nor could they be interested in any future rewards that were not of the kind they wished to receive and enjoy. Senator Nesmith has left an entertaining account of a service he attended at the Willamette Falls, sometime after he arrived in Oregon in 1843, ten years or more after the mission was established. There were about three hundred Indians pres ent. The missionary spoke to them in the Chinook jargon. "He dwelt strongly on the efficacy of prayer," says the senator, "and illustrated its benefits by pointing out the superior physical comforts enjoyed by the white people over the savages, in habitation, food and clothing, and told them that they might enjoy similar benefits by its practice." The poverty ofthe jargon, which at that time consisted of no more than two hundred and fifty or three hundred words, made it impossible to convey to their minds very clearly what he wished to say, and he was compelled to illustrate his meaning, so well as he was able, by comparing the benefits 110 THE RISE AND PROGRESS that were to be hoped for with those they alone understood. At the conclusion of his sermon, he interrogated them as to their willingness to ask for and receive the inestimable bless ings to be hoped for from supplications to the Deity, and one old man stood up and made this answer: "Yes, my friend, if you will give us plenty of blankets, pantaloons, flour and meat and tobacco, and lots of other good things, we will pray to God all the time and always."* Wilkes also tells of an Indian who came on board one of his ships soon after he arrived in the Sound. He began at once to recite his Aves, which he did with apparent devotion, but he burst into loud laughter as soon as he had finished, show ing that he recited them merely by rote, and without at all comprehending their meaning or nature. But while the efforts of these missionaries to christianize failed, their efforts to civilize promised better. The schools established by Jason Lee, Clark, Shepherd and others pros pered, and for a time gave much reason to hope that they would produce great and lasting results. The children of the settlers certainly were benefited; those of the Indians seemed to be so. The latter attended in considerable numbers. Shepherd at one time had forty pupils in his school, of whom fully one-half were Indians. But the epi demic which had made such havoc among the tribes in the years between 1829 ant^ 1835, broke out again, and many of these pupils died. The others left the school. Their parents seemed to think the Americans were, in some way, responsible for the sickness, just as they had fancied when it first appeared, that the captain of the Boston ship, the Owyhee, had poisoned the waters of the Columbia. But notwithstanding this misfortune the schools survived. They "¦Transactions of the Oregon Pioneer Association, 1880, p. 19. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 111 never became as beneficial to the Indians as was hoped, but the settlers were now coming in steadily increasing numbers, and their children filled the benches which the Indians had abandoned, and to which few of them ever returned. The schools thus begun grew into promising seats of learning, and two of them exist today as the most prominent educa tional institutions in Oregon. So while these missionaries failed in the work they had come so far to do, and in which they had hoped to accom plish so much, they succeeded in another way not less important nor beneficial. They helped to spread enlighten ment. The seeds they planted grew to be great trees and filled a large space. More than all they helped most materially to lay the foundation of a State; to establish free institutions and free government, where but for their efforts there might have been no government for many years to come. Notwithstanding the letter of Bishop Rosati, written in 1831, telling the story ofthe direct appeal made to him, and the clergy of his diocese, by the four visitors from the Nez Perce and Flathead tribes who came to St. Louis in that year, no "black gowns" were sent to them as they seem to have been led to expect there would be, until at least three other appeals had been made for them. Why they were so often disappointed does not now appear. After waiting until 1835, Ignace La Mousse, probably a son of the "Old Ignace" or "Big Ignace" mentioned above, started for Montreal, taking with him his two sons, hoping to obtain priests, but learning that there were Jesuit fathers at St. Louis, went there instead, and the records of the Cathedral show that the two sons were baptized there December 2, 1835. 112 THE RISE AND PROGRESS As no priests arrived for two years following, three more Flatheads started for St. Louis in the autumn of 1837, f°r "black robes," joining W. H. Gray's party, but all the Indians in the party were killed at Ash Hollow, by a war party of Sioux. In 1839, a fourth deputation from the Flatheads, consisting of young Ignace and one other Iroquois, went to St. Louis, and a letter of Bishop Rosati, dated St. Louis, Oct. 20, 1839, and addressed to the Father General ofthe Society of Jesus, at Rome, gives an account of their arrival, and says, " Of the twenty-four Iroquois, who formerly emigrated from Canada, only four are now living." These were promised that a priest should go to them the next year. In the spring of 1840 Father P. J. De Smet, S. J., made his first journey to the Rocky Mountains, and met a party of Flatheads at Green River. He went with them to the Galla tin Valley, instructed and baptized numbers of them during the six weeks he remained with them, and then left them to return to St. Louis for a sufficient reenforcement to establish a mission among them. In 1841, with five assistants, he went with the Oregon emigration to Fort Hall, and from there struck north to the Flathead country, and Sunday, October 3, 1 841, he celebrated the first mass in Montana, and founded St. Mary's mission, at a point near where Stevensville, Mont., now stands. In 1842, two of his assistants founded a mission among the Coeur d'Alenes, and later other missions were established among other Rocky Mountain tribes. At first all went well, as it did for the first few years with the protestant missions, but the fickle nature of the savages showed itself, and in 1850 St. Mary's mission was tempora rily abandoned. Father Palladino says the "Flatheads had OF AN AMERICAN STATE 113 become estranged, careless, indifferent and pretentious to a degree that all endeavors of the fathers in their behalf, and for their spiritual welfare, were unheeded." In 1866, the mission was reestablished and continued in very success ful operation till 1891, when the last of the Flatheads were removed to another reservation, with their confederated tribes, the Pend 'Oreilles, Kalispels, and Kootenays. St. Ignatius mission had been established in 1844 among the Kalispels, and in 1854, it was removed to its present site on what is now the Jocko Reservation. None of the Catholic missionaries who first came to that part of old Oregon which is now comprised in the States of Oregon and Washington, came because of any of these visits to St. Louis. Chapter XXII. MARCUS WHITMAN AND HIS ASSOCIATES. ONE of the earliest missionary parties to come west in response to Walker's story of the visit of the four Indians to St. Louis, in search of religious instruction, was that led by Marcus Whitman. It was the second party to arrive on the Columbia; the first with which white women made the long journey overland from the Mississippi to the Willamette. It consisted of three men and two women, and they arrived at Fort Van couver on September 12, 1836. They were the first of all the pioneers to bring a wagon over that part of the trail lying between the rendezvous of the fur traders on Green River, and Fort Boise, a distance of nearly five hundred miles, though during the greater part of that distance it was no more than a cart. Four of the five people labored steadily, faithfully and prayerfully among the Indians for a little more than eleven years, and finally two of them, and twelve others, whom they had given shelter in their home, were murdered by the ungrateful savages. Their mission was broken up and never reestablished. This party was sent out by the American Board of Com missioners for Foreign Missions, an organization maintained by the Presbyterian, Congregationalist and Dutch Reformed churches. Those who contributed their money for its sup port were aroused, as other Christian people had been, by the publication of Walker's letter. An exploring party was first sent forward to see whether the field was really as invit ing as reported, before any missionaries should actually go to settle in it. This party consisted of Rev. Samuel Parker and Dr. Whitman, who went together as far as the rendez vous on Green River, in the summer of 1835, where they met a party of Nez Perces hunters. They found them so well disposed, and so eager for religious instruction apparently, 118 THE RISE AND PROGRESS that it was agreed that Parker should continue his jour ney alone, escorted by the Indians, while Whitman should return, report and secure immediate assistance, as by this means a whole year would be saved in getting the mission started. This program was carried out. Parker reached the Columbia in safety, spent the winter as Dr. McLoughlin's guest at Fort Vancouver, visited Fort George at the mouth of the river, and during the following summer explored a large part of the interior region, making the acquaintance of many of the native tribes. He returned to the East by way of the Sandwich Islands. Dr. Parker was something of an amateur scientist, as well as preacher, and he made observations everywhere he went, particularly of the geological formation of the country, the nature of the soil, climate, vegetable and animal life, as well as of the character and habits of the people, and shortly after arriving home published a book, which gave in compact and very readable form, a considerable amount of valuable information.* No other book at that time con tained so much. No other explorer had yet visited and so intelligently examined so large a part of Oregon. On reaching home Whitman was married to Narcissa Prentiss, a young woman whom he had long known, and who like himself was filled with a strong desire to be a "bearer of tidings of great joy to those who sit in darkness. " Whit man was not a minister but a layman. He had studied medicine and was practicing with some success in his native town of Rushville, N. Y., when he decided to turn missionary. Gray, who was one of his associates, describes him as "a man of easy, don't care, habits; that could become all things ?Parker's Exploring Tour Beyond the Rocky Mountains, with Map, Ithaca, N. Y., 1838. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 119 to all men, and yet a sincere and earnest man, speaking his mind before he thought the second time . . . correct ing and changing his views when good reasons were pre sented, yet, when fixed in pursuit of an object, adhering to it with unflinching tenacity. A stranger would think him fickle and stubborn, yet he was sincere and kind, and generous to a fault, seldom manifesting fear of any dangers that were around him; at times he would become animated and earnest in conversation or argument. In his profession he was a bold practitioner, and generally successful. He was above medium height, of spare habit, peculiar hair, a portion of each (separate hair) being white and dark brown, so that it might be called iron gray; deep blue eyes and a large mouth." Mrs. Whitman was a lady of refined feelings and com manding appearance and of much firmness and decision of character. She had very light hair, light, fresh complexion, and light blue eyes. Her features were large, her form full and round. At the time she arrived in the country, in the prime of life, she was considered a fine, noble-looking woman, affable and free to converse with all she met. Her conver sation was animated and cheerful and she was a good singer. She had been brought up in comparative comfort, and moved in the best religious society in the place of her resi dence. It is reported that she was the only one of all present at the farewell meeting given to the missionary party, in the little home church which she had so long attended, who sang all of the concluding hymn. All present, who could do so, joined heartily enough at first, but one by one their voices failed. Sobs were heard in every part of the house. But Mrs. Whitman was unshaken. With a voice as clear and unwavering as on the most peaceful 120 THE RISE AND PROGRESS Sabbath in her girlhood, she sang the last stanza entirely alone : "Yes, my native land, I love thee, All the scenes I love them well: Friends, connections, happy country, Can I bid you all farewell ?" Whitman was designated by the board to lead this first missionary party, which was composed of Dr. Whitman and wife, Rev. H. H. Spalding and wife, and W. H. Gray. The latter was a mechanic, and went out as a lay member and teacher. Spalding was a man of studious habits, but of a very unfortunate temper. He was not a skilful manager, but was an industrious worker, and his mission seems to have accomplished more and greater results than any ofthe others. A large share of such success as was won, while the mission remained, was due to the work of Mrs. Spalding. She is described as being about medium height, slender in form, with dark brown hair, blue eyes and rather dark complexion, of a serious turn of mind, and especially apt in learning languages. She is said to have acquired enough of the Nez Perce tongue from her guides, during the journey from Fort Walla Walla to the Clearwater, a distance of not more than one hundred and fifty miles, to be able to converse with them with some readiness. She could paint indifferently in water colors, and had been taught, while young, all the useful branches of domestic life; could spin, weave, sew, etc.; could prepare an excellent meal at short notice, was generally sociable, but not forward in conversation with gentlemen. With the native women she always seemed easy and cheerful, and had their unbounded confidence and REV. H. H. SPALDING. Born in Prattsburg, N. Y., Nov. 26, 1803. He was left an orphan early in life, and was brought up by strangers. He secured an education with difficulty. In 1833 he married Eliza Hart of Trenton, N. Y., and in 1836, in company, wjth Marcus Whitman and wife, and W. H. Gray, came to Oregon. This was. the first American party, with which women came to the coast, and the first, missionary party to begin work, in what is now Washington and Idaho. Mr. Spalding and wife built a mission church ,and school; at Lapwai, which they were CRnipelled to leave after the Whitman mas sacre. Spalding.jplanted the first apple trees in Idaho, and the first printing done in Oregon was done at his station. ^ ., .-. - " OF AN AMERICAN STATE 121 respect. She was considered by the Indian men as a brave, fearless woman, and was respected and esteemed by all. Early in the spring of 1836, this small party were ready to start on their long journey toward the West. They arrived on the Missouri in time to join one of the trains of the fur traders. They had two wagons well loaded with furniture, books, seeds of various kinds for planting their farms and gardens, and such provisions as they would require for their journey. At Fort Otoe on the Platte, however, they were obliged to abandon one of them, much of their furniture, nearly all of their seeds, and most of Mr. Spalding's books. The other wagon they managed to take through as far as Green River, and beyond that nearly to Fort Hall, where it was taken to pieces, made into a cart as already described, and taken on to Fort Boise, where it was finally abandoned. The remainder of the journey as far as Fort Walla Walla was made on horseback, and thence by the Hudson's Bay Com pany boats to Fort Vancouver. The latter place they reached on September 12th, and were most hospitably received. Mrs. Whitman and Mrs. Spalding were thus the first white women to make the long journey across the plains and mountains, and they were greeted with much surprise and admiration by the Hudson's Bay Company people. Whitman soon established most intimate relations with the chief factor, and formed a friendship that lasted to the end of his life. He was at first inclined to establish his mission at the Dalles, but from this Dr. McLoughlin soon dissuaded him, telling him that the Indians there were a mongrel race, and that they would not be likely to receive instructions as willingly or be as much benefited by it as nearly any of the other tribes would be. Although he had dissuaded Lee from going east of the mountains, as he was 122 THE RISE AND PROGRESS disposed to do, he now advised Whitman to return to the neighborhood of Walla Walla. The Cayuses who inhabited that part of the country were connected with the Nez Perces and the Flatheads. They were an active and more intelli gent people than the Indians at the Dalles, or the tribes west of the mountains generally were, and he encouraged Whitman to hope that he would find among them the best opportunity he could find anywhere for his missionary efforts. Accepting the chief factor's advice, Whitman and Spalding returned up the river and examined the Walla Walla country, made the acquaintance of the Indians living there, and found them very favorably inclined to have white teachers come among them. Arrangement were accordingly made by which the tribe allowed them to take possession of so much of their lands as they might need for cultivation, in return for which they were to establish a school, teach them agriculture and the white man's mode of living, as well as religion. Whitman was very favorably impressed by the Indians, and was charmed with the agricultural advantages which the country offered. He saw that the soil along the river offered the very best encouragement to the farmer, while the neighboring hills and plains would provide abun dant pasturage for numberless sheep and cattle. On their way down the Snake River they had met with a party of Nez Perces with whom it was partially arranged that a mission should be established in their country. Accord ingly it was settled that Spalding should fix his station on the Clearwater in the Nez Perce country while Whitman should establish himself at a point twenty-five miles east of Fort Walla Walla, at a place he called Waiilatpu, among the Cayuses. The two stations would be one hundred and twenty-five miles apart. Having settled this they returned OF AN AMERICAN STATE 123 to Vancouver for their wives, and before the winter had fairly begun were established in their new homes. Whit man managed to get some sort of a hut built for his winter residence, but Mr. and Mrs. Spalding and Gray spent their first winter at Lapwai in buffalo-skin lodges, not much unlike or superior to those occupied by the Indians. Though living in this most primitive way they found no fault with their surroundings, and had no occasion to com plain of their prospects. They had expected discomforts and privations and were entirely willing to accept them. They found the Indians well disposed, even eager apparently, to receive instruction. The Hudson's Bay people had promised their protection, as well as assistance in every way. Grain was furnished from Colvile, where there was an abun dance, and seeds of all kinds were offered for planting. These with the few they had saved from their own store, when their wagon was abandoned on the Platte, would sup ply their gardens with an abundant variety. They had brought a small herd of cattle with them and more were prom ised; of horses the Indians had more than an abundance. The missionaries looked for nothing during their first winter that the future did not give satisfactory promise of soon sup plying- In the spring of 1837 tne nrst incident to disturb the pros pect for harmonious and successful missionary work occurred. Gray, the least important member of the party, resolved to go east to ask for more missionaries. He took with him a small party of Indians, and a considerable number of horses which he had encouraged them to hope they would be able to trade for cattle, of which there were then but few in the country, and which they were very anxious to procure. His going was not approved by either of his associates. Both 124 THE RISE AND PROGRESS realized that they had not yet been long enough among the Indians to learn much about them, or to be able to judge whether the field would prove sufficiently promising to justify them in advising the board to send them further help. But Gray's purpose was not to be changed. On the way east ward his party was attacked by the Sioux and all of the In dians killed and their horses stolen. This calamity was the first of a series of unfortunate happenings for which the Indians, according to their custom, were disposed to hold the missionaries to account, and require them to make reparation. It was never forgotten, and became one of the remote causes which led to the final catastrophe, which put an end, for a long time, to missionary work in eastern Wash ington. Gray was married while absent, and returned in the fall of 1838 with his bride, and a very efficient reinforce ment, composed of Rev. Cushing Eells and wife, Rev. El- kanah Walker and wife, Rev. A. B. Smith and wife and Cornelius Rogers, who came out as a schoolteacher. These seven persons and Mrs. Gray were the only assistants ever sent out by the American board to the aid of the two families sent in 1836. These people were all young, or in the prime of life. Whit man was thirty-four and Spalding thirty-three years old when they began their missionary work; Eells and Gray were but twenty-eight, and Walker thirty-three, when they arrived on the Columbia, and nearly all of them were married, as Whitman had been, just before starting. They brought their wives, as brides, to the wilderness, and to make their home among the savages. But all were ardent, hopeful and entirely consecrated to the work they had undertaken, and they entered upon it in the confi dent belief that they were doing God service, and that REV. CUSHING EELLS. Came to Washington in 1838 as <* missionary; after the vV hitman massacre he devoted much of his time to educational work; was superintendent of schools in Whitman County. He founded Whitman College at Walla Walla and for many years gave it the larger part of his small earnings. -i-.J>jiti". af-^*t_______K.a...>i»i..i..!MjrfcBi- .,.' f - OF AN AMERICAN STATE 125 they would have His all-powerful protection and abundant approval. As the missionary board exercised no ecclesiastical control over them, they were left to form a governmental body of their own. Six of them were Congregationalists, four Pres byterians and two belonged to the Dutch Reformed Church. The organization they formed, and the church government they adopted, was Presbyterian in name and Congregational in form. This governing body met regularly once a year, and special meetings were also held when occasion required. It determined where each of its members should locate, and what they should or should not do, or attempt, in addition to their regular missionary work of preaching and teaching. They looked to the General Missionary Board in the East for approval, and encouragement, and to some extent for assistance, though it expected them, when once in the field, to be self-supporting, and to a large extent they were so. Soon after their arrival Messrs. Eells and Walker were assigned to the north, to establish themselves among the Spokanes in the neighborhood of Fort Colvile; Smith was to remain at Whitman's for the winter, while Gray and Rogers were to go as teachers to Spalding's. Smith was sent in the following year to Kamiah, on the Clearwater, sixty miles beyond Spalding's, to open a new station, but did not find the Indians very willing to receive him. They were of the Nez Perce tribe, but the Flatheads were their close neigh bors, and the latter seem never to have been favorably inclined toward the protestant missionaries, probably for the reason that they had gained their earliest ideas of the white man's religion from their Iroquois visitors, or their Hudson's Bay teachers. They permitted Mr. Smith to 126 THE RISE AND PROGRESS remain among them for some time, but with evident unwill ingness. They demanded pay for everything he used — their land, wood and water, and finally ordered him to leave. He made a brave effort to overcome their prejudices, but finally gave up, and in April 1841 abandoned his post, con sidering the people "given up of God, and devoted to destruc tion." He left the mission and went to the Sandwich Islands. Messrs. Eells and Walker immediately went north, after receiving their assignment, and after consulting with Archi bald McDonald, who was then in charge at Fort Colvile, they determined to locate at a place called Tshimakain (the place of springs) now called Walker's Prairie. It is about six miles north of the Spokane River, and was then on the trail between forts Walla Walla and Colvile, seventy miles from the latter post and one hundred and twenty-five from Whitman's. Here they built the walls of two log houses, but did not remain to put roofs on them, and then returned to Whitman's for the winter. In the following spring, and just a year from the day on which Mr. and Mrs. Eells were married, they set out from Waiilatpu for their new home. The several missions thus established by the American board, in eastern Washington and Idaho, seemed to prosper for a time in every way except in that for which the mis sionaries most hoped and prayed for prosperity. They were practical people. Like Paul they labored with their hands, and they taught those whom they gathered about them by example as well as by precept. They plowed and planted; they built churches and schoolhouses and mills and shops; they encouraged the Indians to help them, and gave them a generous share of the products of their joint labor, as their reward. They not only taught them to read and to pray, but they taught them also how to make themselves more OLD FORT COLVILE... ,.., This Hudson's Bay fort was established?, in 1825, and for a considerable time it was second in importance only to Fort Vancouver. It was on the east bank of the Columbia River, below the junction with Clark's fork, and not far from the British Columbia, line. Gold was discovered near it in 1855, and it subsequently became a military post of some importance. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 127 comfortable homes, and to supply them more regularly, as well as more abundantly with food, and to dress better than they had ever done before. Their wives, with infinite pa tience and tireless industry, went among the lodges, nursing the sick, teaching the women to sew and to cook, to knit, to spin and to weave, and so far as possible something of that cleanliness that is akin to godliness. They took the Indian children to their homes, where they taught them not alone from books, but in every other way, the homelier arts and customs of civilized life. Every day, and every hour of the day, had its duties, the discharge of which always required watchfulness and patience, and often the exercise of much Christian fortitude. So long as the church and the school, and the work of plow ing, planting and reaping; the building of houses and mills, and all the manifold occupations of the mission were new, the Indians were sufficiently attentive and helpful to give promise that they would ultimately be benefited. The missionaries did not hope for an instant change from the habits of savage to that of civilized life. They expected many failures and discouragements. Unfortunately this was al most the only one of their expectations in which they were not disappointed. But some progress was made at all the stations, except Smith's, and at Whitman's most of all. His own tireless energy, as well as skill in planning and arranging improve ments and in meeting and overcoming difficulties, soon pro duced a marked change in the appearance of the mission. Its site had been well chosen. The soil was fertile and easily brought under cultivation. By the aid of a little irrigation, which was easily provided by a ditch made without difficulty in the loose soil, wonderful crops were produced. A garden 128 THE RISE AND PROGRESS and orchard were planted. Year by year the cultivated area was increased, and what was better than all, a few of the Indians were induced to plant small fields and gardens of their own, and care for them in a more or less satisfactory way. As the mission farm prospered its buildings were increased, until in 1841, when one of the small parties sent east of the mountains by the Wilkes expedition called there, it found "two houses, built of adobe with mud roofs, to insure a cooler habitation in summer. There were also a saw mill and some grist mills at this place, moved by water. All the premises look very comfortable. They have a fine kitch en garden, in which grow all the vegetables raised in the United States, and several kinds of fine melons. The wheat, some of which stood seven feet high, was in full head, and nearly ripe; Indian corn was in tassel, and some of it meas ured nine feet in height. They will reap this year about three hundred bushels of wheat, with a quantity of corn and potatoes. " There were also a good-sized herd of cattle, some horses, sheep and swine. One of the mission buildings was eighteen by sixty feet in size, with a half story above; the other was thirty by forty, with a full upper story. These buildings contained the rooms in which the family lived, also a school room, a large dining room, and dormitories for children, with several spare sleeping rooms for guests, for the mission meetings were held here, and on those occasions several guest cham bers were required. There was also a blacksmith shop near the house, and barns and smaller outbuildings. The flour mill was on the bank of the creek near the mission; the saw mill was nearly twenty miles distant, and near the timber with which it was supplied. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 129 At Lapwai there was a large house in which there were eleven fireplaces; an Indian reception room; a room for spinning and weaving; a school room and a number of sleeping rooms. There was also a church, a saw mill and grist mill, and several shops, store houses and other build ings. Mrs. Spalding seems to have been a very remarkable woman in many ways. She easily made the Indian women her friends, and many of them came regularly to her house to be instructed in sewing, spinning, weaving and all the household arts. Some of them also attended her school, where she was also successful in teaching the Indian chil dren. Mrs. Whitman was equally industrious, at Waiilatpu, though apparently not equally successful. She was by nature less sympathetic, though equally earnest, and equally interested in and attentive to her work. The Indian women did not approach her so readily as Mrs. Spalding, though children in time became devoted to her. • The Wilkes party found that the school at Waiilatpu was regularly attended by some twenty-five pupils, a few of whom " showed some little disposition to improve. " But this was only one-fifth of all who had been enrolled. At Spalding's five hundred were enrolled and about one hundred attended regularly. "The great aim ofthe missionaries," the Wilkes report says, "is to teach the Indians that they may obtain a sufficient quantity of food by cultivating the ground. Many families now have patches of wheat, corn, and potatoes growing well, and a number of these are to be seen near the Mission farm." But while things seemingly prospered in a worldly way for a time, there was but little apparent change of the kind the missionaries most hoped for and prayed for. A few of 130 THE RISE AND PROGRESS the Indians attended the religious services held for their benefit with regularity, and listened with apparent attention, but that change which is called conversion, though anxiously hoped for, rarely appeared. In March 1847 Mrs. Eells wrote her mother: "We have been here almost nine years, and have not yet been permitted to hear the cry of one peni tent, or the songs of one redeemed soul. We often ask our selves, why is it ? Yet we labor on hoping and waiting, and expecting that the seed, though long buried, will spring up and bear fruit." But at Waiilatpu and Lapwai there were other evidences that the mission was not succeeding. The Indians who had received the missionaries at first with so many professions of good will, began gradually to treat them with disrespect. They refused to work unless paid more than they had for merly asked, and sometimes they demanded that articles in constant use at the mission should be given them in addi tion. They demanded pay also for the mission lands, for the wood, and even for the water used, claiming that all these were theirs and had been taken without their permis sion. They demanded water from the Whitman irrigating ditch for their gardens, and when this was refused, because there was no more water than was needed at the mission, they made a rude ditch of their own, and closed that of the mission entirely. They claimed also that the mill was theirs, and sometimes when they brought grain to it they would threaten to take charge of it themselves if their grain was not ground immediately. They began to visit the school room for the sole purpose of making a disturbance, and showing their contempt for what was going on there. They thrust themselves into the kitchen, dining room, and even the living rooms, and helped themselves to food from the tables, and OF AN AMERICAN STATE 131 even from the stoves where it was cooking. Sometimes so many came and remained that the ordinary work could be carried on only with difficulty, and if told to leave would refuse, saying that the place was theirs and they would remain there as long as they wished. At Spalding's station they destroyed his mill race, and when he rebuilt it they tore it away again. They even took possession of the mill, and so far disarranged the machinery as to render it for a time useless. One day some Indians rode up to Mrs. Spalding's school and began to make a disturbance, She tried to induce them to be quiet or go away, but did not succeed, and finally sent for Mr. Spalding. "I requested them to leave," says Mr. Spalding. "They refused. I sent for old James, as they belonged to his lodge. He refused to come. I went to him and found to my great surprise and sore grief that he counte nanced the evil doers. Mark George and the whole camp joined the heathen party. Red Wolf turned away from me, and the two or three who discountenanced the deed, and joined the heathen party. Timothy, the Eagle, and Con ner's father-in-law were the only three who openly discoun tenanced the evil doers." On April 17, 1 84 1, two years after he and Eells had begun their work at Tshimakain, Walker wrote in his diary : "Oh, the stupidity of the people! How little the anxiety they feel in regard to their souls' concern, if we judge them by their actions. All they seem to think about is to gain some thing of this world, and if they cannot get this we are of no use to them." At Waiilatpu, in the summer of 1841 an Indian turned his horse into the mission grain fields, and when Whitman remon strated with him he struck him twice. Gray, who was living 132 THE RISE AND PROGRESS at this station at the time, found it necessary to put an Indian out of the house because of his impudence, and a few days later other Indians called and ordered him to leave the place. When Whitman interfered one of the party attacked him. "I told him," says the doctor in describing what followed, "that if Indians came to Mr. Gray's, or my house, and re fused to do as we desired, it was right for us to put them out. He then took hold of my ear and pulled it, and struck me on the breast, ordering me to hear — as much as to say we must let them do as they pleased about our houses. When he let go I turned the other to him and he pulled that, and in this way I let him pull first one and then the other until he gave over, and took my hat and threw it in the mud. I called on the Indians who were at work for Mr. G. to give it to me, and I put it on my head, when he took it off again and threw it in the same place. Again the Indians gave it to me and I put it on. With more violence he took it off and threw it in the mud and water, of which it dipped plentifully. Once more the Indians gave it back to me and I put it on, all mud as it was, and said 'perhaps you are play ing.' A day or two after this McKay, another Indian, made a violent speech and forbade all the Indians to labor for us." The Indians could not appreciate this conduct or respect those who thus meekly accepted the indignities they offered. Had Whitman consulted with the Hudson's Bay agents, all of whom were his friends, and most ready to help him at all times, he would easily have learned that he must manage these savages with firmness if he wished to manage without difficulty. Such people do not appreciate the Christian virtues. To turn the other cheek only excites their con tempt and invites further indignities. To live among them OF AN AMERICAN STATE 133 safely one must follow Napoleon's principle and "first of all be master. " But there were other troubles than those made by the Indians, that disturbed the harmony of the mission, and threatened its destruction. Men are only human, no matter what their calling may be, and these men who had sacrificed so much and dared so much, could not after all lift them selves above their own natures. Spalding was a man of most unhappy temperament. He had been one of Mrs. Whitman's early suitors, and she had refused him. For this he never forgave her, or her husband, and his bearing toward them was often such as to make cooperation in the general management of the mission affairs well nigh impos sible.* Gray also made trouble for all concerned. Although sent out as a mechanic, he was not content to be a subordinate, and all the other members of the mission found it difficult to live in peace with him. In the report of the general missionary board for the year following his return east for reinforcements, he was accredited as "physician and teacher," and against this Whitman protested, saying that an atten dance at medical lectures for sixteen weeks was all the medical study or education he could boast. None of the missionaries he brought back with him in 1838 cared to have him for an assistant. Smith said he could scarcely receive him as a visitor, much less as an associate. So unwelcome was *Mrs. Whitman has left this account of his conduct and its effect on the, work of the mission in a letter to her father, dated Oct. 14, 1840: "The man who came with us is one who never ought to have come. My dear husband has suffered more from him, in consequence of his wicked jealousy, and his great pique toward me, than can be known in this world. But he suffers not alone — the whole mission suffers, which is most to be deplored. It has nearly broken up the mission." — Trans actions Oregon Pioneer Association, 1893, pp. 128-133. 134 THE RISE AND PROGRESS he at all the stations that he sought permission in 1839 to start a new station of his own, but Eells and Walker ob jected, and his plan was defeated, though Whitman and Spalding seem to have been willing to get rid of him in that way. He spent all of the succeeding winter at Spalding's but refused to do any work, although two mills were build ing at the time, and the assistance of a mechanic would have been valuable. When they were nearly completed he pretended to take charge of them, giving the workmen to understand that Spalding had built them contrary to the in structions of the board, and would soon be recalled, when he would probably be placed in charge. All this led to the utmost confusion, and tended greatly to weaken the influence of everybody with the Indians. At nearly every meeting of these missionaries it was neces sary to take action to reconcile some difference between Spalding and Gray, or between one or the other of them and Dr. Whitman, or the mission itself. Many reconciliations were made but none was lasting. Eells and Walker used their good offices as mediators, but were never able to bring about the permanent understanding that was so necessary to harmonious action. The minutes of the various meetings of the local board, at which these disagreements were considered, were for warded to the home office of the missionary board in Boston. Each of the disaffected members also wrote long letters to the general secretary, filled with minute details of their griev ances, and equally minute explanations for the course each had pursued, with an occasional confession of error and promise of more considerate conduct in future. To these were added other letters from Eells and Walker, stating with more calmness than the parties themselves were able OF AN AMERICAN STATE 135 to do, the causes of disagreement, and always expressing the hope that things might in time improve. The board advised, admonished and waited. But matters did not improve and finally its prudential committee, at its February meeting in 1842, decided to order the stations at Waiilatpu, Lapwai and Kamiah discontinued, and that Spalding and Gray should return east, while Whitman should sell the property at his station and remove to Tshamikain. While this order was on its way west, the seventh annual meeting of the mission was held at Waiilatpu. Its session lasted eight days, and much of the time was taken up with efforts to reconcile differences existing between its members. These were so successful that at its conclusion, the modera tor, Rev. Walker, was able to assure the authorities in Boston that "The difficulties have been met and settled in a Chris tian manner, and we feel that we now have reason to hope for permanent peace and harmony." But this hope did not long endure. This reconciliation was not more lasting than those which had preceded it. Gray was already negotiating with the authorities at Fort Vancouver for a place for his wife as teacher in the school maintained there for the benefit of the children of the Com pany's employees, and with the Methodist mission for a place for himself as secular agent for its school. The Company did not entertain the application in behalf of Mrs. Gray with favor, but the application on his own account was successful. He accordingly notified his associates of his wish to leave them. The order of the prudential committee closing the south ern station of the mission, and directing the return of Gray and Spalding to the States, reached Waiilatpu late in Septem ber, and at the same time Gray presented his application 136 THE RISE AND PROGRESS for leave to withdraw. The mission was immediately sum moned for a special meeting. Its members arrived at Whit man's, the usual meeting place, on September 26th, and all of the 27th was spent in considering Gray's application. By the single vote of the moderator it was decided not to grant it. Then so far as the minutes show, the meeting adjourned. The important order of the prudential committee directing that all of the most important stations of the mission be closed, leaving but one to continue its work — an order that meant " death to the mission if it was put in force, " as Mr. Walker wrote, was not considered at all. This action of itself would indicate that all present, or a majority of them at least, were in no condition of mind to consider any matter of importance. Mr. Walker's journal clearly shows that this was so, and indicates the reason for it. For the three days the entries are as follows : "Monday 26 . . . Reached the station of Dr. Whitman about 10, and found Mr. Spalding there. Did nothing of business till evening, and then had rather a short session dis cussing Gray's case. "Tuesday 27 — We did not do much today. The doctor preferred some charges against myself and Mr. Eells, which we did not admit, and held him to the talk I had with him last summer. "Wednesday 28 — Rose this morning with the determina tion to leave, and found Mr. Spalding had the same view, and was making preparations to leave as he felt that nothing could be done. At breakfast the doctor let out what was his plan, in view of the state of things. We persuaded them to get together and talk matters over. I think they felt some better afterwards. Then the question was submitted to us of the doctor's going home, which we felt that it was one REV. ELKANAH WALKER. From North Yarmouth, Me. He and his wife came with the Cushing Eells party to Oregon in 1838. Together with Eells, he established a missionary station at Tshimakain, which they maintained until after the Whitman massacre. During these years he mastered the language of the Spokane Indians, and prepared a small pamphlet, or primer, which was printed at Lapwai, and is perhaps the only publication in that language. After the massacre, he went to the Willamette, anddied there about thirty years later. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 137 of too much importance to be decided in a moment, but finally came to the conclusion that if he could put things in such a state that it would be safe, we could consent to his going, and with that left them and made a start for home." During this informal conference a resolution was prepared and signed by all present approving of the withdrawal of Gray and wife from the mission. Another and far more important resolution was as follows : "Resolved; That if arrangements can be made to con tinue the operations of this station, that Dr. Whitman be at liberty and advised to visit the United States, as soon as practicable, to confer with the committee of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in regard to the interests of this mission. E. Walker, Moderator. Cushing Eells, Scribe. H. H. Spalding. "Waiilatpu, Sept. 28, 1842." No entry of either of these resolutions was made in the minutes of the mission. All was done informally and after very hasty consideration. And yet the members, in all the years of their association together, had never before discussed or decided a matter of so much importance to themselves or to their work. It is quite conceivable that on considering Gray's request with more calmness than they had been able to give it in a formal meeting, where the members were mak ing charges against each other, that each had concluded for himself that Gray's withdrawal would at least be conducive to harmony, and though they might not like the manner of it, it would be best to let him go. But the other resolution pertained to a far more serious matter. By assenting to it they permitted one of their number to attempt a most dangerous undertaking. There remained but two more days 138 THE RISE AND PROGRESS of September. To start on the long journey, of more than fifteen hundred miles, through an almost uninhabited wilder ness, to St. Louis, meant that the whole trip would have to be made in winter, and the most difficult and dangerous part of it, through the mountains, where the winter began earliest and lasted longest, would have to be made when the weather was at its worst. So far as known, nobody had ever attempt ed to cross them at such a season. Even the trappers and the Indians deserted them during that part of the year, if they could. The journey must be made on horseback, and so far as they knew, alone. There were only four points in the whole fifteen hundred miles where human beings might be looked for — where food, clothing, extra horses or medicines in case of sickness, could be obtained. These were Forts Boise and Hall, the rendezvous on Green River, and Laramie. These were hundreds of miles apart. Much of the way between them would be difficult to follow without guides, and was likely to be made impassable for days together by storms. To attempt such a journey at such a season seemed reckless and almost suicidal. The principal station of the mission would be left without a head — its inmates exposed to insult, its property to pillage. The Indians in the neighborhood were no longer well disposed toward it. In case they should grow more insolent than they were no one could tell what might happen. What might have happened may now be judged by what did hap pen four years later. Fort Walla Walla was twenty-five miles distant. If danger threatened no relief could with any certainty be expected from it, although the people there were well disposed and promised every assistance. Mr. Walker, in a letter written to the secretary of the American board, immediately after his return home, gives ~~ •---—- TSHIMAKAIN. -jjpr- This was the second missionary station established in Washington. It was the scene of the early labors of Rev. Cushing Eells and Elkanah Walker. It was- located about six miles north of the Spokane River on the trail from Fort Walla Walla to Fort Colvile. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 139 some explanation of the reasons why they did not carry the order of the prudential committee, into immediate effect: "We thought that the object of your letter had been accom plished by the reconciliation which had taken place; (at the annual meeting) still we felt ourselves placed in a trying situation. We hardly knew what course to pursue, and concluded to wait until we could receive an answer to the letter of the committee of the mission, stating that the diffi culties of the mission had been settled. We found, too, that there was a difficulty in sustaining the mission, so many had withdrawn,* and as the reinforcement had stopped at the islands. After considerable consultation, without com ing to any definite conclusion, and as we were about starting for our place, a proposition was made by Dr. Whitman for him to return to the states this winter, and confer with the prudential committee; and conduct a reinforcement out next summer, if it was thought best to continue the mission. At least something definite could be decided upon. The proposition being presented, just as we were on the eve of leaving, we felt that we could not give a decided answer to it. We wanted time to think and pray over it, and proposed to return and send in our conclusion. But we were told that there was no time to be lost. After some consultation, we stated that if the station could be put in a condition which would render it safe to be left, and other proper arrangements could be made, we would consent to Dr. Whitman's going to the states. We did not approve of the hasty manner in which this question was decided. Nothing, it seemed to us, but stern necessity induced us to decide in the manner we did. It seemed death to put the proposition *Gray and Smith had now left it, Smith going to the Sandwich Islands. 140 THE RISE AND PROGRESS in force, and worse than death to remain as we were. I have no doubt if his plan succeeds it will be one of great good to the mission country. It is to be expected that a Romish influence will come in, and being under the control of the priests, it will be scattered throughout the country wherever there are Indians, and near the stations of the Mission; to meet this influence, a few religious settlers would be inval uable." Having secured the consent of his associates to make this long and dangerous journey, Dr. Whitman at once set about his preparations, and five days later he was ready to start. A young lawyer, A. Lawrence Lovejoy, a native of Massa chusetts but lately from Missouri, and afterwards famous in the early history of Oregon, had only recently arrived among the immigrants of 1842, and was still at Waiilatpu. Whit man invited him to return with him, and being "filled with a patriotic zeal and love of country," as an admiring bio grapher asserts, he consented, with a view to "induce a large emigration of Americans to Oregon the following spring to settle and hold the country west of the Rocky Mountains, and defeat the British scheme to colonize it with emigration from Red River."* From all this it seems to be reasonably clear that both he and Whitman .had a purpose in view to hasten the settle ment of the country as much as possible — Whitman by appealing to the general missionary board, and the Chris tian public in general, to send out Christian families to settle in his neighborhood, and assist him by their presence and example to instruct and control the Indians, while Love- joy should make a general appeal to settlers of every class. *The only colonists who ever came to Oregon from the Red River County arrived a year earlier — in 1841. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 141 If this was their purpose it was not successful in any consider able degree, for Lovejoy did not reach the settlements, and after a series of mishaps and adventures, in one of which he was for nine days a prisoner among hostile Indians, he joined the emigration of 1843 at Fort Laramie and reached Oregon City in October. Seventeen years later, Mr. Lovejoy wrote this account of that winter journey: "Previous to our leaving Waiilatpu I often had conversations with the doctor touching the pros pects of this coast. The doctor was alive to its interests, and manifested a very warm desire to have this country properly represented at Washington, and after some arrange ments, we left Waiilatpu, October 3, 1842, overland, for the Eastern States. We traveled rapidly and reached Fort Hall in eleven days, and remained only a day or two and made some few purchases; took a guide and left for Fort Wintee, as the doctor changed from a direct route, to one more southern through the Spanish country via Taos and Santa Fe. On our way from Fort Hall to Fort Wintee we met with terribly severe weather; the snows greatly retarded our progress, and blinded the trail so that we lost much time. After reaching Fort Wintee, and making some suitable pur chases for our trip, we took a new guide and started on our journey for Fort Macumpagra (Uncompagre), situated on the waters of the Grand River in the Spanish country. "Here again our stay was very short. We simply made some few purchases, and left for Taos. After being out some four or five days, as we were passing over some very high table lands, we encountered a most terrific snowstorm, which forced us to seek shelter at once. A deep ravine being near by, we rapidly made for it, but the snow fell so rapidly, and the wind blew with such violence that it was almost 142 THE RISE AND PROGRESS impossible to reach it. After reaching the ravine and cut ting some cottonwood trees for our animals, we attempted some arrangements to camp as well as we could under the circumstances, and remained snowed in for some three or four days, when the snowstorm subsided, and it cleared off intensely cold. It was with much difficulty that we made our way up upon the highlands; the snow was so deep and the wind so piercing and cold, that we felt compelled to return to camp and wait a few days for a change of weather. "Our next effort was (little) more successful, and after spending several days wandering around in the snow, with out making much headway, and greatly fatiguing our animals to little or no purpose, our guide informed us that the deep snow had so changed the face of the country that he was completely lost, and could take us no further. This was a terrible blow to the doctor. He was determined not to give it up without another effort, and we at once agreed that the doctor should take the guide, and make his way back to the fort and procure a new guide, and that I should remain in camp with the animals, until his return, which was on the seventh day, with a new guide. We were soon under way, traveling through the snow at rather a snail's pace. Nothing occurred of much importance, other than the hard and slow traveling, until we reached, as our guide informed us, the Grand River, which was frozen on either side about one-third across. The current was so very rapid that the center of the stream remained open, although the weather was so intensely cold. The stream was some one hundred and fifty or two hundred yards wide, and was looked upon by our guide as very dangerous to cross in its present condition. But the doctor, nothing daunted, was the first to take the water. He mounted his horse, and the guide and OF AN AMERICAN STATE 143 myself pushed them off the ice into the boiling foaming stream. Away they went completely under water, horse and all, but directly came up, and after buffeting the waves and foam ing current, he made to the ice on the opposite side, a long way down the stream; leaped from his horse onto the ice, and soon had his noble animal by his side. The guide and I forced in the pack animals, followed the doctor's example, and were soon drying our frozen clothes by a comfortable fire. "With our new guide, traveling slowly on, we reached Taos in about thirty days. We suffered considerably from cold and scarcity of provisions, and for food were com pelled to eat the flesh of mules, dogs and such other animals as came within our reach. We remained at Taos some fifteen days, where we changed off our animals and made such purchases as our journey required, and left for Bent's Fort, on the headwaters of the Arkansas River, where we arrived about the third of January, 1843. The doctor left here on the seventh, at which time we parted, and I did not meet him again until some time in the month of July above Fort Laramie, on his way to Oregon with a train of emigrants. "The doctor often expressed himself to me about the remainder of his journey, and the manner in which he was received at Washington, and by the Board of Missions at Boston. The doctor had several interviews with President Tyler, Secretary Webster, and many members of Congress, touching the interests of Oregon. He urged the immediate termination of the treaty with Great Britain relative to this country, and the extension of the laws of the United States, and (to provide) liberal inducements to emigrants to come to this coast. He felt much chagrined at the lack of interest, and the great want of knowledge concerning Oregon and 144 THE RISE AND PROGRESS the wants of this country, though he was very cordially and kindly received, and many seemed anxious to obtain every information which he could give them; and I have no doubt the doctor's interviews resulted greatly to the benefit of Oregon and the entire coast. "But his reception at Boston was not so cordial. The Board censured him for leaving his post, for the waste of time, and the great expense attending so long a journey across the continent at that time of the year. The doctor returned to the frontier settlements urging the citizens to emigrate to the Pacific Coast. After his exertions in this behalf, he left for Independence, and started for Oregon with a large emi grant train, some time in May. With his energy and knowl edge of the country he rendered them very great assistance, and continued to do so till he reached his home, about the first of October (about a year from the time he left), to find the home of his choice sadly neglected, and the flouring mill burned to the ground. The Indians were very hostile about the doctor leaving at the time he did. . . ." Whitman arrived at the home office of the missionary board on March 30, 1843, having been nearly six months on the way. He was but coldly received. Only a bare announcement of his arrival was made in the "Missionary Herald," the organ of the board, and he was reprimanded for having left his station without leave, and for incurring the expense which his long journey required. But the order directing the abandonment of the stations at Waiilatpu, Lapwai and Kamiah was recalled, though he does not appear to have been successful in any other object he may have had in view. No increase of help was furnished, either as mis sionaries or teachers. No Christian families were sent by the board, or secured by his own efforts, to settle among the OF AN AMERICAN STATE 145 Indians. He left Boston in April, in time to overtake the emigrant trains — which were that year much larger than the year preceding — when they were some days out on their journey, and to render them material assistance, both as a physician and as an experienced traveler. Further than this there is no evidence that his long and dangerous winter journey had any other useful result. Some years after Dr. Whitman's untimely death a claim was put forth by his indiscreet admirers, some of whom were not very friendly to him in life, that the principal, if not the only object of this winter ride was to "save Oregon"; that but for his visit to Washington, and several interviews he is alleged to have had with President Tyler and Mr. Webster, his secretary of state, the country might have been traded off to Great Britain for a cod fishery on the banks of New foundland; that the large emigration of 1843 was due t0 n^s efforts, and that he led it across the mountains, and to the Columbia, and thus opened the first wagon road into Oregon. These claims were in time enlarged and embellished by numerous writers, who have not hesitated to publish what they represent to be reports of conferences had with authori ties in Washington, and to put into their mouths certain expressions about Oregon and its value, that are totally at variance with their well-established views, long held and frequently uttered. As might have been expected these representations have been challenged by those who have studied the history of the time with more care. A con troversy has followed, in the bitterness of which some have seemingly become anxious to rob Whitman of the credit which unquestionably belongs to him. If his blood could cry out from the ground, as that of the first victim of ignorant brutality is said to have done, 146 THE RISE AND PROGRESS it might well plead: "Save me from my injudicious ad mirers. " There is no mention of Whitman having been in Wash ington that winter or spring in any official document, or in the report of any speech in either house of Congress, or so far as known in any letter written by any person who met him there. That he intended to go there, when he left Waiilatpu, though purely in an incidental way, and not as the main object of his trip, is clear from the letters written by Mrs. Whitman, which he took with him, to her friends in the East. In one of these she says: "The interests of the missionary cause in this country calls him home," and in the other that "he goes upon important business as connected with the missionary cause, the cause of Christ in this land," and, much as*she dreaded to be left alone, she consented that he might go, in order that "the object of his almost immediate presence in the land of our birth might, if possible, be accomplished; the interest of the cause demands the sacrifice." Then, speaking of his traveling companion, she says: "He expects to accompany him all the way to Boston, as his friends are in that region, and perhaps to Washington. " Five months later, and while Whitman was still absent, Dr. Elijah White, who had led out the emigration of 1842, and with whom Whitman had conferred after he had reached Waiilatpu, wrote the commissioner of Indian affairs a letter, in which he describes the country ofthe Cayuse Indians as "well-watered, gently undulating, extremely healthy, etc., ... as Dr. Whitman may have informed you." So it seems clear that White had talked with him before he left, about going to Washington, though he says nothing of any intention, on his part, to consult with either the OF AN AMERICAN STATE 147 president or the secretary of state about the boundary question. That the doctor did go to Washington seems to be proven by his own letter to the secretary of war, without date, but evidently written early in the year after his return from his winter ride, in which he says he writes "in compliance with the request you did me the honor to make last winter while at Washington, etc." This letter enclosed a draft of a bill which embodied a plan for aiding and protecting the settlers on their long journey across the plains, by the establishment of agricultural stations, at various points from one to two hundred miles apart, along the route. At these stations the travelers could rest and recruit their animals, repair their wagons, and secure fresh supplies of food and forage, and medical attendance if they should require it. They might also take refuge in them, or be relieved by them if attacked by the Indians. This plan, if it could have been carried out, would have provided the immigrants with very efficient help, and would doubtless have saved many of their lives. But it was wholly improbable that Congress could have been brought to regard it with favor in that day, and there is no evidence that it was ever given opportunity to do so. The letter and bill went to the files in the war department and there remained. That Whitman should seek an interview with the secre tary of war, if in Washington, would be entirely natural. As the head of the war office his recommendation of any plan for protecting and policing the trail would be desirable. But more than that the Indian office was then a part of the war department, and if the doctor wished anything done for or about the Indians with whom he was laboring, he would most naturally go to that official. Doubtless he and 148 THE RISE AND PROGRESS White had discussed this before he started, and it was for that reason that White thought it probable that he might have seen and talked with the commissioner of Indian affairs before April i, 1843, the date of his letter above referred to. But while there was good reason for his call upon the secretary of war, there was no reason why he should call on the secretary of state or the president. He had no business in which they could assist him; they had none then pending in which he could, or would even be likely to think he could be of assistance to them. The Ashburton treaty, by which the boundary between Maine and Canada was fixed, had been concluded, signed and ratified before he left his home. The Oregon boundary had not been dis cussed during that negotiation, because Lord Ashburton's instructions did not authorize him either to propose or accept any line that Mr. Tyler's administration could possibly assent to. In every previous negotiation, as has been shown, the forty-ninth parallel had been insisted on by every repre sentative of the United States. Great Britain had been officially informed, years before, that we would accept that and nothing less. A Senate report, made by a committee of which Mr. Linn of Missouri was chairman, as early as June 1838, more than four years before Whitman had started east, quoted Mr. Clay's positive instructions to Mr. Gallatin, to notify the British authorities that the forty-ninth parallel was our ultimatum, and a map showing that line as the boundary had been printed for general distribution, as well as for the use of the Senate. Another report made to the House of Representatives by Caleb Cushing of Massachusetts, a year later, had argued the question of our title with great ability, and in 1840 the Senate had printed Mr. Greenhow's OF AN AMERICAN STATE 149 compilation of the abundant evidence by which it was sup ported. All these and many other able documents and speeches had been widely distributed and generally read by the American people. There was perhaps no other inter national question about which they were so well informed. So thoroughly aroused were they that public meetings were held in several of the States, particularly in the West, to urge the immediate settlement of the boundary question, and to encourage emigration to Oregon so as to strengthen our hold on it. One of the earliest held of these meetings was at Alton, 111., on the evening of November 8, 1842. It was addressed by Judge Semple, father of Eugene Semple, one of the territorial governors of Washington. Judge Semple was afterward a senator from Illinois. He was also one of the speakers at another meeting held in the hall of the House of Representatives, at Springfield, on February 5, 1843, at which Ex-Senator Jesse B. Thomas presided, and Lyman Trumbull, who twelve years later defeated Mr. Lincoln in his first senatorial race, reported the resolutions. These and other meetings of similar nature were held before Dr. Whitman could have reached St. Louis on his famous winter ride, and show that public sentiment on the Oregon question was as fully aroused as it could be long before his arrival.* Anything he could have done after his arrival would simply have added the influence of a single individual to that of a multitude who were all of one opinion. Nor is it possible that he gave either President Tyler, or Secretary Webster, any information that they did not already have, in regard to the value of the country or its accessabil- ity, for there had been in the files of the navy department, * Quotations from a pamphlet printed in Washington Pioneer Association, 1894. 150 THE RISE AND PROGRESS for more than eight months previously, a special report from Commodore Wilkes, hurried forward to Washington as soon as possible after his arrival in New York, which contained all the information, in condensed form, about the Oregon country that had been gathered by his expedition, together with a forceful argument in favor of our claims to the whole coast, from the northern boundary of California to 540 40'. This report was immeasurably valuable, in com parison with any that Whitman could make, since it was based on a scientific examination of the country, and par ticularly of the only part of it which was then in dispute — the part about which Whitman knew but little, if anything. With this report both Tyler and Webster must have been familiar, for it had been prepared for their express informa tion, and after receiving it they would not have dared to propose or accept less than was finally accepted, or than all their predecessors had contended for.* There was no member of the administration, or of any previous administration, or of either the House or Senate, or any diplomatic representative of the country who expressed a doubt of the completeness of oui title to all the country as far north as the forty-ninth parallel, and many were for demanding the line of 540 40', as was done, very much to Mr. Polk's embarrassment, by the platform adopted a little more than a year later, by the convention which named him for president. More than all this Great Britain had ceased to make any claim whatever to the part of Oregon in which Whitman was interested— the only part of it he had ?This report was not published at that time, because publication would have defeated the object for which it had been prepared, and it has not been published since then. I have secured a copy of it from the navy department, and the most important part of it will be found in the appendix of this volume. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 151 ever seen, or knew anything about. It had already twice offered to make the Columbia the boundary, and Lord Ash- burton's instructions had authorized him to repeat the offer. So well was the public informed, and so general and well settled was the conviction, both among public men and private individuals, that we were entitled to all of Oregon south of the forty-ninth parallel, and that our government was bound by every consideration of national interest, as well as national honor, to preserve and defend it, that no public man would have ventured even to contemplate the sacrifice of any part of it. And still more than all this Senator Linn of Missouri, supported as he was in both the House and Senate, by other active advocates of immediate occupation of the Oregon country, had been for five years past proposing practical measures, at every session of Congress, for the encourage ment of settlers, and thus by the surest of all means, making the country indisputably ours. These measures had been ably and fully debated. No others had received more care ful attention. The sentiment in favor of terminating the convention for joint occupancy was rapidly growing stronger. So strong was the public confidence becoming that all ques tion of title to the country would soon be settled, and the liberal laws proposed for it would soon be enacted, that emigrants were already starting toward it in considerable numbers. Whitman had seen one considerable party arrive before leaving home, and his single traveling companion on his long journey had been a member of it. He had returned for the express purpose of encouraging larger parties to go out the following and succeeding years. The road was open, the trip demonstrated to be entirely practicable. All diffi culties in the way of saving and settling the country were 152 THE RISE AND PROGRESS therefore removed, or about to be removed, and all that remained to do was to make the long trail across the moun tains as smooth and as safe as possible, and the rest would soon follow. The claim that any single person, or any single act saved the country at that period, is therefore obviously absurd. To support this claim a series of absurd, statements have been put forth from time to time, that have passed current with the careless, until their falsity was exposed by those who had determined to know what the facts actually were. It has been asserted that the Catholic missionaries were assiduously at work in the interest of the British government, though how they could have served it is not clear. Nor is it probable they would have done so if they could. England is not a Catholic country. Not one of these priests was English, either by birth or education. Most of them were Belgians or French Canadians, and one of them, according to the testimony of one who was for a long time closely asso ciated with him,* was sent to this coast just after he had been liberated from a British dungeon in Montreal, in which he had been confined seven months because of his sympathy with and activity in the Papineau rebellion in 1837. It is hardly possible that such men would have been active workers in the interest of Great Britain. It has also been claimed that the records of the Hudson's Bay Company, long hidden in the dusty vaults in Fenchurch Street, had given up some evidence to support it; but no such evidence has ever been produced, nor is it even remotely probable that any exists there. Neither is it true, as often represented, that the Hudson's Bay Company or its people were unfriendly to * Rev. P. F. Hylebos of Tacoma: Address at breaking ground for the Alaska- Yukon-Pacific Exposition, Seattle, 1907. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 153 these missionaries, or that they ever put obstacles in their way, or opposed or in any way delayed or obstructed the coming of the settlers. On the contrary both missionaries and settlers have borne most abundant testimony to their many kindly offices. The Company was loath to give up the country north of the Columbia, and long hoped to see the river made the boundary. Its officers and agents did what they could to dissuade the settlers from going north of it, but in no case did they use other than reasonable and legitimate means to keep them from doing so. It is but just to the memory of Dr. Whitman to say that nowhere in his correspondence, which is far more voluminous than has yet been published, has he made any claim to have saved the country by his visit to Washington. Nowhere has he made any claim to have seen the president or secre tary of state, or talked with them about the boundary treaty, or on any other subject. The utmost credit to which he ever laid claim, even when attempting to justify himself to the mission board for leaving his station and making a long and expensive trip without authority, was that his party was among the first to cross the mountains, and was the first to bring white women to Oregon; that he brought the emi grant train of 1843 through to the shores of the Columbia with their wagons, contrary to all former assertions of the impracticability of the route; that the establishment of this route was due to his ride alone, and that one of his purposes in making it was to "open a practical route and safe passage, and secure a favorable report of the route from the emi grants"; that the success of the migration of 1843 was the foundation and cause ofthe treaty of 1846, and that upon the results of emigration to the country the existence of his mis sion and of Protestantism in Oregon hung also. He has thus 154 THE RISE AND PROGRESS claimed all, and more than can in even justice be allowed, but it must be remembered that he did not urge these claims upon public notice, but made them to justify himself to his superiors, who were not in good humor with him and were disposed to be exacting. The emigration of 1843 was not tne nrst to nn(^ a roa(I to the Columbia; it was hardly the second. It was not due to Whitman's efforts "alone" that the road chosen for it was established, nor did he save it from disaster. Nor is it possible that he could have done much, if indeed he did anything to induce anybody to join it. He did not reach Westport, on the Missouri — which was near the site of the Kansas City of the present day — until February 15th, and it was some days later before he reached the settlements where recruiting might begin. It is certain that he did not stop anywhere long enough to talk very much to people about the attractions of Oregon; he was in too great haste to reach his destination to do that. Nor is it probable, if he had delayed, that he would have been able to persuade any to make the hasty preparations that would have been neces sary to join the train that left the Missouri only a little more than two months later. No very desirable emigrant would have been able to make his preparations in that short time — to sell what he had and buy what he would need — and it was only desirable emigrants that Whitman wished for; "some Christian familes," to settle near his mission, and help him in his missionary work, both by their efforts and by their example, are spoken of both in his own letters and those of his wife. But not one such person from the immigration of 1843 stopped in eastern Oregon. It must be true therefore that such efforts as he made to encourage settlers to go to the OF AN AMERICAN STATE 155 Columbia, bore fruit, if they bore any at all, only in later years. But it is not necessary to quibble about these niceties. There would be no need to mention them if those who have sought to exalt him to an eminence where he does not belong had been half as willing to be just to him during his life, as they were more than willing to be after his death. A gen erous public will always allow to the memory of an earnest and courageous worker in any field of endeavor, that full measure of admiration to which his efforts entitle him. Whitman did enough to make that measure in his case an ample one, and he and his heroic wife suffered enough to make it an abundant one. Their fame requires nothing to be added that does not justly belong to it. No man's place in history is fixed either by his panegyrists or his defamers. Neither the eulogiums of the one nor the libels of the other will place his name one notch higher or one lower in the temple of fame than it belongs in. History is not to be trifled with. Fictions, the fancies of admirers, the misrepresentations of enemies, may have a certain cur rency for a time, but the truth alone can abide. It is by what each man does, or thinks or suffers, if he does or thinks or suffers anything in this life that is at all worthy of note or remembrance, that the world will ultimately judge him, and no attempt by friends or foes to add or detract anything from the record thus made will avail. The judgments of time are the judgments of the Almighty, and they are true and right eous altogether. Chapter XXIII. THE CATHOLIC MISSIONARIES. NONE of the Catholic missionaries who came earliest to that part of the old Oregon country that is now known as Washington or Oregon, came because of any of the visits of the Indians to St. Louis. Father de Smet, who was the first to come west of the mountains in response to that call, made two visits to the Columbia River country, but on neither occasion did he remain long. As is well known, he traveled almost con tinually in his work and, as has been estimated, covered a distance equal to five times the circumference of the globe, much of it through the wilderness in boats, on horseback or on foot. Such an enterprising traveler would scarcely find time to remain very long in one place. He was an ardent admirer of the Columbia River and Puget Sound countries, early saw their brightest prospects, and more than once expressed the ardent wish that he might be able to live here and die here. But he was not the first of the Catholic missionaries. His earliest visit was in 1842, when he came to Fort Vancouver in search of supplies for his mission of St. Mary's in Montana. He returned again in 1844, after his visit to Europe in search of missionary assistants, coming by sea direct to the mouth ofthe Columbia, and bringing with him a considerable party, both priests and teachers. He was offered land on the Wil lamette for a central mission, and at once began to clear the ground and erect the necessary buildings, while the sisters gathered the children of the settlers and natives about them and began to teach them while the builders were at work. But four years before his first visit, Revs. Francis Norbert Blanchet and Modeste Demers had come to the Columbia direct from Montreal. They arrived at Fort Vancouver on Saturday November 24, 1838, and on the following day 160 THE RISE AND PROGRESS celebrated mass for the first time in Oregon. Doubtless they were given a more cordial greeting than the other mis sionaries, though none of them ever complained of want of welcome. But the chief factor had been born of a Catholic family, and most ofthe laborers about the fort were Catholics. They had long wished that priests would come among them, to marry them to the Indian women with whom they were living, and baptize and educate their children, as well as pro vide them with the religious service to which they had always been accustomed. In 1834 and again in 1835, they, and the French families who were established in homes of their own on the Willamette, had applied to the Catholic bishop of Red River in Canada, to send them missionaries, but the bishop had answered that there were no disposable priests in his diocese. He promised, however, that as soon as mis sionaries could be obtained from Europe, he would establish a mission in Oregon, not alone for their benefit but "also for the numerous Indian tribes among which you live." In pursuance of this purpose he applied to the Hudson's Bay authorities for passage for two priests from Red River, and for authority to establish a mission on the Willamette River, but it was refused, the governor, the committee in London and the council at Hudson's Bay being unwilling that any such establishment should be made south of the Columbia. So the matter rested for two years when the bishop renewed his application to Sir George Simpson, who later wrote to the archbishop of Quebec that the Company had objected to a mission on the Willamette, because "the sovereignty of that country is still undecided; but I last summer inti mated to the bishop that if he would establish the mission on the banks of the Cowlitz, or the Cowlitz portage, falling OF AN AMERICAN STATE 161 into the Columbia from the northward, and give his assurance that the missionaries would not locate themselves on the south side of the Columbia River, but would form their establishment where the company's representative might point out as the most eligible situation on the north side, I should recommend the governor and committee to afford a passage to the priests, and such facilities towards the successful accomplishment of the object in view as would not involve any great inconvenience or expense to the com pany's service. ... If the priests will be ready at Lachine, to embark for the interior about April 25th, a passage will be afforded them; and, on their arrival at Fort Vancouver, measures will be taken by the company's representative there to facilitate the establishing of the mission, and the carrying into effect the objects thereof generally. " Father Blanchet, of Montreal, was designated by the arch bishop for this service, and Father Demers by the bishop of Red River. They were instructed by the archbishop in regard to their authority, the work they were to undertake, and the region to which their labors were to be confined. They were particularly charged "not to form any establish ment in any territory, the possession whereof is contested by the United States." "As to that part of the territory," the letter says, "it is probable that it does not belong to any of the dioceses of the United States; but if the missionaries are informed that it forms a part of some diocese, they will abstain from performing any act of jurisdiction there, unless they be authorized to do it by the bishop of such diocese. " The archbishop only expressed a fear that these priests by going to the Willamette, might intrude into the jurisdic tion of some bishop in the United States. But the bishop of Red River at the same time sent a letter to the Catholic 162 THE RISE AND PROGRESS families living in the Willamette, and in it no doubt at all was expressed. "They would no doubt be disappointed," he said, "because these missionaries who were now sent to them would not settle among them. Your settlement is situated in the territory ofthe United States," he said, "and consequently outside of the diocese of Quebec. The com pany cannot favor the establishment of a colony in a foreign country; and I, as a bishop British subject, cannot allow the priests whom I send to establish themselves anywhere else than on British territory, because the line which divides the two powers also bounds my jurisdiction. It is the reason why the passage of the missionaries was refused last year; and it has been granted this year only on the special condi tion that the missionaries would fix their residence on the north side of the Columbia River; thus this change does not come from the ill will on my part, which I thought proper to let you know. The missionaries, however, can go and visit you, but always temporarily, and will not be able to fix their residence among you. You might perhaps, in course of time, join them in moving to their establishment. The desire of the salvation of your souls shall induce you to do it." Doubtless the archbishop and the bishop got the political information on which they based the views they thus expressed from the same source. They had now been in correspondence with the Hudson's Bay officials for two years or more in regard to this matter. The only reason given them for withholding what they asked for was a politi cal one. When their request was finally granted, it gave permission to establish their missions only in the neighbor hood and not among those who had asked for them, because they were in a foreign country. