USA > Oregon > History of Oregon, Vol. I, 1834-1848 > Part 18
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11 Lee and Frost's Or., 146.
12 Edwards' Diary, MS., 30-1. In the Nevada Gazette of June 5, 1869, is an article by an anonymous writer which refers to this expedition. It represents Young as overbearing, and disliked by the men; also saying that in the Siskiyou Mountains five of them had conspired to kill him and others on a certain night, and to divide the stock among themselves, the murder to be committed as Young and Edwards returned from looking for lost cattle, Turner being the one elected to shoot Young. On coming into camp and seeing by the looks of the men that something was wrong, Young questioned them, and one of the conspirators commenced cursing Turner for his cowardice, and the plot was revealed. An altercation took place, and the company
150
THE WILLAMETTE CATTLE COMPANY.
The great object of the Willamette settlers was accomplished, and an era opened in colonial history which rendered them in no small measure independent of the fur company. The precedent thus established of bringing cattle into Oregon was followed three years later by the Hudson's Bay Company, which obtained a permit in Mexico to drive out from Cali- fornia four thousand sheep and two thousand horned cattle, Scotch shepherds being sent to select the sheep, and the company's trappers in California being em- ployed as drivers.
The number of cattle that survived the first expe- dition was six hundred and thirty, two hundred having been lost by the way. The expenses of the expedition, and the losses, brought the price up from three to nearly eight dollars each. They were divided in the manner agreed upon when the company was formed, the sub- scribers taking all that could be purchased with their money at seven dollars and sixty-seven cents a head ; while the earnings of the men who went as drivers at one dollar a day were paid to them in cattle at the same rate. The stock obtained were of the wildest, the administrators taking good care that it should be so, and their value was lessened in consequence. But the settlers were allowed to keep the oxen borrowed from McLoughlin in exchange for wild cattle, and calves were accepted in place of full-sized animals, as they were wanted for beef later.13
There is some difference of opinion as to whom the credit of this enterprise is due. Mr Hines14 thinks that it was Jason Lee's energy and perseverance which laid this foundation of rapidly accumulating wealth for the settlers. Perhaps it might more justly have been attributed to Edwards; but as a matter of fact,
being pretty evenly divided, an armistice was agreed upon, the division being continued to the end of the journey, and the guard at night being made up of equal numbers of both parties for fear of treachery. This I take to be a sen- sational story, as Edwards makes no mention of it in his Diary, where less important quarrels are described minutely.
13 Copy of a Document in Trans. Or. Pioneer Assoc., 1880, 50-2.
14 Hine-' Oregon History, 23.
151
DEATH OF EWING YOUNG
it was Ewing Young, as Walker says, who "put in motion the introduction of Spanish cattle in Oregon." 15 He was the only man among the settlers who knew enough of California and its customs to intelligently propose such a plan, and to overcome the almost in- superable difficulties of its execution.16 He, too, it was who resented the restrictions of the fur company, and determined upon the independence of American settlers. No longer under a cloud, after his return Young rose to an important position in the colony. He built a saw-mill on the Chehalem at considerable expense, which was kept in operation until the winter of 1840-1, when it was carried away by high water. Soon after this misfortune Young died.17 The pro- visional government of 1841 was organized to take charge of Young's estate, and the jail was built with it, the government pledging its faith to restore it or its value to his heirs. It was restored in part to his heirs years afterward when Oregon had become a state.
In 1854, while Oregon was still a territory, there appeared Joaquin Young, a son of Ewing Young by a Mexican mother, who petitioned the territorial legis- lature for his father's money An act was passed empowering him to commence suit in the supreme court to recover the sums paid into the treasury of the provisional government by his administrators, said action to be prosecuted to final judgment. The suit, however, was not brought; the legislature deferred passing a bill authorizing the payment of the judgment until 1855. Finally the supreme court, consisting of George H. Williams and M. P. Deady, gave judgment for Joaquin Young. In the mean time the claim- ant sold his interest to O. C. Pratt; and when this was known, R. P. Boisé, a member of the legislature,
15 Sketch of Ewing Young, Or. Pioneer Assoc. Trans., 1880, 58; Wilkes' Nar., U. S. Erplr. Ex., iv. 384.
16 Marsh's Letter, MS., 16.
17 It was said that his mind became affected by disease, or from his many trials and disappointments. White's Ten Years in Or., 154.
