USA > Idaho > History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana : 1845-1889 > Part 13
USA > Montana > History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana : 1845-1889 > Part 13
USA > Washington > History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana : 1845-1889 > Part 13
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Smith. According to the same authority, Judson Van Wormer and Goodell went to Mound Prairie, south of the Nisqually River, to find claims. S. P. Burr died on the road, but his family arrived. Mrs Meeker died on the Platte. Meeker and Mrs Burr were married after arriving in the territory. Ezra Meeker, later a well-known hop-grower in the Puyallup Valley, and author of a pamphlet on Washington, was already settled on a claim east of Steilacoom. Daniel Smalley and George W. Davidson settled near New Dungeness in the autumn of 1834, but they were not of the overland immi- gration. Many arrived by sea, or from the Columbia. Wash. Ter. Sketches, MS., 68.
19 Wash. Jour. Council, 1854-5, 15; Olympia Pioneer and Dem., Dec. 30, 1854.
100
ORGANIZATION OF GOVERNMENT.
with the tribes farther north, at which a thousand were present, who consented readily to the terms, the chiefs using the occasion to display their oratory, but in a friendly fashion. A reservation was selected about the head of Hood Canal. Soon afterward the Makahs of Cape Flattery and other tribes at the en- trance to the straits were treated with; and lastly a couneil was held with those on the Chehalis River and the coast, the whole business being transacted in less than three months, and in the winter season, such was the energy with which the governor addressed himself to the duties of Indian superintendent.50
But after a week of negotiation, in the latter case the couneil broke up without coming to any agree- ment on account of each of the fragments of tribes, five in number, desiring a separate reservation, to which Stevens refused his consent.51
Having completed the labor of extinguishing Indian titles west of the Cascade Mountains, with the ex- ception of the Cowlitz, Chinooks, Chehalis, and Que- niults, who together numbered about eight hundred, Stevens next prepared to enter upon the same duties in eastern Washington. While on his surveying expe- dition, he had been at much pains to become acquainted
50 Swan, in his Northwest Coast, 327-48, gives some idea of how Stevens accomplished so much work. It was greatly advanced by his habit of having agents on the ground some time beforehand. He has been accused, particu- larly by Tolmie, in his Puget Sound, MS., 37, of forcing treaties upon the Ind- ians without giving them time to consider sufficiently what was proposed. But Swan makes a different statement. Special Agent Tappan was sent in advance to gather up the Indians of his district and take them to the place of meeting on the Chehalis River, where H. D. Cook and Sidney Ford, Jr, would meet him with the coast tribes. Swan, J. G. Cooper of the railroad survey, George Gibbs, and others were invited to be present. The treaty- ground was on the claim of James Pilkington, 10 miles above Gray Harbor, where a comfortable camp was arranged, and where ample time was taken to make the Indians acquainted with the propositions offered them. The prin- cipal interpreter for the white men was B. F. Shaw, colonel of the newly or- ganized militia, who gave the speech of the governor in jargon to an Indian interpreter from each tribe, who repeated it to his people-a slow but sure method of conveying his meaning.
51 Swan thought Stevens should have yielded. Perhaps it would have been more politic; but Palmer of Oregon, after many years of acquaintance with Indian affairs, says it is a mistake to have many reservations. It certainly is much more expensive to the government. Swan believed the Indians should have been humored in their dislike of each other and their attachment to localitics.
101
MORE TREATIES.
with all the tribes upon his route within or bordering upon his-district, and to prepare their minds for treaty- making. He had particularly commissioned James Doty, one of his assistants, who remained at Fort Benton in charge of the meteorological post at that place for a year, to inquire into all matters pertaining to the Indian tribes in that quarter, and who was made a special agent for that purpose.52 Lieutenant Mullan, who was employed in the Flathead country for the same length of time, was instructed to give much attention to Indian affairs, and apparently gained a strong influence over them; and Lieutenant Saxton also remained some time with the Nez Perces in order to give and obtain information.
