USA > Idaho > A history of Indian missions on the Pacific coast : Oregon, Washington and Idaho > Part 9
USA > Oregon > A history of Indian missions on the Pacific coast : Oregon, Washington and Idaho > Part 9
USA > Washington > A history of Indian missions on the Pacific coast : Oregon, Washington and Idaho > Part 9
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A trip across the continent at any time in those days was a great undertaking ; at the present time on horseback it is liable to meet with severe difficulties in the winter, for both stages and railroads are often stopped by snow- storms. Dr. Whitman's journey combined both the severity of the winter weather and the diffi- culties of that early day. Mr. Lovejoy, his sur- viving companion, in a letter dated February 14, 1876, has described some of the difficulties of that journey.
They rode to Fort Hall in eleven days. At that place Captain Grant, then in charge, in order to prevent Dr. Whitman from going East, falsely said that the Pawnees and Sioux were at war with each other, and it would be almost certain death for him to proceed. Determined to go, he changed to a more southern route ; but the statement, although false, most likely proved to be salvation for Dr. Whitman, as, on account of the severity of the winter, he would probably have perished, had he traveled the contemplated route. Hence, they went by way of Salt Lake, Fort Winte, Fort Uncom- pagra, Taos and Santa Fe. Having left Fort Uncompagra in the Spanish country, says Mr. Lovejoy, " we took a new guide and started for Taos. After being out some four or five days, we encountered a terrific snow-storm,
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which forced us to seek shelter in a deep ravine, where we remained snowed in for four days, at which time the storm had somewhat abated, and we attempted to make our way out upon the high lands, but the snow was so deep and the winds so piercing and cold we were com- pelled to return to camp and wait a few days for a change of weather. Our next effort to reach the highlands was more successful ; but after spending several days wandering around in the snow without making much headway, our guide told 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, but he was determined not to give it up without an- other effort. We at once agreed that the doc- tor should take the guide and return to Fort Uncompagra and get a new guide, and I re- main in camp with the animals until he could return, which he did in seven days with our new guide, and we were now on our route again. Nothing of much import occurred but hard and slow traveling through deep snow, until we reached Grand River, which was frozen on either side about one-third across. Al- though so intensely cold, the current was so very rapid about one-third of the river in the centre was not frozen. Our guide thought it
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would be dangerous to attempt to cross the river in its present condition, but the doctor, nothing daunted, was the first to take the water. He mounted his horse-the guide and myself shoved the doctor and his horse off the ice into the foaming stream. Away he went com- pletely under water, horse and all, but directly came up, and after buffeting the rapid foaming current, he reached the ice on the opposite shore a long way down the stream. He leaped from his horse upon the ice, and soon had his noble animal by his side. The guide and my- self forced in the pack animals and followed the doctor's example, and were soon on the opposite shore drying our frozen clothes by a comfortable fire. We reached Taos in about thirty days, suffered greatly from cold and scarcity of provisions. We were compelled to use mule meat, dogs, and such other animals as came in our reach. We remained at Taos a few days only, and started for Bent's and Savery's Fort, on the head-waters of the Ar- kansas River. When we had been out some fif- teen or twenty days, we met George Bent, a brother of Gov. Bent, on his way to Taos. He told us that a party of mountain men would leave Bent's Fort in a few days for St. Louis, but said we would not reach the fort with our pack animals in time to join the party. The
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doctor being very anxious to join the party so he could push on as rapidly as possible to Wash- ington, concluded to leave myself and guide with the animals, and he himself, taking the best animal, with some bedding and a small al- lowance of provision, started alone, hoping by rapid travel to reach the fort in time to join the St. Louis party; but to do so he would have to travel on the Sabbath-something we had not done before. Myself and guide traveled on slowly and reached the fort in four days, but imagine our astonishment when, on making in- quiry about the doctor, we were told that he had not arrived nor had he been heard of. I learned that the party for St. Louis was camped at the Big Cottonwood, forty miles from the fort, and at my request Mr. Savery sent an ex- press, telling the party not to proceed any further until we learned something of Dr., Whitman's whereabouts, as he wished to ac- company them to St. Louis. Being furnished by the gentlemen of the fort with a suitable guide, I started in search of the doctor, and traveled up the river about one hundred miles. I learned from the Indians that a man had been there who was lost and was trying to find Bent's Fort. They said they had directed him to go down the river and how to find the fort. I knew from their description it was the doctor.