152
THE WILLAMETTE CATTLE COMPANY.
and opposed to Pratt in politics, secured the passage of a bill stopping the payment of the judgment. The matter then rested until 1862, when a law was enacted, chiefly through the influence of Judge Deady, author- izing persons having claims against the territory or state to bring suit for recovery. Under this act Pratt brought suit, and obtained judgment for the amount, receiving $5,108.94, in November 1863, twenty-two years after the property was taken in charge by the Methodist Mission. 18
Slacum, after having been of such real service to the settlers, sailed for San Blas a few days after his arrival in California, on his way through Mexico to Washington. He took a share in the company, and deputed Young to take charge of his proportion of the stock, amounting to twenty-three animals. Four years afterward, in consequence of Slacum's death, his nephew, a midshipman of the United States exploring squadron, claimed his uncle's share, with the increase, which amounted to sixty-three, and these he obtained and sold to McLoughlin for $860.19
From the presence of Ewing Young in Oregon sprang two important events in the settlement of the country : the coming of an authorized agent of the United States, and the disinthralment of the settlers from what they felt to be the oppressive bondage of the fur company. By his death Ewing Young gave the colony a further and still more important impulse, as will be shown during the progress of events.
From the life of Ewing Young-indeed, from any man's life-we may safely conclude that it is better to laugh at sorrow and slight, and even indignity, especially where the wrong is only fancied, as is usually the case, than to cry over these things. There is nothing in the wide world worth mourning for; if all
18 See Special Laws Or., 1855-6, 92; General ,Laws Or., 1862, 78; Mes- sage and Docs., 1864, 72; Or. Jour. Council, 1855-6, app., 92; Or. Statesman, Jan. 2, 1855.
19 Wilkes' Nar., U. S. Erplr. Ex., iv. 384.
153
THE LIFE OF A MAN.
our joys have taken their departure, they are but a step before us. But it has always been so, the chief occupation of man being to torment himself withal. At first, on coming to Oregon, Ewing Young would be king; but finding there a monarch so much his superior, he fell into hateful ways. So mightily had he been mistaken in the beginning, that soon he felt it hardly safe to be sure of anything. But when the shore lines of his life were worn somewhat smooth by the eroding waves of humanity's ocean, and the rewards of benificent conduct far exceeded the most sanquine anticipations of benefits to flow from evil practices, might not the broad truth have come home to him, that he is made as conspicuously uncomfortable whose virtues lift him above the common sentiment of so- ciety, as he whose vices sink him below the general level ?
CHAPTER VII.
COLONIZATION.
1837-40.
THREE MISSIONARY BRIDES-JASON LEE'S MARRIAGE-SEA-COAST EXCUR- SIONS -- BRANCH MISSION AMONG THE CALAPOOYAS - PETITION TO CONGRESS FOR A CIVIL GOVERNMENT-LEE GOES EAST-DEATH OF MRS LEE - MISSIONARY ENTHUSIASM IN THE EAST - BILL FOR THE OCCUPATION OF OREGON - SAILING OF THE 'LAUSANNE' WITH THE MIS- SION COLONY -TREATY OF COMMERCE WITH THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS -- . AFFAIRS IN OREGON-DROWNING OF THE FIRST WHITE BOY BORN IN THE TERRITORY-DEATH OF SHEPARD-RELIGIOUS INTEREST AT THE DALLES-ARRIVAL OF THE MISSION COLONY.
DANIEL LEE does not mention what the superin- tendent wrote to the missionary society of the Metho- dist church on establishing himself in the Willamette Valley, but it is to be presumed that whatever it was, the action of the society was founded upon it. A reënforecement for the Mission, consisting of eight adults and several children, sailed from Boston on the 28th of July, 1836. They took passage in the ship Hamilton, Captain Barker, bound for the Sandwich Islands, where they arrived late in the winter. There they remained guests of the missionaries at Honolulu until the latter part of April 1837, when they sailed in the brig Diana, Captain Hinckley, for the Columbia River. On the 18th of May, three months after the departure of the Loriot with the cattle company, tidings of the new arrival reached the Willamette, and Jason Lee hastened to Fort Vancouver, and found them already provided with confortable quarters by John McLoughlin.
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155
WHITE, BEERS, AND WILLSON.
The principal person of the reënforcement, and one whom it was expected would supply the great need of the Mission, was Elijah White, M. D., from Tompkins County, New York. Dr White was little more than thirty years of age, with light complexion, blue eyes, and dark hair, and of slight, elastic frame. He was thin, too, when he landed from his long voyage, though not so thin as Daniel Lee, to whose shoes the leaden soles of Philetas would scarcely have been out of place.