In October Mullan and Doty arrived, the first at Vancouver and the second at Olympia, and when Stevens returned a few weeks later from Washington city, they were ready to report in person. In Janu- ary 1855 Doty was despatched with a small party east of the Cascade Mountains to make arrangements with the Yakimas, Walla Wallas, Nez Perces, and Palouses, for a grand council, which, by agreement with Superintendent Palmer of Oregon, was appointed for the 20th of May, Kamiakin, chief of the Yaki- mas, himself directing that the council should be held in the Walla Walla Valley, near the site of the pres- ent city of that name, because it was an ancient council-ground.
At the time and place agreed upon the council was held, and treaties signed by the chiefs of the Yakimas, Walla Wallas, Nez Perces, and Cayuses, the narra- tive of which is contained in another volume.53 Sev- eral weeks were consumed at the treaty-grounds, and it was the middle of June before Stevens was ready
62 Pac. R. R. Rept, xii. 113.
b3 Hist. Or., ii., chap. xiv., this series. Briefly, the tribes assembled gave the superintendents unexpected trouble in making treatics, Kamiakin having conspired with other chiefs to destroy the commissioners and seize the government property which was stored at Fort Walla Walla. Lawyer, head- chief of the Nez Perces, was able to prevent the conspiracy being carried out, but not to prevent what followed.
102
ORGANIZATION OF GOVERNMENT.
to proceed to the Blackfoot country, where arrange- ments had been made for a treaty council in October. While en route every opportunity was used to culti- vate confidential relations with the Indians, and treaties were entered into with the upper Pend d'Ore- illes, Kootenais, and Flatheads. A delegation of the Nez Perces, under the special agency of William Craig of Lapwai, attended him to the Blackfoot coun- cil, where a treaty of peace was entered into between the Blackfoot nation and this tribe, and where a suc- cessful conference was held with this powerful and predatory people.54 The news of the Blackfoot treaty was despatched to Olympia by the governor's special expressman, W. H. Pearson, who returning October 29th met Stevens' party two days' travel west of Fort Benton, on their way home with the intelligence that, so far from keeping their treaty obligations, the Yaki- mas, Walla Wallas, Cayuses, Palouses, and a part of the Nez Perces were at war with the white people, and that it would be impossible for him to reach
54 Stevens was assisted in his labors by Special Agent Doty; by commis- sioned agent R. H. Lansdale, whose district this was ; by Gustavus Sohon, 'a private in the 4th infantry, who was with Mr Mullan the year previous in the Bitter Root Valley, and had shown a great taste as an artist and ability to learn the Indian language, as well as facility in intercourse with the Ind- ians;' by Albert H. Robie, 'a most intelligent young man, who, from a cook-boy in 1853, had in a year and half become an intelligent herder and woodsman, and was also desirous of being engaged on the service;' Pac. R. R. Rept, xii. 196; and Special Agent Thomas Adams, one of bis aids in 1853. His messenger was W. H. Pearson, whom Stevens describes as 'hardy, intel- ligent, bold, and resolute,' and as being 'acquainted with all the relations between Indians and white men, from the borders of Texas to the forty-ninth parallel.' Pearson carried the news of the Walla Walla council to Olympia, and returning overtook Stevens in the Flathead country in time to start back again July 18th with the results of a council with that nation. On the 27th of August he again overtook Stevens' party at Fort Benton, the distance to Olympia and back-1,750 miles-being accomplished in 28 days, some of which were not used in travel. He rode the 260 miles from Fort Owen to Fort Benton in less than three days. One thing which Stevens never forgot to do was to give credit where it belonged, even to his humblest servants; but this feat of Pearson's he mentions as showing the practicability of travel in eastern Washington. His thirteen-year-old son Hazard, who accompanied him on this journey to the Blackfoot country, was sent as a messenger to the Gros Ventres to bring them to the council-ground at the mouth of Judith River, and rode 150 miles from 10 o'clock of one day to half-past 2 o'clock of the next, without fatigue. Stevens was detained beyond the time contem- plated by having to wait for keel-boats from below on the Missouri River with the treaty goods, the water being low.
