USA > Oregon > History of Oregon, Vol. I, 1834-1848 > Part 26
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furnished with horses and employed Craig to drive, thus becoming interested in the undertaking. Meek was engaged to drive Newell's remaining wagon, and Walker drove his own.
Loading the little train with their scanty posses- sions, the party, having been joined at the last moment by a German named Nicholas, set out on the 5th of August, and despite the great difficulties of the road, reached Waiilatpu in good season, and with the frames of their wagons intact, though they had been forced to throw away the beds. 38
Craig remained in the upper country and settled at Lapwai, while Meek, Newell, and Wilkins proceeded to the Dalles on horseback, leaving their wagons to be brought on at the first opportunity.39 Newell owned a few poor footsore cows which had been left by the passing missionaries at Fort Hall, and these he drove with him toward the Willamette Valley.
They reached the Dalles on a Sunday, and, fully expecting a cordial reception, at once called on their countrymen, Lee, Perkins, and Carter. But, to their surprise, the doors were closed against them, and no one appeared to give them welcome. They encamped at some little distance from the Mission, and were shortly afterward visited by Carter, who explained that he and his friends did not receive visitors on Sunday; at the same time he hospitably invited his . famishing countrymen to partake of a meal of spir- itual food at the evening prayer-meeting. They went, inwardly cursing rather than praying, and amused themselves with the antics of Jandreau, a lively Frenchman who accompanied them. This facetious personage had no particular love or reverence for the missionaries, though he affected to be suddenly smitten with an overwhelming sense of guilt, and kneeling
38 Newell's Letter to E. Evans, Feb. 27, 1867; Evans' Letter .o A. Mckinlay, Dec. 27, 1880.
39 This did not occur till 1842, when Newell had his taken to the Tualatin plains, it being the first wagon that crossed the plains from the Missouri to the Pacific.
243
MISSIONARY PREDOMINANCE.
down poured forth in tones of deep contrition what the missionaries, in their ignorance of the language, took to be a fervent prayer. The mountain men, however, recognized it to be one of Jandreau's camp- fire stories, and impiously mingled their coarse, smoth- ered laughter with the rapturous hallelujahs and amens of the preachers.40
Possibly the mountain men would not have thought the missionaries so churlish had they better under- stood that the orthodox plan of settlement in those days excluded from Oregon the renegades of civiliza- tion from the Rocky Mountains,41 and scarcely ad- mitted the right of the frontiersmen of the western states to settle in the Oregon Territory. Later in the history it will be seen how the missionaries succeeded in the struggle to maintain this predominance. 42
Our unwelcome colonists now drove their stock along the river as far as Wind River Mountain, where the natives assisted them in crossing to the trail on the north bank, down which they continued until opposite the mouth of the Sandy, when they re- crossed to the south side, and drove the cattle through the woody northern end of the Willamette Valley to the mouth of the Clackamas below the Willamette Falls, where Newell and Meek arrived in December, travel-worn, wet, hungry, and homeless, and alto- gether beneath the notice of the missionaries. who very unwillingly sold them a few potatoes.
There was now nothing to do but to seek at Fort Vancouver the relief denied by the Americans. They easily obtained supplies from the fur company, where-
40 Victor's River of the West, 282-3 ; Portland Herald, March 3, 1867.
+1 Petition of 1838, in 25th Cong., 3d Sess., H. Supt. Rept. 101.
42 It would not be fair to assume that every individual belonging to the Methodist Mission was selfishly indifferent to all other classes ; but that the missionaries as a body entertained and practised exclusive sentiments, I have already shown from documentary evidence. There is much additional evi- dence in the statements of the western people who came across the plains ; somne in long anecdotes, others in terse sentences. See more particularly Waldo's Critiques, MS., 15; Walker's Nar., MS., 16, 17 ; Minto's Early Days, MS., 25-6; Morse's Wash. Ter., i. 60-1; Nesmith's Aldress, in Or. Pioneer Assoc., Trans., 1880, 19-22.