His manners were of that obliging and flattering kind which made him popular, especially among women, but which men often called sycophantish and insincere. He was fond of oratorical display and of society, affectedly rather than truly pious, not alto- gether a bad man, though a weak one.1 Yet we shall see that in such a society an effeminate man may be of no less consequence than a masculine woman, for here, as elsewhere, we find, as La Fontaine says, a " bon nombre d'hommes qui sont femmes." He had no talent, as Heinrich Heine would declare, but yet a character. And strange to say, the longer he dwelt upon this coast, the more he became smooth and slip- pery like glass, and flat withal, yet he could be round and cutting on occasions, particularly when broken on the wheel of adversity. He was accompanied by his wife, an infant son, and a lad of fourteen years named George Stoughtenburg, whom he had adopted. Mrs White was a cheerful, amiable young woman, and de- voted to her husband.
Next we will mention Alanson Beers, a blacksmith from Connecticut, a man of low stature, dark com- plexion, thin features, and rigid alike in his views of religion and social propensities, an honest, worthy character, entitled to respect. He also brought his wife, a woman of comfortable physique and yielding temper, together with three children.
Another, W. H. Willson, a ship-carpenter, had 1 Moss' Pioncer Times, MS., 3.
156
COLONIZATION.
sailed out of New Bedford on more than one whaling voyage. Judging from the commendations lavished upon him by his associates, he was a more than or- dinarily worthy man. Tall, with a well-knit frame, cheerful temper, and an affectionate disposition, kind to children and animals, he was a general favorite, aside from the stories of sea-going adventures with which he was ever ready to entertain his listeners. Mr Willson was unmarried. While on this journey he studied medicine under White, and was afterwards given the title of Doctor, to distinguish him from others of the same name in Oregon, who spelled their name with only one 1.2
The other adults of the reenforcement were Miss Anna Maria Pitman of New York; Miss Susan Downing of Lynn, Massachusetts, who was engaged to marry Cyrus Shepard; and Miss Elvira Johnson, from central New York. Miss Pitman was tall, dark, somewhat gifted with poetic genius, fervently pious, and full of enthusiasm for the missionary life. Miss Downing was a less pronounced character, personally attractive, possessed of a fine figure, dark hair, blue eyes, always exercising good taste in dress, and popu- lar with her associates. Miss Johnson, winning in manner, and pure and zealous of spirit, was devoted to her duty. She, like Miss Downing, had dark hair and blue eyes, and was to become the wife of a mis- sionary.
It was understood that Miss Pitman was to marry Jason Lee, if they should suit each other. The meet- ing, therefore, was of considerable interest, not to say embarrassment, to both, when McLoughlin having introduced Dr White, that gentleman brought the superintendent face to face with the lady. "A light blush rose to her cheek, and a slight trepidation, which, added to the charm of her manner, was all the evidence," says White, "that she was conscious of the peculiarity of her position." With Jason Lee it was
2 White's Ten Years in Or., passim; Mrs Wilson, in Or. Sketches, MS., 23.
157
FURTHER ARRIVALS.
different; he was evidently pleased that the society had sent him so prepossessing a woman for a wife, and took much pains to render himself agreeable.
On the day after Jason Lee's arrival, the whole company, including Captain and Mrs Hinckley, and Mr J. L. Whitcomb, from Honolulu, second officer of the Diana, set out in canoes for the Mission, the superintendent and Miss Pitman accompanied only by their Indian crew who understood no English, an arrangement which was apparently not disagreeable. At the close of the first day, which had been bright. and musical, an encampment was made under the oak trees on the south bank of the Willamette where Port- land now stands. The following day they reached the mouth of Pudding River, above the falls; and at an early hour on the third day, they finally disem- barked at the landing of Baptiste Desportes Mckay, at Champoeg, where horses were obtained, and the journey ended with a ride through French Prairie.
At the landing, a letter from Daniel Lee was found awaiting them, with the request that Dr White should hasten forward, as twelve persons lay sick at the Mis- sion, some of them dangerously so. This pressing de- mand for assistance was responded to by the doctor, who, with Willson, Mrs Hinckley, Miss Pitman, and Miss Downing, mounted and rode off at a rapid pace in advance of the others.
