USA > Oregon > History of Oregon, Vol. I, 1834-1848 > Part 17
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32 Rev. Elkinah Walker, thirty years of age, tall, spare, and light complex- ioned, was from North Yarmouth, Me, and was educated at Kimball Academy, Meriden, N. H., from which he went into the Bangor Theological Seminary, where he studied for three years. He was a diffident and amiable man without strong traits. He intended to go as a missionary to Zululand, South Africa, but being prevented by a fierce tribal war, was ready to respond to the first call elsewhere, which came from Oregon. He was married on the 5th of March, 1838, and next day started for St Louis to Join Gray. Ten years afterward
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COMING OF THE PRESBYTERIANS.
he settled on the Tualatin Plains in the Willamette Valley, where he became a leading citizen, and one of the founders of the school which is now the Pacific University. His family consisted of six sons and one daughter. One of his sons went as a missionary to China. The father died Nov. 21, 1877. Trans. Or. Pion. Assoc., 1877, 68-72; Oakland Transcript, Dec. 1, 1877; Seattle Pacific Tribune, Nov. 28, 1877; Ashland, Or., Tidings, Nov. 30, 1877; Salem Willa- mette Farmer, Nov. 30, 1877. For many years Mrs Walker lived at Forest Grove, near the Pacific University, having devoted her life to the duties of missionary, wife, and mother, and enjoying the reward of a peaceful and prosperous old age. Cushing C. Eells was of Massachusetts birth, and was one of a succession of clergymen. In Cromwell's time one of his ancestors was an officer in the usurper's army. Mrs Myra Eells Fairbanks was descended from a line of Presbyterian deacons. She was born in Holden, Massachusetts, May 26, 1805; and died at Skokomish, Washington Territory, August 9, 1878, her funeral services being celebrated at that place and at Seattle; and there was a memorial pamphlet published, from which the above facts are drawn. Like Mr Walker, Mr Eells settled at Forest Grove in 1848, and helped to build up the Pacific University. He was also mainly instru- mental in establishing Whitman Seminary at Walla Walla, at a later date. In 1875 he returned to his first work as a missionary to the Spokanes. His youngest son, Myron Eells, became a missionary to the Skokomish. Seattle Intelligencer, May 29, 1875; Portland Oregonian, June 5, 1875; S. I. Friend, vii. 57. Rev. Asa B. Smith is described as a man of fine literary attainments, who constructed a vocabulary and grammar of the Nez Perce language, assisted by Mr Rogers and the Nez Perce, Lawyer, who knew a little English. Smith's wife was a delicate woman, unfitted for the trials of missionary life; and the chief of the upper Nez Perces proving very overbearing, and as Smith thought, dangerous, he quitted the Kamiah Mission for the Sandwich Islands after three years among the Indians. Cornelius Rogers was a native of Utica, New York; but at the time of his joining Gray's missionary party was living at Cincinnati, Ohio. He remained as teacher at the different missions until 1842, when he went to the Willamette Valley to settle, soon after which he died. Hines' Oregon Hist., 135-6; White's Ten Years in Or., 198-9; Gray's Hist. Or., 270-1.
Dr Samuel J. Parker, son of Rev. Samuel Parker, in a manuscript called The Northwest and Pacific Coast of the United States, gives a treatise on the early history of the Oregon territory, and defends his father from the slurs contained in Gray's Hist. Or. The manuscript lacks only a personal knowl- edge of the subject by the author to be valuable. It is written in a fair and manly spirit, though not without some errors.
1
CHAPTER VI.
THE WILLAMETTE CATTLE COMPANY. 1836-1837.
NEED OF CATTLE IN THE WILLAMETTE VALLEY-THE HUDSON'S BAY COM- PANY REFUSE TO SELL-MCLOUGHLIN'S VIEW'S ON THE QUESTION-MEET- ING AT CHAMPOEG-FORMATION OF THE CATTLE COMPANY-EWING YOUNG AND PARTY SENT TO CALIFORNIA FOR STOCK-SOLEMN AND MOMENTOUS NEGOTIATIONS-THE CROSSING OF THE SAN JOAQUIN-HERDS DRAWN ACROSS BY ROPES AND RAFTS-AN INDIAN AMBUSH-PLOT TO SHOOT EDWARDS AND YOUNG-DIVISION OF THE STOCK AND ITS INCREASE IN OREGON-WHAT BECAME OF EWING YOUNG'S PROPERTY.
