History of Benton County, Oregon, Part 22

Author: David D. Fagan
Publication date: 1885
Publisher:
Number of Pages:

USA > Oregon > Benton County > History of Benton County, Oregon > Part 22

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A contemporaneous effort was made by Nathaniel J. Wyeth, a Boston mer- chant. With eleven men who knew nothing of trapper-life, he crossed the plains to Humboldt river with Milton Sublette in 1832. From this point the twelve pushed north to Snake river, and by way of that stream to Fort Vancouver, where they

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arrived October 29. The fortune of Mr. Wyeth was invested in this enterprise and he had brought a stock of goods with him not well adapted to the Indian market. He was hospitably received by the Hudson's Bay Company. The next spring he left for the East, a financial bankrupt, deserted by all of his followers except two. It is not recorded that the company's officers in any way contributed towards producing this result ; but, if they did not, it was because they believed it unnecessary, knowing that failure would follow without their manipulation. Arriving in Boston, Mr. Wyeth organized The Columbia River Fishing and Trading Company, with a view of con- tinuing operations on the Pacific coast under the same general plan that had formerly been pursued by Astor, proposing, however, to add salmon fishing to the fur business. A brig, called the May Decres, sailed for the Columbia river with stores, and Mr. Wyeth, with sixty experienced men, started for the same place across the continent in 1834. Near the head waters of Snake river, he established Fort Hall as an interior trading post, named in honor of one of his partners, where he left twelve men and a stock of goods. He then pushed forward to the Columbia and erected a fort on Sauvie's island at the mouth of the Willamette river, which he called Fort Williams, in honor of another partner; and again the American flag waved over soil west of the Rocky mountains.

The officers of the company again received him with much hospitality, and though they continued to treat him with courtesy, this did not prevent them from taking the steps necessary to protect the company's interests. Fort Boise was estab- lished as an opposition to Fort Hall and drew the bulk of the trade of the Indians of Snake river. On the Columbia Wyeth found that the natives were so completely under the control of the company that he could establish no business relations with them whatever. In two years he was compelled to sell all his possessions, including Fort Hall, to the rival company, and abandon this second effort at joint occupation.

In 1835 the two rival American companies were consolidated as the American Fur Company, Bridger, Fontenelle and Briggs being the leaders. The retirement of Bonneville and the sale of Fort Hall by Mr. Wyeth left only the consolidated com- pany and a few " lone traders" to compete with the English corporation. For a few years longer the struggle was maintained, but gradually the Hudson's Bay Company absorbed the trade until the American trappers, so far as organized effort was con- cerned, abandoned the field.

The chief secret of the failure of Americans and the success of the English-and it is best to be candid in this matter-was the radical difference in their methods of conducting the business. The American trappers were, to a large extent, made up of a class of wild, reckless and brutal men, many of them fugitives from justice. With them might made right, and the privilege of shooting Indians was considered an in- herent right which should be exercised as often as circumstances permitted. They were insubordinate and quarrelsome, and the histories of their adventurous lives, even those written for the glorification of Kit Carson, Joe Meek, Jim Beckwourth and oth- ers, convince us that these men composed the lowest stratum of American society. Irving, in one of many similar passages, says : "The arrival of the supplies gave the regular finish to the annual revel. A grand outbreak of wild debauch ensued among the mountaineers ; drinking, dancing, swaggering, gambling, quarreling and

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fighting. Alcohol, which, from its portable qualities, containing the greatest quantity of fiery spirit in the smallest compass, is the only liquor carried across the mountains, is the inflammatory beverage at these carousals, and is dealt out to the trappers at four dollars a pint. When inflamed by this fiery beverage, they cut all kinds of mad pranks and gambols, and sometimes burn all their clothes in their drunken bravadoes. A camp, recovering from one of these riotous revels, presents a serio-comic spectacle ; black eyes, broken heads, lack lustre visages." Alcohol was a leading article of mer- chandise, and the annual assemblage at the points of rendezvous and the meetings with Indians for the purposes of trade, were invariably the scenes of drunken de- bauchery like the one described. Many impositions were practiced on the Indians, and the men, being irresponsible and without restraint, were guilty of many acts of injustice. The Indians learned neither uprightness nor morality from contact with them, and had respect only for their bravery.