244
PROGRESS OF EVENTS.
upon they crossed to the west side of the Willamette River, and driving their cattle through storm and mire to the Tualatin plains, there selected farms, and erected cabins for their families. They were joined soon after by the other mountain men, Doty, Walker, Wilkins, Ebberts, and Larison, forming, with the in- dependent Presbyterian missionaries, Griffin, Clark, Smith, and Littlejohn, with their families, a rival set- tlement to that on Chemeketa plain.43
There was an arrival by sea in 1840 of an Ameri- can vessel, the Maryland, belonging to the Cushings. of Newburyport, with whom Jason Lee was in cor- respondence the previous year. The Maryland was
#3 Robert Newell was born near Zanesville, Ohio, March 30, 1807. His father removed to Cincinnati when he was a lad, and apprenticed him to a sad- dler. The death of his father left him his own master when about eighteen, and to gratify a love of adventure, he engaged with Smith, Sublette, and Jackson, to trap beaver in the Rocky Mountains. With little education, but fair talants and good principles, he contrived not to be ruined by the lawless associations which were fatal to so many. For some trifling surgical perform- ances in the mountains he received the title of doctor, which he always re- tained. Applegate says of him: 'He was brave among the bravest, mirthful without being undignified, prudent and sensible, and of unquestioned ve- racity.' He is well spoken of by Evans, in Hist. Or., MS., 342-3; by Ebberts, in his Trapper's Life, MS., 20; by Burnett, in his Recollections, MS., i. 115, 132-4, and by other authorities. While in the mountains he took to wife a Nez Perce, but in 1846 he married Miss Rebecca Newman, of Marion County, Oregon. His connection with the early history of the country was. honorable. In 1867 he removed to Lewiston, Idaho, where he died Novem- ber 14, 1869.
Joseph L. Meek was a native of Washington County, Virginia, born in 1810. His mother's name was Walker, of the same family as the wife of President Polk. Meek, however, grew up without education on a Virginia plantation, and being troubled because his father contracted a second mar- riage, ran away and joined Sublette at the same time with Newell and Ebberts. The friendship formed between the two young adventurers lasted through their lives, and Meek, who outlived Newell several years, sincerely mourned him. Unlike Newell, Meek was excessively frolicsome, and enjoyed shocking sedate people. While undoubtedly brave and magnanimous, he missed much of the consideration really due his exploits, through his habit of making light of everything, including his own feelings and acts. He possessed a splendid physique, a magnetic presence, wit, courtesy, and gen- erosity. His wife was a Nez Perce, who outlived him. He died June 20, 1875. Victor's River of the West, 41-3; Burnett's Rec. of a Pioneer, 157-61, 173-4; Hillsboro Independent, June 24, 1875; S. F. Call, July 25, 1875; S. F. Post, June 22, 1875; Portland Oregonian, June 24, 1875; Or. Pioneer Assoc., Trans., 1876. William M. Doty died June 1872. C. M. Walker settled on the Nestucca River in Tillamook County. Or. Pioneer Assoc., Trans., 1880, 58. Ebberts mentions John Kernard, W. H. Graves, and one Severn as being in Oregon at this time, and Gray mentions George Wilkinson and a man named Altgeier. Hist. Or., 192.
245
MISREPRESENTATIONS TO CONGRESS.
commanded by John H. Couch, who came to estab- lish a fishery on the Columbia.4
The petition of the colonists forwarded to congress by Farnham in the winter of 1839-40 was followed by a report from Captain Spaulding of the Lausanne, in which the British fur company was charged with avarice, cruelty, despotism, and bad government, in terms even more violent and exaggerated than Farn- ham had ventured to use. 45
Such grave accusations, made so boldly and re- peatedly, at length stirred the government to some show of action. The secretary of war could not be ex- pected to know that the patriotic Spaulding spoke only from hearsay, or that all these communications drew their aspiration from the same source, the Methodist Missions. The result was, therefore, that instructions were despatched to the commander of the United States exploring squadron in the Pacific to visit the Columbia River, and ascertain how much ground really existed for the complaints so frequently made to con- gress concerning the hardships imposed by a foreign corporation upon citizens of the United States.
" McLoughlin's Private Papers, MS., 2d ser. 7; Lee and Frost's Or., 272-3. Couch was unsuccessful in this undertaking, and after having sold his vessel at the Hawaiian Islands, returned to Newburyport, leaving in Oregon George W. Le Breton, a young man of intelligence and respectability, who settled at the falls of the Willamette, and attached himself to the anti-Hudson's Bay or American Missionary party. Having learned the condition of trade in Oregon and its requirements, Couch returned there in 1842 with a new brig, the Chenamus, named after a Chinook chief living opposite Astoria, and leaving a stock of goods at Oregon City in charge of Albert E. Wilson, who came out in the Chenamus, and Le Breton, employed his vessel in trade with the Sandwich Islands, as had been arranged in the informal treaty between Jason Lee and King Kamehameha III .; the whole business being under the name and auspices of Cushing & Co. Couch continued to manage the busi- ness of Cushing & Co. until 1847, when he returned to Newburyport by way of China. In the following year he engaged with a company of New York shipping merchants to take a cargo of goods to Oregon in the bark Madonna. Captain Flanders sailed with him as first officer, and took command of the Madonna on reaching Oregon, while Couch took charge of the cargo, which was placed in store and sold in Portland. The two captains went into busi- ness together in 1850, and remained at Portland up to the death of Couch, April 1869. Besides his business, Couch owned a land claim which proved a source of wealth, being now a part of the city of Portland. His wife and family came from Massachusetts by sea in 1852. His children were all daughters, and the three elder married Dr Wilson, C. H. Lewis, merchant, and Dr Glisan, all prominent citizens. S. F. Bulletin. May 1 1869.
