USA > Oregon > A history of Oregon, 1792-1849, drawn from personal observation and authentic information > Part 2
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CHAPTER LXIV.
Missions among the Western Indians .- The Cœur d'Alene Mission .- Protestant and Catholic missions compared .- What the American Protestant missionaries have done for the country and the Indians .- Extent of their influence, progress, and improvements .- Patriotism of Dr. Whitman. 593
CHAPTER LXV.
Description of the face of the country .- Agricultural and mining productions .- Timber. -The Wallamet .- Columbia .- Dalles .- Upper Columbia .- Mountains .- Rivers .-- Mineral wealth .- Climate .- The Northern Pacific Railroad .- Conclusion ...... 610
HISTORY OF OREGON.
CHAPTER I.
First discovery of the river .- Natives friendly .- British ship .- Brig Jennet .- Snow Sea Otter .- The Globe .- Alert .- Guatimozin .- Atahualpa .- Lewis and Clarke .- Vancou- ver .- Hamilton .- Derby .- Pearl .- Albatross .- First house built in 1810 .- Astor's settlement .- The Tonquin .- Astor's Company betrayed to the Northwest Com- pany.
IN all countries it is difficult to trace the history of their early discovery and settlement. That of Oregon is no exception. The Spanish claim, and it is generally conceded, that they were the discoverers of the coast, and gave names to the principal capes and to Fuca's Straits. No evidence can be found in national archives, or among the native tribes of the country, that gives the discovery of the Columbia River to any civilized people but to the Bostons (Americans) ; so that, so far as civil history or national testimony is concerned, we are without any, except the conjectures of men as ignorant as ourselves. Hence we are left to the alternative of searching the old logs of vessels and such old books as have been written, and, in connection with the legends and statements of the aborigines of the country, form an opinion as to its discovery, and from such dates and conclusions commence its civil history. That of Oregon begins eight years previous to the commencement of the present century.
A ship, owned by Messrs. Barrell, Bulfinch & Co., of Boston, and commanded by Captain Robert Gray, discovered and entered the mouth of the third great river upon the American continent. It then had no name known to the civilized world. This unselfish American, instead of following the example of many contemporary British navi- gators by giving his own name to the majestic river he had discovered, gave it that of his noble ship, Columbia.
On the 7th of May, 1792, he discovered and ran in abreast of Cape Hancock, and anchored, and on the 11th ran ten miles up this river on the north side, which is now known as a little above Chinook Point, and at 1 P. M. they came to anchor. On the 14th they weighed
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HISTORY OF OREGON.
anchor and ran, according to the ship's log, fifteen miles, which would bring them up abreast of Tongue Point, where their ship grounded upon a sand bar for a short time, but they backed her off into three fathoms of water and anchored. By sounding they discovered that there was not sufficient water to pass up the river in their present channel. Having filled all their water-casks, repaired, painted, and calked the ship, and allowed the vast numbers of Indians that thronged around them in the most peaceable and friendly manner, to visit and traffic with them, on the 20th of May, 1792, they went to sea again.
On the 20th of October of this year, the Chatham, commanded by Captain Broughton, of the British navy, entered the river. He grounded his ship on what is now called the Sulphur Spit, and found in the bay the brig Jennet, Captain Baker, from Bristol, Rhode Island. Captain Broughton explored the river in his small boat as high up as the present site of Vancouver, and left the river with his ship on the 10th of November.
In 1797, five years later, the snow Sea Otter, Captain Hill, from Boston, visited the river.
In 1798, the ship Hazard, Swift, master, owned by Perkins, Lamb & Co., Boston, visited the river. This same ship visited the river again in 1801.
In 1802, this same Boston company sent the ship Globe, Magee, master, to the river.
During the year 1802, a brisk, and something like a permanent American trade appears to have been in contemplation by this Boston company. They sent the ship Caroline, Derby, master, from Boston, and the ship Manchester, Brice, master, from Philadelphia.
In 1803, Lamb & Company sent the ship Alert, Ebbets, master; also the ship Vancouver, Brown, master. This year, the ship Juno, Ken- dricks, master, from Bristol, Rhode Island, owned by De Wolf, entered the Columbia River for trade.
In the year 1804, Theodore Lyman sent the ship Guatimozin, Bum- sted, master, from Boston. The Perkins Company sent the ship Hazard, Swift, master, to the river the same year.
