USA > Oregon > History of Oregon, Vol. I, 1834-1848 > Part 24
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The manual-labor school building, which had cost the Mission between $8,000 and $10,000, with the farm belonging to it, and the mill site, was sold to the trustees of the Oregon Institute for $4,000, and that institution was removed from the site first selected on Wallace Prairie by Jason Lee, to the larger and better building on Chemeketa plain, where in the autumn of 1844 a school for white children was first opened by Mrs Chloe A. Clark Willson, from which has grown the Methodist college known as the Willamette University.49 Soon afterward the trustees developed a plan for laying out a city on the land belonging to the institute, which was ac- cordingly surveyed into lots and blocks, and named Salem by Leslie, president of the board of trustees. Here, for the present, I leave the history of the
47 Buck's Enterprises, MS., 10; Lovejoy's Portland, MS., 41. Campbell, al- though he amassed money, was not respected. He lost most of his property later in life and went to Arizona, where about 1863 he was murdered by a Mexican for gold. Portland Oregonian, July 29, 1863.
48 Roberts' Recollections, MS., 39; Moss' Pioneer Times, MS., 31; M. P. Deady, in S. F. Bulletin, July 6, 1864.
49 Mrs Willson, née Clark, was born April 16, 1818, in the state of Connecti- cut, and educated at Wilbraham Academy. She died June 29, 1874. P. C. Advocate, June 30, 1874.
223
WINDING UP THE BUSINESS.
Oregon Institute, to follow Gary in his efforts to close up the business of the Mission.
Gary seems to have become imbued with the spirit of his advisers, and to have eclipsed his predecessors in rapacity. Before his advent, some time in the month of April 1844, at the suggestion of White indorsed by Major Gilpin,50 who had arrived in the country the previous autumn, McLoughlin was induced to attempt once more to come to a final understanding with Waller, and agreed to leave the matter to White, Gilpin, and Douglas as arbitrators on his side, and to Leslie and Waller on the side of the Mission. After much dis- cussion, White and Gilpin considering the demands exorbitant, to settle the matter McLoughlin consented to allow the Mission fourteen lots, and to pay Waller five hundred dollars and give him five acres of land out of his claim. This bargain would not have been consummated had it been left to White and Gilpin, but Douglas thought it better for McLoughlin "to give him one good fever, and have done with it."
But this was not the last, and he had not yet done with the missionaries. On the 13th of July Gary offered to sell back to him the lots he had donated to the Mission. To this offer McLoughlin replied that, considering the extortionate manner in which the lots had been obtained, and the fact that they were those he required in his own business, the demand upon him to pay the Mission for them and whatever they might ask seemed unreasonable; but if he could make an exchange of other lots for those, he would do so. It was not land, however, that the Mission wanted now, but money. "It would be the fairest way," said Mc-
50 In his younger days Gilpin was sent to West Point from the state of Delaware, and belonged to a regiment of dragoons. He came to Oregon with Frémont, but not under orders, for he had resigned. It is not certain when he went away; I think in 1844. One thing is certain, that his pretensions made in the New York Tribune of March 22, 1879, where he claims to have organized the provisional government, and founded the town of Portland, besides being a 'sofa delegate' to congress from Oregon, are without any foundation in fact, as the reader of this history will perceive. In 1861 Gilpin was appointed first governor of Colorado, by President Lincoln.
224
CLOSE OF THE METHODIST RÉGIME.
Loughlin, "for you to give me back my lots, since the Mission has no longer any use for theni, and let me pay you for the improvements."
To this Gary had a ready reply. The lots were Mission property ; there were those who stood ready to purchase them; and he was only giving their origi- nal owner the first offer. Six thousand dollars was the estimate put upon the property, two lots being re- served for the Methodist church edifice besides; and he would not consider himself pledged longer than a day or two to take that amount. Stung and worried, and suffering in his business on account of the uncer- tainty of his position, McLoughlin once more yielded, and agreed to pay the six thousand dollars, a part of it in the autumn and the remainder in ten years, with interest annually at six per cent. Had he known all the inside history of the scheme to deprive him of the whole of the Oregon City claim, which had met a check in the dismissal of Jason Lee, he would have thought himself fortunate to recover and retain it at that price.
The Methodist Missions in Oregon were now closed, the Dalles station only being occupied with the object of securing a valuable land claim when congress should enact the long-promised land law. When Waller was no longer needed to hold any part of the Oregon City claim, he was sent to the Dalles, but the Indians there becoming troublesome, and Whitman wishing to purchase that station, it was sold to him; and Waller returned to the Willamette Valley.