+3 H. Rept., 27th Cong., 2d Sess., 56-61.
246
PROGRESS OF EVENTS.
The history of the United States exploring expedi- tion under Lieutenant Wilkes is given in another volume. It is only necessary to say here that the colonists were not well pleased with its result. They complained that Wilkes was entertained with marks of distinguished consideration by the officers of the fur company, and that he did not see affairs as the colonists saw them; and when the navigator declared openly that there was no urgent necessity for the in- terference of the United States government so long as they enjoyed their present peace, prosperity, and com- fort, the settlers were disgusted. He visited, the set- tlers averred, the American settlements west of the Cascade Mountains, and other of his officers the in- ferior missions, without discovering the evils which formed the subject of so many petitions and reports.
It seems strange that since Jason Lee was at the head of affairs in the Willamette Valley, he should only have met Wilkes by accident, when the latter stumbled upon his camp at the head of Sauvé Isl- and.46 After so many appeals to the United States government for the protection of its arms and the benefits of its jurisdiction, surely common courtesy would have dictated something like a formal recep- tion. But in this instance, as was his custom, Lee left the execution of his designs and the appearance of responsibility to others, and set forth on an ex- cursion to the mouth of the Columbia. If the colo- nists were in the situation represented to congress, he should have been making strenuous efforts to place the facts before Wilkes. The commander of the United States squadron was left, however, like any ordinary traveller, to go whither he pleased, and to form his own conclusions, which were, in the main, contrary to the tenor of the memorials which occa- sioned his inquiries.47
46 Wilkes' Nar., iv. 365.
47 It is easy to see from Wilkes' remarks on the Columbia River and the Willamette Valley, in vol. iv. of his Narrative, that he was well in- formed of all the causes of complaint, from the treatment of Ewing Young
247
SUSPICIOUS SHIP-BUILDING.
One instance of so-called injustice Wilkes took occa- sion to right. While he was still at Fort Vancouver he received a visit from three young men, members of a party of eight, who were building a schooner to take them to California, as they were anxious to leave a country where there were no young white women to marry. The party consisted of Joseph Gale, who came with Young; Felix Hathaway, the only ship- carpenter among them; Henry Wood, who came to California in 1837 with the cattle company; R. L. Kilborne, of the Peoria immigrants; and Pleasant Armstrong, John Green, George Davis, and Charles Matts, who arrived some time between 1838 and 1840.
The company had obtained part of the material necessary to build their vessel, such as iron and spikes, by representing that they were wanted for a ferry-boat to be used on the Willamette. To obtain rigging they induced the French settlers to go to Fort Vancouver and buy cordage, pretending it was for use in their rude farm harnesses. These underhand proceedings coming to the knowledge of McLoughlin, naturally excited his suspicions. How could he know that. these were not preparations for piracy on the Cali-
to the report that cannon were buried on Tongue Point, and from the representations of the tyranny and vices of the fur company to the pleadings for American institutions; for all these subjects are there brought up and answered. He did not sympathize with Waller's complaint of the fur com- pany's monopoly of trade, because he could not help feeling that it was " unsuited to the life of a missionary to be entering into trade of any kind,' and that complaints against the Hudson's Bay Company 'came with an ill grace from the members of a mission who are daily receiving the kindest atten- tions and hospitality from its officers.' He visited some of the settlers, and was visited by others; dined with Father Blanchet at the Catholic mission on French Prairie; visited Abernethy at the old mission; criticised the manner in which the Mission people left a patent thrashing-machine in the middle of the road, 'where it had evidently been for a long time totally neglected,' and mentioned that a thousand bushels of wheat had been lost through neglect to harvest it, and that about all the Mission premises there was absence of repair and neatness, ' which he regretted to witness.' He expected to find an Indian school, but saw no natives except 4 who were employed as servants. On inquiry he was told that there were about 20 at the new mission; but when he arrived there he was informed that the pupils were not in a condition to be inspected. In short, he found the missionaries interested in anything rather than missionary work; and especially anxious about the establishment of a temporary government, which he discouraged. But of this I shall have more to say hereafter.
248
PROGRESS OF EVENTS.
fornia coast? He would have nothing further to do 'with them, and it was in vain that they afterward appealed to him. Wood, who was the least reputable person in the company, having given Edwards and Young much trouble on the way from California, took upon himself to intercede with McLoughlin, who answered him that without any papers he was liable to be captured as a pirate, adding: "And how do I know that you do not intend to become one ?"
"Well, doctor," replied Wood, in much excitement, "you may keep your paltry rigging. But remember, sir, I have an uncle in the States, whom I expect here shortly, rich enough to buy you out, and send you all packing."
It was now McLoughlin's turn to become excited, in which condition he always stammered, or repeated rapidly the same word. "I am glad to hear so rich a man as your uncle is coming to this country. Who is it, Mr Wood? What's his name, Mr Wood? I should like to know him, Mr Wood."
" His name is Uncle Sam, and I hope you will know him!" retorted Wood as he withdrew.48
When Wilkes had heard the story of the young men, and talked the matter over with McLoughlin, he paid a visit to their ship-yard. Becoming sat- isfied that all except Wood were of good character, he arranged with McLoughlin, after Wood was ex- pelled from the company, to furnish them the requi- site stores, chains, anchors, and rigging to complete the Star of Oregon. He gave them a sea-letter, and the first American vessel constructed of Oregon tim- ber made a successful voyage to San Francisco Bay, under the command of Joseph Gale. She was there sold and the proceeds invested in cattle, which were driven to Oregon the following year, most of the company deciding to return and settle permanently in the Willamette Valley.
48 Applegate's Views of Hist., MS., 29-30. This story the doctor used often to repeat with much enjoyment.
249
WILKES IN OREGON
The loss of the Peacock inside of the bar gave Wilkes a bad opinion of the entrance to the Colum- bia River, and his account from first to last, being anything but flattering to the commercial prospects of the country, was particularly displeasing to those who were endeavoring to encourage trade. Finally, if anything may be certainly known from Wilkes' re- port of the colony, or the colonist's opinion of Wilkes, it is that he considered his visit uncalled for, from a political point of view, and that they felt themselves badly treated because that was his opinion.49
Late in August a company was organized by Lieu- tenant Emmons of Wilkes' expedition for an overland exploring tour to California. The party consisted of eighteen officers and men, a number of the settlers. and certain immigrants.50
Wilkes remained in the country until October, sup- plying the place of the lost Peacock by chartering the Thomas H. Perkins, an American vessel which arrived in the river with a cargo of liquor. To prevent its being sold to the Indians, the cargo had been pur- chased by McLoughlin, who also bought the charter ; the latter he now sold at a low figure to Wilkes, who changed the vessel's name to the Oregon.51
He sailed for California on the 5th, leaving of his command but one person, a negro cook named Saul, who deserted when the Peacock was wrecked,52 and settled near the mouth of the Columbia.
49 Gray's Hist. Or., 204 ; Swan's Northwest Coast, 377.
50 The immigrants were Joel P. Walker, his wife, sister, three sons, and two daughters, who arrived in Oregon the previous autumn; and Burrows, wife and child; Warfields, wife and child; and one Nichols, who I think crossed the continent with Bidwell's California company in 1841 as far as Fort Hall. The settlers who went to California with Emmons were Henry Wood, Calvin Tibbetts, and Henry Black, who came to Oregon in 1840, and Molair and Junass. Tibbetts returned with cattle in 1842, probably joining Gale's party.
51 Lee and Frost's Or., 302; McLoughlin's Private Papers, MS., 2d ser. 4; Farnham's Travels, 452-3; Wilkes' Nar., U. S. Explor. Ex., v. 121. See also Hist. Northwest Coast, this series.
52 Saul was long known in Oregon as the master of a craft, a cross between a Chinese junk and a fore-and-aft schooner, which plied between Astoria and Cathlamet, carrying passengers, live-stock, and other freight, and supplying a necessity in the early development of the country. Orerland Monthly, xiv. 273.
250
PROGRESS OF EVENTS.