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I returned to the fort as rapidly as possible, but the doctor had not arrived. We had all become very anxious about him.
" Late in the afternoon he came in, very much fatigued and desponding ; said that he knew that God had bewildered him to punish him for traveling on the Sabbath. During the whole trip he was very regular in his morning and evening devotions, and that was the only time I ever knew him to travel on the Sabbath.
"The doctor remained all night at the fort, starting early on the following morning to join the St. Louis party. Here we parted. The doctor proceeded to Washington. I remained at Bent's Fort until spring, and joined the doc- tor the following July near Fort Laramie on his way to Oregon, in company with a train of emigrants. He often expressed himself to me about the remainder of his journey and the manner in which he was received at Washing- ton and by the Board for Foreign Missions at Boston. He had several interviews with Presi- dent Tyler, Secretary Webster, and a good many members of Congress, Congress being in session at that time. He urged the immediate termination of the treaty with Great Britain relative to this country, and begged them to extend the laws of the United States over Ore- gon, and asked for liberal inducements to emi-
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grants to come to this coast. He was very cordially and kindly received by the President and members of Congress, and without doubt, the doctor's interviews resulted greatly to the benefit of Oregon and to this coast."
"A gentleman-Dr. William Barrows, then a teacher in St. Louis, now of Boston, Secretary of the Massachusetts H. M. Society-who saw him clad in his buffalo and blanket robes, with frozen feet and hands, standing among the mountaineers in St. Louis on a morning late in February, 1843, resisting their entreaties to stop and tell the story of his winter trip, and then hasten on to Washington, though then ignorant of his aim, never forgot the impression of his energy and earnest purpose."*
When he reached Missouri, he learned that the danger of losing Oregon was very great; hence he rushed on without taking time to obtain a clean shirt or pair of pants, and soon, almost unconscious of his ridiculous appearance -an awkward, tall, spare-visaged, vigorous, off- hand sort of a man, with buckskin pants and English duffle overcoat, darkened by contact with camp fires, appeared before Hon. Daniel Webster, Secretary of State. He found pre- liminary negotiations in progress between Sec-
* Dr. Atkinson's address before the Pioneer and Historical Society in 1876.
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retary Webster and influential persons from England, to trade off Oregon, or at least a part of it, for Newfoundland. He found that Gov- ernor Simpson had made the same representa- tions there as had been made on the Pacific coast in regard to the worthlessness of the country, and the difficulty of access, and al- though not an official representative of the English Government, but merely, as an officer of the Hudson's Bay Company, a lobbyist for the Government, so well had he succeeded, that Secretary Webster was convinced, and Dr. Whitman could not change him. He how- ever next visited President Tyler, and with all his powers urged the same policy and argu- ments upon him, and at last was able to obtain from him a promise, not that the negotiations then in progress should be entirely broken off, but that they should be suspended until Dr. Whitman should show whether or not the emigrants could be led through. It is said, on good authority, that he spoke substantially as follows: "Dr. Whitman, since you are a mis- sionary, I will believe you. The negotiations shall be suspended until you have time to lead the emigration through, and if you are success- ful I will use my influence to prevent the bar- gain from being made;" a noble tribute to the reliable reputation of missionaries. "That is
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all I want," said Dr. Whitman. He then im- mediately sent back word to Missouri, and in some way had it published that he would aid those emigrants who wished to go to Oregon. Having learned that the Hudson's Bay Com- pany had published that it was impracticable for wagons to reach the Columbia River, he still said he would aid them until they should finish the journey. There is but little, if any doubt, that on the strength of these statements, and others which he made in regard to the cli- mate, soil, and value of the country, many were induced to start that year for Oregon.