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 163 This was early in the year 1837. At that time the Hud son's Bay Company, from whom these bishops got their infor mation, had definitely and finally abandoned all hope of holding the country south of the Columbia. Its officials were in close touch with the authorities of the British govern ment, and it is therefore equally certain that they also had given up hope of keeping more than the country west and north of the river, and were resolved to be content with this joint occupation arrangement as long as it could be perpetu ated. Father Blanchet left Montreal early in May in a bark canoe, which carried the express of the Hudson's Bay Com pany. A month later he was joined by Father Demers. On July 26th they left Norway House, on Lake Winnipeg, with the Company's annual brigade, in a fleet of eleven boats, laden with merchandise, and a large number of hired men, with women and children. With them were two English botanists, Messrs. Banks and Wallace, on a tour of scien tific exploration. Their journey lay along the toilsome route which Mac- Kenzie had followed forty-four years earlier, to the crest of the mountains. There they took a southerly course to the headwaters of the Columbia, which MacKenzie and Fraser had failed to find, but to which there was now a well beaten trail. They encountered no accident, or adven ture of special interest until they reached the big bend of the Columbia River. There in the transfer of persons and freight from that point to the House of the Lakes, one of the boats was badly wrecked, and, of twenty-six persons on board, twelve were drowned. The travelers, Banks and Wallace, with the wife of the latter, were among the lost. 164 THE RISE AND PROGRESS To carry out the instructions given him to establish the principal station of his mission at Cowlitz Prairie, Father Blanchet left Vancouver on the 12th of December, reaching Cowlitz Prairie on Sunday, the 16th. The settlement then consisted of the families of four retired servants of the Hudson's Bay Company, who had taken claims upon the prairie on the west side of the river. Mass was celebrated on Sunday and Monday, at the house of Simon Plomondon. A section of land was taken for the mission, and prepara tions made to obtain timber for buildings, after which Father Blanchet returned to Fort Vancouver. Early in January 1839, with the approbation of the chief factor, Father Blanchet visited the Catholic families residing on French Prairie. A log church, seventy by thirty feet, ' had been built in 1836. On Sunday, January 6th, the vicar-general blessed the chapel, under the patronage of St. Paul, and celebrated the first mass in the Willamette Valley. In the spring, Father Demers visited the Indians of Puget Sound. He returned to Fort Vancouver by June, and met the trading expedition of the Hudson's Bay Company on its annual return to Vancouver from New Caledonia and the interior posts, after which he visited the upper Columbia, Forts Walla Walla, Okanogon and Colvile. On the 9th of October, Chief Factor Douglas communi cated to the vicar-general "that the governor and committee have no further objection to the establishment of a Roman Catholic mission in the Willamette, and that the missionaries were at liberty to take any means towards the promotion of that object." Father Blanchet assumed charge of Wil lamette mission, and assigned Cowlitz mission to Father Demers. FIRST CATHOLIC MISSIONARIES. The first Catholic missionaries to reach Oregon were Fathers F. N. Blanchet and Modeste Demers, who came from Canada in 1838. Fathers A. M. A. Blanchet and J. B. A. Brouillet came a year or two later. Father F. N. Blanchet early became bishop, and then arch bishop in Oregon, and his brother A. M. A. Blanchet was the first bishop of Nisqually. Father Demers, the first Catholic to do missionary work on Puget Sound, became bishop of Vancouver Island. Father De Smet was a Jesuit and came to the coast from St. Louis. He was the first Catholic missionary to come to the coast in response to the request of the four Indians who crossed the mountains to that city in 1831. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 165 In the spring of 1840 Vicar-General Blanchet visited the Indians of Puget Sound, extending his mission as far as Whid- by Island. There he erected a cross, taught the Indians, baptized children, and reconciled two hostile tribes engaged in war. Father Demers accompanied the brigade of the Hudson's Bay Company, which started from Fort Vancou ver for the upper Columbia, June 29th, extending his missionary visits to Forts Walla Walla, Colvile and Okano- gon. While at Colvile, he learned ofthe presence of Father Peter J. de Smet among the Flatheads, who, with equal surprise, had become advised that Father Demers was labor ing in that vicinity. The two missionaries succeeded in com municating with each other; and Father Demers carried a letter from Father de Smet to Vicar-General Blanchet. Sir George Simpson, upon his tour to Oregon, in 1841, made such a favorable report of the missionary labors of Messrs. Blanchet and Demers, that two other priests from Canada, Revs. Anthony Langlois and John B. Z. Bolduc, were added to the mission. Refused passage overland, by the Hudson's Bay Company, they came by sea, via Cape Horn, at the expense of the Society of Quebec for the Propa gation of the Faith. They arrived September 17, 1842, at St. Paul, on the Willamette. The Vicar-General assumed charge at Vancouver, assigning Rev. Langlois to St. Paul, Rev. Bolduc to Cowlitz, Father Demers being on a mission to the upper Columbia. On the 25th of November, Chief Factor John McLoughlin addressed the following to the vicar-general: "I am instructed to place one hundred pounds sterling to the credit of your mission, as an acknowledgment of the eminent ser vices you and your pious colleagues are rendering the people of this country. " 166 THE RISE AND PROGRESS In 1843 the missionary force was increased by the arrival of Jesuit Fathers de Vos and Hockens, from St. Louis. In October, St. Joseph's College was opened at St. Paul, with thirty scholars, with Rev. A. Langlois, Superintendent. With the arrival of the Hudson's Bay Company brigade came five men and two women, aids of the mission, to whom free pas sage had been furnished. In the following August Father de Smet arrived with a number of missionary priests, who were to help him in his work among the mountain tribes ofthe interior, several lay brothers, and six nuns ofthe order of Notre Dame de Namur. The latter immediately opened a school for girls as already related. Early in November Father Blanchet received notice that Oregon had been made a vicariate apostolic, of which he was to be the ecclesiastical head, with the title of bishop of Phila delphia. To be consecrated and invested with the authority of his office, it was necessary for him to return to Canada, or to go to some other bishopric, if one could be found that could be more easily reached, where there were church officials with sufficient authority to perform that ceremony. Upon reflection, and consideration of the difficulties of the journey, and the time he would need to be absent, he concluded to go to Mexico where the church had been established since the time of Cortez. But on arriving there he found that while the notice of his appointment was regular, and its genuineness undoubted, the canonical law required his own identification as the person for whom the appointment had been made. As identification was impossible where nobody could be found who had ever seen him before, he went to France, but found the same difficulty there. He accordingly crossed the Atlantic again to Canada, where at Montreal, the city from which he had been sent out to the West seven years earlier, OF AN AMERICAN STATE 167 as a missionary priest, the pioneer head of the Catholic Church in Oregon, was duly consecrated on July 25th, but with the title of bishop of Drasa instead of that of Philadel phia, the title having been changed meantime. The Catholic mission in Oregon then included nine per manent stations or missions, four of which were conducted by the Jesuit fathers from St. Louis. Eleven churches had been built. There were two educational establishments, one for each sex, and fifteen priests and six sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. Father Demers was made vicar-general. A year later this bishopric was made an ecclesiastical prov ince, and Bishop Blanchet became archbishop, with his see at Oregon City. Rev. A. M. A. Blanchet, then canon at Montreal, was appointed bishop of Walla Walla, which title was afterwards changed to that of Nisqually, and Father Demers, bishop of Vancouver Island. Bishop A. M. A. Blanchet was consecrated at Montreal September 27, 1846, and crossed the plains the next season, reaching Walla Walla September 5, 1847. He was accompanied by Very Rev. J. A. B. Brouillet, Vicar-General, Rev. Messrs. Rousseau and Leclaire, four fathers of the O. M. I.* of Marseilles, and two lay brothers. Bishop Demers was consecrated on the 30th of November 1847, at the church of St. Paul, by Arch bishop Blanchet, his former companion in the Oregon mission. In the fall of 1847, the ecclesiastical province of Oregon City numbered three bishops, fourteen Jesuit fathers, four Oblate fathers of the O. M. I., thirteen secular priests, thir teen sisters and two houses of education. The Catholic missionaries acquired and retained over the native population west of the Rocky Mountains a far more * Order of Mary Immaculate. 168 THE RISE AND PROGRESS perfect control than the protestant missionaries were ever able to secure. Dissensions such as disturbed the harmony of the other missions were among them impossible. Secular matters never diverted the priests from their work. As soon as they were sufficiently numerous, an ecclesiastical superior was appointed to have charge and direct their work, and his authority was supreme. It is this organiza tion which, as Macaulay says, has given the Catholic Church its strength, has enabled it to outlast all other human insti tutions, and will perhaps enable it to endure until the traveler from New Zealand comes to sketch the ruins of St. Pauls from some broken arch of London Bridge. The zealous priests, always rendering implicit obedience to their ecclesiastical head, troubled themselves about nothing that did not concern the work they were sent to do. They everywhere met a welcome from the Indians such as was rarely given to the Protestants. The " blackgowns, " as the Indians called them, were always popular. Wherever they planted a mission it remained, at least as long as Indians remained in its neighborhood. The reasons for this are not difficult to find. "The Roman Catholic communion had, it must be admitted," says Mr. Prescott, "some decided advantages over the Protestant, for the purposes of prosely- tism. The dazzling pomp of its service, and its touching appeal to the sensibilities, affect the imagination of the rude child of nature much more powerfully than the cold abstrac- tionsof Protestantism, which, addressed to the reason, demand a degree of refinement and mental culture in the audience to comprehend them. The respect, moreover, shown by the Catholic for the material representations of Divinity, greatly facilitates the same object. It is true, such repre sentations are used by him only as incentives, not as the OF AN AMERICAN STATE 169 objects of worship. But this distinction is lost on the savage, who finds such forms of adoration too analogous to his. own to impose any great violence on his feelings. It is only re quired of him to transfer his homage from the image of Quetzalcoatl, the benevolent deity who walked among men, to that of the Virgin or the Redeemer; from the Cross, which he has worshipped as the emblem of the god of rain, to the same Cross, the symbol of salvation."* To this it may be added that all savage or barbarous peoples readily understand the use of symbols, if they do not at once penetrate their meaning. It was by symbols that men first began to communicate their ideas one to another, and they do so still, for words are but symbols and a printed page but a collection of symbols. The poverty of the aboriginal language made the use of objects whose meaning is easily divined, or of signs that are universally understood, constantly necessary. A pipe was offered to every stranger as a symbol of peace, not because that sym bolic meaning had first been agreed upon, but because that meaning was obvious. Men do not smoke together if watch ing an opportunity to do each other mischief. Lewis and Clark found that the waving of a blanket and then spread ing it upon the ground was everywhere used, on the plains and in the mountains, as a symbol of friendship — "Come and sit with me : I will receive you kindly. " Words could hardly express a meaning more plainly. So the Shoshones insisted that all present should take off their shoes or moc casins when beginning a council, as a symbol to them, as it had been to the Jews thousands of years earlier, of the sincerity of their intentions. They were not entering idly into conference: they intended to remain until the business * Conquest of Mexico, Chapter IV. 170 THE RISE AND PROGRESS in hand was concluded and an agreement reached that all should keep. A people thus accustomed to the use of symbols naturally received those who came to teach them with symbols, more readily than those who did not. The priest always wore his cross. At every service it was displayed. He constantly made its sign. He marked the child with it at baptism : he held it to the lips ofthe old man in his death agony. The Indians may not have guessed its meaning — may indeed have given it a wholly wrong meaning, but as a means of conveying some meaning, they understood it and received it. The priests also hit upon a plan to enable the eye to help the ear in receiving instruction, that seems never to have been previously used, and perhaps never has been used since in any other missionary field. While Father Demers was holding his first mission at the Cowlitz farms, beginning in March 1839, a number of parties of Indians attended, some of them coming from a considerable distance. They wanted to see the "blackgown," they said, and hear him talk of the great spirit. Among these parties was one from Whidby Island, under a chief named Tsla-la-cum — probably the name we now pronounce Steilacoom. They had been five days on the journey, two of which had been spent in their canoes on the Sound, and three in making the long and arduous march over the trail from the head of Budd's Inlet to the Cowlitz, and had traveled fully one hundred and fifty miles. They were much exhausted and very hungry when they arrived, but after they had been refreshed and rested, the missionary began to talk to them, and they listened with the deepest attention. But the difficulty was, says a chron icler of the time, to give them the ideas he wished to com municate, in such a simple form, and so plainly that they CATHOLIC MISSION AT FORT COLVILE. • ' '"J ' _. v , ¦ . . This mission was established by Father De Smet and other Jesuit missionaries about the year 1847. The picture is from "a comparatively recent photo graph. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 171 could remember them, and be able to repeat them to other members of the tribe when they should return. He finally hit upon the plan of making a sort of chart on a piece of board, by indicating the forty centuries before Christ by forty marks, the thirty-three years ofthe Savior's life by thirty-three points, and the eighteen centuries and thirty-nine years since that time by eighteen marks and thirty-nine points, and by using this as he talked, it would help them to remember the history of the world and the story of redemption as he gave it to them. The plan proved quite successful. The first rude drawing on a bit of board was elaborated into a long chart, painted on canvass with rude drawings indicating such events as the giving of the commandments, the building of the temple, the crucifixion, the resurrection, the appointment ofthe twelve apostles, and was called "The Catholic Lad der." This device was subsequently much used by the missionaries in their teaching, and became very popular with the Indians. Wilkes says that one of his surveying parties found one of these charts in the keeping of a Skagit Indian at Penn's Cove, who was regarded by the other members of the tribe as a person of considerable impor tance, because of his having been entrusted with it. He kept it and a map of America, which he had somehow obtained, in a box very carefully, and he could talk very volubly about both. Although the surveyors could not understand him, of course, they supposed that he was telling the story that the chart was designed to illustrate, as it had been told to him. The Indians in the Puget Sound country appear to have received religious instruction not only willingly but gladly from the first. The traders who were first in charge of Fort Nisqually began to talk to them on religious subjects soon 172 Rise and Progress of an American State after the station was established, which was some years before any missionaries appeared in its neighborhood. The journal kept at the fort shows that they assembled regularly on Sundays, in considerable numbers, and that Dr. Tolmie, Mr. Kitson or Mr. Herron addressed them, sometimes speak ing for an hour or more, and the Indians always appeared to be deeply interested. Sometimes they would ask the speaker to stop, saying they had heard as much as they could remem ber at one time, and sometimes they would ask him to talk still longer. The priests undoubtedly had a very considerable advan tage over the protestant missionaries in this, that the em ployees of the Hudson's Bay Company were nearly all of their faith. Many of these had married, or were living with Indian women. They attended the services held by the priests, brought their wives and their children to be baptized, and by their example, and doubtless by their conversation as well, encouraged the Indians to do the same. They could in their way tell their savage relatives what these services meant to them, and what they hoped for on account of them, and the priests therefore had a most helpful religious con stituency, already waiting to help them on with their work, when they arrived. Chapter XXIV. THE WILKES EXPEDITION. WHEN Lieutenant William A. Slacum had returned to Washington and published his report in December 1838 it was immediately seen that further and more detailed informa tion was desirable, and if Commodore Wilkes had not sailed some months earlier, he would doubtless have been instructed to begin his explorations where he had been directed to end them. But in those days it was not possible to change sailing orders by cable, or by wireless telegraph, after ships had once put to sea, and the commodore was left to carry out the instructions for his three years' cruise, practically as they had been given him. Lieutenant Slacum had discharged the duties assigned him with commendable enterprise and fidelity. He had personally visited most of the missionaries, and other settlers in the Willamette Valley, and had obtained from them minute information in regard to their conditions and pros pects, as well as to their experience with the Hudson's Bay Company and the Indians. He had observed the country itself with care, had noted the character of its soil and climate, its natural productions, the progress and results of improve ment, so far as improvement had been made either by the settlers or the Hudson's Bay people; had made diligent inquiry as to the number and character of the Indians, and their disposition toward their new neighbors; had called at Fort Vancouver where he represented himself to be a mere private citizen making inquiry for his own purposes, and though he had not deceived the alert chief factor, who says he immediately penetrated his true character, he neverthe less obtained much information that was of value. He found that the settlers were very much dissatisfied with many things, and particularly with the arrangements they 176 THE RISE AND PROGRESS were compelled to make about cattle. They were tired of borrowing from the chief factor, and he steadily refused to sell. They knew that cattle were abundant in California and that they might obtain all they wished there, and at very moderate prices, if they could only find a way to go there after them, and bring them north across the moun tains. But no one of them could afford to do this on his own account. They were not hopeful of being able to combine and do, or attempt to do as a community, what none of them could do singly. They were not a very homogeneous community. Most of them were missionaries and almost wholly inexperienced in business matters. The French Canadians were wholly under the control of the chief factor, and quite content with their arrangements with him. They would do nothing that he did not advise or at least approve. Those who had come out with the Astor party were much of the same way of thinking. Of the others, aside from the trappers like Newell, Meek, Wilkins and others, they had come to the country from various directions, and the com munity had not yet known them long enough to care to trust them. Felix Hathaway had come by the schooner Convoy from Massachusetts, Calvin Tibbitts and F. J. Hubbard had come with Wyeth, and Webly Hauxhurst, Joseph Gale and Ewing Young had come up from California with Hall J. Kelly in 1834. Young had given proof that he could do things in a businesslike way, but unfortunately the Spanish governor of California had sent word to the chief factor, in advance of his arrival, that his party was a band of horse thieves, and while the charge was not true, so far as Young or any of his companions were concerned, it was true that some people who had traveled with them for OF AN AMERICAN STATE 177 a part of the way, had some stolen horses with them, and Young, like poor dog Tray, suffered because of the company he had been in. But he was not disposed to complain of this, or to ask people to correct their opinions of him. The chief factor refused to trade with him at first, but when he found later that the reports he had heard were false, he offered to receive him at the fort on the same footing as other people. But Young refused to receive any explanations, and went on in his own way, attending strictly to his own affairs, and asking no favors of anybody. He once contemplated starting a distillery, in order to make a market for his grain, because the chief factor would not buy it, but when Jason Lee remonstrated with him about it, he desisted, and although his relations with the people at the mission became somewhat more neighborly on account of this incident, they did not become friendly. It would probably have been impossible for these people ever to have united in any undertaking if it had not been for the visit of Lieutenant Slacum. Through his good offices a cattle company was formed, and most of the settlers took small interests in it. Young, who was by far the most pros perous man in the community, and who had had much experience in buying and driving cattle, took a large interest, and even the chief factor came in, taking half the stock, so as to make the enterprise as large as possible, for the cost of driving a thousand cattle across the mountains would be no greater than to drive five hundred. Those ofthe settlers who had no money put in their services as drivers at $i per day. Slacum gave the party transportation to California in his ship, and they returned in time, with about seven hun dred animals, which on reaching the Willamette had cost an average of $8.67 per head. 178 THE RISE AND PROGRESS Slacum's report of what he had seen and done in Oregon was published soon after Congress convened in 1838. It was probably one of the causes which encouraged men like Linn and Cushing to renewed efforts, and led to the revival of interest in the Oregon question which soon began. In January Senator Linn presented the memorial of J. L. Whitcomb, and thirty-five other settlers on the Willamette, in which they invited the attention of Congress to their defenseless situation, and to the value of what they were undertaking to do, for the country as well as for themselves. They did not venture to suggest the manner in which the country should be occupied, they said, nor the extent to which their settlement should be encouraged, but they expressed the hope that Congress would give their situation candid and careful consideration. In March 1836 the government had provided for an explor ing expedition to be sent to the Pacific, and in 1838 Lieuten ant Charles Wilkes was appointed to command it. It was the most pretentious expedition of the kind the government had ever set on foot. The squadron was composed of six vessels, the sloops of war Vincennes and Peacock, the brig Porpoise, the store ship Relief, and tenders Sea Gull and Flying Fish. It sailed from Norfolk on August 18, 1838, and was to be absent nearly four years. By his instructions Wilkes was to spend the summer of 1841, from April until October, in surveying and charting the waters of Puget Sound, and the Columbia River, exploring the interior country, and in surveying the whole coast as far south as the Bay of San Francisco. For this work he was provided with an ample scientific corps. The squadron spent the winter of 1841-2 at the Hawaiian Islands, at which place the Peacock and Flying Fish were OF AN AMERICAN STATE 179 detached and sent to survey the Samoan and some smaller islands south of the equator, and in April the remainder of the squadron set sail for the coast of Oregon. It arrived off the mouth of the Columbia on the morning of the 28th. A heavy sea, caused by the strong winds that had prevailed for several days, was running. The ships stood in for the bar, and every preparation was made for crossing it, but finding no inviting opening among the breakers, that gave hope of a safe passage through them, they were hauled off into deeper water to wait for more favorable weather. A pilot had been brought from the islands, who professed to be familiar with this coast, but his information was not found to be sufficient to justify an attempt to make the en trance under his direction, and as no help could be obtained from the shore, it was determined on the following day to abandon the attempt for the present, go northward to the straits of Fuca and begin the season's work at Puget's Sound. The entrance to the strait was made on the morning of May 1st and at 6 P. M. on the following day the squadron came to anchor in Port Discovery, which Vancouver had visited forty-nine years earlier, at about the same season of the year. From this point Wilkes dispatched an Indian to Fort Nisqually, the Hudson's Bay post at the upper extremity of the Sound, for a pilot, and while waiting for his return, prepared to make such scientific observations as were neces sary for beginning his surveys. The messenger did not return with the pilot as soon as expected, and on the morning of the sixth, having completed the survey of this port, and the neighboring shore, the anchors were taken up and the ships made their way without difficulty around Point Wilson to Port Townsend. This harbor was surveyed and mapped on the seventh, and the squadron moved on up the channel 180 THE RISE AND PROGRESS of Admiralty Inlet as far as Pilot's Cove, so named because the pilot they had sent for met them there. He proved to be one of Captain McNeil's officers from the Hudson's Bay Company's steamer Beaver, and under his direction they made sail for the upper sound. But wind and tide were unfavorable and the two following days were spent in explor ing, surveying and naming Port Lawrence, Apple Tree Cove and Port Madison, which latter place Wilkes describes as "an excellent harbor, affording every possible convenience for shipping." The weather proving more favorable on the tenth the ships advanced up the Sound, passed through the channel on the west side of Vashon Island, and toward evening came to anchor for the night a short distance below the Narrows. The next morning was calm, and it was spent in surveying the waters of the neighborhood, and apparently in waiting for a favorable tide. The brief description given of the pas sage through the Narrows indicates something of the diffi culties that the navigators of that day encountered in making their way through our inland waters. They did not know, as is now known, that the water is everywhere so deep that there is no possible danger of running upon hidden rocks, sunken reefs or bars, though they doubtless guessed it. They could not turn the prows of their ships in the direction they wished to go, and force them to go that way. They were compelled to depend on wind and tide, and where strong currents were encountered there was sometimes danger. So the current caused by the tide at this point was approached with some precaution. "At 3 P. M.," says the report, "we again weighed our anchors, but had great difficulty in getting beyond the reach of the eddy winds occasioned by the high banks. The scenery about this pass becomes very fine. On OF AN AMERICAN STATE 181 all sides are high protecting bluffs of sandstone, rising almost perpendicular from the water, with a great variety of shrubs ' along their base. The tide, which runs through the Nar rows with great velocity, causes many eddies and whirlpools, through which a ship is carried with extraordinary rapidity, while the danger seems to be imminent. The Porpoise suc ceeded in entering the Narrows first, and in a few minutes was lost sight of. The Vincennes entered and seemed at first to be hurrying to destruction, with her sails quite aback. We were carried onward wholly by the force of the tide, and had backed and filled only once before we found ourselves in as spacious a sound as the one we had just left. This natural pass seems as if intended by its natural facilities to afford every means for its perfect defense." Reaching the fort the ships found an anchorage near the shore, and preparations were made for a long stay, as this was to be the headquarters from which all the work of the summer was to be begun and carried well on toward com pletion. The Porpoise, under command of Lieutenant Com mandant Ringgold, was assigned to take up the survey of Admiralty Inlet. Lieutenant Case with a launch, a cutter and two boats was to survey Hood's Canal. Another party, under the command of Passed Midshipman Eld and Colvo- coresis, was subsequently assigned to the survey of Gray's Harbor and Shoalwater Bay. These several parties were very carefully instructed in regard to their work, which they were expected to do thor oughly and well. The survey of the harbors and inland waters was to begin simultaneously at several points, by parties in small boats who were to make careful measure ments, take soundings at regular intervals, and make maps of their work as they proceeded, being particular to connect 182 THE RISE AND PROGRESS their work with that of the other parties on either side with accuracy. Each party was to take frequent observations for latitude and longitude, and all points so astronomically ascertained were to be brought directly into connection with each other by triangulation. All conspicuous mountain peaks were to be observed, and their height and location ascertained and noted. As much information as possible was to be collected in regard to the geological formation of the country, the character of its soil and its capabilities for agriculture. Minerals were to be observed, and the loca tion of brooks and water courses, affording water for ship ping, and the rise and fall of the tides were to be carefully noted. The Indians were not to be overlooked, but wherever possible the names of tribes and their numbers, their char acter and mode of living were to be observed. Indeed nothing was to be overlooked from which information of value or interest could be ascertained. A land party under Lieutenant Johnson was sent across the mountains, going directly eastward over an Indian trail lying north of Mount Rainier, and then, keeping west ofthe Columbia to Forts Okanogan and Colvile. From the latter point they were to take a southerly course, visiting the mis sionary stations at Tshimikain, Lapwai and Waiilatpu. It was to observe the character of the country generally, note the course of rivers and mountain ranges, examine the soil and make other scientific observations, particularly in the line of geology, botany, zoology and anthropology. It was expected that this party would be absent eighty days. Having made these assignments for the summer's work Captain Wilkes had a small building erected on the shore convenient to the anchorage, to which he removed such scientific instruments as would be required for the COMMODORE WILKES. Charles Wilkes was born in New York City, April 3, 1798. He entered the navy in 18.18, and became a lieutenant in 1826. While holding that rank he was appointed, in 1838, to command a squadron of five vessels, sent on an exploring expeditipn, and in 1841, he made a painstaking examination of Washing ton, Oregon and California. Upon his return to New York he hurried off a special report to Washington, which must have been of great value during the negotia tion of the Ashburton treaty, as well as in that of 1846. The full report of his expedition, in four large volumes, was subsequently published by the government. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 183 observations he intended to have made there. One of these was the pendulum experiment for the purpose of ascertain ing the force of gravity. These preparations required several days. Nearly two- thirds of May was now gone, and nothing had yet been heard from the Peacock and the Flying Fish, although their arrival had been anxiously expected for several days. The commo dore began to fear that they had encountered difficulty, and perhaps had attempted to enter the Columbia and been wrecked. He accordingly prepared to make a visit to Astoria in search of information. Having procured horses and a guide from Mr. Anderson, the trader then in charge of the fort, he set out, accompanied by Dr. Drayton and Mr. Wal dron, two of the scientists who were with his party, and two servants for the Columbia. At the Cowlitz farms they found improvements which somewhat surprised them. Six or seven hundred acres were under cultivation, bearing luxu riant crops. There was also a promising young orchard. Besides numerous farm buildings, including a dairy house, there were comfortable houses for the employees of the Com pany and their superintendent, and the chapel and parsonage of the Catholic mission. The whole had the thriving look of a well-established settlement in one ofthe older territories. Here the party secured as their guide for the remainder of their journey, one of the most interesting characters in the early history of Oregon. This was Simon Plomondon, who was for a long time an employee of the Hudson's Bay Company, but subsequently became an independent farmer, and in 1846 was a member of the legislature of the provi sional government. He was one of the first settlers on Cow litz Prairie. Nothing definite is known about the date of his arrival in this country; it is believed by some that he 184 THE RISE AND PROGRESS came with the Northwesters, and by others that he arrived at an even earlier day, though Wilkes says he was with Gen eral Cass, and was coxswain of his canoe while on his journey to the Northwest territory, which was probably in 1820. He was a giant in stature, standing fully six feet two, and strong in proportion, and when more than eighty years old still stood straight as an arrow. Like Caesar he was married when very young, "and many times after." Rev. P. F. Hylebos, who was for a number of years his pastor, says he was reported to have been married nineteen times, and that all his wives except the last were either native women or half- breeds. At a family reunion held only a few years before his death, nearly one hundred of his descendants were present. With Plomondon for their guide, and a number of Indian paddlers to manage their canoe, the party made their way down the Cowlitz to the Columbia, and thence to Astoria, with very little delay. Finding that the Peacock had not yet arrived, and being unable to learn that she had been sighted in the neighborhood, they returned up the river, visited the chief factor at Fort Vancouver, and spent some days making a tour of the settlements in the Willamette Valley. At Fort Vancouver the commodore found much to interest him. The fort was surrounded by about fifty comfortable log houses, all occupied by the employees of the Company and their half-breed families. The houses inside were occupied by the officers and their families, the clerks and those who worked in the blacksmith and cooper shops, and in the various stores and warehouses. There was quite a large community and every person in it seemed to be con stantly and actively employed. The routine of each day OF AN AMERICAN STATE 185 began at early dawn, when the bell was rung for the working parties, who went immediately to their several employments, and the sound of hammers, the click of anvils, the rumbling of carts and the tinkling of bells, made it difficult for a visitor to sleep after the activities ofthe day had begun. Breakfast was served at eight o'clock and dinner at one, after which the work of the day continued until six o'clock. The com modore was surprised to find that the employees worked so many hours for the small compensation of £17 a year, or less than $85, together with their food and lodging. Many of them complained of the fare they received, and said they were unable to live on the wages paid them, and most of them found themselves in debt when their term of service expired. The houses inside of the fort were simply finished with pine board panels unpainted. Bunks were built for bed steads but everything though plain was clean, and as com fortable as could be desired. There were several missionaries at the fort, besides the Catholic priest who officiated daily in the little chapel which had been provided for him, by the chief factor, who with his family were Catholics. Among them were Mr. and Mrs. Smith, who had left their mission at Kamiah, Mr. and Mrs. Griffith, and Mr. and Mrs. Clark of the self-supporting Congregationalist mission, Mr. Waller a Methodist, and two others. All of these, for the time being, were making Vancouver their home, and all had been kindly received, and well entertained at no expense to themselves. Religious toleration was everywhere allowed in its fullest extent. On Sundays Mr. Douglas read the service of the Protestant Episcopal Church for those about the fort, who, like himself, preferred that form of worship. 186 THE RISE AND PROGRESS There was in the fort at that time a considerable colony of children who were under the particular care of Dr. Mc Loughlin and Mrs. Douglas. There were twenty-three boys and fifteen girls, and for these teachers were employed, who not only taught them in the school room but also gave them practical instruction in the fields, gardens and work shops. The company farm at Vancouver at the time Wilkes was there, was about nine miles square, and there were two dairies where more than one hundred cows were kept. There were also two other dairies on Wapato Island where there were one hundred and fifty cows, and where butter and cheese were made for the Russian settlements. The stock on the farm at this time amounted to three thousand head of cattle, twenty-five hundred sheep and over three hundred horses. At some distance above the fort there was a grist mill and saw mill belonging to the Company. The grist mill had but one run of stone, but it was amply sufficient to supply flour for all the wants of the Company and the surrounding country. So much of the lumber cut at the saw mill as was not required for the Company's use, was sold at the Hawaiian Islands for eighty dollars per thousand feet. There was a blacksmith shop near one of these mills where axes and hatchets were made for the use of the trappers, and for sale to the Indians. The commodore found that the Company's business, which was scattered over a wide area, extending from the Russian settlements on the north to San Francisco Bay, was managed with the utmost system and economy. The goods brought out each year for the Indian trade were of three classes. The first consisted of knives and tobacco, which OF AN AMERICAN STATE 187 were generally distributed as gratuities among the Indians. The second was of blankets, guns, cloth, powder and shot, and these were the articles of trade. The third was of shirts, handkerchiefs, ribbons, beads, etc., and these were used to pay for Indian labor and provisions. These goods were distributed to the various subposts in the vast territory through which they were scattered, by large parties called brigades, which left the fort in the spring in boats, by which they passed so far up the Columbia and Willamette or the Cowlitz as they could go by that means of transportation, and thence by pack animals and on the shoul ders of men and Indians to their final destination. They were made up for transporting in ninety-pound packages, for it had been found, by long experience, that packs of that weight could be most economically transported. Most of the men employed could carry one of these on his shoulders for a day's journey, even in the roughest country, without inconvenience. On the return trip the brigades brought to the fort furs and such other merchandise as the traders had collected during the season, and when all had been assembled, were sent to London by the annual ship. The principal brigade was that which supplied the posts on the upper waters of the Columbia. This was under the charge of Peter Skeen Ogden, who, after the chief factor and Mr. Douglas, was most famous of all the Hudson's Bay men of his time on this coast. His father was chief justice of Canada, and the son had studied law in his youth, hoping to prove himself a worthy son of so eminent a father, but a defect in his voice discouraged him, and he went to New York where he found employment for a time in the office of Mr. Astor. Later he joined the Northwesters and came to the coast. After the union of the two companies 188 THE RISE AND PROGRESS he rapidly advanced to the position of trader and factor, and finally became one of Dr. McLoughlin's most trusted assistants. For several years he was practically in charge of all the interior stations that were supplied by the river brigade, and these extended from the Spanish line on the south to the Russian line on the north. The brigade with which he left Vancouver each year consisted of a fleet of boats each of which carried sixty bales of goods, and was manned by eight paddlers and a steersman who occupied the prow. Each also carried a square sail that was used when the wind was favorable. These boats were thirty feet long, five and a half feet beam, were sharp at both ends, and so light that they could easily be carried around falls and rapids when necessary. The portages they were required to make on each trip were numerous. At some of them it was not necessary to remove all the load from the boat, which, after having been relieved of so much of it as was necessary, was forced over the shallow places by poles, or dragged by ropes. Where all the load had to be removed the men carried the bales along shore so far as might be necessary, and later carried the boat also. The bales were carried by a stout band, which was passed under and around them, and then across the forehead of the voyageur, who usually carried two of these ninety-pound packs at one time, a second one being placed on top of the first after it had been adjusted to his shoulders. If the distance was not a long one some times a third bale would be carried by a single person, and Wilkes was informed by a gentleman of the Company, that he had seen a voyageur carry six bales, a total of five hundred and forty pounds, at one time, but it was for a wager and the distance was not over a hundred yards. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 189 The return trip down the river in the autumn was made more quickly than the outward trip in the spring, as the boats were less heavily loaded and fewer portages were required, besides the paddlers had the current in their favor. At some of the less dangerous places the boats were not even lightened of part of their burdens," but were shot through the rapids by their deft steersmen, who became so daring and venturesome that their leader often found it necessary to restrain them from attempting the most dangerous passes. On one of his trips Mr. Ogden lost a crew of ten men, who attempted to shoot the rapids at the Dalles, but their boat was caught in an eddy and dashed to pieces. All were drowned and the body of only one of them was ever recovered. In addition to the brigades another and smaller party, traveling in the swiftest boats owned by the Company, was sent annually across the continent to York House on Hudson's Bay. This was called the express, and carried the reports of the year's business, the letters sent out by the Company's officers and employees to their friends in England or Canada, and it brought back the instructions of the governor and whatever else he cared to send, together with the annual mail. The commodore also made a visit to the settlers in the Willamette Valley, having been provided with transporta tion for the trip by the chief factor. He found the Ameri can settlers were everywhere beginning to be anxious for a government of their own in some form. A committee of five, composed principally of the lay members of the mission, called upon him to ask his advice, but after listening to what they had to say, he says he could see no reason sufficiently strong to encourage such an attempt at that time. No crime seemed to have been committed, and the settlers were secure 190 THE RISE AND PROGRESS both in their persons and property. That this was the fact the members of the committee themselves admitted, but they urged that an organization would give confidence to those who might intend to settle among them, and would do much to accelerate the growth of their community. But the commodore did not look with favor upon their plans. They were not able to convince him that any such organiza tion was necessary, and he was of the opinion that any laws they might establish would be but a poor substitute for the moral code which all now followed. There would besides be great difficulty in enforcing the laws they might make, and in defining the limits over which they had control. There was danger also that the Canadian element, which was Catholic and in the majority, would elect the officers and control the government in the opposite interest from that in which they hoped to establish it, and so possibly delay or even defeat the hope of ultimately establishing such a government as they wished for. From an earlier conversation held with Father Blanchet he had found him opposed to any other government, at that time, than that which then prevailed, because he did not think the number of settlers was then sufficient to warrant the establishment of a constitution, and as far as his people were concerned there was no necessity for one, and he was advising against it. Father Blanchet was at that time chairman of a com mittee which had been appointed more than three months earlier, to draft a constitution, but this committee never reported. Holding these views and being at the head of the committee, it is easy to understand why no report was made. During the remainder of his stay in the valley the com modore visited the Methodist Mission and called at the OF AN AMERICAN STATE 191 houses of many of the settlers. He found the Americans everywhere in favor of organization, but found nothing to change his conviction that the time for it had not yet arrived, and that to attempt it in the condition of things then existing would be unwise, if not really dangerous. He found so many evidences of lack of thrift and good management among the missionary settlers that it is hardly surprising he should have doubted their need of an organized civil government, and distrusted their ability to carry it on if organized. He had seen a field of wheat which he was told had been self-sown, the previous year's crop, estimated to have amounted to a thousand bushels, having been lost by neglect. He also saw a patent threshing machine, which must have been obtained in that country at considerable cost, standing in the road wholly unprotected, uncared for and slowly going to ruin. There was about the premises of many of the settlers an evident want of the attention that is necessary to keep things in repair, and an absence of neatness that he regretted much to witness. A large building which had been erected by Dr. White for a hospital was without patients, and was now occupied by four families. Dr. Babcock reported the country as healthy, except that during the months of August and September there were some cases of fever and ague on the low grounds, but they seemed to be decreasing in number each year. The grist mill and saw mill, at the principal station, were both under one roof, and so badly located that they were compelled to remain idle during the summer months, for want of water. There were about twenty lay members of the mission in the neigh borhood of these mills, and about twenty-five Indian boys, who, he was told, "were not in a condition to be visited or inspected." Those he saw were nearly grown up, were 192 THE RISE AND PROGRESS ragged and half clothed, and were lounging about under the trees. "Their appearance was anything but pleasing and satisfactory," he says, "and I must own I was greatly disap pointed, for I had been led to expect that order and neatness at least, would have been found among them, considering the strong force of missionaries engaged here." He could find no evidence that any fixed plan of operation had been formed for carrying on the work of the mission, and yet he was surprised to hear the missionaries talking of putting up extensive buildings for missionary purposes, although it was fully apparent that there was but little need for them, on account of the limited Indian population in their vicinity. Most of what he saw and heard convinced Wilkes that those who were most urgently in favor of forming a government at that time, were so because they hoped thereby to get places of influence and authority, although they could by no means be sure of securing them, if organization was attempted. He therefore looked upon the experiment as dangerous, as well as not at present either necessary or desirable. While a government was formed only two years later, and managed with entire success through a most try ing period, and very greatly to the credit of those who formed and those who administered it, it must be remembered that conditions had then greatly changed. The number of the American settlers had been considerably increased, both by the stragglers from Farnham's Oregon dragoons, and by the immigration of 1842, numbering more than one hundred persons. The government party was also rapidly reinforced by the emigrants who arrived during the years immediately succeeding, among whom were many men of strong character and sound judgment, like Jesse Applegate, Peter H. Burnett, J. W. Nesmith, and M. M. McCarver, OF AN AMERICAN STATE 193 who by their skilful management, as well as by their num bers, prevailed upon the managers of the Hudson's Bay Company to relinquish the control they had so long exercised over the country, and give the new government their counten ance and support. A calm review of the history of this period must lead to the conviction that Wilkes ' view of the situation was the correct one. At the time of his visit the number of settlers in the Willamette Valley was not large enough to require a government. Had an attempt to form one at that time been encouraged it must certainly have failed, and failure might have proved disastrous. Recovery from such a failure could hardly have been hoped for soon enough to permit a government to be formed as early as one was formed, and events proved that it was formed none too soon. While on the Columbia during this his first visit, the com modore was called upon by some members of a party of eight young men who were building a ship on one of the islands near the fort, for the purpose of making a cruise along the coast of California. They were dissatisfied with Oregon for the same reason that John Ball had left it seven years earlier — they saw no hope of finding wives in it, unless they married Indian women, and this they had no inclination to do. They had the hull and masts of their ship nearly completed, but were without anchors, cordage, instruments for finding their course at sea, and several other things that would be necessary for making a successful voyage. They had hoped to procure these at the fort, but had been disap pointed, and were in a very ill humor about it. Dr. Mc Loughlin claimed that they had attempted to procure what they were in need of by deceiving him, but this they denied. Finding upon inquiry that their purposes were laudable; 194 THE RISE AND PROGRESS that they intended after reaching the Bay of San Francisco to sell their vessel and cargo, and then return overland by way of Texas to the Eastern States, and that while none of them had ever been to sea, their leader Joseph Gale knew enough about the navigation and management of a ship to make it probable that he might conduct a successful voyage as far as the party intended to go by sea, the commodore helped them to make their peace with the chief factor, and to procure from him the articles they were in need of that he could supply. The remainder the commodore furnished himself, and also gave Captain Gale a sea letter as evidence of his authority to be abroad upon the ocean. The ship was subsequently launched, named "The Star of Oregon," and made her voyage down the coast successfully. This was the first ship built in Oregon by Americans. Some of her builders returned to Oregon from California and helped materially in organizing its first government. The commodore now prepared to return to Nisqually. He had heard nothing from the Peacock, and his anxiety on her account was daily increasing, but he could accomplish nothing more, in the way of procuring news of her, or render ing her assistance if in need of it, by remaining on the Columbia than by returning to his ships, where things might be requiring his attention, and he therefore prepared to set forth. Mr. Ogden offered to convey him as far as the Cowlitz farms in one of his boats, manned by fourteen experienced voyageurs. They left the fort with all the cere mony and display of which the fur traders and their voyageurs were so fond. As the boat left the shore the paddlers, all of whom were gaily dressed and decked out with plumes, and ribbons of various colors, tied in bunches, with their ends fluttering in the breeze, struck up one of their favorite boat OF AN AMERICAN STATE 195 songs. They first paddled up the river for a short distance, then making a graceful sweep to reach the center of the broad flowing current, they passed by the spectators on shore with great animation. They went merrily on down the stream, each voyageur in succession taking up a verse of the song, and all joining in the chorus. In two hours and a half the mouth of the Cowlitz was reached, and a dis tance of thirty-five miles had been covered. The party reached Nisqually late in June. Mr. Ogden did not accompany them beyond the Cowlitz farms, but Plomondon, accompanied by his Indian wife and one child, guided them safely to their destination. The remainder of the month, and the first few days of July, were occupied in completing the scientific experiments, for which every thing was now ready, and in receiving reports from and giving new directions to the surveying parties, all of which were making satisfactory progress with their work. The fourth of July fell on Sunday that year. All the men who were still with the ships were anxious to celebrate it with some ceremony, and the commodore was quite willing to give them a full day for the purpose. They had been in foreign waters on both the preceding anniversaries of this day, and now that they were on soil so nearly our own, it seemed peculiarly fitting that the occasion should be appro priately observed. Two months had passed since they had entered the grand arm of the sea which Vancouver had called Admiralty Inlet, but which everybody now knows as Puget Sound, and since that time the commodore had made an extended excursion across the country to the Columbia and had learned much about it that he had not previously known. Every hour he had been more and more impressed with the value of the country, and of the importance of 196 THE RISE AND PROGRESS securing our title to it beyond dispute. No doubt that elab orate and forceful special report, which he made haste to forward to Washington less than a year later, as soon as he had dropped anchor in New York harbor, had begun to take form in his mind, and he saw a special fitness in thus celebrating the anniversary of our nation's birth, on soil which there was so much reason to make indisputably our own. He accordingly gave the men leave to make such arrangements as they wished, for a day on shore. A fat bullock from the herds at the fort, and an abundant supply of fresh vegetables were procured, and ovens had been con structed on shore near the observatory which were turning out each day as much fresh bread as was required. The sailors therefore prepared for an elaborate feast, as well as for such sports as men of the sea most enjoy when on shore. A beautiful stretch of prairie near a shady grove, not far from the fort, was selected. Here the ox was slaughtered and spitted on a sapling over a fire which had been built in a trench, and a committee was appointed to watch and turn it until it was properly cooked. Another committee arranged the program for the ceremonies and the amusements. "Before 9 o'clock," the commodore says, "all the men were mustered on board, in clean white frocks and trousers, and all, including the marines and music, were landed shortly after, to march to the scene of feasting, about a mile distant. The procession was formed at the observatory, whence we all marched off with flags flying and music playing, Vendovi (a Fegee Islander who was with the fleet) bringing up the rear. Vendovi was dressed out after the Fegee fashion. It was truly gratifying to me to see them all in such good health and spirits, not a man sick and their clothes as white as snow, with happy and contented faces. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 197 "Two howitzers were carried along to fire the usual salutes. When the procession reached Fort Nisqually they stopped, gave three cheers, and waited sailor like until it was returned. This was done by only a few voices, a circumstance which did not fail to produce many jokes among the seamen. On reaching the ground, various games occupied the crew, while the officers also amused themselves in like manner. At the usual hour dinner was piped, when all repaired to partake of the barbecue. By this time the Indians had gathered from all quarters, and were silently looking on at the novel sight, and wistfully regarding the feast which they saw going on before them. At this time the salute was fired, when one of the men by the name of Whitehorn, had his arm most dreadfully lacerated from the sudden explosion of the gun. This accident put a momentary stop to the hilarity of the occasion. Dr. Fox, who was on the ground, thought that amputation of the arm above the elbow would be necessary, but it was deemed better to delay it for a time. The wound was dressed as well as it could be, and a litter was made on which he was at once sent, under charge of his messmates, to the ship. Men-of-war's men are some what familiar with such scenes, and although this accident threw a temporary gloom over the party, the impression did not last long, and the amusements of the morning were now exchanged for the excitement of horse racing, steeds having been hired for that purpose from the Indians. This sport is always a favorite with sailors on shore, and in pursuit of it they had not a few tumbles, but fortunately none were seriously hurt." During the day Rev. John P. Richmond, a Methodist mis sionary who had come out the year previous in the Lausanne, and was now stationed at the fort, made an appropriate 198 THE RISE AND PROGRESS address to the officers and sailors, and later he and Mr. Anderson and Captain McNeil of the steamer Beaver dined with the commodore at the observatory. The latter had hoped to have Dr. McLoughlin also as his guest, but the diplomatic chief factor had lost the trail on his way over from Vancouver, and did not arrive until the following day. Possibly this mishap saved the foremost representative of British interests on the coast at that time, from some embar rassment, as he was already beginning to be criticised in England for the liberal treatment he had accorded the American missionaries, and this criticism gradually became more severe after the settlers began to arrive in increasing numbers, and to require and receive assistance from him, until he finally resigned and went to live among them, as an American citizen. He arrived at the fort on the 6th, the day after the cele bration, and dined with the commodore. He was shown over the Vincennes, and examined everything with a great deal of interest, it being the first man-of-war he had ever been on board of. On leaving it, the yards were manned and three hearty cheers were given him, a courtesy he seemed to appreciate very highly. On the day following he returned to the Columbia, so that he seems to have made the journey simply to pay this visit to the ships and their commander. By the end of July the survey of the Sound was nearly completed. Lieutenant Johnson and his party had returned from their tour by way of the Yakima River, crossing the mountains over the same trail by which they had gone out. They had visited all the missionary stations, and most of the Indian tribes in what is now eastern Washington, and had seen some part of Idaho, and the northeastern part of the Oregon of today. Mr. Drayton, the cartographer of OF AN AMERICAN STATE 199 the expedition, who had parted with the commander at Vancouver, had accompanied Peter Skeen Ogden up the Columbia, as far as Fort Walla Walla, and had brought back a mass of detailed information in regard to the river and neighboring country. Lieutenants Case and Budd had surveyed Puget Sound and all its numerous inlets and also Hood's Canal, while Lieutenant Commandant Ringgold, and the numerous parties working under his direction, were finishing the work along the eastern shore of Admiralty Inlet. During the last days of his stay at Nisqually the commodore, accompanied by Mr. Anderson, the chief trader, and Captain McNeil of the Beaver, made a trip along the southern shore ofthe Sound, and thence up Budd's Inlet, which they named for the lieutenant who had surveyed it, to the Des Chutes River, to inspect the falls at Tumwater, after which they procured horses and rode out to Mound Prairie, to open and examine the curious mounds which he had observed there on his trip to the Columbia, but the inspection revealed nothing of scientific interest. They were evidently artificial, and were arranged in something like regular order, but they contained no relics or remains of any kind indicating by whom they had been built or for what purpose. When the squadron was ready to sail, near the end of July, nothing had yet been heard from the Peacock. Three months had now passed since her arrival had begun to be looked for, and both officers and men began to feel that she certainly had met with misfortune. They did not learn of her fate until some days later, when they were overtaken in the San Juan Archipelago by a messenger from Nisqually, with news that the ship had been wrecked but her crew had been saved. After hurriedly completing the survey of the 200 THE RISE AND PROGRESS islands and of the shores of the strait, the squadron sailed for the south to complete its work. As it was leaving the strait a close watch was kept for that "exceeding high pin nacle, or spired rock, like a pillar," which de Fuca had des cribed. Such a rock was sighted and a drawing was made of it, which forms one ofthe illustrations ofthe fourth volume of the report. On the evening of May 31st all the surveying parties ob served a particularly brilliant meteor which was first seen at an altitude of about sixty degrees, and which descended through a zigzag course, until about twenty degrees above the horizon, when it disappeared. No explosion followed its disappearance but its track remained luminous for nearly half an hour. At Neah Bay a few of the bricks from Fidalgo's old fort were found. The Peacock went aground in attempting to enter the mouth ofthe Columbia on the afternoon of Sunday, July 18, 1 84 1. The weather was not particularly unfavorable, but there was no one on board who had ever been in that neigh borhood before, nor was it possible to obtain a pilot. The officers in charge had been supplied with some sailing direc tions by Captain Spalding, of the Lausanne, whom Wilkes had met at the Hawaiian Islands during the preceding winter, but they were not very clear nor easy to follow. All the usual precautions had been taken before attempting to make the entrance. Captain Hudson was on the quarter deck and Lieutenant Emmous, an experienced sailor, had been sent aloft to give such assistance as he could from that vantage point. Both were of opinion that they were following the directions given them, and that they were as nearly in the channel as it was possible to determine, when OF AN AMERICAN STATE 201 the ship struck. As soon as she touched every effort was made to bring her by the wind and haul off, but all failed. She soon began to thump heavily, and every wave drove her farther and more firmly on the bar. The wind freshened, and the ebbing tide, meeting the waves with great force, soon enveloped the ship in breakers. With every sea she was lifted and struck more heavily. The cutter was soon stove to pieces, and it seemed doubtful whether the launch could be got afloat, so that the ship's papers and the lives of those on board could be saved. The ship began to break badly and the pumps were started. The helm had already become useless. The shot and other heavy material on board were thrown over, and by means of one of her anchors her head was turned to the sea, and her condition rendered less perilous. But before 9 o'clock the cable parted and the ship was again thrown with her broadside to the sea, and by midnight the water was knee deep on the gun deck. At 6 o'clock in the morning a large Indian canoe came along side with a pilot from Fort George on board, but he could be of no service, and such of the ship's boats as could be launched were made ready, and the crew sent on shore. One of these boats, in attempting to make a second trip, was turned end over end by a huge wave, throwing all her occupants into the sea, but none of them were drowned. All the other boats made a second trip in safety, and every man on board, together with all the scientific material gathered during the voyage, the ship's papers, and everything of value that could not be replaced, were saved. On the next morning the wreckage was scattered for miles along the shore, and nothing marked the spot where the ship went down but the cap of her bowsprit, projecting above the water on what has ever since been known as Peacock Bar. 202 THE RISE AND PROGRESS Wilkes arrived in the Columbia on the Porpoise, and sent his flag ship, the Vincennes, direct to the Bay of San Francisco. He purchased the brig Thomas H. Perkins, then lying in Bakers Bay, but under charter to the Hudson's Bay Company, to replace the Peacock, and then after sur veying and mapping both shores of the Columbia, in the same careful manner in which the rest of his work had been done, he sailed for California. Before leaving, however, he found that he could not send the Peacock's launch which had escaped the wreck, along the shore to California with safety, and he accordingly resolved to leave her at the mouth of the river to be used as a pilot boat, and for the relief of vessels in distress. As Mr. Birnie, who was then in charge at Fort George, was without authority to accept the respon sibility of her care, Dr. McLoughlin was asked to assume it, and gladly did so. The launch remained at the fort, and in the charge of the Company, until the provisional government was formed, when she was, upon request, de livered over to Governor Abernethy. After completing his survey of the coast and the harbors and rivers of California, Wilkes sailed for Honolulu, whence he dispatched a letter to the secretary of the navy, in which he explains that he has not been able to forward the full report he had hoped to have ready at that time, on the con ditions then prevailing in Oregon, the value of the country etc., because of lack of opportunity to digest and arrange the immense mass of information he had collected, but he prom ised to have it ready by the time he should arrive in New York in the following year. This promise he faithfully kept. He reached that harbor on June ioth; and on the 13th the report was in the hands of the secretary. It has never been published in full, but extracts from it were copied OF AN AMERICAN STATE 203 into the Pendleton report, which was published in the follow ing January. Its contents were without doubt known to the president, Mr. Webster and all the other members of the cabinet, as well as to the secretary of the navy, during nearly the whole time that the negotiations for the Ashburton treaty were going on. It does not seem possible that any body could have furnished them more information about the country, or any that would have had more weight with them, than this which had been gathered by a scientific expedition sent out by the preceding administration, amply provided with means to collect it, and bearing upon its face, as it did, so many evidences of having been collected with great thoroughness and care. The reason why this report was not sent to Congress and published, in response to the demands made for it by both houses, is now apparent. It contains a strong argument for asserting title to the whole coast as far north as 540 40'. It also points out that the Hudson's Bay Company, and all its officers and stockholders, would be very averse to war to retain possession of the country, because of their stocks and herds, and their large investments in farming operations. Of course it was not desirable to publish a report coming from such authority, while negotiations in regard to the boundary were pending, and when other negotiations must soon follow. Many of the statements contained in this special report were of special value at that time, and are interesting now. They will always have a special interest to those who will remember that Oregon, or at least that part of it north and west of the Columbia River, was then claimed by another power, and until this claim was finally disposed of there would always be a question as to which power would finally 204 THE RISE AND PROGRESS control it. Of the Puget Sound country the report says : "No part ofthe world affords finer inland sounds, or a greater number of harbors than can be found here, capable of receiving the largest class of vessels, and without a danger in them that is not visible. From the rise and fall of the tides (18 feet) all facilities are afforded for the erection of works for a great maritime nation." Of the country generally it says : " In comparison with our own country, I should say that the labor required in this territory for subsistence, and to acquire wealth, is in the proportion of one to three — or in other words, a man must work three times as long in the States to gain a like competence. . . . Few portions of the globe, in my opinion, are to be found so rich in soil, diversified in surface, or capable of being so easily rendered the happy abode of an industrious and civilized community. For beauty of scenery and salubrity of climate it is not surpassed. It is peculiarly adapted for an agricultural and pastoral people, and no portion of the world, beyond the tropics, is to be found that will yield so readily to the wants of man with moderate labor." While possibly admiring nature as much, Wilkes makes fewer attempts at rapturous description of her beauties than Vancouver does. It is the practical that always appeals to him. He speaks occasionally, and often admiringly, of the beauties of the woods, and prairies, and of the grandeur of the mountains. He mentions the wealth of bloom that every where met his eye — the syringa, dogwood, spirea, rhododen dron, wild currant, and many other flowering shrubs that were seen on every hand during the months he was in the Sound country, but it is rather as a scientist who had counted their petals and stamens, and noted the arrangement of their OF AN AMERICAN STATE 205 leaves, than as a mere admirer of their color and fragrance. If he mentions the mountains his admiration of their symme try, if expressed, is always coupled with some attempt to measure their height, or their distance from the sea, or an estimate of the altitude of their snow line. But he over looks no detail as to the character and value of the soil, the quality and quantity of the timber, the nature of the geological formation, the number and condition ofthe Indian inhabitants, the progress made by the settlers, and at what cost in labor or money, and he notes with particular care all that the Hudson's Bay Company has done and is doing, evidently, as his special report shows, with a view of esti mating the resistance it would make if attempt were made to dispossess it. The maritime advantages of the country are ever present to his mind, as would naturally be the case. About these he is enthusiastic, but they are all meas ured with the eye of the ship-owner or the shipping agent. There are no hidden dangers in the channels, good harbors are numerous, the opportunity for cargo all that could be wished. It is always the practical, rather than the beautiful, that appeals to him. Wilkes has been accused of want of patriotic interest in the country, because he did not advise the settlers in the Willamette Valley, as they hoped he would advise them. Some have suspected that he was a Catholic, and that he thus easily came under the influence of Father Blanchet, but this is not the fact; he was an Episcopalian. Gray has said this of him, in his History of Oregon: "To the disgrace of the leader of that squadron, the general impres sion of all the early settlers of this country is, to the present day, that he understood and tasted the qualities of Dr. McLoughlin's liquors, and received the polite attentions of 206 Rise and Progress of an American State the gentlemen of the Hudson's Bay Company, with far more pleasure than he looked into or regarded the wants of this infant settlement of his countrymen." This invidious statement requires no comment at the present day. Wilkes' own work long since made sufficient answer to it. Chapter XXV. A CHAMPION APPEARS. LEWIS F. LINN. This senator from Missouri, and colleague of Thomas H. Benton, did more than was done by any other one man to save Oregon to the United States — if, indeed, it was ever in need of being saved. His bill to provide free homes to settlers furnished encouragement to those who wanted land, to go to Oregon and get it, and so settle the -.