In 1805, Lyman & Company sent the ship Atahualpa, O. Potter, master, from Boston. Lamb & Company sent the ship Caroline, Sturges, master, from the same place.
On the 15th of November, 1805, Lewis and Clarke, with their party, having crossed the Rocky Mountains under the direction of President Jefferson, of the United States, arrived at Cape Hancock; remaining but a few days, they crossed the Columbia River and encamped near the mouth of a small river still bearing the name of these two explorers.
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LEWIS AND CLARKE'S EXPEDITION.
They left their encampment in March, 1806, and returned across the continent and reported the result of their expedition to the govern- ment.
This expedition consisted of one hundred and eighty soldiers or enlisted men. On arriving at the Mandan Village, on the Missouri River, in 1804, they encountered the influence of the Northwest Brit- ish Fur Company, who, on learning their object, at once made arrange- ments to follow and get possession of the country at the mouth of the Columbia River.
In 1806, soon after Lewis and Clarke left their encampment on their return to the United States, the ship Vancouver, Brown, master, entered the river, having been sent out by Thomas Lyman, of Boston, in expectation of meeting Lewis and Clarke's party at the mouth of the river. The Lamb Company sent the ship Pearl the same year, under the command of Captain Ebbets. Lyman, in addition to the Van- couver, sent the brig Lydia, Hill, master, to the river, making three American ships from Boston in the year 1806.
In 1807, the ship Hamilton arrived in the river, sent by Thomas Lyman, of Boston, L. Peters, master. The Perkins Company sent the Hazard, Smith, master.
In 1808, the ship Derby, Swift, master, sent by the Perkins Com- pany. Lyman sent the ship Guatimozin, Glanville, master; both mnade successful trips in and out of the river.
In 1809, the Perkins Company sent the ships Pearl and Vancouver into the river, the former commanded by Smith, the latter by Whitti- more.
In 1810, the ship Albatross, from Boston, T. Winship, master, entered the river and sailed as high up as Oak Point, where the captain erected a house, cleared a piece of land for cultivation, and planted a garden. This year, John Jacob Astor, of New York, organized the Pacific Fur Company, in connection with Wilson Price Hunt, of New Jersey. These two gentlemen admitted as partners in the fur trade, Messrs. McKay, McDougal, and David and Robert Stewart. These four last-mentioned partners, with eleven clerks and thirteen Canadian voyageurs, and a complete outfit for a fort, with cannon and small-arms, stores, shops, and houses, with five mechanics, were all embarked on the ship Ton- quin, Captain Jonathan Thorn, master, in September, 1810, and sailed for the Columbia River, where they arrived, March 24, 1811.
The present site of the town of Astoria was selected as the principal depot for this American Fur Company, and called by them, in honor of the originator of the company, ASTORIA. This establishment was soon in full operation. The timber and thick undergrowth within musket
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HISTORY OF OREGON.
range of the establishment were cleared away, and a kitchen-garden planted outside the stockade.
In the highly-interesting narrative of Gabriel Franchere, we read that, "in the month of May, 1811, on a rich piece of land in front of our establishment [at Astoria], we put into the ground twelve potatoes, so shriveled up during the passage from New York that we despaired of raising any from the few spronts that still showed signs of life. Nevertheless, we raised one hundred and nineteen potatoes the first season. And, after sparing a few plants to our inland traders, we planted fifty or sixty hills, which produced five bushels the second year ; about two of these were planted, and gave us a welcome crop of fifty bushels in the year 1813."
They were cultivated at Astoria, by the old Northwest and Hudson's Bay companies, in their little fort gardens. A few Indian chiefs were presented with the seed, but no general distribution was made among them, as they were considered as the Bostons' root, and no better than those of the Indians, abounding in the country, which required less labor to cultivate. Up to the time of the arrival of the American mis- sionaries, there never was an extra supply of potatoes in the country. In other words, the potato was a luxury enjoyed by none except the highest grades of the Fur Company's servants and distinguished visitors ; its cultivation was not generally encouraged by the company.
In October, 1810, after dispatching the Tonquin, Mr. Astor fitted out the ship Beaver, twenty guns, Captain Sowles, master, with Mr. Clark, six clerks, and a number of other persons, to join the establishment at Astoria. The ship touched at the Sandwich Islands; Mr. Clark en- gaged twenty-six Kanakas as laborers for the establishments on the Columbia River, where the ship arrived, May 5, 1812.