He next attended to missionary business at Boston, after which he visited his relatives for a short time. It is said that he was met coldly by the secretaries of the Missionary Society, as having left his post without instructions, and having involved the Board in unnecessary ex- pense, for they did not realize, as he did, the importance of the journey. This reception he could not afterwards forget, but the Society, as › well as the missionaries on the Pacific coast, who opposed the effort, have since gladly ac- knowledged that they were wrong and he was right, and have given him the honor due to such labors.
By May he was on his way back. He over- took the emigration of about eight hundred
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and seventy-five people, including the women and children, with one hundred and eleven wagons, and about two thousand horses and cattle, near the Platte River, and nobly did he fulfill his promise to them. The work, how- ever, was very great. "Those who saw him overtaking the emigrants whom he had encour- aged to start, at the North Platte River in June, 1843, and bid them throw away their skin boats, prepared for crossing, and saw him for three days crossing and recrossing that wide stream, swimming his horse to find the best ford, and at last heard him order the one hun- dred or more teams and wagons to be chained together and driven in one long line to ford for two miles that river swollen by spring floods, cheering the drivers, permitting not a moment's halt, lest they should sink in the quicksands, will never forget the man and the deed,"* as some who attempted to have their own way at that time now testify.
Says Hon. J. W. Nesmith, late member of Congress from Oregon, who was in the emigra- tion of that year: "I regard him [Dr. Whit- man] as a quiet, unassuming man, and of great purity of character. He was of a powerful physical organization, and possessed a great
* Dr. Atkinson's address before the Pioneer Historical Society in 1876.
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and good heart, full of charity and courage, and utterly destitute of hypocrisy, shams and effem- inacy, and always terribly in earnest. While with us he was clad entirely in buckskin. 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 the depth or temperature of the water, and sometimes, after the fatigue of a hard day's march, would spend much of the night in going from one party to another to minister to the sick. His moral example was of the highest character."
Often he performed two days' work in one, riding here and there, searching for the best way, and leaving bits of paper in different places saying, "this way" or " that way."
When they reached Fort Hall, where wagons had in previous years been traded to the Hud- son's Bay Company for pack animals, because of the representations of that Company, at an opportune moment, while Dr. Whitman was ab- sent from camp, the same representations were made to the emigrants. They were told that they must either trade off their wagons or go to California. "For instance," says Gen. Joel Palmer, of that year's emigration, "the two crossings of Snake River, and the crossing of the Columbia and other smaller streams, were
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represented as being attended with great dan- ger; also that no company heretofore attempt- ing the passage of these streams succeeded but with the loss of men, from the violence and ra- pidity of the currents. In addition to the above, it was asserted that three or four tribes of In- dians in the middle regions had combined for the purpose of preventing our passage through their country. In case we escaped destruction at the hands of the savages, that a more fear- ful enemy, famine, would attend our march, as the distance was so great that winter would overtake us before making the Cascade Moun- tains. On the other hand, as an inducement to pursue the California route, we were informed of the shortness of the route when compared with that to Oregon, as also of the many other superior advantages it possessed."*
When Dr. Whitman returned to camp he found them in a sad state-some in tears, and some almost ready to accept the statements made. At this juncture he is said to have ad- dressed them substantially as follows: " My countrymen, you have trusted me thus far; be- lieve me now; I will take your wagons to the Columbia River." They did so, and again started over an unknown wagon road.
On account of the need of his professional
* Gray's History of Oregon, page 367.