- antry. It yip.s also the beginning of our present hom«|Pf|^;l»w»4>i»iehfe^>^- AFTER the very full discussion of the Oregon question, in which so many senators and repre sentatives participated during the session of 1828, Congress paid but very little attention to it for nearly nine years. President Jackson sent Lieutenant Slacum out to the Columbia to gather such information as he could without great cost, about the country, the Indians, the settlers and the British fur traders who were in control of it and them, and upon his return, the Wilkes expedition was dispatched to do something far more defi nite and important, but Congress gave its attention almost exclusively to other matters. Floyd, Baylies and Everett, as well as several other of the more active champions of Ore gon, had retired from the House. No one in the Senate seemed to remember it. The president, and his advisers, except in so far as above mentioned, seemed to give it no thought. Under the arrangement for joint occupancy the Hudson's Bay Company was enjoying sole occupancy, undisturbed except by the presence of a few inoffensive missionaries. But in 1837 there arose a man who was to prove himself an effective champion. Heretofore all measures proposed had for their purpose the determination of what our claims and rights were : the assertion of those claims : the explora tion of the country, the extension of our laws over it and the occupation of it by military force, with the view of ulti mate termination of the joint occupation convention. As all these propositions seemed likely to lead more or less directly to war as a possible consequence, and to the slaughter of our trappers and fur traders who should be encouraged to make a contest with the Hudson's Bay Company for equal privileges on the Columbia, as a certain consequence, 210 THE RISE AND PROGRESS Congress hesitated and the people were not too urgent for action. But in 1833 Lewis F. Linn of Missouri appeared in the Senate, having been appointed by the governor to succeed Alexander Buckner, who had died in office. Although American born, Linn was of Irish extraction, and pre sumably inherited the natural aversion of his race for British authority, although he made no unseemly display of it. His generous nature and sanguine temperament permitted him to make no battle merely to gratify an ignoble passion. He preferred rather to be an aggressive American, than to appear to be a professional hater of Great Britain, and he had some reason to be both. He had been born in Ken tucky, and had early imbibed the bold free spirit of the West. He studied medicine, and when still a young man had removed from the neighborhood of Louisville to Sainte Gene vieve, Missouri, where he soon acquired a satisfactory practice. Always public spirited he took an active though dis interested part in public affairs, and was soon elected to the State Senate. Later he was appointed a commissioner to decide on the validity of the old land titles in Missouri, and removed to St. Louis in order more conveniently to attend the meetings of the board, which he induced to confirm the Spanish and French grants. When he took his seat in the Senate of the United States he was thirty-eight years old. He made no haste to obtrude himself or his opinions upon the deliberations of that body. For the first two or three sessions after his arrival his part was a modest though useful one, neglecting no duty, but seeking no undue prominence. His colleague was one of the great figures in that body, although Webster, Clay and Calhoun were there, and he was quite content for the time OF AN AMERICAN STATE 211 being to sit in the shadow of his colleague's greatness. But he was quietly preparing and perfecting plans that would have connected his name indelibly with those of the greatest in the expansion and upbuilding of the country, if he could have lived to see their fruits gathered. But unfortunately for his fame, death took him just as his work was advancing to completion, and much of the fame that belongs to him has for the time being gone to another. Linn early saw and appreciated the greatness and value of the Mississippi Valley. He realized that it was capable of supporting a great and homogeneous people, who would be able, if need be, to bind together and hold together the populations beyond the mountains on either side of it, no matter how diverse their interests might be. He had full confidence also in our system of government, and had no doubt that it could be safely extended to all contiguous terri tory, provided it could be settled by our own people. He had no part in or sympathy with the faint-hearted theory of Jefferson, which was still held by Benton and many others, that our possessions on the Pacific were to be inhabited by " a kindred people employing free institutions and a govern ment like our own." He would have them a part of one integral whole, settled by our own people and governed by our own laws, and this idea became the essential part of all his plans and purposes. These plans were slowly formed. As all must do who succeed, in great undertakings, he prepared the way with great prudence and caution, and advanced step by step only so rapidly as he could do so with safety. The situation offered great temptation to one of Irish birth to strike a blow at British interest, and so win some present applause from the multitude, but it did not swerve him from the purpose 212 THE RISE AND PROGRESS he had formed. To terminate the joint occupation agree ment would do no good if we were not prepared to take immediate possession of the country and hold it against all comers. That we were not so prepared was evident enough. If we terminated the agreement and left England in pos session, through the Hudson's Bay Company, we would sometime have to recover the country by force of arms, and that would be worse than to leave things as they were. To build forts on the Columbia and at other points, to en courage our fur traders to seek for and attempt to take the equal privileges guaranteed them by the joint occupa tion convention, would be to bring on a condition of things similar to that which prevailed in the Red River country during the war between the Hudson's Bay and old North west Fur companies, and that would surely end in a greater and more serious war. What then was to be done ? It is reasonably clear that no plan suggested itself at once even to Senator Linn, who was studying the situation with profound and almost undivided attention. That American settlers could go and take peaceable possession of the country, as they had an undoubted right to do, was doubtless ever present to him. He had been born among that kind of people, and had lived among them all his life. If they would go in sufficient numbers they could not only take possession, but they could be relied upon to hold it, should occasion require. But how could they be in duced to go in sufficient numbers for that purpose ? No promise of protection would induce them to make the long journey of two thousand miles with their wives and families, through a wilderness and over mountains and deserts. Build ing and garrisoning forts would not do it. They would prefer to remain where they were, where they did not need OF AN AMERICAN STATE 213 forts or protection of any kind. Some inducement must be offered them. There was but one inducement the govern ment could offer, but happily it was the one inducement that settlers would most appreciate — homes, land, and enough land to make every settler's family independent. This would start the settlers in ever increasing numbers toward the west, and they would continue their march until Oregon was ours. Although Linn may not have had this idea clearly devel oped in his mind when he began to renew the agitation of the Oregon question in 1837, he gradually developed and perfected it, practically in the form in which it originally became enacted into law, some years after his death. It settled Oregon and settled the Oregon question, and it has done more than any and all other legislation has done, or could do, to hasten the settlement of all the States west of the Mississippi. Lewis F. Linn deserves a monument in every State and every thriving city in the West, for having done what he did in the short space of life that remained to him after he entered the Senate, to provide free homes for home less people. A special session of Congress was held in October 1837, during which resolutions were unanimously adopted by both the Senate and House, requesting the president, "If not incompatible with the public interests, to communicate to each body at the next session of Congress information as to whether any, and if so, what portion of the territory of the United States west of the Rocky Mountains and bordering on the Pacific Ocean, is in the possession of any foreign power, and if so, in what way, by what authority and how long such possession or occupancy has been kept." The Senate resolution also asked that there should be 214 THE RISE AND PROGRESS communicated any correspondence between our govern ment and any foreign government relative to the occupa tion of said territory. These resolutions were referred to the state department for a report, and in December President Van Buren sent to both houses a letter prepared by John Forsyth, Secretary of State, in which he set forth that the Astoria establishment had passed into the hands of the British Northwest Company by the sale of Mr. Astor's interest, during the war of 1812, and on the consolidation of that Company with the Hudson's Bay Company, it had passed into and remained in the pos session of that Company, and that its retention by them, and the establishment of other trading posts by them, within the Oregon territory was not deemed incompatible with the provisions ofthe treaties of 18 18 and 1827. The Senate was also informed that no correspondence had been had about the occupation of the said territory, with any foreign govern ments, since the convention of Aug. 6, 1827, na^ been signed. During the regular session, which began December 11, Senator Linn introduced a bill to establish the Oregon Ter ritory, authorizing a fort to be built on the Columbia: the occupation of the country by a military force: creating a port of entry, and requiring that the country should be held subject to the revenue laws of the United States. This bill was debated by Senators Clay, Buchanan, Linn and Benton, and finally referred to a select committee of five, from which it was never reported. But in the following year Senator Linn presented a report from the committee, which reviewed our claims to the country, and contained some valuable information in regard to the means by which settlers could reach it. This report also contained a map of the Oregon country, showing the forty-ninth degree extended through OF AN AMERICAN STATE 215 and across Vancouver Island, as its northern boundary, and at the end of this line was printed this quotation from Secretary Clay's instructions to our minister to England in 1826: "You are authorized to propose the annulment of the third article ofthe convention of 181 8, and the extensions of the line, on the parallel of 49 degrees, from the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, where it now terminates, to the Pacific Ocean as the permanent boundary between the two powers in that quarter. This is our ultimatum, and you may so announce it." President Van Buren in his annual message to Congress in December 1837, referred to the unsettled boundary ques tion, particularly between Maine and Canada, and this part of the message was referred by the House of Representatives to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, of which Caleb Cush ing, then one of the ablest lawyers in either house, and after wards attorney-general in President Pierce's cabinet, was a member. During the session he delivered a speech on the boundary question, in which he paid particular attention to our claims on the Pacific, and later prepared one ofthe fullest and most complete reports on that subject that had ever been presented to either house. This report was subse quently enlarged by the addition of several pages, and twenty thousand extra copies of it were printed for general distribution. No man of his time was more competent to discuss this question from any point of view, than he was, for he had long studied it, and had written much about it. Some members of his family were ship owners and occa sionally sent their vessels to the Columbia. Through them he had gained information not generally accessible to the public. He had thoroughly considered all the treaties, and had written and published three long articles in the North 216 THE RISE AND PROGRESS American Review, then the most influential magazine pub lished on the continent, on the Oregon country and our claims to it. These claims, he held, now made our title most complete. Though our claims, and those of Spain, which we had acquired, "conflicted with each other originally, they acquired mutual strength in the same hands; as if three persons claim the same estate, one by deed or devise, another by inheritance, and a third by permission, the union of all in one person, by purchase or otherwise, would result in the best of titles. " He also gave this splendid description of the resistless westward movement of our population : " Who shall undertake to define the limits of the expansibility of the United States ? Does it not flow westward with the never ceasing advance of a rising tide of the sea ? Along a line of more than a thousand miles from the Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, perpetually moves forward the western frontier of the United States. Here, stretched along the whole length of this line, is the vanguard as it were of the onward march of the Anglo-American race, advancing, it has been calculated, at the average rate of about one-half a degree of longitude each succeeding year. Occasionally, an obstacle presents itself, in some unproductive region of country or some Indian tribe; the column is checked; its wings incline towards each other: it breaks: but it speedily reunites again beyond the obstacle, and resumes its forward progress, ever facing and approaching nearer and nearer to the remotest regions of the west. This movement goes on with the predestined certainty, and the unerring precision of the great works of Providence, rather than as an act of feeble man. Another generation may see the settlements of our people diffused over the Pacific slope of the Rocky Mountains. It is idle to suppose any new colony to be OF AN AMERICAN STATE 217 sent out by Great Britain will, or can, establish itself in the far west, ultimately to stand in competition with this great movement ofthe population and power ofthe United States. " As to the unanimity with which all our leading statesmen had supported our claim to Oregon this report says: "The Committee beg leave to subjoin, that in the course of this report they have not undertaken to raise any novel preten sions in behalf of the United States. They have relied on the grounds of right alleged by every American statesman, who has had occasion to examine the subject, from the time of Mr. Jefferson to the present day : referring more especially to the instructions, correspondence and despatches of Mr. Monroe, Mr. Adams, Mr. Rush, Mr. Clay, Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Lawrence, and the reports of Mr. Floyd, Mr. Bay lies and Mr. Linn, and superadding only such further illustrations, facts and arguments as the personal research of the Committee has brought to their knowledge. " At this session, in December 1838, Senator Linn introduced his bill for the occupation of the Oregon country, and it was read twice and referred to a select committee composed of himself as chairman, John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay and Franklin Pierce. In December 1839, at the opening of the twenty-sixth Congress, he introduced a joint resolution in which his plan to encourage settlement by gifts of land first appears. It declared that "our title to the Oregon country is indisputable and will never be abandoned" : that our government should give the requisite twelve months' notice, that we desired to terminate the Convention of August 6, 1827; for extending the laws ofthe United States over Oregon; for raising soldiers to protect immigrants to Oregon; and for giving 640 acres of land in Oregon to each white male of 18 years of age, 218 THE RISE AND PROGRESS resident of the territory who would live on and cultivate it for five years. These resolutions were referred to a select committee consisting of Linn, Walker, Preston, Pierce and Sevier. It was at this session that Congress ordered the publica tion of Mr. Greenhow's history in which all the story of the discovery of the coast was for the first time told, and the facts and correspondence pertaining to the several treaties and conventions made by and between various governments affecting title to it, were for the first time brought together. Of this history twenty-five hundred extra copies were printed for the use of the public, and it was also republished by pri vate enterprise, both in New York and London, for general sale. It is the only official history of any of our territorial acquisitions which our government had, at that time, ever printed, while the title was still in dispute. On December 31, 1840, Linn gave notice of his intention to introduce a joint resolution relating to Oregon, and on January 8, 1841, he introduced his bill for the occupation of the country. It provided for a line of military posts from Fort Leavenworth to the Rocky Mountains, and for donating one thousand acres of land, instead of six hundred and forty, to every white male, eighteen years of age and upwards, who should cultivate and use the same for five consecutive years. This bill was referred to a select committee composed of Linn, Walker, Pierce, Preston and Sevier. In presenting it Mr. Linn said that when the bill was before the Senate during the last and preceding sessions of Congress, his polit ical friends, as well as opponents, earnestly pressed him to forbear urging the subject to a final vote, as it might prove embarrassing at that time, in the settlement ofthe long pend ing and important boundary question. But since then he OF AN AMERICAN STATE 219 had been censured in letters received from gentlemen resid ing in all parts of the Union, for not having pressed it to a final decision. England had extended a part of her criminal laws over the Oregon country, and was now proposing to enforce them even up to the boundaries of the States of Arkansas and Missouri. If we had any rights in the terri tory in dispute, he was not willing to abandon them, and was quite prepared to discuss and finally settle them. At this time petitions and memorials began to appear from various quarters, urging that the long pending question be taken up and finally disposed of. Two petitions from the settlers in Oregon were among the first of these, but they received but little attention. Now Mr. King of Alabama presented a petition from citizens of his State who wished to migrate to Oregon, by way of the Isthmus of Panama, and they asked that the government would make some arrangement for their protection after they reached it. Mr. King said many of these memorialists were personally known to him and were men of worth. Near the close of the session Mr. Linn proposed a reso lution that the president be requested to give the notice to the British government, which the treaty of 1827 between the two governments requires, in order to put an end to the treaty for the joint occupation of the territory which is now possessed and used by the Hudson's Bay Company to the ruin of the American Indian and fur trade in that quarter, and conflicting with our inland commerce with the internal provinces of Mexico. This resolution was discussed briefly by Linn, Benton, Sevier and Preston, and on August 21st, after being amended so as to direct the Committee on Foreign Relations to in quire into the expediency of requesting the President to give 220 THE RISE AND PROGRESS the notice, it was referred to the Foreign Relations Com mittee. At the opening ofthe second session ofthe twenty-seventh Congress, in December 1841, President Tyler invited partic ular attention to the report of the secretary of war, which proposed, "the establishment of a chain of military posts from Council Bluffs to some point on the Pacific ocean within our limits. The benefits thereby destined to accrue to our citizens engaged in the fur trade over that wilderness region, " said the president, "added to the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the savage tribes inhabiting it, and, at the same time, of giving protection to our frontier settle ments, and of establishing the means of safe intercourse be tween the American settlements at the mouth ofthe Columbia River and those on this side of the Rocky Mountains, would seem to suggest the importance of carrying into effect the recommendations upon this head with as little delay as may be practicable." Linn again introduced his bill granting land to actual settlers, and made a speech in its support, in which he insisted that there could be no dispute about the right of the United States to all the region south of the Columbia River, a right which Great Britain had fully conceded. The only ques tion now was the right to the country north and west of the Columbia. "Besides this bundle of memorials praying Congress to take steps to assert our title to the territory and to enact measures to encourage emigration," he said, "the legislatures of two or three states had passed resolutions asking Congress to assert our rights to the country we claimed on the western ocean, and to take such steps as the urgency of the case seemed to demand. He had also in his posses sion hundreds upon hundreds of letters, from every quarter OF AN AMERICAN STATE 221 of the Union, making anxious inquiries as to what was likely to be done by Congress relative to this long agitated and long deferred question." The committee unanimously instructed their chairman to report this bill back to the Senate with the recommendation that it pass. It was then placed in its order on the calen dar, but before it came up for consideration as a special order, Lord Ashburton arrived from England to enter upon a negoti ation touching all points of dispute between the two countries — boundaries as well as others, Oregon as well as Maine. In that posture of affairs it was considered on all hands indelicate, not to say unwise, to press the bill to a decision whilst these negotiations were pending. It was accordingly laid aside and before it was taken up again the treaty fixing the northeastern boundary, but leaving the Oregon boundary question still open, was sent to the Senate for ratification. The reason why the Oregon question was not made a part of the subject of negotiation between Mr. Webster and Lord Ashburton was not then stated, nor was it made clear until many years afterward. In the debate which occupied a large share of the time of the Senate for several days, Mr. Webster and President Tyler were severely criticized, not only for some features of the treaty they had made, but par ticularly for one they had not made. Why was the Oregon boundary not settled ? What purpose had the administra tion and Lord Ashburton in holding it in abeyance ? Had they, by consenting to its postponement, entered into some entangling arrangement that would prejudice its determina tion later, and perhaps deprive us of some valuable territory that really belonged to us ? Unfortunately the administration was not in position to make the full and satisfactory reply, that might have been 222 THE RISE AND PROGRESS made. The fact was that Lord Ashburton had come over with full authority to settle the whole boundary question, and unfortunately this had become known soon after his arrival. But it had not become known at the same time, that the conditions on which he could adjust the Oregon boundary were conditions that our government could not accept. He was positively forbidden by his instructions to accept the forty-ninth parallel, and neither President Tyler nor Mr. Webster would consider anything less. On learn ing what his lordship's instructions were, therefore they concluded to take half a loaf rather than get no bread — to leave the northwestern boundary out of consideration entirely until the northeast boundary was settled. But having done this, to avoid prejudicing or embarrassing future negotiation for the settlement of the Oregon boundary, they could not now make the full explanation demanded without doing what they had so far avoided. They were therefore forced to accept criticism, all of which they did not deserve, and censure for doing something they not only had not done, but never thought of doing. Mr. Benton was particularly severe in criticising all that he found to criticise and in condemning much that he only suspected. He fancied that the administration had failed to urge our demands in the northwest, through weakness, and for this he censured both the president and his secretary of state unsparingly. Mr. Buchanan of Pennsylvania and Mr. Conrad of Louisiana, a new member ofthe Senate, were scarcely less severe, but after a debate lasting from the elev enth to the twentieth of August the treaty was confirmed by a vote of more than three to one. The treaty now being out of the way Senator Linn gave notice that he would press his bill to a vote at the earliest THOMAS H. BENTON. This famous statesman was born in North Carolina in 1782.'* He early removed to Tennessee and then to Missouri, and on the admission of that State to the Union in 1820, became one of its first senators. He served in the Senate continuously for thirty years, and subsequently served one term in the House of Repre sentatives. He died in Washington City, April, 10, 1858. EnoTa.'v'ed"by-FklIalpiii from a.Dagiierreotype oy CkQtori OF AN AMERICAN STATE 223 opportunity. There was no longer any fear that it would embarrass negotiations. He was confident that there was a majority in either house in its favor, and nothing should now prevent him from urging it to its final passage. But it was near the end of August and Congress was about to adjourn until December. Nothing could therefore be hoped for until it convened again, and so the matter rested until the new session opened. There had been no debate in the House on the Oregon question during this Congress, but the Military Committee, to which that part of the president's message relating to a chain of military posts across the continent had been referred, brought in one ofthe most complete reports that the Oregon question had ever called forth. It was prepared by Congressman N. E. Pendleton of Ohio, the father of George H. Pendleton of later years. It did not argue the question of our title so fully or so ably as Cush- ing's report had done, for there was now no need of that, as no member of either House or Senate, nor of the administration, nor had any person of consequence anywhere, so far as known, expressed a doubt on that sub ject since the question had been revived. But it contained a vast amount of information which settlers would value, which had been gathered from the reports of Wyeth, Slacum, Kelly, Wilkes and other persons who had visited the country, and who were prepared to tell people who thought of going there what they would most like to know. Of this report a large number of extra copies were printed and circu lated. Shortly after Congress convened in December 1843 Presi dent Tyler was asked to send to the Senate any informal communications that might have passed between Lord 224 THE RISE AND PROGRESS Ashburton and Mr. Webster, in the negotiations regarding the northeast boundary, and the president replied that he did "not deem it consistent with the public interest to make any communication on that subject whatever." This aroused Benton and the others who had opposed the rati fication of the treaty, and for some weeks succeeding, the Linn bill and the Ashburton treaty held the attention of Congress and the country. Benton denounced Tyler and Webster more unsparingly than before. He declared that the president's refusal to furnish the Senate with the informal communications with Ashburton on the Oregon boundary, and the reasons why it was not deemed wise to attempt to include that subject in the Ashburton treaty, were because they would disgrace the administration, by showing that the president and his secretary of state were recreant to our national interests, and ready to sacrifice our national honor on the question of the Oregon boundary, and were willing to yield — not all of Oregon — but that part north and west of the Columbia, by making the Colum bia the boundary line, instead of the forty-ninth degree to the Pacific. The president could not with propriety reply, nor could Mr. Webster make answer in person, but Mr. Choate, who was his friend, was authorized to speak for him, and did so on Wednesday, January 18th.* He was glad he said to have it in his power to undeceive the senator, and to assure him, which he did from authority — for he had been requested by the secretary himself to do it for him— that he " never either made or entertained a proposition to admit of any line south of the forty-ninth parallel of latitude, as a negotiable * Congressional Globe, Twenty-seventh Congress, Third Session, pp. 171-2. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 225 boundary line for the territory of the United States. " In still another speech, made some days later, Mr. Choate still more specifically denied Mr. Benton's insinuations. "I desire chiefly to assure the Senator and the Senate," he said, "that the apprehension intimated by him, that a disclosure of these informal communications would disgrace the American Secretary, by showing that he had offered a boundary line south of the parallel of forty-nine, is totally unfounded. He will be glad to hear me say that I am authorized and de sired to declare, that in no communication, formal or informal, was such an offer made, and that none such was ever meditated."* The debate on the Linn bill in the Senate began on January 9th, and was participated in by many senators. Among the most prominent of those who favored it, in addition to Sena tors Linn and Benton, were Senators Tappan of Ohio, Sevier of Arkansas, Woodbury of New Hamphsire, Young of Illinois and Phelps of Vermont. Those opposing were Senators Calhoun, and McDuffie of South Carolina, Choate of Massachusetts, Huntington of Connecticut, Berrien of Georgia and Rives of Virginia, and they objected to it only * It would have been easy for President Tyler and Secretary Webster to spare themselves all these bitter denunciations by making known just what Lord Ashburton's instructions were, but this it seems, they did not think it wise to do, and their full tenor was not made known until they were published in the report of the Berlin Arbitration (by Emperor William) in 187 1. From this it appears that he was directed to propose the line of the Columbia River from its mouth to the Snake River, and thence due east to the summit of the Rockies. If he could not secure that line he was (2) authorized to renew the offer made us in 1824, and again in 1827 by England, of the line of forty-nine degrees from the summit of the Rocky Mountains to the most north eastern branch of the Columbia, and thence the river to the Pacific. If he could not secure this line he was positively forbidden to accept the line of 49 degrees, to the coast, which we had always insisted upon, and as early as 1826 had announced to England as "our ultimatum." 226 THE RISE AND PROGRESS because they believed the section granting land to settlers would conflict with the convention for joint occupation, and possibly lead to trouble with England. Some of these declared they would be willing to vote for the bill with this clause, providing notice for terminating the convention should be given in advance. Not one of them doubted the validity of our title, at least so far north as the 49th parallel, and a few were for asserting our claim to the whole coast as far north as 540 40'. Senator Linn's argument in favor of the bill was temperate but forceful. Mr. Benton was aggressive and even violent. He contended that England had absolutely no claim to any part of the country south of the forty-ninth parallel, except such as she had gained through our own temporizing policy. She had, in accordance with her long established custom, laid claim to all in the hope of finally securing a part by compromise. He would consent to no compromise by which we should sacrifice any part of what was legally and justly ours. In describing the conditions which we had permitted to grow up in Oregon, by the policy we had so long pursued, he said : " In its own name, and by an act of Parliament immediately after the Convention, the British Government has extended its jurisdiction over the whole country, taking no notice at all of our claims, and subjecting all our citizens and their property to British judges, British courts, and appeals to Canada. . . . They have taken possession of our claimed territory, of our harbor, our river, colonized the country and killed and expelled our traders. Our traders, left to contend single-handed against the organized Hudson's Bay Company, against their Indians, against their free goods, have all been driven in— forced not only out of the valley of the Columbia, but out of the OF AN AMERICAN STATE 227 Rocky Mountains, and ruin has overtaken many of them. Even the strong and rich Company of Mr. Choteau can no longer approach the Rocky Mountains. The Hudson's Bay Company are the masters there. Every American that approaches that region does so at the peril of his life. Many were killed there this summer, . . . and now, if after all this, any proposition has been made by our Government to give up the north bank of the Columbia, I for one shall not fail to brand such a proposition with the name of trea son. . . . We fear War ! as if the fear of war ever kept it off. We fear war while Great Britain is systematically preparing for war with us. All her encroachments upon us show that she is preparing for this result. She is preparing for war, and the late treaty is the largest of her preparations. . . . As a nation Great Britain despises and hates our na tion. . . . There may be individual Englishmen who have regard for individual Americans, but as it concerns nation and nation they despise and hate us! They want war with us, and count upon its being short and triumphant. We should count upon expelling them from our continent, giving freedom to Ireland and aiding the English people to reform their government. . . . Sooner or later the war will come for Great Britain is determined upon it, and we should roll back the thunder upon her own shores. "Thirty thousand friends of Ireland landed on her coast, and forming the rallying point for a million of patriots, would make 'the devoted island' free, and shake Old England to her center. These are my sentiments, and I neither dis semble nor deny them. Peace is our policy. War is the policy of England and war with us is now her favorite policy. Let it come rather than dishonor! 228 THE RISE AND PROGRESS "The man is alive, and with a beard on his face, (though it may not be I) who will see an American army in Ireland, and an American general in the streets of London. "* All the senators who favored the bill stood staunchly by its provision for donating land to actual settlers, and did not hesitate to declare that they regarded this as the soul of the whole measure. The purpose of it was to encourage settle ment. We had a clear right to make grants of land, not withstanding the joint occupation agreement. We could have made grants before that agreement was made : there was no reason why we should not make them now. It was not possible that England would oppose if grants were made south of the Columbia, since she had practically abandoned all claim to that country. It was the duty of the government to protect its citizens in all their lawful pursuits, in every portion of our territory, no matter how remote, and it was equally the duty of Congress to extend our territorial laws for the protection of even its most remotely settled citizens. In the opinion of Mr. Woodbury it was especially expedient that all this should be done now and quickly, since further neglect was likely to be laid hold of by a rival power, if a ground were given for enlarging and strengthening preten tions which never could have arisen had we made timely effort to secure our rights beyond cavil. Mr. Calhoun pointed to the fact that Great Britain had planted her power on the eastern coast of China, where she was preparing to maintain a strong military and naval force, and that from such a vantage point she would soon be ready to concentrate a force at the mouth of the Columbia to maintain her claim to that territory, in case a collision should be brought about. But he was not for that reason in favor ?Appendix to Congress. Globe, 27th Congress, 3d Sess., pp. 74-84. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 229 of abandoning any part of our claims. He was opposed to that. But time was acting in our favor, and he thought it wise, in the then embarrassed state of our finances, to per mit it to continue so to act. Even Mr. McDuffie, the most violent opponent of the measure, did not doubt our title. He thought it infinitely more clear than that upon which the negotiations had just terminated, but he did not think the country worth quarreling about. The debate continued until the third of February, when the bill was passed, twenty-four senators voting for it and the noes were not entered on the journal. There were then fifty senators and four were absent, and doubtless paired, so that a majority of the whole number favored the bill with the land clause its essential feature. Of the other twenty-two sena tors, nine had during the debate declared that they opposed it only because they believed it to be in conflict with the joint occupation convention. Congress adjourned on the third of March, and before it reassembled Mr. Linn had died, and the cause he had so long championed, and which now seemed about to succeed, was left to the management of others. As Moses had come up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, even to the top of Pisgah, where the Lord showed him all the land of Gilead and of Judah, unto the utmost sea, so he had seen, or seemed about to see, his efforts to secure the whole disputed valley of the Columbia crowned with success, and then in the stillness of the night a voice said to him as it had said also to Moses: "I have caused thee to see this with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither. " He died when the work he had so well begun was still far from finished, but there was no doubt as to what its end would be. The measure he had so carefully prepared, and 230 THE RISE AND PROGRESS so long and so ably championed was now fairly well under stood. It was already popular in the West, and was growing in favor everywhere. Champions for it were not lacking in Congress. Its enactment was beginning to be regarded as certain. Emigrants in ever increasing numbers were taking the trail toward the West, and the thirty thousand rifles of whom Senator Tappan had spoken, as the surest reliance of our government in the settlement of the boundary controversy, would soon be in the valley of the Columbia. There was no longer any need for anxiety about the boundary, or about joint occupation. The settler would soon be on the ground, and joint occupation, as between settler and trapper and fur trader could not long endure. And so it came about, as it often had done before in this world, that while the man died his work remained. It seemed unfinished — scarcely begun perhaps, but it was sufficient. The donation act, designed to encourage the settle ment of Oregon, was the foundation of our generous home stead law, the beginning of that magnificent system of disposing of our national domain that has been so beneficial to government and people alike. To have planted the seed from which that tree grew, even though he did not live to see its tender shoot, or enjoy the shade of its wide spreading branches, is enough to perpetuate the memory of Lewis F. Linn to remotest generations. So long as a free people enjoy the luxury of free homes he will not be forgotten. If some soldier, "wearing the tools of his trade girt round his haunches, not without air of pride," as Mr. Carlyle has said, could show that he had desolated one-tenth as many homes by war, as the statesmanship of Lewis F. Linn has filled with prosperous and happy families, his fame would fill the whole earth. Even that of Caesar and Napoleon OF AN AMERICAN STATE 231 would pale in its presence; Marlborough, and Turenne, Frederick, Eugene, and Suvarof, Titus and Constantine, and other famous generals of more ancient times would hardly be remembered. But Lewis F. Linn, the peer of Benton, Clay, Webster, Calhoun and Douglas, the author of the donation land law, which was the beginning of the most beneficent system of land distribution the world has ever known, is now almost forgotten. The world will yet remember him. Chapter XXVI. THE EARLY IMMIGRANTS. MORE than five months before the Lausanne sailed from New York with the great mis sionary reinforcement which reached the Co lumbia in 1840, another party was organized at Peoria, Illinois, to make the journey overland. Captain T. J. Farnham, who afterward wrote a fairly entertaining book about his trip, was the leader of it. This was not at all a missionary enterprise. If we may judge it now by the declarations of its leader, made shortly after they set out, its youthful members fancied they were going on a filibuster ing expedition. They were nineteen in number, not counting their captain, and called themselves the "Oregon Dragoons." They carried a banner presented by the wife of their comman der, and inscribed "Oregon or the Grave." At Independ ence, Missouri, and possibly at other places the captain frankly told those he conversed with that his purpose was to take possession of Oregon and drive the British intruders out of it. Being asked if he thought his force of nineteen men sufficient for that purpose, he replied, "Oh, yes; plenty." "But some of your party are Englishmen," said a doubting interrogator. " Do you think they will fight against their countrymen?" "Oh, yes; they will not turn traitors," said the confident commander; "if they do by God we'll shoot 'em." Peoria was in those days pretty well out toward the fron tier. The most thickly settled part of Illinois lay to the south and east of it. Chicago was scarcely more than a frontier town; there was plenty of excellent prairie land still open for settlement within fifty miles of it. All the present counties in the northern part of the State were as wild as they ever had been, with the exception of a few settlers here and there, and a small colony of lead miners at Galena. 236 THE RISE AND PROGRESS Nevertheless there was a lively interest in the Oregon ques tion among such settlers as there were, and at no place was it livelier or keener than at Peoria. The " Patriot" published there, had been one of the first papers to reprint Walker's story of the Indians who had rnade the long journey across the plains to St. Louis in search of religious instruction. The Presbyterian Synod had met there and investigated and discussed it. Jason Lee and his two Indian boys had held a meeting there, and the people who had attended had remembered, and discussed with the greatest interest, the stories they told of the natural wealth of western Oregon, and its most attractive climate. From that time forth Peoria became one of the principal recruiting stations of the Oregon immigration. By the advice of Sublette and Thompson, the fur traders, whom they met at Independence, Farnham's party took the Sante Fe road, in preference to that up the Platte, which the fur traders had now been traveling for several years. The young men were without experience as plainsmen, and consequently made their way with some difficulty, and encountered many adventures, some of which were not alto gether of an agreeable kind. The harmony of the party soon began to be disturbed by quarrels and a part deserted, after falling in with a Sante Fe wagon train, by which they were at first mistaken for a party of Comanche Indians. With this they reached Bent's Fort, on the Arkansas, where they remained about a week and where their quarrels con tinued. The party divided here. Farnham and a few others decided to follow the Arkansas, and the remainder consisting of eight went north to the Platte, the south branch of which they reached at a point near where the city of Denver now stands. Thence they followed the river eastward to St. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 237 Vrains Fort, where they halted and awaited the arrival of a party bound for Green River. They were detained there for six weeks, when, the expected party having arrived, they resumed their journey, crossing the Black Hills to Laramie, and then following the north fork of the Platte, they crossed the mountains to Little Bear River, and thence over a barren desert to Fort Crockett. Here they made the acquaintance of a number of traders and trappers, among whom were Dr. Robert Newell and Joseph L. Meek, who were about to start for Fort Hall to sell their furs, and lay in a stock of goods for the winter. Some of the party accompanied them, and as the season was then well advanced they made the trip with great difficulty, encountering deep snow during the greater part of it, and being reduced nearly to starvation on account of the short supply of their provisions. They arrived at Fort Hall on the eleventh day and were hospitably received by Frank Ermatinger, the Hudson's Bay representative who was then in charge. From this point Robert Shortress made his way, in company with a Canadian and two Indians, to Walla Walla, which they reached just as the winter had fairly begun. There they were advised that it was then too late in the season to cross the Cascade Mountains, so Shor tress went to Dr. Whitman's mission, where he remained until spring. On March 12, 1840, he resumed his journey alone, following the south bank of the river along which he traveled, with no company except that of an occasional Indian, until he reached the Dalles. At the Methodist mission, then under charge of Rev. H. K. W. Perkins, he found Ben Wright from Texas and a young man by the name of Dutton, both of whom had crossed the plains during the preceding year. In their company he resumed his journey and finally arrived safely on the Willamette. 238 THE RISE AND PROGRESS Farnham, the captain of the dragoons, finally reached Walla Walla accompanied only by two of his party. He quarreled with one of them, and the already divided party were still further divided. One went to the Lapwai mission, where he found employment for a time in one of Spalding's mills, but afterwards went to the Willamette and finally to California. The other pursued his journey down the river alone, and finally reached Vancouver nearly naked and more than half starved. Farnham also reached the Willamette in time, but instead of raising the American flag and driving the Hudson's Bay Company out of the country, he finally accepted the gift of a suit of clothes and a passage to the Sandwich Islands in one of the Company's ships, and took final leave of Oregon. On his return to the East, in 1 84 1, he published a pictorial history of California and Oregon, which was fairly successful and ran through several editions. Four other members of this adventurous party, which set out with so many lofty hopes and high aspirations, finally found their way to the Willamette. They were Francis Fletcher, Joseph Holman, Ralph L. Killourne and Amos Cook. They spent the winter of 1839 in the mountains, and were forty days on the way from Fort Crockett to Fort Hall, which was four times the usual time required to make that journey. They did not reach Vancouver until the sum mer of the following year. They were all so youthful in appearance, that Dr. McLoughlin suggested that it might be his duty to send them home as runaway boys, but he did not do so. They remained in the Willamette Valley and won honorable places among Oregon's most resolute and energetic pioneers. Of the remainder of this Peoria party some went to New Mexico and some returned home. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 239 A far more important party than Farnham's left the Mis souri River for Oregon in the spring of 1842. It was the first organized immigrant party that crossed the plains and moun tains, and finally reached its destination intact, and it was followed each succeeding year by constantly increasing trains of immigrants, until Oregon was finally settled and our title to it fixed and determined. Dr. Elijah White has been given a large part of the credit for organizing and conducting this train through to its des tination. White had come as a physician in 1837 with the first reinforcement sent to the Methodist mission on French Prairie. He had been one of the most active factors in dis turbing the harmony of the little colony, and soon came to be regarded as an intriguer, who cared more for his own personal preference than for the general success of the mission. Gray says that "Jason Lee soon found out the character of this wolf in sheep's clothing, and presented charges against him for his immorality, and expelled him from the mission. Previous to leaving the country he called a business meeting and made his statements, and attempted to mob Lee and get the settlers to give him a character, in both of which he failed and left the country to impose upon the government in Washington, as he had done upon the mission and the early settlers of Oregon." After leaving the Willamette he returned to the East, and as soon as he reached the frontier began to hold public meetings, and to deliver addresses, with a view of inducing settlers to go to the new country. As soon as Senator Linn of Missouri learned of his arrival, and the work he was en gaged in, he invited him to visit Washington, and with the help of the senator and various other parties it was made apparent to the administration that it was desirable to have 240 THE RISE AND PROGRESS a government representative of some sort in the Oregon country, if for nothing else than that he might report regu larly upon the movements of the British, who were there. But there was no law providing for an officer of any kind in that country, nor was a way easy to provide for one. But it was so desirable to have somebody there, with some sem blance of authority, that it was finally arranged to send the doctor back with the title of Sub-Indian agent, as it was thought that an officer of that description would be little likely to give occasion for offence. Having secured this recognition, and with a federal com mission in his pocket, White at once resumed his efforts to organize an emigrant party for the following season, and by the first of May 1842, one hundred and five persons had assembled, with their wagons at the crossing of the Missouri. Most prominent among those who composed this, the first regular immigrant party to cross the plains, were Judge Columbia Lancaster, afterwards the first territorial repre sentative of Washington in Congress, A. L. Lovejoy, L. W. Hastings, S. W. Moss, T. J. Shadden, J. L. Morrison, John and James Force, Hugh Burns, Medorem Crawford, and F. X. Matthieu. This company is described as having been made up largely of people of a roving disposition, some of whom never remained in one place longer than to obtain the means to travel; and of one family in particu lar it was said that they had practically lived in a wagon for more than twenty years, only remaining in one locality long enough to make a crop, which they had done in every State and territory in the Mississippi Valley. While such people might not be very desirable as founders of a new State, nor likely to become permanent settlers in a new territory, they were a very good kind of people to explore and break a new OF AN AMERICAN STATE 241 trail across a continent, and this they did with success and to their everlasting credit. It is estimated that about one- third of them went to California during the succeeding year, though some of them subsequently came back to Oregon and remained there. At Elm Grove, a few miles west of the Missouri, the company found that some sort of organiza tion was desirable, and accordingly a meeting was held to elect officers and adopt regulations. It was resolved "that every male over the age of eighteen years should be provided with one mule, or horse, or wagon conveyance; he should also have one gun, three pounds of powder, twelve pounds of lead, one thousand caps, or suitable flints, fifty pounds of flour or meal, thirty pounds of bacon and a suitable pro portion of provisions for women and children; and if any present were not so provided he should be rejected. " Dr. White, who seems to have felt great pride in his com mission as sub Indian agent, as well as confidence that it entitled him to do anything that the national government could do if actually present, here exhibited it to the company, and was elected captain for a month. Columbia Lancaster, L. W. Hastings, and A. Lawrence Lovejoy were designated as a "scientific corps, to keep a careful and true record of everything for the benefit of others who may hereafter remove to Oregon, and that the government may be well informed ofthe route, its obstructions, means of subsistence, eminences, depressions, distances, bearings, etc. " A black smith, a wagon maker, and a road and bridge builder were selected, each of whom was authorized to have two assis tants, and when necessary to call to their aid the whole force of the company. A code of regulations forbidding profane swearing, obscene conversation and immoral conduct, was adopted and these regulations were to be enforced by 242 THE RISE AND PROGRESS reprimand, fines, and finally by exclusion from the company. A register of the names of every man, woman and child was to be kept by Nathaniel Crocker, the secretary. These pre liminaries having been settled and a pilot engaged, the first emigrant train for Oregon started west. It consisted of eighteen wagons and a considerable band of horses, mules and cattle. Of the one hundred and five persons compos ing the party fifty were males over the age of eighteen years. Five days after leaving Elm Grove one of the children of Judge Lancaster died. The parents continued with the party for several days, but finally the failing health of Mrs. Lancaster compelled the judge and his party to return. They were escorted back to the Kansas River by Dr. White and three other members ofthe party, the train being delayed for three days to await the return of this escort. This party, like nearly all that followed it for many years, met with many interesting adventures on the way. At Independence Rock, a band of some five hundred Sioux Indians overtook and captured Hastings and Lovejoy, who had lingered behind the wagons in order to cut their names upon the face of the cliff. When their absence was noted the train was halted until the Indians, in wild fashion, arrived with the crestfallen prisoners, and demanded a good ran som, which was given, and the prisoners released. A few days later a much larger band, or a number of bands, of Sioux and Blackfeet, overtook the train, which had to be halted and inspected by the savages; and many presents were asked and given. Among other things ardently craved by the great chief was a handsome daughter of one of the pio neers, which it required some circumspection to refuse with out giving offense. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 243 On Green River a part of the baggage and wagons was discarded, and at Fort Hall some more of the wagons were taken down and sold to the commandant, or cut up to make pack saddles for horses or oxen, and the company divided up into small parties, which came on as they could to Oregon City. The latter stretch of the journey is described by Medo rem Crawford as the most difficult. He says: "From Walla Walla to the Willamette Falls occupied about twenty days and, all things considered, was the hardest part of the journey. What with the drifting sands, rocky cliffs and rapid streams along the Columbia River, and the gorges, torrents, and thickets of the Cascade Mountains, it seems incredible how, with our worn-out and emaciated animals, we ever reached our destination. On the 5th of October, our little party, tired, ragged and hungry, arrived at the falls, now Oregon City, where we found the first habitations west of the Cascade Mountains. Here several members of the Methodist mission were located. Our gratification on arriving safely, after so long and perilous a journey, was shared by these hospitable people, each of whom seemed anxious to give us hearty welcome, and render us every assis tance in his power." There was no apprehension felt on account of the Indians from Fort Hall westward, and no precautions against them were taken, nor were these little sections of the fagged Ameri can company molested. On the contrary they traveled among the Nez Perces and Cayuses and Walla Wallas as among any community of white people, and depended upon them for salmon and other supplies, which could be obtained at trifling expense. Whitman's, to these as to the earlier party of Farnham and Shortess, and the migrating moun tain men and independent missionaries, was an oasis of 244 THE RISE AND PROGRESS abundance in the wilderness, where they "were most hos pitably received, and supplied with flour and vegetables." Here, as vividly recalled by Crawford, was the first bread tasted since he left Fort Laramie — buffalo and salmon having been the staples from that point. In the spring of 1843 a much larger party assembled at Independence to make its way across the plains to Oregon. It was composed largely of people from Missouri, although there were families in it from several other Western States. With it were a number of men who afterwards became promi nent in the history of Oregon, and one of them, Peter H. Burnett, after having been appointed judge by the provi sional government, joined one of the early parties of gold seekers, went to California and became its first governor. Among the others were Jesse Applegate, and his brothers with their families, J. W. Nesmith, subsequently United States senator and noted story teller, M. M. McCarver, founder of the city of Tacoma, Daniel Waldo, Jesse Lunie, and T. D. Kaiser. The party numbered over seven hundred men, women and children, about one-third of whom were capable of bearing arms. The train consisted of one hun dred and twenty wagons, and was accompanied by a number of cattle, estimated to have amounted to five thousand head. A meeting of the members of this party was held at Fitz- hugh's mills, twelve miles west of Independence, on the 20th of May, at which Peter Burnett was elected captain, and James W. Nesmith orderly sergeant. A council of nine members was appointed, with authority to arbitrate all differences, and settle all disputes that might arise during the journey. Some time later William Martin was chosen captain to succeed Governor Burnett. The train also was JAMES W. NESMITH. Born in "New Brunswick, Me.'Pjuly 23; 1820. His mother died while he was still an infant, and he came west to Ohio with his father, and later to Missouri, where his father died. In 1842 he tried to join Dr. White's party, but did not reach Independence until it had departed. In the follpwing year, he crossed with the Burnett-Applegate party, and took an active part in public affairs from the time |de reached the Willamette. He -?tvas elected United 'i§|ates senator in 1 86 1 as a Douglas Democrat. He was a firm sup porter of the Union cause during the war, and upon the death of Charles Sumner was one of his eulogists in the Senate. He died iii 1885. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 245 divided into two columns, one known as the "light column," which was headed by Captain Martin, and the other the " cow column, " under command of Jesse Applegate. The two columns moved separately, but always kept near enough together to support each other in case of an Indian attack, or other trouble. Governor Burnett has left a fairly entertaining account of his experience as a pioneer,* and in addition to giving the story of this, the second emigrant train to make the long trip to Oregon, he explains with some detail the causes which influenced him, and perhaps others in that early time, to seek a home on the Pacific Coast. In his case there were three principal reasons; to find the means to pay his debts, to help in upbuilding an American country in a new and far-away region, and to find a climate in which Mrs. Burnett might enjoy better health. The debate on the Linn bill in the Senate, as well as on the Ashburton treaty, had now been published. The reports by the several committees in the House and Senate, chiefly those prepared by Senator Linn, Caleb Cushing and Mr. N. E. Pendleton, as well as Mr. Greenhow's history, had been widely circulated. All of these contained more or less complete statements of our claims to the Oregon country and Mr. Cushing had argued the case so fully and so ably that there seemed to be no longer any doubt that our title would be fully and finally established. No states man in or out of Congress had ventured to hint that any boundary below the forty-ninth parallel would be acceptable to him. In addition Mr. Pendleton's report had fully shown that the country was an attractive. one for the settler. ?Recollections of an Old Pioneer (D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1880). 246 THE RISE AND PROGRESS One of these reports, probably the latter* had fallen into Burnett's hands during the winter, and he says he read it with great care. As has already been stated, a large extra supply of these reports was printed, and sent out by the members of both houses to their constituents. The debates on the Linn bill, and on the Ashburton treaty, had occupied a great deal of time during the two years preceding, and they had received a great deal of attention from the newspapers. The public was beginning to be well informed about the Ore gon question, and there was no unsettled territory, anywhere, belonging to the government, which had been more frequently or fully described. Now that it was proposed to give it away in such liberal quantities to actual settlers, those who had thus far lived without hope of securing land of their own, were watching the fate of the Linn bill with the closest attention. During the winter of 1842-3, Burnett says, "there was a fair prospect that the bill would pass. It proposed to give to each settler who went to Oregon with his family six hundred and forty acres of land for the hus band and wife, and one hundred and sixty for each child." In Burnett's case, if this measure should become law, he could secure sixteen hundred acres, and this he felt sure would in time pay his debts and leave him a home besides. It was this more than all else that induced the home seekers to take the trail for Oregon. This train made its way across the plains and mountains as far as Fort Hall without special incident. A guide had been employed to lead them that far, but he was found to be * Burnett says the report was by Senator Appleton, but as there was no Senator Appleton and never had been, and as Pendleton's report gave more details about the advantages of the country, from the set tler's point of view, than any other had ever done, it seems certain that it is this report that he refers to. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 247 far more serviceable as a hunter than as guide, for the trail the fur traders had so long followed was plainly visible. Burnett says it was as good a natural wagon road as one could hope to find. Lieutenant Fremont had gone over it as far as the South Pass, the preceding season, with his first explor ing party, and during the winter following had written his report of that trip. He was to make another exploring tour this year, and it was expected that he would go in advance of this emigrant train, but he really followed it most of the way. He certainly won this part of his reputation as a " path finder" with little inconvenience. Provided with an ample guard and supplied with every convenience for travel that our frontier military posts could furnish, he still permitted Dr. White's party of settlers to go in advance of him during a great part of the way in 1842, and long before he had reached the end of the plain wagon road, which the fur traders had been using for a dozen years, he stopped, climbed a mountain to which he gave his name, and then went back to Washington to make an official report of what he had done and seen, though that report contained no single item of information about anything of value that had not long been in the files of the department in the letters of Sublette, Smith, Jackson, Pilcher and Bonneville. Senator Nesmith said of his expedition in 1843 : "It is true that, in the year 1843, Fremont, then a lieutenant in the engineer corps, did cross the plains, and brought his party to the Dalles, and visited Vancouver to procure supplies. I saw him on the plains, though he reached the Dalles in the rear of our emi gration. His outfit contained all of the conveniences and luxuries that a government appropriation could procure, while he 'roughed it' in a covered carriage, surrounded by servants, paid from the public purse. He returned to the 248 THE RISE AND PROGRESS States, and was afterwards rewarded with a presidential nomination as the 'Pathfinder.' The path he found was made by the hardy frontiersmen, who preceded him to the Pacific, and who stood by their rifles here, and held the country against hostile Indians and British threats, without government aid or recognition until 1849, when the first government troops came to our relief. Yet Fremont, with many people, has the credit of 'finding' everything west of the Rocky Mountains; and I suppose his pretensions will be recognized by the future historian, while the deserving men who made the path, unaided by the government, will be forgotten. " A short time after this emigrant train of 1843 left the Missouri it was joined by Dr. Whitman who was now return ing to Oregon, after his visit to Boston, and possibly to the national capital. Burnett speaks of a committee appointed by the emigrants, on May 18th, to see him, and then of meet ing him two days later at Big Springs. By this time they had already employed John Gant as a guide, but there is ample testimony that the doctor was very useful to them during the remainder of their long journey. He had had much experi ence in this sort of travel, while they had none. They were disposed to do many foolish things of which he well knew the danger, and advised them of it. He helped them to choose their camping places, and to arrange their camps, and to seek out the safest and most convenient places to cross the larger and more dangerous streams and water courses. He advised them against needlessly exposing their health, and prescribed for them when they came to pay the penalty for not heeding his advice, or when for any reason they needed a physician. He met their Indian visitors, and helped so far as he could to protect them against the rapacity of their OF AN AMERICAN STATE 249 demands, their pilferings and their midnight raids. More than all he kept them moving, and prevented waste of time in pleasant places, so that they were able at a later time, and when there was urgent need for it, to lay by to rest and recruit their jaded teams, without danger of arriving at the Columbia so late in the season as to find it impossible to go further. His services on the journey across the plains, with the emigrants, are thus noticed by J. W. Nesmith, who was in that party. "Dr. Marcus Whitman, in charge of the mis sion at Waiilatpu, in the Walla Walla Valley, was not a regular clergyman, though he sometimes preached. He trav eled with the immigration of 1843 from the Missouri fron tier to near the Snake River (Fort Boise). I regarded him as a quiet, unassuming man, of great purity of character. He was of powerful physical organization, and possessed a great and good heart, full of charity and courage, and utterly destitute of cant, hypocrisy, shams and effeminacy, and always terribly in earnest. While with us he was clad entirely in buckskin, and rode upon one of those patient long-eared animals said to be 'without pride of ancestry or hope of posterity. ' The doctor spent much of his time in hunting out the best route for the wagons, and would plunge into* streams in search of practical fords, regardless of depth or temperature of the water, and sometimes after the fatigues of a hard day's march would spend much of the night in going from one party to another to minister to the sick. While his moral character was of the highest, he said more to us about the practical matters connected with our march than he did about theology or religious creeds, and I believe that his conduct among the Indians was of the same practi cal, useful character; and that he was impressed with the 250 THE RISE AND PROGRESS necessity of teaching them habits of industry and economy, as the surest road to civilization and happiness." Jesse Applegate tells this story: "But a little incident breaks the monotony of the march. An immigrant's wife, whose state of health has caused Dr. Whitman to travel near the wagon, is now taken with violent illness. The doctor has had the wagon driven out of the line, a tent pitched, and a fire kindled. Many conjectures are hazarded in regard to this mysterious proceeding, and as to why this lone wagon is to be left behind." (Then on the following day after making camp at evening.) "There are anxious watchers for the absent wagon, for there are many matrons who may be afflicted like its inmate before the journey is over and they fear the strange and startling practice of this Oregon doctor may be dangerous. But as the sun goes down the absent wagon rolls into camp, the bright, speaking face and cheery look of the doctor, who rides in advance, declare without words that all is well, and both mother and child are comfort able. I would fain here and now pay a passing tribute to that noble, devoted man, Dr. Whitman. I will obtrude no other name on the reader, nor would I his, were he of our party, or even living, but his stay with us was transient, « though the good he did us was permanent, and he has long since died at his post. From the time he joined us on the Platte, until he left us at Fort Hall (Fort Boise), his great experience and indomitable energy were of priceless value to the migrating column. His constant advice, which we knew was based on a knowledge ofthe road before us, was — 'travel, travel, travel — nothing else will take you to the end of your journey; nothing is good for you that causes a moment's delay.' His great authority as a physician, and complete success in the case above referred to, saved us many OF AN AMERICAN STATE 251 prolonged and perhaps ruinous delays from similar causes, and it is no disparagement to others to say that to no other individual are the immigrants of 1843 s0 much indebted for the successful conclusion of their journey as to Dr. Marcus Whitman. " "These extracts sufficiently show," says Mr. Lyman, "the high and almost adulatory esteem in which Dr. Whit man was held by the pioneers of Oregon, and add pathos to the tragedy of his death. This explains to a large extent the readiness with which almost any value might be assigned to his services in securing the territory in dispute to the Ameri cans. His claims to the gratitude and affections ofthe people of Oregon can never be denied; his services as a statesman must be examined by specialists upon the broader prin ciple of historical criticism." At Fort Hall the emigrants were in grave doubt as to whether they could take their wagons through with them. They did not know what success the party of the preceding year had met. They could find no one except the Hudson's Bay people who could give them information as to the diffi culties they would be likely to encounter. Ermatinger who was in charge, remembering what he and Meek and Newell had encountered, three years earlier, gave them no encouragement. But Whitman was confident they could get through and many of the party determined to rely upon his judgment. These he escorted in safety as far as Fort Boise, or perhaps to the Grande Ronde, where he left them to hurry on to his station and prepare for their reception. He, however, sent back some Indian guides who remained with them, and helped them so far as they could, across the Blue Mountains, and on to the Columbia. 252 THE RISE AND PROGRESS At Whitman's mission the emigrants found the first bread and fresh vegetables they had tasted in many weeks. They found opportunity to replenish their stocks of provisions, which in many families were nearly exhausted. But many of them found fault with the prices they were asked to pay, and they grumbled about some other things. There seems to have been much in the long journey across the continent in a wagon train, that was not designed to sweeten the tem per of the emigrant. Burnett says that quarrels were fre quent, and fist fights occasionally occurred during the earlier stages of the journey, until the hot-tempered ones began to be ashamed of themselves for so easily becoming annoyed. It was not often possible to have every member of the party exactly suited with the arrangements at every camp. Some one would not find access to water, for his family and for his stock, as conveniently as he wished. Some would find trouble to collect their animals in the morning that had strayed away during the night. Some would delay the train almost continually, and some only occasionally, by their carelessness, and the others would but poorly conceal their annoyance at these vexations. Then the heat of midday and sometimes the cold at night, were difficult to bear. The dust raised by the long train, particularly in the desert, was always oppressive. When wholesome water was hard to find, as it frequently was, everybody suffered, many grew peevish and fretful, and things were said that were not easily forgotten, or forgiven. So it was that these emigrants after their long trials, and when nearing the end of their journey, were not as reasonable at all times as they should be. Some of them could not see why Whitman should charge more for potatoes or wheat than they had been accustomed to receive for what they had grown and sold in Missouri or OF AN AMERICAN STATE 253 Illinois, and some refused to buy for that reason, and went away hungry. Their more reasonable companions were obliged to divide their own scant supplies with the families of some of these before they reached the Willamette, or they would have starved. At Fort Walla Walla another question, as to whether the wagons could be taken down the river to Vancouver, arose, and was discussed. Nobody at the fort or at Waiilatpu knew whether they could or not. None had ever made the trip by land. Chief Trader McKinlay was of the opinion that it would be very difficult, and he was inclined to believe it impossible. So arrangements of various kinds began to be suggested, discussed, and finally tried. Some went at once by such boats as McKinlay was able to furnish, taking their families, and all or part of their goods with them. Some left their stock to be wintered at the fort, or at Waiilatpu, at a cost of $i per head, and they were to return for it in the spring. Some entered into an arrangement with McKinlay, subject to the approval of Dr. McLoughlin when they should reach Fort Vancouver, by which they were to receive an equal number of cattle and ofthe kind left, for the animals they were leaving at the fort. This arrangement was not approved by the doctor, and a controversy of some bitterness resulted. Some took their way with their wagons and cattle along the south bank ofthe Columbia, and encountered more difficulties and vexations than on any other part of the way. But they finally got through to the Willamette, though they were forced to make use of boats or rafts for a considerable part of the journey. The boats were furnished from Fort Vancouver. Those who could do so paid for their use, but those who could not were not refused passage, either for themselves, their families, or their goods. Their cattle 254 THE RISE AND PROGRESS were driven along the river, or over the mountains. Supplies were sent to such as were in need of them. Those who could not pay at the time were told to pay when they could, and some never paid. Some arrived at the fort sick, or so desti tute that they could not care for themselves, in a country where they were total strangers, and these McLoughlin provided for until the following spring when they could, without danger, provide for themselves. When Dr. Whitman left Waiilatpu in October 1842 to take his long winter ride, he left Mrs. Whitman at the station, with some men in whom he had confidence, to have charge of it during his absence. It was then expected that Mrs. Whitman, as soon as she could make the necessary prepara tions, would go to Fort Walla Walla, and thence be sent down the river to the Dalles, but only a few nights after the doctor's departure an Indian attempted to force his way into her room. As soon as Agent McKinlay learned of this he sent a wagon from the fort for her, and she went immediately to the Dalles, where and at Vancouver she passed the winter, returning in the spring to Waiilatpu. Soon after his arrival in the fall of 1842, Dr. White, the newly appointed Sub-Indian agent, learned of the indigni ties that the Indians had been offering to the missionaries in the Walla Walla country, and deeming this to offer excel lent opportunity for the exercise of his ill-defined authority, he set out for the missions accompanied by Cornelius Rogers and Thomas McKay. At Walla Walla Chief Trader Mc Kinlay joined them. There were so few Indians about Waiilatpu when they arrived, that the party went on to Lapwai, which they reached early in December. There he held a council which was addressed by Agent White, Chief Trader McKinlay and Rogers and McKay, and by OF AN AMERICAN STATE 255 several of the Indians. As a result of it White appointed a new chief for the tribe, named Ellis, and induced them to adopt a code of laws which he had prepared for their govern ment, and prescribing punishment for such offences as homi cide, arson, larceny, trespass. Any who violated this code were to be tried by the chief, who should prescribe the pun ishment in case of conviction. If a white man violated them he was to be reported to the agent. Murder and arson were punishable by death, and other offences by fines and whip ping. The new chief administered these laws with great harsh ness, and this gave rise to very great dissatisfaction. Ellis had received some education at Red River, and his new ap pointment gave him great self-importance. The Indians were humiliated by the punishments he inflicted, for acts that they had never regarded as unlawful, and they soon began to regard the laws as entirely arbitrary, and as part of a scheme designed for their subjugation, so that instead of making matters better by his visit the new subagent rapidly made them worse. Upon his return to Waiilatpu so many of the principal Indians were still absent that White found it impossible to hold a council at that time. He, however, arranged to return early in the following May, and then went on down the river. During the winter Dr. McLoughlin learned with increasing anxiety that the Indians were becoming more and more uneasy and inclined to be troublesome. They had viewed the arrival of the emigrants with great sus picion. More had come during the last year than on the year previous, and more that year than ever before. If these arrivals continued to increase they saw that they must soon be driven out of their country. They discussed with great 256 THE RISE AND PROGRESS concern the industry and activity of the missionaries, and noted how much more benefit they got out of their land than they had ever got for themselves. They had already begun to envy their prosperity. They believed they were rapidly growing rich. If these newcomers and all who should soon follow them should prove to be equally industrious, their lands would soon be occupied, and there would be no pasture for their horses and no place for themselves. Dr. McLoughlin strongly urged White not to return to Waiilatpu in May as he had given notice that he would, realizing that his visit would possibly have a tendency to further excite the Indians in that country. But White was too thoroughly impressed with his own importance to be advised by anybody. He accordingly returned as agreed and the council was held. As at Lapwai a new chief was appointed, but he soon found that his appointment was so unpopular that he resigned, and another, known as Five Crows, was named in his place. White's code of laws was proposed and discussed, with many exhibitions of ill feeling, but was finally adopted and, as at Lapwai, only tended to increase the difficulties of the situation. When Whitman reached home in 1843 ne found that his mill had been burned, and that the Indians were in a worse temper than he had ever seen them. When the advance guard of the emigration of 1843 began to arrive at Vancouver the chief factor observed that the Indians were excited, and biding his time soon learned that they would be determined in their treatment of the immigrants by his disposition. He maintained a close watch, and as the first stragglers of the now all but disorganized companies were arriving, in canoes, he was standing upon the bank, while somewhat nearer the water was a group of OF AN AMERICAN STATE 257 a dozen Indians. One of them suddenly bawled out in the Indian language, "It is good to kill these Bostons." Per ceiving instantly that this was but an attempt to sound him, and knowing that if he regarded the suggestion with any appearance of satisfaction, or even of indifference, it would be taken as permission from them to begin killing, he instantly showed his intense displeasure. He rushed upon them with his cane, and called out using the term that is most deeply cutting to an Indian, "Who is the dog that says that it is a good thing to kill the Bostons ?" The Indian who had thus drawn the doctor's ire now trembled and said that he meant no harm; he was simply repeating what he had heard the Dalles Indians saying. "Well," answered the doctor, show ing his displeasure still, and without softening, "the Dalles Indians are dogs for saying so; and you also." And abrupt ly left him. By this, as the doctor fully believed, the Indians became convinced that any wrong to the Americans would be punished by the Hudson's Bay Company. This was the authority they then respected, and McLoughlin was the one man they feared. Among the immigrants who came to Oregon in the succeed ing year were the five families who first settled north of the Columbia, in what subsequently became the territory and state of Washington. They came with the train of which Colonel Gilliam was in command, and one of their number, Colonel Michael T. Simmons, was one of his lieutenants. With the same train was another settler whose name subse quently became prominent in the history of the coast. This was James Marshall, who first found gold in California. Thus with this single train came the pioneers who led the way to the acquisition by the United States of the country north ofthe Columbia and south ofthe forty-second parallel. 