The reception at the Mission might well have been disheartening to the new-comers. .Think of those refined young women, fresh from the comforts and orderly ways of eastern homes, dismounting before the rude, substantial Mission house in the wilderness, to find its floors covered with the sick, lying on mats and blankets, more than a dozen out of the thirty- eight native children who found a home there down with fever, and the rest of the strange unkempt brood peeping through doors and windows for a sight of the strangers. With natural care Miss Downing had
158
COLONIZATION.
dressed herself in trim, becoming style for the eyes of her affianced husband. This neat and gentle maiden, who would gladden the heart of any lover, happened upon Cyrus Shepard in the brown linen frock he wore about housework, and which did not by any means set off his tall symmetrical figure to advantage. It was a trying situation, but though Shepard deeply blushed in his embarrassment, he did not entirely faint away, and finally recovered himself sufficiently to welcome the ladies, after which he proceeded to lay the table with a brown linen cloth and tin plates, and to prepare dinner for the hungry travellers. The fare was venison, sausages, bread of unbolted flour, butter, cheese, and fried cakes, with wild strawberries and cream for desert.3 The Mission must have done well, indeed, to have been able to offer supplies like this in the third year of its existence, it being too early in the season for a garden.
How sixteen new-comers were accommodated with beds when even the floors were occupied by the sick, not one of the chroniclers of early events has told us. Fifty-four, and for a short time fifty-seven, inmates found lodgment in a building forty by eighteen feet, the space increased by a flooring overhead, which was converted into an attic under the rafters.
Thus we see in the chemistry of west-coast adven- ture an adaptation of self to circumstances, not unlike that of sulphuric acid and water, which when mingled are contained in less space than they separately occu- pied.
In apparent enjoyment, the missionary recruits and their guests explored the country by day, and slept under the same roof at night; until, after a few days, Captain and Mrs Hinckley returned to Fort Van- couver.4 Dr White, on looking about for the cause
3 White's Ten Years in Oregon, 72.
4 Mrs Hinckley died not long after her visit to Oregon, and Captain Hinck- ley married a daughter of Martinez of California. In describing the wedding festivities, Mrs Harvey says that dancing was kept up for three nights, with bull-fights in the daytime ; feasting, and drinking a good deal, especially sweet wines. Life of McLoughlin, MS., 25.
159
PREACHING AND PRACTISING.
of disease, found an accumulation of vegetable matter washed up by a freshet, decaying and poisoning the air. He also noticed that a dense grove of firs be- tween the house and the river prevented a free circu- lation of air. At once he set the Indian boys to lopping off branches of trees, and clearing away rub- bish; after which the general health improved.
Shepard was soon prostrated with fever, and Miss Downing's loving care was as the ministration of an angel in this dark wilderness; by good nursing he escaped with a short illness. Jason Lee was fortunate in the prosecution of his suit; much of the time being spent with Miss Pitman in riding about the country, and the favorable first impression deepened. On the 16th of June there was a large gathering in the grove near the Mission house, it being the sabbath, and the marriage of Cyrus Shepard was expected in addition to the usual service.
. Jason Lee delivered a discourse on the propriety and duties of marriage, a ceremony too lightly re- garded in this new country. When he had finished his remarks he said, " What I urge upon you by pre- cept I am prepared this day to enforce by example ;" and characteristic as it was, without such a purpose be- ing suspected by any one, he went to Miss Pitman and led her forth in view of all the congregation. Then rose Daniel Lee, and solemnly read the marriage service of the Methodist Episcopal church, after which Mr Lee led his wife back into the assemblage, and returning took his nephew's place, and performed the same service for Mr Shepard and Miss Down- ing. When the marriages were duly solemnized, Lee preached his usual Sunday sermon, after which the communion service was held, and two members were admitted to the church.5 The whole number of com- municants was fourteen. There was a third mar- riage on that day, that of Charles J. Roe and Nancy McKay, some of whose brothers were in the Mission
5 Hines' Oregon Hist., 25; Lee and Frost's Or., 149.
160
COLONIZATION.