CIVILIZATION needs certain things to make it respect- able. The followers of Confucius may feed on rice, but it is not seemly that Christianity should have to eat only bear meat and salmon-berries. It was quite necessary that the missionaries of Oregon should have cows and horses before they could take rank among the foremost nations of the world. Ewing Young saw this, for he was a thoughtful, practical man, ready to assist progress and minister to the wants of the race; and as his proposal to supply the settlers with that fiery adjunct of civilization, whiskey, had met with poor encouragement, he concluded to do what he could toward stocking the valley with those gentle beasts which men make their companions, not to say masters. Young's distillery speculation had been like the labor of Cleanthes, who supported himself by drawing water at night in order that he might indulge in plucking the flowers of philosophy during the day; it was not appreciated by the Willamette Areopagus, and his judges were delighted over the prospect of such a
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THE WILLAMETTE CATTLE COMPANY.
useful and perhaps dangerous occupation for so rest- less a settler. If Young would help civilization and the settlers in this matter, perhaps the settlers and civilization might help Young.
"I found," observes Slacum, "that nothing was wanting to insure comfort, wealth, and every happi- ness to the people of this most beautiful country, but the possession of neat-cattle, all of those in the country being owned by the Hudson's Bay Company, who refused to sell them under any circumstances what- ever."1 This oft-repeated charge, in the tone of sufferers from tyranny and injustice, it may be as well to explain. McLoughlin asserts that in 1825 the company had but twenty-seven head of cattle of any age or size. So precious were these that they were allowed to multiply without the slaughter of a single animal. As late as 1839 the company declined to furnish with beef the surveying squadron of Sir Edward Belcher, who complained of this refusal on his return to England.2 The policy of the fur mag- nates could not therefore be called an anti-Amer- ican restriction. McLoughlin reasoned that if he sold cattle to the settlers they would be entitled to the increase, and he would be deprived of the means of assisting new-comers, and the interests of the coast retarded. If two hundred dollars, which was offered, were paid for a cow, the purchaser would put such a price on the increase that the settlers could not buy. He therefore thought it better, while cattle were still few in the country, to lend to every settler cows and oxen to make him comfortable, though he was not made rich, and all to share alike, while the herds suffered no diminution.3
Jason Lee, Ewing Young, and others so repre- sented the benefits of cattle to them that Slacum made a proposition to carry to California in the brig Loriot
1 Slacum's Report, in Supp. to H. Rept. 101, 25th Cong., 3d Sess.
2 Belcher's Toyaye, i. 296; Applegate's Views of Hist., MS., 28.
3 Copy of a Document, in Trans. Or. Pioneer Assoc., 1880, 51.
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CONTRIBUTORS.
all persons wishing to go thither, where cattle could be bought for three dollars a head. A meeting was called for those so inclined to convene at Champoeg to form a cattle company. The object being one of interest to the Canadian as well as to the American settlers, there was a general attendance, and the Wil- lamette Cattle Company was organized, with Ewing Young as leader and P. L. Edwards as treasurer. Mr Slacum at his own option advanced Jason Lee $500, and to this sum was added by the settlers, who had money due them at Fort Vancouver, enough to make the amount $1,600, to which was added nearly $900 by McLoughlin for the Hudson's Bay Company. The collection was purposely made, as large as possible, for by purchasing a great number the cost of each would be less, and the expense of driving a large herd was little more than that of driving a small one. But McLoughlin is never mentioned by the missionaries as having thus contributed to the success of the Wil- lamette Cattle Company.4
On the contrary, from the moment of the appear- ance of Slacum in Oregon, and his championship of the ostracized party of Ewing Young, the former acqui- escence of the missionaries in the Willamette Valley in the rules and regulations of the fur company was changed to an opposition as determined, if not so open, as that of either Kelley or Young. That Sla- cum encouraged this course is true, for he came as the agent of the United States to offer protection to Americans from the despotism of a British corpora- tion, assuming that Oregon was United States terri- tory, and the fur company had no rights, south of the
" It is stated in Hines' Oregon Hist., 23, that the organization of a cattle co.npany was indirectly opposed by the authorities at Fort Vancouver; but this can hardly be true. Slacum says in his Report, already quoted, that $1,600, or enough to purchase 500 cattle, was raised in the Willamette Valley by his advancing $500. Daniel Lee states in his account, Lee and Frost's Or., 144-6, that 800 were purchased at $3 a head, and 40 horses at $12 a head, making the whole outlay $2,880. If it were not for the explanation given by McLougli- lin himself, in A Copy of a Document, Trans. Or. Pioneer Assoc., 1880, 51, we should be left as much in the dark by the missionary statements as by Slacum himself, concerning the source from which the $880 additional was obtained.