258 Rise and Progress of an American State The immigrants who came in this year, 1844, are estimated to have numbered 475. Those of the preceding year had been nearly twice as many. In 1845 tne number increased to three thousand as was then supposed. In the year fol lowing less than half that number came, but in 1847 tne number again increased to four thousand or possibly five thousand. The Linn bill had not yet become law, but the public confidence that it would do so was great, and so many people were hurrying forward, to be on the ground and ready to take advantage of it when it should be enacted, that but for the discovery of gold in California, Oregon would probably have come into the Union as a new State, as Cali fornia did, without ever having known a territorial govern ment. Chapter XXVII. THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT ORGANIZED. THE early French and Canadian settlers on the Willamette felt no need of government, and doubt less never suspected that they would need any, until long after the American settlers began to come among them. The good doctor, for whom they had worked for many years, and whose word had always been law to them, still ruled at Fort Vancouver and could make laws for them if there should be need. They had no occa sion to bother about anything of that kind. When the mis sionaries came they had their church rules and regulations, with Jason Lee as a chief authority to say what should or should not be done, if there was occasion. But after "the great reinforcement" arrived in 1840, and the good mission aries began to be more absorbed in secular than in spiritual things, and the trappers and other settlers joined them, the desirability of establishing some more substantial form of government grew gradually more apparent. Even before that time the missionaries had twice sent memorials to Congress asking its attention to their exposed condition, and that some means be devised for their protec tion. Happily for themselves and their families the dan gers which threatened them were not of a serious kind. The Indians were not troublesome, except by reason of their improvidence and general helplessness. No criminals had yet invaded the community, or done violence, whether to the person or property of any of its members. The protection they sought was rather needed to defend them against dan gers that might arise, than against any that imminently threatened. But the fact that title to the country was in dispute; that it was claimed both by the United States and England, and that the English practically had possession of it, through the 262 THE RISE AND PROGRESS Hudson's Bay Company, while our government was consent ing to this condition of things under the treaty of joint occu pation, and seemed disposed to continue to consent to it for an indefinite time, caused them constant anxiety. They sought to arouse Congress to action by formal petitions in which the dangers of the situation as they saw them were presented, but these did not produce the result desired, nor any result. They therefore began to contemplate the idea of forming a government of their own; but they were so few in numbers that the project seemed hardly feasible. Never theless a meeting appears to have been held early in February 1841, at Champoeg, "for the purpose of consulting upon the steps necessary to be taken for the formation of laws, and the election of officers to execute them. " At this meeting noth ing was done, except to advise the appointment of a com mittee to draft a code of laws, but no committee was appointed. Here perhaps the matter would have rested for a time, but that an event occurred that required immediate action. On February 17th, Ewing Young died, leaving a considerable estate, and no heirs so far as known. On account of the unfavorable report which had preceded his arrival in the country, he had been coldly received by the people at the mission, as well as at the fort, and when later it was found that this report was false, and people were disposed to treat him in a more neighborly way, he had preferred to go on as he had been going, as a man apart. There was no one in the community of whom so little was known. There was prob ably none who had so much property, and much of it was of a kind that required immediate attention. Something must be done and done quickly, and as there was no lawful authority under which it could be done, the settlers who had OF AN AMERICAN STATE 263 attended the funeral, resolved to meet on the following day at the Methodist mission, and arrange some plan by which his heirs, if he had left any, could be found, and his property cared for until it could be properly turned over to them. The meeting was held and was well attended. It was apparent to all that some sort of court with powers of probate must be organized, but now that an event had occurred requiring action of this kind, some thought the occasion op portune to take action on the more general subject which had so largely occupied their thoughts, and been the theme of their roadside conversations, for some time past. But there was an opposing party, which held to the opinion that the time was not yet ripe for an undertaking of that sort, and that it was best to do, at that time, only so much as the occasion required. This party prevailed and a court was organized by appointing Dr. Ira L. Babcock supreme judge, G. W. Le Breton clerk and recorder of public documents, and William Johnson sheriff. Four justices of the peace and two constables were also appointed. But before the meeting dissolved the government party succeeded in having a com mittee, consisting of Father Blanchet, Revs. Jason Lee and Gustavus Hines, J. L. Parrish, D. Donpierre, M. Charle- vaux, Robert Moore, Etienne Lucier and William Johnson appointed to form a constitution and draft a code of laws. The court thus organized proceeded to probate the estate of the deceased settler, and accomplished that duty with credit to itself and the settlers who had created it. But the committee appointed to form a constitution did nothing. Perhaps this was to have been expected, since Father Blanchet, being its first named member, and there fore its chairman, was not in favor of a government at that time. So far as the Catholic part of the community, which 264 THE RISE AND PROGRESS was then in the majority, was concerned, there was no need for one. It was quite content with the government of the Hudson's Bay Company, and if that were absent would have been quite as content to submit itself to the control of the father himself. And aside from this the recent ex perience of his brother with the Papineau uprising in Canada was too fresh in his mind to make him anxious to engage in any enterprise of a political nature, unless there was more urgent need to do so than then appeared. As has already been shown the government party received no encouragement from Commodore Wilkes, who visited the valley in June of this year, and at a meeting held in "the new building near the Catholic church," the committee reported that it had made no progress in drafting laws or a constitution. The subject was accordingly dropped for the time being. For nearly two years following nothing was done; but the matter was not forgotten. The American settlers noted with satisfaction that their numbers were steadily increasing, and more rapidly than ever before. The straggling members of the Farnham party began to arrive in the spring of 1842, and in October and November the first regular emigrant party that had crossed the plains reached the valley. This was the strongest reinforcement their numbers had received since the arrival ofthe Lausanne. During the following winter a men's debating club was organized at the Willamette Falls, and it seems probable that it did far more to help along the cause of organization, and give it direction, than it has been given credit for. Few if any members of the community had given thought to the difficulties that might arise when organization should be attempted. It is hardly to be presumed that men who were OF AN AMERICAN STATE 265 unaccustomed to make nice distinctions in either political or legal matters, had given much consideration to such ques tions as whether the government should assume to be real or provisional; or whether it should be independent, or subject to some higher power; or whether in either case it might do, or attempt to do things that would prove very embarrassing in the relations then subsisting between the United States and Great Britain. But some of these questions were proposed and discussed in this debating society, and the discussions set its members to thinking along lines that were intensely practical. Among those who participated in these debates were Dr. McLoughlin, Mr. Abernethy and L. W. Hastings. The latter had arrived with the White party, and was already employed as the chief factor's attorney. He proposed, as the subject for debate at one of the meetings, "that it was expedient for the settlers on the coast to organize an indepen dent government. " Dr. McLoughlin supported this prop osition and Mr. Abernethy opposed, and the doctor won the decision, for apparently those who did not take part in the debate acted as a jury, and decided the result after the speakers had finished. It was shrewdly guessed that the chief factor had suggested this question, through Hastings, and that he had a purpose in it, to encourage the settlers to undertake something they would find it impossible to do, and so delay, if he did not finally discourage, any attempt at government; or possibly that he hoped to lead them on to do something that he knew must be promptly suppressed if attempted. But if he had either purpose in view he failed completely, for Mr. Abernethy saw, if others did not, that no separate independent government would be tolerated, either by the United States or Great Britain, in territory which one or the other of them 266 THE RISE AND PROGRESS must own. He proposed as the subject for discussion at the following meeting, that "if the United States extends its jurisdiction over this country within the next four years, it will not be expedient to form an independent government. " In the debate on this question Abernethy led, for the affirma tive, and won the decision. A large number of settlers were present, and the deepest interest was manifested. Every body left the meeting with a clearer understanding of the difference between an independent government and a provisional one, as well as with a keen sense of the im portance of paying due attention to matters of form at the outset. While the philosophers were thus speculating as to matters of form and expediency, and informing themselves as well as their neighbors in regard to the basic principles of govern ment, in its simplest and purest form, the politicians were not idle. There are in every community a larger or smaller number of people who have a natural interest in those affairs which concern the whole body, and who more or less actively employ themselves in attempting to direct them. They awaken interest in public questions, and devise plans for bringing them to a decision. They organize parties, and sometimes seek to, or do control them, and often by improper means and for improper purposes. Nevertheless they are a very important and necessary element in popular govern ment. These active workers, in the little settlement on the Willamette, found opportunity during the winter to give their neighbors an illustration of the value of united action, and they made use of it to show the value of government. Wild animals were unusually numerous that winter, and a number of the smaller domestic animals were carried off and devoured by them. Nearly every settler suffered some OF AN AMERICAN STATE 267 loss in this way, and complaints were numerous. The advo cates of government were not slow to see in this situation of affairs, an opportunity to call a meeting and arrange for united action against a common enemy. A meeting was held February 2, 1843, at the Oregon Institute, and united and harmonious action was easily agreed upon. Dr. Ira L. Babcock, the probate judge, who had so successfully administered Ewing Young's estate two years earlier, pre sided. There was some orderly discussion of the various plans of action proposed, and it was finally decided to appoint a committee of six to determine what should be done, and that this committee should report at another meeting to be held at the house of Joseph Gervais — who with Etienne Lucier, had been the earliest settler in the valley — on the first Mon day in March. Ample time was thus given to have all who were interested notified, and also for those who wished the meeting to do something more than organize a campaign against wild animals, to arrange their plans. This first meeting, which has become known in history as "the wolf meeting, " was the real beginning of organized government on this coast, though the foundation for it had been laid much more carefully and wisely than was then known or realized, in the debating society at Willamette Falls. It was to Oregon and the coast, and perhaps much more than the coast, what the meeting of the pilgrims on board the Mayflower, before Plymouth Rock was reached, was to free government on their continent. It was the actual beginning. The whole plan of procedure was not thought out; the possibilities of what might follow were probably not suspected, but enough was done to meet present needs, and the way was opened to do more when there should be occasion for it. 268 THE RISE AND PROGRESS On March 4th the settlers assembled at the home of Joseph Gervais. The meeting was entirely harmonious. James A. O'Neil who had come out with Wyeth in 1834, was chosen chairman. He was entirely in sympathy with those who wished to do something more than make war on wild animals, and accordingly when the committee had reported a series of measures for defense against wolves, bear, and panthers; fixing a scale of bounties to encourage their destruction, and providing that money to pay these bounties should be raised by subscription, and paid to the treasurer; and when a treas urer had been elected, he was quite prepared to entertain a motion that some further action be taken, that would lead to something more permanent. W. H. Gray had by this time arrived from the mission east of the mountains, and entered upon his new duties as secular agent in the Willamette mission. Rising to express his satis faction with what had been done, he proceeded to make a very temperate, yet forceful argument in favor of further action. All that had been done, he said, was right and pro per. " But how is it with you and me, and your wives and children ?" he continued. "Have we any organization upon which we can rely for mutual protection ? Is there any power or influence in the country sufficient to protect us, and all that we hold dear, from the worse than wild beasts ? Who in our midst is authorized to call us together to protect our own, and the lives of our families ? True, the alarm may be given, as in a recent case, and we may run who feel alarmed, and shoot off our guns, while our enemy may be robbing our property, ravishing our wives, and burning the houses over our defenseless families. Common sense, prudence, and justice to ourselves and families, demand that we act consis tent with the principles that we have commenced. We have OF AN AMERICAN STATE 269 mutually and unitedly agreed to defend and protect our domestic animals; now, fellow-citizens, I submit, and move the adoptions of the two following resolutions, that we may have protection for our persons and lives, as well as for our cattle and herds: "Resolved, that a committee be appointed to take into consideration the propriety of taking measures for the civil and military protection of this colony; and " Resolved, that the said committee consist of twelve per sons. " These resolutions were adopted by unanimous vote and the following committee was appointed : Drs. Babcock and White, and Messrs. O'Neil, Newell, Shortess, Lucier, Ger vais, Hubbard, McRoy, Gay, Smith and Gray. This action, although apparently unanimous, was received by the settlers with a considerable difference of opinion. Several public meetings were held, at which the subject was discussed, and for the time it was the universal subject of conversation whenever the settlers met. The first of these business meetings was held at Willamette Falls, and nearly all the settlers in the neighborhood attended. Dr. White was chosen chairman and G. W. Le Breton secretary. In the discussion both Jason Lee and George Abernethy took a very conservative view. They considered the meas ure, as proposed, unwise, and a government unnecessary, or at least that action in the direction of establishing a govern ment at that time would be premature. Lee had been very active in attempting to secure the extension of the authority of the United States over Oregon, and possibly believed that the erection of a temporary authority, without some action of Congress, would probably have an unfavorable effect, 270 THE RISE AND PROGRESS for if the settlers could protect themselves there would ap parently be no need for the general government's protection. Abernethy seemed to feel that a provisional government, if established, would tend toward the idea of an indepen dent government, such as Dr. McLoughlin seemed to favor, and that such a government would be likely to be controlled, in the beginning at least, by the Canadian settlers. Dr. White was apparently of the opinion that his commission as sub Indian agent, invested him with sufficient power and authority to govern the settlement, as the agent of the United States. But he was not popular in the community, and find ing that their plans were meeting with objection, which was likely to be intensified by discussion, the advocates of organi zation wisely concluded to adjourn the meeting, and appoint another, to be held at Champoeg on the second day of May, nearly two months later. Ample time was thus secured to have the subject fully canvassed, and lay plans with some care for what was to be done. Hope of success in the beginning had seemed to require that everything be done as secretly as possible; the situation was now changed and the whole plan was discussed with the greatest industry and openness. One of the most active workers in favor of organization was Le Breton. He was a native of Baltimore, had a French name, and was a catholic, and he easily found admittance to the councils of those oppos ing, as well as those favoring organization. It has been sus pected that he was actuated in some degree by the hope of political preferment, in case government was organized, possibly for the reason that he had been clerk of the probate court, previously organized, and that he secured a similar situation under the provisional government, when it was established. But however this may be, he proved to be a OF AN AMERICAN STATE 271 very active and efficient worker in the interest of the govern ment party. The advocates of organization worked together harmoniously, industriously and very effectively during all the two months that intervened between the meeting at Willamette Falls, and that held at Champoeg on the second of May. Their opponents were divided, and apparently in doubt as to whether they ought to refuse entirely to par ticipate in the proposed meeting, and thus be able to say that it was not fairly representative, or whether they should attend in their strength and attempt to carry the day against organ ization by their superior numbers. Before the day of the meeting arrived they had apparently resolved on the latter course, and Le Breton had discovered that this would be their policy. They held four meetings for consultation before the day for the general meeting arrived, one at Vancouver, one at the Falls, and two at the Church of St. Paul near Champoeg. As the result of these meetings a document was prepared, apparently by Father Blanchet, and very generally signed by the French settlers. It was entitled "Address of the Canadian Settlers of Oregon to the Meeting at Champoeg, March 4, 1843." This document asserted that the signers were Canadian citizens, and took this occasion to express their views as such. They wished for good regulations, and did not object to the rules established by the first local govern ment organized two years earlier, but were content to have it continue; they would not address a new petition to the government of the United States, until after the boundary question should be decided; they were opposed to a new government that might attempt to regulate the quantity of land that settlers might take, because they did not at present know which government would finally control the country, and therefore any local regulations that might be 272 THE RISE AND PROGRESS made, would perhaps be set aside; they did not wish for a provisional government, which might overload the colony instead of improving it, and they thought there was doubt as to whether men capable of administering such a govern ment could then be found in the community; they did not wish for a senate, or council to judge their difficulties, punish crimes or make laws for them; they expressed a fear that members of such bodies would be controlled by self-interest rather than by a desire to do even justice; they were also fearful that unjust taxes might be imposed; they did not think a militia was necessary at present, and that if organized they feared it would excite the suspicion of the Indians, and do harm rather than good; they regarded the country as free, at present, and open to settlement by the representatives of all nations, and they wished it to remain so; as English subjects, they desired to be on good terms with respectable people from all countries, and they asked to be allowed the same privileges that they were willing to award to others; they were willing to submit to any lawful government, when the time should come for it; they recognized the fact that laws would sometime become necessary, but so long as they were not necessary the attempt to establish them might give opportunity for roguery, to those who cared to practice it, and perhaps to other vices; in a new country the more men who were employed and paid by the public the less remained for industry, and finally no one could be more desirous than they were for the prosperity and general peace of the community, or for a general guaranty of the rights and liberty of all. This document seems never to have been read at any general meeting, but its contents soon became as well known to the Americans as to the Canadians. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 273 The Americans made an industrious canvass among the settlers of all nationalities, preparatory to the meeting on May 2d. On Tualatin Plains, Rev. J. S. Griffin took particu lar pains to see all the settlers, and to urge their attendance at Champoeg. He called upon those who had recently arrived from the Red River country, and from Nisqually, and explained to them that a provisional government would be followed by American occupation, and they would be entitled to hold their lands in fee simple, while under British law, if it should prevail, the whole country would possibly go to the Hudson's Bay Company. The Rocky Mountain men were also active. They were naturally opposed to the Hudson's Bay Company, and favorable to self-government. A leader among these was Joseph L. Meek, while Newell and others were also active. Happily F. X. Matthieu, a French Canadian who had joined the White party at Fort Laramie, and who had now taken a claim in the valley, was one of the most energetic and outspoken workers in favor of organization. He was living with the family of Etienne Lucier, and like most of the Canadians this early settler was afraid of the taxes a government might impose, and was very much opposed to law and lawyers for that reason. He had been told that windows were taxed in the United States, and was much concerned for fear that the openings in his cabin, which were covered with sheep skin, might become an expensive luxury. But Matthieu was able to relieve his fears and secure his vote. There was a full attendance, both of Americans and Canadians, at Champoeg on May 2d. There was no build ing in the place so large that the meeting could be held in it, and as the weather was pleasant it was held in the open air, on a little glade near the river bank. Before the deliberations 274 THE RISE AND PROGRESS commenced the Americans had learned that the Cana dians, who were not accustomed to participate in meetings of this kind, had been advised to vote "no" upon all prop ositions, and before organizing permanently, it was thought advisible to put a number of motions upon which they should vote "yes" if consistent, and thus without risk discover their actual strength. The minutes of the meeting, as kept, do not show what motions were made or passed upon. The report of the committee was read, and a motion to adopt it was apparently lost. Some confusion followed and Rev. Griffin engaged Bishop Blanchet in a debate, with the view, as he has said, of committing him and his party to actual participation in the meeting. A division was then called for by Le Breton, and the demand was promptly seconded by Gray. Then Joe Meek called out: "Who's for a divide? All in favor of the report follow me." The effect was mag netic. Meek led to the right, followed by all who were in favor of organization, while those opposed stepped to the left. Among the former was Matthieu and Lucier, and when the two lines were counted it was found that there were fifty-two in favor of the report, and only fifty against it.* Then Meek swinging his hat shouted, "Three cheers for our side!" and they were given with a will. There was to be a provisional government for Oregon. *The following list of the fifty-two who voted for the provisional govern ment has been compiled by George H. Himes, secretary of the Oregon Historical Society, with the assistance of F. X. Matthieu: Dr. Ira L. Babcock, Dr. W. H. Willson, G. W. LeBreton, W. H. Gray, Joseph L. Meek, David Hill, Robert Shortess, Dr. Robert Newell, Reuben Lewis, Amos Cook, Caleb Wilkins, Hugh Burns, Francis Fletcher, Sidney W. Smith, Alanson Beers, T. J. Hubbard, James O'Neil, Robert Moore, W. P. Doughty, L. H. Judson, A. T. Smith, J. C. Bridges, Rev. Gustavus Hines, Rev. David Leslie, John Howard, William McCarty, Charles McKay, Rev. J. S. Griffin, George Gay, George W. Ebberts. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 275 Having decided to organize, the meeting immediately proceeded to elect officers. A. E. Wilson was chosen judge; G. W. Le Breton, clerk; J. L. Meek, sheriff; W. H. Wilson, treasurer, and a number of minor officers were named. Then a legislative committee composed of David Hill, Robert Shortess, Robert Newell, Alanson Beers, T. J. Hubbard, W. H. Gray, James O'Neil, Robert Moore and W. P. Doughty was appointed. This committee was really charged with the duty of determining the character of the new government, and providing it with a constitution. Two of its members had come to the country with Wyeth in 1834, two with Farnham in 1840-41, two were mission aries, and two had been trappers in the Rocky Moun tains. They were not experienced lawmakers, but the work they did put the new government on its feet, and it learned to walk as it had occasion. The first meetings of this committee were held in the granary ofthe Methodist mission. Each session was opened with prayer. After deliberating for two days, it adjourned to meet again on the last Thursday in June, for it was required to have its report ready to submit to another general meeting on July 5th, and its deliberations had been limited to six days. The simple code, or formula, it was expected to devise was easily agreed upon in all respects save one, and that was the same one that other organizers of popular government had found most perplexing. There were some members of the committee who feared an executive — hoping Rev. J. L. Parrish, Rev. Harvey Clarke, Charles Campo, Dr. W. J. Bailey, Allen Davy, Joseph Holman, John (Edmunds) Pickernel, Joseph Gale, Russell Osborn, David Weston, William Johnson, Webley Haux- hurst, William Cannon, Medorem Crawford, John L. Morrison, P. M. Armstrong, Calvin Tibbetts, J. R. Robb, Solomon Smith, A. E. Wilson, F. X. Matthieu, Etienne Lucier. 276 THE RISE AND PROGRESS apparently, as others had hoped, that good laws, when made, would somehow enforce themselves. They compromised finally, as others had compromised, by agreeing upon an executive committee, and the result was, as it always had been before, that the committee proved a failure, and had to give way finally to a single governor. Rev. Gustavus Hines presided at the meeting on July 5, Dr. Babcock being absent. The executive feature of the report was most debated, but a majority of those present were finally convinced that some executive authority was necessary: the committee plan was approved, and Alanson Beers, David Hill and Joseph Gale were appointed. A code of laws was adopted for the government of the com munity "until such time as the United States shall extend their jurisdiction over us." This shows that the American element was completely in control, though some of the Cana dians, including Matthieu, were present. The settled coun try was divided into four districts, which number might be increased as occasion required, and from these the repre sentatives were to be elected. No law was to be made affect ing the right of any person to worship God according to such form as he preferred; all should be entitled to the writ of habeas corpus, to trial by jury, and to proportionate repre sentation; all offences, except capital ones, where proof was evident or presumption great, were to be bailable; fines should be moderate; cruel and unusual punishments were prohibited; no man should be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law; property taken for public use should be paid for, and no law should abrogate private contracts, if made in good faith. Indeed nearly all of the first ten amendments to the Constitution of the United States were made part of this organic law for "Oregon OF AN AMERICAN STATE 277 territory, " as it was now for the first time designated. Then this from the ordinance of 1787 was incorporated: "There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in said territory, otherwise than for the punishment of crime, whereof the party shall have first been duly convicted." The temporary officers were to hold their places until a general election should be held in May 1844. "Every free white male descendant of a white man, over twenty-one years of age," who was an inhabitant at the time of the organization of the government, and "all emigrants of such description, after six months residence, " should be entitled to vote. The legislative power was vested in a committee of nine members, apportioned among the districts. The judicial power was vested in a supreme court, composed of a supreme judge and two justices of the peace; a probate court and a justice court, and the jurisdiction of each was defined. Funds to support this government were to be raised by voluntary subscription. The laws of Iowa were adopted as a whole, and in addition special laws fixing the age at which marriage was to be per mitted, and making sixty pounds a bushel of wheat, were adopted. The last named act was a matter of no small importance, since the bushel of wheat was at that time the standard of value in Oregon. A land law was also enacted. It was based on the Linn bill, which it was confidently be lieved would ultimately become law. It allowed no individual to claim more than one square mile, nor more than one claim at the same time; nor to hold such claim upon town sites or water powers; but this was not to affect claims of any mission of a religious character, of an extent not more than six miles square, and already taken when this law was adopted. 278 THE RISE AND PROGRESS This act was evidently aimed at Dr. McLoughlin, who had long previously laid claim to a large tract of land at the falls of the Willamette, and who was also trying to hold two other claims in other parts of the valley. The provisional government of Oregon thus organized controlled the new territory until all questions of title to it had been decided, and a government for it had been pro vided by Congress. In the language of Elwood Evans, "it is the monument of the wisdom of the Oregon pioneers, the proof of their sagacity. It was the only means to neutral ize an influence against which it could not have successfully contended, which, while it was paramount, retarded progress and defeated American enterprise." Mr. Harvey W. Scott has said this of the men who created it: "The results of their work remain; and what we must regard as a thing of high significance is the fact that they well understood that they were laying the foundations of a state. In what they did here that day there was a clear premonition to them, that it was a work for unborn ages. The instinct for making states, an instinct that so strongly characterizes that portion of the human race that has created the United States of America, never had clearer manifestation, or a more vigorous assertion." Early in their efforts, the settlers had sent an invitation to the authorities at Vancouver, asking them to join in the movement to organize a government for the general protec tion, but the officers replied, explaining that they had no need of protection, other than that which they already provided for themselves. It possibly seemed a little pre posterous to them to find the people whom they had so recently saved from starvation now tendering offers of protection to their rich and powerful company, which OF AN AMERICAN STATE 279 had ruled the country for nearly twenty years. But the offer was less presumptious than it may have seemed. When the offer was made again it was accepted. On the fourth of March, in the year following, an affray occurred at Willamette Falls, now beginning to be called Oregon City, in which two white men were killed by a party of Indians. One of the victims was Le Breton, the clerk of the provisional government, a young man who was very popular in the community; the other was an inoffensive citizen named Rogers, who was at work in the vicinity, and taking no part in the disturbance. Le Breton had at tempted to arrest the leader of the Indian party, who was named Cockstock, and was stabbed; Rogers was shot with an arrow, which at the time was supposed to be poisoned. Cockstock was killed on the spot by a bystander, who dashed his brains out with a gun barrel. The affray caused intense excitement among both whites and Indians. Meas ures were immediately set on foot to organize for defense. A meeting was held and a militia company of twenty-five members, called the Oregon Rangers, was promptly organ ized, with T. D. Kaiser as captain. The officers were commissioned by the provisional government, and provi sion was made for paying the men while in actual service. But the excitement soon subsided. It was found that the Indians were not meditating an uprising, but that the whole disturbance had grown out of a disagreement between Cock stock and a settler who had hired him to clear some land, and that it probably never would have led to anything more serious, if Subagent White had not interfered, and offered a reward for Cockstock's arrest. When the time for the first election arrived, in May 1844, the number of the settlers had been very largely increased. 280 THE RISE AND PROGRESS It is believed that they did not number more than one hun dred and thirty-seven when the provisional government was organized.* The emigration of 1843 probably amounted to more than eight hundred, and nearly all ofthe emigrants had come to the Willamette. Among them were Peter H. Burnett, M. M. McCarver and A. Lawrence Lovejoy, who had first crossed the plains in 1842, and made the long winter ride with Whitman, returning in the following year. These three together with David Hill, M. Gilmore, Robert Newell, Daniel Waldo and F. D. Kaiser were chosen as the legis lative committee, and when they met and organized in June, McCarver was elected speaker. Peter G. Stewart, Osborn Russel and William J. Bailey were named as the executive committee. So far the government had been supported by private sub scription, but this was no longer practicable. No govern ment can long subsist without authority to raise a revenue, and this fact was soon recognized, both by the officers of the provisional government and the people. A plan for a system of taxation was therefore prepared and submitted to the people, by whom it was approved. The cumber some executive committee was by this time found to be very undesirable, and the organic law was accordingly amended by substituting a governor, with the usual power of veto, and he was to hold office for two years. The legislative committee was superseded by a house of representatives, to consist of not less than thirteen, nor more than sixty-one members. This house was to appoint the supreme judge. Another session of the legislative body was held in Decem ber, and two measures were passed, which were the subject * Address by Harvey W. Scott at the unveiling of the monument at Champoeg, May 2, 1901. GEORGE ABERNETHY. The first governor of Oregon under the provisional government, was born a^ Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1807. His family removed to the United States soon after he was born, and settled in New York. He came to Oregon with a large missionary party by the ship Lausanne, in 1840, "and was chosen governor in fS^JT When tiM|||^^^|^ was l^p^^s^^g'^tefritprial government, he ej3gs|||sl in irijfed^^aRfl other 'jroppv suits, irnphich he w^fteneraP^^fij^f^V .$£. a M^np, but lost S, large par^f_h^ip^5_^|^^^ ^f c\ie4;ii} OF AN AMERICAN STATE 281 of much comment in succeeding years, and one of them was more or less of a political issue at all elections under the provisional government. This was a prohibitory law for bidding the manufacture or sale of ardent spirits under heavy penalities. The other forbade the residence of any negro in Oregon. It provided that any negro slave brought into the country should in the course of three years become free; any free negro or mulatto coming to the country should leave within two years; if he (or she) failed to leave after notice, he should be whipped on the bare back with not less than twenty, nor more than thirty-nine, stripes; and flogged likewise every six months until he did leave. In the next session the flogging sections were repealed, a bond for good behavior being substituted. It having been decided that the executive committee should be replaced by a. governor, a spirited canvass for the office soon began. A nominating convention was held at Cham poeg, at which A. L. Lovejoy, Osborne Russel and George Abernethy appeared as candidates. Lovejoy won the nomi nation, but Russel's friends united with those of Abernethy in the campaign, and the latter was elected by a majority of ninety-eight, in a total vote of five hundred and four. For the first time the Canadian settlers appeared at the polls, and they had a candidate of their own — Francis Ermatinger, of the Hudson's Bay Company — who was elected treasurer by a majority of fifty-four. Dr. J. E. Long was elected clerk and recorder; J. W. Nesmith, not yet twenty-five years old, supreme judge; Marcus Ford, attorney; the ever popu lar Joseph L. Meek, sheriff; and for legislative members, H. A. G. Lee, W. H. Gray, H. Straight, R. Newell, J. M. Garrison, M. G. Foisy, Barton Lee, M. M. McCarver, J. W. 282 THE RISE AND PROGRESS Smith, David Hill, Jesse Applegate, A. Hendrick, and John McClure. Certificate of election was issued to Abernethy June 12, 1845. At the suggestion of Jesse Applegate the new legislature made a very important change in the form of the oath of office, which all the officers were to take and subscribe before entering upon their duties. As amended this oath was as follows: "I do solemnly swear that I will support the organic laws of the Provisional Government of Oregon, so far as said organic laws are consistent with my duties as a citizen ofthe United States, or a subject of Great Britain, and faithfully demean myself in office." The object of this change was to make it possible for the Canadians, as well as the Americans, to have a part in the government, and the hope was that the chief factor and his associates at the fort would join with the American settlers, and so make a government for all — in which all should have a part, and all would equally help to support. By this, more than by any other act, the founders of this experiment in government displayed their wisdom and toleration. Few in numbers, remote from any other civilized community, they needed the support, moral as well as financial, of the Hudson's Bay officers and their people. Their active opposition might be fatal to their enterprise; their indifference in any emer gency, such as might arise— such as in fact did arise — might be very embarrassing. By thus opening the way for them to take part in, and perhaps secure the protection of, the new government, its organizers showed their own dis interestedness, and the sincerity of their intentions, and events proved that they made the opening at a very oppor tune time. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 283 There was still a small minority among the American settlers who held to the idea of an independent government. They were discouraged by the failure of Congress to act in their behalf, and that of the country. They were so far away that it might never send them any protection that would be adequate to their needs. They still held literally to the belief that "all governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, " and argued that if they con sented to an independent government it would be as legiti mate as any. But the majority held faithfully to their original plan for "a government based on republican ideas, cultivating American thought, and limited in its duration to such time as the United States should embrace the terri tory within its jurisdiction. " They were wise in their day and generation. It was such a government, thus formed and in operation, that the first settlers to arrive in that part of Oregon which is now Washington, found ready organized for their benefit when they came. They came with the immigration of 1844, and some of them soon began to have an active part in making its laws and administering them. The officers of the Hudson's Bay Company, finding the way opened to them by the amended form of the oath required to be taken by the officers of the provisional government, now concluded to join it. Dr. McLoughlin says he suspected that the form had been changed to enable him and his associates to join the organization, "and I mentioned this to my colleague, Chief Factor Douglas, who thought as I did that in our present situation, and the state of the country it would be advisable to do so. And I was not surprised to find, a few days after, on my visit to Oregon City, that my surmises were correct; as the originator 284 THE RISE AND PROGRESS of the clause, who was a member of the Legislature then in session, called on me and proposed to me to enter the organization on the part of the Hudson's Bay Company. After conversing on the subject, and being aware that the organization could afford assistance to none but its own members, I told him I would proceed to Vancouver, consult my colleague, Chief Factor Douglas, and the other officers ofthe company at that place — which I did; and Chief Fac tor Douglas coincided with me in the expediency of our doing so. I returned to Oregon City, and on the Legisla ture writing me a letter inviting me to join the organization on the part ofthe Hudson's Bay Company, in a written reply I informed them that I did so." Events had been hurrying on far more rapidly than the chief factor and his very capable assistant had anticipated, when they sent their reply to the courteous letter of the executive committee in 1843, saying that they needed no more protection than they could themselves provide. That had been true for a long time previous, when they had nothing but the Indians to defend against. But now that the settlers were coming by the hundreds and thousands every year, they were not so sure of their safety, for with the settlers were coming some people who did not promise to be very pleasant neighbors. Some of these were the camp-followers, who had given the emigrants as much trouble as it now seemed possible they might give the Company and com munity. Some were simply irresponsible boasters, who remembered to have read or heard about what "thirty thou sand settlers with their thirty thousand rifles" might do to help settle the boundary question. Some of these had come with the Burnett and Applegate party, and some with the other trains, and they talked as loudly and as freely OF AN AMERICAN STATE 285 about turning the Hudson's Bay people out of the country, now that they had arrived, as Farnham had talked while still on the Missouri. Then there were some aggressive people who would no longer stay on the south side of the Columbia, but insisted that the whole country was open to them. Two of these had already attempted to locate claims on the Company's farm at Vancouver, and the people at the fort had not found it easy to get rid of them. The chief factor has left a written statement, in which he says that he early notified the officers of the Company in London that "it was necessary to get protection from the government for the Hudson's Bay Company's property," and in June 1845 ne received an answer stating that " in the present condition of affairs, the company could not obtain protection from the government, and that I must protect it the best way I could." Later he wrote to the British consul at Hawaii calling on him for protection, but his letter was not even answered, although the consul could easily have given him some sort of reply by the ship which carried this request to him. Thus left to their own resources for defense, McLoughlin and James Douglas, his chief assistant, who was then con stantly with him at the fort, began to feel the danger of their situation. They had a large amount of property in their keeping, as well as the lives of more than a thousand of the Company's employees. So far as the fur business was concerned it was rapidly diminishing, as was natural, for it could not prosper in the presence of a rapidly advanc ing civilization. But the Company had large farming and stock-raising interest, mills, trading houses, ships and a trade with the Russian settlements, the Hawaiian Islands and California, that was still prosperous, while its fur business 286 THE RISE AND PROGRESS in the far north, along the coast and in the interior, was undis turbed and promised to remain so for many years. But all the people who were employed in it were wholly depend ent on Fort Vancouver for their supplies, and for their very existence. The fort, its barns, and mills, and storehouses might be destroyed at any moment by some fanatic, or wholly irresponsible person, who had long fancied that the Com pany was a common enemy, and who wholly ignored the great service it had rendered others. Such irresponsible persons would be more easily incited and encouraged to acts of vio lence, if the Company openly opposed the provisional govern ment; they might be in some degree mollified, and rendered less dangerous, if its managers gave in their adhesion to it, now that the way was open for them to do so. Anyway it was better to have harmony than discord. The boundary question must soon be taken up again, by the two powers; it could not much longer be put aside. Any clash of interests between the Company and the settlers would certainly delay its settlement. Should any such thing occur, especially if any violence should be done, it would be almost certain to be misreported and misunderstood. Owing to their remote situation, and the difficulty of communicating with the two capitals, it would require months to present the facts which would be necessary to a fair understanding of what had happened. Meantime much more might happen, and two nations would easily be involved in war — a war that would be most disastrous, both to the Company and the settlers. In this view of the case it is not surprising that McLough lin and Douglas determined to accept the offer made by the executive committee. It was the wise course, and it was fortunate for them, for their company, and for humanity OF AN AMERICAN STATE 287 that they did so when they did, though it soon involved them in no little embarrassment. After having sent them word that it could afford them no protection, and that they must protect themselves as best they could, the British government soon found means to send the sloop of war Modeste to the river. She carried twenty guns, and remained for some weeks in the immediate neighborhood of the fort. Her presence created no little anxiety among the settlers, who learned soon after that another warship, the Fisgard, was in Puget Sound, while an armed steamer, the Cormorant, was cruising off Vancouver Island. Soon after her Majesty's ship America arrived at Nisqually, and sent Lieutenant Peel, son of Sir Robert, who was then prime minister, to Vancouver with a letter from Captain Gordon, saying that he had been sent by Admiral Seymour "to assure her Majesty's subjects in the country of firm protection. " He also brought a letter from the admiral himself containing a like assurance. This was somewhat embarrassing to the two factors, who had so recently been notified that they must protect themselves, and were now overwhelmed with protection that they did not require. As British subjects who had so recently given in their allegiance to a provisional government that was much more than half American, this sudden abundance of British protection must have seemed in their eyes almost a menace. But there was nothing for them to do but make the best of the situation. The settlers soon began to be very much disturbed by the presence of these ships. Reports also began to be current that the Company was strengthening the defenses of all its posts, though there was no evidence that anything of the kind was being done at Fort Vancouver. The officers of THE RISE AND PROGRESS the Modeste extended their hospitalities alike both to Ameri cans and the Hudson's Bay people, but were careful to say nothing about the meaning of their visit at that time. It is probable that they did not themselves know why they had been sent to the Columbia, and that they had been directed simply to remain there until further orders. There would have been further cause for anxiety if it had been known that matters were transpiring in the East, which were seriously threatening to make immediate negotiation on the boundary question impossible. The Tyler adminis tration was making an effort to distinguish its closing year by annexing Texas. The slavery question, discussion of which had been revived for the first time since the adoption ofthe Missouri compromise in 1820, by a series of resolutions proposed in the Senate by Mr. Calhoun in 1835, was begin ning to divide the councils of the dominant party. The pro posed " reannexation of Texas, " as its advocates spoke of it, aggravated this discussion and intensified public feeling on the subject. The national convention which assembled in Baltimore in 1844, and nominated Mr. Polk for president, had coupled the Texan question with the Oregon question, and made this declaration in its platform: "Our title to the whole of the territory of Oregon is clear and unques tionable; that no portion of the same ought to be ceded to England or any other power; and that the reoccupation of Oregon, and the reannexation of Texas, at the earliest prac ticable period, are great American measures which this convention recommends to the cordial support of the dem ocracy ofthe Union." "The whole of Oregon," in the minds of many people at that time, meant the whole coast as far north as 540 40', and "Fifty-four Forty or Fight" became the slogan ofthe OF AN AMERICAN STATE 289 Polk campaign. It was this, and the failure of a new attempt at negotiation for the settlement of the northwestern bound ary, together with Mr. Polk's declaration in his inaugural address, that it would become his duty to "assert and main tain, by all constitutional means, the right ofthe United States to that portion of our territory west ofthe Rocky Mountains," that had led to the sending of three British war ships to the coast, would later lead to the coming of an American war ship, and to the purchase, by the Hudson's Bay Company, by order of the British government, of an American settler's claim near Cape Disappointment, as a site for a British fort.* In the following summer, and long before news of the signing of the boundary treaty had reached the coast, the American war schooner Shark arrived in the Columbia, and her presence added to the expectation and anxiety of both the American and British residents in Oregon. She had been sent north by Commodore Sloat, whose fleet was then cruising off the coast of California, " to make an exam ination of the coast, harbors, rivers, soil, productions, climate and population of the territory of Oregon." But the settlers knew nothing about her instructions, and, as they * This purchase was made by Peter Skeen Ogden, who subsequently entered the claim under the land laws of the provisional government, in his own name, in February 1846. The order directing him to secure the property was made in August 1845. The original claimant was an American named Wheeler, whose rights Ogden purchased. Elwood Evans is confident that this land was bought for a British military post, and for no other purpose. "It had no value," he says, "as a trading point. There were but few Indians in its vicinity; and the stations of Fort George (Astoria) and Chinook were both near at hand. Nor could it ever be claimed, even if the license of trade permitted such character of establishment, that it had any utility for agricultural purposes. Yet the Hudson's Bay Company, having seized this point for aggressive hostility to the United States, claimed the sum of $14,600 for an occu pancy of little over four months, without improvements, except merely enough to indicate possession." 290 Rise and Progress of an American State had not yet learned that the boundary question had been settled by the treaty of June 15th, they suspected that trouble was impending. Her officers did what they could, as the British officers had been doing, to allay this anxiety, but without disclosing the real purpose of their visit. The Shark remained in the river until September, when she started to rejoin the fleet, but was wrecked at the mouth of the Columbia September 10th. Her commander, Lieu tenant Howison, and his officers and crew were sent to San Francisco on the Hudson's Bay Company's ship Cadboro. Before leaving, the lieutenant presented the ship's colors, which had been saved from the wreck, to the provisional government, accompanied by the following very appro priate letter: "To display this national emblem, and cheer our citizens in this distant territory by its presence, was a principal object of the Shark's visit to the Columbia; and it appears to me, therefore, highly proper that it should henceforth remain with you, as a memento of parental regard from the general government. With the fullest confidence that it will be received and appreciated as such by our country men here, I do myself the honor of transmitting the flags (an ensign and union jack) to your address; nor can I omit the occasion to express my gratification and pride that this relic of my late command, should be emphatically the first United States flag to wave over the undisputed, and purely American territory of Oregon." The territory was then " undisputed and purely American, " sure enough, although the lieutenant could have had no positive information that it was so, and the residents of Oregon did not receive the news until nearly two months later. Chapter XXVIII. THE MASSACRE. THE missionaries on the upper Columbia — at Waiilatpu, Lapwai and Tshimakain — had taken no part in forming the provisional government. Their situation was too remote, and their members too few. Since Whitman's return with the emigrants of 1843, their affairs had been going much as before. Sometimes their work seemed to prosper, and they took new courage and hope; again there would be reverses, and they would seem to lose more than they had gained. During the years 1845-6 and '47, their letters to the general secretary were particularly discouraging. Spalding had contrived to get a printing press and some type from the Hawaiian Islands in 1839, and, with the help of Edwin O. Hall, a printer from the mission at Honolulu, did the first printing ever done in Oregon or on the coast. Several elementary books for use in the mission schools were printed, some of them in the Nez Perce and Flathead languages, and some in both the English and Indian lan guages. A small collection of hymns and, finally, part or all of the Gospels were translated and printed. The print ing press has always been a most helpful civilizing agent, and this particular one probably did as much in its way as any that has ever been made. The Nez Perces and their immediate neighbors were, for a time at least, more tractable than the Cayuses or Spokanes, or any of the tribes near the other missionary stations. Perhaps the work done by Spalding and his estimable wife and their associates was better calculated to impress their savage pupils. However this may be, the testimony of Wilkes, Dr. White and others is to the effect that more genuine progress was made by the Indians at this station than at any other. Eells and Walker and their wives were patient, observant, working in 294 THE RISE AND PROGRESS season and out of season for the improvement of the people among whom their lot had been cast; Whitman was ener getic, resourceful, tireless. He not only steadily increased the area of cultivated land at Waiilatpu, built mills and dug irrigating ditches, employing and paying those who would work, but he advised and assisted his Indian neigh bors about the management of the small tracts he could induce them to cultivate for themselves, held religious ser vices when there was occasion, and as a physician he minis tered to the sick and furnished them with medicines, going sometimes a hundred miles on horseback to do so. The work he did was prodigious. He was not only physician for the Cayuses, but for all the other tribes when they wished for his services, and sometimes when they did not, and for the other missions as well. When an epidemic appeared, as occasionally happened, he was traveling almost constantly and often to the neglect of his own affairs and family. In all this he exposed himself to a danger, which he realized, and which he might have avoided if he would, but he did not, and it was one ofthe causes that led to his terrible and untimely death. It was the custom among these Indians, and apparently among all the other tribes in Washington, to hold the slayer, or some member of his family or people, to account for the life of his victim. The medicine man was also held to be as accountable, if his patient died, no matter how desperate the case might be when his services were called for, as if he had actually killed him. This Whitman knew perfectly well, and yet during all the eleven years of his missionary life he never allowed it to move him from the path of his duty as a practitioner. He knew, too, that the Indians believed he had an unusual power to heal if he wished to, OF AN AMERICAN STATE 295 and therefore they were more likely to blame him when a patient died, than one of their own doctors. The members of the party who had met him and Dr. Parker at the rendez vous on Green River, in 1835, had seen him cut an iron arrow head three inches long from Captain Brider's back, long after the wound had healed, and this they looked upon as a very remarkable performance. He had also performed a similar operation for another hunter at the same time. These exhibitions of his skill as a surgeon had been much talked about by the Indians after their return, and had spread his fame far and wide. If he could thus cut iron and flint out of a man's flesh, he could certainly cure disease that was caused only by the presence of an evil spirit, if he wished to. But he could not always cure the patients he was called to see, and the number of his enemies on this account steadily increased. As the years went by the number of people employed at Waiilatpu, and of the orphans and other people who found refuge there, grew steadily. Joe Meek, the trapper, had left a half-breed daughter there in 1840, when he and Newell and Wilkins had brought the first wagons through from Fort Hall. Her name was Helen Mar, and she was then an infant. Mrs. Whitman undertook to raise and edu cate her. Mary Ann Bridger, another half-breed girl, three years older, was also there, as was David M. Cortez, whose savage mother had thrown him in a hole by the roadside to perish, when he was an infant. The doctor's nephew Perrin, who had come out with him in 1843, was there, and there was always a number of white men and Indians employed about the place — on the farm or in the mills and workshops. Waiilatpu was a resting place for all the emigrant trains after their long tedious journey. It was the first home the 296 THE RISE AND PROGRESS travelers saw after they left the Missouri. It was like an oasis in the desert, after the toilsome, dusty march through the barren alkali plains, along the upper Platte and Snake rivers, and the fresh vegetables, flour and bread obtained there furnished them a veritable feast, after the weeks and months in which they had lived on the game and fish they had procured from the Indians, or with their rifles, and the remnants ofthe supplies with which they had started. There were nearly always some sick people in these trains who re mained at the station for a few days, or perhaps weeks, to recruit themselves under the doctor's treatment. So that there was not only a school, and mills and shops at Waiilatpu but a hospital also. In the train which Colonel Gilliam commanded, with Cap tain William Shaw and Colonel M. T. Simmons as his lieu tenants, there was a family named Sager whose story was a most pathetic one. The father was a blacksmith and farmer, who had removed with his family from Ohio to Mis souri in 1838. In the fall of 1843 he moved again to St. Joseph, Missouri, and in the spring of 1 844 joined the Gilliam party for Oregon. There were six children in his family, and another was born during the summer — five girls and two boys, the oldest a boy of fourteen. At one of the crossings of the Platte one of the two wagons belonging to the family was overturned, and Mrs. Sager was badly injured, remaining unconscious for a long time. Near Fort Laramie the oldest girl, in attempting to climb out ofthe wagon while it was in motion, fell under the wheels and her leg was broken. She was unable to walk during the remainder of the long journey. At Green River the father died, leaving his sick wife and seven almost helpless children, one of them a cripple, to the care of a doctor, who had kindly given them OF AN AMERICAN STATE 297 so much of his attention, and the other members ofthe party. The widow, assisted by the doctor, struggled on through the desert for a few days, until her feeble health gave way, and she could no longer leave her bed in the jolting wagon. The women in the party nursed her as well as they could, but they could not save her life. In the delirium of her last hours, she called helplessly for her dead husband, and begged him and those about her to care for her motherless children. Faithfully did those emigrant women discharge the sacred trust thus committed to them, and their hus bands and sons were not less thoughtful, considerate and helpful. The doctor, a German, with no family of his own to care for, stood stoutly by them, as he had promised their dying father and mother he would, while Mrs. Shaw cared for the baby. Other members of the party helped the doctor to yoke and unyoke the teams, and care for the cattle, as well as to look after the wants of the younger children and the disabled girl. But at Fort Bridger,* nearly all the members of the party had to abandon a large part of their property, and most of that belonging to these orphan children was also sacrificed. One of their wagons was made into a cart, and with this and a few of their indispensable effects, they reached Waiilatpu in October. From Umatilla Captain Shaw went on to arrange with the Dr. and Mrs. Whitman to care for the orphan family, at least until the other members of the party could reach the Willamette and make arrangements for the winter. It seemed a great responsibiltiy, and both the doctor and his wife were in doubt as to whether they ought to undertake it. But while they were deliberating the cart and its occupants arrived. There was no resisting the appeal which those * Some of the trains came by that route during the earlier years. 298 THE RISE AND PROGRESS six ragged, travel-stained orphans presented. "Here was a scene for an artist to portray," says Mrs. Catherine S. Pringle — who was the oldest girl in the orphan party — in describing it many years after. "Foremost stood the little cart, with the tired oxen that had been unyoked lying near it. Sitting in the front end of the cart was John, weeping bitterly; on the opposite side stood Francis, his arm on the wheel and his head resting on it, sobbing aloud. On the near side the little girls were huddled together, bareheaded and barefooted, looking at the boys and then at the house, dreading we knew not what. By the oxen stood the good German doctor, with his whip in hand, regarding the scene with suppressed emotion." The baby member of the family was not present; Mrs. Shaw had cared for it so far, and had kept it with her at Umatilla. But it was soon missed. As the party were enter ing the house, Captain Shaw asked Mrs. Whitman if she had ever had any children of her own. Stopping at the thresh old she pointed to a little grave on the side of a small mound, easily seen from that point and said : "The only child I ever had sleeps yonder. " Little Alice Clarissa Whitman had been born on March 14, 1837, the first spring in the mission's history. She was the first white child born in Oregon. When she was a little more than two years old, while playing in the grounds of the mission, she fell into the river and was drowned. No one saw the accident. She was not missed immediately, and when she was finally sought for she was dead, with her play things still clasped in her little hands. Her resolute mother mourned for her in silence during the years that had since elapsed, and now that another more helpless baby had come almost into the presence of that lonely grave, a motherly OF AN AMERICAN STATE 299 longing came into her bereaved heart, and she said, turning to her husband : " I would like to have the baby most of all." That settled the fate of the Sager children. The baby was sent for, and so long as the doctor and Mrs. Whit man lived they were part of the mission household. The Indians in the neighborhood of the mission watched the coming ofthe emigrant trains, year by year, with increas ing suspicion and uneasiness. They noticed that the num ber of white people who came was steadily increasing, and while only a few of them remained in their country, they knew that they were taking possession of the country in which other Indians had long lived undisturbed, and sus pected that they would soon be taking theirs. They grew restless and more and more excited, and asked many ques tions that the missionaries were not able to answer to their satisfaction. Dr. White, the subagent, had indiscreetly talked to them about what the government would do in the way of treating for their lands and paying for them with money, and blankets, and many things they much wished to have. There is some reason to believe also that Dr. Parker had said something that aroused in their minds expectations of this kind. Somehow they had got the im pression that the government, about which they had only a very indefinite idea, was to send them an abundance of good things which were to be given to them, and not sold to them upon such hard terms as the Hudson's Bay Company exacted. The missionaries were already taking their lands and were not paying for them. They were growing rich, as it seemed to them, in horses, cattle, grain and in all manner of things, that labor could produce from the ground, while they themselves remained poor. Would all the white men who were coming, and were to come hereafter, do the same ? COO THE RISE AND PROGRESS Archibald McKinlay, the chief trader, who had succeeded Pambrum at Fort Walla Walla, and who was ever Whit man's firm friend and adviser, noticed their growing dis content, and frequently warned him of his danger. Dr. McLoughlin also watched the situation with anxiety. He invited the doctor to visit Vancouver, and endeavored to persuade him to abandon his station, for a time at least, until it should be safer for both him and those about him to resume their work. He knew somebody had been telling the Cayuses, and other tribes east of the Columbia, that the expectations held out to them would never be realized, and feared perhaps it might be some of his own Iroquois, but Whitman knew who this mischief maker was, and was able to relieve the chief factor's mind on that account. There was a Shawnee, or Delaware, who lived apart from the other Indians, with a Nez Perce wife, in the neighbor hood of the Blue Mountains. How it had happened that he had strayed so far from the home of his fathers nobody knew. He had been a student for a time at Dartmouth College, and was a man of considerable intelligence and native ability, but a sullen and irreconcilable hater of white people. It was he who was telling the Cayuses and Nez Perces and other tribes, that they would some day be forced to leave their country and would never be paid for their lands. That was the way his own tribe had been treated. They once had land in abundance; now they had none. They were no longer even a tribe, but were wandering hopeless and starving among those who had robbed them. The Nez Perces, Cayuses and Walla Wallas would be robbed and dispersed in a similar way unless they did something to pro tect themselves. The best thing to do was to kill the mis sionaries. Whitman had seen this Indian and talked with ARCHIBALD McKINLAY. This Hudson's Bay Company trader was stationed for a number of years at Fort Langley, and later at Fort Walla Walla, where he became the firm friend of Dr. Whitman, with whom he often counseled in regard to his treatment of the Indians. He married a daughter of Peter Skeen Ogden, and after his retire ment from the service of the company resided at Oregon City. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 301 him. He was surprised to find him so well educated, and had been much interested in his conversation. He hoped that he had convinced him of the honorableness and fairness of his own intentions, and seemed confident that he would have no further trouble from that source. But the chief factor, knowing the Indian character better, was not less distrustful. He was unable to convince the missionary that prudence at least demanded that he should take every precaution to protect himself and his family; that he could remove to the Dalles, which the Methodist missionaries were willing to leave, and that he could carry on the work in which he was so zealously engaged quite as efficiently and far more safely there than at Waiilatpu. Whit man did not forget this excellent advice, but unhappily he did not act upon it, and the time soon came when it was too late to do so. The winter of 1846-7 was the most severe that the Indians on the upper Columbia had ever experienced. The cold weather began early; heavy snows fell, covering the scant supply of sagebrush and driftwood on which the Indians depended to keep up their fires, covering the dry, sweet bunch grass on which their horses and cattle depended for their subsistence, and destroying the game which still fur nished a large part of the native food supply. Horses and cattle were frozen to death by the hundreds, and many of the Indians died in their cheerless tepees. Even the people at the mission suffered severely, and while they did not refuse food to the Indians in their^ neighborhood, they could not help all. The herds at the mission suffered much, but far less than those of the Indians, which, being wholly without protection, were in many cases almost anni hilated. 302 THE RISE AND PROGRESS Following this calamity an event happened which should have alarmed the missionaries far more seriously than it did, yet strange to say they refused to regard it seriously. Some two years earlier a party of Indians had gone from the neighborhood of the missions to Sutter's fort in the Sacra mento valley to buy cattle. With them had gone a son of Peo Peo Mox Mox, or Yellow Serpent, the principal chief of the Walla Wallas. He had been educated at the Metho dist mission, where he had received the name of Elijah Hedding. He was a bright young man, and a great favorite among his tribesmen. At Fort Sutter he was shot by an American, wholly without provocation, the Indians said, and his party returned home without any cattle, and having lost many of their horses during the long journey. When they reached home and told their story the whole Indian population became greatly excited, and plans of vari ous kinds were laid for avenging young Elijah's death. Some were for raising a great band of two thousand warriors to go to California and exterminate the white people there. Others were for marching to the Willamette for a similar purpose. Still others proposed to kill the missionaries who were nearer at hand. Elijah had been killed by an American. He had been educated by Americans, and his American education had probably led him to his death. Let his mur der be avenged upon any American and all Americans. All this was quite in accord with the general Indian idea of retributive justice. The slayer first, if he could be con veniently caught; if not his family, his tribe, or nation should pay the penalty. The missionaries well knew the conclu sion to which their enraged neighbors would inevitably come. They had already had a practical illustration of what would happen, in case of the four Indians who had started east with OF AN AMERICAN STATE 303 Gray in the spring of 1837, and who had been killed by the Sioux. Their friends had valiantly threatened war on the distant Sioux at first, but had later convinced themselves that Whitman and Spalding were really the responsible parties, since their associate had enticed their friends to make this long and hopeless journey, in which they met their death, and they had from time to time, during the whole ten years that had since elapsed, demanded payment in some form both for their dead friends and their lost horses. The missionaries had made such defense of their own innocence as they could, but found none that the Indian mind could or would understand. At last they yielded so far as to pay for one of the horses,* and this concession greatly increased their danger in the present emergency. The wrath of the Indians gradually subsided for the time being. Instead of taking some immediate action they sent one of their chiefs to the Willamette to consult with Sub Indian Agent White, and that worthy, with that singular faculty for doing the wrong thing, which he possessed, pro posed an arrangement which postponed the difficulty but intensified it. In a long and voluble report to the Indian office in Washington he says that he promised to "write to the Governor of California, to Captain Sutter, and to our great chiefs respecting this matter," and also to establish an English manual training school for the benefit of their children.^ * Letter of Whitman to Dr. Green, Oct. 22, 1839. Copied by Mar shall. t " I likewise wrote them, that on condition they would defer going to California till the spring of 1847, an(i each chief assist me to the amount of two beaver skins, to get a good manual labor literary institution established for the English education of their sons and daughters, — a subject they feel the deepest interest in — I would use every measure to 304 THE RISE AND PROGRESS This promise White had no means of fulfilling and never did fulfill, and its effect upon the Indians was to create a new obligation which they expected the missionaries to pay. Whitman says of it : " He (White) went so far as to pro mise it to the Indians in such a way as to commit this mission for its fulfillment, or to involve us in its failure. "* But the Indians did not long remain quiet, as White so credulously hoped they would. They organized a war party and dispatched it to Sutter's Fort, under command of Peo Peo Mox Mox. It was absent nearly eighteen months and met with nothing but disaster. Thirty warriors died of disease, of hunger or by accidents, and not one American was injured. The Indians had almost abandoned hope of the return of this party when, one day in July 1847, a messenger arrived with the story of its misfortunes. Paul Kane, a Canadian artist, who had been living for two years among the Indians in the United States and Canada, had just arrived at Fort Walla Walla when this messenger appeared, and accom panied by William McBean, who had now succeeded Archibald McKinlay in charge of the fort, went to the Indian camp, to observe how the Indians would receive the news he brought. The Indian messenger, who had arrived some time in advance of his party, was surrounded by the whole tribe, and standing by his still unbridled horse, told his mournful story, which was listened to with the intensest get the unhappy affair adjusted; and, as a token of my regard for them would, from my private funds, give the chiefs five hundred dollars, to assist them in purchasing young cows in California. I likewise preferred, as they are so eager for it, to start the English school next fall, by giving them the services of Mr. Lee, my interpreter, for four months, commencing in November next." From White report to the Secretary of War dated April 4, 1845. Marshall MSS. * Whitman to Dr. Greene, Oct. 26, 1843. Marshall MSS. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 305 interest. The recital occupied nearly three hours. Finally he began to give the names of those who had been lost, and each as it was pronounced was received with shrieks and howls, "the women loosening their hair and gesticulating in a most violent manner." When the recital ended mes sengers were dispatched on horseback in every direction to spread the news among all the neighboring tribes. McBean and Kane, both of whom well knew the Indian theory of vengeance, immediately became apprehensive for the safety of Whitman and his family. A horse was saddled and the artist set off for the mission at six o'clock in the evening, to warn them of their danger. He arrived about three hours later, and told the doctor what had happened. He also advised him to remove to the fort, for a while at least, but was not able to prevail upon him to do so. "He had lived so long among them and done so much for them," he said, "that he did not apprehend they would injure him."* But Whitman had more to fear on this account than he supposed. The storm which had been so long gathering over the mission was about to burst forth, in all its savage fury. The emigration in 1847 was larger than that of any pre vious year, amounting to four thousand, according to some estimates, and even to five thousand according to others. The largest in any preceding year had been in 1845, when the number is supposed to have been three thousand. The breaking out of the Mexican war reduced the number in 1846 to one thousand three hundred and fifty. The Indians watched these large trains, all coming toward the west and none returning, with scowling faces. There seemed to be ?Wanderings of an Artist in North America, by Paul Kane, p. 281. 306 THE RISE AND PROGRESS no end to the number of these white people. They already seemed to be as numerous as the Indians, and yet they came in greater numbers than ever. None of them offered to pay for their lands. They took wood and water, as the mission aries had been doing for years, and would pay nothing for them, though payment was often demanded. Worse than all they were bringing new diseases, which the Indian had never known before, and their children were dying. Among these new diseases was the measles, which, under the Indian treatment, was followed by a fearful mortality.* During the terrible winter of 1846-7 and the summer following, this disease was very prevalent among all the tribes east of the Columbia, and many died, particularly the children. Dr. Whitman, as usual, went everywhere among the sick and was unremitting in his attentions to them, although he well knew that every time a child died a new enemy would be created. Of course he could not save all. Many were al ready in the throes of death when he first knew their need of his attentions. It was daily, almost hourly, becoming more dangerous, both for him and his wife and all about them, to remain in the country, and still he kept on, doing, as he thought, not only a doctor's but a missionary's duty, until the end came. Among the emigrants who came in 1847 were several families, some members of which were so ill that they were obliged to stop for some time at the mission. Some of them *The favorite Indian treatment for nearly all diseases was first to sweat the patient in a hot bath, and then plunge him into cold water. A sweat house was made by digging a shallow pit and then covering it with skins, or anything that would help to confine vapor. The bottom of the pit was covered with hot stones over which water was sprinkled, and the patient was then thrust into it, covered up and kept in it as long as he could endure the heat, or remain without suffocation, and when taken out was plunged in the nearest stream. Sometimes this OF AN AMERICAN STATE 307 intended to winter there. In November the mission family consisted of seventy-six people, a majority of whom were children. Among the laborers were two half-breeds named Joe Stansfield and Joe Lewis. The latter was one of those rene gade outcasts who were so troublesome to the emigrants, and who were at heart more savage than the Indians them selves. Lewis had come to the station with one ofthe trains of that year, and his condition was so forlorn and pitiable that Dr. Whitman had given him employment, although disliking and distrusting him. This renegade soon began to repay his benefactor by poisoning the minds of the Indians against him. Strychnine had been used at Waiilatpu and some of the missions, for years past, to poison the wolves, and the Indians knew its deadly effect. They had lost some of their dogs by it. It appears also that the doctor had put a strong drug of some sort in some of his watermelons, and that the Indians who had been stealing them had been made sick in consequence. Lewis seized upon these circum stances to make the Indians believe he was poisoning them. He claimed to have overheard the doctor and his wife talk ing about poison and its use, and that it was to be used more freely, so that they might more quickly get possession of the Indians' lands, their horses and other property. Both the doctor and Mrs. Whitman seem to have been aware of the mischief this renegade was making; at least they strongly suspected it. And yet they did not turn him out. It would probably have done no good to do so, since he would be quite able to make himself at home among the process was repeated, if the patient could endure it. Nearly every Indian village in Oregon at one time was provided with one or more of these sweat pits or houses. 308 THE RISE AND PROGRESS Indians, as he did for a time after the massacre, and would be even more troublesome there than at the mission. The doctor in no way remitted his attentions to the sick because of these libels, or because he saw that every time an Indian died under his treatment, a new cause of grievance was added to the already large number that filled their savage imaginations. He was helping many; those who died were few, and their cases were already desperate before his atten tions had been asked for them. There were some who still believed in him, and he still believed in himself, and above all in an , overruling Providence. He would not withhold his good offices, because the ignorant doubted, and the savage threatened. On Saturday, the 27th of November, he rode twenty-five miles to visit the sick at Umatilla. Spalding had come over from Lapwai, on his way to visit that tribe, and had brought his ten-year-old daughter with him,* who was to remain with Mrs. Whitman for some time. Both Whitman and Spalding appear to have been more concerned, at that time, about the presence of the Catholic missionaries in their vicinity than about the threatening conduct of the Indians. Priests had been visiting the neigh borhood with some regularity since 1839, Dut nad not re mained there. Father A. M. A. Blanchet, brother of the archbishop, had now been made bishop of Walla Walla, and together with Father J. B. A. Brouillet, his vicar general, had arrived at Umatilla, and were arranging to begin stations at other places. Mr. Spalding had written several long letters to the general secretary during the past summer, filled with descriptions of the demoralization that prevailed at his own and the other stations. The Indians no longer * She was the second white child born in Oregon. HOME OF DR. WHITMAN. Waiilatpu (pronounced Waielatpoo) the home of Dr. Whitman, was on the south bank of Walla Walla River, about six miles below the present city of Walla Walla. It was occupied by Dr. Whitman and his family for eleven years, and was finally the scene of the massacre on November 29, 1847. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 309 attended school nor respected the church. They had broken the windows in all the principal buildings, destroyed his mill race and his irrigating ditches, thrown down his fences and sometimes mutilated his cattle. The services they had once attended with so much interest they now scoffed at, saying that they did them no good.* Whitman, Eells and Walker had also complained that their Indians were losing interest, and returning openly to their old habits of gambling and sorcery. Spalding had attributed all this to the influence of the priests. The others had disclosed no belief or suspi cion of this kind, though Whitman had more than once expressed a fear that the Romish influence would undo all that they had done. So much had been said on this subject in their letters, that the "Missionary Herald" for July 1848, in an editorial introduction to Spalding's letter giving an account of the massacre, said: "While there is no reason to suppose that the Romanists have had any direct agency in the massacre of Mr. and Mrs. Whitman, it is at least possible that they have said or done that which has had an unforeseen and undesigned connection with this melancholy event. " Dr. Whitman remained at Umatilla until the afternoon of Sunday, the 28th. Father Brouillet says that the bishop and himself invited him to dine with them but he declined, because he was anxious to reach home as early as possible. As he was about leaving Sticcas (or Isticcas, as the name is sometimes given), an Indian who had long been devotedly attached to him, cautiously informed him of the terrible stories that Joe Lewis was circulating among the Indians. He did not believe them, himself, he said, but others did, and many were threatening to have vengeance for their lost * Spalding's letters of February 3, April 2, and August 3, 1847, copied by Marshall from the files in the secretary's office in Boston. 310 THE RISE AND PROGRESS relatives, whom they now believed had been secretly poisoned. For the first time Dr. Whitman seems to have been really alarmed. He mounted his horse and rode as rapidly as possible to the mission, arriving there about 10 o'clock. He found Mrs. Whitman watching by the bedside of little Helen Mar Meek, who was very sick, and they feared she would die, but soon after the doctor arrived she rallied, and seemed much better. The two Sager boys were watching with other sick people in the large hospital room, and after sending them to bed, Mr. and Mrs. Whitman sat down by the stove, and he told her the alarming story that Sticcas had related to him. Catherine Sager, who was one of the sick ones, heard them talking together very earnestly for some time, and finally Mrs. Whitman retired to her own room, the doctor saying he would watch until morning. He never slept again until he entered upon that long sleep that wakes no more in this world forever. The morning of Monday, November 29th, was cold, foggy and cheerless. Most of the sick people were better, though three were still dangerously ill. The doctor was calm but more serious than usual, still he went about among his patients, noting their condition and giving each a few words of advice or encouragement. Mrs. Whitman did not appear, and after breakfast was served one of the children carried some food to her room. She was found sitting by her bed with her face buried in her handkerchief. Taking the proffered food she motioned the bearer to leave her, and then put it aside. It was found untouched long after. An Indian child was to be buried near the mission that morning, and while waiting for the funeral party to arrive the doctor conversed with Mr. Rogers, his assistant, telling OF AN AMERICAN STATE 311 him of the alarming report he had heard, and suggesting various means of conciliating the Indians. The Catholic bishop was coming to see him soon, Catherine Sager heard him say, and he thought he would have a favorable influence with them. "If things do not clear up by that time," he added, "I will move my family below."