The year 1841 was remarkable for brief visits of exploration, rather than for any enlargement of the American colony. While Wilkes was still at Fort Vancouver, Sir George Simpson, governor of the Hud- son's Bay Company's territories in North America, arrived at that post, having travelled from Mon- treal in twelve weeks, the whole journey being made in canoe and saddle.58 The principal objects of his visit to the coast were the inspection of the fort at Stikeen, leased from the Russian American Company, and the establishment of a post at San Francisco. After spending a week at Vancouver he proceeded to Stikeen, and was back again at the fort by the 22d of October.
Almost simultaneously with Sir George's return to Vancouver, the French explorer Duflot de Mofras arrived at that post from the Hawaiian Islands in the company's bark Cowlitz. In 1839 Mofras, then an attaché of the French embassy at Madrid, had been sent by his government to join the legation at Mexico with special instructions to visit the north-western portion of Mexico, together with California and Ore- gon, to report on their accessibility to French com- merce, and to learn something of the geography of the country.54 Such, at least, was the ostensible pur- pose of Mofras' mission, though there were some who suspected him of playing the spy for his government. Sir George was of this opinion, and he took no pains to conceal it, which so hurt the Frenchman's amour propre that he insisted upon paying for his passage in the Cowlitz and defraying all other personal expenses. Nevertheless it is possible that Simpson's apprehen- sions were not wholly groundless, at all events so far as Mofras' personal sentiments were concerned; for the latter in his writings concludes a discussion of the Oregon Question with the hope that the French Cana- dians might throw off the hated English yoke and
53 Simpson's Nar., i. 1-172.
54 Mofras, Explor., i. preface, 33-74.
25]
MOFRAS AND SIMPSON.
establish a new France in America, extending from the St Lawrence to the Pacific, or at least a sover- eign state in the federal union.55
Simpson also speculated upon the future of the Canadian colony, of whose trade the Hudson's Bay Company were assured, and remarked that the Amer- ican colony also were in a great measure dependent upon the company. But the representatives of two governments, and one corporation almost equal to a sovereignty, who visited Oregon this year, all reported favorably upon the moral, social, and material condi- tion of the colonists.56 About the end of November Simpson and Mofras both sailed from Oregon for San Francisco Bay, in the bark Cowlitz, accompanied by McLoughlin and his daughter, Mrs Rae, who was going to join her husband, William Glen Rae, in charge of the new post of the company at Yerba Buena.
Just before Simpson's departure there arrived in
55 Mofras, Explor., i. 294; Greenhow to Falconer, 6; South. Quart. Review, xv. 218; Dwinelle's Speech, 5, in Pioneer Sketches.
56 Simpson estimated the whole population of the Willamette Valley in 1841, American and French, at 500 souls, 60 Canadians and others with In- ‹lian wives and half-breed families, and 65 American families. Nar., i. 249. Spaulding gave the number of American colonists at 70 families. 27th Cong., 2dl Sess., Sen. Rept. 830. Wilkes gave the numbers of white families at about 60. He also have the number of cattle in the Willamette Valley at 10,000, worth $10 a head wild, and much more for milch cows or work oxen. This estimate of the riches of the colonists in cattle is probably too high, though some herds had been driven from California since 1837. Simpson placed the number of cattle at 3,000, horses at 500, besides an uncounted multitude of hogs. Even the lower estimate would give an average of 24 cattle, 4 horses, and plenty of pork to each family. Simpson also stated the wheat raised in 1841 to be 35,000 bushels from 120 farins, or about 300 bushels to each farm, with a due proportion of oats, barley, pease, and potatoes. The price of wheat in 1841, after the Puget Sound Company had opened its farm on the Cowlitz, was 62} cents per bushel, for which anything except spirits could be drawn from the company's stores, at 50 per cent advance on London cost. 'This is supposed,' says Wilkes, 'all things taken into consideration, to be equal to $1.12 per bushel; but it is difficult for the settlers so to under- stand it, and they are by no means satisfied with the rate. Nar. U. S. Explor. Ex., iv. 390; Simpson's Nar., i. 250. The wages of mechanics in the Wil- lamette Valley were $2.50 to $3 a day, common laborers $1, and both difficult to procure at these prices. It could not reasonably be said that under these conditions the colonists were suffering any severe hardships. For other accounts of the colony at this time, see Nicolay's Or. Ter .; Blanchet's Hist. C'ath. Ch. in Or .; Evans, in Or. Pioneer Assoc., Trans., 1877; Bond, in 27th Cong., 2d Sess., Sen. Rept. 830.
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