Thus ends the history of ten years of missionary labor, in which nothing was done 51 that ever in the least benefited the Indians, but which cost the mis- sionary society of the Methodist Episcopal church a quarter of a million of dollars.52 As colonists, the seventy or eighty persons who were thrown into Ore-
"1 McClane's First Wagon Tram, MS., 9, 10; Crawford's Missionaries, MS., 4, 5.
52 Applegate's Views of Hist., MS., 29; Hines' Or. and Institutions, 222.
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RESULTS.
gon by the society were good citizens, and exercised a wholesome moral influence, which extended from missionary times down to a much later day. Not having to struggle for an existence as did the early immigrant settlers, and being furnished with the means without any exertion of their own, they were enabled to found the first school, and do many other things for the improvement of society, for which this generation has reason to be grateful.5
53 Strickland's Missions, 144-5. Among the missionary writers who take an exalted view of the merits of his class is Gustavus Hines, born in Herkimer County, New York, September 16, 1809. He was appointed to preach by the Genesee conference in 1832, and appointed to the Oregon Mission by Bishop Hedding in 1839. He returned to New York in 1846, but in 1852 was sent back to Oregon by Bishop Waugh. During his residence east, between 1846 and 1852, he published his Oregon, its History, Condition, and Prospects, containing a description of the geography, climate, and productions, with personal adventures among the Indians, etc. Buffalo, 1851. This book is not without somne faults of style, aside from its verbosity; but is in the main truthful, its errors of statement being traceable to hearsay. Without being bitterly partisan, it contains allusions which betray the bent of the Methodist and American missionary mind of the period. As a narrative of early events and adventures it is interesting. In 1868 Mr Hines published a second book, under the name of Oregon and its Institutions: Comprising a full History of the Willamette University. New York. This work is half descriptive and half historical, containing in the latter portion much fulsome laudation of the mis- sionary society and the founders of the Willamette University, about which very full particulars are given. After Hines' return to Oregon he continued to reside in the country up to the time of his death, December 9, 1873. Three years before, March 14, 1870, his wife, Mrs Lydia Hines, an exemplary Christian woman, died at the age of 58 years. Portland P. C. Advocate, Dec. 11, 1873; Salem Statesman, Dec. 13, 1873; Id., March 16, 1870; Salem Wil- lamette Farmer, March 19, 1870. Waller returned to the Willamette Valley, where he resided up to the time of his death, in December 1872. He ac- quired riches, and occupied honorable positions in the Methodist church and Willamette University. Hines' Or. and Ins., 276; Portland P. C. Advo- cate, Feb. 27, 1873. Rev. L. H. Judson continued to reside at Salem, where he died March 3, 1880. S. F. Bulletin, March 22, 1880. J. L. Parrish, who was sent to Clatsop when Frost returned to the states, remained on the Mission farm until it was sold, when he returned to Salem, where he con- tinued to reside. He was a circuit preacher, and special Indian agent in territorial times. He acquired a comfortable fortune, and owned a pleasant home in the outskirts of Salem. His first wife, Mrs Elizabeth Parrish, née Winn, died August 30, 1869, soon after which he contracted a second mar- riage. There are several children by both unions. In 1878 Mr Parrish fur- nished, for use in this history, his Oregon Anecdotes, a manuscript book of more than one hundred pages, illustrative of pioneer life and Indian charac- teristics, with narratives of his adventures as Indian agent. His views are, that to benefit the Indians it is necessary to be let down to the level of their comprehension, and to learn to think and reason from their standpoint. Mr Parrish was born in Onondaga County, New York, January 14, 1806.
HIST. OR., VOL. I. 15
CHAPTER IX.
PROGRESS OF EVENTS,
1839-1841.
THE PEORIA PARTY-INCIDENTS OF THE JOURNEY-FARNHAM ARRIVES IN OREGON-RETURN OF McLOUGHLIN FROM LONDON-DISSATISFACTION OF MISSIONARIES AND COLONISTS-PETITION TO CONGRESS-BELCHER'S EXPEDITION-EXTENT OF CANADIAN JURISDICTION-MORE IMMIGRANTS FROM ILLINOIS-MISSIONARIES CONTINUE TO ARRIVE-THE NEWELL PARTY-MISSIONARY HOSPITALITY-SPAULDING'S REPORT-WILKES ON THE COAST-THE 'STAR OF OREGON'-OVERLAND EXPLORATION TO CALIFORNIA-SIR GEORGE SIMPSON AT FORT VANCOUVER-MOFRAS' MISSION-THE RED RIVER SETTLERS.