On the other hand the servants of the Hudson's Bay Company were men, chiefly half-breeds and French Canadians, who had been reared in the business, as were their fathers before them, and cheerfully submitted to the rigid discipline maintained by the company. It was the policy of the company to avoid all trouble with the natives, to whom they gave no liquor whatever, and, by just and even generous treatment, bind the Indians to them by a community of interest; yet it never let an act of treachery or bad faith go unpunished. Thus, by an exhibition of justness and moral behavior on one hand and power on the other, it maintained unquestioned authority among the savages of a hundred tribes and over thousands of miles of wilderness. Had the American companies pursued the same policy as their great English rival, far different would have been the result of their enterprises. Fortunately for America she was not compelled to rely upon reckless trappers for her dominion in Oregon. Fur traders could not gain it for her, nor could they hold it for Great Britain. Plows and not steel traps were to settle the question between them.

During these years of competition in the fur business, diplomacy was also at work. Several expeditions were sent to the Rocky mountains by the United States government, to report upon the nature of the country and its adaptability to settlement. From these as well as from the reports of trappers, the idea was spread abroad, that the country west of the rocky mountains was valueless except for its fur-bearing ani- mals ; and this idea was fostered by the Hudson's Bay Company both in America and England. The consequence was that when the ten years of joint occupancy had ex- pired, such was the apathy of congress and American statesmen on the subject, that an indefinite extension of the treaty was agreed upon, to be terminated by either party upon giving notice one year in advance. This was done in 1828, and it was while the extended treaty was in force that Bonneville and Wyeth made a practical test of its workings.

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CHAPTER XVI.

OREGON MISSIONS AND SETTLEMENTS.

Four Flathead Indians in St. Louis-The Methodist Mission-The Congregational Missions-Whitman Takes a Cart to Fort Boise-American Settlements-The Wallamette Cattle Company-Progress of Missions and Settlements-Advent of Catholic Missionaries-Population in 1840.

There suddenly appeared in St. Louis in 1832 four Flathead Indians. It was a common sight to see Indians of a dozen tribes lounging about the streets of that busy mart and mingling with the conglomerate crowd of idlers; but these were different. They had not come to carouse or drink the white man's firewater. In the far off land of Oregon the Flatheads had heard that the white man had a different religion and a different God from that of his red brother, and that this was the secret of his knowl- edge, wealth and power; and these four braves had been delegated by their tribe to go in search of someone who would teach them this new religion, that they, too, might become a mighty people. Two of them died in the city, and the other two set out, de- jected, upon their return home without the great book of the white man, and one of them perished on the return journey. But their pilgrimage was not fruitless, for both the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, » Congregational organi- zation, and the Methodist Board of Missions, were aroused to a knowledge of the fact that Oregon was an inviting field for missionary labor. Each delegated suitable per- sons to proceed to Oregon and lay the foundation for missions among the natives.

The Methodists were prepared first, and in 1834, Rev. Jason Lee, Rev. Daniel Lee, Cyrus Shepard, and P. L. Edwards started for Oregon in company with the party of Nathaniel J. Wyeth, previously alluded to. They left Mr. Wyeth's party, who were delayed in the erection of Fort Hall, and passed over the remaining distance in company with A. R. McLeod and Thomas Mckay of the Hudson's Bay Company, reaching Fort Walla Walla September 1, and by boats, Vancouver, the fifteenth day of the same month. A location for a mission was immediately selected at a point on the Willamette river, some sixty miles above its mouth, and ten below the site of Salem. Their mission goods, brought around by Wyeth's vessel, landed at this place twenty- one days after their arrival at Vancouver. A house was soon constructed of logs, 32 feet by 18, which they entered November 3, there being at the time but ten feet of the roof completed. So eager were they to commence labor as missionaries, that before the roof was all on their building, Indian children were received into it as pupils. De- cember 14, Jason Lee, while at Vancouver, baptized twenty-one persons, among whom were seventeen children ; and he received a donation of twenty dollars to aid in mis- sionary work from persons living at the fort.