103
STEVENS' JOURNEY.
Olympia through the Indian country, advices from army officers recommending him to go down the Mis- souri River, and return to Washington territory by the way of New York. Instead of taking this hu- miliating advice, Stevens at once determined to push forward at all hazards. Sending Doty back to Fort Benton for a large supply of ammunition, with addi- tional arms and horses, he encamped his men to await Doty's return, and on the 31st, with only A. H. Robie and a Delaware Indian interpreter, started to ride express to Bitter Root Valley, to communicate with Agent R. H. Lansdale, in charge of the Flatheads. At Fort Owen55 he overtook the Nez Perce delega-
tion, whom he found informed of the war which had broken out in the Yakima country, and also that a portion of their own tribe were disaffected and some of them hostile, while all the other tribes who had been parties to the treaty of Walla Walla were un- doubtedly so. However, after a conference, the whole party of fourteen, including the war-chiefs Looking Glass, Spotted Eagle, and Three Feathers, promised friendship, and agreed to accompany Stevens as a part of his escort, offering if he should go through the Nez Perce country to send a large party of young men with him to The Dalles. He halted but one day, and moved down to Hell Gate pass to wait for Doty, who overtook him on the 11th of November, and where he was detained until the 15th completing preparations for the contemplated march. He crossed the Bitter Root Mountains on the 20th, in three feet of snow, the horses of the train being one night without grass. When twenty-five miles from the Cœur d'Alene Mission, he again travelled in advance of the train, with only Pearson, Craig, and four of the Nez Perces.
Information had been brought to Stevens that it
55 Fort Owen was a stockade, the residence of John Owen and his brother, stock-raisers in the Bitter Root Valley. They had abandoned their place previous to the passage of the railroad expedition from fear of the Blackfoot tribe, but had reestablished it.
104
ORGANIZATION OF GOVERNMENT.
was the intention of the hostile tribes to cut off his return, and he had no means of knowing to what ex- tent the Cœur d'Alênes and other tribes on his route had been influenced or brought into the com- bination for war. But judging it best to seem uncon- scious of danger, he did so, "throwing ourselves into the midst of the Indians with our rifles in one hand, and our arms outstretched on the other side, we ten- dered them both the sword and the olive-branch." To the Nez Perces he had given instructions to entertain the Cœur d'Alênes with stories of the Blackfoot council, and talk of the advantages of the treaty which would relieve them in the future of the depredations to which they from time immemorial had been subjected by this people.
The plan succeeded. The Cœur d'Alenes, taken by surprise, met the governor and his party with a cordial welcome; but when the first involuntary pleas- ure of meeting was over, they began to remember what the emissaries of Kamiakin, who were but five days gone, had told them of him, their manner changed, and they seemed undecided whether to commit them- selves to peace or war.
Without giving them time to retract, Stevens has- tened on, as soon as his train had overtaken him to the Spokane country, where he had resolved to hold a council. Arrived at the place of Antoine Planté,56 Indian runners were despatched to the lower Spokanes, Pend d'Oreilles, and Colville Indians, and invitations sent to Angus McDonald at Fort Colville, and also to the Jesuit fathers Ravelli and Joset of the Col- ville and Cœur d'Alêne missions, to bring them to- gether in conference.
Several days elapsed before all arrived, and when they were met, it seemed doubtful if peace could be obtained. "I had there," said Stevens in his official report, "one of the stormiest councils, for three days,
56 Planté was a half-breed living in the Spokane country, 'near the prairie intermediate between them and the Cœur d'Alênes.'