* Although a large number of Indians had now assembled about the mission none but the family of the dead child had been present when it was buried. The doctor remarked upon this, on his return to the house, but added that they had probably come for their share of the beef which the men were killing for the use of the station. They were accus tomed to assemble at such a time, and were always given a part of the slaughtered animal. But they had not come that morning for food. It was easy to see that they were in an ugly humor, and more insolent and boisterous than usual. Some of them had already thrust themselves into the kitchen and sitting room, but as this was not an unusual circumstance no one was unduly alarmed by it. Mrs. Whitman came in and asked the doctor to go upstairs and see Miss Bewley, who was quite ill. He did so and when he returned he crossed the room to the sash door, that fronted the mill, and stood for a few moments drumming on the glass with his fingers. Then turning to Mrs. Whitman he said : " Poor Lorinda is in trouble and does not know the cause. I found her weeping, and she says she has some strong presentiment of approaching evil that she cannot overcome. I will prepare her some medicine and you take it up to her, and try to comfort her a little, for I have failed to do so." This poor girl's fate was to be the saddest of all those who escaped the slaughter. * I. e., to the Dalles, as Dr. McLoughlin had recommended. 312 THE RISE AND PROGRESS The Indians who were now in and about the house had become so noisy and insulting that Mrs. Whitman, who had been preparing some hot milk for the sick children, left the room. Some of the Indians tried to follow her, but she closed the door in their faces and bolted it. The doctor was busy at his medicine case, and apparently made no effort to quiet the increasing disturbance. An Indian stepped to his side and began to talk to him about medicine for a member of his family who was sick, when another struck him on the head from behind with a hatchet. At the same instant two shots were fired, one of which struck him in the neck, and the other killed John Sager, who was in the room engaged in winding twine to make brooms. Other men who were employed in various capacities about the place were set upon at the same moment. The mission miller was shot dead at the first fire. The tailor was mortally wounded by a pistol shot while sewing at his bench. Mr. Kimball, one of the men who were engaged in slaughtering the beef, was shot through the arm, the bullet shattering the bone and rendering it helpless. Mr. Canfield received a bullet in the side, but the wound was not dangerous, and he made his escape, going on foot to Lapwai, one hundred and twenty-five miles distant, to notify the Spaldings of their danger. Mr. Hoffman was attacked by several Indians, and defended himself bravely with an ax, wounding one of his assailants severely in the foot, but he was finally over powered and killed. The crack of the murderers' rifles was heard plainly inside the house and caused the greatest consternation. The sick people sprang from their beds; some ofthe children ran cry ing out of doors, but were brought back by Mrs. Whitman, OF AN AMERICAN STATE 313 who did what she could to quiet them, although remembering what the doctor had told her during the previous evening, she evidently realized that the massacre had begun, and that her own life would soon be required. "Oh, the Indians, the Indians," she said repeatedly, "they have killed my husband and I am a widow." Mary Ann Bridger, who had been in the kitchen when the doctor was attacked, fled through an outer door, and hurried to the sick room where the women and children were. She could only say that the doctor was dead, as she believed him to be. Kimball came in with his shattered arm hanging by his side. "Mrs. Whitman, the Indians are killing us all," he said, and sank to the floor. He soon began to ask for water, and Mrs. Whitman went to an adjoining room and fetched him some. Then she went downstairs and opened an outer door which had been locked, to let in a number of emigrant women and their children who had collected there from the other buildings. With the help of one of these she carried her wounded husband to an adjoining room. He was still conscious but could answer her only in whispers. She knelt by him and asked him many questions, but he could only answer "yes" or "no," as the case might be. As the shooting still continued she would go to the sash door and look out for a moment, and then return saying, "Oh, that Joe Lewis is doing all this." Several times this wretch looked in at the window, but when she would ask, "What do you want, Joe?" he would turn away. Some of the children called to her that Mr. Rogers was running toward the house, pursued by a party of Indians. She went to the door to let him in, but before she could do so he sprang against it, breaking some of the glass. She opened it as soon as she could and let him in, and then closed and bolted it in the face of his pursuers. 314 THE RISE AND PROGRESS He had been shot through the wrist, and was also wounded in the head by a blow from a tomahawk. The schoolteacher had by this time come to the outside door, which was locked, and Mrs. Whitman motioned to him to go back. He did so and had reached the foot of the stairway leading to the schoolroom, when he was attacked by an Indian with a knife — probably one of those the butchers had been using. He grappled with his assailant, and was making a brave struggle for his life, when a second Indian joined the first, and he was quickly overpowered and killed. Mrs. Whitman and Catherine Sager were watching this deadly struggle from the window, when a bullet came crashing through the glass and struck Mrs. Whitman in the shoulder. Clasping her hand over the wound, she staggered to the room where her husband lay, and fell beside him. "I ran to her and tried to raise her up," Mrs. Pringle — who was Catherine Sager — says, "but she said, 'Child, you cannot help me; save yourself.' We all crowded about her and began to weep. She commenced praying for us: 'Lord save these little ones.' She repeated this many times. She also prayed for her parents, saying, 'This will kill my poor mother. ' " The frightened women now retreated to the upper floor, accompanied by the children, and Mr. Rogers helped Mrs. Whitman to her feet, and up the stairway to the hospital room, where she was laid alongside little Helen Mar Meek and two other sick children. Rogers knelt by the bedside and began to pray. The shooting by this time had ceased, but the crashing of breaking doors and windows gave notice to the trembling occupants of the sick room that their time had probably come. Kimball seized a broken gun with his unwounded hand, and taking his stand at the head OF AN AMERICAN STATE 315 of the stairway threatened to shoot the first Indians who would attempt to ascend it. The cowardly wretches retired for a time, and after consulting together, one of them ad vanced toward the foot of the steps and said he had just arrived and would save them all if they would come down. '.'I told mother," says Mrs Pringle, "that I had seen this Indian killing the schoolteacher, but she thought I must be mistaken. Then he said they were going to burn the house and we must leave it. I wrapped my little sister up and handed her to him, with the request that he would carry her. He said they would take Mrs. Whitman away, and then come back for us. Then all left save the children and Mr. Kimball. When they reached the room below mother was laid upon a settee and carried out into the yard, by Mr. Rogers and Joe Lewis. Having reached the yard, Joe dropped his end of the settee, and a volley of bullets laid Mr. Rogers, mother and brother Francis bleeding and dying on the ground. While the Indians were holding a council to decide how to get Mrs. Whitman and Mr. Rogers into their hands, Joe Lewis had been sent to the schoolroom to get the schoolchildren. They had hid in the attic, but were ferreted out and brought to the kitchen, where they were placed in a row to be shot. But the chief relented, and said they should not be hurt; but my brother Francis was killed soon after." The dropping of the settee with the wounded woman upon it, by the inhuman half-breed, had apparently been the signal for the final and most murderous volley. Three persons had been killed or mortally wounded by it — a man, a noble self-sacrificing heroic woman, and a harmless orphan boy, not yet twelve years of age, who had already done and suffered much in his short span of life. 316 THE RISE AND PROGRESS The butchery for that day was now finished. All the grown men about the place except two, who were too sick to leave their beds, were either dead or wounded, or had escaped. These two and one other would be slaughtered later. Nine persons in all were dead — the doctor and Mrs. Whitman, John and Francis Sager, Rogers, the assistant who had been shot while helping to carry Mrs. Whitman out of the building,* and the wounded Kimball would die a few hours later, and three others including the two sick men, Sales and Bewley, would be butchered before the savage ferocity of their murderers was satisfied. A man named Hall, who with his wife and five daughters, the oldest a girl of ten and the youngest an infant, were win tering at the station, fled as soon as the shooting began, and carried the news of the massacre to Fort Walla Walla. He appears to have been crazed with fear, and to have thought only of saving himself. After securing some food at the fort he resumed his journey to the Willamette, and is supposed to have been drowned some days later near the Des Chutes River. Mr. and Mrs. Osborne, both of whom were sick, managed to conceal themselves and their three children beneath the floor during the day, and at night made their escape. About three miles from the mission they hid them selves in the bushes until the next night, when, after traveling about five miles, Mrs. Osborne gave up and could go no further. Taking one of the children Mr. Osborne made his way to the fort, from which men and horses were promptly sent to Mrs. Osborne's rescue. On learning what had happened, McBean, the chief trader in charge, 'sent his interpreter, and his Indian wife, * This was not the Cornelius Rogers who was earlier employed both at Waiilatpu and Lapwai. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 317 accompanied by another Indian, to the mission "to tell the Chief, Telequiet," as he says, "that his young men had already gone too far by killing Dr. Whitman and his wife, and the rest; that they had acted a cruel and cowardly part, and that I wanted him to spare the poor women and children. When my messenger arrived, Indian women, armed with knives and other implements of war, were already assembled near where the captives were, awaiting the order of the Chief, Telequiet, who was present. On being informed of my request, he hung down his head and paused; then with a wave of his hand preemptorily ordered the women away — these abusing him and calling him a coward. " These mes sengers evidently arrived none too soon, for Mrs. Pringle says their arrival was very opportune. Apparently it saved the schoolchildren, who were already prepared for the slaughter, from their fate. The slaughter seems to have begun some time in the after noon; it was not finished until evening, and then the mur derers seemed to be reluctant to quit their bloody work. All the men then about the station were either dead or mortally wounded. Their families were in the various buildings which they had been occupying. The sick and the orphan children, who had been Mrs. Whitman's special care, were huddled together in the hospital room, and the wounded Kimball was with them. As night came on their terrors increased. During the day they had been too much excited by the shooting, by the comings and goings of the Indians and the savage half-breed who had been their willing messenger, by the murders which had been committed before their eyes, by caring for the wounded, and by the momentary expectation of their own slaughter, to take note of the passing of time. But now that the terrifying noises 318 THE RISE AND PROGRESS were no longer heard, and the darkness began to gather about them, the horror of their situation more completely enveloped and appalled them. The Indians did not early leave the place and return to their own homes. They seemed to be doubting and delib erating what to do next. Their coward hearts forbade them to do what they most wished to do. The alarmed watchers could hear them coming and going and consulting together. Finally they began to break down the doors and windows, destroy the furniture, and pile the splintered re mains of it together upon the floors. Occasionally the watchers heard talk of fire, and from the noise made in the preparations, they knew that they were arranging to burn the building. "We now thought," says Mrs. Pringle, "that we were to be burned alive in the ruins of our home, but strange to say I experienced a feeling of relief at the thought. Anything rather than meet again those fierce savages with their knives." But they listened in vain for the kindling flames. Finally they heard one of the Indians addressing the others. The speech continued for some time and then all was still. They had evidently left the premises. Three of the children were very sick. Their clothing was wet with blood, from lying on the bed with Mrs. Whitman after she was wounded. They had no fire or light. "I tried to put the children to sleep," says Mrs. Pringle, "reasoning with myself that if we could lose consciousness in slumber, the roof of the burn ing house would fall upon us and we would not know it." "The sick children were suffering for water, and begged for it continually. A cupful had been brought in, the night previous, for one of the sick, and search was made for it, but in the darkness it was overturned. The disappointment OF AN AMERICAN STATE 319 only seemed to increase their thirst. The pitcher which Mrs. Whitman had brought for Kimball still stood on the floor beside him, but he said the water was bloody and not fit to drink. As the hours dragged slowly along, the children, one after another, forgot their thirst and their terrors, and fell asleep. Finally only Kimball and I re mained awake. I sat upon the side of the bed," she says, "watching hour after hour while the horrors ofthe day passed and repassed before my mind. I had always been much afraid of the dark, but now I felt that it was a protection to us, and I dreaded the coming of the daylight. Again I would think, with a shudder, of the dead who were lying in the room below. I remember yet how terrible the striking of the clock sounded." The wounded schoolteacher, Rogers, still lay on the ground outside and the terrified watchers could occasionally hear him praying: "Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly." He often repeated this until his voice failed, and they knew he was dead. While it was still dark some of the sick children awoke and renewed their piteous appeals for water. As all was now quiet below, Kimball told Catherine Sager that if she would tear up one of the sheets and help him to bandage his wounded arm he would try and get them some. She hesitated at first, saying that "mother would not like to have the sheets torn." But he replied, "Poor child, do you not know that your mother is dead, and will never have any more use for the sheets ? " With some difficulty his arm was bound up, and a blanket was tied over his shoulders, as he was afraid that he might faint when he got outside and suffer from the cold while unconscious. Being thus prepared he took the pitcher and went downstairs. They waited long 320 THE RISE AND PROGRESS for him but he did not return. They never saw him again alive. When morning dawned the Indians began to return. They searched through the buildings for Hall and Osborne, who had escaped, and not being able to find them they went to the kitchen and prepared themselves breakfast, from the food they found there. After a time they sent Joe Lewis with several Indians to induce the women and children above stairs to come down, pretending that they were going to take them to the fort, as soon as a team could be got ready. They asked what made the children cry, and when told that they were hungry and wanted water, one of them went for water and one for food. But the supply they brought was so small that the children were not satisfied and begged for more, but the Indians seemed to think they had done enough for them and refused to exert themselves further. Finally the party were made ready and taken downstairs. The bodies of the dead lay all about them. That of John Sager, who had been one of the first killed, still lay on the kitchen floor where he had fallen, and that of his brother Francis, and Mr. Rogers just outside. Dr. Whitman's was in the sitting room. The Indians had spread blankets or quilts taken from the beds over most of these. One of the little children lifted the quilt from Dr. Whitman's face and said, "Oh, girls, come and see father!" Some of them did so and saw a sight which they never afterwards forgot. The face had been brutally mutilated with a tomahawk. Father Brouillet says there were three deep wounds in it. No attempt was made during that day by the Indians to move or bury any of these bodies. The women and children were compelled to pass by, and sometimes over them, as they were removed to one of the smaller mission houses, OF AN AMERICAN STATE 321 which was to be their prison for some days to come. No preparation was made to take them to the fort. There was no intention of taking them there. On the morning of the second day after the massacre Father Brouillet appeared. He had left Umatilla on the morning following Dr. Whitman's departure, on a mission to the various Indian tribes. At Fort Walla Walla he learned of the massacre and hastened to Waiilatpu. Before reach ing the mission he was asked to visit some children who were sick, and did so, baptizing three of them. For this he was very severely censured, in after years, by Mr. Spalding, who charged that "he had baptized the children ofthe murderers whose hands were still wet with blood of their victims," before he had made any effort to ascertain whether he could be of service, either to the living or dead, at the scene of the massacre. It has been claimed in his defense that it was his duty, as a priest, to minister to the dying before attending to the dead. On arriving at the scene of the massacre he found that Joe Stansfield was already preparing a grave. Many Indians were gathered about, some of whom still had arms in their hands, and regarded him with no evidence of favor. None of them offered help to bury their victims, or prepare them for burial. Nor did he attempt to encourage them to render any. He was content if they would leave him alive until the work could be completed. Stansfield, assisted by the priest, finished the grave during the afternoon. It was about three feet deep, and wide enough to contain the eleven bodies, Mr. Pringle says. Then the priest, with this one assistant, collected the bodies and placed them side by side, unshrouded and coffinless, in the grave they had prepared, and covered them over. During 322 THE RISE AND PROGRESS the whole time they were at work Father Brouillet says he watched the Indians with anxious eyes, not knowing what minute he might be struck down, and laid beside those for whom he was now piously performing the last services which one human being can render to his kind. They did not molest him, however, nor did they help him until his work was completed and he rode away. Some months later the soldiers found that wolves had dug up some of these bodies and devoured them. They gathered up the bleaching bones again and replaced them in the earth, and sixty years later the place was suitably and appropriately marked with a monument. So Marcus Whitman and his heroic wife died and were buried. After sacrificing home and friends, to live among savages; after leading the way across a continent, and brav ing the terrors of a wilderness which women, and men with women had never before invaded; after spending eleven years in an almost hopeless effort to reclaim the savage, to teach him to live better and be better than he was, offering him peace and good will, and health and abundance in place of war, savagery, sickness and starvation; and often receiv ing little in return except insolence and abuse, which they bore patiently, following the example of Him who when he was reviled, reviled not again, they were murderously struck down on their own threshold and under the roof which their own hands had raised, by the inhuman wretches for whom they had done most and suffered most. Behold a sower went forth to sow, hoping in time for the harvest. And some of the seed fell in stony places, where they had not much earth; and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth; and when the sun was up they were scorched; and because they had no root OF AN AMERICAN STATE 323 they withered away. So these missionaries sowed, hoping for a harvest that was not to be in their time. The seed they sowed fell in stony places indeed, and though giving some promise for a time it turned to ashes in their sight. Had they sown dragon's teeth the result could not have been more disappointing. But their sowing was not altogether fruit less. Something of the good work they did remained. The processes of civilization are slow, and they are not to be changed either by the most painstaking efforts or the blunders of men. Some part of every good work done will always remain. Neither the storms of time nor the fury and savagery of ignorance and superstition can completely prevail against it. Something from every sowing falls into good ground and, in the fullness of time, brings forth fruit, some thirty, some sixty, and some an hundred fold. Chapter XXIX. THE RESCUE. AS SOON as the first frenzied messenger reached Fort Walla Walla with news of the massacre, McBean, the trader in charge, began to make preparations to send news of it to Fort Vancou ver. He had only five men with him at the time, and one of these, his interpreter, he immediately sent to Waiilatpu to do what could be done to put an end to the bloody work going on there. Before the evening of the 30th he had dis patched a boat down the river with a letter to Chief Factor Douglas, in which the story ofthe massacre was briefly told. Fortunately that experienced traveler and trader, Peter Skeen Ogden, was at Vancouver when the startling news arrived. He, better than all the other agents of the Hudson's Bay Company, knew the various tribes on the upper Columbia, and he knew how to reach them most quickly. He knew also what would most need to be done to secure the release of such of the residents at the mission as yet remained alive. They could be bought, if their release could be secured at all, and a supply of such goods as was most likely to prove effective for their purchase was immediately made ready, and by the 7th of December his swiftest boat, manned by sixteen paddlers, was ready to set out on its journey up the river. Dr. McLoughlin was no longer in charge at Fort Vancou ver. He had resigned a little more than two years earlier, and retired to his claim in Oregon City. Chief Factor Doug las was now at the head of all the Hudson's Bay interests on the Pacific Coast. Before Ogden departed Douglas and he had sent a letter to the provisional government at Oregon City, and to the main office of the American Board of Com missioners for Foreign Missions in Boston, in which after stating what had happened at Waiilatpu they said : 328 THE RISE AND PROGRESS "The Cayuses are the most treacherous and intractable of all the Indian tribes in this country, and had on many former occasions alarmed the inmates of the mission by their tumultuous proceedings, and ferocious threats; but unfor tunately these evidences of a brutal disposition were dis regarded by their admirable pastor, and served to arm him with a firmer resolution to do them good. He hoped that time and instruction would produce a change of mind, a better state of feeling towards the mission; and he might have lived to see his hopes realized had not the measles and dysentery, following in the train of the immigrants from the United States, made frightful ravages this year in the upper country, many Indians having been carried off through the violence of the disease, and others through their own impru dence. The Cayuse Indians of Waiilatpu, being sufferers in this general calamity, were incensed against Dr. Whitman for not exerting his supposed supernatural powers in saving their lives. They carried this absurdity beyond the point of folly. Their superstitious minds became possessed with the horrible suspicion that he was giving poison to the sick instead of wholesome medicine, with the view of working the destruction of the tribe, their former cruelty probably adding strength to this suspicion. Still some of the more reflecting had confidence in Dr. Whitman's integrity, and it was agreed to test the effects of the medicine he had furnished, on three of their people, one of whom was said to be in perfect health. They all un fortunately died. From that moment, it was resolved to destroy the mission. It was immediately after bury ing the remains of these three persons that they repaired to the mission and murdered every man found there." OF AN AMERICAN STATE 329 Ogden's trip up the river required twelve days, and eight had elapsed after the massacre before he received news of it and was prepared to start. During all this time the sav ages held the women and children prisoners at Waiilatpu. They had apparently planned to dispose of them as they would have disposed of the widows and orphans of their savage enemies if in their power. Some of them had long wished for white wives. They had often proposed to buy the daughters of the emigrants, and could never under stand why they refused to sell them. They had sometimes offered troops of horses for a single girl, but never had one of these offers been accepted.* The white men whom they had longest known, those connected with the Hudson's Bay Company, had bought their women for wives. If the white men would buy as the Indian did, why would they not sell as the Indian did ? Perhaps it was because of their pride. If so a time had come when this pride no longer stood in their way. But most of them were restrained from carrying their purpose, with regard to these helpless widows and orphans, into immediate execution by a wholesome fear of what other white men might do. They had no sooner finished their murderous work than they seem to have begun to be alarmed by what the settlers west of the mountains might possibly do to avenge it. They were in doubt also as to what the Hudson's Bay Company might do. Dr. McLoughlin had * They continued to make these offers long after the Whitman mas sacre. In 1853 an Indian in eastern Oregon very much admired a young sister of George H. Himes, the present secretary of the Oregon Historical Society, and was so persistent as to cause her mother much alarm. One morning he brought to the train a drove of four or five hundred horses, all of which he was willing to give for her. He was driven away with difficulty. 330 THE RISE AND PROGRESS more than once made them understand that he regarded all white men and women as equally under his protection. McBean had sent them word that they had already gone too far and must go no farther. They knew perfectly well that if the settlers and the Hudson's Bay people united they could destroy them. They had better arms and more abun dant supplies, and knew better how to make war. Even if the Hudson's Bay Company should remain neutral, and should supply the settlers with arms and ammunition, and withhold these from themselves, the contest would be unequal and their own punishment would be severe. These con siderations, or something similar, seem to have restrained the more conservative and reasonable among them, though they were not able to control all of their tribesmen, and during the thirty days they were held in captivity, the women and children were kept in a constant state of suspense and alarm. They were herded together in a large square adobe building, containing five rooms, one being a bedroom, and the others large living rooms. The Indians supplied them with plenty of food but tortured them with their company. "We had to prepare food for them," says Mrs. Pringle, "of which they would make us eat first for fear that we had put poison in it. The women seldom came around. When night came and the beds were made down the Indians would take possession of them, and we would frequently have to sit up until midnight before they would leave. " On the 5th of December one of the young Sager girls died, and three days afterwards Helen Meek also died. On the day following the burial of the victims by Father Brouillet, one of the men who had been employed at the saw mill, which was twenty miles away, came to the mission for some provisions and was killed. A few days later the two young OF AN AMERICAN STATE 331 men who were sick and unable to leave their rooms on the day of the massacre, were brought to the building where the other prisoners were kept. One of these had spent the night after the massacre alone in his room, supposing that he was the only person at the mission who had escaped alive. One evening these two sick men were attacked by the savages, as they lay in their beds, and butchered in the presence of the other prisoners, all of whom supposed that they were to be killed also. Late that evening there was a knock at the door and a voice in English called for Mary Smith. The caller proved to be her father, who, with his family and another family named Young, had been employed in the saw mill, and had now been brought down to the mission to be murdered, but word having come from Fort Walla Walla that no more murders were to be committed, their lives were spared, and the men were kept at work in the grist mill until their rescuers arrived. One evening a young Indian came to the house and looked carefully among the captives until he found Miss Bewley, who was still quite sick and kept to her bed most ofthe time. He tried to prevail upon her to be his wife, but she told him that he had a wife and she would not have him. Finding that neither persuasion nor threats availed, he seized her, dragged her out of the house and tried to place her upon his horse. She resisted, pleaded with him, and threatened to tell the chief of his conduct, and at last began to scream. He pressed his hand over her mouth and a struggle followed, and he finally threw her with violence upon the ground. After this he left, and a few days later Five Crows, a chief of the Umatillas, came for her and carried her away to his lodge where he kept her as his wife until she was rescued. The evening after she left the other Indian who had so 332 THE RISE AND PROGRESS violently abused her, came with a wagon and ropes and another man to assist him in carrying her away, and was very angry when he did not find her. "This Indian," Mr. Spalding says, "was Hezekiah, son of the principal Cayuse chief, and one often mentioned in my letters as one of our most diligent scholars — three winters in our school at Clear Water (Lapwai) and a member of our church." Previous to this the Indians had held a council to decide what to do with their prisoners. Many speeches were made. One could see no use in bothering further with them; the quickest way to get rid of them was to kill them. It was finally decided that they should be kept until spring, if neces sary, and then sent to the Willamette. The prisoners were frequently informed that they would be killed if their country men should begin war, or attempt their rescue. A few even ings later another council was held, at which all the women and children were required to be present. The object of it was to try to persuade all the older girls to take young chiefs for their husbands, so as to protect themselves and the others from violence. During the whole time that they were in captivity those who were able to sew were compelled to do so for the Indians. All the new goods at the station were brought to them to be made into shirts and garments of various kinds. Sometimes they sought to make them work on the Sabbath, as if it were a special delight to compel them to do what they knew they had been taught not to do. Knowing the brutal nature of the savages the women and older girls lived in constant terror of them. They watched with anxious fear for their coming in the morning, and only felt safe after they had departed at night. "It was my OF AN AMERICAN STATE 333 custom," says Mrs. Pringle, "to take my little sister, who was three years old and had been ill a long time, in my arms, and sit down behind the stove and await their coming, resolved to die with her if they should murder us. Oh, what anxious days those were : how slowly the hours seemed to drag along! And yet in all our anxiety and sorrow, the children would sometimes sit together and sing hymns, and sometimes the Indians would sing with them." But while some of the Indians were thus torturing their captives, others were anxiously making plans for conciliating the settlers in the Willamette. Mr. Spalding was appealed to. He had narrowly escaped the massacre, and his daughter was among the captives. He was returning to Waiilatpu on Wednesday afternoon from Umatilla, whither he had gone on the Saturday previous with Whitman, when he met Father Brouillet, who had just finished burying the victims of the massacre. The place of meeting was only about three miles from Waiilatpu. The priest had with him his interpreter and a young Indian had followed them from the camp of the Cayuses, as he suspected, for the purpose of murdering the missionary if he should meet them. Happily he had dis charged his pistol just before they met, and having no other weapon, he turned his horse about and started back toward the camp. As soon as he was safely out of hearing the father informed Mr. Spalding of what had occurred and warned him of his own danger. He also was able to tell him that his daughter was alive, and that the Indians had assured him that the women and children should not be killed. Then giving him some food that he was carrying for his own use, he urged him to leave the beaten trail, make a wide detour, and hasten to his own mission as rapidly as possible. This he did, but his horse escaped from him at night, when still 334 THE RISE AND PROGRESS ninety miles from his station, and he was obliged to com plete the journey on foot, arriving on Monday evening, one week after the massacre. He found that Canfield, the wounded man who had left Whitman's just after the massacre began, had arrived on Saturday evening, two days earlier. On his arrival Mrs. Spalding had dispatched two friendly Nez Perces to rescue her daughter if possible, and also to learn whether her husband had escaped. So far the Indians at Lapwai had made no attempt at violence, but when news of what had happened at Waiilatpu began to get about among them some became threatening. For a time it seemed that the station would be plundered and all its inmates murdered, or left to perish on the plains, but the majority of the tribe rallied to their protection, and promised to defend them from the Indians if they in turn would protect them from the settlers when they should come. Mr. Spalding and his wife were thus placed in a most try ing position. With his daughter a captive among Indians of a neighboring tribe, who had murdered her protectors, and himself and wife and all their coworkers at the mercy of other excited Indians, some of whom were already inclined to violence, it is hardly surprising that he should have consented, as he did, to send a written appeal to Governor Abernethy for peace. The Indians also consulted with Bishop Blanchet at Uma tilla, and at their solicitation he prepared the following letter to Governor Abernethy, which four of the principal chiefs signed : "The principal chiefs ofthe Cayuses, in council assembled, state : 'That a young Indian (Joe Lewis), who understands English, and who slept in Dr. Whitman's room, heard the Doctor, his wife and Mr. Spalding express their desire of PETER SKEEN OGDEN. This famous factor of the Hudson's Bay Company came to the coast in the service of the Northwest Company. He built Fort Walla Walla in 1818, and twenty-nine years later held a council with the Indians there, at which he ransomed the women and children who had been at Waiilatpu when Dr, Whitman and others were massacred. He died at Oregon City in 1854. During his long connection with _ Hudson's Bay Company he explored most of the country west of the mountains and discovered many of its prominent lakes and mountain peaks, including Moi&t Shasta. He was. one of the chief factors left in ffHtfge of the company's interest on the coast on McLoughlin's retirement. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 335 possessing the land and animals of the Indians; that he stated also that Mr. Spalding said to the Doctor: 'Hurry giving medicines to the Indians that they may soon die'; that the same Indians told the Cayuses : ' If you do not kill the Doc tor soon, you will all be dead before spring'; that they buried six Cayuses on Sunday, November 24th, and three the next day; that the schoolmaster, Mr. Rogers, stated to them, before he died, that the Doctor, his wife and Mr. Spalding poisoned the Indians; that, for several years past, they had to deplore the death of their children, and that, according to these reports, they were led to believe that the whites had undertaken to kill them all, and that these were the motives which led them to kill the Americans. The same chiefs ask at present: "1st. That the Americans may not go to war with the Cayuses. "2d. That they (the Americans) may forget the lately committed murders, as the Cayuses forget the murder of the son of the great chief of the Walla Wallas, committed in California.* "3d. That two or three great men may come up and conclude peace; "4th. That as soon as these great men have arrived and concluded peace, they may take with them all the women and children; "5th. That they give assurance that they will not harm the captives before the arrival of these two or three great men; "6th. That they ask that Americans may not travel any more through their country, as their young men might do them harm." * This refers to the killing of Elijah Hedding. 336 THE RISE AND PROGRESS With this manifesto the bishop also sent a letter in which he says : "After an interview with the chiefs separately, I succeeded in assembling them in council, which was held yesterday, and lasted four hours and a half. Each of the chiefs delivered a speech before giving his opinion. The docu ment which accompanies the present will show you the result. It is sufficient to state that all these speeches went to show that hostilities had been instituted by the whites; that they abhor war; and that the tragedy of the 29th of November had occurred from an anxious desire of self preservation; and that it was the reports made against the Doctor and others which led them to commit this act. They desire to have the past forgotten, and to live in peace as before. Your Excellency has to judge of the document which I have been requested.to forward to you. Neverthe less, without having the least intention to influence one way or the other, I feel myself obliged to tell you, that by going to war with the Cayuses you will undoubtedly have all the Indians of the country against you. Would it be to the interest of the young colony to expose herself? But that you will decide with your council. " Being in this state of mind the chiefs were only too willing to meet Ogden in council when he arrived. He reached Fort Walla Walla on December 19th, and immediately dis patched couriers to all the chiefs and head men of the Cayuse nation, and to all the neighboring tribes, and on the twenty- third a general council was held, which continued until late at night. The Indians meantime, having had time for reflec tion, had become more and more alarmed about the conse quences that were likely to follow their bloody work. They doubtless realized that he could make no agreement with OF AN AMERICAN STATE 337 them that would bind the Americans, but they knew also that by delivering up their captives on reasonable terms, they would do something to prepare the way for negotiation with those whom they far more seriously dreaded. Ogden opened the council with this address. "I regret to observe that all the chiefs whom I asked for are not present. Two being absent, I expect the words I am about to address to you to be repeated to them, and your young men on your return to your camp. It is now thirty years since we have been among you. During this long period, we have never had any instance of blood being spilt, until that inhuman massacre, which has so recently taken place. We are traders, and a different nation from the Americans. But recollect, we supply you with ammunition not to kill the Americans. They are the same color as our selves, speak the same language, are children of the same God; and humanity makes our hearts bleed when we behold you using them so cruelly. Besides this revolting butchery, have not the Indians pillaged, ill-treated the Americans, and insulted their women when peaceably making their way to the Willamette ? As chiefs, ought you to have con nived at such conduct on the part of your young men ? You tell me the young men committed the deed without your knowledge. Why do we make you chiefs if you have no control over your young men ? You are a set of hermaphrodites, and unworthy of the appellation of men as chiefs. You young, hot-headed men, I know that you pride yourselves upon your bravery, and think no one can match you. Do not deceive yourselves. If you get the Americans to commence once, you will repent it; and war will not end until every one of you is cut off from the face of the earth. I am aware that a good many 338 THE RISE AND PROGRESS of your friends and relatives have died through sickness. The Indians of other places have shared the same fate. It is not Dr. Whitman who poisoned them; but God has commanded that they should die. We are weak mortals, and must submit; and I trust you will avail yourselves of the opportunity. By so doing, it may be advantageous to you; but at the same time remember that you alone will be responsible for the consequences. It is merely advice that I give you. We have nothing to do with it. I have not come here to make promises, or hold out assistance. We have nothing to do with your quarrels; we remain neutral. On my return, if you wish, I shall do all I can for you; but I do not promise you to prevent war. " If you deliver me up all the prisoners, I shall pay you for them on their being delivered; but let it not be said among you afterwards that I deceived you. I and Mr. Douglas represent the company (H. B. Co.) but I tell you once more we promise you nothing. We sympathize with these poor people, and wish to return them to their friends and relatives by paying you for them. My request in behalf of the families concerns you, so decide for the best." To this the chiefs severally replied, and the terms on which the prisoners were to be surrendered was agreed upon. It was also arranged that Mr. and Mrs. Spalding, and the other Americans at Lapwai, should be delivered up, and on the evening of December 29th the captives from Waiilatpu were brought to the fort, and the property agreed upon was delivered to the Indians on the following day. On the next day the party from Lapwai arrived, and on the first day of January 1848 Ogden and the captives, fifty-two in number, left for Fort Vancouver. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 339 The following is the list of the captives ransomed: Missionary children adopted by Dr. Whitman, viz. Mary T. Bridger; Catherine Sager, aged 13; Elizabeth Sager, aged 10, Matilda J. Sager, 8; Henrietta N. Sager, 4; Emigrants, Joseph Smith; Mrs. Hanna Smith; Mary Smith, aged 15 years; Edwin Smith, 13; Charles Smith, 11; Nelson Smith, 6; Mortimer Smith, 4. Mrs. Eliza Hall; Jane Hall, aged 10 years; Mary Hall, 8; Ann E. Hall, 6; Rebecca Hall, 3; Rachael M. Hall, 1; Elam Young; Mrs. Irene Young; Daniel Young, aged 21 years; John Young, 19; Mrs. Harriet Kimball; Susan Kimball, aged 16 years; Nathan Kimball, 13; Byron M. Kimball, 8; Sarah S. Kimball, 6; Mince A. Kimball, 1; Mrs. Mary Sanders; Helen M. Sanders, aged 14; Phoebe L. Sanders, 10; Alfred W. Sanders, 6; Nancy I. Sanders, 4; Mary A. Sanders, 2; Mrs. Sally A. Canfield; Ellen Canfield, 16; Oscar Canfield, 9; Clarissa Canfield, 7; Sylvia A. Canfield, 5; Alvery Canfield, 3; Mrs. Rebecca Hays; Henry C. Hays, aged 4; also Eliza Spalding, Nancy E. Marsh, and Lorinda Bewley. For the release of these people the Hudson's Bay Company gave sixty-two blankets, sixty-three cotton shirts, twelve company guns, six hundred rounds of ammunition, thirty- seven pounds of tobacco, and twelve flints. Mr. Ogden also received from Telau-ka-ikt, of property belonging to the mission, for the use of the captives, seven oxen, large and small, and sixteen bags of coarse flour. In due course the rescued people were delivered to their American friends at the Willamette, and in acknowledgment of the services rendered by Chief Factor Ogden, and the Hudson's Bay Company, in arranging their rescue, Governor Abernethy sent the following letter to the chief factors, Douglas and Ogden : 340 THE RISE AND PROGRESS "Their (the captives') condition was a deplorable one, subject to the caprice of the savages, exposed to their insults, compelled to labor for them, and remaining constantly in dread lest they should be butchered, as their husbands and fathers had been. From this state, I am fully satisfied, we could not have relieved them. A small party of Americans would have been looked upon with contempt; the approach of a large party would have been the signal for a general massacre. Your immediate departure from Vancouver, on receipt of the intelligence from Waiilatpu, enabling you to arrive at Walla Walla before the news reached them of the American party having started from this place (Oregon City), together with your influence over the Indians, accom plished the desirable object of relieving the distressed." Notwithstanding this frank and well deserved acknowl edgment of the services rendered, there were some among the settlers who, in after years, professed to believe that the Hudson's Bay Company, through its officers and servants, had instigated the massacre. They reported also that Mc Bean had refused the fugitives an asylum at Fort Walla Walla, but none of the fugitives themselves supported the charge. On the contrary they had the amplest reasons to defend the Company. More than twenty years later when the evidence was taken to determine the amount of compen sation to be paid the Company by the government, for the property and improvements it had made in Washington and Oregon, only one of the many witnesses examined, ventured to reassert this charge, but his statements were so obviously absurd, that the counsel for the government, Hon. Caleb Cushing, ex-attorney general, made no effort to substantiate them, although it would manifestly have been desirable to do so, if it had been possible. But the whole OF AN AMERICAN STATE . 341 course and policy of the Company toward the missionaries and the settlers from the beginning, as well as the prompt action taken to rescue the prisoners after the massacre, demonstrated to the satisfaction of all reasonable people, that the charge was not only groundless but absurd. It was also charged that the Catholic priests had insid iously encouraged the massacre, and this led to a long and bitter controversy which lasted for many years. It was greatly aggravated and intensified by the publication, as part of a government document, of a long statement by Father Brouillet and others, in connection with the report of J. Ross Browne, an inspector from the Indian office, on the causes of the Indian war of 1855. It does not appear that it was prepared in the expectation that it would be so published. It was forwarded by Browne simply for the information of his superiors. But its publication by govern ment authority, and apparently with government approval, immediately gave the controversy a national interest. A long reply was prepared by Spalding, Gray and others and it also was published as a government document. Neither ever should have been so published, nor would it be possible now to have them or anything like them published in that manner. It is not probable that anybody at the present day believes, or can believe, that any Christian missionary of whatever faith would deliberately counsel the destruction of another, or even indirectly do him personal injury. It is doubtless true, as Judge Evans has said, that "the introduction of a religion in conflict with one previously taught, the presence of two sets of religious teachers, denouncing the teachings of each other, two white races with adverse interests, striv ing for the mastery of the country, and control of that race, must of necessity have aroused prejudices liable to be 342 Rise and Progress of an American State dangerous in their consequences." The savage mind does not readily discriminate. If either of these missionaries told the Indians that what the other was offering him was false, he would at once conclude that one or the other was lying to him, and to them liars are less tolerable than thieves or murderers. The Canadian employees of the Hudson's Bay Company, many of whom had married Indian women, were all Catholics. By their example, if in no other way, they would encourage the Indians among whom they lived on terms of intimacy, to prefer the Catholics, and so weaken the influ ence of the Protestants, who had been much longer among them. So it is quite possible, and perhaps quite natural, to believe that the coming of the priests lessened the confidence and respect of the Indians for their protestant teachers. Rev. Elkanah Walker, who seems to have judged more dispassionately in all things than any of his associates, has thus expressed his conviction in the matter, in a letter to Secretary Green dated Oregon City, July 8, 1848, seven months after the massacre: "Much might be said which led to this horrid massacre. Some doubtless attach too much blame to the Catholics. I am yet to be convinced that they had any direct agency in it. Their being in that region no doubt might lead the natives to think there would be less danger in killing the whites than they would other wise have felt. But that they put the natives up to do the deed I do not believe. I have no doubt the great number of whites about the station had an influence to lead the Indians to view the movements of Dr. Whitman with suspicion, and more readily believe the reports of Joe Lewis, who was telling the Indians that the Doctor's intentions were to kill them all off, and take their lands and herds. "* * W. I. Marshall's MSS. Chapter XXX. RETRIBUTION. NEITHER the settlers nor the provisional govern ment were prepared for the startling news that Douglas and Ogden sent to Oregon City on December 7, 1847. They had long realized that they might be called upon, at almost any time, to defend themselves against their savage neighbors. They had fre quently petitioned the national government to take notice of their defenseless condition, and provide means for their protection. They were still few while the Indians were many. Though living far beyond the frontier they had provided their isolated homes with some of the comforts of civiliza tion, while the Indians still lived in all the squalor of savagery and ignorant incompetence. They were always complaining because the settlers had taken possession of their lands without paying for them, and were getting so much more out of them than they had ever got. It was always possible that they might rise in the brute strength of their numbers, and make bloody reprisal on what they still believed to be their own. When Cockstock and his drunken associates had murdered Le Breton, three years earlier, many sup posed that such a rising was at hand, and some slight prep aration had been made to meet and repress it, but the excitement soon subsided. Their Indian neighbors became as peaceable as before, and their own condition as defense less. But now a war was inevitable. A bloody massacre had been committed, and it was absolutely essential that the guilty perpetrators of the deed should be punished. Unless this was done the emigrant trains in future would be safe nowhere west of the mountains, and worse still the tribes would most likely take courage, unite and attack the settle ments. It was therefore necessary to act, and to act at once. 346 THE RISE AND PROGRESS Alanson Himman, who was in charge of the missionary station at the Dalles, was alarmed for its safety. His letter asking for protection reached Oregon City at the same time as that of Douglas and Ogden. Both were laid before the provisional legislature by Governor Abernethy, in a brief message. "The distressing circumstance which they de scribe call for immediate action," he said. "I am aware that, to meet the case, funds will be required, and suggest the propriety of applying to the honorable Hudson's Bay Company, and the merchants of this place for a loan, to carry out whatever plan you fix upon. I have no doubt but the expense of this affair will be promptly met by the United States government." The boundary question had been settled nearly a year and a half earlier. There was no doubt that the territory now belonged to the United States, but no government had yet been provided for it. A mounted rifle regiment had been raised two years earlier, to police the trail and furnish pro tection for the settlers, but the Mexican war had begun before it was ready to march, and it had been sent to the support of General Taylor. The settlers were therefore left to their own resources. When the governor's message had been read, J. W. Nesmith offered a resolution, which was unanimously passed, " authorizing the governor to raise a company of riflemen, not to exceed fifty men, rank and file, and to dispatch them forthwith to occupy the mission station at the Dalles, and retain said station until they can be reinforced, or other measures taken by the government. " A public meeting was held that same evening, which was addressed by Nesmith, S. K. Barlow and H. A. G. Lee, and forty-five volunteers were enrolled on the spot. The OF AN AMERICAN STATE 347 volunteers assembled next day at Barlow's house, elected Lee captain, and immediately started for the Dalles. Their depar ture was cheered by their mothers, wives and sweethearts, who presented them with a flag, which they had made with their own hands while the company was assembling. It was the first flag made on the coast. The legislature next authorized the governor to call for a regiment of mounted riflemen, not to exceed five hundred in number, to serve for ten months unless sooner discharged, and to be subject to the rules and articles of war. The officers of this regiment were to be appointed by the provisional government, and the rendezvous was appointed at Oregon City on December 23d. The news of the massacre spread rapidly. A newspaper, the "Oregon Spectator," had been established at Oregon City more than a year earlier. Its first number had been issued February 5, 1846, with William G. T'Vault as its editor. It published such details of the massacre as were at hand, together with reports of the action of the legislature, and of the meeting at which the first volunteer company had been enlisted. The settlers were quickly aroused and as quickly responded. Every young and every middle-aged man offered his services and brought his rifle with him if he had one. The old men only remained at home. All distinction between settlers who had once been foreigners and those who were American born immediately disappeared. Tom McKay raised a company among the old Canadian trappers on French Prairie, was elected its captain, and was among the first to report for duty. By the day appointed for the rendezvous, enough men had enlisted to justify the organiza tion of the regiment, and the legislature named Cornelius Gilliam as Colonel, James Waters, Lieutenant Colonel, 348 THE RISE AND PROGRESS Henry A. G. Lee, Major, Joel Palmer, Commissary and Quartermaster General, and A. Lawrence Lovejoy, Ad jutant. And now the supreme difficulty began to appear. The provisional government was without funds, and without any means to raise funds in such amount and as promptly as needed. The volunteers must be armed, provided with ammunition, and furnished transportation for a consider able part of the way, if they were to be hurried forward as promptly as was desirable. Then they must be supplied as they advanced into the enemy's country, and this was certain to be expensive. There was only one way to get what was needed promptly, and that was to get it from the Hudson's Bay Company. Jesse Applegate, A. L. Lovejoy and George L. Curry had already been appointed a loan commission, with authority to negotiate for $100,000 upon the credit ofthe government, but upon applying at the fort they had been informed by Chief Factor Douglas that he could not grant loans, or make any advances on account of the Hudson's Bay Company, his orders on that point being so positive that he " could not deviate from them without assuming a degree of responsi bility that no circumstances would justify." It was there fore impossible to raise the means needed by loan, and there was no other source within reach, from which such a sum could be procured. It was possible of course to make forcible levy upon the company, and this some advised, though the majority did not approve it at that time. The chief factor had already shown his good will, by sending an expedition at the sole cost of the company, to rescue the women and children at Waiilatpu. That had been done at the call of humanity, but he could not further dispose ofthe company's OF AN AMERICAN STATE 349 property, in disregard of positive instructions. He, however, furnished what was necessary to equip the first company, accepting the note of Governor Abernethy, A. L. Lovejoy and Jesse Applegate for $1,000 in payment. An appeal was made to the merchants of Oregon City, and it resulted in loans amounting to $3,600. But this was so small an amount in comparison with what was needed that the loan commissioners resigned. Others were ap pointed. These were forced to take orders on stores, and as cash was most needed, they were converted at a consider able sacrifice. The settlers gave what they could, the volun teers furnished something from their personal resources, and then set off for the hostile country poorly equipped, and not altogether confident that they could be regularly supplied as they would need to be. In addition to raising and sending these volunteers to the front, the provisional government also dispatched a mes senger, the redoubtable Joe Meek, to Washington, to notify the government of the massacre, and of the war it was about to make, and also to make an urgent appeal for aid. Jesse Applegate was sent to procure aid from the governor of Cali fornia. With an escort of fifteen men he started to make the trip by land, through a country inhabited by Indians who had always been more or less hostile, but was compelled to turn back by the deep snow encountered in the Siskiou Mountains, and the dispatch of which he was the bearer was forwarded by sea. In choosing Cornelius Gilliam to command the volunteers, the provisional legislature had chosen wisely. He was a native of North Carolina, though nearly all of his fifty years of life had been spent in Missouri. He had served in the Black Hawk war, in Illinois, and later had commanded a 350 THE RISE AND PROGRESS company in the Seminole war in Florida. Still later he had raised a company to help expel the Mormons from the Middle West, and had returned from that campaign a colonel. In 1844 ne had commanded the emigrant train with which the Simmons party, the first settlers in Washington, and James Marshall, the discoverer of gold in California, had come to Oregon. He had been ordained as a minister in the Free Will Baptist Church, but had not preached regularly. -He believed in the sword of the Lord and of Gideon, and in Stonewall Jackson's policy of finding the enemy, and fighting him as frequently as possible, giving him no chance to rest and recuperate. Before setting out on the campaign he was reported to have expressed some dissatisfaction with the refusal of Chief Factor Douglas to make the loan which the provisional government had requested, and to have threatened to supply his command by the law of war, from the Hudson's Bay Com pany stations if need be, and thus gave the chief factor some anxiety. He had guns mounted at the fort and made preparations for defense, but was assured by Governor Abernethy that he should not be attacked, and confidences and mutual good feeling were restored again. On the ninth of January Colonel Gilliam was ready to set out from Portland, then a new settlement on the west side of the Willamette below the falls. On that day Chief Factor Ogden arrived with the captives rescued from Waiilatpu. They were given a most cordial reception, and the story of the massacre, and of their own experience while in the hands of the savages, served to inspire the volunteers with fresh determination to avenge their wrongs. All fear that they would be slaughtered without mercy, should the Indians learn that the settlers were preparing to attack them, OF AN AMERICAN STATE 351 was now removed, but the danger that the Cayuses might induce the other tribes to unite with them on the plea of com mon defense still remained, and Gilliam made all possible haste to reach the Indian country. With the advance guard he reached the Dalles on January 23d. On the way up the river he had established a supply station at the Cascades, which was known as Fort Gilliam. Lee had erected a fort at the Dalles, known as Fort Lee. In this the only cannon owned by the settlers, a nine-pounder, was placed, and it became the general headquarters for the campaign. The Indians in the neighborhood were already showing a hostile disposition, which strengthened the expec tation that the tribes further in the interior would be found united and prepared for defense. The time consumed in raising and arming the troops, had been regarded by them as an indication of indecision, or possibly of cowardice, and this had strengthened their courage, and tempted many of the younger warriors of neighboring tribes to join them. There had already been some skirmishing between Lee's men and the Indians on the south side of the Columbia, who had stolen some goods belonging to settlers, which had been cached near the beginning ofthe Barlow Road, and had been caught herding some of their cattle preparatory to driving them off. Major Lee had attempted to parley with them, but had been fired upon, and a fight had followed in which three Indians had been killed and one white man wounded. The Indians had succeeded in driving off about three hundred head of cattle, and on the following day Lee's men had cap tured sixty Indian horses. Later two of the volunteers were killed while herding the company's horses. The Indians had left two of their horses in the neighborhood, in the expectation that the herders 352 THE RISE AND PROGRESS would attempt to secure them. In this they were not disap pointed, and when the herders advanced to drive them in, they were fired upon and both were killed. One Indian was also killed in this engagement. With a force of about one hundred and thirty men Gilliam now began the advance, and came up with the enemy at a place known as Meek's Cut Off. On the morning of the 30th an attack was made and after a sharp fight the Indians were driven from their position, with the loss of about forty of their horses and some cattle. As the result of this fight the Des Chutes Indians were induced to give up the struggle, and they made terms with the commissioners, saying that they had been forced into the difficulty through fear of the Cayuses. Gilliam now pressed forward as rapidly as he could into the Cayuse country. It was clearly seen that if the war was not carried to the Umatilla the Willamette Valley might be soon invaded; and that in any case to let the murderers escape unpunished would give the Cayuses, and all the en emies of the Americans, license to commit further crimes at will. Gilliam therefore made his preparations quickly, and began a forward movement February 15th. Small parties of Des Chutes Indians followed, offering peace; and signal fires were also seen on distant hills, giving exact information to the tribes on the Umatilla of the force marching against them, and the rate of speed. These signals were translated by Indian interpreters in the army. As the troops advanced conflicting reports were received, some saying that the Nez Perces had joined the Cayuses, others that Peo Peo Mox Mox, the powerful chief of the Walla Wallas, was uniting with them. Many individual Indians, besides the Cayuses, assembled to oppose the OF AN AMERICAN STATE 353 progress of the volunteers. These were gathered to the esti mated number of over four hundred, and besides these there were a hundred, or perhaps more, who followed simply to witness the fight, and await the issue to see which party they would join. On the 25th the Cayuses, with their allies from the north side of the river, felt strong enough to make a stand. The place they chose was the elevated sagebrush plains, west of the Umatilla. Although in midwinter the day was fair and warm. The Indians were deployed on the hills and took shelter behind tufts of sagebrush, and anything else that would conceal them for the moment. Indian observers of the battle, including women and children, were stationed on distant elevations to witness the destruction of the Ameri cans. Gilliam had his little army well in hand, and his wagons with his supplies thoroughly protected. The Indians began the battle by a charge on horseback, but before coming within range of the rifles of the volunteers, they drew off to one side, and forming a long line, rode around them in a gradually narrowing circle, yelling meanwhile and brandish ing their arms in a most threatening and yet entirely harm less manner. The savage seems ever to place great reliance in noise. He shrieks and pounds his tom-tom to frighten the evil spirit out of the sick; he yells and makes all manner of hideous noises to frighten his enemies in war. So in this battle the savage riders shouted their most savage war cries, and urged their horses to their utmost speed, gradually narrowing the circle as if confident that they would in this manner envelop and finally crush their enemies. The volun teers stood their ground firmly, waiting for their assailants to come within range. Tom McKay, Dr. McLoughlin's stepson, was standing by Colonel Gilliam's side watching the 354 THE RISE AND PROGRESS gradually narrowing circle. To him it was no new perform ance. He well knew its purpose and harmless character, if properly met. Finally, pointing to one of the fore most and most frantic of the savage riders, he said: "I know that fellow; he is one of the principal medicine men of the Cayuses, and is doubtless boasting that no bullet can reach or harm him. I can shoot him from where I stand." "Very well, shoot him then," the colonel replied, and raising his rifle the veteran Hudson's Bay man fired, and the Indian rolled from his horse. The volunteers could no longer be restrained and the firing soon became general. The Indians ceased their frantic and harmless demonstra tion and retiring out of range, took shelter on the hills, and behind such objects as could afford them protection. The white men fought in a similar way, advancing from one shelter to another, to get within range. Gradually their whole line advanced and after a battle lasting three hours the Indians retreated. Over four hundred savages are reported to have taken part in this fight, of which eight were killed and a number wounded. Among the latter was Five Crows, the young chief who carried Miss Bewley away from Waiilatpu, and kept her in his lodge until compelled to give her up. He was struck by two bullets, one of which shattered his arm. None of the settlers were either killed or wounded. This battle would probably have defeated all hope among the Cayuses of inducing the other tribes to join them, had it not been that the provisional government had appointed a peace commission to negotiate with the hostiles at the same time that it raised the army. It was expected that this commission would go with the army, or in advance of it, and would be able to do much to prevent a combination OF AN AMERICAN STATE 355 among the tribes, and perhaps it did do more in this line than was at the time believed. It was composed of Joel Palmer, who was afterwards a most successful Indian agent and negotiator, and Robert Newell, the old-time trapper, with Perrin Whitman as interpreter. These commissioners did not go forward as promptly as was expected, and perhaps it is as well they did not, for their coming was regarded by the Indians as an evidence of weakness. The messengers they sent out to invite representative chiefs from various tribes to meet them, were often either turned back by the hostiles, or they were able to prevent their invitation from being accepted. Colonel Gilliam was impatient of their presence. He believed that prompt and effective action on his part would do more than negotiation could, to prevent any accession to the ranks of the hostiles. Delay increased the difficulties of his situation, while it gave the enemy time to rest and recuperate, to gather supplies and to encourage the young warriors of other tribes, who were always inclined to bloodshed, to come to their assistance. In this view he seems finally to have had the sympathy, if not the cordial support, of General Palmer himself. By the 28th of February the volunteers were encamped on the Walla Walla, whence Gilliam sent a short report of the battle on the Umatilla to Governor Abernethy, and asked for reinforcements, as he feared that the delay caused by the efforts of the commissioners to negotiate, would lead to a coalition of all the tribes. He felt sure that the commis sioners were too sanguine; that they were being imposed upon, and would accomplish no result. He asked McBean to provide his men with a fresh supply of ammunition, but this was refused. He therefore made a levy for it, and was told to help himself, which he did. He then moved up the 356 THE RISE AND PROGRESS Walla Walla to a point near the camp of Peo Peo Mox Mox, who professed friendship and supplied the soldiers with beef. He next moved on to Waiilatpu, where he reburied the bones of the victims of the massacre, some of which had been dug up by wolves, as previously stated, and then built an adobe fort nearby, which he called Fort Waters, in honor of his lieutenant colonel. The situation now began to assume a very critical aspect. Indians were seen collecting on the north side of the Colum bia, above the Dalles, with the apparent purpose of plunder ing the supply boats as they passed up the river. In the Willamette Valley the Klamaths arrived and stirred up the Mollallas to make a demonstration at the Abiqua, a small stream in the vicinity of Silverton. In Benton County there was a collision with the Calapooias, two of the Indians being killed and two wounded. That the coast tribes might also take advantage of the situation was shown by a number of Tillamooks coming into Polk County, committing petty depredations, and killing an old man. In this situation Governor Abernethy deemed it advisable to recall Gilliam to the Willamette, and issued a call for three hundred more volunteers. On March ioth, however, Gilliam wrote Aber nethy that the Cayuses were moving north, through the country of the Walla Wallas, and with their Palouse allies, making a force of about four hundred, were encamped on the Tukanon. He intended taking a force of two hundred and fifty men and attacking them. He urged also the necessity of reinforcements, especially as the term of many of his men would soon expire. He very correctly saw that the surest way to prevent a combination among the tribes was to make an active campaign, and constantly degrade the hostiles by repeated defeats, until they should submit, OF AN AMERICAN STATE 357 and give up the murderers for punishment. Leaving Fort Waters, with about two hundred men, he marched to the Tukanon, which was reached on the 18th, where his force was reduced to one hundred and fifty-eight, by the return of Captain English, with the worn-out horses and men, and the property of Dr. Whitman, brought in at that time by 'Sticcas. Information was here received that the Cayuses had divided, Tamsuky having gone eastward to the land of the Red Wolf, on the Snake, and Telau- ka-ikt was preparing to cross the Snake with his Palouse allies. A plan was then formed to attack the latter at the crossing. Soon after daybreak the troops overtook the Indians, who were thrown into confusion, but at once adopted a ruse. An old man, with well-feigned sincerity, appeared and declared that these were not the hostiles, but the people of Peo Peo Mox Mox; that the Cayuses had gone on, leaving n their haste the cattle upon the hills. The troops were ordered not to fire upon these in the camp, who were assem bled to the number of four hundred, armed and painted, but to capture the cattle. But on reaching the hills and overlooking the river, they saw the greater part of the stock already crossing, or else safely on the other side, with the Indian drivers urging them rapidly off; and at the same moment the four hundred painted Indians, just left at the camp as friends, were coming on in the rear of the scattered troops, with war whoops and the discharge of their fusees. About five hundred ofthe stock captured were hastily coralled on the creek, and the Indian fire returned. Some of the Indians were picked off, but most of them remained at a safe distance in the hills, where the bullets of the soldiers could not reach them. 358 THE RISE AND PROGRESS By this trick the Indians saved the greater part of their stock and drove it safely to the country of the Palouses. As it was not practicable to cross this river in the presence of such a large hostile force it was decided to return with the cattle and horses captured at the Walla Walla. The retreat was therefore begun, a rear guard keeping up the fight with the pursuing Indians. Late in the afternoon camp was made on a small stream, but during the entire, night a constant fire was kept up and the situation seemed very critical. The captured stock was turned loose, and at daybreak the retreat was resumed, the rear guard still fighting. It was necessary to cross the beautiful but swift Touchet, and as this stream was approached, the Indians formed the bold design of seiz ing the crossing before the Americans arrived, and thus block ing their retreat. By urging their horses to their utmost speed, a considerable force of the braves gained the brush at the fords before the Americans. This unexpected dash commanded the admiration even of the troops who were thus jeopardized, Captain Maxon reporting that the history of savage warfare furnished few instances of greater Indian prowess and daring. The Americans were at first thrown into confusion, all their fighting hitherto having been at the rear, and there was positive danger for a few moments of a general rout and massacre. But a few young men at the most vulnerable point, taking matters in their own hands, encountered the Indians, rolling them back, and causing a melee rather than a battle. For almost an hour the struggle lasted. The Indians, although having every advantage, were unable to concentrate, and fought in their old savage style, each for himself, relying rather on noise and threats, than careful marksmanship. Many of them were wounded, and a number were laid on the field, but quickly borne away. MAP OF THE OREGON COUNTRY IN 1846. Up to the time this map was published most maps had shown but three settlements on the coast — one at Astoria, one at San Diego, and one at Monterey. On many the Bay of San Francisco was represented as Sir Francis Drake's Bay, and Great Salt Lake was Lake Timpanogos. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 359 The river was then crossed safely, and Walla Walla was reached on the 16th. This retreat might have been turned into a defeat if the Indians had known how to take advantage of it. They were, however, repulsed with loss at the Touchet, and fled to the Snake. Telau-ka-ikt and his band were driven across that river, and the Palouses lost faith in him, when unable to hold his own country. From the large numbers of Indians present in this battle, it was manifest that many were Walla Wallas and Palouses. But these seem to have dwindled away after the fight. The effect therefore was that of a victory to the Americans. It has been said that there was a large band of Nez Perces in the vicinity, at the battle of the Tukanon, or Touchet; but they remained entirely friendly with the Americans. At this place, and in many others during the winter, if these Indians had decided to become hostile, it is hardly possible that Gilliam's small command could have survived. After reaching Fort Waters, on the Walla Walla, a council of war was held, and it was decided that about one hundred and fifty men should move down the Columbia to Fort Was- copam, at the Dalles, replenish their provisions, and confer with the governor. Without more men, ammunition and equipment it was useless to follow the bands of the Cayuses, who might at any battle be strongly reenforced by renegades, who would at once become friendly if the Americans won, or hostile if they were defeated. On the way Colonel Gilliam met his death. This was entirely accidental, but was none the less to be lamented. In attempting to draw a lariat rope from a wagon, or as was said by some, while an aide, or teamster called "California" was removing some mats at the front, a loaded gun was discharged, the 360 THE RISE AND PROGRESS bullet, or as some accounts say, the ramrod which had been carelessly left in the barrel, striking him in the forehead, causing instant death. After this the struggle took the usual course of Indian wars. Troops were kept in the field under the general com mand of Colonel Waters and Colonel Lee, the latter a very able and discreet officer. As spring opened, the Cayuses were chased from one section of country to another. One company followed their trail into the land of the Red Wolf, and the country of the Nez Perces, but found no hostiles. Some scattered parties were also pursued along the Snake River into the Grand Ronde country. Occasionally there was some skirmishing, but no severe fighting. The commis sioners continued to make efforts to negotiate for the surrender of the murderers, but always without success, and the soldiers more and more blamed them for defeating their efforts to bring on a final and decisive battle. But the Cayuses were more nearly exhausted than the soldiers supposed. The mark of Cain was upon them. None of their old neighbors would give them aid, or lend them encouragement. Their own resources were exhausted. They were indeed no longer a tribe. Broken up into small bands, hunted by the soldiers, more and more coldly received by their old-time neighbors among whom they sought refuge, they finally ceased to offer any resistance that was worthy of the name of war. The other tribes began to understand that the murderers alone were wanted, and these wretches who had wantonly slaughtered those who had done so much for them, were left without either friends or defenders. They managed to retain their liberty nearly two years longer, but were finally surrendered to the government at Oregon City in the spring of 1850. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 361 As the result of the massacre and the war which followed it, the Cayuse tribe ceased to be. From being what Dr. McLoughlin had described it to Whitman to be, the manliest and best of all the Indian tribes east of the mountains, it became in a few months, a handful of scattered fugitives, seeking shelter where none were willing to give it. Its crimes were abhorred even by savages. Its language ceased to be spoken, and. even its very name ceased to be used, except to describe a very inferior kind of horse. There was another result which was more to be regretted. The missionaries were compelled to leave that part of the country, and they were not able to return, nor were white settlers permitted to make their homes there until ten years later. Chapter XXXI. THE BOUNDARY FIXED. THE Ashburton treaty was not received with much more favor in England than it had been in America. The English people did not yet take so much interest in the boundary question as those in America did, but English statesmen were keenly alive to the importance of it. There were two parties of them; one regarded the treaty as a capitulation, but Mr. Peel and the other members of his government were able to defend it as eminently fair and just, and reasonably satisfactory to British interests. They were disappointed at Lord Ash- burton's failure to settle the entire boundary dispute, though the fault was not his but that of the instructions which they had given him, and this fact made the situation all the more embarrassing, because it was evident that every hour that the settlement was postponed their difficulties would be increased, and further concessions on their part would more certainly have to be made. By the time the treaty reached London and was laid before Parliament it had been ratified by the Senate. The debates in that body had also been published; the restrictions of secrecy having been removed, and the debates on the Linn bill which had preceded and followed the considerations ofthe treaty, were also published; so that the British politi cians of all classes were as well informed ofthe state of feeling in the United States, in regard to the boundary question, as the members ofthe cabinet themselves were. These debates did not escape comment while the treaty was under con sideration in Parliament. Lord Palmerston, who had been secretary of foreign affairs in the preceding government, and was then leader of the opposition in the House of Com mons, declared that if the Linn bill should pass, it would be equivalent to a declaration of war, as it would amount 366 THE RISE AND PROGRESS to an invasion and seizure of the territory in dispute, by virtue of a decree made by one of the parties in its own favor. Mr. Blewitt said that one of the speeches made in the Senate must be regarded as an insult to the British nation, while Mr. Macaulay declared that the passage of the Linn bill showed a highly excited condition of the public mind in the United States. But Mr. Peel was able to reassure the House, by asserting that if the bill had passed both houses of Congress, it would not have received the sanction of the executive, as the presi dent had given assurance of his anxiety to settle the question by negotiation. This statement was confirmed by Presi dent Tyler's message, sent to Congress at the opening of its session in the following December. But Mr. Peel and his associates were admonished by their knowledge of what had been going on in the United States for several years previously, to make haste with their negotiations, if they did not desire to yield more than they had previously offered, or than the United States had yet demanded. They were aware that societies had been form ing in various Eastern States for several years past, to en courage emigration to Oregon; that petitions had been sent to Congress by these societies, and by numerous indi viduals, and that resolutions had been passed by various State legislatures, urging Congress to give the required notice to terminate the joint occupation convention, and to make provision to take immediate possession of the disputed territory. They were aware also that very efficient means had been taken by the Tyler administration, and by that which preceded it, to collect information in regard to the value and importance of the disputed territory to the United States, and they were familiar with the information OF AN AMERICAN STATE 367 contained in the reports of Mr. Slacum, Commodore Wilkes and Captain Fremont. They knew, too, that Congress had asked for and secured information as to the practicabil ity of establishing fortified posts along the Oregon trail, and at the mouth of the Columbia River, and more than all they knew that the American people were rapidly becom ing aroused, and that emigrants were now journeying to the Oregon country in steadily increasing numbers. They were doubtless informed that at the very time that the Ash burton treaty was under consideration in Parliament, nearly a thousand settlers, the largest immigration that had ever crossed the plains, were then on their way from the Missouri to the Columbia. When these settlers should arrive in Oregon they would greatly strengthen the claim of the United States to that territory. They and those who would soon follow them, might not be contented, as some of them were not, to remain south of the Columbia River, as their pred ecessors had done, and if they should be given time to invade the country northward, it might be difficult, in future nego tiations, to get even as favorable a line as that of the 49th parallel, by negotiation. As early as 1843, as Dr. McLoughlin has informed us, he notified the officers of his company in London that their interests on the Pacific were in need of protection from the British government. The government itself was doubtless already aware of this. Through that excellent establish ment, the British Board of Trade, it had been kept thoroughly informed of all the conditions affecting British interests in that country as well as every other. There had always been a close relation between this branch of the government and the Hudson's Bay Company, and the colonial office was well informed, not only in regard to the arrival of American 368 THE RISE AND PROGRESS emigrants on the Columbia, but of the chief factor's treat ment of them. His conduct had not escaped criticism by some of the directors of the Company. It had possibly been viewed with some concern by the colonial office, since it was evident that the Company, under the chief factor's management, was no longer holding the country against all competitors as formerly — for the settlers, while not com peting or intending to compete with the Company in the fur trade, were still its most dangerous competitors for possession of the country. President Tyler noticed the increase of American citizens in Oregon in his message to Congress in December 1843, in which he renewed the assurance previously given, that every possibly means would be used to bring the negotiation of a boundary treaty to a speedy termination, and he strongly recommended the establishment of military posts at various points on the road to the Columbia. During that session of Congress more petitions and resolutions from State legis latures were received than ever before, all urging the govern ment to adopt measures for the immediate establishment of the right of the United States to the country beyond the Rocky Mountains, and several bills were introduced, all having the same object in view, though neither of them was passed by either house. Of these some were nearly identical with the Linn bill, while others provided that notice should be immediately given to the British government, of the intention of the United States to terminate the convention of 1827 in the manner provided by the instrument itself. During this same session a treaty, which had been con cluded between the president of the United States and the government of Texas, in April 1844, for the annexation of the latter republic to the United States, was sent to the Senate OF AN AMERICAN STATE 369 where, after some debate, it was rejected. Its rejection caused a great deal of excitement throughout the Union, especially in the Southern States, where it was suspected that the rejection had been brought about by the influence of England and France, the former opposing it because of its determined resistance to the spread of slavery, and the latter in support ofthe theory of M. Guizot, that a balance of power, similar to that already existing in Europe, ought to be established in America. It was while this treaty was under consideration in the Senate, and while the supposed interference of Great Britain in the Texas matter was receiving some attention both in Congress and out of it, that the democratic convention which nominated Mr. Polk for the presidency, met at Baltimore and declared that "our title to the whole of the territory of Oregon is clear and unquestionable; that no portion ofthe same ought to be ceded to England or any other power; and that the reoccupation of Oregon, and the reannexation of Texas* at the earliest practicable period, are great American measures which this convention recommends to the cordial support of the democracy of the Union. " Long before the Baltimore convention met, a new British plenipotentiary had been dispatched to the United States, to open negotiations for the settlement of the Oregon bound ary. Mr. Pakenham arrived at Washington in February 1844, and the negotiations were begun, but were almost immediately interrupted by the death of Mr. A. P. Upshur, then secretary of state in Mr. Tyler's cabinet, who was killed * It was claimed at this time that Texas had been carelessly yielded to Spain by the Monroe administration, through the Florida treaty of 1819; that all of that country, at least as far west as the Rio Bravo, belonged to the United States as a part of the Louisiana territory. 370 THE RISE AND PROGRESS by the explosion of a cannon on board the steam frigate Princeton, on the 28th of that month, during an excursion down the Potomac. Mr. John C. Calhoun was, in due course, appointed as Mr. Upshur's successor, and the negotia tion was renewed in the following August. Mr. Pakenham again presented the proposition made by his govern ment, to Mr. Gallatin in 1826, to make a partition of the territory in dispute by a line drawn from the Rocky Moun tains along the 49th parallel, west to McGillivray's River, and thence down that stream and down the Columbia to the ocean; all south and east of which line, as well as a detached territory lying west of Hoods Canal and north of Gray's Harbor, were to belong to the United States, and the remainder to Great Britain, the navigation of the Columbia to be free to both parties. This proposition was immediately rejected. It was then proposed to render free to the United States any ports which their government might desire, either on the mainland or on Vancouver's Island, south of the 49th parallel. This proposition was also rejected. Mr. Calhoun then presented another statement in writing, of the claims of the United States to the whole territory drained by the Columbia River. These propositions were discussed by the plenipotentiaries, in several letters, in which each en deavored to establish the correctness of his views by refer ences to history, to treaties and to the general law of nations. This correspondence Mr. Pakenham submitted to his government, by whose instructions he proposed, on the 15th of January 1845, that the whole matter might be submitted to arbitration, but this also was declined by the president, who expressed the hope that a more speedy and satisfactory adjustment might be attained by negotiation, and there the business rested for a time. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 371 In his message to Congress in December of that year, President Tyler stated that negotiations had been formally begun, and were still pending, for the adjustment of the Oregon boundary. The report of the secretary of war, which accompanied the message, contained a recommenda tion that a territorial government be established for all that region of territory traversed by the river Platte, between the States of Missouri and Arkansas on the east, and the Rocky Mountains on the west, and for the formation of military posts for the protection of a road between the States and Oregon and California. Agreeable to this recommen dation bills were introduced in the House of Representatives, to establish a territorial government for the region which was to be called Nebraska, and for extending the jurisdic tion of its courts over Oregon, but this bill was not debated during the session. Another bill for the immediate occupa tion of Oregon, under a territorial government, and for abro gating the convention of 1827 m the manner provided, passed the House of Representatives but was not considered by the Senate. On the 19th of February 1845 the president informed Congress, by message, that favorable progress had been made in the negotiation with Great Britain, and that there was hope that it might be speedily terminated. On the night of March 3, 1845, during the last hours of the session, a joint resolution passed both houses, providing for the annexation of Texas. This the president immediately approved. The governments of Great Britain and France made no protest against this act, though much dissatis faction with it was expressed in both countries. In his inaugural address on March 4, 1845, President Polk declared that it would be his duty to maintain the title of 372 THE RISE AND PROGRESS the United States to the territory beyond the Rocky Moun tains which, in the language of the Baltimore convention, he declared to be "clear and unquestionable," though he at the same time engaged sacredly to respect all obligations imposed by treaties. This declaration, modified as it was, soon caused him and his administration no little embarrass ment. It was seized upon by the opposition to the Peel ministry in Parliament as a good basis for attack, and on the 4th of April Lord Clarendon in the House of Peers declared that the president, in his inaugural, had "evinced a studied neglect of that courtesy and deferential language usually observed by governments, in treating on international affairs," and he hoped that the ministers would not shrink from vindicating the honor of the nation. In the Commons both Lord John Russel and Lord Palmerston made speeches on the subject. The latter very severely arraigned the ministry for the settlement they had made of the northeast boundary, and he expressed his apprehension "that another Ashburton capitulation" was about to be concluded with regard to the Oregon boundary. Mr. Peel replied, declaring in unequivocal languag ethe intention of his government to maintain the rights of Great Britain in Oregon, which he considered to be "clear and unquestionable." This debate in Parliament aroused almost as .much interest in Great Britain, on the Oregon question, as had for some time existed in America. Thousands of persons in both countries, who had never before paid very much attention to the matter, now began to inquire about it, and to inform themselves in particular with reference to the claims of both nations. In America the "clear and unquestionable" rights of the republic were declared to cover all the territory as far north as 540 40', while in England the offer of the OF AN AMERICAN STATE 373 portion south of the 49th parallel and east of the Columbia was regarded as a magnanimous concession. All this made matters extremely embarrassing for the Peel ministry, which was already advancing to its fall. It was evident to it that the line of the Columbia would never be conceded by the United States. It was equally evident that Mr. Polk's administration would be greatly embarrassed if it should consent to anything short of 540 40'. " Fifty-four Forty or Fight" had been the slogan of the campaign by which it had just come into power. The expectation ofthe majority, who had given Mr. Polk their votes, was that he would stand for that line as the boundary, and make war for it if necessary. This expectation had been strengthened by the declaration made at his inauguration, which he need not have made if he did not intend to make it good. Under such embarrassments on both sides, which were constantly growing more embarrassing, as the public interest in the matter in dispute increased, the negotiations were resumed in July 1845, between Mr. Pakenham and James Buchanan, who had succeeded Mr. Calhoun as secretary of state. Mr. Buchanan proposed, in the beginning, the whole line of the 49th parallel, as stated in the ultimatum which Mr. Clay had authorized Mr. Gallatin to announce in 1826. This was immediately rejected by Mr. Pakenham, and the offer was then withdrawn by Mr. Buchanan, who declared in his letter of August 30th, that the president had been actuated in presenting it, by a respect for the conduct of his predecessors, and by a sincere and anxious desire to promote peace and harmony between the two nations. But he was satisfied, from a most careful and ample examina tion of the subject, "that the Spanish American title, now held by the United States, embracing the whole territory 374 THE RISE AND PROGRESS between the parallels of 420 and 540 40', is the best title in existence to this entire region, and that the claim of Great Britain to any portion of it has no sufficient foundation." Here the negotiations were again suspended. The cor respondence and protocols were communicated by Presi dent Polk to Congress, with his message in December 1845, together with a report of what had been done, and he recom mended that notice should be immediately given of the intention in the United States to abrogate the convention of 1827, at the end of a year, and also that other measures should be adopted for maintaining the right of the United States to the whole of Oregon. The whole of Oregon was shown, by reference to the correspondence, to mean all of the con tinent and islands west of the Rocky Mountains, between the parallels of 420 and 54' 40'. Meantime M. Guizot, for the French government, had suggested the establish ment of a "balance of power" in America, similar to that in Europe, and to this the president had replied in the lan guage of Mr. Monroe in 1823, that "the American con tinents were no longer to be subject to colonization by Europe," qualifying this declaration however by remitting it to the northern continent. Upon these recommendations bills were introduced in both houses of Congress, authoriz ing the president to give the required notice to terminate the convention of joint occupation, and for the extension of the jurisdiction of the United States over Oregon. These measures occupied the attention of Congress almost exclu sively for several months. While they were under considera tion another correspondence on the subject of Oregon was opened between Mr. Buchanan and the British minister at Washington, and on the 27th of December Mr. Pakenham again proposed, by direction of his government, to submit OF AN AMERICAN STATE 375 "the whole question of an equitable division of the Oregon territory to the arbitration of some friendly sovereign, or state, as the best means of restoring a good understanding between the two nations." In his reply to this proposition for " an equitable division of the territory, " Mr. Buchanan called attention to the fact that it assumed the title of Great Britain to some portion of the territory to be valid, and that to admit the proposition for arbitration would be to acknowl edge this validity, and to preclude the United States from claiming the whole territory before the arbitrator. This would be entirely inconsistent with the solemn declaration made by the president, and he could not consent to this mode of adjusting the differences. To this Mr. Pakenham replied, on the 16th of January 1846, that his nation had also form ally announced and still maintained that it had rights in Oregon, incompatible with the aggressive claim of the United States, and he asked to know whether the American govern ment would be inclined to refer the question of the title of either power to the whole territory, to arbitration by a sovereign, or by a mixed commission, with the condition that if the arbitrator should consider neither entitled to the whole, he might assign to each such portion as might be required by a just appreciation of their respective claims. In reply Mr. Buchanan repeated the conviction of the president with regard to the title of the United States to the whole of Oregon, under which condition, and believing also as he did, that the territorial rights of the republic were not a proper subject for arbitration, he could not consent to jeopardize their interests by referring them to such a tribunal, however it might be composed. This correspondence was laid before Congress, and pub lished in February 1846, together with extracts from the 376 THE RISE AND PROGRESS dispatches of Mr. McLane, the American minister at London, detailing conversations he had had with Lord Aberdeen, the British minister for foreign affairs, particularly on the subject of the large armaments then in progress in Great Britain. In these conversations his Lordship had declared that these preparations were not made with reference to the existing dispute between his nation and the United States, though in the event of hostilities they might prove important to Great Britain. Sir Robert Peel also expressed his regret, in Parliament, for the rejection, by Mr. Pakenham, of the proposition made by the United States for the adoption of the 49th parallel as the boundary. About this time measures were introduced in Parliament to remove the duties on the importation of corn into Great Britain, while the American administration, and a consider able portion of the American people, were equally anxious for a reduction ofthe duties on foreign manufactures, brought into this country. These circumstances contributed to lessen the excitement in both countries, on the subject ofthe Oregon boundary, and to dispose both governments to a compromise on that question, particularly as it happened that the parties in each country most ardently in favor of the proposed changes in their respective commercial systems, were also the advocates of extreme measures with regard to the boundary dispute. The debates in Congress on the boundary question con tinued. Hundreds of speeches were made in the House of Representatives, and many columns in newspapers, and pages of pamphlets, were occupied with the discussion of the question. Finally, on the 9th of February, a resolution was passed by the House "that the President cause notice to be given to the government of Great Britain, that the FORT GEORGE IN, 1845. But few changes were ma<%- at Astoria while the Hudson's Bay Company controlled it. Foi? a long time James Birnie,' who was stationed there, had little to do but watch the coming and going of the com pany's ships, as there were but few Indians in the neighborhood and but little Opportunity for trade. The cut represents the place as it was about the time Birnie retired from the service. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 377 convention of 1827 be annulled and abrogated, twelve months after giving said notice," provided that this should not interfere with the right and discretion of the proper authorities to renew or pursue negotiations for an amicable settlement of the controversy. This resolution was passed by a vote of one hundred and sixty-three ayes to fifty noes. The debate was then taken up by the Senate, where it soon became evident that nearly all of the members were in favor of giving the notice required, though there was con siderable difference of opinion as to the terms of the resolu tion, and the measures by which it should be accompanied. Those who were in favor of yielding nothing south of the line 540 40', were anxious that the abrogation should be the act ofthe legislative and executive branches ofthe govern ment combined, which the president should be required to execute, and that preparations should be at the same time made for enforcing the claim of the United States to this whole territory, at the end ofthe period designated by notice. The other party, who conceived the rights of the United States to be less clearly established, and who were willing to assent to a compromise in the partition of the territory in question, preferred that the abrogation should be left entirely to the discretion ofthe president, and that he should at the same time be urged to endeavor, by all peaceful means compatible with the honor of the nation, to effect an amicable settlement of the controversy. The latter party prevailed. The proposition to increase the military and naval forces of the Union was rejected, and finally, on the 16th of April, a resolution was passed "that the President be authorized, at his discretion," to give the notice required, the preamble declaring the object and motive ofthe resolution to be, "that the claims of the United States and Great Britain should be 378 THE RISE AND PROGRESS definitively settled, and that the said territory may no longer than need be, remain subject to the evil consequences of the divided allegiance of its American and British population, and of the confusion and conflict of national jurisdiction," and " that the attention of the governments of both countries may be more earnestly and immediately directed to renewed efforts for the amicable settlement of all the differences and disputes in respect to the said territory." The House at first refused to assent to this resolution, and it was sent to a conference, in which a form was agreed upon, differing but little from the Senate resolution, and on the 23d of April it was adopted by both houses. It was immediately approved by the president, who caused Mr. McLane to give the notice as provided by the convention with the British government, and it was accordingly given on the 22d of May. In the meantime conferences and communications between Mr. McLane and Lord Aberdeen had been frequent, and soon after the news of the passage of the joint resolution, in language so conciliatory, had reached London, instruc tions were sent to Mr. Pakenham to propose a form of treaty for the definitive settlement of the whole controversy, with the 49th parallel as the boundary. Upon this proposition the president requested the advice of the Senate. There was no way in which he could grace fully recede from the high ground which he had so unneces sarily taken in favor of 540 40', unless he could be advised and urged to do so by a majority of the body which must act with him by advising and consenting to the treaty when made. There was some bitter opposition, part of it from members of his own party, but Benton cleared the way for what was wanted by a masterly review of the whole question, OF AN AMERICAN STATE 379 and an accurate and full statement of the grounds on which the claims of both countries rested. His speech was far more temperate and reasonable than the one he had made on the Ashburton treaty. The contention of the United States had always been for the 49th parallel as the boundary line. It had proposed this in the first negotiation in regard to the boundary of the Louisiana territory in 1804, and had repeatedly offered it since that time. South of that line we claimed the country by virtue of the discovery of the Columbia by Gray, its exploration by Lewis and Clark and prior settlement by the Astor party, as well as by virtue of the Spanish title. North of that line the British made claim on grounds precisely similar — the discovery and exploration by Mackenzie and Fraser, and settlement made on the upper waters of the Fraser River. If we insisted that Great Britain should recognize our claims we must in justice recognize hers, where there was undoubted proof that they were genuine. This argument prevailed, and on June 13th the Senate advised the president that the terms offered should be accepted, and accordingly, on the 15th, the treaty proposed by Great Britain was signed by Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Pakenham. It was confirmed by the Senate on the 18th, and ratified by the president immediately afterwards. On the 24th of June, before the news that it had been signed reached London, the Peel administration ended, and that of Lord John Russel succeeded, but the treaty was ratified by the queen on the 17th of July. By the first article of this treaty the boundary between the territories ofthe two nations was continued from the point where it previously terminated, on the summit of the Rocky Mountains, due west along the 49th degree of latitude, 380 THE RISE AND PROGRESS " to the middle of the channel between Vancouver Island, and the continent, and thence southerly through the middle of the channel, and of Fuca's Strait, to the Pacific Ocean. " Subsequently a question arose as to whether the "middle of the channel" lay along the middle of the channel of the Canal de Haro, or that of Rosario Strait, and after a long contention, which at one time threatened to bring on a war, it was finally settled by arbitration, the Emperor William I of Germany being arbitrator. News of the ratification of this treaty was received in Ore gon and published in an extra of the "Oregon Spectator," on November 4, 1846, and of course caused general rejoicing among the settlers. It was immediately communicated by Chief Factors Douglas and Ogden, to Dr. Tolmie, at Fort Nisqually, by a letter dated the same day, in which they say : "The barque Toulon arrived lately in the river, with very important intelligence, from the Sandwich Islands. It appears that the Oregon boundary is finally settled, on a basis more favorable to the United States than we had reason to anticipate. We forward with this, copy of com munication from Sir George Seymour, Commander in Chief in the Pacific, to our agents at the Sandwich Islands, which contains all that is at present known to us relative to the boundary treaty. Business will of course, go on as usual, as the treaty will not take effect on us for many years to come." It will not escape observation, in all this long story of negotiation, covering a period from 1818 to 1846, that no special claim was ever urged on our part to the possession of Vancouver Island. And yet it would seem that such a 'claim might have been urged with justice. The Spaniards undoubtedly discovered it. That they first landed upon OF AN AMERICAN STATE 381 and took possession of it is not disputed. Meares subse quently laid claim to have purchased the right from the Indians to erect some sort of building, somewhere on the shore of Nootka Sound, and to have erected and occupied such a building for a time, until forcibly dispossessed by the Spaniards. A claim for restoration to the rights of which he had been thus forcibly dispossessed, was subsequently recognized, by the convention of 1796, between Spain and Great Britain, but when restoration came to be made, in accordance with the convention, Quadra, the representative of Spain, and Vancouver, representing Great Britain, could not agree as to what should be restored. The convention was subsequently annulled by war, in accordance with the universal law of nations, and although restitution may have been made as claimed, more could not have been restored than was originally taken. By the Florida treaty, Spain ceded to the United States all her rights and claims to this island, as well as to the remainder of the coast north of the forty-second parallel, and we then became the claimants, in her stead, to this island. In addition to this we were entitled to claim it by right of discovery that it was an island. Of this the only proof we could urge was that furnished by Meares, who claimed to have learned in Canton that Captain Gray* had dis covered and sailed through the strait which separates it from the mainland in 1789. This was not the best of evidence, it is true, but coming as it did from an unfriendly source, it was all the more entitled to be believed. Meares evidently believed it. He was never fond of giving credit to American sailors if it could be avoided. He would never have given * Meares did not then know that Gray and Kendrick had exchanged ships before this voyage was made. 382 Rise and Progress of an American State Gray (Kendrick) credit for this discovery, except that he could not claim it for himself, and he was vainly anxious to be the first to communicate it to the world. The United States could therefore have claimed this island by virtue of the discovery of Kendrick, as well as by virtue of the Spanish title, and had these claims been urged from the beginning they would, perforce, have been allowed. That they were not so urged is doubtless due to the fact that the maps, and other sources of information of the time, did not exhibit the relative importance of the island, or perhaps accurately display its location. Had they done this it is hardly possible that it would have escaped the attention of so careful an observer as John Quincy Adams, or failed to employ the best efforts of that experienced diplomat and earnest patriot. It was he who gave direction, first as secretary of state and afterwards as president, to the nego tiation which ran through a period of nearly thirty years, during all of which time not one of the claims he made in the beginning was disproved or yielded, nor did any one of the statesmen who were called upon to maintain them, ever for one moment waver from their support. Chapter XXXII. OLD FORT NISQUALLY. THE MOST interesting of all the Hudson's Bay posts on the coast, after the headquarters sta tion at Vancouver, and the most important, so far as the history and settlement of Washing ton is concerned, was Fort Nisqually, which was located on the shore of Puget Sound, not far from the mouth of the river which gave it its name. It was established early in 1833 by Archibald McDonald, a veteran of the North westers, and for many years one of the most noted traders and factors of the Hudson's Bay Company. He had seen service with Keith at Fort George, before the consolidation of the rival companies, and was subsequently in charge at Fort Colvile. He and John Work had been intimate, and separately or together had traversed nearly every part of the country through which the Company's brigades ever went, from the Russian line to California, and from the mountains to the ocean. Work was subsequently chief factor in charge of Fort Simpson, near the Russian bound ary, and one of his daughters became the wife of the last factor in charge of the fort which her father's friend had founded, and together with her husband, the late Edward Huggins, she lived to own and reside upon its site for more than twenty years after it had ceased to be. While on a trading expedition down the Sound in April 1833, McDonald, who had with him some eight or nine men, spent twelve days in erecting a log house, fifteen by twenty feet in size, near a small lake, subsequently known as Old Fort Lake, and some little distance from the site chosen, then or afterwards, for the fort. This cabin was called Nisqually House. It was the first human habitation constructed by white men on Puget Sound. Leaving William Ouvrie, a French Canadian, and two other men, 386 THE RISE AND PROGRESS in charge of the new buildings, a few blankets, two kegs of potatoes and a few garden seeds, McDonald returned to Fort Vancouver. On the 30th of May he arrived back at Nisqually "with four men, four yoke of oxen and four horses, after a journey of fourteen days. " He was also accompanied by Dr. W. F. Tolmie, "a young gentleman lately arrived from England as surgeon for the Company, " who was then on his way to one of the northern stations, as he supposed, but an accident to one of the employees was to detain him at the new station for several weeks, and he was in time to return to it as chief factor, in which capacity he was to remain in charge of it during a long and eventful period. McDonald had expected to find the schooner Vancouver awaiting his arrival, with trading goods and provision, as she had sailed the same day he had started, with the inten tion of meeting him, but she had not yet arrived. This was apparently something of a disappointment, for after enumerating his four oxen, four horses, and the four men he had brought with him, together with the three others who were awaiting his arrival, McDonald says: "This is all the semblance of a settlement there is at this moment; but little as it is, it possesses an advantage over all the other settlements we have made on this coast." What this advantage was it would be interesting now to know. If the station had been founded a few years later, and the business so largely carried on at it immediately begun, it would be natural to suspect that it had or might have some advantage in helping to hold the country for the British, or to strengthen the British claim to it, but at that time there was no reason for either the Hudson's Bay Com pany or the British cabinet to feel anxiety on that score. The American immigrants had not yet begun to appear. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 387 Not even a missionary had yet arrived. Wyeth and Bonne ville had been forced to leave the country, and nobody then guessed that the former would make a second venture. The convention for joint occupation had recently been extended for an indefinite time. Congress had ceased to talk about Oregon, for the time being, and there was no indication that it would ever begin again. Under the arrangement for joint occupation the Hudson's Bay people had no reason to doubt that they would be able to maintain their sole occupation as successfully in years to come as they had in years past. The advantage of the place must therefore have been only those peculiar to the fur trade, and it doubtless was of that kind. There was at that time a large Indian population in the neighborhood, and there was a vastly larger number living on the numerous bays and inlets of the Sound, and the streams flowing into it, who could easily reach the station in their canoes. In the beginning, and for some time afterwards, it had been intended to establish another station on or near Whidby Island, but this was found un necessary, as the Indians easily came to Nisqually from all their camps on Admiralty Inlet and Puget Sound, and from regions far north along the coast. Communication between this post and the other stations of the Company farther north — Fort Langley on Fraser River, Fort Simpson at the Russian boundary, and Fort McLoughlin, which was between the two last named — was always safe and easy. Fort Nisqually in time became a supply station for these and other outlying posts. The furs which they col lected during the year were brought hither by the small schooners Cadborough and the Vancouver, and later by the steamer Beaver, and thence sent across to Vancouver 388 THE RISE AND PROGRESS on pack animals, which in return brought back the bales of blankets, the arms and ammunition, the beaver traps, and the beads and trinkets which formed the trading sup plies of the forts. It was more expeditious and safer to transport them in this way than to send them by ship, because of the vexatious delays encountered in going up and down the Columbia, and because of the storms so fre quently encountered oft* its mouth. Through the placid waters of Admiralty Inlet, the Gulf of Georgia, and the protected channels along the coast, now known as the Inside Passage, the Company's ships could come and go, with regularity and safety, between this point and the remotest settlements of the Russians in the far North. Most of the food products with which the Company regularly supplied these stations were produced at the Cowlitz farms, which were almost as near the Sound as the Columbia. In time a larger share, particularly of beef, pork and mutton, would be grown on the broad plains surrounding the fort itself. In time also trails would be made over the moun tains, by which the Yakimas, the Klikitats, and other great Indian tribes inhabiting the country between the Cascades and the Columbia, would bring their trade to the new station, and ultimately the brigades from Colvile and Okano- gon would bring their bales of furs to it on pack animals, rather than send them down the river by the old route to Fort Vancouver. When that happened the annual ships from England would get a large part of their cargoes at Nisqually, and leave there the supplies for all the posts northward, and many of those in the interior. The site selected for the new fort was in a broad, gently undulating plain, dotted here and there with small lakes that now bear the names American, Gravely, Steilacoom, OF AN AMERICAN STATE 389 Spanaway, and others smaller in extent but not less beauti ful, whose banks are usually bordered with a thick growth of deciduous trees and flowering shrubs, among which are the syringa, spirea, the dogwood, rhododendron, and the wild currant, and mingled with which were stately firs and more solemn cedars. The plain was also studded here and there with smaller firs, and clumps of oak which made it a beautiful natural park. The buildings were located about half a mile or more from the shore, and on the bank of a small stream called Sequalachew Creek, which took its rise in a little lake bear ing the same musical name, located not far from the south ern end of American Lake. The place commanded a fine view of the Sound and its numerous islands, and of the rugged Olympics in the distance, while the Cascades, with their several symmetrical snow-covered peaks, from Mount Baker in the north to St. Helens and Adams in the south, shut it in on its eastern side. It was a sightly location few spots on earth command such a variety of inspiring views — so many of the grand works of nature. All the buildings were of logs, and the principal one was fifty-five feet long by twenty wide and twelve feet high. The roofs were of cedar bark, held in place by poles; the floors were of puncheons, and an immense fireplace, with a chimney built of sticks plastered with clay, served to warm the room occupied by the chief factor and the few who on rare occasions were admitted to his society. The other members of the party, accustomed as they were to living in camp and on the trail, found little difficulty in making themselves comfortable in log shacks, or cabins more hastily constructed, and which gave them shelter from the rain and wind and little more. In time a palisade, made of split 390 THE RISE AND PROGRESS logs, one end of which was firmly planted in the ground, and the other fastened by stout wooden pins to a railing near the top, enclosed these buildings, and a plot of ground two hundred by two hundred and fifty feet in size. This palisaded fort was strengthened by bastions at the corners, built of squared logs, pierced with port holes, the upper stories projecting beyond the palisade walls so that those within might, from this safe retreat, watch the fort from its outside, and so defend it from attack by fire as well as by bullets. The upper stories of these bastions were always kept well stocked with firearms and ammunition, while their lower part formed a prison house in which ob streperous servants and occasionally a marauding Indian were imprisoned. In time a saw pit was arranged where timber was whip- sawed, a process well understood fifty years ago, but now, when steam and electric power are so readily and cheaply provided, entirely disused. By this device one man stood on the log, and another under it and alternately drew a long saw with a handle at either end, up and down through it, until it was divided into boards, or beams, or planks, of the dimensions required. The process was tedious, but it was the only one by which lumber was made for many centuries. In this way all the boards were made that were used for the floors, doors, and door and window casings, and for the inside finishing of the several buildings, so far as they were finished, at Fort Nisqually. The heavy planks from which the gates of the stockade were made, as well as all the lumber of every sort used about the place, was cut in the same way. Wheels for the carts and wagons used to haul goods, as they were unloaded from the Company's ships, to the trading house at the fort, and to haul grain OF AN AMERICAN STATE 391 from the fields, as well as beef, baled furs, wool, hides and tallow from the fort to the ships, when ready for shipment, were made by sawing discs from logs of proper size, and as nearly round as they could be obtained. Holes were bored or burned through the centres of these discs, and if they were not then found to be as round as was hoped, they were finished by hewing them with axes. They were then fitted to their axles and fastened on with strong wooden bolts. These rude wagons were very heavy, but oxen were plenty and drivers were expert, and, though the clumsy wheels thus rudely fitted to ruder axles gave forth ear-torturing com plaints wherever these primitive and ponderous machines were called upon for service, there were no neighbors to protest, and servicable loads were hauled to and from the beach on them for several years after better vehicles could have been easily obtained. A diary, called the " Journal of Occurrences," was faith fully kept at this, as well as all the other stations of the Company, and these dog-eared and sometimes mouse- eaten volumes still exist and furnish much interesting and reliable information for the historian. The entries are sometimes most aggravatingly brief, particularly when some fact is recorded which has an interest now that it did not then possess, but the writers probably never suspected that the record thus made would have an interest beyond their own time. These journals appear to have been kept for the information of the Company's officers only. The state of the weather is always first carefully noted, although it is evident enough, that for many years at least the stations were not provided either with thermometers or barometers. Then the kind of work at which each person was employed is indicated, and sometimes the number of Indians who 392 THE RISE AND PROGRESS visited the fort, the names of their tribes, and the kind of skins they offered to trade are mentioned. For the first few months after McDonald began to work at this place, everybody was busy with the new buildings, and later with their furniture, for everything about the place had to be hewed or sawed out of the standing trees by the rude art of the employees of the Company. Later an ever- increasing troop of Indian women would be planting or weeding in the garden. Sometimes the keeper of this journal confides to it some of his own lonely reflections, as for example on the evening of October 26, 1835, Mr. Kitson wrote: "This day I have entered on my forty-first year, eighteen of which I have passed in the Indian country. Thanks be to God I am still in sound health." Again on November 2 1 st of the same year he says: "Saturday: . . . Anawiscum was busy making a small bedstead. I have got a feather bed made and this night I shall, for the first time on the Columbia, sleep on such a thing." In later years Dr. Tolmie would note the days on which the first spring flowers appeared, and on one occasion mentioned that he had seen a wild bee, a fact which some naturalists will perhaps doubt. On April 14th the first mention of oysters appears in the journal, though the people at the fort were certainly not unacquainted with them previous to that time. Some Indians brought a supply of them for sale on that day, together with fresh salmon and venison. During these early years nearly all the meat and fish used at the fort was bought of the Indians, although it was sometimes necessary, when there were not many Indians about, to send out white hunters to procure game. The herd of cattle was still small, and under Dr. McLoughlin's orders, was carefully OF AN AMERICAN STATE 393 cherished. "No animal was killed for beef," he says, "until 1838," when the supply brought up from California, by the Company which Mr. Slacum had done so much to organ ize and encourage, enabled everybody, the Hudson's Bay people included, to have beef when they wished it. That oysters were not a novelty during these years when beef was scarce, may be guessed from an entry made on February 6, 1838, when this same Anawiscum — who was probably a Hawaiian, a large number of whom were employed by the Company — "was busy building a chimney, and making lime from shells." As there are not many other shellfish in that neighborhood, except clams, which are abundant nearly everywhere on the Sound, we may guess that the shells used were oyster shells, in considerable part at least. They must also have been received in considerable quantity, for lime enough was made to furnish plaster for several rooms in the principal buildings. In November 1834 some apple seeds were planted in a hot bed, and from them grew the trees, many of which were still standing when the site of the old fort was sold to a powder company in 1906. Melon, cucumber and pumpkin seeds were planted in March 1837, if not earlier, and Wilkes saw "salad three feet high" in the garden in 1841. In May 1837 three hens were brought up from Vancouver, and in June a rooster was procured from the veteran Plomondon, who had previously left the service of the Company and started a farm of his own on the Cow litz. In July 1835 a pig stye was made, and we may presume that home-grown pork began to furnish the tables of the chief trader and his employees not long afterward. Thus slowly and patiently did the chief trader in charge and the other white people at the fort provide 394 THE RISE AND PROGRESS themselves with the ordinary comforts and luxuries of pioneer life. It seems strange at the present day, when the relative value of the upland and valley land in western Washington is so well known, that these first farmers west of the Cascades should have confined their efforts at tilling the soil wholly to the high table-lands, when the rich valleys were so near. There is scarcely anywhere in Washington a prospect less inviting to the agriculturist than the gravel prairie on which this old fort once stood. Those who saw it sixty years ago say it was then covered with luxuriant grass, on which the herds of cattle and sheep belonging to the Puget Sound Agricultural Company throve most satis factorily, though this scarcely seems possible to those who know it at the present day, when the short grass it produces is green only in spring, and when the deep bed of almost perfectly clean gravel which underlies it is made so apparent by the long seams which the railroad builders have made through it. And yet not only the Hudson's Bay people but the early American settlers chose this in preference to all other land at first, and much bitterness of feeling grew out of the attempts of the latter to locate claims on it in opposi tion to the chief factor's wishes. At one time the Hudson's Bay people had about two hundred acres under cultivation here. The crops it produced were never very satisfactory. One year the barley was harvested by pulling it up by the roots, because the straw was too short to be cut with a scythe, and it yielded only about two bushels for one of seed, while potatoes did but little better. The latter were very small, according to the journal, "scarcely larger than bullets." That same year Challicum, an Indian chief belonging to one of the northern tribes, brought down forty potatoes OF AN AMERICAN STATE 395 from Fort Langley, each of which weighed at least a pound, and one weighed two pounds and a half. These seemed remarkably fine, to Mr. Kitson, who was then in charge, though he could have secured equal or perhaps better results had he done his planting in the Nisqually bottoms, scarcely more than two miles away. It was while Mr. Heron was in charge, in 1834, that the two Japanese, who have already been mentioned, were brought to the fort. On January 27th an Indian brought the news that a strange vessel had been wrecked near Cape Flattery, and all on board lost except two, who were then with the Indians, who had made slaves of them. Ouvrie, the French Canadian, who was the most trustworthy man about the place, was immediately dispatched with an Indian companion to rescue them if possible. The first day after he had started on his journey, he was overtaken by one of the severest storms ever known in the Sound country. The oldest Indians could not remember to have seen or heard of anything like it. Part of the palisade at the fort was blown down, and much damage done to the buildings. For some days much anxiety was felt for Ouvrie and his companion, but they were experienced canoemen and suffered no harm, and but little inconvenience. They returned on February 7th, having been told by the Clallams near Port Discovery that they had heard of no wreck, and they therefore concluded that none had occurred. But the wreck had occurred nevertheless, though it was four months later before the truth was learned. On the afternoon of June 9th, about two o'clock, a cannon shot was heard at the fort, from the neighborhood of the Narrows, as the journal informs us, and Mr. Heron put off in a canoe with six men, and "went on board the Llama and had the 396 THE RISE AND PROGRESS pleasure of taking tea with Captain McNeil, who pointed out two Chinese (Japanese) he had picked up from the natives near Cape Flattery, where a vessel of that nation had been wrecked not long since. There is still one among the Indians inland, but a promise was made of getting the poor fellow on the coast by the time the Llama gets there. " This promise the Indians kept and the poor fellow was rescued sometime later. The three were subsequently sent back to their own country, but were not allowed to land, the Japanese law at that time forbidding any resident of that country who should leave it from returning to it, and prohibited all foreigners from entering it. The early traders and factors who were in charge at Fort Nisqually did the first missionary work in western Wash ington or Oregon. These traders were all protestants; Dr. Tolmie was an Episcopalian, and Heron seems to have been a Presbyterian, though this is not certainly known. The first service appears to have been held on July 21, 1833. The entry in the journal for that day says only: "No skins traded today, the Indians having been informed last night, that we intended in future not to trade on Sunday." But Dr. Tolmie has left this record of what occurred in his diary: "Today, the Indians assembled in front of the house to the number of seventy or eighty, male and female. With Brown as interpreter, who spoke in Chinook, Heron and I explained the Creation of the world, the reason why Christians and Jews abstained from work on Sunday; and had got as far as the Deluge in sacred history, when we were requested to stop, as the Indians could not comprehend things clearly." This was more than a year before Jason Lee and his party arrived, and more than three years before Whitman and DR. WILLIAM FRASER TOLMIE. Born at Inverness, Scotland, Feb. 3, 1812, studied medicine and surgery in Edinburgh, and came to this country' in 1833, as a surgeon in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company. He early became a trader, and then a factor, and finally a chief factor' in charge of Fort Nisqually, where he dealt more extensively with the early settlers of Washington, than any other agent of the company. Soon after the Fraser River gold excitement, he removed tp Victoria, where he spent the remainder of his life, continuing in the service of the company until 1870. ItScs*' OF AN AMERICAN STATE 397 Spalding began their work. From the beginning thus made, religious services were held with considerable regularity every Sunday, when there were Indians about the fort, unless the weather was so stormy as to prevent, for there was as yet no building in which any considerable number of people could be accommodated.* While this was the first missionary work done among the Indians west of the Cascades, so far as the record we now have shows, it is almost certain that similar work was done at a much earlier day on both sides of the mountains. Pierre Pambrum, who was a Catholic, had begun some time before Bonneville's visit to teach the Indians in the neighborhood of Fort Walla Walla. Several of his fellow traders and factors, who were not Catholics, were quite as mindful of their religious duties as he was. Wilkes found that James * Some of the entries subsequently made in the journal are as follows : " Sunday, December 22. Cold frosty weather. Several Indian families came in as usual to get some religious instruction. I began to give them some instruction soon after my arrival, which they treated with much indifference; but have at last succeeded in altering their savage nature so far that they not only listen with attention to what I tell them, but actually practice it. " Sunday, August 10, 1834. The natives assembled and requested me to point out to them what was proper for them to act in regard to our Divine Being. I told them that they should endeavor to keep their hands from killing and stealing, to love one another, and to pray only to the Great Master of Life, or, as they say, the Great Chief who resides on high. In fact I did my best to make them understand Good from Evil. They, on their part, promised fair, and had their devotional dance, for without it they would think very little of what we say to them. "Sunday, October 17. All the Indians assembled to hear the wonders of our Divine Being. " Sunday, October 24. A great day for the Indians, who assembled here for a dance, and to hear from me what was right to do. I made them a speech in the Flathead language, which was understood by the chief Frenchman, who was the linguist for the rest of the tribes present. Every one of them seemed to pay attention to what I said, and it is to 398 THE RISE AND PROGRESS Douglas was regularly reading the service of the Episcopal church at Fort Vancouver in 1841, and that a number of the employees at the fort were accustomed to meet with him for that purpose. John Work and Joe Pambrum were Episcopalians, while Ogden was a Presbyterian. Heron and Kitson had been in the employ of the Company for a considerable time before they were at Fort Nisqually. It is quite probable, at least, that they were as thoughtful about the intellectual and religious welfare of the natives at other posts where they had served as they were at Nis qually. One of Dr. Tolmie's daughters is authority for the statement that her father was very much interested in missionary work and at one time thought seriously of re signing from the Company in order to engage in it. With these facts so well established as they are by authen tic records, made at the time, it is apparent that the charge made by Mr. Fitzgerald in the House of Commons, that the Hudson's Bay Company had "so exercised its monopoly, and so wielded its power, as to shut up the earth from the be hoped that these Indians will become as good as those of the interior. A Clallam chief arrived but could not see me owing to the number of Indians. There were about two hundred and fifty men, women, boys, and girls in the dance; every one peaceable. The Indians present belonged to eight different tribes. "Aug. 31st. The men have kept at rest and the natives were also attentive to their devotions." After Mr. Kitson arrived and took charge the missionary work was continued. He says : "Feb. 1st, 1835. We had a great party of Indians about us today. This morning the chiefs attended on me for the purpose of getting infor mation of living well, and as there was a young man who understood the Flathead language among the party, I thought proper to give them instructions respecting our duty to the Giver of Life, as also their duty to one another. All that I said was taken in good part and fair promises for the future." STEAMER BEAVER. The first steamship to enter the Pacific, and the second to cross the Atlantic. She was built at Black- wall, England, in 1834, launched in 1835, and came around the horn to the Columbia, where she arrived in 1836. She was sent from the Columbia to the Sound, and for many years afterward cruised along the coast, in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, going as far north as the Russian possessions. She was finally sold to a logging company in 1874, by which she was used to tow logs, until she went on the rocks on a small island n^ar the entrance to the harbor of Vic toria. I'inoiu.K'e*-'/ ^^!-r^^"^:'y- : o v';\'0 ":' •.-- • "-r 'c.:.7:-'' ¦'".. V' j- -5 .'_^:':;"' ¦ .i-"r ';i-'V^'tv"vTT^yio*BW. ^\-- -::, ¦y /K 5K w '&JJjjKKl^£fr^~^£.j *.'l ".-':' ''''-"'-¦ >'¦ ~." "'¦ XJ :*' .„ C^v^."^v-,^^ '^S£$m BlriB^S? m /ftofe tt SB ei_S_^^___J8_S^S55S^^i^B! ? S_f|y[51 ' ///ay^F ^l_l|_? ^a|S£P ri^f-;. ¦ 55 '.' ^^Wsp&S^^ in M • - : r , -¦'¦' ,V.' ______£_ •¦-¦ :.:¦.- t-_-::";:--, .-;.: - . :._. -^-- • ... •-¦ ' .v.: _'¦¦' -: ¦¦ -¦¦¦ .¦'¦ OF AN AMERICAN STATE 399 knowledge of man, and man from the knowledge of God," is not altogether true. On November 12, 1836, the steamer Beaver made her first appearance at Fort Nisqually. She was the first steam vessel to appear in the Pacific, and she was engaged in trade along the coast from the Columbia to the Russian settlements for nearly two years before the Sirius and the Great Western made the first complete trip across the Atlantic under steam. She was a sidewheeler, as all the early steam vessels were, and of one hundred and twenty tons register. She was built at Blackwall in England, but crossed the Atlantic and came round Cape Horn under sail, carrying her engines and boilers as freight. She arrived at Fort Vancouver in the spring of 1836. Her engines were of the low-pressure type, built by the old firm of Bolton & Watt, and her paddle wheels were small and set well for ward. The hull was of oak, and built rather for strength and durability than for beauty or speed. She carried a crew of thirty men, and six four-pounder cannon, and was also well supplied with small arms. The decks were pro tected by a netting which prevented Indians and other strange people from coming on board except by the gang ways, and no more than thirty of them were ever allowed to come on board at one time, unless accompanied by their wives and children. After leaving Vancouver she never returned again to the Columbia, but was employed exclu sively in carrying freight between Nisqually and the other posts of the Company on the coast, and to the Russian posts farther north. After the headquarters of the Company were removed to Victoria in 1849, tnat city became her home port. When not engaged in collecting furs, or dis tributing supplies among the substations, she was employed 400 THE RISE AND PROGRESS in a general trade with the Indians along the coast and among the islands, and for this purpose she was provided with counters and other arrangements for displaying goods, as well as with room for storing them. Wilkes examined her with a curious interest while he was at Nisqually in 1 84 1, as steam vessels were still something of a novelty in that day. His chief criticism was that she had but small capacity for carrying fuel. But this defect was a matter of but little consequence in a region where wood could be had in abundance at the water's edge everywhere, and where the ship could be laid close along shore any where. As often as there was need to do so, the ship was tied to a convenient tree or stump, and the crew sent on shore to cut wood, and when a sufficient supply was obtained she went on her way until there was need to repeat the process. It is quite safe to say that in no other time or country did a steamship procure her fuel supply in a similar way. Besides the Beaver the Company had, at one time or another, five small sailing ships engaged in trade along the coast. These were the Cadborough, Vancouver, Llama, Dryad, and Nereid. They were nearly all of less than one hundred tons register. The Vancouver was wrecked on the Queen Charlotte Islands in 1834, and the officers and crew escaped with great difficulty. Although Fort Nisqually was originally established as a fur trading station, it in time began to be apparent that another kind of business could be profitably carried on there. The broad expanse of excellent grazing land, which surrounded it on every side, gave promise that cattle and sheep could be profitably raised there, and as early as June 1834 three cows, with their calves, and a bull were landed OF AN AMERICAN STATE 401 there, from the very ship that had rescued the two Japanese from the Indians at Cape Flattery. These were all very wild, and were probably of the kind known as Spanish cattle, because they had been brought recently from Cali fornia. In June 1835 Plomondon brought up four other cows, with their calves, and five horses from Fort Vancouver. In July 1838 the Nereid brought the first stock of sheep received at the fort. She left San Francisco with eight hundred on board, but only six hundred and thirty-four were alive on her arrival. Other ships brought cattle from California after Mr. Slacum's time, and in 1841, according to a manuscript in the handwriting of Mr. A. C. Anderson, who was in charge at Nisqually in that year, a considerable herd was driven across the mountains from Forts Colvile and Walla Walla. They came up the Yakima River to the mountains and then crossed by the "Sinahomish pass," according to the manuscript — probably the Snoqualmie pass, in the opinion of Mr. Huggins, who was the last of Mr. Anderson's successors as factor in charge. In these several ways the herds at Fort Nisqually, which in later years amounted to eight or nine thousand cattle and nine or ten thousand sheep, were started. But the business of farming and stock raising was entirely foreign to that for which "the governor and Company of Adventurers of England, trading into Hudson's Bay," was organized. Their business was "to trade and traffick" in furs, and while they were given "the fisheries within Hudson's streights, the minerals, including gold, silver, gems and precious stones," and were in fact made the pro prietors of all the territory watered by the streams flowing into Hudson's Bay, to hold it "in free and common socage," that is as absolute owners, they could not acquire any real 402 THE RISE AND PROGRESS property in lands, possessed or claimed "by any other Chris tian prince," nor could they do business in any such country except by special license. They were doing business on the coast by virtue of such a license. It had been granted in 1821, and gave the Company the exclusive right, as against all other British persons or corporations, to trade in the country west of the Rocky Mountains. It was to run for twenty-one years, that is to say fourteen years beyond the time fixed for the termination of the first treaty of joint occu pation, which was to expire in 1828, and under which the country was to be "free and open to the citizens and sub jects of both countries upon equal terms. " When this license was about to expire the Company petitioned for a renewal with enlarged privileges, and in support of this request its officers made some statements which are interesting at the present day, as showing how faithfully they were respecting the rights of citizens of the United States to equal privileges with themselves in the country occupied. For example Sir J. H. Pelly, who was at the head of the Company's affairs in London, lays particular stress upon the service the Com pany has rendered the mother country, "in securing to it a branch of commerce which they are at present wresting out of the hands of foreigners, subjects of Russia and of the United States of America"; and expresses the confident expectation that with care and protection the British dominion may not only be preserved in this country, "which it has been so much the wish of Russia and America to occupy, to the exclusion of British subjects, but British interests and British influence may be maintained and ren dered paramount in this interesting part of the world." Sir George Simpson also wrote a letter to accompany the petition, in which he says : "The Possession of that country SIR GEORGE SIMPSON. Born in Rosshire, Scotland in 1792. In his youth he was employed as a clerk in the London office of a firm engaged in the West India trade, but finally he entered the London office of the Hudson's Bay Com pany, and in time was sent to America to manage its affairs. He succeeded in terminating the fierce com petition between his company and the Northwest Company, and finally in combining the two, when he became the most ' autocratic of all the Hudson's Bay governors. While-/ in the service of the company, he twice crossed.-, the continent and once made the circuit of the globe. He died at La Chine, near Mon treal, in i860. "^HA=^, ^///' I i /¦ i in OF AN AMERICAN STATE 403 to Great Britain may become an object of very great import ance; and we are strengthening that claim to it (indepen dent of the claims of prior discovery and occupation, for the purpose of Indian trade,) by forming the nucleus of a colony, through the establishment of farms and the settle ment of some of our retired officers and servants as agricul turists. " But the English government could not give the Company the increased privileges it thus asked for, without doing violence to the convention for joint occupation, which had now been renewed, and was to stand until a year's notice was given by one party or the other of a wish to terminate it. That notice she was not willing to give. Her interest lay, or seemed to lie, in the direction of continuing the present arrangement as long as possible. No American settlers except a few missionaries had yet made their appearance in the disputed country. If the Hudson's Bay Company was succeeding so well in wresting it from the Russians and Americans, under present arrangements, it was well enough, and perhaps better, to leave them as they were. Its retired officers and servants who were turning settlers might, in time, become numerous enough to possess the land, and so perhaps render British interests paramount, as Mr. Pelly had suggested. So the license of the Company was re newed, without change, for another period of twenty-one years. The stockholders of the Fur Company now organized a subsidiary corporation, the capital stock of which was sub scribed by themselves and their principal employees, and transferred to it all their farming and stock-raising proper ties. The prospectus of this company, issued in London in 1838, just after the older company had failed to secure 404 THE RISE AND PROGRESS the enlarged privileges asked for in its renewed license, describes the Puget Sound and Columbia River countries, particularly the district situated between the headwaters of the Cowlitz River and Puget Sound, as being "highly favorable for raising flocks and herds, with a view of pro ducing wool, hides and tallow, and the cultivation of agri cultural produce." The association was to be under the protection and auspices of the Hudson's Bay Company. Its operations were to be confined to the country west of the Rocky Mountains, and its capital stock was to be two hundred thousand pounds sterling, divided into two thou sand shares. During the pendency of negotiations as to the title of Oregon, the management of the business was to be conducted solely by agents resident in England, and John Henry Pelly, Andrew Colvile and George Simpson were named as such managers for the first year. The first general meeting of stockholders was to be held in London in December 1840, and within said month in every year afterwards. The Puget Sound Company was to pur chase of the Hudson's Bay Company its stock of sheep, cattle, horses and implements of husbandry. The three agents in London were to select the managing agents in the district, and fix their salaries, but any agent so appointed was to be under the superintendence of the officer of the Hudson's Bay Company managing the fur trade in the district. Neither the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, nor any person in its employ, nor by it taken into the district, was to be permitted to trade in furs and peltries while in the employ, or under agreement with, the Puget Sound Com pany. The agents were to retain authority to dismiss any employee violating this arrangement, and remove him out of the district, to the point where his services were OF AN AMERICAN STATE 405 engaged; and all employees were subject to the condi tions, restrictions and regulations of the Hudson's Bay Company. Dr. McLoughlin visited London in 1839, and Dr. Tolmie was there either at the same time or a little later, and during their visit or shortly after, all the arrangements for trans ferring the farms, together with the herds of cattle, sheep, horses and hogs then at the several stations of the Hudson's Bay Company in Oregon, to the new concern, were per fected. Dr. Tolmie was made manager, under the super vision of Dr. McLoughlin, and was to carry on the fur trade with the Indians for the parent Company at Fort Nisqually. Arrangements were also made for enlarging and improving the herds, both of cattle and sheep, and some fine stock animals were purchased and sent out. From that time forth the betterment of the herds was looked after as carefully as the most thoroughgoing stock breeder of the time could have desired. Dairying was started on an extensive scale; at one time more than two hundred cows were milked at the fort. The butter and cheese made were sold to the Russians, or sent to England and the Hawaiian Islands. As Mr. Astor had foreseen many years earlier, the business with the Russian stations had now grown to be very prof itable. Dr. McLoughlin had realized its possibilities from the first, and had steadily enlarged the Company's farms at Vancouver and on the Cowlitz in order to supply it. Its steady growth, and the difficulty of supplying it from Fort Vancouver, on account of the dangers of the Columbia Bar, and the long tedious trip up the river, had made the establishment of a supply station on the Sound desirable. The establishment of this station had opened a way to supply 406 THE RISE AND PROGRESS this trade, as well as the Company's stations in the interior and along the coast, without encountering either these dan gers or delays, and the trade throve accordingly. In some years the grain sold amounted to fifteen thousand bushels, while the sales of vegetables, beef, mutton, butter and cheese were correspondingly large. Wool, hides and tallow were, for the most part, sent to England. To conduct this business a large number of employees were required, but the Agricultural Company, like the Fur Company, procured its labor very cheaply. It brought out from Canada a large number of Canadians, French, Scotch, and Orkney Islanders, all of whom were indentured for five years, and paid at the regular company rate of seven teen pounds sterling per year, mostly in goods at prices fifty per cent, above cost in London. It also employed a considerable number of Hawaiians and Indians. Most of the Canadians were married to, or living with, Indian women, and these women worked in the gardens and dairies, and did the sheep shearing each season, for the food and clothes which the Company supplied them. The sheep-shearing season was something of a festival, and always ended with a dance and general good time, as did the harvest season. There was a regular harvest home celebration each year, according to the English custom. Christmas, New Year's day and Good Friday were always kept as holidays. No work was required of any of the employees on these days, except to feed and care for the work animals, and on Christmas and New Year's all the men were invited to the chief factor's room, where they were given a "regale" of cake and rum. Generally each was given a half-pint, or sometimes a pint, of the latter to carry away with him. Not much of this was reserved for FORT NISQUALLY. '." *¦ This fort of the Hudson's Bay, and later of the Puget Sound Agriculti^p Company, was established on the shore of the Souri<3_ 'near the mouth of the Nisqually River, in 1833, and was famous during the earlier years after the American settlers came to the territory. It seems to have been established ?with the expectation of making it/a center for colonizing the Sound country, and so increasing the British hold on it. It was a center of special interest during the Indian war. .M './.Ui. j W ¦m OF AN AMERICAN STATE 407 medicinal purposes, and in consequence, not much work was expected from anybody on the day following either of these holidays. Except on these days no liquors were ever allowed to anyone, and none was sold either to whites or Indians. It was apparently with the expectation of surrounding this station with a number of settlers, who should occupy homes of their own and still be more or less dependent upon and subservient to the Company, that the Red River Colony, heretofore alluded to,* was brought out from Canada in 1841. Just who induced these families to come to the coast, or why they were induced to come, is not clear, from any account we now have of their coming; but their treatment after their arrival here shows that there was a want of harmony somewhere among those who were in authority in the management of the Company's affairs, and that an undertaking which might, if well managed and steadily persisted in, have resulted in peopling western Washington with Canadian settlers who were loyal to British interests, and so greatly strengthened the British claim to this part of the country, was needlessly brought to disaster. Mr. Pelly's letter, previously quoted, which accompanied the petition of the Hudson's Bay Company for a renewal of its license with increased privileges, boasts of what his company had done to "wrest the trade of the country out of the hands of foreigners," and declares its intention to encourage the settlement in it of its retired servants "and other emigrants." This at least suggests that he, and his fellow directors, were at the time considering some undertaking of this kind. It may have been suggested by Dr. McLoughlin in 1839, or by Dr. Tolmie, who was there at the same time or later. There was reason why these and * See Chapter XVII, page 486, vol. I. 408 THE RISE AND PROGRESS other officers and stockholders of the Hudson's Bay Com pany should begin to be anxious about the settlement of the country. American missionaries had already appeared and begun their work in it. They had shown that the way was open, and that other American settlers could easily follow them. Congress was showing a renewed interest in Oregon, and Mr. Linn had, in December 1839, introduced his resolutions suggesting, for the first time, that donations of land be given to encourage the settlement of the country by Americans. If there ever was a time when England could have gained anything by colonizing the country, that was the time. The colonists comprised eighty persons belonging to twenty-three families. They were members, or descendants of those who had been members, of that colony which Lord Selkirk had attempted to plant on the Red River during the years 181 1 to 1815, when the fight between the Hudson's Bay Company, in which he was perhaps the largest stock holder at that time, and the Northwest Fur Company was at its hottest. They now started for the coast under an agreement signed by Duncan Fenelon, acting governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, by which the Company agreed to furnish each family ten pounds sterling in advance, also horses and goods for the journey, with food and necessary supplies at the Company's posts along the way. On their arrival at their destination in the Puget Sound country, each family was to be provided with a house and barn, with fenced fields, fifteen cows, one bull, fifty sheep, and with oxen or horses, and seed for the first year's planting. In return for this they were to deliver to the Company one-half of the crop raised each year for five years, and at the end of that period one-half the increase of the live stock. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 409 This party started west on the fourth of June 1841. Twenty-eight days later they were overtaken by Sir George Simpson, who had then started on his famous trip round the world, and was traveling across the continent in his own boat, manned by its crew of picked paddlers, and accom panied by his highland piper, his bugler, his halberdiers, and the other barbaric accompaniments with which he delighted to travel. They crossed the mountains in safety and reached Fort Walla Walla on October 4th. That night, or early the following morning, the fort was destroyed by fire, and the emigrants aided materially in saving the goods and other property it contained, which, but for their pres ence, would have been destroyed. The remainder of their journey down the Columbia to Fort Vancouver was with out incident, apparently, but at that point they were told by Sir George, whom they found there, that the Company would only keep the engagement it had made with such of them as would go to Nisqually. If any wished to go to work as trappers for the Company, it would supply them with the usual trapper's outfits, and they could go to Cali- fornia4 If any wished to go to the Cowlitz the Company would help them some, but for those who went to the Willamette it would do nothing. John Flett, afterwards for many years a respected resident of Pierce County, was one of these colonists, and the story, as given above is, substantially, as he wrote and published it during his lifetime. Only thirteen of the twenty-three families went to Nisqually, where they passed the winter, but they did not all remain there. Some went to the Wil lamette, where they became loyal supporters of the pro visional government, after it was formed, and some seem to have gone to California. No further effort was ever 410 THE RISE AND PROGRESS made by either company to bring Canadian colonists into Oregon, or the Puget Sound country, and the plans of those who organized the emigration, whatever they were and whatever their purpose was, were aban doned. The early missionaries in the Sound country found their way first to Fort Nisqually, and were welcomed, and as hospitably entertained there as Jason Lee and Whitman and others had been at Fort Vancouver. Rev. David Leslie, accompanied by Mr. William H. Willson, were the first to arrive. They reached the fort on April 10, 1839, and Mr. Kitson made this entry in the journal: "This evening the Rev. Leslie and Brother Willson arrived with an intention of making at this place a small missionary establishment for converting the Indians around." On the following day he "showed them a spot of ground north of the small river, for building a house for the mission, as desired by Mr. James Douglas," and the next he "took a ride out near the Poolapa* River with the two gentlemen strangers. They were delighted with the country." The Indians were assembled and Mr. Leslie told them of his intention to establish a mission if agree able to them, and this announcement was so favorably received that Mr. Willson immediately began work on a mission house, while Mr. Leslie returned to the Wil lamette. When the building was so far completed that it could be occupied, Mr. Willson also left the fort, and did not return until after the Lausanne arrived in 1840, more than a year later. While Mr. Willson was still at work on his building Father Demers arrived and remained for several days * The Puyallup River. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 411 at the fort, during which time he baptized several In dian children and two adults, and performed a marriage ceremony.* * The entries in the journal for several days are as follows : "Sunday 14 — The Indians of the place, having been brought into the big house, and Mr. Leslie told them of the purpose of their mission, that is, that they intended to settle here if they, the Indians, wished it for the purpose of giving them instruction in religion, and learning their children to read. "15th — . . . Mr. Leslie has gone home and Mr. Willson is left to begin building. "17th — . . . This day the first tree was cut down for the missionary building. Mr. Willson gave the first blow and I the last. An Indian hired by Mr. Willson to assist at building. "18th — Mr. Willson was arranging our grindstone for grinding his broad axe. "21st — Sunday; About xi o'clock a. m. Mr. Demers, the Roman Catho lic priest, arrived from the Cowlitz and brought letters from Vancouver. "25th — Thursday; Eighty-nine men, women and children of the Sawa- yewamish (Snomomish) have come in to see the priest. "28th, Sunday — . . . Seven children baptized by Mr. Demeres. "29th, Monday — . . . This afternoon Miss Helen McDonald and Miss Margaret Riedout Orriber were both baptized by Mr. Demers, and after, the latter was married to her old husband, Joseph Pin. At seven o'clock, Miss Helen McDonald was married to William Kittson, (Chief Trader in charge) without much ceremony, the latter being a protestant and the former a Roman Catholic. The rites were performed in a civil manner. Witnesses Mr. WilHam Holder Willson a brother of the Missionary Society and Joseph Pin. "May 6th — . . . Mr. Willson has lost his Indian. The scamp received pay in advance, and shammed sickness in order to pay a visit to his friends with whom he has gambled a part of his gains." Unfortunately the volumes of the "Journal of Occurrences" covering the period between May 31, 1839, to January 20, 1846, have disappeared and cannot now be found. Mr. Edward Huggins, who had possession of all the books and papers of the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, up to the time of his death, did not know where these volumes were, but supposed that they might be in the files of the State department in Wash ington, as part of the record in the arbitration proceeding by which the sum to be paid to the stockholders of the Company, by the national 412 THE RISE AND PROGRESS The first protestant missionary who came to reside at the fort was Rev. John P. Richmond, M. D., of Illinois, who was accompanied by his wife and four small children — the youngest born just as they were about to leave New York and named Oregon, in honor of his intended home — and by Mr., Willson, and. Miss Clark of Connecticut, a teacher. They came down the Columbia from Vancouver in a boat furnished by the Hudson's Bay Company and manned by its employees, and thence up the Cowlitz by the same con veyance. From the Cowlitz they crossed to the Sound on horseback, arriving some time during the summer of 1840. They took possession of the house which Mr. Willson had erected and nearly completed during his visit the year before, and, soon afterwards, Mr. Willson and Miss Clark were married, Rev. Richmond performing the ceremony. They were the first American couple to be married in Wash ington. They remained at this new station only one year, and returned to the Willamette in 1841. The Richmond family stayed one year longer, and then left the country, returning to the eastern coast by the Chenamus in 1842. While living at the mission another son, Francis Richmond, was born to them, on February 28, 1842, and he was the first American white child born, in what is now western Washington. Before leaving the country, and while on board the Chenamus, then lying in Bakers Bay and making ready to put to sea, Dr. Richmond performed the marriage government, under the treaty of June 15, 1846, was fixed. At my request Hon. F. W. Cushman has had that record very carefully examined, and the books were not found. This is to be regretted, as they doubtless contain much interesting and valuable information, not only about the early missionaries, but also in regard to the first American settlers, who arrived on the Sound in July 1845. It is probable that these settlers came direct to Nisqually from Fort Vancouver, but whether they did or not nobody now certainly knows. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 413 ceremony for a second time in this district, uniting Mr. Rogers, of the American Board of Missions, to Miss Leslie, a daughter of Rev. Leslie of the Methodist mission. Dr. Richmond's work as a missionary was not attended with encouraging success, and for this reason, and because of family affliction, he gave it up after a little more than two years' trial. Soon after he left the fort the house in which he and his family had lived was burned, having been set on fire, as is supposed, by an Indian who had once attempted to steal one of their children. No further attempt at mis sionary work was made by the protestants until after the settlers arrived, although Dr. Tolmie seems to have con tinued his efforts in that direction. Some years after his death his daughter wrote to Mr. Clarence B. Bagley, of Seattle: "I remember driving from Nisqually to Tacoma, many years ' ago, and stopping at a farmhouse where an old white-haired man was leaning over the gate. When my aunt, Mrs. Edward Huggins, told him who we were he said : ' Your father taught my wife the Lord's prayer. ' ' Dr. Richmond returned to Illinois, in 1842, where he was for many years the firm friend of Peter Cartwright, the famous missionary and politician, whom Mr. Lincoln defeated in the Congressional campaign of 1846, and like him was active both in political and religious work. He was elected to the legislature for several terms, and served in the Senate when Mr. Lincoln was a member of the lower house. He was also speaker for one term, when the house numbered among its members Hon. Melville W. Fuller, the present chief justice, General John A. Logan and Hon. W. R. Morrison. While at Fort Nisqually he took part with Commodore Wilkes and his men in the first Fourth of July celebration on the coast. 414 THE RISE AND PROGRESS The British warship Fisgard spent a large part of the summer of 1846 in the Sound near the fort, while the steamer Cormorant, also an armed vessel, made two visits to the neighborhood, on each of which she remained for a consider able time. The Modeste still lay in the Columbia, where she had been for two years previously. Presumably these ships were sent to the coast, at that time, in the expectation that there might be some need for them in connection with the settlement of the boundary question, but none arose. The officers and men spent a large part of the summer ashore, and fared sumptuously every day on fresh beef and fresh vegetables procured from the herds and gardens of the Company, and frequently the sailors and marines helped the farmers and gardeners and herders with their work. The Fisgard arrived on May 16th, having been forty-eight days coming up the coast from San Bias. She cast anchor near Ketron Island, and Captain Duntze and the other officers were furnished summer quarters in the buildings at Old Fort Lake, which were speedily fitted up for their accommodation. On July 1 ith the Cormorant arrived, towing the brig Rosalind for which a cargo of piles was sought, presumably to be used for improving the harbor of Victoria, the new port on Vancouver Island which Chief Factor Douglas had founded three years earlier. Timber suitable for the purpose was found on Anderson's Island, and the cargo was procured there, although the land and timber then belonged indisputably to the United States, the boundary treaty having been signed a month earlier; but this, of course, the officers did not then know. In August the Cormorant made a trip down the Sound, with Captain Sangster of one of the Hudson's Bay Com pany's ships on board as pilot, in search of a vein of coal, OF AN AMERICAN STATE 415 which somebody was reported to have seen near the coast. She was absent nearly three weeks, but the journal says nothing as to whether or not the coal was found. All the British holidays and other notable days as they occurred during the time the ships were in the Sound, were celebrated with due form and ceremony. On the morning of May 24th, a royal salute was fired in honor of the Queen's birthday, and another was fired on August 26th, in honor of Prince Albert's. The eighteenth of July, Waterloo day, was duly honored with horse racing, a favorite sport with sailors when on shore. Two or three dancing parties were also held in one of the larger buildings, for which the band of the Fis gard furnished the music. Of one of these the journal says : "Our women, hitherto so backward, became infected with the dancing spirit, and tripped it on the light fantastic toe, much to the amusement of the Fisgardites." Captain Duntze and his officers also gave a launch party one afternoon, when Dr. Tolmie and a few of \\\s associates were taken for a trip to Steilacoom Bay, and it was agreed, before parting, that the bay should thereafter be known as Fisgardita Cove, in honor ofthe launch in which they had enjoyed such an agreeable excursion. During the last days before the ships took their final departure the carpenters, some of the sailors, and a few of the employees at the fort selected a suitable tree, which they cut and hauled to the fort, where they made a fine flag pole of it, and set it up as a memorial of their visit. But their own colors never waved from its top as an emblem of British sovereignty in the country which British diplomacy had so long struggled to retain. Within a month after the pole was raised the news was received that the boundary had been agreed upon, and the whole Puget Sound country was thenceforth and forever to be American. Chapter XXXIII. THE IRRESISTABLE SETTLER ARRIVES. THE LONG cherished hope of the British cabinet, and the Hudson's Bay Company, that they would be able to make the Columbia the northeri? boundary of American enterprise in the Pacifit Northwest, had now to be abandoned. But the Hudson's Bay people at Fort Vancouver and Nisqually did not relax their efforts to hold the country north of it as long as there was a hope that they might do so. For more than a score of years after those who came with Wyeth and Jason Lee had shown their determination to remain permanently in the country, they succeeded in keeping all who followed them from making dangerous explorations beyond the lordly river. This, indeed, was not very difficult to do. The valley of the Willamette was easy of access, and still afforded ample room for all who came. There was an abundance of land there, still unclaimed, and as good as any that had been taken. Some of the advantages of civilization were, withal, to be obtained there, such as access to schools and religious worship, and the companion ship of neighbors, if desired. The earlier pioneers had found by experience that the climate was agreeable, and the Indians were not troublesome, nor wild beasts either disagreeably numerous or dangerous. If any did not incline to accept the advantages thus offered, and discovered a desire to investigate the country toward the north, they were discouraged by representations as to its inhospitable nature, its inaccessibility, the hostility of its Indian inhab itants and the ferocity of its wild beasts, and if these repre sentations proved ineffectual, they were discouraged by other means. These methods were entirely successful down to the autumn of the year 1844. Previous to that time no 420 THE RISE AND PROGRESS persistent Yankee settler had disturbed the quiet of any of the Company's posts. Its great farms at Vancouver and on the Cowlitz were extending and enlarging year by year; its herds at Nisqually were thriving, while its posts at Walla Walla, Colvile and Okanogon, and even at Boise and Fort Hall, attended to their regular business of buying furs and paying for them with blankets, shirts, guns, ammunition and gewgaws, "at an advance of fifty per cent, on prime cost in London," undisturbed by any anxiety as to the future. A few, a very few pious and devoted missionaries pursued their self-sacrificing labors, but otherwise all of what is now, scarcely more than sixty years later, a thriving State, was a wilderness almost as wild as when Lewis and Clark saw it forty years earlier. The whole eastern part of it was inhabited only by Indians and a few missionaries, some of whom were soon to be butchered. In its western part, there were only six white residents who were not then connected with the Hudson's Bay Company or the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, and these had all been con nected with it. They were James Birnie, who had for several years been in charge at Fort George, and who, with his relative George B. Roberts, afterwards long and favorably known in the territory, were now making homes for themselves on the north bank of the Columbia near Cathlamet; Captain James Scarborough, who had for years commanded one or the other of the Company's ships, who had taken a claim known as Scarborough Hill, nearly opposite Astoria, Simon Plomondon, Marcel Bernier and Antonie Gobar, who had become settlers near the Cowlitz farms. These six and their families, the officers and agents of the Hudson's Bay Company, and the savages were the only human occupants of western Washington. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 421 Its rich valleys were uncultivated, its mines unopened, its vast wealth of timber undisturbed. The Indian paddled his graceful canoe on the waters of the Sound, or poled his way laboriously up the rivers, as his ancestors had done for centuries. If a trail was made anywhere, it was along the bank of a stream, where some solitary trapper plied his lonely vocation, or through the woods where it was necessary for him and his Indian neighbors to make their way, with much labor, from one stream to another, on their trips to the trading posts. Nature everywhere lavished her bounty with a prodigal hand, but there was no one to profit by it. The symmetrical and imposing peaks of the Cascades looked down on one side on vast stretches of fertile valleys and undulating hills, that waited only for water and the plow to change them into teeming farms and bending orchards, and on the other upon great forests which had not yet heard the ring of the settler's ax, or upon a vast inland sea that would soon harbor the mer chant navies of the world, but which had rarely felt the pressure of a keel heavier than of the Indian canoe. But a great change was about to take place. With the close of the year 1844 things began to be different with the Hudson's Bay Company. The immigrants of that year numbered four hundred and seventy-five, according to Dr. McLoughlin's estimate, and Bancroft, and some others think there may have been fully eight hundred of them, and among them were a few of those indomitable spirits to whom opposition is rather an incentive to further effort than a disheartening or depressing influence. One of these was Colonel Michael T. Simmons. He was of Irish ances try, though born in Kentucky, married, and was then about thirty years of age. He had come with the immigrant train 422 THE RISE AND PROGRESS that Gilliam commanded, and had been its second in command, with the title of Colonel. With the same com pany had come William Shaw, a veteran of the war of 1812, and George Bush, a colored man, though born free in the State of Pennsylvania. It was said that he had been with Jackson at New Orleans, though in what capacity is not mentioned. He had lived for some years in Missouri, where he had traded in cattle, was fairly well to do, and had assisted Simmons, either in procuring his outfit, or in some way during their journey, and, though strangely assorted, the two had become firm friends. Their original intention had been to seek homes in the Rogue River Valley, supposing from its latitude, probably, that its climate would be more agreeable to them than that four or five degrees further north. Bush left Missouri because he had found that free people of his color were not altogether welcome there. The Constitu tion of that State, when it applied for admission to the Union, twenty-three years before, had made it the duty of its General Assembly to forbid free negroes or mulattoes ever to enter it on any pretence whatever, and, although this provision had met with severe criticism and aroused violent opposi tion in Congress, the State had been finally admitted, in the closing days ofthe session, with this "fundamental condition," that "nothing in her constitution should ever be construed to allow the passage of any laws, and that no laws should ever be passed, by which any citizen of any state, should be deprived of any of the privileges and immunities, to which he was entitled under the Constitution of the United States. " It was to escape from a public sentiment that made such enactments possible, that Bush had left Missouri, but on his arrival in Oregon he found that while its laws prohibited slavery, in the language of the ordinance of 1787, they also OF AN AMERICAN STATE 423 prohibited people of his color from residing in the territory, in practically the same language as that of the Constitution of Missouri. This must have been a bitter disappointment, both to him and his friends, and it did more than anything else to fix their determination to locate north of the Columbia. That region was still a part of Oregon, it is true, but in the settlement of the boundary question, about to be made, it might become British territory. But it was too late in the season to attempt to go further with their families, in a country where there were as yet no roads, and no trails over which it was practicable to take their goods or their animals, and they accordingly stopped at, or near, Washougal, on the north bank of the river, not far from Fort Vancouver, where they made themselves as comfortable as might be for the winter. In December Simmons, accompanied by three brothers, John, Henry, and James Owens, and two other men, named Loomis and Williamson, made a trip down the Columbia, to the mouth of the Cowlitz, and thence up that river for a distance of thirty or forty miles, to a point near where it turns southward, after flowing west and southwest from its source. This trip was made with almost incredible labor. They were required to pole their boat most of the way, against a rapid current, made more rapid by the rains of winter, and through a channel frequently blocked by logs and driftwood, over or around which they were compelled to carry their boat and all their outfit. They were finally forced to turn back because their provisions were running short. It is reported that notwithstanding this disappoint ment, Simmons regarded it as a fortuitous circumstance for, before leaving Missouri, he had dreamed that he would find such a river as this, turning from a westward course to 424 THE RISE AND PROGRESS the southwest, and that he would be compelled to abandon his first enterprise at that point. The party returned to its point of starting, and none of its number, except Simmons, made any further attempt to settle in the Sound country. In February 1845, Henry Williamson and Isaac W. Alderman built a cabin within the limits of the Hudson's Bay Company's improvements, at Vancouver, staked a claim and posted notices that they had taken up a section of land there. This created no small commotion at the fort, and Dr. McLoughlin caused the cabin to be removed, which led to an altercation in which loud words were exchanged and threats made on both sides. Alderman then abandoned the undertaking and left the neighborhood. He was a turbulent character, who, two or three years later, "died with his boots on," in a quarrel near Sutter's Fort in Cali fornia. But Williamson, who is represented to have been a very quiet and peaceably disposed young man, undertook to have the claim surveyed and duly marked. Dr. Mc Loughlin and James Douglas, who was then about to succeed him in the management ofthe Company's business, addressed a letter to the Executive Committee of the provisional govern ment, in which they set forth what Williamson had done, and expressed the hope that the committee would feel justified in taking measures to have him removed from the Company's premises, "in order that the unanimity now happily subsisting between the American citizens and British subjects residing in this country, may not be dis turbed or interrupted." With this letter they enclosed a copy of an address to the people of Oregon in which they set forth how the Company had been established in the coun try, under the provisions of the treaty of joint occupation; OF AN AMERICAN STATE 425 the improvements it had made; that it had been un molested in the occupation of them for many years; that it had given its protection, so far as possible, to every person who required it, and had offered every assistance, and was now trying to develop the country. It wished to preserve the good understanding already established, and entertain ing the highest respect for the provisional government, it hoped and desired to continue to live in the exercise and interchange of good offices with it. To this letter and address the committee made prompt reply, acknowledging the obligations which the settlers and their government had already incurred for favors extended by the Company, and assuring its agents that they would feel in duty bound to use every exertion in their power to put down every cause of disturbance and promote the amicable intercourse and kindly feeling hitherto existing. Shortly after the exchange of these letters Williamson also abandoned his pretensions and went to the Willamette Valley, where he became an influential and highly respected citizen. It may be presumed that this incident did not tend to make McLoughlin and Douglas look with more favor than formerly on the inclination of Simmons and others to explore the country north of the river. Yet there is nothing to indicate that it changed their policy in regard to them in any way. During the winter and spring, Simmons and his friends remained near the fort and at Washougal, occupying them selves with whatever employment they could get from the Company, but without disclosing, further than there was need to do, in what direction they would make their next effort. The Company's agents lost no opportunity, during 426 THE RISE AND PROGRESS this time, to impress them with the desirability of going south, and the undesirability of going north, all of which only strengthened their determination to go north rather than south. Bush felt that he at least must do so. The people at the fort watched their movements and deliberations with a jealous eye. They clearly saw their inclinations, and that they were growing stronger day by day, and took other means to change them. Simmons desired to leave his wife and infant child nearer the fort than they were, when he should start on his exploring expedition, and sought to rent a cabin or other quarters from the Company or its employees, for them to live in during his absence, but was persistently refused. The best quarters offered was the use of a single room for one month, and this was offered by one of the Kanaka employees of the Company. This fixed his deter mination, if it had not already been fixed, and accordingly, in July 1845, after making such arrangements as could be made, he set out from the Columbia for Puget Sound, accompanied by William Shaw, George Wanch, David Parker, David Crawford — who had come to Oregon a year earlier — Ninian Everman, Seyburn Thornton, and two others probably, Michael Moore and John Hunt. They took their way along the route followed by the exploring party of the preceding December, down the Columbia to the Cowlitz, and thence up that stream to its forks, where they left their boat and pushed on through the forest and across the small prairies to the Sound. At Cowlitz Prairie they secured the services of Peter Bercier, an old Hudson's Bay employee, to act as their guide. They also learned there that another Ameri can settler, John R. Jackson, had preceded them up the river, located a claim on or near the Cowlitz Prairie, and OF AN AMERICAN STATE 427 had gone back to Oregon City after his stock and other worldly effects.* John R. Jackson was born in the parish of Steindrop, county of Durham, England, January 13, 1800, and Sep tember 27, 1823, arrived in New York. Shortly afterwards he went to Illinois, where he made his first settlement, November 5, 1833. In May 1844 he started for Oregon, and arrived at Clackamas Bottom November 5th, on the anni versary of his settlement in Illinois. During the winter of 1844-5, he heard of the magnificient water-power at the mouth of the Des Chutes River, and with the design of taking it and exploring the adjacent country, in March 1845, he made a trip in which, having arrived at the house of old Simon Plomondon, on Jolly Prairie, the latter accom panied him as far as Newaukum River, one of the con fluents of the Chehalis. Just after the fourth of July, accompanied by W. P. Dougherty, subsequently probate judge of Pierce County, Major H. A. G. Lee, speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives under the provisional government, Messrs. Watt, Jacob Haldray and Stewart, he left Oregon City in a ship's yawl, belonging to John Campbell, for Puget Sound. The party traveled in this conveyance down the Willamette and Columbia, and up the Cowlitz to the site of Monticello, where they procured a ?There is some reason for supposing that Jackson was really the first American settler in the territory, though it is not now possible to deter mine just when he took possession of his claim and remained there, as can be done in Simmons' case. In his application for his patent he claims to have taken possession November 23, 1854, though this may be only an approximate date. The Simmons party arrived at Tumwater "late in October. " That Simmons met Jackson while on his second exploring tour is not to be denied, but he had made an earlier exploring tour in the preceding winter, so that both as explorer and settler he appears to have prior claims. 428 THE RISE AND PROGRESS canoe and went on to Cowlitz Landing. There they took horses for the Sound country, but meeting with a mishap were led to abandon the trip after reaching the place of Marcel Bernier. Lee desired to return to be present at the organization of the legislature, but Jackson was not satisfied, and he and the others determined to descend the Chehalis to Gray's Harbor, and procured a canoe and Indian crew for that purpose. They proceeded as far as the forks of the Chehalis, when all of them but Jackson determined to return. Overruled, he went back with them and made an examination of the country in the vicinity of the Cowlitz farms, and took the claim known as "Highlands," situated about ten miles from the old Cowlitz Landing. From this expedition he had set out to return to Oregon City for his goods and chattels, as the Simmons party appeared and continued their journey to Puget Sound. Arriving at the Sound, probably at the point where they finally fixed their settlement, though this is not definitely known,* the Simmons party procured a canoe and set off to explore the country along its shores. They went north as far as Deception Pass, made their way around the north end of Whidby Island to Skagit Bay, and thence along the eastern shore of the Sound back to the point of depart ure. They then returned to Vancouver. Of this explor ing party only Wanch and Simmons finally made their homes in the Puget Sound country. The British ship Modeste was still in the river when they returned, and the anxiety among the settlers in the Willamette Valley about the meaning of her presence there * If the Journal of Occurrences kept at Fort Nisqually in the year 1845 could now be found, it might show that this party procured their boat at the old fort. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 429 had in no way abated. They knew, in a general way at least, that the negotiations for the settlement of the bound ary question were pending, and they hoped, no doubt, that they would soon be concluded. The presence of a British war ship in the river at such a time seemed ominous, but Simmons and Wanch were satisfied with the result of their explorations and resolved in any event to go north and make their homes on Puget Sound. There is no record showing how long the party was absent on this tour or when they returned. They seem to have remained for some time after their return, at or near the place where they had spent the winter, although the season was now well advanced, and they must have been anxious to reach their new homes as soon as possible, so as to make preparations for the winter. Possibly the attempt of Wil liamson and Alderman to locate on part of the Company's property, made it more difficult for them to arrange for the supplies they needed, and which they could obtain only from the Company's store houses, before starting. These supplies were an important, if not an essential, part of their outfit, for without them they could hardly have subsisted during the following winter. This part of their arrangements was completed September 27th, on which date they were given the following letter signed by McLough lin and addressed to Dr. Tolmie, in charge of the Nis qually station : "Dear Sir: — This will be handed to you by Col. Symonds (Simmons) who is going with some of his friends, to settle at the falls at the Chute River. He applied to me to get an order on you for grain and potatoes, but I presume you have not more than you need for your own use. If you have any to spare please let him have what he demands 430 THE RISE AND PROGRESS and charge it to home.* Col. Symonds and his friends passed the winter in our vicinity. They have been employed by us in making shingles and procuring logs. They have all conducted themselves in a most neighborly, friendly manner, and I beg to recommend them to your kind assist ance and friendly offices, 'y On this order they seem, subsequently, to have procured 200 bushels of wheat at 80 cents, 100 bushels of peas at $100, and 300 bushels of potatoes at 50 cents per bushel, together with ten head of beef cattle at $12.00 per head. It is apparent therefore, that in the end, the Company treated this party with much the same liberality it had shown the settlers on the Willamette. The party consisted of Simmons and family, Bush and family, James McAllister and family, David Kindred and family, George Jones and family, and Jesse Ferguson and Samuel B. Crockett, two single men. All of these had crossed the plains together, except possibly the two unmarried men. Mr. George H. Himes of Portland, whose father came to the Sound in 1853, and located a claim near the present village of Lacy, the first railroad station east of Olympia, has compiled the following list of members of this party: * I. e., to the head office at Vancouver. t In September, 1846, Peter Skeen Ogden and James Douglas, then in charge at Fort Vancouver, sent an order to Dr. Tolmie to supply Sim mons and his friends with thirty barrels of flour, for which he was to take shingles in payment. They also enclosed notes given by Simmons, Kindred, Jones and McAllister, probably for supplies furnished them during the previous winter, on which they had been " making payments for many months past, " and on which balances remained due as follows; Kindred, $6.74; Gabriel Jones, $82.93; M- L. Simmons, $53.43; James McAllister, $24.31. On these balances he was to charge no interest. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 431 Michael Thomas, Mrs. Elizabeth Kindred, George Washington, David Crockett, Simmons, i Francis Marion DeKalb, McDonald,Christopher Columbus, born on the north bank ofthe Columbia River near Washougal, April 10, 1845. McAllister ¦ James, Mrs. Martha Smith, George,America, afterwards the wife of Thomas Chambers, an uncle of A. H. Chambers, of Olympia, Martha, afterwards the wife of Joseph Bunton. John, James, born on the Washougal, on Sept. 23, 1845. (David, Mrs. Talitha, John Karrick. Jones Gabriel,Mrs. Keziah Br ice, Lewis,Morris, Elizabeth, who married Joseph Broshears in 1852. 432 THE RISE AND PROGRESS George, Mrs. Isabell James, William Owen, Bush •-( Joseph Talbot, Reily Bailey, Henry Sandford, Jackson January. Crockett, Samuel, Ferguson, Jesse. This list, Mr. Himes says, was submitted to Mr. W. O. Bush before it was published, and he pronounced it correct. Mrs. Lizzie Hawk, however, a daughter of the McAllisters, says, in a letter printed in July 1892, that her brother James was born in 1846, after the family had reached their new home, and Mrs. Hartman, another sister, gives the exact day as March 13th.* The party therefore consisted of thirty persons, one of whom was an infant in arms. * Christopher C. Simmons was undoubtedly the first child born of American parents who were permanent settlers north of the Columbia. James McAllister, whose full name seems to have been James Benton McAllister, was the second. Francis Richmond, son of Rev. John P. Richmond, the missionary, was born at the Methodist mission near Fort Nisqually, February 28, 1842, but his parents left the territory that year and returned to Illinois. The first white child born in the territory was Marcel Bercier, son of the old guide above mentioned. This boy was born November 10, 1819, near Spokane Falls. When eleven years of age, he was sent to school at St. Boniface, Red River, Manitoba, where he remained until he grew to manhood. When he was twenty-three years of age, he came to Puget Sound, with one of the old French missionaries, and in 1844, when twenty-five years of age, he married, and took up a donation claim on Newaukum Prairie, where he died December 27, 1899, leaving three sons, Julian, Isadore, and Pierre. The first white child of American parents born in what is now Wash ington, was Alice Clarissa Whitman, daughter of Marcus and Narcissa OF AN AMERICAN STATE 433 They followed the route which the July party had taken. At Cowlitz Prairie, they again employed Bercier as their guide. From this point it was necessary to cut a road to the Sound through the forest, a distance of fifty-eight miles, and they were fifteen days in making this part of their jour ney. They arrived at the head of Budd's Inlet late in Octo ber, and here the first permanent settlement north of the Columbia was made. Simmons located a claim at the falls of the Des Chutes* River, which the Indians called Turn- water, j He laid out a town and called it New Market, a name by which it was known until long after. Bush and the others went back to what is now known as Bush's Prairie, a short distance to the south, and made their claims there. Kindred immediately built a cabin on his claim, just south of the present city of Olympia, on the edge of the prairie. It was the first claim on which any improvements were made in Washington, unless Jackson, who, as above mentioned, had located his claim on the Cowlitz before the arrival of the first exploring party, had returned to it and commenced his improvements earlier. He returned some time in the fall, probably in November or December, but at what time Whitman. She was born March 4, 1837, and was accidentally drowned, as previously mentioned, while at play on the river bank near the mis sion, June 23, 1839, when she was two years and three months old. The second was Eliza Spalding, daughter of Rev. H. H. Spalding and wife, who was born at the Lapwai mission, now in Idaho, in 1837. The third was Cyrus Walker, son of Elkanah Walker; the fourth a son of W. H. Gray, and the fifth Edwin, eldest son of Rev. Cushing and Myra Eells. He was born at Tshimakain, July 27, 1841. * The Hudson's Bay people had for many years called this stream the Chute River, and it is frequently mentioned by that name in the daily record of happenings which was carefully kept at Fort Nisqually. t The Indians probably called it Turn Chuck, turn meaning throb, as tumtum, the heart, and chuck .being their word for water. Turn- water is therefore half Indian, and half English. 434 THE RISE AND PROGRESS he had his cabin built is not now known. Simmons did not get his cabin at New Market completed until the following summer. It was late in the season when the party arrived, and they were obliged to depend on the supplies they had arranged to procure by their labor, supplemented by the game and fish they could obtain from the woods and the Sound, for their subsistance. They seem to have suffered for noth ing. The woods abounded with game, and the Sound and all the streams flowing into it were filled with fish, most of which were of excellent quality. There being as yet no mills of any sort north of Fort Vancouver, they were com pelled to do without flour, and the corn meal, which as Ken- tuckians and Missourians they had been accustomed to all their lives, and so they ate their wheat and their dried peas, boiled, as they did their potatoes and fern roots, and found them all very nourishing, if not as palatable as they could wish. By observing the Indians also, they soon found that the gravelly shore of the Sound, at low tide, yielded a bounti ful supply of clams, and other very wholesome shellfish that were easily taken. The discovery no doubt filled their hearts with joy, as it did their stomachs with satisfaction, and the saying, "when the tide is out, the table is set" took form, and passed into an adage. The men found ready employment in riving and shaving shingles, after they had split shakes enough to cover their own rooftrees, and lumber enough to make doors for their cabins, and the few articles of furniture they required, from the cedar logs lying everywhere about them. The shingles they sold to the Hudson's Bay people, at satisfactory prices, taking their pay in blankets, provisions and material for clothing. And so the little colony passed its first winter on Puget Sound. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 435 Sometime late in 1845 George Wanch, who had been with the exploring party that made the first tour of the Sound, returned north to a point near the present city of Centralia, where he located his claim. He was a bachelor, German born and a gunsmith by trade. Five years later he made a visit to some friends in Oregon, where he met Mary Hager, who had recently come to the territory with her family from Missouri, and after a brief courtship they were married. Her father's family located in Pacific County, on the banks ofthe Willapa. Wanch and his wife had for their neighbors, Sidney S. Ford and wife and Joseph Borst, who crossed the plains in 1845, came north and selected their claims some time after Wanch had chosen his. Charles H. Eaton, a native of New York State, and who had come to Oregon in 1 843, and his brother Nathan, Edmund Sylvester and his partner Levi L. Smith, Alonzo Marion Poe, Daniel D. Kinsey and Antonio B. Rabbeson, came to the Sound in 1846, and selected claims in the neighborhood of New Market. Nathan Eaton made the first location on Chambers Prairie, and Edmund Sylvester subsequently chose a claim in the same neighborhood. His partner, Smith, fixed his claim, a half section, on the ground where Olympia now stands, the agreement between him and Sylvester being that each should own a half interest in the land selected by the other, and in case of the death of either the survivor should own the whole of both claims. They planned to lay out a town on Smith's claim, to be called Smithfield, as some authorities say, though there is reason to believe it was to be Smithter,* * If this was the name chosen for the new town, it was the first of those town names made by combining parts of two or more names of the owners of the town site. The most successful combination of this 436 THE RISE AND PROGRESS a combination of Smith's name with the last syllable of that of Sylvester's. Smith was a bachelor. He was subject to attacks of epilepsy, which made him despondent. He would remain alone in his cabin for days together overwhelmed with melancholy, during which miserable and unhappy periods he committed his gloomy forebodings to his diary. This diary also contained some details of his agreement with his partner, and after his death helped materially to establish Sylvester's right to his claim. Notwithstanding his melan choly disposition he was much respected by his neighbors and in 1 848 he was elected a representative for Lewis County in the Oregon legislature, but was found dead in his boat, just before the legislature assembled. In January, 1847, the little colony was further increased by the arrival of Samuel Cool, A. J. Moore, Benjamin Gordon, Leander C. Wallace, Thomas W. Glasgow, Samuel Hancock, and three brothers named Davis, one of whom had a family. In March Elisha and William Packwood arrived with their families. Elisha settled on land which was subsequently owned by David Chambers, but he aban doned the claim in August and returned to the Willamette. William Packwood chose a claim in the Nisqually bottoms, near where the railway station of Sherlock now is, and settled there with his family. Later in the season John Kindred, J. B. Logan, and A. D. Carnefix still further rein forced the new settlement at and near Budd's Inlet. Still later Thomas M. Chambers arrived, accompanied by his four sons, David, Andrew, Thomas J. and McLean, two of whom kind is in the name of Bucoda, which is formed from the first two letters of each of the three names of the original owners of the ground on which it was built — Buckley, Colter and David. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 437 had families, and George Shazer and David Brail. Shazer selected for his claim the land long afterward famous as George Shannon's ranch, near the mouth of the Nisqually. McAllister and family that same fall removed from the location they had first made on Bush Prairie, to a new claim of 640 acres, which he had selected on the banks of a small stream flowing into the Sound about a mile west ofthe mouth of the Nisqually, and known as Medicine Creek. It was on this claim that Governor Stevens held his first coun cil with the Indian tribes, to treat for the cession of their lands, and the treaty was called the Medicine Creek treaty. The name of the stream was subsequently changed to McAllister's Creek. These settlers, who had families, built small log cabins for them and took immediate possession of their claims. They made small clearings and planted crops of wheat and vegetables. McAllister's family lived in one cedar stump and stored their first crop in another during the first year they lived on this claim. During the winter of 1846-7 Simmons built a small mill on his claim at New Market, in which he ground wheat, but did not bolt it. The building, like all others so far, was of logs, and the millstones were roughly made from flat boulders, found in the river near the falls which furnished power for the mill. From the unbolted flour produced by this rude mill, the settlers made the first bread from their own grain. It was coarse bread no doubt, but it was better than boiled wheat. It was also better than the bread they had been able to make from such flour as they could obtain at Nisqually. For this they had to pay a high price, and it was of very poor quality. It had been brought many thousand miles in sailing ships; some of it had been wet, 438 THE RISE AND PROGRESS and all of it was musty and practically unusable. It was in fact true that the first wholesome bread these settlers tasted after their arrival on the Sound was made from the flour made at this mill. The next undertaking of this little colony was to build a saw mill. In August Colonel Simmons, Frank Shaw, E. Sylvester, Jesse Ferguson, A. B. Rabbeson, Gabriel Jones, A. D. Carnefix, and John Kindred formed a partnership, which they called the Puget Sound Milling Company, and built at New Market, near the lower falls, the first saw mill on the Sound. This mill for a time was a source of great wonder to the Indians. Rabbeson was the active manager and operator of it, and he has told how they crowded about the saw so thickly as to seriously interfere with its opera tions. They could not understand how the "Boston man" could make it go up and down simply by looking at it, as it seemed to them he did. After he had cut the first log, and was ready for the second, he ordered them to clear out of the way, or else help him roll the log on the carriage. Some eight or ten of them quickly offered to do this, but they were unable to move it. He then drove them back, and with a kant-hook easily rolled the log into place himself. This was another surprising thing. They wondered at the white man's marvelous strength, and he told them that with that instrument he could easily throw any of them across the river, but none of them volunteered to make the experi ment. The machinery for this mill was obtained from the Hudson's Bay Company, at Fort Vancouver, and had been used for a considerable time in a mill which the Company owned at that place. They were charged 20 cents a pound for it* ?Letter of Sept. 26, 1846, from Ogden and Douglas to Tolmie. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 439 On August 24th the trail between Olympia, which was still known as Smithfield, or Smithter, and New Market was blazed out. On the 6th of July 1846, the first wedding in the new settlement was solemnized, when Daniel F. Kinsey and Miss Ruth Brock were married by Colonel Simmons, who, with James Douglas and James Forrest, had been made county commissioners of the Vancouver district, with the authority of judges. In July Samuel Hancock and A. B. Rabbeson went back to Cowlitz, where they were employed by Simon Plomondon to build a brick kiln on his claim, and burned a kiln of brick. These were the first brick burned north of the Columbia. Early in 1848 Thomas W. Glasgow made a trip to Whidby Island, where he located a claim, built a cabin and planted some wheat and potatoes at a point nearly opposite the pres ent city of Port Townsend. He then returned to Budd's Inlet, where he induced Rabbeson and Carnefix to visit his claims, which they started to do, going north by way of North Bay and Hood's Canal. Here they found Indians who had never before seen a white man. Seeing Carnefix doing the cooking and other work about the camp, they supposed him to be a slave, and one of the chiefs offered to buy him. This incident so amused Glasgow and Rabbeson, who would have been mistaken for slaves themselves had it been their turn to cook, and they made so much sport of Carnefix on account of it, that he turned back and left them to pursue their journey alone. Not long after their arrival at Glasgow's claim, they noticed that a large number of Indians were assembling in their neighborhood. They held a big hunt, at which a 440 THE RISE AND PROGRESS large number of deer and much other game was killed, and a great feast followed, with noisy demonstrations lasting far into the night. These proceedings caused them some anxiety, which was increased as they saw the numbers of their visitors increasing and noted that they were begin ning to be regarded as very unwelcome intruders. From a friendly Indian, whose acquaintance Glasgow had made while building his cabin and planting his garden, they learned that Patkanim, chief of the Snoqualmies, one of the largest tribes on the Sound, was counseling his followers to begin immediate war on the settlers. They were few in numbers now, he argued, and it would be easy to kill them or drive them away, and capture all their property. But they were increasing rapidly, and if war was not made upon them soon they would become invincible. There would be no room for the Indians; the white men would want to be rid of them and with their fire ships they would transport them to a distant island, where the sun never shone and from which they could never escape. He therefore urged his followers to begin killing at once and not to stop until the last white man was slain or had left the country. Upon learning this information Rabbeson made haste to leave the island. Glasgow remained behind only for a little time, when he too fled, abandoning his claim and all his improvements. In July of this year, Rev. Pascal Ricard, with a small party of Oblate missionaries, arrived on the Sound and established St. Joseph's mission on the east side of Budd's Inlet, about a mile north of Sylvester's claim. During the same season Samuel Hancock took up a claim on the west side of the inlet, where he built a warehouse and wharf. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 441 After his escape from Whidby Island, Rabbeson went back to the Cowlitz settlement again, accompanied by Jesse Fer guson, who owned and took with him a grain cradle which some have supposed to be the only implement of that kind that had ever been seen north of the Columbia River at that time. But as a matter of fact cradles were used at Fort Nisqually to cut grain as early as 1838,* though scythes were sometimes used when the straw was very short, as was often the case. Several events now combined to check the progress of settlement, which had been so auspiciously begun. The immigration of 1846 was less than that of 1845, which has been estimated as high as 3,000, as before stated. For this no doubt the Mexican war was responsible, as the volunteers called for were more largely apportioned to the new Western States, where the war spirit was strong, than to the older States, and more men were offered than were required. Illinois furnished six regiments, Indiana five, Missouri more than 9,000 men, and Iowa about 1,000, and it was from these States that the immigrants heretofore had chiefly come. But other causes interfered to turn those that did come, away from northern Oregon. Though the number who crossed the plains in 1847 was larger than in any previous year, being estimated as high as 5,000, but few of them crossed the Columbia. The Whitman massacre, which occurred in November of that year, and the Cayuse war immediately following it, alarmed the newcomers. They soon learned that one cause of the massacre was that the Indians held the missionaries responsible for bringing the measles and smallpox among them, and that these diseases were prev alent among other tribes on both sides of the mountains. * Journal of Occurrences, July 19, 1838. 442 THE RISE AND PROGRESS Their safety and that of their families seemed to demand more concentration in making settlements. Most of the new comers therefore turned to the Willamette Valley. The discovery of gold in California, in 1848, not only turned the tide of emigration strongly toward that part of the coast, in the succeeding years, but drew away many from the newer settlements north of the Columbia as it did from those south of it. Many of those who had arrived on the Sound among the earliest, as well as those who had come recently, and had hardly rested after their long trip from the Missouri, hurried away to the new El Dorado. Some went with their wagons, others by sea. Their departure left the new community very much reduced, and for the time seriously checked the progress of improvement in all lines. The ring of the ax in the small clearings almost ceased to be heard, the plow stood still in the furrow, and in the litde mills at New Market the sound of the grinding and sawing was low indeed. The effect of this setback is well shown by the result of the first census, which Governor Lane ordered to be taken, among the first of his acts after his arrival in the territory. It was taken in 1849 anc* showed that in all Oregon, north of the Columbia, there were just 304 people, 189 of whom were American citizens and 115 foreigners. Of these 231 were males and 73 females. But the goldseekers began to return soon after this census was taken, and many of them brought well-filled purses, not with coined money, but with gold dust, which they knew how to pass from hand to hand at a fair valuation, and it served the uses of money exceeding well. If their departure had caused a halt in development, their return, with their gold dust, soon set it to moving again at greatly accelerated speed. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 443 They brought with them something else that was almost as useful and valuable as their gold dust, and that was the news that San Francisco already offered a market for their timber, and the products of their farms, at very satisfactory prices, and, though they might not then have guessed it, the market was to increase more rapidly than they would be able to supply it. The first and most urgent need of the new city was for piles and planking to build wharves. Its next was to be for lumber to build houses. These needs the shores of the Sound could supply. Labor to cut the trees and prepare them for shipment alone was needed, and those who were to perform it were already beginning to come, and in such numbers that, when the census of 1850 was taken, the population of the trans-Columbia region was found to have more than trebled since Governor Lane's census was taken the year previous. The national census for 1850 showed that there were 1,049 white inhabitants north of the Columbia. The Vancouver district, as it had been formerly known, was now Clarke County. It comprised all the country east of the Cowlitz River, and Lewis County all west of it. In Lewis County there were 146 dwelling houses, and an equal number of families. There were 13 children attending school and a total of 23 had been enrolled. In Clarke County there were 95 families and 11 children attending school. This population was widely scattered. Its principal centers were at the two stations of the Hudson's Bay Com pany, at Vancouver and Nisqually, and at the head of Budd's Inlet. Both at Vancouver and Nisqually there were still more Hudson's Bay people than Americans, and some who had formerly been employed by the Company, and who were married, or were living with Indian women, had taken claims 444 THE RISE AND PROGRESS along the river east of Vancouver. There was also a similar colony at Muck Creek, that was regarded as a part of the Nisqually station. Simon Plomondon, an "old servant of the Company, who is mentioned in its records as early as 1833, had gathered about him a smaller colony on the Cow litz, among whom were Peter Bercier, the old guide, Antoine Govain, and another Canadian named Thibault, and per haps two or three others. Columbia Lancaster, who had crossed the plains in 1847, and settled in the Willamette Valley, had now removed to the north side of the Columbia, and taken up a claim near the mouth of Lewis River. He had been one of the judges of the supreme court, under the provisional government, and was to be Washington's first delegate in Congress. William Dillon had fixed his claim on the north side ofthe river, near the mouth of the Willamette, where he had established a ferry. Other settlers along the river were R. Covington, John Colder, Joseph Gibbon, D. C. Parker, S. D. Maxon, D. Stringer, Solomon Strong, John Stringer, Henry Van Alman, Squire Bozarth, Wm. Goodwin, A. J. Malick, Abram Robie, D. Sturges, W. H. Tappen and Jane Caples. Jonathan Burpee, after making a short stop at or near where Kalama now stands, had moved up the Cowlitz to the neighborhood of its forks, where he became a prominent settler. Other settlers in the neighborhood were Seth Cat lin, Peter W. Crawford, Mr. West, Henry D. Huntington— "Uncle Darb" as he was familiarly called in later years — Nathaniel and David Stone, J. B. Butler, Jesse Fowler, L. P. Smith, R. C. Smith, J. Busbie and V. M. Wallace. James O. Raynor, Royal C. Smith and John E. Picknell also settled north of the Columbia, about that time. Aber nethy & Clark had built a small saw mill on the little creek, OF AN AMERICAN STATE 445 opposite Oak Tree Point, below the mouth of the Cowlitz, where they began sawing lumber in 1848. Alexander D. Abernethy, long respected in Oregon and Washington, was the resident partner, and manager of the company, and had built a home in the neighborhood. The mill did a very successful business from the start, and for years afterward sent a continual and increasing supply of lumber to San Francisco. At Cathlamet, a short distance farther down the river, James Birnie, who had long been in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company on the coast, and finally its chief factor at Astoria, but now retired from its service, had fixed his home. Judge William Strong also had taken a claim in that neighborhood, while W. T. Harrington had fixed his home some ten or twelve miles further west. Pa cific City, on the north bank of the Columbia near its mouth, had been laid out by Dr. Elijah White on the claim of James D. Holman, who had among his neighbors Peter S. Stewart and a brother of L. A. Loomis. Holman had a hotel there which he had bought ready made on board a ship in San Francisco, and the proprietors of the town had high hopes that it would some day be a great city. There was also a small settlement at Chinook, and a few other settlers along the river and around the southern extremity of Shoalwater Bay, among whom were Captain James Scarborough, the old Hudson's Bay Company skipper, John Edmunds, George Dawson, Washington Hall, George Davison, W. P. Edwards, James Johnson, William McCarthy, William McGumningill, J. G. Pickernell and John Meldrum. The small but exceedingly palatable oysters, for which Shoalwater Bay has since become noted, had been found, and during the summer of 1850 Capt. J. W. Russel had taken a small quantity of them to San Francisco, by steamer, 446 THE RISE AND PROGRESS where they were received with much favor. Capt. Felstead also took a supply by sailing ship, but they arrived in bad order and were a total loss. Anthony Ludlam then fitted out the schooner Sea Serpent to engage in the oyster trade, and a company was formed later which sent the schooner Robert Bruce to the bay for cargo, but while she was loading, the crew quarreled, and the ship was set on fire and burned to the water's edge. The crew, being unable to get away promptly, built themselves cabins, took up claims, and became permanent settlers, near what has since been known as Bruceport, from the name of the ship. There may possibly have been another settler or two along the coast. J. B. Chapman about this time took a claim in Gray's Harbor. E. D. Warbass had taken a claim near the old Cowlitz landing, where he kept a small hotel, and Andrew F. Simmons had also located there. Further north between the Cowlitz and the Chehalis were O. Bouchard, J. B. Broulier, John B. Brule, William Cottineau, O. Donifa, William Cottowaine, George Drew, George and James Germain and S. S. Saunders. Some time in 1850 David F. and Putman Bradford, B. B. Bishop, George L. and George W. Johnson, George Drew, T. B. Pierce, Lawrence W. Coe, S. M. Hamilton, and F. A. Chenowith went up the Columbia to the Cascades, which seemed to be the utmost limit of navigation and a promising site for a future city, and made claims there. They opened a store at the lower Cascades, in which the Johnsons, Pierce and Chenowith, were, or subsequently became, interested. The Bradfords, Coe, and Bishop settled at the upper Cas cades. Before the year closed John M. Swan, who had come up by sea from California, made a claim immediately east of OF AN AMERICAN STATE 447 the settlement on Budd's Inlet, which was subsequently known as Swantown, and Henry Murray, who came with him, T. C. Chambers and LaFayette Balch had settled at Steilacoom.* This had been a promising settlement for some time. It is mentioned in the journal kept at Fort Nisqually as early as April 1849, anc^ T. M. Chambers was there early in May and D. M. Chambers a few days later. T. M. Chambers took up a claim at the mouth of the creek which now bears his name, and built a saw mill and later a flouring mill there. He also staked off a claim near his own, which he proposed to enter in the name of one of his sons, all of which caused Dr. Tolmie a great deal of uneasiness. Both claims were on land claimed by the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, and the doctor frequently and formally warned him to go away and make his improve ments elsewhere, or else not make them at all, but this Chambers refused to do. He not only refused, but after con sulting with Col. Ebey, he openly did all that he could to induce other Americans to settle near him, contending that the Agricultural Company was a foreign concern, en titled to no rights, and having none that any American was bound to respect, or would be when the situation was fully understood at Washington. He also had for neighbors three sailors, who had come with the British ship Albion to New Dungeness to load spars, and was seized there in April 1850 for violating the revenue laws. They were William Bolton, Frederick Rabjohn and William Elders, and were cutting timber on their own account. Bolton had * The name of a lusty young Indian who was employed for several years, more or less regularly, about Fort Nisqually, and who long sur vived nearly all his contemporaries, both among the members of his tribe and the officers and employees at the Fort. 448 THE RISE AND PROGRESS been ship's carpenter for the Albion, and was preparing, or perhaps had already prepared, to start a small shipyard near Chamber's place. Still later came C. C. Batchelder, A. A. Plummer, William B. Wilton, and one or two others from San Francisco to cut piles. They landed some distance north of Steilacoom, at what is now known as Higgin's Beach, where Wilton took up a claim, and all the party remained there during the winter. A number of the old Hudson's Bay Company men and a few others had also taken claims on the prairie farther south, and among these were Isaac Bostian, N. Eaton, John Edgar, T. W. Glasgow, Benjamin Gordon, F. Gravail and L. A. Smith. In August 1849, Maj. Hathaway, Capt. Hill and other officers of the first artillery arrived on the Sound to select a site for the new military post they had come to establish. They spent the night of the 23d at the fort, and on the 24th fixed upon the ground where the Asylum for the Insane now stands, preferring it to any other chiefly for the reason that the Company already had some buildings there, which could easily be made comfortable for the use of the officers. While the Company owned these buildings it did not own the land and the government did, and yet an arrangement was made for the use of the buildings, under which it paid rent to the Company for property that was practically its own, for several years. Early in December General Persifor F. Smith, then in command on the coast, paid this new post a visit, accom panied by Colonel Hooker — afterwards major general and commander of the Army of the Potomac — and Major Vin ton, members of his staff. They also visited Fort Nisqually and dined there, and Dr. Tolmie records in his journal that they were "all very agreeable and gentlemanlike men." OF AN AMERICAN STATE 449 Early in October, Col. Ebey made a trip down the Sound, and on the 13th took up the claim on Whidby Island, which Glasgow had abandoned, and to which something more than a year later he brought his family. During this same year 1850, John C. Holgate, who had come to Oregon in 1847, the year ofthe Whitman massacre, in the same train with David Shelton, L. B. Hastings, Albert Briggs and others, and had afterwards served in the Cayuse war, came to the Sound, and after exploring it to his satis faction fixed his claim on the east shore of Elliot Bay, near where the city of Seattle now stands. He was an uncle of Hon. C. H. Hanford, now judge of the United States dis trict court for the western district of Washington, and having located his own claim, he wrote the judge's family, then living in Iowa, urging them to come at once, as he had chosen some land near his own that he was sure would please them. This land was near Georgetown, at present a suburb of Seattle, but before the family arrived in 1853, it had been taken by others. The population of the future territory, at the close of the first census year, was therefore scattered in widely separated settlements, along the north bank of the Columbia, from the Cascades to its mouth, and northward along the coast to Shoalwater Bay, and possibly as far as Gray's Harbor; along the banks of the Cowlitz to its forks, and thence along the trail made by the Simmons party, to Budd's Inlet, with scattered outposts at the mouth of the Nisqually, and at Steilacoom. Samuel Hancock and some others had endeav ored to found a settlement near Cape Flattery but had failed. They arrived at Fort Nisqually on March 15th, "having for the present abandoned their undertaking there, and seemingly soon to break up the copartnership," as Dr. 450 THE RISE AND PROGRESS Tolmie's journal says. "Two days earlier," says the same authority, "some Americans arrived from the Sinahomish (probably the Snohomish) River where they had been explor ing. " Who these Americans were and what became of them there is now no means of knowing. They may have been mere prospectors, who came to explore the country and not finding what they wanted went elsewhere. Such a party had come to the fort in the preceding December. They were nineteen in number and had come up from California "in the American barque John D. Caton, which had been obliged to put into Victoria in distress." They arrived at the fort on the evening of December 2d. They remained there two days "waiting for horses to be collected to trans port them to the Cowlitz" and during that time purchased $121 worth of goods and supplies at the company store. On the 5th enough horses having been brought in to supply their needs they took their departure. American merchants ships had not been much seen in the Sound since Capt. Gray's time, but they were now begin ning to appear and in encouraging numbers. On November 23> 1849, Capt. Mosher of the ship Inez, apparently an American vessel, and a boat crew arrived at Nisqually, having left the ship tidebound below the narrows. She had come for a cargo of shingles, which had been bought of Col. Simmons, and which he and some of his neighbors had no doubt made and sold to the Company. The ship arrived at the fort on the 5th, and on the day following the General Patterson, Capt. Croser, arrived with a cargo for the fort. On the 23d Dr. Tolmie offered Capt. Mosher $1,000 to take a cargo of a thousand live sheep to Victoria, but he declined the offer and sailed on the 25th without them. On February 23, 1850, the American barque Pleiades was in the OF AN AMERICAN STATE 451 neighborhood of Nisqually taking in logs, and the Sacramento was also lying near by loading with shingles and logs. All these vessels see. "o have been under the American flag, though that fact is not expressly mentioned in the fort journal with regard to all of them. Early in January 1850 the brig Orbit arrived in Budd's Inlet, sailed up as far as she could safely go toward the new town of New Market, and cast anchor. Her name, suggest ive of a completed circuit, was auspicious, and gave promise of a history of more than ordinary interest, if not of a fame not soon to be forgotten. She was from Calais, Me., and had.brought out a company of goldseekers to San Francisco. Capt. William H. Dunham was her master. On the evening of January 1st, he had called at Fort Nisqually and asked for an Indian pilot to take him to New Market. On the following morning, according to the fort journal, he called at the fort accompanied by several of his passengers, and purchased some mutton. He also told the story of the ship's stormy experience on the trip up the coast. "She had sailed from San Francisco, November 2, and reached Cape Flattery after a run of eight or ten days. She was then driven by southwest winds as far north as Cape Scott, and after some delay, and danger of being driven ashore, she made Neah Bay where she was detained about fourteen days, windbound. Capt. Dunham states that owing to the favorable representa tions made to him of the navigation of the De Fuca Straits, he had not properly ballasted the Orbit at San Francisco. He touched at Victoria."* Col. Isaac N. Ebey, who had come to the Sound in 1847, was at New Market when the Orbit arrived there. He was a man of force and enterprise, and as the Orbit was for sale, * Journal of Occurrences, Fort Nisqually, Jan. 2, 1850. 452 THE RISE AND PROGRESS he and B. F. Shaw, Edmund Sylvester and a man named Jackson purchased her, and thus she became the first ship owned on Puget Sound, and the forerunner of a fleet of American ships, hailing from it, which has already established a vast and rapidly growing trade with the Orient, and com pleted the circuit of the world's commerce around the earth. Dunham, after selling the Orbit, joined the settlers, tak ing the claim which Sylvester had previously located on Chambers' Prairie, where he was killed the following year by being thrown from a horse. Simmons meantime had sold such right as he had acquired to his claim at New Market, together with his mills, for a round price, said to have been $35,000, to Crosby & Gray, formerly of Portland, and with this money, or part of it, bought Jackson's interest in the Orbit, together with enough of the other shares to make him the controlling owner, and taking Charles H. Smith, a friend of Capt. Dunham who had come up with him from San Francisco, as his partner, sent her back to San Francisco with a cargo of piles, which Smith, who sailed as supercargo, was to sell, and buy and bring home a stock of general merchandise with the proceeds. This he did, returning in July. Meantime Sylvester's partner Smith having died, leaving him the sole owner of the two claims they had taken, and having sold the one he had himself chosen to Dunham, he took possession of the one Smith had selected, platted it and changed the name, at the suggestion of Col. Ebey apparently, from Smithfield or Smithter, to Olympia, a name suggested by the fine view the place commanded ofthe Olympic Moun tains. He had built a log hotel 16 x 24 feet in size, and containing two rooms and an attic in which his guests slept on bunks. He now offered to give Simmons and his partner OF AN AMERICAN STATE 453 two lots in the townsite, at the confer of Main and First streets, if he would build a store on them, and Simmons accepted. A building 20 x 40 feet in size, of rough boards, and equally rough furnishings, was soon constructed, and the new stock of goods installed in it, with Smith in charge. A thriving business began immediately, the settlers finding here for the first time an opportunity to buy many things that the Hudson's Bay Company, whose goods were selected solely with a view of trade with savages, could not supply. Nor was the business without a fair return of profit, it would seem, for among the goods offered and prices charged, plain cook stoves, without furniture, are mentioned at $80 each. Clanrick Crosby of Crosby & Gray, who purchased Sim mons' claim and mill at Tumwater, had only recently arrived from the East with a rather notable party. His brother Captain Nathaniel Crosby, Jr., had come out to Portland in 1844 in command ofthe brig O. C. Raymond, which the government had sent round the horn with supplies for the emigrants. Finding no suitable place to store his cargo, on his arrival, he built a log house for it, which was long after wards used for a post office. He then engaged with his ship in general trade along the coast, and with the Sandwich Islands, until 1849, when, in order to have his family brought to the coast, he sent east and purchased the brig Grecian, of 247 tons, which left New York in September of that year with twenty-four people on board, all but five of whom were his relatives.* * Mrs. Martha R. Burr of Seattle, who was a daughter of Captain Nathaniel Crosby, Jr., gives the names and ages of this family party as follows: Capt. Clanrick Crosby, his wife Mrs. Phebe F. Crosby, their three children, Clanrick aged 12, Phebe Louisa aged 7, and Cecilia aged 4 years ; First Officer Washington Hurd, his wife Mrs. Elizabeth Hurd, and child, Ella M. aged 2 years — Mrs. Hurd was Capt. Crosby's sister; 454 THE RISE AND PROGRESS Layfette Balch arrived at Olympia, with the brig George Emery, which he owned, about the time that Simmons and his partner Smith were getting their store into operation. Entries in Dr. Tolmie's journal seem to indicate that he passed Fort Nisqually on April 4th. The people at the fort at first supposed his ship was the Orbit, but on the following day Captain Hill, from Fort Steilacoom, called with the information that "the vessel observed passing the landing yesterday was not the Orbit, but another from San Francisco, with a speculation of goods for New Market. The Captain and Colonel Ebey, who was a passenger, had called upon Hill and given him some late papers." As no other ship with "a speculation of goods" came to the Sound at or about that time, this seems to fix the date of Balch's arrival. He was not given such encouragement from the owner of the townsite at Olympia as he thought he was entitled to expect, Second Officer Alfred Crosby, a younger brother of the captain, his wife, Mrs. Clara Nickerson Crosby, Mrs. Mary Crosby, wife of Capt. Nathaniel Jr., and their three children, Nathaniel aged 13, Mary L. aged n, and Martha R. aged 9 years; Mrs. Holmes, companion and housekeeper, who went out to join her husband, and afterwards settled in Portland; Capt. Nathaniel Crosby, Sr., father of the captain, and second officer, who remained several years, then returned to Cape Cod, where he died, and one passenger, Mr. Converse Lilly of New York. These were in the cabin. Forward there were Richard Hartley, a. Scotchman, Joseph Taylor, and Foster and Nathaniel Lincoln, brothers of Mrs. Nathaniel Crosby, Jr. The Grecian arrived at Portland in March 1850. The two older Crosby brothers located at Tumwater. Capt. Nathaniel Crosby, Jr., took the first cargo of spars to China from Milton, Oregon, early in 1852, and in the fall of the same year another from Olympia. He died in Hong Kong, China, in 1856, and his widow and son returned to Puget Sound, where they settled. Mrs. Crosby died at Tumwater, in 1866. The son Nathaniel third was in business many years in Olympia, where he died. He married Miss Cordelia J. Smith of Chambers' Prairie, and they had two sons, Frank L., now United States deputy marshal at Tacoma, and Hally L., formerly of Tacoma, but now of Spokane. Alfred Crosby settled at Astoria and was for many years a master pilot on the Columbia River bar. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 455 and he accordingly weighed anchor and sailed away in search of a town of his own. This he soon chose. The Journal of Occurrences shows that he spent the night of December 24, 1850, at Fort Nisqually, and within a few days thereafter he selected a claim on the shore of the Sound, a few miles north of the fort, and near those already taken by Murray and Chambers at Steilacoom. He proceeded to lay it out into town lots and called the place Port Steilacoom. He had brought with him from Maine the material for a building, all ready to be put together.* This was quickly unloaded and set up, the stock of goods removed to it, and the rival of Olympia was launched. The Hudson's Bay Company now had two competitors for the trade of the settlers and the Indians, where it had heretofore had none, and it yielded to the situation very reluctantly, the settlers thought. And they were glad to think so, for those who had come earliest, before the bound ary dispute was settled, had been repeatedly notified of the Company's exclusive rights to trade with the Indians, and warned not to interfere with them. So jealously were these rights guarded, that it was said the settlers were com pelled to show the rents in their old garments, when they applied to purchase new ones, before they would be allowed * Balch was not the only trader who came to the coast in these early days bringing coals to Newcastle, for the ship on which Richard Henry Dana spent his "Two Years Before the Mast" brought out, as part of her cargo to California, wine and raisins. John C. Holgate also drove a team across the plains in 1847 for a nurseryman who had a young fir, among the other trees in his stock, for which he had been offered $5 and refused it. Balch was from Bath, Me., and had come to San Francisco in command of the ship Sacramento, of which his brother was the owner. He was a lineal descendant of John Balch, who came to America from England in 1623 and settled at Beverly, Mass., where he built a house in 1638, which is still standing. 456 THE RISE AND PROGRESS to buy, so great was the fear that they would get something with which to trade. Those whose purchases had been thus limited, if there were such, now rejoiced that the Company's monopoly was at an end, and most of them became active advertisers of and agents for the sale of American goods. Two incidents occurred during these first five years after the settlement of the new territory began, to disturb the harmonious progress of events. News of the treaty of June 15, 1846, by which the boundary question was settled, and joint occupation of the Oregon territory by the United States and Great Britain terminated, was not received at Fort Vancouver until early in November, and at Nisqually and by the settlers on the Sound until some time later. Nearly two years after the news was received the Puget Sound Agricultural Company sent a considerable herd of cattle south of the Nisqually, to be pastured on the prairie, and the settlers saw, or thought they saw, in this an attempt to increase the Company's claim against the government by enlarging the area of lands actually used, which, under the treaty, it was to be paid for. They were quick to protest. A meeting was called, over which William Packwood pre sided, and at which the encroachments of the Company on the rights ofthe settlers, and on the territory of Uncle Sam were fully discussed. A series of resolutions, drawn by Col. Isaac N. Ebey, was adopted and Col. Ebey and Rabbeson were delegated to present them to Dr. Tolmie. The lan guage of these resolutions was more forcible than elegant, and their conclusions did not clearly follow the premises stated in the preamble. But there was no mistaking their meaning. They set forth that the cattle had been driven south ofthe river, in great numbers, and if allowed to remain there would consume all the vegetation of the region they OF AN AMERICAN STATE 457 ranged over. Moreover they were wild cattle, and if per mitted to mix with those of the settlers, a very great injury would be done. Therefore it was resolved that the Hud son's Bay Company had opposed the settlements of the Puget Sound country, and had used misrepresentation and fraud to prevent the setders from exploring it, and had even threatened them; that the conduct of Dr. Tolmie in endeav oring to prevent settlement by Americans on lands which he pretended were reserved by the treaty of 1846, although he knew they were not, was censurable; that his assumption of right was only equaled by the baseness of the subterfuge by which the Company was attempting to hold other large tracts, by an apparent compliance with the organic law of the territory — that is by taking up claims in the names of servants of the Company, who did not even know where they were located, and who were compelled to convey them to the Company when their titles should be perfected. As American citizens, the settlers declared, they had regard for treaty stipulations and national honor, and were jealous of any infringement of the laws of the country, by persons who had no interest in its welfare or prosperity, but were foreign born and owed allegiance only to Great Britain; they warned the Company that it had never been the policy ofthe United States to grant preemption rights to other than American citizens, or those who had declared their inten tions to become such, in a legal form, and that such would without doubt be the condition of land grants in the expected donation law. They declared that they viewed the claims and improvements made, subsequent to the treaty, by the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, as giving it no rights, and as to their previous rights they were only possessory, and the United States had never parted with the actual title 458 THE RISE AND PROGRESS to the lands occupied, but that any American citizen might appropriate these lands to himself with the improvements, and that the claims held by the servants of the Company would not be respected unless the nominal settlers became settlers in fact, and American citizens. They further asserted that the American settlers were under no obliga tions to suffer the grievances above stated to remain unre dressed, and they requested Dr. Tolmie to remove the cattle, forthwith, to the opposite side of the river and keep them there, as they were determined that no such grievance should be suffered by the settlers. And finally it was resolved "that as said society has unfairly refused to furnish Americans with sheep at any price, until quite recently, and now when those are offered for sale, they prove to be the most inferior of the flock, and those at an exorbitant price, that in this as in all acts of said society, we know that their aim is only their own interest, while it is an insult to the common sense of the Community."* These resolutions were presented to Dr. Tolmie by the committee appointed for that purpose, and within a week the cattle were withdrawn to the north side of the river, and peace reigned again. This was the beginning of a long series of annoying circumstances, and much friction and ill feeling between officers of the Company and the settlers resulted. The next incident was of a far more serious and alarming nature. On May i, 1849, Patkanim, the Snoqualmie chief, who had driven Glasgow and Rabbeson from Whidby Island the year previous, appeared at the fort accompanied by a hundred or more of the members of his tribe, and some other warriors from neighboring tribes. They were in war * See Appendix II. , p. 507. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 459 paint and armed. They pretended that they had come to inquire into the treatment by Lahalet, a Nisqually chief, of the daughter of one of their own sub-chiefs whom he had married, and punish him, if there was occasion to do so. They camped near the fort, and their appearance was so threatening that precautions were quickly taken to guard against an attack. Patkanim was invited inside the fort for a conference, while the other Indians were given tobacco to smoke the pipe of peace. They received it very ungra ciously, some of them wanting to know if it had been poisoned and refusing to touch it until Wren, one of the employees of the Company whom they knew well, had smoked or chewed some of it in their presence. On account of this conduct two extra guards were stationed at the gate, with orders to let no more Indians in. It was the noon hour, nobody was at work, and all had plenty of time to observe what the In dians were doing. Three or four white men, most or all of whom were American settlers, who were at the fort on business, were outside the gate, and apparently suspected no danger, until a shot was fired by one ofthe guards. Some of the Indians then came running toward them, and they retreated to the fort, but keeping their faces toward the Indians. As they neared the gate a scuffle took place be tween the guards and the Indians, in which guns were clubbed and knives drawn, and a gun was dropped by some one in such a way that the gate could not be closed until it was removed. By this time a good many shots had been exchanged, the firing was becoming general and the Indians were showing signs of great excitement. Before the gate could be opened so as to admit those who were struggling to reach it, and closed again, Mr. Leander C. Wallace, an American settler, had been killed and Mr. Lewis had 460 THE RISE AND PROGRESS narrowly escaped a similar fate, one Indian bullet having gone through his coat and vest and another grazed his shoul der. One Indian was killed and two others wounded. As soon as the gate was closed the bastions ofthe fort were manned, but the Indians had fled to their canoes. Pat kanim had found his way outside the fort, while the firing was going on, and with his braves made good his escape. There seems to be no doubt that he had succeeded in inciting his warriors and some of the neighboring tribes, to begin a war of extermination on the white settlers, and that this was intended to be the beginning of it. His plan was to surprise the fort, get possession of its supplies, and particularly of the ammunition it contained, and then with so much plunder to distribute as subsidies among his own and other tribesmen, it would be easy to unite them, and he would be their chief. The settlers were widely scattered, and unprepared for defense. They could be slaughtered at his convenience. They would make little if any resist ance; they would be driven out; their fire ships would be no longer dreaded, and all they possessed would be his. The failure of his attack on the fort naturally disarranged his plans and disappointed his expectation. Nevertheless he sent word to the settlers that if they would leave all their goods, they would be allowed to take themselves out of the country without molestation. But this privilege, so gra ciously offered, was not accepted. Within two hours after the Indians had departed a mes senger was dispatched to Vancouver with an account of the disturbance. The same messenger bore a letter to Gover nor Lane from Simmons, who was at the fort while the shoot ing was going on. This letter contained an account of what had happened, and a request for protection for the OF AN AMERICAN STATE 461 settlements. The governor no sooner received it than he came at once to the Sound, escorted by five soldiers of the mounted rifle regiment, commanded by Lieut. Hawkins. He found the settlers already preparing for defense by build ing block houses. Two of these were nearly completed, one at Olympia and one on the Cowlitz, and settlers were remov ing their families to them. He recommended that others be built where there were people to use them, and promised to send soldiers at an early day to aid in their protection. This he could do for the steam transport Massachusetts had now arrived, bringing two companies of artillery, under command of Major Hathaway, who had already established a post at Fort Vancouver, renting ground and buildings for the purpose from the Hudson's Bay Company. Upon his return to Oregon City the governor sent a letter to Dr. Tolmie asking him to notify the Indians that troops had arrived in sufficient numbers to protect the settlers, and pun ish any who should commit further depredations. He asked that the Company would cooperate with the territorial government in preventing trouble with the Indians, and to this end that it would hereafter refuse to sell them either arms or ammunition. In his first message to the legislative assembly of the new territory, which convened at Oregon City on July 16, 1849, Governor Lane reviewed the Indian disturbances at Waiilat pu, where Marcus Whitman, his wife, and others had been massacred, and more recently at Nisqually, where Wallace had been killed. In neither case, as yet, had the murderers been brought to justice. But the Cayuses, who had been responsible for the slaughter at Waiilatpu, had been shown that the settlers would not quietly submit to such outrages, and that they were able to visit swift punishment upon those 462 THE RISE AND PROGRESS who perpetrated them. He promised to still further chas tise them when the mounted rifle regiment, which the govern ment was sending to garrison posts in and along the route to Oregon, should arrive, which would be at no very distant day. Demand would also be made upon the Snoqual mies, to deliver up the murderers of Wallace for trial, and if they refused the tribes would be held responsible. But his plans for dealing with the latter tribe were inter fered with in a most unexpected way. At the time of his own appointment as governor, and superintendent of Indian affairs in the territory, or soon thereafter, three subagents had been appointed, who were to report to him, and be sub ject to his direction. Only two of these, Robert Newell and J. Quinn Thornton, had qualified, and the governor had divided the territory into two districts, assigning Newell to the southern and Thornton to the northern half. Late in July Subagent Thornton visited the Sound and spent some time in collecting information in regard to the various tribes, their numbers, habits, characteristics and relations with each other. Much to the governor's surprise, since he had given him no instructions about the matter, nor authority to do anything in regard to it, Thornton reported, a few weeks later, that immediately upon his arrival he had pro ceeded to investigate the killing of Wallace, and had sent messengers to Patkanim advising him to arrest the offenders and deliver them to Capt. Hill, and as an inducement had promised him eighty blankets in case the murderers were given up within three weeks. He also reported that, in case the guilty parties were not given up within three weeks, he had authorized Capt. Hill to double the reward offered. This was in effect offering a premium for murder, and the governor repudiated the whole arrangement, but not until OF AN AMERICAN STATE 463 the murderers had been surrendered and the price paid. In reporting the case to the Indian Office Govenor Lane said : " In my instructions to Mr. Thornton, I said nothing about the murder of Wallace, nor did I intend that he should interfere in the premises, as it was my intention, on the arrival of the troops at Nisqually, to visit the Sound and demand the murderers, and make the Indians know that they should give them up for punishment, and that hereafter all outrages should be promptly punished, being well satis fied that there is no mode of treatment so appropriate as prompt and severe punishment for wrongdoing. It is bad policy, under any consideration, to hire them to make repara tion, for the reasons, to wit: First. It holds out induce ments to the Indians for the commission of murder by way of speculation; for instance, they would murder some American, await the offering of a large reward for the apprehension ofthe murderers; this done, they would deliver up some of their slaves as the guilty parties, for whom they would receive ten times the amount that they would other wise get for them. Second. It has a tendency to make them underrate our ability and inclination to chastise by force, or make war upon them for such conduct, which, in my opinion, is the only proper method of treating them for such offenses." This disagreement between the governor and subagent led to the latter's resignation. His colleague, Mr. Newell, subsequently went to the gold mines in California, and Gov. Lane was left to manage the Indian affairs of the territory alone. He began at once by making preparations to have the murderers of both the Whitman party and of Wallace brought to trial and punished, and this was accomplished before the year ended or soon after the new year began. 