They were in Oregon with the sole purpose of elevating the mental and spiritual condition of the inhabitants, regardless of nationality, race, color or condition. Be-

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cause of this, they were kindly and hospitably received by all, including the monster corporation. Their plan was to educate the Indian, and teach him how to make the soil yield a livelihood. To do this they proposed opening a school for children, where they could live, learn to read, worship God, and till the soil. To carry out this design, it was necessary for the missionaries to become farmers, and produce the food required for themselves and the support of their pupils. The agricultural branch of their en- terprise was inaugurated in the spring of 1835. Their first harvest yielded them two hundred and fifty bushels of potatoes, a quantity of wheat, barley, oats and peas, to which were added six barrels of salmon procured from the Indians. In September of this year, the mission people were attacked by an intermittent fever, from which four Indian pupils died. This was a misfortune, as it caused the superstitious natives to look with mistrust upon an institution where the Great Spirit killed their children in- stead of benefiting them. One Indian visited the mission for the purpose of killing Daniel Lee and Cyrus Shepard because his little brother had died there, but was pre- vented from doing so by a companion, when he crossed to the opposite side of the river and murdered several of his own race, to satisfy his wrath at the "white medicines." During the fall of 1835, a 16 by 32 foot addition was built to their premises, and the close of the year found them with comfortable log buildings, a reasonable supply of provisions for the winter and only ten pupils.

The parties sent by the American Board were Rev. Samuel Parker and Dr. Mar- cus Whitman, who started in 1835 with a trapping party of the American Fur Com- pany, intent upon selecting some suitable place for the founding of a mission. They reached the rendezvous of the company in the Rocky mountains, where they en- countered a large band of Nez Perce Indians, who had come there to trade with the company. There was a young chief among them, whom the whites called Lawyer, because of a marked ability displayed by him in repartee and discussion, which could readily be awakened into active play by reflecting upon the acts or motives of his Ameri- can friends. Upon consultation with this chief, it was determined to establish a mis- sion among his people, this decision being hastened because of the peculiar character- istics of the two missionaries, which rendered them ill-calculated for traveling com- panions. To carry out this arrangement Dr. Whitman was to return home, accom- panied by two Nez Perce boys, and come back the ensuing year with the necessary material and associates for an establishment. Rev. Samuel Parker was to continue his way to the Pacific ocean, decide upon the best point for a mission among the Nez Perces, and then send, by Indian source, a letter of advice, to meet Whitman in the mountains on his way out the next season.

To carry out this arrangement, they separated August 22, 1835, one turning back upon the trail that led him to a martyr's grave; the other, with an interpreter, push- ing forward in a triumphal journey among the Indians to the sea. No white man, before or since, has been received with such cordiality and ceremonious distinction, as greeted Mr. Parker on his way through Eastern Oregon to Walla Walla. His ap- proach to an Indian village was the signal for a general display of savage grandeur and hospitality. Since their first knowledge of white men they had seen that the pale face belonged to a superior race, and had heard that he worshiped a Great Spirit, a mysterious unseen power, that made him what he was. The Indians now hoped to

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A. G. Walling, Lith. Portland, Or.

Philomath, Benton County, Oregon. RESIDENCE OF J. E. HENKLE, ESQ ..

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learn, too, how they could gain favor with this being, whose smiles gave power to his followers and happiness to those who worshiped him. Now, when one had come among them, who, they believed, could bring them the favor of the white man's God, they received him everywhere with outstretched arms and demonstrations of unbounded joy. Services were held at various places, and the eager natives were to a degree inducted into the mysteries of the white man's religion.

October 5, Mr. Parker, with his interpreter and guides, passed down the Touchet river and reached Fort Walla Walla the next day, where he was hospitably received by P. C. Pambrun, the commandant in charge. From there he continued his way down the Columbia to Fort Vancouver, where he spent the winter. In the spring he revisited the Nez Perces, went as far north as Spokane and Colville, and returning to Vancouver embarked for home by way of the Sandwich islands in June, 1836.