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services in the mission, it became necessary for the doctor to leave the emigrants at Fort Hall and proceed ahead; but he was able to search for the wagon road and leave word on paper where it was best to go. Istikus, a Cayuse chief, with other Indians, was returning from the buffalo country, and Dr. Whitman recom- mended him as guide. Says Hon. J. W. Nes- mith: " He was a faithful old fellow, perfectly familiar with all the trails and topography of the country from Fort Hall to the Dalles, and, although not speaking a word of English, and no one in our party a word of Cayuse, he suc- ceeded by pantomime in taking us over the roughest wagon road I ever saw." The Indians were really better acquainted with the passes through the Blue Mountains than the doctor was, and the wagons rolled through to his sta- tion
It was now necessary for them to be refresh- ed from the mission, and as Dr. Whitman's mill had been burned during his absence, the flour for the emigrants was transported a hundred and ten miles by Rev. H. H. Spalding from his station.
Dr. Whitman also furnished them a guide to the Dalles free of cost, and they proceeded on their way rejoicing.
Extravagant statements have been made of
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the confidence which the emigrants learned to have in Dr. Whitman before they reached their journey's end. It is reported that one man said that they were so ready to trust him, that if he had told them to drive up a fir tree, he believed they would have made the attempt. Mr. Jesse. Applegate presented him with a cow, as a tes- timonial for his services at the crossing of the north fork of the Platte. Says Mr. Applegate: " It is no disparagement to others to say, that to no other individual are the emigrants of 1843 so much indebted for the successful conclusion of their journey as to Dr. Marcus Whitman. His constant advice, which we knew was based on a knowledge of the road before us, was ' travel, travel, TRAVEL-nothing else will take you to the end of your journey.' "
This emigration, outnumbering all of the Hud- son's Bay Company's employees and Red River immigrants, showed our Government that an immigration could reach the Columbia, and saved the country to the United States. The next year negotiations were re-opened between the two countries, but no offer was made by the United States to give Great Britain anything south of the forty-ninth parallel.
Dr. Whitman did more than he promised, for, previous to the time when the emigration start- ed, he refused to be their guide; but only prom-
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ised to aid them as he could-not wishing to take upon himself the responsibility of a guide; but after he overtook them, he was, in fact, their guide through most of the difficult places. General John C. Fremont, whom President Tyler sent out to make and protect the road for this emigration, came, but found the path opened by the wagons, and protected by the vigilance of Dr. Whitman.
Dr. Whitman evidently considered the suc- cess of this immigration as settling the destiny of Oregon, for he wrote to his Missionary Board, April Ist, 1847 : "It may easily be seen what would have become of the American in- terests in the country, had the immigration of 1843 been as disastrous as were the immigra- tions of 1845 and 1846," both of those years his route having been abandoned for another.
Says Judge William Strong : " The arrival of the emigration of 1843 may be considered the turning point in the history of Oregon. It gave to the American population of the Terri- tory control of its civil affairs ; attracted the attention and excited the interest of the citi- zens and public authorities of the United States to this then almost unknown land, and thus contributed materially to the determination of the boundary question. It made Oregon of too great importance to permit diplomacy to trifle
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it away. It brought to the valley a large band of improved horses and cattle. It afforded the settlers means of making themselves at home in the country, and filled their hearts with hopes at being again surrounded by American citizens."
During subsequent years the hands and heart of Dr. Whitman were also full to aid the poor emigrant. A generosity fully equal to the golden rule was usually practiced, so that sometimes by the beginning of winter he found himself almost without supplies, and was obliged to send to the station among the Nez Perces, a hundred and ten miles distant, and have flour for his station packed to it. Those too poor to proceed further sometimes win- tered with him, so that at the time of his massa- cre there were seventy persons at his station, fifty-three of whom were immigrants, and seven more immigrant children, whose parents died on the journey in 1844, and whom he had adopted into his family. On account of this kindness the citizens of the Willamette were probably more ready to volunteer, in order to avenge his death, than they would have done for that of almost any other person on the Pa- cific coast.