105
DEALINGS WITH THE INDIANS.
that ever occurred in my whole Indian experience," because he would not promise the Indians that the United States troops should not cross to the north side of the Snake River. "Of course," says Father Joset, "the governor could not promise such a thing. He made several promises, but he evaded that ques- tion." 57
But when the Indians had heard a complete refu- tation of the tales told them by the agents of Kamia- kin, and been assured of protection so long as they remained friendly, they took heart and appeared satisfied; and Stevens conquered, as he had at the Walla Walla council, by force of personal will as well as argument, the chiefs ending by consulting him on all points as if he had been their father, and confiding to him all their vexations and anxieties.
But there was another danger to be encountered. The Spokanes insisted that the Nez Perces were hostile, though Stevens had hitherto had entire confidence in their good faith. Being put upon his guard when he was rejoined by the party from the Blackfoot council under Looking Glass, he set his interpreter to spy upon this chief, who was at length overheard explaining to a Spokane chief a plan to entrap the treaty-maker when he should arrive in the Nez Perce country, and advising the Spokanes to a similar course. Says Stevens: "I never com- municated to Looking Glass my knowledge of his plans, but knowing them, I knew how to meet them in council. I also knew how to meet them in his own country, and it gave me no difficulty." 58
57 I was so fortunate as to secure, through the industry of Mrs Rowena Nichols of Whitman county, Washington, a copy of some of Joset's writings, in which is a pretty full account of this council of Stevens with the Spokanes and others. It is contained in a manuscript by Mrs Nichols, called Indian Affairs in Oregon.
58 Pac. R. R. Rept, xii. 225. This incident shows that Looking Glass was no more sincere in signing the treaty of Walla Walla than was Kamiakin or Peupeumoxmox. Father Joset says that somebody having told the Indians that it was for their interest to make a treaty, 'as the whites would have their lands anyway,' they agreed to make a mock treaty in order to gain time and prepare for war. Nichols' Ind. Aff., MS., 3.
106
ORGANIZATION OF GOVERNMENT.
The Spokanes offered to escort him through the country of the "hostile Nez Perces," but Stevens declined, to show that he had no favors to ask, as well as to lessen the danger of collusion between Looking Glass and the Spokanes. He despatched Craig with a part of the Nez Perce delegation to Lapwai in ad- vance, to invite their people to and arrange for holding a council, as also to procure him an escort to The Dalles. To enlarge his party of white men, he organ- ized a battalion of miners and others waiting to get through the hostile country, called the Stevens Guards and Spokane Invincibles, by which means he added twenty men to his escort who wished to go to The Dalles. When all were mustered in he had a company of fifty. For these he procured the best horses in the country, reducing every pack to eighty pounds, in order that he might fight or fly 59 as occasion required; and thus equipped, set out to encounter, for aught he knew, the combined war force of the confederated tribes. But a forced march for four days in rain and snow brought him to Lapwai, where Craig was awaiting him, with the Indians prepared for a council, which was immediately called.60
In the midst of it an Indian express arrived from Walla Walla with the news of four days' fighting and the death of Peupeumoxmox. It had been previously agreed that a large force of Nez Perces should accom- pany Stevens to The Dalles, but the knowledge of
69 Ind. War Expenses Speech, 12.
60 William Craig was born in Greenbriar co., Va, in 1810. He entered the service of the American Fur Company in 1830, and for ten years led the life of a trapper. When the fur companies broke up, about 1840, he came to Or., and settled not long after at Lapwai, near Spalding's mission, to which be rendered valuable assistance in controlling the Indians, He also was of much service to Gov. Stevens in making treaties with the Indians of eastern Washington. Stevens appointed him on his staff, with the rank of lieuten- ant-colonel, and he was afterward appointed Indian agent at Lapwai, for which position he was well fitted, and which he held for a long time. 'But for his liberality he would have been rich, but he has given away enough to make several fortunes.' Walla Walla Union, Oct. 23, 1869. 'He was the comrade in the mountains of Kit Carson, J. L. Meek, Robert Newell, Courtenay Walker, Thompson, Rabboin, and a host of other brave men whose names are linked with the history of the country.' Walla Walla Statesman, in Portland Oregonian, Oct. 30, 1869.