142
THE WILLAMETTE CATTLE COMPANY.
Columbia at least, except such as Great Britain could give it under the convention of 1818.
In Slacum's report to the secretary of war, he says that at the public meeting held at Champoeg for the organization of the cattle company, he told the Cana- dians that, although they were located within the territorial limits of the United States, the title to their farms would doubtless be secured to them when that government took possession of the country. He cheered them also, he says, with the hope that ere- long measures would be adopted for opening trade with the Oregon Territory, when, instead of getting fifty cents a bushel for their wheat delivered at Fort Vancouver, they might receive the dollar and a half which the Russians paid in California.5 So much interest was he able to create by this suggestion, that a petition was drawn up praying the congress of the United States "to recognize them in their helpless and defenceless state, and to extend to them the pro- tection of its laws, as being, or desiring to become, its citizens," and signed by both Americans and Cana- dians.
Little time was consumed by Slacum in executing his mission in Oregon. On the 17th of January, four days after he was met at Champoeg by Jason Lee, who had been on business to Fort Vancouver, eleven members of the Willamette Cattle Company6 left in a canoe for the anchorage of the Loriot, a mile and a half below Wapato Island, to embark for California. On the 21st they went on board, and the following morning Jason Lee took leave of them, first gather- ing the company on the quarter-deck. and praying for the success of their undertaking.
5 In another part of his report he says that a cargo of 5,000 bushels could at that time be obtained from the settlers on the Willamette, and also that the Russians required 25,000 bushels annually. This was, of course, a great inducement to the settlers to strive for independence in trade, and to oppose the monopoly of the fur company.
6 Their names were P. L. Edwards, Ewing Young, Lawrence Carmichael, James O'Neil, George Gay, Calvin Tibbets, John Turner, W. J. Bailey, Web- ley Hauxhurst, and two Canadians. De Puis and Ergnette.
143
CALIFORNIA EXPERIENCES.
Two days were spent in descending the river, and when Baker Bay was reached it was found that the Nereid and Llama, two of the fur company's vessels, had been detained there since the 22d of December. The sea being still rough, on the morning of the 30th of January the Loriot parted her cables and was driven on shore, but, being assisted by the other vessels, escaped unharmed. It rendered it necessary, however, for Captain Bancroft to return to Fort Van- couver to procure a chain-cable and anchors, so that it was not until the 10th of February that the Loriot was able to go to sea. Nine days were occupied in the voyage to Fort Ross, where permission was ob- tained to land the cattle company at Bodega, and horses and guides were furnished to take Slacum to . San Francisco.
On the 28th the Loriot, with Edwards and Young on board, resumed her voyage to San Francisco Bay, while the eight men left at Fort Ross found employ- ment and good wages at Cooper's mills, until their services should be needed by Young. The Loriot, after some dangerous coast navigation, arrived at San Francisco on the 1st of March, and taking on board Mr Slacum, proceeded to Monterey, where was the residence of General Vallejo, whom Young wished to consult about driving out cattle, to which measure the Mexican government was averse. Edwards re- mained behind, occupying his time in excursions about the bay, and in studying the customs of the country.7
On the 10th Young returned from Monterey with the tidings that Vallejo declined giving permission to drive cattle out of the country, saying it was the pre- rogative of the civil government, which was at Santa Bárbara. Thither Young had proceeded, while Ed- wards continued to increase his knowledge of Califor-
" Among other scraps of knowledge, he remarks in his Diary, MS., 13, of the expedition, that on the stock-ranches 'spotted mares are generally broken in, and much esteemed on the following account : all the horses of a band fol- low her, attracted by her peculiarity of color, and are not so likely to stray abroad.'
144
THE WILLAMETTE CATTLE COMPANY.
nia customs, and the affairs of Americans whom he found about San Francisco Bay, visiting, in company with Birnie, Leese, and McNeil of the Llama, the mission of San Rafael, Sonoma, Martinez, Cooper's mills, and the farms of several of his countrymen. On the 8th of May he took passage in the ship Sarah and Caroline, Captain Steel, for Monterey, where on the 12th he met Young, who, after going from San Francisco to Monterey, from Monterey to Santa Bár- bara, and from Santa Bárbara to Santa Cruz, and back again to Monterey, where the matter was laid before the deputation then in session, had at length obtained consent to drive from the country seven hundred head of cattle, on condition that they were purchased of the government, and not of the missions to which they belonged.8 The sale of cows was only. brought about after much exertion on the part of Vallejo, who on second thought lent his influence to assist the Oregon company, and won to the purpose Alvarado and the president of the missions.