When, previous to his journey East in 1842, he was urged by his friends to consider the
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perils of the contemplated journey, he said : "My life is of but little moment if I can but save this country for the American people." Immediately after his return to this coast he said to Rev. C. Eells that he very much wished that he could be in Washington during the winter of 1843-4, as he felt that he could then accomplish far more in preventing the sale of Oregon than he had already done.
While these events were transpiring, others looking to the same end were occurring in the Willamette valley ; for few, if any, of the set- tlers there realized the objects Dr. Whitman had in going east, if they even knew of the journey.
The shape that these events took was the organizing of a provisional government. Not- withstanding the fact that the English Govern- ment was disposed to grant to the United States the country south of the Columbia, and the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company, be- lieving that this river would be the line, if Great Britain should be obliged to make a di- vision, had built their headquarters at Van- couver, on the northern bank of the river, yet there were some among them who were deter- mined, if possible, to obtain possession of the country south of that river. This will be seen by remembering that they had taken possession
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of the land at the Willamette Falls (now Ore- gon City) ; that they had a settlement at French Prairie, above Oregon City, and that their Governor-General, Sir George Simpson, had made a statement defying the American Government to establish the Atlantic tariff in Pacific ports. Three points the Company in- sisted upon, as far as they were able under the treaty, with the Methodist missionaries, viz .: that they should not attempt to trade with the Indians; that they should confine themselves to missionary and agricultural pursuits ; and that they should remain south of the Columbia River. Not that the servants of the Company confined themselves to the country north of that river, for in 1831 they had begun to settle in the Willamette valley.
The forming of the provisional government in 1843 by the people of Oregon, during the summer previous to the arrival of the great im- migration which was led by Dr. Whitman- three years before the final treaty was made which settled the boundary line, and six years before the first Governor appointed by the United States authorities arrived-was very ef- fective in saving the country south of the Co- lumbia.
Many of the early trappers and settlers who had never been connected with the Methodist
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mission, worked nobly for this object, in con- nection with the missionaries; yet that mission was the centre around which all these efforts at first crystallized, and without which little, if any- thing, would probably have been accomplished at that early day.
It was a fact, says Mrs. Victor in her River of the West, that a mission had been established in the Willamette with all the means and ap- pliances of a settlement, independent of the Hudson's Bay Company, that induced the American mountain men to remain and settle upon farms. They looked to the mission to be- come to them what Vancouver was to the Ca- nadians-a supply station, and although they were somewhat disappointed, perhaps, in their expectations, yet they did not find it out until they were settled.
Previous to 1840 the number of persons in that region was so small that nothing seemed to be required, yet as early as 1837 Mr. Lee had been successful in one way, in freeing both the mission and the other settlers from the con- trol of the Hudson's Bay Company-it was from the cattle monopoly. Previous to 1837 the company owned all the cattle in that portion of the country, and they would sell to no one outside of the company. They would only loan their cows to the settlers in the spring to be
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milked, and to be returned in the fall with the increase. Mr. Lee determined, if possible, to break up this monopoly, by sending to Cali- fornia for cattle. Captain Slocum, of the United States Navy, was in the Columbia River at that time, and offered to take any persons, free, to California, who might wish to go for cattle. Accordingly a meeting was called at the mission house to form a cattle company; various amounts were subscribed, and two men were sent for the cattle. They returned in 1837, losing some of the cattle on the way by the In- dians, who attempted to capture all of them, but they were beaten back, and 600 head were driven into the Willamette valley, and distrib- uted to various individuals, according to the amount which each one had subscribed. "This successful enterprise," says Rev. G. Hines, "which laid the foundation for a rapid accumu- lation of wealth to the settlers, was mainly due to the efforts of Rev. J. Lee."
In 1840 a petition, signed by Rev. D. Leslie, of the mission, and others, was sent to Con- gress, which stated the weak condition of the American settlers, and their dangers, the re- sources of the country, and the efforts of the Hudson's Bay Company to keep possession; and praying that a territorial government might be extended over them.
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At that time there were of all sexes and ages in the country, 137 Americans, 91 of whom were connected with Indian missions.
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