I HAVE termed Jason Lee a Methodist colonizer, but he was in reality more than that. His well- directed efforts in behalf of his church could not, in their effects, be restricted to that body. They were, in fact, quite as likely to fire the imagination of the adventurer as to stir the pious zeal of the sectarian, while the discussions which they had provoked in congress attracted the attention of all classes. The first ripple of immigration springing from Lee's lec- tures at Peoria was in the autumn of 1838. It will be remembered that one of his Chinook boys, Thomas Adams, was left there ill. Tom was proud of being an object of curiosity to the young men of the place, and was never better pleased than when supplement- ing Lee's lectures with one of his own, delivered in broken English helped out with expressive pantomime, and dilating upon the grand scenery of his native country, the wealth of its hunting-grounds, and the abundance of its fisheries. Rude as Tom's descriptions were, they stirred the ardor of his hearers, and sug-
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227
FARNHAM'S COMPANY.
gested to certain ambitious young men the project of establishing a commercial depot at the mouth of the River of the West.
A company of fourteen persons was formed, num- bering among its members Thomas J. Farnham, Joseph Holman, Amos Cook, Francis Fletcher, R. L. Kilborne, Sidney Smith, J. Wood, C. Wood, Oak- ley, Jourdan, and, later, a Mr Blair. The necessary outfit for the journey, costing each man about a hun- dred and sixty dollars, was soon secured, and all being ready to start, the adventurous little band gathered before the court-house, where a prayer was offered in their behalf. Their motto was 'Oregon or the Grave,' and they bore it aloft upon a flag presented to them by Mrs Farnham, their captain's wife, who accompanied them one day's march. Their declared intention, upon reaching the Columbia, was to take possession, as American citizens, of the most eligible points, and make settlements.1
So now, having pledged themselves never to desert one another, they set out from Peoria about the first of May 1839, and proceeded to Independence, where they took the trail to Santa Fé. They had not been long on the way before Smith received a shot from his rifle in drawing it from the baggage, and having previously rendered himself obnoxious to several of his companions, it was proposed to abandon him. The proposal was denounced by Farnham and some others, and the disagreement thus occasioned caused the breaking-up of the party. When eight weeks on the journey Farnham resigned the command; and two of the best men having joined some Santa Fé traders, the company fell into disorder. At Bent Fort, on the Arkansas River, where Farnham arrived the 5th of July, the company disbanded. Bent Fort is often mentioned by early travellers to Oregon. It was sit- uated eighty miles north by east from Taos in New Mexico, and was first called Fort William, but soon
1 Peoria, Illinois, Register, May 4, 1839.
228
PROGRESS OF EVENTS.
took the name of the three brothers who owned it. It was erected in 1832, and was a place of considerable consequence, being a parallelogram of one hundred by one hundred and fifty feet, with adobe walls several feet. in thickness and eighteen feet in height, with a large gateway closed by strong doors of planking. The wall, which was surmounted by two armed bastions, enclosed several buildings, shops, and a warehouse. The country in which it was situated being a dangerous one, about sixty men were required to perform the duties of the place, including that of guarding the fort and the stock belonging to it.2
For men so lately swearing such fidelity, this was a bad beginning, but Farnham was not disheartened. On the 11th of July, the malecontents left the fort for another establishment of the Bents, on Platte River; and Farnham with three sound and good men, and one wounded and bad one, as he expressed it, resumed his journey to Oregon. His companions were Blair, one of the Woods, Smith, and a Kentuckian named Kelly, who was engaged as guide.3
Smith recovered rapidly, and about the middle of August the party reached Brown Hole, on the head waters of Green River, where was St Clair's fort called David Crockett. Here Kelly's services ended, Oakley and Wood determined to return, being so per- suaded by Paul Richardson, a mountain man of some notoriety, who gave a dispiriting account of the Ore- gon country in order to secure volunteers for his own party about to start for the Missouri frontier. With only Smith and Blair for companions, and a Shoshone guide, Farnham pushed on to Fort Hall, then in
2 Farnham's Travels, 65-6.
3 Farnham describes Blair as an elderly man, a mechanic, from Missouri. ' A man of kinder heart never existed. From the place where he joined us, to Oregon Territory, when myself or others were worn with fatigue or disease or starvation, he was always ready to administer whatever relief was in his power. But towards Smith, in his helpless condition, he was especially oblig- ing. He dressed his wound daily. He slept near him at night, and rose to supply his least want.' Smith he calls 'base in everything that makes a man estimable,' and says he had an alias, Carroll. Travels, 36-7, 120. In Oregon Smith was nicknamed Blubber-mouth. Gray's Hist. Or., 187.