Permission being thus obtained, the next step, and one quite as difficult, was to get the cattle and horses into safe possession. There were forty horses pur- chased near Santa Cruz and driven to San Francisco. Young was then obliged to go to Sonoma to obtain the- order of Vallejo, who had been appointed government agent in the sale of the cattle. The order was given for two hundred head from the mission of San Fran- cisco, one hundred and seventy cows and thirty bulls ; but the administrator at the mission used every means to evade the order, and insisted on inverting the ratio and only furnishing thirty cows. Thereupon Young was obliged to return to Yerba Buena to have the order translated, that he might be sure it was correct.
This being at length explained, and part of the men having joined them, Edwards and Young proceeded
' And all this rumpus,' says Edwards, 'on account of an old colonial law which forbids the exportation of male and female animals from the colonies.' Diary, MS., 16.
145
THE RETURN.
toward the San José mission with their first purchase, there to obtain the remaining five hundred. The administrator of San Francisco, for collecting and guarding the cattle as far as Martinez, exacted presents for his Indians, as he pretended, to the value of over fifty dollars, and Young had a sharp altercation with the authorities there on account of these exactions. The whole number of cattle purchased was not de- livered until the 22d of June, three weeks having been occupied in going from San Francisco to the mission of San José. Some of the animals escaped on the way ; and of those at the mission, some were found to have been kept seven days in a corral with little or nothing to eat. The wildest were starved or beaten until sufficiently subdued to drive; but then they were too weak to travel, and many dropped to the ground the first day. Complaint being made to the administrator, he agreed to furnish others for those that were lost, from a place beyond, but on reaching the spot desig- nated no cattle were there. Then another order was given, to be filled from a rancho still farther on; never- theless when they reached the San Joaquin River, the 25th of June, eighty animals were missing.
To cross the river was next in order, and at the same time to train these wild snorting brutes to cross rivers, for there were more of them beyond. The company were nearly all together again, and their number was here augmented by Henry Wood, B. Wil- liams, Moore, and two others. First, a strong corral was put upon the river bank, and the cattle driven into it. Then on the 12th of July a few cows were induced to swim over after their calves, which were towed across by men in a canoe. Next day all present, some on foot and some mounted, lent their aid to induce the cattle to take to the water. Most of them were driven in; but when half-way across a panic seized them and they turned back, with a loss of seven- teen drowned. To lasso and tow each animal over singly was next attempted, for the accomplishment of
HIST. OR., VOL. I. 10
146
THE WILLAMETTE CATTLE COMPANY.
which rafts of bulrushes were made, and on them men seated themselves, some to pull the raft over by a rope stretched across the river, and others to drag each an animal through the water by a rope about the horns. In this tedious labor the company engaged till the 20th; the work of herding and guarding at night being increased by the division of both men and cattle on the opposite side of the river. Edwards, who was on the north side, was obliged to be on horseback some- times the greater part of the night, after toiling, as he says, "in sweat, water, and great danger" through the day, with myriads of mosquitoes which maddened the animals beyond bounds. There had been little oppor- tunity to rest since the first of June, and this last trial taxed strength and patience to the utmost. But the climax came on the same afternoon that the crossing was finally effected. While driving to a new encamp- ment, the horse on which the ammunition was packed ran into a small tule lake or pond, and all the powder became wet.
All day long Edwards had ridden hard, and far into the night he had labored to induce his charge to cross a slough, albeit but knee-deep; and now before he could sleep he must return to Yerba Buena for powder. If he had ever rebelled at the wild ways of the half-broken oxen of the Hudson's Bay Company in Oregon, he now remembered those days with regret. "The last month, what has it been !" he exclaims. "Little sleep, much fatigue, hardly time to eat, mos- quitoes, cattle breaking like so many evil spirits, and scattering to the four winds, men ill natured and quar- relling ; another month like the past, God avert! Who can describe it?"? And yet he was only sixty miles on his way, with five hundred miles still between him and the Willamette Mission. Again at Mission San José he exchanged two horses for cattle, to replace some which were lost; but when he brought the pur- chaser to Livermore's, where one of the horses had
9 Diary, MS., 24.
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DASTARDLY CONDUCT.
been left, he found it had been stolen. By dint of bargain and exchange, however, he secured twenty head, which with considerable assistance were driven to camp. With these, and others he was able to pur- chase on the road, notwithstanding losses, he had seven hundred and twenty-nine when he encamped on the San Joaquin August 14th.