107
STEVENS' RETURN.
the occupation of the country by the Oregon troops rendered this unnecessary, and the next day, accom- panied by sixty-nine well-armed Nez Perce volunteers, in addition to the Stevens Guards, he set out for The Dalles by the way of the seat of war.
Here are a few men who settled in Washington at an early period, but who had first resided in Oregon:
Solomon Strong, born in Erie co., N. Y., Nov. 11, 1817. At the age of fourteen years removed to Ohio, thence to Iowa, and thence, in 1847, to Or., with an ox-team, with his wife and one child, George W., born in 1845, in Iowa. Strong settled on a claim seven miles from Portland, residing there until Sept. 17, 1850, when he took a donation claim in Cowlitz co., on which he has resided ever since. Mrs. Strong was the first white woman on the north side of Lewis river. He was elected justice of the peace in 1852 in what was then Clarke co., and appointed co. commissioner by Gov. Stevens, to which office he was afterwards elected for eleven and a half years. On the organization of Cowlitz co., was elected to the same office and soon resigned. He married, Jan. 5, 1845, Miss Mary A. Bozarth, of Mo .; has ten children.
Squire Bozarth, born in Hardin co., Ky, Jan. 11, 1792, married there, in 1816, Millie H. Willis, a native of Va, horn 1802. He removed to Mo. and lowa, and in 1845 came to Oregon overland with his wife and eight children, namely, Owen W., Sarah A., Lorana, Christopher C., Julia A., Squire Jr, Millie W., born in Mo., and Emma C., born in la. Three children, Elizabeth Bozarth Lantze, Mrs Mary A. Strong, and John S. Bozarth, came two years later. Mr Bozarth first settled in Washington co., Or., but removed to the Columbia river opp. Vancouver, and again, in 1850, to Lewis river, where he took a donation claim on the North Fork, where he died March 16, 1853.
John S. Bozarth settled on Lewis river in 1852. In 1852 he had married Arebreth Luelling, a native of Ill., who came to Or. in 1847. He died in March 1882, leaving seven children, all born on Lewis river.
C. C. Bozarth, born in Marion co., Mo., in 1832, Jan. Ist, married, in 1833, Mrs Rhoda R. Van Bebber, born in Ill., a daughter of Jacob John, who came to Or. in 1852. He resided on Lewis river and had four children. He was engaged in farming uutil 1881, when he went to general merchan- dising at Woodland, Cowlitz Co. In 1856 was assessor of Clarke co., and again in 1864 and 1866, and of Cowlitz co. from 1875 to 1879. He was justice of the peace fourteen years; was an assemblyman from Clarke co. in 1861-2, and held the position of postmaster at Woodland.
F. N. Görig, born in Germany in 1824, came to U. S. in 1848, lived two years in Washington, D. C., went to Ill., and in 1853 came to Or., locating on the Columbia river, near St Helen. In 1865 removed to Cowlitz co., Wash. He married, in 1851, Christine Heitmann of Germany. They had seven sons and one daughter, their eldest being born upon the journey to Or., at Green river. He owns over one thousand acres, and is a wealthy citizen of Cowlitz Co.
Ruben Lockwood was born in Springfield, Vt, in 1822, but reared in Ohio. He came to W. T. in 1852 with his wife and step-daughter, Miss Anna C. Conway, and settled on the North Fork of Lewis river, in Clarke co. Being a teacher, he was employed in Oregon City, at The Dalles, and in Peta- luma, Cal., still keeping his home in Wash. He was married in 1850 to Mrs Mary C. Conway, of Crawfordsville, Ind. Their children are S. F. Lockwood, born in Oregon City, and Lillie C. Lockwood. The son married Miss Pauline Brozer, a native of Clarke co.