The efforts of Dr. Whitman resulted in his obtaining the necessary funds and as- sociates for the establishment of two missions in Oregon. He had married in Febru- ary, 1835, Miss Narcissa Prentiss, a lady of refined nature, rare accomplishments and with commanding appearance. She possessed a voice of winning sweetness, was affable to all with whom she came in contact, firm in purpose and an enthusiast. Her sympathies had been enlisted in the cause, and yielding all her fair prospects for the future in the country where she was born, she devoted her life to banishment and iso- lation among savages, in a country so far away that its name even conveyed to the mind a sense of loneliness and mystery. The associate workers were W. H. Gray and Rev. H. H. Spalding and wife, a lady of much firmness of character and excellently adapted for the labor she had chosen to perform.

The missionary party brought with them three wagons, eight mules, twelve horses and sixteen cows. In those wagons were farming utensils, blacksmith and carpenter tools, seeds, clothing, etc., to enable them to become self-supporting. In crossing the plains they traveled under protection of the American Fur Company. Sir William Drummond, an English nobleman, under the alias of Captain Stewart, with a com- panion and three servants, and Major Pilcher, a celebrated mountaineer, were also of the party. On arriving at Fort Laramie the wagons were all abandoned except one, which was retained by Dr. Whitman for the ladies to ride in, and then the fur com- pany concluded to try the experiment of taking one of their carts along. After reaching the trappers' rendezvous on Green river, the mission party were introduced by Captain Wyeth-who was on his way home after having sold his forts and trap- ping interests to the Hudson's Bay Company-to Thomas Mckay and A. R. McLeod, with whom they were to continue to the Columbia river. Upon resuming the journey, the Doctor, contrary to a manifest hostility evinced to his doingso, insisted upon taking the one remaining wagon with him, but was obliged on reaching Fort Hall, to reduce it to a two-wheel truck, and the men insisted upon his leaving even that when they reached Fort Boise. Such was the result of the first effort to cross the continent with a wagon, which demonstrated that the Rocky mountains were not an impassable bar- rier to American immigration. The party arrived a Fort Walla Walla September 2, 1836, where they were received by Mr. Pambrun with demonstrations of heartfelt cordiality that caused the travel-worn missionaries to feel as though they had reached a home in this land of the setting sun. A few days later they passed down the Co- 17

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lumbia to Fort Vancouver, where Dr. Mclaughlin gave them a most hearty welcome. Here the ladies enjoyed his hospitalities for some time, while the gentlemen returned to Fort Walla Walla to seek suitable locations for their two missionary establishments. With the aid of Mr. Pambrun, and after careful examination of the country, they de- cided to establish one mission among the Cayuses and one among the Nez Perces. The former was located at the junction of Walla Walla river and Mill creek, near the present city of Walla Walla, and was called Waiilatpu, the proper name of the Cayuse tribe, being placed under the direction of Dr. Whitman and his noble wife; the latter, called Lapwai and put in charge of Mr. Spalding and wife, was situated on the Clear- water, above the site of Lewiston. By December suitable accommodations were pro- vided at both missions and the founders began their labor of love.

Additions were also made to the force at work in the Methodist mission in the Willamette valley. In July, 1836, Elijah White and wife, Alanson Beers and wife, W. H. Wilson, Annie M. Pitman, Susan Downing and Elvina Johnson, sailed from Boston, but did not reach their destination until May, 1837. The scourge of fever still afflicted them, and the mission in consequence bore an ill repute among the natives, in spite of the most earnest and conscientious efforts of its people to win the good will of those whom they had come so far to benefit.

The attaches of the missions were not the only Americans that were now living in Oregon. From the trappers who had visited the coast, some of them with the Ameri- can companies, some as roving "free trappers " and still others in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, knowledge of the beautiful and fertile Willamette and Sacra- mento valleys was spread along the American frontier, and the thoughts of many of the hardy western people were turned in this direction. The breaking up of the American trapping companies left many mountaineers without an occupation, unless they engaged in trapping on their own account, and these men began to find their way into California and Oregon for the purpose of building for themselves homes, the majority of them, however, going to the former country. At the close of 1836 there were some thirty white persons in Oregon not connected with the Hudson's Bay Com- pany, including the missionaries and their wives.