On the 15th of July, 1813, Mr. David Thompson, under the direction of the Northwest Canadian British Company, arrived at Astoria. I use the word Canadian, as applied to the Northwest Fur Company, that was established by the charter of Louis XIII. of France, 1630, in what was then called Acadia, or New France, forty years before Charles of England gave his charter to the Hudson's Bay Company. This Northwest Fur Company, in the transfer of the sovereignty of Acadia, or New France, to England, in 1714, at the treaty of Utrecht, was acknowledged as having a legal existence, by both nations, and was allowed to transfer its allegiance and continue its trade under the pro- tection of the British sovereign, as it had done under that of France.
As soon as the government and people of the United States entered upon active measures to explore and occupy the country west of the Rocky Mountains, this Canadian Northwest Fur Company dispatched
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SETTLEMENT OF ASTORIA.
Mr. Thompson to explore the Columbia River, and make an establish- ment at its mouth ; but, on account of delays and mistaking the course of the various rivers through which the party traveled, Mr. Thompson did not arrive at Mr. Astor's American establishment till in July, 1813; his object was to forestall Mr. Astor in the settlement of the country. He was received, kindly treated, and furnished with such goods and supplies as he and his party required, by Mr. MeDougal, who was then in charge of Fort Astor, and, in company with David Stewart, returned as high up the Columbia as the Spokan,-Mr. Greenhow says Okana- gon,-and established a trading-post, while Mr. Thompson went among the Kootenai and Flathead tribes, and established a trading-hut. It is due to those parties to state that as late as 1836, a square, solid, hewed log bastion, erected by Stewart's party, was still standing at Spokan, while no vestige of the Thompson huts could be found in the Flathead country. At Spokan, garden vegetables were produced about the fort, which the Indians in that vicinity learned to appreciate, and continued to cultivate after the fort was abandoned in 1825, having been occupied by the Northwest and Hudson's Bay companies till that time.
In the spring of 1811, the chief agent of the Pacific Fur Company, Mr. Hunt, with other partners, Crooks, Mckenzie, and McClellen, with a party of sixty men, started across the continent. They were ex- tremely annoyed by the opposition fur traders on their route, and also by hostile Indians. Such of the party as did not perish by famine and hostile Indians, and British fur traders, arrived at Astoria on the 28th of January, 1812.
On the 5th of May following the arrival of Mr. Hunt's party, the ship Beaver arrived with the third installment of traders, clerks, and Kanaka laborers. In consequence of the loss of the ship Tonquin, and all on board except the Indian interpreter, in the Cliquot Bay, near the entrance of the Straits of Fuca, by the treachery of the In- dians in the vicinity, Mr. Hunt embarked in the Beaver for the Rus- sian establishment in August, 1812, effected an arrangement of trade with them, and dispatched the ship to China. He continued in her till she reached the Sandwich Islands, where he remained until June, 1813, when the ship Albatross arrived from Canton, and brought the news of the war between the United States and Great Britain, and also that the ship Beaver was blockaded at Canton by a British ship of war. Mr. Hunt at once chartered the Albatross and sailed for the Columbia River, where he arrived on the 4th of August, 1813.
On his arrival at Astoria he learned that it was the intention of his partners, all of whom claimed to be British subjects (McDongal and
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HISTORY OF OREGON.
Mckenzie having formerly been in the employ of the Northwest Com- pany), to sell to McTavish, of that company. Hunt embarked in the Albatross for the Sandwich Islands, and from thence to the Washing- ton Islands, where he learned from Commodore Porter, then at those Islands, in the frigate Essex, of the design of the British to seize all American property on the Pacific coast. From thence he returned to the Sandwich Islands, and chartered the brig Pedler, and arrived at Astoria in February, 1814, and learned that soon after his departure in the Albatross, in August, 1813, McTavish, with a party of the servants of the Northwest Company, had arrived at Astoria, and, in connection with McDougal, Mckenzie, and Clarke, on the part of the American Pacific Fur Company, and McTavish and Alexander Stew- art, on the part of the Canadian Northwest Company, had completed the sale of Astoria to that company, and secured for themselves im- portant positions in the service of the latter company.