229
AMONG THE PRESBYTERIANS.
charge of C. M. Walker. They arrived there Sep- tember 1st, and remained three days, after which, with fresh horses and provisions, they proceeded, and in ten days reached Fort Boisé, where they were kindly entertained by Mr Payette of the Hudson's Bay Company.4
Proceeding thence, an Indian guided them down the west bank of Snake River fifteen miles, to some boiling springs; thence to the narrow valley of Burnt River, up which they passed through charming little nooks, to a branch of Powder River, whence, after resting under the Lone Tree,5 they passed into Grand Rond Valley ; and thence over steep hills to the foot of the Blue Mountains ; then through a belt of forest, along grassy ridges, up and down hills made difficult by loose masses of broken rock, through tracts of tangled wood, and along the face of cliffs overhanging mountain torrents, coming at last to grassy swells, and finally to the long descent on the western de- clivities of the mountains, which brought them to the beautiful rolling plains at the head waters of the Umatilla and Walla Walla.6 Here Farnham fell in with a Cayuse on his way to Whitman's mission, and deciding to accompany him, they arrived there the 23d day of September, while Smith and Blair pro- ceeded to Fort Walla Walla. Blair spent the winter at Lapwai, and Smith obtained employment from Ewing Young in the Willamette Valley.
After a pleasant visit at Waiilatpu, and a call on
+ Farnhamı here observed a cart, made out of a one-horse wagon, which Payette said had been brought there from Connecticut by the American mis- sionaries; but which was in fact the cart made by Whitman out of his light wagon in 1836. 'It was left here,' says Franham, 'under the belief that it could not be taken through the Blue Mountains. But fortunately for the next that shall attempt to cross the continent, a safe and easy passage has lately been discovered by which vehicles of the kind may be drawn through to Walla Walla.'
5 ' L'arbre seul' of the French trappers. Burnett says with regret that the cmigrants of 1843 cut down this noble pine. Recol., 124-5.
6 By comparing Farnham's Travels, 142-5, with Burnett's Recol. of a Pio- neer, 123-6, it will be seen that the routes travelled in 1839 and 1843 were identical, with the difference that for wagons it was necessary in some places to make a détour to avoid some narrow ledges, or too abrupt elevations.
230
PROGRESS OF EVENTS.
Pambrun at the fort, Farnham resumed his journey to the Dalles, the 1st of October. He spent a week with Lee and Perkins, and became imbued with the prevailing Methodist sentiments concerning British residents. On the 15th, in company with Daniel Lee, he took passage for Fort Vancouver, having narrowly escaped the wrath of the Dalles Indians for forcibly recovering some of his property which had been stolen.7
At the Cascades they encountered McLoughlin, lately returned from England, the doctor being prob- ably some distance behind the express which had bronght him from Canada.
Lee presented his newly arrived friend to Mc- Loughlin, who straightway invited them both to the fort, where they arrived late on that evening, the 18th of October. Farnham, who had been forced to ex- change his clothes for horses, was amply supplied by his host, even to a dress-coat to appear in at dinner. He made a favorable impression on the inmates of Fort Vancouver,8 where he remained till the 21st, learning much concerning the country and the fur trade, which he afterwards turned to account in a number of works published under different titles, but containing much of the same matter.9
" Farnham gives an account of his skirmish with 40 Indians, to obtain possession of the leather portions of his saddle and bridle which had been taken out of Lee's workshop, in parts, through a window. In the fray the chief drew his pistol and Farnham his rifle, but no blood was shed, though the Indians were much excited; the chief refusing to allow his men to assist in carrying Lee and Farnham's goods to the canoes. Their conduct on this occasion was the cause of Lee's purchase of arms and ammunition elsewhere alluded to. See Farnham's Travels, 161-3.
8 Alexander Simpson, a relative of Sir George and a clerk of the company, of whom Farnham said some amusing though kindly things, describes Farn- ham as possessing much dry humor, considerable intelligence, consummate impudence, and indomitable self-reliance. 'He talked grandiloquently and acted shabbily.' Perhaps Farnham's wit had pricked the Englishman's egoism.