464 Rise and Progress of an American State With the return of the goldseekers, with their gold dust, and the news they brought of new opportunities for prof itable effort, that were offering from the southward, the settlers began to engage in new undertakings. They no longer confined themselves to improving their claims, to shaving shingles for the Hudson's Bay Company or to saw ing lumber, and cracking wheat for their own use at Simmons' mill. Trade with the outside world, a very small part of it as yet, it is true, was opening to them, and the advantage of being on tidewater, about which they had long dreamed, but of which they as yet knew but little, were about to be realized, and hope was high within them. Five full years had now passed since the arrival of the first settlers in the country north of the Columbia. These had been years full of privation, but none greater than they had looked forward to from the first. They had spied out the land and found it indeed "a good land and a large," and they were content with it. They had fixed their homes in it when its sovereignty was in doubt, but now their own flag floated over it, and its right to float there none disputed. The government whose boundaries they had helped to extend so far, was reaching out to protect them, and the future seemed full of promise. Chapter XXXIV. THE GREAT MIGRATION. THE great migration by which the Coast States were settled was now well begun. The three or four hundred persons of which the first trains were composed in 1842 and '43, had now swelled to many thousands. In the eight years since the first con siderable party had crossed the Missouri River, fully a hun dred thousand settlers had come to the coast. The census of 1850 showed a total population of 13,294 in Oregon, including the Hudson's Bay employees and settlers, 1,049 of whom were north of the Columbia. The population of California was 92,597, practically all of whom, except the original Mexican inhabitants, had come in since the dis covery of gold, two years earlier, at Sutter's Fort. California became a State in 1850, without ever having had a territorial government. During the next ten years nearly 340,000 people crossed the continent, and in the nine years following, before the completion in 1869 of the first Pacific railroad, fully 200,000 more had come to join them. The total popu lation of California, Oregon and Washington by the census of 1870 was 675,125 souls. In addition to all this the report of new gold discoveries at Pike's Peak in 1859 had given a fresh impetus to this westward movement, and the census of 1870 showed a total population of 193,258 in Colorado and Nevada and the new territories of Utah, Idaho and Wyoming. The transfer of such a vast number of people, in so short a time, from one side of the continent to the other, across an intervening wilderness, two thousand miles in extent, marks this as one of the great migrations of the human family. Others may perhaps have exceeded it in volume. Impelled by a desire for plunder, or under the influence of religious fervor, greater numbers may have moved from one region 468 THE RISE AND PROGRESS to another, but never before had so many people gone so far and in so short a time, for the peaceful purpose of sub duing a wilderness and making themselves homes. We do not know how many Huns followed Attila into Europe, how many Goths invaded Rome, nor how many enthusiasts followed the standards of Godfrey de Bouillon, Raymond and Tancred to the Holy Land in the first and greatest crusade — doubtless the estimates we have are greatly exag gerated — but we do know that three thriving States, and three promising territories, on this coast, were peopled within the short space of twenty-five years, by more than 750,000 souls, who traveled farther than the crusader ever wandered in Europe and Asia, farther than Napoleon marched in the Moscow campaign, and all the way through a country that yielded little or nothing for their subsistance. The Hun and the crusader came with sword and spear to conquer and lay waste, to subsist upon the country while they could, and finally to be driven from it by violence, even as they had taken it. This modern host came with no panoply of war; it was not an army with banners, going forth conquering and to conquer; it moved to no beat of drum, and no bugle or trumpet blast was required to inspire it to action. The settler came to conquer by the arts of peace; he brought with him his flocks and his herds, small though they were, his wife and his little ones; he sought to despoil no one; he asked for nothing but what his own strong arms might win for him by honest toil; he was content to be neighbor to the savage and fellow with the wild beast for a time, if by so doing he might possess the land and make himself a home. This pioneer army moved to the new world it was seek ing by various routes. Some went by overcrowded steamers OF AN AMERICAN STATE 469 to the Isthmus of Panama, which they crossed on foot, or by such primitive conveyances as they found there, and thence by other overcrowded vessels to San Francisco, or the Columbia River; some went by the longer route around Cape Horn in sailing ships; but the great majority crossed the 2,000 miles of treeless plains, sandy deserts and rugged mountains in their own wagons, drawn by oxen or, in rare instances, by horses. Some of these followed the trail of the old Santa Fe traders. At least one party, of which the Nat uralist Audubon was a member, forced its way from the mouth of the Rio Grande, through northern Mexico to San Diego. But by far the greater number followed the fur trad ers' route, along the Platte to the Sweetwater, thence over the Rocky Mountains to and across Green River, and on to Fort Hall, not far from the present thriving town of Pocatello, Idaho. Here the trains divided, the larger number, after 1849, going to California, and the smaller by way of Fort Boise down the Snake River to the Powder, where they crossed into the Grand Ronde Valley, and made their way over the Blue Mountains to the Columbia, at Fort Walla Walla, near the present site of Wallula. Here in 1853 and 1854 the trains again divided, one part going down the river to Portland; the other following the Yakima to the confluence of the Nachess, which they ascended to its source, crossing the Cascades by the Nachess Pass. This route was aban doned after the Indian troubles began in 1855, and all the trains went down the Columbia. These emigrants invaribly started as early in the spring as the weather would permit. Usually each family set out on its own account, with its own wagon covered with white canvas, which was often their only protection from wind and sun and rain. The wagons were loaded with provisions 470 THE RISE AND PROGRESS enough for a long journey of six months or more, with a few implements for farming and fewer articles of furniture, and were drawn by one or more teams of oxen. Sometimes a family would have more than one team, and some had cattle that were not yoked to their wagons, and some tried to take with them the smaller domestic animals, but these were not numerous. No people ever risked so much in an enterprise of which they knew so little at the outset. Many if not most of those who had families started on the long journey with less than would have made them comfortable for one summer at home. Many young men started with their brides, and some took their aged parents, who could scarcely hope to live to com plete the journey. A few courageous women successfully made the journey, assisted only by their children, the oldest of whom could scarcely be trusted to look after themselves. Mrs. William White* was one of these. Her husband left Grant County, Wisconsin, for Oregon in 1850, in search of health. He sent home an encouraging letter which she received in January 1851, and in March with five children, the oldest a girl of fourteen, she started with her own ox team to join him. In Iowa she was joined by her brother and a brother-in-law, and their families, and together they made the long trip in safety, Mr. White meeting them in October, at some point on the Snake River. Four years later he was killed at her side, by Indians, while they were returning from church.f Many others started with even * Dec. 4, 1892. The references in this and the two following chapters, where the date only is given at the bottom of the page, are to a series of articles written by the old settlers, and published in the Tacoma Sun day "Ledger," in the years 1892 and 1893. t Sept. 25, 1892. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 471 greater responsibilities and took greater risks. William Downey started from Kentucky in 1853 with his wife and ten children. Andrew J. Frost's* family consisted of him self and wife and five children, the oldest only thirteen years of age. Mrs. Frost died during the journey, leaving an infant six weeks old. James Longmire-j- and wife had four children, the youngest a baby who learned to walk during the trip, by following the wagon tongue with his baby hands, after the oxen were unyoked in the evening, or before they were put to in the morning. A. R. Hawk's family consisted of a father and mother and six boys, the eldest not quite thir teen years old and the youngest two. Ezra Meeker! and wife began their trip in 1852 when their first baby was only seven weeks old. William Packwood§ started with a sickly wife, who had to be helped in and out of the wagon at first, but who became a strong and rugged woman during the journey. She had three children to look after, the oldest only six years of age, and the youngest learned to walk by rolling the water keg about the camp morning and evening, while she cooked supper or breakfast. The aim of all, at the start, was to reach and cross the Missouri River as soon as the grass could be depended on to supply their stock. Those who came from States like Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee, or farther east or south, were obliged to begin their journey while the weather was still wintry and inclement, while those from points further west might wait a week or two later. In that season roads were deep with mud, in many places almost impassable. * A. J. Frost, July 17, 1892. f August 21, 1892. J Pioneer Reminiscences of Puget Sound. § Esther Chambers, May 29, 1892. 472 THE RISE AND PROGRESS There were few bridges across the smaller streams, and none over the larger ones, all of which had to be forded. In the early forties the trains assembled at Independence, Mis souri, where the old Santa Fe trail branched from that of the fur traders, which followed the north fork of the Platte. Many of the pioneers took passage with their wagons on the steamboats from St. Louis to this point. Later, when the trains became more numerous, St. Joseph, Missouri, and Council Bluffs, Iowa, at first known as Kanesville, were made points of rendezvous, and ferries were established there. Often teams would be delayed for two or three weeks at these ferries before they could get over, and in some instances, ferries were improvised by the bolder emigrants, who con structed rafts and entrusted themselves, their families and their property to the rapid current of the Missouri, relying only on their own strong arms to get them safely over. Some of these rafts were upset by snags, in the strong current, or by the lack of skill of those who managed them, throwing the occupants and their property into the turbid waters of the river. Some lost their lives in this way, and some much of their property, but nearly all got across in safety. After crossing the river, parties were made up of those who were to make the long journey together. Being strangers to each other, these arrangements were not made without some difficulty, and all required more or less time. Parkman has thus described the scene at Independence, as he observed it in the spring of 1846, while these arrange ments were making, and when the great migration was only beginning. "The emigrants were encamped on the prairie about eight or ten miles distant, to the number of a thousand or more, and new parties were constantly passing out from Independence to join them. They were in great confusion, OF AN AMERICAN STATE 473 holding meetings, passing resolutions, and drawing up regu lations, but unable to unite in the choice of leaders to conduct them across the prairie. Being at leisure one day, I rode over to Independence. The town was crowded. A multi tude of shops had sprung up to furnish the emigrants and Santa Fe traders with necessaries for their journey, and there was an incessant hammering and banging from a dozen black smiths ' shops, where the heavy wagons were being repaired, and the horses and oxen shod. The streets were thronged with men, horses, and mules. While I was in the town, a train of emigrant wagons from Illinois passed through to join the camp on the prairie, and stopped in the principal street. A multitude of healthy children's faces were peeping out from under the covers of the wagons. Here and there a buxom damsel was seated on horseback, holding over her sunburnt face an old unbrella or parasol, once gaudy enough, but now miserably faded. The men, very sober-looking countrymen, stood about their oxen; and as I passed I noticed three old fellows, who, with their long whips in their hands, were zealously discussing the doctrine of regeneration. The emigrants, however, were not all of this stamp. Among them were some ofthe vilest outcasts in the country. I have often perplexed myself to divine the various motives that gave impulse to this migration; but whatever they may be, whether an insane hope of a better condition in life, or a desire to shake off restraints of law and society, or mere restlessness, certain it is, that multitudes bitterly repent the journey, and, after they have reached the land of promise, are happy enough to escape from it."* Having chosen their officers and completed their organi zation, these parties moved away, one after another, on their * The Oregon Trail. 474 THE RISE AND PROGRESS long journey to encounter the dangers they knew nothing of, and the trials they could not have foreseen, or they would never have dared to face them. They were now beyond the remotest pale of civilization. For the remainder of their way they would see no human habitation, except that of Indians. It would be impossible to purchase supplies in case of famine, or procure medicine in case of sickness, or the means of decent burial in case of death, and death was to overtake them frequently. They must rely upon themselves, and themselves alone, to complete their journey in safety. Those who crossed the Missouri at Independence, or St. Joseph, encountered their first great danger at the crossing of the Platte, whose treacherous quicksands often threatened to engulf them. The Platte is a peculiar stream. For the last three or four hundred miles of its course, it averages more than half a mile in width. Viewed from its banks its waters seem to be shallow, and are so throughout most of its breadth, though there are channels where its current is deep and rapid. But there is much more water than is seen from its banks. The river's bed is filled with loose sand to a depth of many feet, and through this sand a large volume of water is slowly forcing its way unseen toward the Missouri. In places it can be crossed with comparative safety, but the early emigrants found that after proceeding for a distance through its shallow waters, their teams and wagons suddenly began to sink, and were more than half buried before any thing could be done to save them. The sands seemed to draw them irresistably under. From this hidden danger, many escaped with the greatest difficulty, and some were lost. Often it was necessary to unhitch the teams and drag both wagons and animals out of the miry depth into which they had fallen, by rawhide ropes, stretched to the farther OF AN AMERICAN STATE 475 bank. Those who view this treacherous stream today, knowing its hidden dangers, will, wonder how the emigrant ever dared to venture into it. For the first few hundred miles after crossing the Missouri, their way lay over rolling prairies, whose billowing hills rose about them like the waves of an ocean. They shut them in on every side. Every eminence seemed higher than the one on which they stood. Their wagons rolled over them hour after hour and day after day with no change in the pros pect. They seemed to be wandering in a labyrinth of hills to which there was no end, and from which there was no escape. Those who have had opportunity to observe this part of Nebraska at leisure must have been impressed with the sense of loneliness that the emigrants encountered there. Even at the present day, when these hills are covered with culti vated fields, with well made roads lying plainly through them, bordered with comfortable farmhouses and fruitful orchards, the traveler easily feels a sense of being lost. If he thinks of the emigrants at all, as he almost invariably will, he will wonder at the courage which sustained them in this part of their journey, particularly in the earlier years. These had absolutely nothing to guide them, except possibly such trails as had been made by the Indians and trappers. They could take their direction only by the sun and the stars. Even those who came later and found a broad trail, plainly marked by the wheels of the many wagons that had gone before them, must have been oppressed by the unending swell of the treeless hills, their profound silence and general desolation, and to have doubted at times whether the way, so plainly marked before them, would really lead them out of their perplexity. 476 THE RISE AND PROGRESS Here they frequently encountered storms far more violent in character than any to which they were accustomed, and for which they found themselves but poorly prepared. These came on suddenly, often with scarcely an hour's warning. The rain descended in sheets, sometimes accompanied by hail, which the wind drove in their faces so violently that they were scarcely able to withstand it. The teams turned about in the trail, in spite of all the drivers could do to pre vent them, frequently upsetting the wagons and causing the greatest confusion. Sometimes the wind was so violent as to overturn the wagons, strip off their canvas covers and scatter their loads over the prairie. The unyoked stock, that was not fastened to the wagons, stampeded, running before the storm, sometimes for many miles, and were col lected again with great difficulty, and after much delay. These storms were accompanied by vivid and incessant flashes of lightning, and tremendous peals of thunder. "This thunder," says Parkman, "is not like the tame thunder of the Atlantic Coast. Bursting with a terrific crash directly over our heads, it roared over the boundless waste of prairie, seeming to roll around the whole circle of the firmament with a peculiar and awful reverberation." To the struggling travelers on the plains, during these trying years, it must have seemed like a protest from Nature against their invasion of her solitudes. These storms filled the beds of the rivers with boiling torrents, which often overflowed their banks, making a watery waste several miles in width. Mrs. White says that when she crossed the Elkhorn, the water covered a strip of ground six miles wide, with the exception of an island, on which her party landed and pitched their tents for the night, thinking it was high enough for their protection. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 477 But the rain continued all night with such violence that the men had to hold the tent stakes, in order to keep them from being blown down. The water rose so far that everything inside the tents was afloat. Even the heavy ox yokes would have floated away, if chains had not been thrown over them to hold them down. The party was rescued from this island the following day, by boats. E. A. Light's party* encoun tered a similar storm at this place, by which their cattle were drowned in the river. One family which had camped in a ravine before the storm came up, lost everything, even their wagons were washed away. After the storm subsided the party crossed the river in dugouts, which they hewed out of the cottonwood trees found in the neighborhood. These were not large enough to contain a wagon, so two of them were placed side by side, fastened together, and the wagons loaded into them, each two wheels on either side being in a separate canoe. After the wagons were taken across in this manner, the stock was driven into the stream and forced to swim to the opposite bank. Many streams on the long journey were crossed in this way. Finally the swell of the hills began to grow longer, as the waves increase in width and diminish in height after a storm, and the trains emerged upon a vast, level, treeless, and apparently boundless prairie. The sky alone seemed to shut it in on every side. In it there was seldom a landmark of any sort by which they could mark their progress. Day after day they journeyed on without seeming to advance. The sun rose out of what seemed a measureless waste, "where length, breadth, and height, and time, and place are lost," each morning, and sank below it again at night, and from above the stars looked down upon them in their * June 19, 1892. 478 THE RISE AND PROGRESS weariness, as if they alone, of all familiar objects, remained. to remind them of a world they had left forever, and which now only existed in memory. "Wert thou ever abroad in the desert at night?" asked the Sheik Ilderim of Ben Hur. "Then thou canst not know how much we Arabs depend upon the stars. We borrow their names in gratitude, and give them in love. " Possibly the pioneers may have looked to the stars, from out this prairie desert, with much the same feelings. At old Fort Laramie, on the Platte, nearly a hundred miles northeast of the present city of Cheyenne, they found the first break in the monotony of their journey. Those who crossed previous to 1849 f°und this fort simply a trad ing post of the American Fur Company, for the government had done nothing, down to that time, for the protection of the emigrants. In 1846 Congress authorized the enlistment of a mounted rifle regiment to be posted along the trail, but as soon as it was raised it was sent to the Mexican war, and after the war was over it had to be again recruited. It was not, therefore, until 1849 that it was sent to the service for which it was originally designed. Then two companies were stationed at Fort Laramie, and one at Loring's Canton ment. The other companies went on to Washington and Oregon. At such widely separated points as Laramie and Loring, these small detachments of troops could render the settlers little service. But they made a show of strength, and the Indians in their neighborhood soon became aware that they had better arms than they, and that their cannon was something with which they could not cope. Undoubt edly they supposed, for a long time, that the settlers were equally well armed and quite as good fighters as the soldiers themselves. This had a wholesome effect in protecting the FORT LARAMIE. The first resting place reached by the;irr_migrants after leaving the-.. Missouri. It was situated, on the upper waters ofthe Platte, north or a little.^ttbrtheast of the present city of Cheyenne in Wyoming. . It was not a military post,' but a trading station established by the American Fur Company. Its walls were about fifteen feet high, built of sun-dried bricks, ainl sur mounted by a light palisade, . and it had. bastion; at two of its comers. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 479 trains from their depredations, especially in the region of the Rocky Mountains. Beyond Laramie the arid plain continued for many miles. It was usually two weeks or more after leaving that outpost before the eyes of the travelers were gladdened with a dis tant view of the snow-clad mountains. To most of them this was a novel spectacle. In the clear atmosphere of that region, the range seemed close at hand, although it was still several days distant. They wondered why they were so long in reaching it. Some of the younger and more impatient members of every train ran, or rode forward on horseback if they had horses, for a nearer view, but at night fall returned to the camp, reporting that they had seemingly approached no nearer than when they started. When at last they reached the foothills they rejoiced that the long monotony of rolling prairies and level, sun-baked plain was ended. The pure mountain air invigorated and the clear water of the streams refreshed them, giving them new life and hope. But here new arrangements were necessary. Up to this point, their long trains, in some cases composed of hundreds of teams and wagons, had proceeded in two or three parallel columns. At times smaller parties had separated from the main train, traveling far to one side or the other to escape the dust, with which so many wheels and trampling feet filled the air, and in search of better graz ing for their stock. Now it was necessary to proceed, for the most part, in a single line. The trail wound about through the foothills, sometimes along the beds of creeks now dry or nearly so, but which at other seasons were mountain torrents. Sometimes it ran through narrow gorges, at others along the edge of some rugged precipice, over which they might at any moment fall and be dashed to pieces. At 480 THE RISE AND PROGRESS times the ascent would be so steep that their struggling teams could hardly drag their loads after them, and it was only by literally putting their own shoulders to the wheels, that the drivers finally reached the summit, and made ready for a descent that was almost as difficult and full of peril. For days together they struggled on through gorge and chasm, on or around the swelling ridges that compose "the back bone of the continent," crossing and recrossing streams and torrents, breasting always the fierce west wind that swept through the openings in the range, driving the dust and sharp fragments of the rocks which their wheels ground to pieces, in their eyes and faces, and often making their days of toil days of torture as well, until the last crowning ridge of the range was reached. The great tributary of the greater "Father of Waters," which they had followed so far, had dwindled to a rill. An almost imperceptible dis tance separated the waters that flowed toward the east from those that flowed toward the west. A few steps onward and they had left the great valley of the Mississippi, and were entering upon the Pacific slope, in some still remote part of which were the homes they had come so far to seek. The difficulties which now lay before them were new in kind, and not less dangerous than those they had surmounted. After descending the mountains they were to cross deserts of sagebrush and burning sand, where the scant supply of water was bitter with alkali, and almost poisonous to the taste; to thread their way through rock-strewn plains where the Titans seemed to have spent their fiercest fury; to travel for hours beside vast ledges of barren rock that earthquake forces had raised high above the surrounding plain in ages past, as if to mark the time when "Eldest Night and Chaos, Ancestors of Nature," had ruled there in wildest anarchy; OF AN AMERICAN STATE 481 then to follow the Snake River for weary weeks, crossing and recrossing it many times to find pasturage for their stock, or to escape from threatening Indians. Of all of their perils and trials, those encountered along this river were the most dangerous, those of the desert most painful. The long trains, moving over the fine volcanic ash, stirred up thick clouds of dust that often hid the teams from their drivers. For weary miles there was no water that could be used. Such ponds and stagnant pools as were scattered here and there at wide intervals were covered with a thick scum, and bitter with alkali, and yet the famished teams could only be kept from drinking at them by the great est effort. The burning sun beat down upon them with merciless fury. The exhausted cattle often fell dead under the burdens which they could drag no farther. The burn ing sands cracked their hoofs or destroyed them altogether. When at last they reached some stream like the Green River, whose waters were wholesome, the animals, scenting it from afar, became almost unmanageable in their wild anxiety to reach it, and when near it, gathering all of their exhausted energy, they would rush into it in the utmost confusion, and sometimes to the great danger of upsetting the wagons and drowning their occupants. Most of the pioneers have pitiful stories to tell of their sufferings, and those of their cattle, on this part of their journey. The women and even the little children walked in order to make the loads of the suffering animals as light as possible. Many oxen died from sheer despair. "They often seemed discouraged," says Mr. D. R. Bigelow, "think ing it was a journey without an end. I saw cattle die from no apparent cause but discouragement. Many of them became so weak that it was impossible to protect them at 482 THE RISE AND PROGRESS night from the wolves which howled all night long about the camps. In the morning some would be found partially eaten by these ravenous beasts, and yet still alive, and it was necessary to shoot them to end their misery." At Ham's Fork of the Bear River, James Longmire's party camped one night near an abundant supply of fresh green grass, which they were quite surprised to find, as the supply had been short for several days previous. But in a little time they were horrified to find all their cattle becom ing sick and manifesting the greatest distress.* They soon realized that the grass that looked so fresh and tempt ing was poisonous, and that was why those who had pre ceded them had avoided it. "Here we were," says Mr. Longmire, "eighty or a hundred miles from Salt Lake, the nearest settlement, in such a dilemma. We looked about for relief. Bacon and grease were the only antidotes for poison which our stores contained. We cut bacon in slices and forced a few of them down the throats of the sick oxen, but after once tasting it the poor creatures ate it eagerly, thereby saving their lives, as those that did not eat it (cows we could spare better than our oxen) died next day. " Mrs. Hester E. Davis says her party traveled all one day without water, in crossing one of these desert stretches .-j- Toward evening the men, hearing there was a creek not far distant, started with the stock for water, leaving none in camp. "They traveled until midnight without finding any, and returned to camp late next morning, tired, hungry and thirsty. The women had thrown out all the water and coffee, expecting fresh water. We were then left without a drop all day and had to travel on, with horses and oxen * Aug. 21, 189a. t July 17, 1892. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 483 already tired and thirsty. Most unfortunately the heat that day was excessive. We all suffered intensely from thirst, besides with heat and dust, and with our sore eyes, which became worse. The hot sun beamed down with sweltering power, and the dust rose in blinding clouds around us. The children cried and begged for water, and became so famished and sick that their tongues hung from their mouths and they came near dying. But we had to journey on, through it all, to reach water, which we did not until night. That was the most terrible part of our journey. Our sore eyes became so painful that they had to be bandaged, and there were scarcely any of us who could see to do anything. The children, who could be cared for, recovered, but sister Mary, who was obliged to cook and care for her children, became blind and remained so seven years." Mr. J. B. Knapp says, "As we moved slowly along in the dust and heat our poor animals would drop in the yoke, unable to move farther. What could we do ? Nothing could be done but remove the yoke, tie the living mate of the dead ox behind the wagon, leave the yoke and chain by the road side, bid good-by to the poor, faithful beast, turn aside and drive on. In a day or two another would drop in the same manner, and the old one at the tail of the wagon would be led up to take his place. The last half of the journey we were never out of sight of the carcases of animals that had died in this way.* Only the sick, and those who were too old and feeble to walk could be allowed to ride. Those who walked were frequently so weary, or so feeble that they could not keep up with the slow-footed oxen, and sometimes were hours behind their wagons." * Oct. 9, 1893. 484 THE RISE AND PROGRESS At Fort Hall the trains divided, the larger portion taking the southern route to California, and the smaller following down the Snake River to Oregon. Here parties who had met for the first time at the crossings of the Missouri, and who had formed firm and lasting friendships in their trip across the plains and through the mountains, took final and sorrowful leave of each other. Many of these partings were as painful, and as long regretted, as if the acquaintance had been a lifelong one, instead of only a few months. Of those who went to California, many suffered even greater trials than those who went to Oregon, especially in crossing the Humbolt desert, and the sufferings of the Donner party in the Sierras forms one of the most terrible and pathetic stories ever recounted. Along the Platte, in the mountains, and on the desert it was often necessary to relieve the teams in every way possible by lightening their loads. Such articles of furniture as could be most readily spared, the farming implements, and finally a part of the stock of provisions would be unloaded and left by the roadside. Even in Parkman's time this strewing ofthe way with goods and various articles of value had begun. "It is worth noticing," he says, "that on the Platte one may sometimes see the shattered wrecks of ancient claw-footed tables, well waxed and rubbed, or massive bureaus of carved oak. These, some of them no doubt the relics of ancestral prosperity in the colonial time, must have encountered strange vicissitudes. Brought, perhaps, originally from England; then, with the declining fortunes of their owners, borne across the Alleghenies to the wilderness of Ohio or Kentucky; then to Illinois or Missouri; and now as fondly stowed away in the family wagon for the interminable jour ney to Oregon. But the stern privations of the way are little FORT HALL. This fort was built by Nathaniel J. Wyeth in 1834, on the south bank of the Snake River near the con fluence of the Portneuf . Its walls were of adobe. Wyeth sold it .to the Hudson's Bay Company, wtych long retained., it. It was the second stopping place of the emigrant trains, which here divided, the-larger number, after 1848, going .to Califorriia. and the smaller continuing on to Ore_jonJsnd(4Washington. OF AN AMERICAN STATE 485 anticipated. The cherished relic is soon flung out to scorch and crack upon the hot prairie." At the frequent crossings of the Snake River, which the pilgrims were obliged to make, in most cases, by such devices as they could themselves invent, much property and many lives were lost. For a time they were able to find fords, but as they progressed down stream the water gathered volume and became too deep to be crossed in this way, even by lift ing the wagon boxes so high that the standards would scarcely hold them. Ezra Meeker says, "The incident I most dis tinctly remember of all, was when I reversed the usual order and ran my wagon into the river over the wagon bed, and gradually moved out into deep water until the whole was afloat. The bed was so deeply laden that the least ripple in the water would slop over the sides, whilst I rowed the whole over to the opposite side. How it came I did not swamp I can now scarcely realize, but I know only that I got over safely, and that very minute wished myself back on the other side, for I knew not what was ahead of me at the crossings further down." " It was the most treacherous river I ever saw," says Mr. A. R. Hawk. "I have seen the emigrants swimming their horses and cattle across to islands in the stream in order to get better feed, and some ofthe stock would sink apparently without a struggle, and a great many men were lost the same way. The undercurrent was fatal in many places, and it required a man of nerve to undertake it. We never attempted to cross the river in order to better our condition." "We paid $4.00 for every wagon towed across the river at the upper crossing," says James Long- mire. "For two hundred miles we wended our weary way, on to Fort Boise, a Hudson's Bay trading post, kept by an Englishman and his Indian wife, the former being the only 486 THE RISE AND PROGRESS white person at the post. Here we had to cross Snake River again, which at this point was a quarter of a mile wide. The agent kept a ferry, and would not take our wagons over for less than $8.00 apiece, which was as much again as we had been paying at other crossings. I tried to get an Indian to swim our cattle over, but failing, Watt proposed to go with them if I would, which seemed a fair proposition, and as they would not go without some one to drive them, we started across. Watt carried a long stick in one hand, holding by the other to the tail of old Lube, a great raw- boned ox who had done faithful service on our long, toil some journey. I threw my stick away and went in a little below Watt, but found the current very strong, which drifted me down stream. I thought I should be drowned and shouted to Watt, T'm gone.' With great presence of mind he reached his stick toward me, which I grasped with a last hope of saving my life, and by this means bore up till I swam to Watt, who caught on the tail of the nearest ox, thus giving me a welcome hold on old Lube's tail, who carried me safely to the shore. Only for Watt's coolness and bravery I should have lost my life at the same spot where one of Mr. Melville's men was drowned on the previous evening." "The morning we left Salmon Falls," says E. A. Light, "we saw a drove of cattle, several hundred of them, going over the falls. The leaders got turned down the stream and the balance followed, and nothing could have stopped them. Some of the men barely escaped drowning. It was a terrible sight to see them rolling and tumbling over the rocks, yet some of them came out alive though terribly bruised. Perhaps no family had a stranger experience on this part of the journey than A. R. Hawk's, though many may have OF AN AMERICAN STATE 487 had a similar one. "There were two miserable white wretches at Salmon Falls for the purpose of swindling the emigrants out of their stock," says Mr. Hawk. "They would induce the pilgrims to sell them their cattle and horses and convert their wagon-beds into boats and float down Snake River, telling them it was a pleasant trip. What a great relief it was to the tired emigrants to quit the dusty road and take to water. What a glorious change it would' be, and the idea was hailed with delight. "We converted our wagon-bed into a boat, and in order to make it watertight we took the hides from dead cattle, which were plenty, and covered the bottom ofthe bed. They were stretched on tight, which gave more strength to the bed and kept it perfectly dry inside. Father would not dis pose of his team, for he thought if anything should happen to us we would have something to help us out of our diffi culty. So Mr. Cline took the team and running gear of the wagon and hit the trail for The Dalles, where he expected to find us waiting for him. But the fond hopes and pleasure that we expected to enjoy on that boating trip were never realized. How many families preceded us I can't say. One I do remember — a violinist and his wife. We found, where their life journey had ended, two new-made graves on the bank of the river, where they had been buried by the Indians. We left Salmon Falls with a full crew. Besides our family of eight, we had Jim Riley and Bob Wallace. We drifted and paddled along where the current seemed the strongest, and were getting along very nicely, as Riley remarked, on a four-mile current. All seemed to be per fectly satisfied with the boat, in preference to the wagon, until we got into quickwater, where the river seemed to stand pretty near on edge for about half a mile. It was impossible 488 THE RISE AND PROGRESS to make the shore. The boat and all hands were at the mercy of the angry waters. But we shot through those rapids so quick that it didn't give us time to realize the dan ger we were in. From that on the boat hugged the shore pretty closely. We now began to discover the disadvan tage of river travel. The river was a continuation of rapids for miles, and it required the greatest care to keep the boat from swamping. And then again for miles it would be with out a ripple and but little current. At times we would be near the road, and could see the dust rising along the emi grant trail. What a blessing it would have been to us if we had stopped when relief was near; but no, we kept on, drifting nearer trouble every minute. The river seemed to narrow down to half its width, and the current became very swift, and terminated in some very dangerous rapids. Mother and the children were put on shore, to get along the best they could, while the men with ropes let the boat down over the rapids, and from that on we only had one day of pleasant boating. "The banks became so steep in places that it was impos sible to manage the boat from the shore, so the men had to take to the water, and in many places it was neck deep. The men were compelled to manage the boat that way for days, and often in very difficult places we had to take every thing out of the boat and let it down empty. Quite often we had to take the boat out and carry it around dangerous places. "One place we made a portage of about a mile. Go ahead we must, as to return was impossible. It seemed that it would be a great pleasure to all if the river would close in around us and wipe us out of existence. As the men were wrestling with the boat, as usual, one morning, I being OF AN AMERICAN STATE 489 ahead of mother and the boys, I found in a little eddy the body of a drowned man. I called mother's attention to it, and as soon as she saw the body she fainted, and in falling struck her head on a rock. She lay unconscious for some time. We called to father to come to our assistance, as mother was dying as we thought, but before father got to us mother came to and jumped up and ran screaming along the river bank. Father soon overtook her, and in a short time she became quiet, and soon recovered so that we were able to go ahead. To add to our trouble, the boat filled with water and our clothes and the most of our bedding was lost. How ever, our troubles soon came to an end, as far as boating was concerned. The jumping-off place was reached. A per pendicular fall of many feet ended our journey by water on Snake River. Our only hope of escape was to the south, and the most important question was, where is our savior, Mr. Cline and the team ? Jim Riley and Wallace volun teered to go in search of them. It was a difficult task, for after reaching the road it would be no easy matter to find the train. It might be ahead or behind. The only chance was to keep traveling and make inquiries. During their absence we put in the long days simply waiting for our friends to return. In about ten days, as near as I can remember, our hearts were made glad by the appearance of Mr. Cline and the team. It was the work of a short time to get that water-soaked bed on the wagon again and rolling over the prairie, and we were happy as a picnic party." Mr. Meeker says that many others were induced by these sharpers to sell their animals and wagons, and entrust their lives, and those of their families, to the mercy of the river, and all with the same disastrous results. Many lost their lives, and all lost most of their property. A part of one 490 THE RISE AND PROGRESS family who escaped with their lives alone, were seven days without other food than roots and berries, before they found their way back to the trail. From the Snake River the trains passed over into the Grand Ronde Valley, and thence over the Blue Mountains to the Columbia. This part of the journey was not made without difficulty, but the adventures encountered were not different from those the travelers had already passed through in safety. From 1843 to 1847, nearly all went by way of Whitman's station at Waiilatpu, where they recruited their diminished stock of provisions, and procured the first fresh vegetables they had eaten in many months. After the massacre they kept on down the Columbia to the Dalles, where, for several years, all the goods, the wagons and the women and children were transferred to such craft of various sorts as could be secured, and frequently to rafts hastily built for the purpose, and floated down the river to Vancou ver and Portland. Part ofthe trains of 1853 and 1854 crossed the Columbia at Wallula, and then followed the Yakima and Nachess rivers to the Nachess Pass, to reach which they crossed the river sixty-two times. Here they met the road which the settlers had partly opened to the Puyallup Valley. It was with one of the parties who were opening this road that Winthrop spent a night, as he has so entertainingly told us in his "Canoe and Saddle." They had cut away trees enough through the thick timber to permit the passage of teams in a single line only. They had bridged a few of the smaller streams temporarily and, where giant trees had fallen across their road, smaller logs were piled alongside them so as to permit the wagons to be hauled over. All this made a rough and rugged road indeed. To get started in it from OF AN AMERICAN STATE 491 the top of the pass, it was necessary to descend a succession of slopes so steep that the teams and wagons were got down them with much labor and at very serious risk of life and limb. Then another and still more precipitous descent was reached. A woman in one of the parties coming by this route, after looking down this steep mountain side, said, " Well, I guess we have come to the jumping-off place at last. " Mr. Light has told how the descent was made. " It did not seem possible," he says, "that our teams could go down the first few hundred feet in the yokes, but unyoking them, we took them around singly on a sort of trail. We then rough-locked all the wheels and fastened a long rope to the hind axletree, the further end of which was wound several times around a tree, and by letting it out little by little, the wagons reached a place where it was level enough to again hitch the oxen to them. When my turn came I announced my determination to pass my team and wagon down without unhitching, whereupon there were many expressions as to my sanity. I also was called many undeserved pet names, especially by an old woman in the train, who seemed to think she had a peculiar right to give vent to her surprise and indignation. " I had the men who were tending the rope wound round the tree take particular precaution about letting it out, and told them to keep it tight enough to allow the oxen to lean their weight in the yoke. After making everything secure, I started over the precipice, reaching the lower level safely, where I hitched my cattle, that had been taken down before, to the wagon, and moved on down the mountain, out of the way of those who were to follow. The remaining ones on top of the mountain decided to follow my example, and all moved down the side of the hill like clock work, nothing 492 THE RISE AND PROGRESS happening until when Lane started down the precipice. From some mismanagement his wagon got away from him and went crashing down the mountain, where he left it until the next season. He packed his goods on his horses and we again took up our journey." From this point to the Puyallup Valley most of the emi grants, including the women and children, traveled on foot, as the road was too rough to make riding endurable. On the way they forded the Green River fifteen times, and the White seven, before they reached the end of their journey. It not infrequently happened that children were born in these trains, and strange to say most of them lived, and their mothers lived. At least one such event occurred in the train with which Burnett and Nesmith came in 1843, arid which, or a part of which, Dr. Whitman piloted. It happened in the Snake River Valley, the most trying part of the journey. Chroniclers of the event say that the doctor ordered the wagon out of the line about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. It drew only a few yards to one side of the trail, and the other wagons passed on, until the usual time came to go into camp. Next morning at the usual time of starting this wagon took its place in the line, and Dr. Whitman announced that both mother and child were doing well. In Mrs. William White's train "a bright baby boy" was born one night in the Blue Mountains, where the road was so rough that "the men were compelled to hold the wagons to prevent their turning over"; and two were born at one camp, in the train with which Hugh Crockett crossed. "Next morning," he says, "the old doctor decided there would be no danger in starting, so we yoked up and wound on as usual. The babies were both boys 'bound for Oregon,' which they reached in good time, and both grew to manhood." OF AN AMERICAN STATE 493 From the time they crossed the Missouri River in May, until they reached and crossed the Cascade Mountains in October, or later, the travelers were continually harassed by Indians, who were usually more annoying than dangerous. They gathered about them and began to steal their goods, as soon as they had crossed the Missouri. Parties of them fol lowed the trains along the trail for days together, invaded their camps morning and evening, begging for food, for clothing, for anything that pleased their fancy or tempted their avarice. It was necessary to watch every article pro duced from the wagons for use about the camp. Everything movable — knives and forks, spoons, the tin dishes from which they ate their food, kettles and frying pans, guns, axes and articles for use or wear of any sort, had to be looked after every moment they were not in somebody's hands, or they would be hidden under the filthy blankets or buffalo robes of these vagrants of the prairie and carried away. They made themselves annoying in another way. The early emigrants built bridges across many deep ravines and some of the smaller streams, which carried them safely over and were left for others who should follow them. At these bridges, parties of Indians would station themselves, and demand toll in money, guns, ammunition, or even cattle if these could not be obtained. If their demand were not complied with they shook their blankets in the faces of the oxen, and with yells and other noisy demonstrations tried to stampede them, and sometimes succeeded. The more timid travelers at first yielded to their demands, but as they continued, and grew more numerous as they progressed, they took courage and, following the example of the braver ones, they assumed a bolder front and, by a vigorous use of their ox whips, or a persuasive display of their revolvers 494 THE RISE AND PROGRESS and rifles, cleared the way. Urban E. Hicks, who crossed in 1 85 1, says his train came up with a party, not long after they had reached the Platte River, who had been robbed of nearly everything they had with them. There were more women than men among them, and the men were apparently not much braver than the women. Supposing that resistance was useless they had given up without any effort at defense, and the Indians had left them nothing but their wagons. With the help of the Hick's party some of their goods were recovered, but not enough to enable them to continue their journey and the whole party turned back to the homes they had left. The Hicks' party were after wards told that one young woman of this party had followed their train for several miles on foot, determined if possible to go through with them, but not being able to overtake them she had reluctantly returned to her friends. P. B. Cornwall, afterwards so well known as merchant, coal operator and railroad builder, in Washington and California, and two or three other young men and their guide, who were traveling with him, were captured by the Pawnees on the Platte River in 1848. During the night following their capture the Indians held a long council to determine what they should do with them. The young warriors were for torturing and then killing them, but the older ones were opposed, thinking they would gain more by holding them for a ransom. Their guide could hear and understand all that was said on both sides, though the Indians did not know it, the prisoners deeming it wise to keep this fact a secret. Finally Cornwall managed to get the attention of his captors, and by signs made them under stand that soldiers were coming west very soon, and if he and his friends were not set at liberty, and their property restored OF AN AMERICAN STATE 495 to them, they would be terribly punished. The Indians had already seen a few soldiers and their cannon, and it soon became evident to the prisoners that Cornwall's argu ment was making an impression on them. Negotiations were finally opened, and at last, just as morning was begin ning to dawn, the party were set at liberty in exchange for a few presents. They immediately mounted their horses and continued their journey, suspecting that the younger warriors would follow and attempt to murder them, which they did. They managed, however, to take refuge in the timber skirting the banks of a small stream, before their pursuers overtook them. Here they had a sharp fight, which continued until dark, when they again escaped, and traveled all that night, and during a part of the succeeding day, when they again found themselves pursued, and evidently by a much larger party than before. As their horses were now nearly exhausted they were about to give themselves up for lost when their guide exclaimed: "Boys, I think we are saved." This proved to be true, for their pursuers were not their old enemies, but a war party of Sioux, several of whom the guide •personally knew. He soon made them acquainted with the details of their recent experience, and their new-found friends rode away in search of their recent enemies. A day or two later they returned with several fresh scalps, and Mr. Cornwall and his companions were assured that they would have no more trouble from that band of Pawnees. Along the Platte, especially during the earlier years, the trains were much annoyed by the war parties of the Sioux, Crow and OgalaUa tribes, who were almost continually at war with each other. These war parties stole their horses and stampeded their cattle, if they were not closely guarded 496 THE RISE AND PROGRESS at night, and there were times when they swooped down on a train in the daytime and ran them off before the men of the party could defend them. Sometimes their night attacks were so successful as to leave the party scarcely enough ani mals to proceed with their journey. Usually part of all the horses stolen in this way were recovered, but it was only at the cost of much delay and not unfrequently of life also. It was particularly dangerous for one wagon, or for two or three wagons, to allow themselves to become separated from the main train for any reason, for the cowardly Indians were sure to make it an object of their special attention. Edward Hanford's family, of which Judge C. H. Hanford was then one of the younger members, found this out on one occasion, and were considerably alarmed for a time, though they escaped without injury. One morning one of their oxen was sick; he apparently could not rise from the place where he slept near the wagon. The train would not wait. All the other travelers, whose oxen were not sick, were anxious to get started. If old Barney could not go on he must be left behind. That meant that he must be left helpless to the wolves. Not one member of the family would consent to that. "Shoot him then," was the next suggestion, but they would almost as soon think of shooting one of them selves. They would neither shoot the faithful beast nor abandon him, but would stay by him, as he in his dumb patience had stood by them, come what might. The train moved on and they were left almost alone. They did not know what to do for the sick creature; and he could not tell them. For want of other remedies he was given about one gallon of strong, hot coffee, which he drank obediently, and then, after a vigorous rubbing of his shoulders and limbs, he succeeded in a supreme effort to arise, and in a short OF AN AMERICAN STATE 497 time was able to resume the journey, though not under yoke; a spare ox was put in his place and he was allowed to follow the wagon. But the train was now some hours in advance and quite out of sight. It was apparent that the Indians had observed that a small part of it had fallen behind. Small parties of them could be seen at a distance, showing a good deal more interest in this wagon than those in it cared to see. They hurried forward as rapidly as they could. The usual camp ing time came but they did not stop. They could see that the number of Indians was increasing, and that they were growing bolder and more threatening. But the nearness of their train probably saved them from attack. They did not stop until they had reached it, which they did in safety, some time during the night. Old Barney was not the only faithful ox who won the confidence and affection of his owners on these memorable journeys. There was a genuine companionship, such as grows up between the trooper or the hunter and his horse, between these emigrants and their animals, and it was credit able to both. They shared eachother's toils, privations, and in some sense also their sorrows and their infrequent joys. They bore together the heat and burden of the day, the toil and dust of the arid plains, the choking thirst of the desert, and they rejoiced together in their hours of rest, when a good camping place with plenty of pure sweet water had been found. "These patient, dumb brutes had been my close companions for long, weary months on the plains, and had never failed me; they would do my bidding to the letter," says Ezra Meeker. "I have often said Buck understood English better than some people I had seen in my lifetime. We had bivouacked together; actually slept together, lunched 498 THE RISE AND PROGRESS together. They knew me as far as they could see, and seemed delighted to obey my word, and I did regret to feel constrained to part with them. I knew they had assured my safe transit on the weary journey, if not even to the point of having saved my life. I could pack them, ride them, drive them by the word and received their salutations, and why should I be ashamed to part with them with feelings of more than regret." On this part of their journey the travelers were more or less frequently alarmed by the vast herds of buffalo which in those days, and until long after the railroads had made this long journey by wagon unnecessary, roamed over the prairie from the Rio Grande to and beyond the Canadian line. Wonderful stories are told of the number of these animals which crossed the trail, sometimes by day and some times by night, sometimes moving quietly as herds of cattle move while feeding, and at others charging in a wild tumul tuous, resistless mass, and rushing headlong, those in front being urged on by those behind them, upon any obstacle presenting itself in their path. Talbot says: "I never read a story that would convey a proper impression of their illimit able numbers. Frequently we stopped the wagons to let them go by." The wild stampedes of these vast herds were particularly terrifying at night. Ezra Meeker has very graphically told the story of the experience his party had withjone of them, when several hundred miles out on his journey. He says, " On that particular evening the wagons had been placed in a circle, with ropes connecting to make a complete enclosure. The usual guards sent with the stock when kept out on range were asleep, save one sentinel. The first intimation of danger came when every hoof of stock within the enclosure sprang to its feet as if it had become OF AN AMERICAN STATE 499 possessed of an evil spirit. The resultant confusion, and the roar of the approaching herd, awoke every inmate in or under every wagon or tent to rally in undress to weak points of the enclosure. To hear that sound is never to forget it. Like the roar of the heaviest tornado, one could scarcely tell the direction from which it came, or the distance from which it emanated, neither the direction in which it was moving; and all we could do was to prepare for thetmslaught, which might or might not strike us, and await results. Fortunately the great herd passed to one side of us, though very near, so near we thought it was surely upon us, though we escaped entirely unharmed and without the loss of a single animal. Not so with many of our camping neighbors, who lost heavily in stock stampeded, and some of which they never recovered, and detained their trains for days." APPENDIX I. Part of Wilkes' Special Report. The following is the conclusion of Wilkes' special report, which he hurried to Washington as soon as he arrived in New York. It was received at the navy department on June 13, 1842, while Webster and Ashburton were still negotiating in regard to the northeast boundary. The first part of it is devoted to a very full and complete description of the Oregon country, particularly of that part of it lying north of the Columbia — the only part about which there was then any controversy: " The Boundary will next claim my attention. " In a former report to the Hon. Secretary of the Navy, I stated that the boundary formerly proposed, viz. : that of 490 of latitude, ought not to be adopted, and the following are my reasons for it, viz. : " 1st. That it affects the value of all that portion of the middle and eastern sections south of that parallel. " 2d. That it places the whole territory south of that parallel com pletely under the control, and at the mercy of, the nation who may possess the northern, by giving the command of all the waters and a free access into the heart of the Territory at any moment. " 3d. Giving up what must become one of the great highways into the interior of the Territory altogether, viz. : Frazer's River. " 4th. And also to all intents and purposes possession of the fine island of Vancouver, thereby surrendering an equal right to navigate the waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and by its possession the whole command of the northern waters. " 5th. Giving rise to endless disputes and difficulties, after the location of the boundary, and in the execution of the laws after it is settled. " 6th. Affording and converting a portion of the Territory which belongs to us, into a resort and depot for a set of marauders and their goods, who may be employed at any time in acting against the laws, and to the great detriment of the peace, not only of this Territory, but of our western states, by exciting and supplying the Indians on our borders. "The boundary line on the 490 parallel would throw Frazer's River without our Territory, cut off and leave seven-eigths of the fine island of Vancouver in their possession, together with all the harbors, including those of Nootka, Clayoquot and Natinat, which afford everything that could be desired as safe and good ports for naval establishments. They would not only command the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the inlets and sounds leading from it, but place the whole at any moment under their control, by enabling them to reach and penetrate to the heart of the 502 THE RISE AND PROGRESS Territory, with a comparatively small force, and destroy and lay it waste. "The whole middle and part of the eastern sections would be cut off from their supplies of timber, by losing its northern part, from which it can only be supplied with an article of the first necessity, both for fuel and building, and rendering it dependent on a foreign state. We should also give up what may be considered a storehouse of wealth in its forests, furs, and fisheries, containing an inexhaustible supply of the first and last of the best quality. "Endless difficulties would be created in settling the boundary, for Great Britain must, or does know, that the outlet from Frazer's River by way of Johnstons' Strait, between Vancouver Island and the main land, is not only difficult but dangerous to navigate, from the rapidity of the currents, and cannot be made use of. She will therefore probably urge her claim to the southern line, say the Columbia, as the boundary which they are desirous of holding, and are now doing all in their power to secure its permanent settlement, through the Hudson's Bay Company, and extending the laws by which she governs the Canadas, as over her own citizens settled in the Territory, and by the delays of our Govern ment, hope to obtain such a foothold as will make it impossible to set aside their sovereignty in it. This as far as I was enabled to per ceive is evidently their intention, being extremely desirous to appear as the larger claimants of the Territory, and to assert their right to the soil to the north of the Columbia River. ' This boundary would subject the island of Vancouver to two sovereign ties, and of course their laws. It never could be surrendered by us with out abandoning the great interests and safety of the Territory, and it will be perceived how very prejudicial it would be, if the British in posses sion of the northern section should establish free ports, and thus be enabled to counteract all our revenue laws, etc. "The contract for supplies with the Russians now enables the Hudson's Bay Company to purchase the grain and produce from the Willamette settlers, but in a short time it will be supplied by themselves, through their great farms, and consequently the produce of settlers can obtain no market whatever, all trade being in the hands of that Company. " The Puget Sound Company are enabled to compete with and under sell all others from the low price of labor (£17 per annum), absence from duties, and the facilities of sending their products to market by the ships of the Hudson's Bay Company, which hitherto have returned almost empty, the furs occupying but a small part of the vessel, which will here after be filled with hides and tallow: this must operate very prejudicially to the settlements, and increase their hold on the Territory. "I have stated these views in order to show the necessity of prompt action on the part of the Government, in taking possession of the country, OF AN AMERICAN STATE 503 in order to obviate difficulties that a longer delay will bring about, and prevent many persons from settling advantageously. " For the Military occupation of the country, I conceive that it would be necessary to establish a post at some central point, viz. : Walla Walla, and I herewith enclose you a topographical sketch of the surrounding country, within 30 miles. As respects its position, with reference to the country, you will be well informed by the map. It appears to me to be peculiarly adapted to the general defense of the Territory, in order to preserve peace and quietness among the Indian tribes. The Nez Perces, Snakes and Blackfeet are those generally engaged in committing depre dations on each other, and require more looking after than those of the other tribes; they are in and around this section of the country. "The facilities for maintaining a post, and at a moderate expense, are great; the river abounds with salmon during a greater part of the year, and the herds thrive exceedingly well. Cattle are numerous, par ticularly horses, which are the best the country affords. Grains of all kinds flourish, and about twenty-five miles distant the missionaries have an establishment from which I have but little doubt the troops could be supplied. The climate is remarkably fine and healthy. There is per haps no point from which operations could be carried on with so much facility to all parts of the Territory as this, it being situated, as it were, at the forks of the two principal branches of the Columbia. Any number of horses could be kept at little or no expense, and a force could reach almost any part of the lower Territory with the least possible delay. "The permanent land force I conceive necessary to keep this Territory quiet and peaceable, would be one company of dragoons, and one of infantry, say 200 men. "The only Indians in the country, south of 49°, who are disposed to make war upon the whites, are the Klamets residing on the southern borders of the Territory, along the Rogue and Klamet Rivers, and in the passes of the Shasty Mountains. The show of small force would, I am sure, have a good tendency in preventing their depredations on the whites, who pass through the country, their hostility to whom, in a great measure, is to be ascribed to the conduct of the whites themselves, who leave no opportunity unimproved of molesting them; cases have fre quently occurred of white men shooting a poor defenseless Indian with out any provocation whatever. "A friendly disposition, with sufficient force to prevent any attack, could not fail to bring about the desired disposition on their parts. The country they inhabit is a very rich one, and would afford all the neces saries, as well as the comforts of life. " A steamer having a light draft of water, a small fort on Lake Disap pointment, and a few guns on Point Adams to defend the South Channel, 504 THE RISE AND PROGRESS with its dangerous bar, would be all sufficient for the defense of Columbia River. " Some points within the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Admiralty Inlet, or Puget Sound, might be settled, where supplies etc. could be had and depots established. Two Gov. Steamers would be able to protect our trade and Territory, and prevent disturbances among the northern tribes; they would be a more efficient force than stationary forts, and much more economical. In case of difficulties, steamers would be enabled to reach any part of the coast from these points in two days. " In the event of hostilities in this country, the forts (so-called) of the H. B. Company are not to be considered of strength against any force but Indians, they are mere stockades, and all their buildings, granaries etc. are situated without the palisade. They could offer but little resist ance to any kind of armed force, and their supplies could readily be cut off, both by sea and land. "The occupation of the mouth of the Columbia River, together with some point in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, or the waters and sounds leading from it, I view as highly necessary in any event, and there is no force so well adapted for the security of this Territory as that of steamers. "The waters of Puget Sound might be effectually defended from a naval force by occupying the Narrows leading to it, through which vessels must enter; at all times a dangerous, narrow pass, with strong currents, no anchorage and the wind almost always variable. I refer you to the chart, which shows this point distinctly. "Much has been said of the effective force of the Hudson's Bay Com pany; this in my opinion is an active mistake and exaggeration of it. It is true that the servants of the Company are bound to bear arms during their term of servitude, but they are without any sort of discipline, few in number, generally of the class of farmers, worn-out Canadians, some few Iroquois Indians, and other tribes from the Canadas, and illy adapted to bear arms. About one hundred at all the posts could be raised. With regard to the natives, they are so distributed in small tribes, that I am confident they would only be looked to as scouts and messengers, and those of the northern tribes would be too unruly to meddle with. " I am decidedly of opinion that the Company would do everything to avoid the Territory's becoming a scene of war, particularly its officers. They are now for the most part bound up with its peaceful occupation, being largely engaged in agriculture and grazing, which must all in a measure be sacrificed, and there would also be great difficulty, if not a total interruption, in their carrying on their fur trade. It is not very probable that they would make any very strenuous endeavors to retain their interests under the British authority, as they well know that they may come in for the preservation of their property under the pre emption right, by transferring it to citizens of the United States, some OF AN AMERICAN STATE 505 of whom are well known to be interested and active partners in the busi ness. " There are four Passes through the Rocky Mountains. The one known as McGillivary's Pass by the Committee's Punch Bowl is difficult, and can only be used during the Summer months, at which time the parties of the Hudson's Bay Company pursue this route. "Proceeding south we come to the great defile through which Lewis and Clarke found their way, and finally the two southern routes which are preferable, susceptible of being used at almost all seasons, and a good wagon road may be constructed with little expense. This leads to the first post of the H. B. Company, viz.: Fort Hall established by Captain Wyeth, and has since been transferred to the Company, so that it is readily to be perceived that the difficulties of communication with the Territory is far less for us than the British. " I cannot close this report without doing justice to the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company's service, for their kind and gentlemanly treat ment to us whilst in the Territory, and to bear testimony that during all my intercourse with them, they seemed to be guided by one rule of conduct highly creditable to them, not only as men of business, but to their feel ings as gentlemen. "They afforded us every assistance that lay in their power, both in supplies and means of accomplishing our duties. There are many per sons in the country who bear testimony to the aid and kindness rendered to them in their outset, and of their hospitality it is needless to speak, for it has become proverbial. " To conclude, few portions of the globe in my opinion are to be found, so rich in soil, diversified in surface, or capable of being rendered the happy abode of an industrious and civilized community. For beauty of scenery and salubrity of climate it is not surpassed; it is peculiarly adapted for an agricultural and pastoral people, and no portion of the world beyond the tropics is to be found that will yield so readily to the wants of man with moderate labor. " Respectfully submitted, "CHARLES WILKES, "Commanding Exploring Expedition. " APPENDIX II. Proceedings of the Public Meeting. At a meeting of the citizens of Lewis County, held at New Market on the 5th day of November, 1848, the following proceedings were had: The meeting was called to order by M. T. Simmons, whereupon William Packwood was chosen chairman, and Samuel B. Crockett, secretary. The object of the meeting having been explained in a satisfactory manner, on motion of A. B. Rabbeson, a committee of three was appointed to draft a preamble and resolutions expressive of the sense of the meeting. The chairman appointed A. B. Rabbeson, Samuel B. Crockett and I. N. Ebey on said committee, who made the following report, to wit: Whereas, It has been reported that the stock belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company are being sent on the west side of Nisqually river, in numbers so great that but a short time must elapse ere the vegetation will be consumed by said stock, to the great detriment of actual settlers on said side of said stream; and, Whereas, A great portion of said cattle belonging to said society are what are generally termed Spanish cattle, known to be but little more domesticated than the herds of buffalo that range the plains; and that if suffered to mix and herd with domestic cattle belonging to settlers, great loss will inevitably result to said settlers, by suffering the grievances above stated to remain unredressed; therefore, be it Resolved, 1st, That when the American citizens first determined on locating themselves at Puget Sound as permanent settlers, many obstacles of a discouraging nature were thrown in their way by said society of the Hudson's Bay Company, in order to induce them to abandon their cherished object; at times using misrepresentation and fraud, and when this failed to answer their ends, force was spoken of with impunity. 2nd. That we hold the conduct of Wm. F. Tolmie, chief servant of the Hudson's Bay Co. at Nisqually, as highly censurable, in attempting to prevent American settlers from locating their claims on certain lands that he, the said Tolmie, pretended to claim by certain reservations made in the treaty of boundary between the United States and Great Britain, in favor of the Puget's Sound Agricultural Society — when he well knows that no reservation exists; and these direct acts or assumptions of power are only equalled by the base subterfuge in attempting to hold other large tracts of land by an apparent acquiescence in the provisions of the Organic Law of this territory, by having claims of land recorded in the office of the territorial recorder, in the names of servants of said company, when in fact, in a great number of cases, said servants were ignorant of said locations, and afterwards, either by force or fraud, have procured an 508 THE RISE AND PROGRESS obligation from those servants, for a conveyance of said lands to said society or company, so soon as the title for the same was acquired from the United States; thus using the power they can exert over these creat ures of their will, to the manifest injury of the country, and for the advancement of their own aggrandizement. 3rd. That while we as American citizens, feel every tie that binds citizens in common to respect the laws and treaty stipulations of our government, yet, at the same time, we feel jealous of any infringment on the same by individuals who have no common interest or feeling in the national honor, glory and prosperity of our government; and least of all by persons who acknowledge allegiance to foreign — to monarchial government, and hold places of profit and trust under a corporation whose charter emanated from the government of Great Britain, and who are to them accountable for their acts. 4th. That as it has never been the policy of the federal government in enacting laws granting the right of pre-emption, and other conformable laws to induce the speedy settlement of wild tracts within the United States, to grant said benefits to any other than American citizens, or those who had declared their intention to become such, in a legal form; that such will be the provisions of the anticipated grants of land to settlers in this territory we have not the slightest doubt — in fact, a departure from the long established policy of the government would eventuate in no good. 5th. That we view the claims and improvements made by the Puget's Sound Agricultural Society since the ratification of the treaty, before alluded to, as a nullity; as that society can gain nothing by any con templated grants of land to American citizens, or for reimbursement for the same, as said treaty only confirmed the possessory rights of said society; and that the United States has never parted with the actual right in fee to said land, and that all such claims and improvements are subject to any American citizen who may choose to appropriate the same to his use. 6th. That we view the claims as located by the chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company, or Puget Sound Agricultural Society, for the servants in the employ of said company, as amounting to a nullity, unless said persons for whom said lands were located are out of the employment of said society, or company, and have settled on and continue to occupy the same. 7th. That the American settlers at Puget Sound are under no obli gations to said company or society, to suffer the grievances above stated to remain unredressed, as a favor. 8th. That William F. Tolmie, chief servant of said company or society at Fort Nisqually, be requested forthwith to remove any stock of said OF AN AMERICAN STATE 509 company, that are now on the west side of said river Nisqually, to the east side of said stream, and continue to keep them there — as we are determined that any such grievance shall not be suffered by the American settlers. 9th. That as said society has uniformly refused to furnish Americans with sheep, at any price, until quite recently, and now when those are offered for sale, they prove to be the most inferior of the flock, and those at an exorbitant price; that in this, as in all other acts of said society, we know that their aim is only their own interest, while it is an insult to the common sense of any community. 10th. That a copy of the proceedings of this meeting be sent to Wil liam F. Tolmie, chief servant of the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Nisqually. nth. That a copy also be sent to the public press for publication. S. B. Crockett, Secretary. William Packwood, Chairman.