As a matter of fact and general historical interest, the amount and value of property thus transferred is here given : Eighteen thousand one hundred and seventy and one-fourth pounds of beaver, at two dollars per pound, selling in Canton at that time 'at from five to six dollars per pound; nine hundred and seventy otter skins, at fifty cents cach, selling at that time in Canton for five and six dollars per skin.
The expense of building Mr. Astor's establishment at Astoria, in- cluding those at Okanagon and Spokan, with boats, bateaux, tools, cannon, munitions, goods, transportation and salaries of clerks and men, etc., etc., was near two hundred thousand dollars, for which he received in bills on Montreal about forty thousand, including the appraised value of the furs at the fort, which was thirty-six thousand eight hundred and thirty-five dollars and fifty cents ; this would leave less than three thousand one hundred and sixty-four dollars and fifty cents for the improvements, boats, munitions, cannon, etc., for which the Hud- son's Bay Company, in 1865, claims of our government, for the old, rotten, and abandoned post at Okanagon, nineteen thousand four hun- dred and sixty-six dollars and sixty-seven cents ; the post at Colville, still held in place of the one built by Astor's company at Spokan, eighty thousand three hundred dollars ; the post at Fort. George (Astoria), abandoned in 1849, four thousand one hundred and thirty- six dollars and sixty-seven cents ; in all, for the three establishments, one hundred and three thousand nine hundred and three dollars and thirty-four cents,-quite a contrast between the valuation of American property when in possession of British fur traders, having been used for forty years by British subjects, and abandoned as of little or no use to their trade, and that of American property but lately brought into
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19
ASTOR'S COMPANY BETRAYED.
the country. It will be remembered that Mr. Astor's Pacific Fur Com- pany was commenced in 1810; that at the time it was betrayed into the possession of this Canadian Northwest Fur Company it had been in operation but two years, hence was new, and but just ready to com- mence a profitable trade in the country.
The contract transferring this valuable property from American to British owners, was signed on the 16th day of October, 1813, by Dun- can McDougal, J. G. McTavish, and J. Stewart, and witnessed by the principal clerks of the establishment. On the 1st of December follow- ing, the British sloop of war Raccoon, Captain Black, arrived in the river, and proceeded to take formal possession of Astoria, by lowering the American flag and hoisting that of Great Britain in its place, and changing the name of the fort to that of Fort George.
Previous to the landing of the British soldiers, or King George's warriors, an interview took place (as related by Ross Cox) between the Indian warriors, with Concomly, their chief, at their head, and McDougal and McTavish. On the arrival of the British war vessel in Baker's Bay, the Indians, having learned that there was war between the King George people and Bostons (Americans), they said, as they had always found the Bostons friendly and liberal toward them, they were their friends, and were ready to fight for them, to prevent the King George men from making them slaves. They proposed to con- ceal themselves behind the rocks and trees outside of the fort and to kill the King George soldiers with their arrows and spears, while the men of the fort fought the ship and small boats which they came in, with their big guns and rifles. McDougal assured them that the King George warriors would not hurt them, and advised them to be friendly with them, as they would do the people of the fort no harm. Con- comly and his warriors were only convinced that the Bostons would not be made slaves by the King George warriors when they saw the sloop leave the river without taking any of them away as prisoners or slaves.
The treachery of the Canadian part of Astor's company, which was not known to Mr. Astor, but provided for by the Northwest Canadian Company before the party left Montreal, and consummated by McDou- gal and his associates, in the absence of the American partners from the post, is proved by journals, letters, and facts still extant.
CHAPTER II.
The country restored .- The order .- Description of Astoria .- Different parties .- North- west Fur Company .- Astor's plan .- Conflict of the two British fur companies .- The treaties .- The Selkirk settlement .- Its object .- The company asserts char- tered rights as soon as united.
As stated in our first chapter, the English government, by its Canadian Northwest Fur Company, and the arrival of the British sloop of war, Raccoon, during the war of 1812-13, took possession of Oregon, and held it as British territory till it was formally restored to the United States on the 6th of October, 1818, in these words :-
We, the undersigned, do, in conformity to the first article of the treaty of Ghent, restore to the government of the United States, through its agent, J. P. Provost, Esq., the settlement of Fort George, on the Columbia River.
Given under our hands in triplicate, at Fort George (Columbia River), this 6th day of October, 1818.