William A. L. McCorkle, born in Rockbridge co., Va, in 1826, reared in Ohio, came to Cal. in 1849, and to Cowlitz Valley in 1850, settling nine miles from its month. Married Diana Saville, a native of that co., and has two sons, Jobn W. and Eugene.
CHAPTER IV.
INDIAN WARS.
1855-1856.
CAUSES OF THE INDIAN OUTBREAK-DISCOVERY OF GOLD NEAR FORT COL- VILLE-YAKIMAS HOSTILE-EXPEDITIONS OF MAJOR O. G. HALLER INTO THE SNAKE AND YAKIMA COUNTRIES-YAKIMA CAMPAIGN OF 1855- MOVEMENT OF TROOPS ON THE SOUND-ATTACK ON SEATTLE-WAR VES- SELS ON THE SOUND-WALLA WALLA CAMPAIGN OF THE OREGON VOLUN- TEERS-OPERATIONS OF THE SECOND OREGON REGIMENT-ATTACK ON THE CASCADES-COLONEL CORNELIUS RETURNS TO PORTLAND.
THE reader of Oregon history will remember that mention is made of the massacre of the Ward train by the Snake Indians near Fort Boisé in the autumn of 1854. Major Granville O. Haller, stationed at Fort Dalles, made a hasty expedition into the Snake coun- try, intended to show the Indians that the govern- mient would not remain inactive while its citizens were subjected to these outrages. The march served no other purpose than to give this notice, for the guilty Indians had retired into their mountain fastnesses, and the season being late for recrossing the Blue Mountains, Haller returned to The Dalles. The fol- lowing summer, however, he led another expedition into the Boisé Valley, and following up the trails, finally captured and executed the murderers.
Hardly had he returned to Fort Dalles when news reached him of trouble in the Yakima country. In the spring of 1855 gold had been discovered in the region of Fort Colville, which caused the usual rush of miners to the gold fields, making it difficult for Gov- ernor Stevens to restrain his escort from deserting.1
1 Pac. R. R. Rept, 201. (108)
109
PIERRE JEROME AND BOLON.
He proceeded on his mission, informing the tribes of the Upper Columbia, Kettle Falls, Spokanes, Pend d'Oreilles, and Cœur d'Alenes, that on his return he would negotiate with them for the sale of their lands.
But the Indians were not satisfied with their treaty, nor with the influx of white men. About the first of August Pierre Jerome, chief of the Kettle Falls people, declared that no Americans should pass through his country. From Puget Sound several small parties set forth for Colville by the Nisqually pass and the trail leading through the Yakima coun- try by the way of the catholic mission of Ahtanahm, and about the middle of September it was rumored that some of them had been killed by the Yakimas. A. J. Bolon, special agent for the Yakimas, was on his way to the Spokane country, where he expected to meet Stevens on his return from Fort Benton, and assist in the appointed councils and treaties with this and the neighboring tribes. He had passed The Dalles on this errand when he was met by Chief Garry of the Spokanes with these reports, and he at once turned back to investigate them.
The catholic mission, near which was the home of Kamiakin, was between sixty and seventy miles in a north-easterly direction from The Dalles, and to this place he determined to go in order to learn from Ka- miakin himself the truth or falsity of the stories con- cerning the Yakimas.2 Unattended he set out on this business, to show by his coming alone his confi- dence in the good faith of the tribe, and to disarm any fears they might have of the intentions of the white people.3 His absence being protracted beyond
" The Ahtanahm mission was established by the oblate fathers who came to the country in 1847, and by Bronillette. It was in charge of Pandosy in 1855, but owing to the absence of this priest, was, at the time of Bolon's visit, temporarily in charge of Brouillette. This priest seems to have been unfortunate in the matter of being honsed by American-killing Indians.
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