school.6 A wedding breakfast followed the conclusion of the services. Thus was inaugurated the marriage ceremony in the Willamette Valley, where heretofore christianized forms had not been deemed essential.7
The labor of settling the families now occupied all the time that could be spared from the harvest, in both of which Jason Lee and White assisted. Beers and Willson spent most of the summer in transport- ing the goods which arrived by the Diana from Fort Vancouver, by the slow conveyance of canoes. A log house and shop were built for Beers. White had a hewn-log house, in which the skill of the mechanic Willson was very serviceable. A school-room was added to the Mission house, and Miss Johnson in- stalled as teacher. Mrs Shepard made and mended the clothing of the Indian children; the other women attended to the general housekeeping. A temperance meeting was held to keep alive the sentiment against the introduction or manufacture of intoxicating drinks, an effort in which the missionaries were successful for a number of years after the first formation of the Oregon Temperance Society.8
In August, Jason Lee made two exploring excur- sions in company with his wife and Mr and Mrs Shep- ard. The first one, under the guidance of a French settler named Desportes, was toward the upper end
6 Roe had a strange history. He was born in New York in 1806, and came to Oregon in 1834. He early joined the Methodist church, in which for many years he had a good standing. On the death of his wife he married again in 1856 another half-breed girl of good character; but becoming jealous of her, he murdered her in 1859, for which he was hanged, professing to hope for for- giveness, and expressing a willingness to pay the penalty of his sin. Hines' Oregon Hist., 25; Or. Statesman, March 1, 1859.
7 Parker says that when he urged the duty of the marriage relation he was met by two reasons for dispensing with a legal marriage: one, that if the men wished to return to their former homes they could not take their Indian families with them; and the other, that the Indian women did not under- stand the obligations of the marriage covenant, and might at any time, through caprice, leave them. Parker's Jour., Ex. Tour, 180-1.
8 Wilkes, whose visit to the Willamette settlements occurred in 1841, ex- pressed his surprise at the general regard for temperance, and opposition to distilling spirits among a class of men who might be expected to favor that. indulgence. But they were all convinced that their welfare depended on sobriety. Wilkes' Nar., U. S. Explor. Ex., iv. 386.
161
MORE MISSIONARIES.
of the Willamette Valley, by an eastward circuit to the head waters of the Mollale, and down that stream to its junction with the Willamette, which he crossed, and returned to the Mission by the west side. The second excursion was to the sea-coast, at the mouth of the Salmon River, under the guidance of Joseph Gervais. Here they sojourned seven days, bathing in the salt water, and preaching as they were able to the Killamooks. Health and pleasure with light pro- fessional occupation was the object of these excur- sions, Shepard particularly being in need of change of air. This visit to the coast was an example which later became the custom, namely, for camping parties to spend a portion of the summer on the west side of the Coast Range, there to enjoy the sea-bathing and rock-oysters.9
Hardly had the excursionists returned to the Mis- sion when news came of the arrival of a second reën- forcement, which left Boston on the 20th of January, 1837, in the ship Sumatra, and arrived at Fort Van- couver on the 7th of September following. The Su- matra was loaded with goods for the Mission, and brought as assistants to Lee the Rev. David Leslie of Salem, Massachusetts, Mrs Leslie, and three young daughters, Rev. H. K. W. Perkins, who was to marry Miss Johnson, and Miss Margaret Smith, afterward the wife of Dr Bailey. Perkins and Miss Johnson were married November 21, 1837, Bailey and Miss Smith in 1840.
The family at the Willamette mission now num- bered sixty members, including the native children, or nearly an equal number of Indians and white persons. It was a somewhat expensive process, one civilizer to every savage, especially where ninety-nine out of every hundred of the latter died under the infliction.
9 A pear-shaped mollusk in a soft shell, incased in the sandstone of the sea-shore at the mouth of the Salmon River. It is found by breaking open the rock, and seems to have enlarged its cell as required for growth.
HIST. OR., VOL. I. 11
162
COLONIZATION.
Therefore it was deemed best that the missionaries should divide. Lee had purchased a farm recently opened by a Canadian near the Mission premises, with a small house now occupied by Leslie and Perkins with their wives. White and Beers were domiciled in houses of their own, leaving the Mission building in possession of Lee, Shepard, Edwards, Willson, and Whitcomb, the latter at present employed as farm superintendent. In addition to these accommoda- tions, it was decided to erect a hospital, which was accordingly begun.
The amount of labor caused by the addition of so many persons unprovided with the conveniences of living, the transportation of the second ship-load of goods, and the care of the cattle which came in Octo- ber, retarded the progress of the Indian school, which, notwithstanding sickness and other drawbacks, was in a promising condition. Perhaps because his mind is empty of the loftier civilized conceptions, the sav- age is a ready scholar in the elements of learning, though he rarely masters more than these. A native lad in the class of Solomon Smith at Fort Vancouver learned reading, writing, and the whole of Daboll's arithmetic in eleven months, writing out all the ex- amples for the benefit of the other scholars. Some simple penalty usually kept these primitive pupils in good order, such as being made to wear an old gun- lock suspended round the neck by a string.10
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