F. HICKEY, Captain H. M. Ship Blossom. J. KEITH, of the N. W. Co.
The order from the Prince Regent of England to the Northwest Company to deliver up the country to the American government, was issued on January 27, 1818, and complied with as above.
On the 17th of April, 1814, the Canadian Northwest Fur Company's ship, Isaac Todd, reached Astoria, called Fort George.
According to the description sent to Washington by Mr. Provost, it consisted of a stockade made of fir-logs, twenty feet high above the ground, inclosing a parallelogram of one hundred and fifty by two hundred and fifty feet, extending in its greatest length from northwest to southeast, and defended by bastions, or towers, at two opposite angles. Within this inclosure were all the buildings of the establish- ment, such as dwelling-houses, magazines, storehouses, mechanics' shops, etc.
The artillery were two heavy 18-pounders, six 6-pounders, four 4-pounders, two 6-pound coehorns, and seven swivels, all mounted.
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THE COUNTRY SEALED UP.
The number of persons attached to the place besides the few native . women and children, was sixty-five; of whom twenty-three were white, twenty-six Kanakas, and the remainder of mixed blood from ' Canada.
Of the party that crossed the Rocky Mountains with' Mr. Hunt in 1811-12, six remained in the country, and but five returned to the United States ; the remaining forty-five that started with him in his first expedition were mostly destroyed by the influence of the two British fur companies acting upon the Indiaus for that object.
These men, as independent trappers and petty traders among the Indians, were considered by those companies as intruders and tres- passers upon their French and British chartered rights ; hence none were allowed to remain in the country but such as were under their control, or subject to their rule.
From the time the Northwest Fur Company took possession of the country, with few exceptions, we have no authentic account of the number of vessels of any nation that visited the river, but we have reason to believe that they would average two each year; and, from known facts, we conclude that as soon as the post at Astoria was be- trayed into the possession of the Canadian Northwest Fur Company by McDougal and associates, and the British government had taken formal possession of the country, this Northwest Company, with MeDougal and others equally prominent, commenced to instill into the minds of the Indians a strong hatred of American traders by sea or land, and to change as much, and as fast as possible, the friendly feeling of the former toward the latter, so as to continue to hold the permanent and absolute sovereignty of the country, and make the Indians subservient to their commercial interests.
Mr. Astor says : " The plan by me adopted was such as must mate- rially have affected the interests of the Northwest and Hudson's . Bay companies, and it was easy to be foreseen that they would employ every means to counteract my operations, and which, as my impression, I stated to the executive of your department as early as February, 1813." This hatred of Americans had been so assiduously impressed upon the minds of the Indians, that one of their own vessels arriving in the river, being cast away on Sand Island, all on board were murdered by the Indians, who mistook them for Americans. The company sent a vessel from Vancouver (to which place they had removed their stores and principal depot) to punish the Indians, who had secured most of the wrecked property. The vessel came down and sent shell and grape- shot into the Indian village, destroying men, women, and children, landed their men and took such of their goods as they could find,
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HISTORY OF OREGON.
having gained satisfactory evidence of the murder of the crew of the ship.
This view of the policy and practice of this Northwest and Hudson's Bay Company, is further sustained by the inquiries which Mr. Keith felt it incumbent on him to make of Mr. Provost, on the restoration of Astoria to the Americans by the British authorities.
Mr. Keith was anxious to learn the extent of the rights of his com- pany to remain and trade in the country. It would seem, from the whole history of these companies, that they felt their rights in the country to be but temporary, that they were trespassers upon Ameri- can interests, and shaped all their arrangements accordingly.
It is an admitted historical fact that, while the Northwest Fur Company of Montreal was extending its trade across the Rocky Mountains and supplanting the American Pacific Fur Company of Mr. Astor, the Hudson's Bay Company, with the assistance of Lord Sel- kirk's Red River settlement, was cutting off their communication with these western establishments, and that, in consequence of this Red River interference with their trade, a deadly feud sprang up between the rival companies, in which both parties enlisted all the men and Indians over whom they had any influence, and frequently met in drunken and deadly strife, till they had quite destroyed all profits in their trade, and rendered the Indians hostile alike to friend and foe of the white race. So that, in 1821, the British Parliament was compelled to notice their proceedings, and, on the 2d of July, 1821, in an act bear- ing date as above, says of them :-
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