9 His Travels to the Rocky Mountains, from which I have quoted, was published in 1841. Subsequently he published the same with additional mat- ter about California and the interior of the continent, under the following titles: Travels in the Great Western Prairies, the Anahuac, and Rocky Moun- tains, and in the Oregon Territory; Pictorial Travels in California and Oregon; Travels in the Californias, and Scenes in the Pacific Ocean, Life in California. He also wrote the History of Oregon Territory; It being a Demonstration of
231
FARNHAM IN THE WILLAMETTE.
His observations in the Willamette Valley were confined, like those of Mr Slacum, to the settlements. He visited a number of persons at the Mission, among them Bailey, White, and Leslie, Jason Lee being absent. During his stay there several American citi- zens unconnected with the Mission consulted him as to the probability of the United States taking them under the protection of its laws. These persons complained that they were not protected, that for- eigneers domineered over them, drove American trad- ers from the country, and made them dependent for their clothing and necessaries on another nationality. They wanted to know why the United States per- mitted these things. "I could return no answer," says Farnham, "to these questions, exculpatory of this national delinquency; and therefore advised them to embody their grievances in a petition, and forward it to congress." They took his advice, and gave him a memorial to forward to Washington, signed by sixty- seven citizens of the United States, and persons de- sirous of becoming such.10
The petition set forth that the signers settled in Oregon under the belief that it was a portion of the public domain of the United States upon which they might rely for the blessings of free institutions, and for armed protection; but that so far as they knew, no such benefits had been extended to them; and that therefore they were at the mercy of the say- ages around them, and of others that would do them harm.11 They complained that they had no
the Title of the United States of North America to the Same, with a map; and a work entitled Mexico, Its Geography, People, and Institutions, with a map. His geography is superannuated, but his personal observations are amusing and instructive, by reason of their literalness and simplicity. After many adven- tures he settled in California, where he died in 1852.
10 Farnham's Travels, 175. Wilkes says that Farnham wrote the memo- rial from suggestions furnished him by Dr Bailey. Wilkes, who also vis- ited Bailey, probably received his information at first hand, which renders it reliable. See Wilkes' Nar., iv. 388, note.
11 In Gray's Hist. Or., the 'others that would do them harm ' is printed in capitals. As I have not seen the original of the document I cannot say if the memorial made it so emphatic; but in either case, the inference is clear that the Hudson's Bay Company was meant.
232
PROGRESS OF EVENTS.
legal protection except the self-constituted tribunals, originated by an ill-instructed public opinion, and sustained only by force and arms. They declared that the crimes of theft, murder, and infanticide were increasing to an alarming extent, and they were them- selves powerless to arrest the progress of crime in the territory and its terrible consequences.12
Having made this appeal on account of their help- less condition, congress was artfully reminded of the richness of the country in soils, pasturage, timber, and minerals; and also that a British surveying squadron had been on the Oregon coast for two years, employed in making accurate surveys of all its rivers, bays, and harbors.
The latter allusion referred to the expedition of Sir Edward Belcher, then Captain Belcher, who com- manded the English surveying squadron in the Pacific. Belcher's attention was fixed at this time, however, not on Oregon, but on the Russian possessions. The attempts of the Hudson's Bay Company to get a footing there had up to this period occasioned a feeling of hostility, which led the Russians not only to fortify at Stikeen, but to have a sloop of war in readiness to repel invasion. The English, not to be behind in a show of strength, sent the Sulphur and the Starling to survey the Pacific coast, a business which occupied the expedition from 1837 to 1840. The only reference to Oregon in Belcher's instruc- tions was contained in a single paragraph. "Political circumstances have invested the Columbia River with so much importance that it will be well to devote some time to its bar and channels of approach, as well as its inner anchorages and shores." The few
12 There had not been a murder among the white men since the killing of Thornburg four years previous. Thefts of some small articles may have occurred, but probably by the Indians. To charge infanticide, except on the Indian women, who also practised it, was to create a scandal about the only white woman in the country, those of the Mission. Wilkes mentions that an opinion had gone abroad that vice prevailed at Vancouver; but he felt com- pelled to give his testimony to the contrary; that he saw no instance in which vice was tolerated in any degree. Wilkes' Nar., iv. 355.
233
SIR EDWARD BELCHER.
Americans in Oregon may have regarded the advent of this British man-of-war with suspicion, but the English company at Fort Vancouver showed no ela- tion, nor made the British captain more welcome than the American missionary or traveller.13
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