On the 20th the company reached the mountains at the head of the Sacramento Valley, fording the Sacramento River without difficulty, following the trail of Michel La Framboise and his trapping party. As they proceeded north the mountains were higher and harder to ascend, being stony, with a close growth of bushes, into which some of the cattle escaped. On the afternoon of the 26th a high and rugged mountain seemed to close the way. Riding up the steep, Young declared that there was another mountain above it. "Now," said he to Edwards, "if you are a philosopher, show yourself one!" But alas! no man is a philoso- pher longer than his bodily frame can be made to support his resolution. The patience of the company was nearly at an end. The men, tired of eating dried meat, and irritable with toil and privation, insisted that a beef should be killed that night, which Young refused, on account of having to carry the meat over the mountain. A quarrel ensued, in which they defied authority. "Kill at your peril !" said Young; and the storm blew over. The mind of the leader was stronger than the muscles of the men; still it was evident that the courage of the company was declining.
It was not until the 12th of September that the Rogue River Valley 10 was gained. Threats had been made by Turner, Gay, and Bailey that after Rogue River was passed there would be Indians killed in re- venge for the attack on their party in 1835. Their purpose was kept hidden from Young, who for the safety of the property would have forbidden retalia- tion.
10 Edwards in his diary calls this place Chasta valley and river.
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THE WILLAMETTE CATTLE COMPANY.
On the 14th, having crossed the river, camp was made about five miles beyond. A few natives ap- proached, and one of them, accompanied by a boy ten years of age, entered the camp in a friendly manner. Gay deliberately raised his gun and fired, and as the Indian attempted flight, Bailey also fired, and the man fell. The cry then arose, "Shoot the boy! shoot the boy!" but he escaped behind a point of rock. This dastardly act could not be excused on the ground ot revenge, as the spot where these men were attacked two years before was yet four days distant. The folly of inciting a conflict with the natives, under the cir- cumstances, was indefensible.
The men had become so excited by past wrongs and present sufferings, aggravated now by bloodshed, that on the following day, after a toilsome march through dust and heat, their insubordination culminated in a quarrel with guns and knives, which continued for fifteen minutes, while threats and curses emphasized their acts. Then once more the firmness of their leader prevailed, and peace was restored.
For several days and nights Young was on the alert for the expected retaliation of the natives; he doubled the guard, and used extreme caution in passing through the frequent defiles, where the enemy might lurk in ambush. The first night Edwards fired on a party of five Indians stealing through the woods, and frightened them off. The next day there were arrows shot from each side of the road, and several of the cattle wounded, but only one killed.
On the morning of the 18th, when the company entered that part of the country where Turner, Gay, and Bailey had been attacked, Indians were discovered running along the mountain side as if to intercept them in some defile. It was nearly noon, and they were passing between the banks of the Rogue River, when suddenly from the thickly wooded mountains yells were heard, and arrows showered upon those in advance. Young, apprehending such an attack, was
149
EDWARDS' DIARY.
making a reconnoissance with three of his men some distance in advance in the pass, but had discoverd nothing until the cattle came within range of the arrows, when the savages were found to be on both sides of the trail. Young ordered the men in charge of the cattle to remain where they were, while he undertook to repel the enemy. The Indians were driven off after Gay had been wounded and Young's horse shot with two arrows. That night strict guard was kept, and no further trouble was experienced.
From this point onward, though the road was still rough and over toilsome mountains, the condition of the cattle improved, as there was an abundance of grass and water. With prospects more favorable, a better state of feeling was restored, and they reached the settlement in good spirits about the middle of Octo- ber, nine months from the time of their departure.11 Edwards' unpublished diary of the expedition is the only reliable account extant of the experiences of the cattle company on the road. It is evident that to him this journey was a prolonged horror. In one place he remarks: "Short-sighted man! happy that his knowledge is not prospective, else he would not adventure upon some of his most ennobling enter- prises. Few of our party, perhaps none, would have ventured on the enterprise could they have foreseen all its difficulties. It boots little to reflect that the future gains will amply compensate for present suffer- ing. Most of the party cursed the day on which they engaged, and would hardly have exchanged a draught of cool water for their share of the profits." 12
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