The presence of these people, in the capacity of settlers, was regarded by the com- pany with much disfavor; not simply because they were Americans, but because the settlement of any persons whatever, over whom the company had no control, was cal- culated to weaken its hold upon the natives. It had been the policy of the company to discourage settlements, even of its own employees whose terms of service had expired, though it could exercise control over them almost as much as when still in its service ; consequently the settlement of Americans beyond the pale of their authority was very distasteful. The Methodist missionaries, also, who had been so cordially welcomed by the company's officers when it was supposed they were simply to engage in missionary work, now that they encouraged these settlers and sided with them against the company, were classed in the same category and deprived of the aid of the company's influence.

In order to be still more independent of the company, Ewing Young, who was the leading spirit among the American trappers who had located in the valley, and Jason Lee, the missionary, set on foot a scheme to procure a supply of cattle from California. The effort was opposed by the company, but with the aid of William A.

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Slocum, an officer of the United States navy, who advanced money and gave a free passage to California in his vessel to those who went after the cattle, it was completely successful, and the " Wallamette Cattle Company" was organized. The party which went to California was under the leadership of Mr. Young, and was composed of P. L. Edwards, who kept a diary of the expedition which is now preserved in the State Library at Sacramento and numbered 23,989, Hawchurst, Carmichael, Bailey, Ere- quette, Des Pau, Williams, Tibbetts, Gay, Wood, Camp, Turner, and enough others to make a company of about twenty men, all inured to the dangers and privations of mountain life. They collected a band of 700 cattle at three dollars per head, and, with much labor and difficulty succeeded in bringing 600 of them into the valley. They had much trouble with the Indians on Siskiyou mountain and along Rogue river, and Gray, without any foundation charges the company with stirring up the Indians to cut them off. The fact is, as Edwards' diary plainly shows, the trouble grew out of the unprovoked murder by one of the party of an Indian who visited their camp on Klamath river. Turner, Gay and Bailey were three of four survivors of an American party which had been attacked on Rogue river two years before, and shot this Indian in a spirit of revenge. It is certainly difficult to trace any agency of the company in this affair, or to assign any other cause than wanton murder for their trouble with the Indians.

The arrival of the cattle was hailed with joy by the settlers, as it guaranteed them complete independence of the company and demonstrated that Americans could settle in the Willamette valley with an assurance of being self-supporting. At the close of 1837 the independent population of Oregon consisted of forty-nine souls about equally divided between missionary attaches and settlers. Of these Rev. David Leslie and wife, Rev H. K. W. Perkins and Margaret Smith were new recruits for the Meth- odist mission.

In 1838, W. H. Gray, who had returned East the year before to procure rein- forcements for the Congregational missions, came out with Revs. E. Walker, Cushing Eells and A. B. Smith and the wives of the four, also a young man named Cornelius Rogers and John A. Sutter, the honored pioneer of the Sacramento valley. At Fort Hall, Gray's associates were induced to trade the fourteen cows they were bringing with them, all of a superior breed, for a like number of cows to be delivered to them by the Hudson's Bay Company after reaching their destination. They failed to fully appreciate the advantages of that trade until after arriving at Whitman's mission in September, where they found that only an expert vaquero could catch one of the wild heifers roaming with the herds belonging to the company.

The Methodists enlarged the field of their missionary labors in the spring of 1838, by establishing a mission at The Dalles, under the charge of Daniel Lee and H. K. W. Perkins. The Protestant method of benefiting the Indians, aside from merely preaching Christianity to them, was to teach them how to live, how to procure food and clothing by their own labor intelligently applied, so that they should no longer be subjected to alternate seasons of feasting and famine. They thought to make a farmer of the Indian, and thus destroy his roving habits. To do this it was necessary that those being taught be supported by them until they could be rendered self-sustaining ; and this required money. Consequently when it was decided to establish a mission at

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History of Benton County, Oregon, Part 22

Author: David D. Fagan Publication date: 1885 Publisher: Number of Pages:

Author: David D. Fagan
Publication date: 1885
Publisher:
Number of Pages: