USA > Oregon > History of Oregon, Vol. I, 1834-1848 > Part 46
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34 This allusion was introduced because the supporters of the organization were making efforts to induce the British subjects to unite with them, which they still declined doing, through fear of being considered disloyal.
462
THE IMMIGRATION OF 1844.
ican citizen upon the premises of the British company ; expressed pleasure at learning that Williamson had finally desisted; 35 and thanked McLoughlin for his "kind and candid manner" of treating a "breach of the laws of the United States, by setting at naught her most solemn treaties with Great Britain." They promised to use every exertion to put down causes of disturbance, and reciprocated the desire for a contin- uance of the amicable intercourse which had hereto- fore existed, which they would endeavor to promote "until the United States shall extend its jurisdiction over us, and our authority ceases to exist."
The admissions made in the answer of the execu- tive committee were not pleasing to the majority of the Americans in the country, who contended, as did Williamson, that the treaty gave no vested rights, as neither the sovereignty of the soil nor the boundary line was determined, and joint occupancy left all free to go wherever they desired. Some of the more care- ful and conservative argued that joint occupancy did not mean the occupancy of the same place by both nations, but only the equal privilege of settling where they would not interfere with each other, the first party in possession being entitled to hold until the question of sovereignty was settled. The affair gave rise to much discussion, not only among Americans themselves, but between Americans and the gentle- men of the British company; and while the argu- ments were conducted with courtesy, and each side was able to learn something from the other, which softened the arrogance of national pride and preten- sions, the main question of difference-the propriety of making the Columbia River practically a boundary so long as the sovereignty of the country remained undecided -- continued to agitate the new-comers, and to interest every inhabitant of Oregon.
Mr Applegate, commenting on the relative posi- tions of the American and British debaters, has said 35 A second letter informed them that Williamson had withdrawn.
463
NORTH AND SOUTH OF THE COLUMBIA.
that gentlemen of the Hudson's Bay Company who took part in these discussions were more scholarly and accomplished than their antagonists, but the Ameri- cans were better informed on the technicalities of the points in dispute. The British in Oregon had also a local weak point to defend. They had been ordered by the board of management to remove their estab- lishments on the south side of the Columbia to the north side, but had not done so, and were occupying territory supposed to belong to the United States, when they forcibly ejected an American citizen from
the territory they claimed for Great Britain.36 This gave color to the opinion of some that England in- tended, or the Hudson's Bay Company for her, to attempt holding the whole of Oregon in case of a war, which really seemed impending at this time, and it gave occasion to men like Williamson and Simmons to assert a right to settle wherever they might chose, if their reason for choosing was only to defy the power of England.
In July Colonel Simmons renewed his endeavor to explore the country toward or about Puget Sound, and started with a company consisting of William Shaw, George Waunch, David Crawford, Niniwon Everman, Seyburn Thornton, and David Parker. They found at a small prairie five miles north of the plain on which the Cowlitz farm of the Puget Sound Association was situated, and ten miles from Cowlitz landing, that John R. Jackson of their immigration had been before them, made a location at this place,37 and had returned to bring his family. Jackson made his settlement in the autumn, which he called Highlands
Continuing to the sound, the party took canoes and made a voyage down to and around the head of
36 Views of History, MS., 43.
37 Olympia Columbian, in Alta California, Nov. 2, 1852. Jackson was born in Yorkshire, England, where he was a butcher's apprentice. He kept a way-side inn on the road from Cowlitz landing to Olympia, and was a popular man with the settlers, though too much given to his potations. Roberts' Rec- ollections, MS., 74.
464
THE IMMIGRATION OF 1844.
Whidbey Island, returning through Deception Pass to the east channel, and thence back the way they came to the Columbia River. In this expedition Simmons ascertained the advantages of the sound for commerce, and determined to settle there. In Octo- ber he removed his family 38 to the head of Budd Inlet, where he took a claim which he called Newmarket, at the falls of Des Chutes River, where there was a fine water power. He was accompanied by James Mc Allister and family, David Kindred and family, Gabriel Jones and family, George W. Bush and family,39 Jesse Furguson, and Samuel B. Crockett. This small company cut a road for their wagons through the dense forests between the Cowlitz landing and the plains at the head of the sound, a distance of sixty miles, in the short space of fifteen days. All settled within a circuit of six miles; and the first house erected was upon the claim of David Kindred, about two miles south of the present town of Tumwater,40 the Newmarket of Simmons. Besides the half-dozen families above mentioned, and the two men without families who settled about the head of the sound in 1845, a few others were looking for locations in that country, three of whom were Wood, Kimball,41 and Gordon.
Thus, by an effort to avoid the censure of the directors of the Hudson's Bay Company in London, some of whom had influence with members of the British cabinet,42 by keeping American settlers south of the Columbia River, McLoughlin provoked their
38 While at Washougal, in April, Mrs Simmons gave birth to a son, who was named Christopher, the first child of American parents born in that part of Oregon north of the Columbia River.
39 Bush was a mulatto, owning considerable property; a good man and kind neighbor. It is said he settled north of the Columbia because of the law against the immigration of negroes passed by the legislative committee of 1844. He took a claim near Olympia which bears his name, and where his family long resided.
4 Evans' Hast. Or., MS., 281-2 Tumwater in the Chinook dialect means rapids; literally ' falling water.'
41 Clyman's Note Book, MS., 100; Tolmie's Hist. Puget Sound, MS., 21. Tolmie is one year too early in his dates.
42 Applegate's Views of History, MS., 43.
465
NAMES OF THE NEW-COMERS.
opposition and hastened the beginning of their occu- pancy in the region about that beautiful inland sea, which the company had no doubt at that time would come into the possession of Great Britain. 43
With the exceptions mentioned, the immigrants of 1844 settled in the Willamette Valley the same autumn. The following summer a number went to California, the party being headed by James Clyman. They rendezvoused at La Creole River,“ in what is now Polk County, starting thence the 8th of June, the company consisting of thirty-nine men, one woman, and three children.“ Besides the overland immigra- tion,46 but few persons arrived this year by sea ; and
43 Roberts' Recollections, MS., 60.
4 Incorrectly called Rickreall by many, and so printed on the maps.
45 The names of the party are not given in Clyman's Note Book, MS., except incidentally. He there mentions McMahan, Frazier, Sears, Owens, and Sum- ner. See also Mckay's Recollections, MS., 3. The party arrived without accident at Sutter Fort July 12th. Clyman returned to the United States in 1846, in company with J. M. Hudspeth, Owen Sumner and family, L. W. Hastings, and James W. Marshall. Clyman afterward emigrated to Califer- nia, and settled in Napa Valley.
46 The following incomplete list contains besides those who went to Oregon many who turned off for California: T. M. Adams, Isaac W. Alderman, Asbill, Franklin Asbill, Pierce Asbill, Blakely, J. L. Barlow, William Bow- man, sen., William Bowman, jun., Ira Bowman, Barnette, Francis Bordran, James Burton, Joseph Bartrough, William Burris, William Bray, Ed. Ber- trand, Elijah Bunton, Joseph Bunton, William Bunton, Henry Bogus, Peter Bonnin, Charles Buich, Nathan Bayard, A. H. Beers, Adam Brown, Thomas Brown, George W. Bush, Solomon Beiners, Charles H. Burch, William R. Barsham, Charles Bennett, J. M. Bennet, Thomas Boggs, Lewis Crawford, Dennis Clark, Joseph Caples, Charles Caples, Hezekiah Caples, David Craw- ford, Daniel Clark, Joel Crisman, Gabriel Crisman, William Crisman, Aaron Chamberlain, William Clemens, James Clyman, Patrick Conner, Samuel B. Crockett, Clemens, James Cave, William M. Case, N. R. Dough- erty, Daniel Durbin, V. W. Dawson, Edward Dupuis, James Davenport, L. Everhart, Moses Eades, E. Emery, J. Emery, C. Emery, Niniwon Everman, C. Everman, John Eades, Abraham Eades, Henry Eades, Clark Eades, Solomon Eades, Richard Eough, Robert Eddy, Hiram English, John Ellick, John Fleming, Charles Forrest, Jesse Ferguson, J. Fuller, B. Frost, John Fielden, M. C. Fielden, M. G. Foisy, James Fruit, 'Doc' Fruit, Na- thaniel Ford, Mark Ford, I. N. Gilbert, David Grant, Mitchell Gilliam, Cornelius Gilliam, Smith Gilliam, William Gilliam, Porter Gilliam, Joseph Gage, William Gage, Jesse Gage, David Goff, W. H. Goodwin, Gillespie, James Gavish, John Gavish, N. Gilmore, Charles Gilmore, Gibbon, Samuel Goodhue, J. Graves, S. C. Graves, Samuel Goff, Marion Goff, Martin Gilla- han, William Gillihan, John Greenwood, Britain Greenwood, Greenwood, Golding, J. Hillhouse, Alanson Hinman, M. M. Harris, John Harris, Adam Hewett, Hutchison, Hamilton, Hitchock, George Hanna, D. B. Hanna, T. S. Hedges, Jacob Hutton, T. Holt, James Harper, Herman Higgins, William Higgins, Fleming R. Hill, J. C. Hawley, J. H. Hawly, George Hibler, Jacob Hampton, William Herring, Hamilton, Joseph Holman, Jacob Hoover, James
HIST. OR., VOL. I. 30
466
THE IMMIGRATION OF 1844.
those came in the brig Chenamus, Captain Couch, from Newburyport, to the Hawaiian Islands, and thence to
Hunt, Norris Humphrey, Jacob Hammer, John Inyard, Abraham Inyard, Peter Inyard, William R. Johnson, James Johnson, Thomas Jeffries, Daniel Johnson, James Johnson, David Johnson, Jolın R. Jackson, Gabriel Jones, John H. P. Jackson, David Jenkins, Willis Jenkins, Henry C. Jenkins, William Jenkins, David Kindred, Charles Kerbs, Bartholomew Kindred, John Kin- dred, Alexander Kirk, Daniel D. Kinsey, Barton B. Lee, James Loomis, John Lousenaute, Charles Lewis, William Morgan, Theophilus Magruder, Ed. B. Magruder, John Minto, Robert Miller, Elisha McDaniel, Joshua McDaniel, James W. Marshall, Lafayette Moreland, Elisha McDaniel, Nehemiah Martin, Samuel McSwain, Westly Mulkey, J. Mulkey, Luke Mulkey, P. P. Mulkey, Murray, Mudgett, Murphy (father and four sons), John Martin, Dennis Martin, J. McKinley, McMahan, James McAllister, R. W. Morrison, Michael Moor, James Montgomery, John Nichols, Frank Nichols, Benjamin Nichols, George Neal, Attey Neal, Calvin Neal, Robert Neal, Alexander Neal, Peter Neal, George Nelson, Cyrus S. Nelson, Richard Owe, Ruel Owless, John Owens, Henry Owens, James Owens, R. Olds, John Owens, Patrick O'Con- ner, Priest, Joseph Parrott, William Prater, Theodore Prater, Joel Perkins, sen., Joel Perkins, jun., John Perkins, E. E. Parrish, Gabriel Parrish, Samuel Packwood, William Packwood, R. K. Payne, Eben Pettie, Amab Pettie, David Parker, Jeremiah Rowland, Levi L. Rowland, Benj. M. Robinson, ' Mountain ' Robinson, Roberts, Mac Rice, Parton Rice, 'Fatty ' Robinson, Ramsey, Willard H. Rees, Rice, Robbin (colored), Ramsdell, Jackson Shelton, William Sebring, Springer, Henry Saffron, William Smith, Vincent Snelling, Benjamin Snelling, James Stewart, William Saunders, James B. Stephens, J. S. Smith, Charles Smith, Peter Smith, William Shaw, Joshua Shaw, A. R. C. Shaw, Washington Shaw, Thomas C. Shaw, B. F. Shaw, Texas Smith, Sager, Charles Saxton, Scott (colored), Snooks, Noyes Smith, Levi Scott, John Scott, Joseph W. Scott, William Scott, John A. Stoughton, Franklin Sears, Stephens, John Sullivan, Sullivan, Michael T. Simmons, Seyburn P. Thornton, John Travers, John Thorp, Alvin E. Thorp, Theodore Thorp, Long Tucker, Cooper Y. Trues, O. S. Thomas, Mortimer Thorp, Milton Thorp, Benjamin Tucker, Dr Townsend, Thomas M. Vance, George Waunch, Williams, Harrison Wright, Richard Woodcock, James Walker, sen., James Walker, jun., Robert Walker, Poe Williams, Thomas Werner, James Welch, Henry Williamson, Joseph Watt, M. M. Warnsbough, Samuel Walker, William Wilson,
Samuel Packwood and William Packwood, brothers, emigrated from Missouri in 1844. They were two of a family of fifteen children, eight of whom were sons of Elisha Packwood of Patrick County, Virginia. In 1819 the father removed to Indiana, and in 1834 to Missouri. Seven of the eight sons and two of their seven sisters emigrated to the Pacific coast, but not all in the same year. Of Samuel I know nothing except that he came to Ore- gon. William was born in Patrick County, Virginia, in 1813, and removed with the family to Missouri. After reaching Oregon he remained in the Willamette Valley until 1847, when he removed to Puget Sound, and settled on the Nisqually River, being the first bona fide American settler north of Olympia. Others of the Packwood family emigrated to Oregon in 1845, and will be noticed hereafter. A few names of women have been added to the roll: Mrs W. M. Case, Miss Amanda Thorp, Mrs Benj. Tucker, Miss Eliza Snelling, Miss Henrietta Gilliam, Mrs Vincent Snelling, Mrs Herman Hig- gins, Mrs Jacob Hammer, Mrs Joshua Shaw, Mrs D. Johnson, all of whom were in Major Thorp's company. Mrs McDaniel, Jenny Fuller, and the families before referred to, namely, Morrison, Jackson, Simmons, McAllister, Kindred, Jones, Shaw, are all who have been mentioned. There are the names of two negro women, Eliza and Hannah, put down on the roll, in Or. Pioneer Assoc., Trans., 1876, 40-2.
467
ARRIVALS BY SEA.
the Columbia River.47 They were William Cushing, son of Caleb Cushing, and Henry Johnson, clerk in the establishment of Cushing and Company at Ore- gon City. A small fishery was established by this firm, between Astoria and Tongue Point, on the lower Columbia, from which the Chenamus took a cargo the following year, having made one or more voyages to the Islands in the mean time. The Chenamus was the only American vessel bringing a cargo to Oregon in 1844. On her return to Newburyport she took Cushing and Johnson home, and was commanded by Captain Sylvester, formerly of the Pallas, Captain Couch remaining in Oregon in charge of the com- pany's business. Neither the vessel, her captain, nor Johnson was ever again on the Pacific coast. 49
47 Horace Holden and May Holden, his wife, came from the Hawaiian Islands in the Chenamus, Captain Couch, with Babcock and Hines, when they returned to Oregon after hearing of the appointment of a new superintend- ent of the Mission. Holden was a native of Hillsborough, New Hampshire, born in 1810. He took to seafaring, and while roaming about the ocean was cast away on one of the Pelew Islands, and enslaved by the natives for three years. On being rescued and returning to New England, he published an account of his adventures, called Holden's Narrative of Shipwreck and Cap- tivity among the Savages. In 1837 he went to the Islands with the design of introducing silk culture and manufacture, but the scheme failed. He then engaged in sugar-planting on the island of Kauai, the plantation of Kalloa, in which he was interested, being the first sugar-making plantation on the Islands. By the representations of Dr Babcock he was induced to remove to Oregon, which he professes never to have liked on account of the rainy winters. Holden settled near Salem on a farm, and engaged in cattle-raising and grain and fruit growing. Holden's Oregon Pioneering, MS., from which the above is taken, contains little more than his personal experience, and while it affords a plan on which a book might be written equal to many of the most interesting narrations of adventure, contributes little that is of value to this history. See Hines' Or. Hist., 233.
48 It is said that Sylvester and Johnson sailed for the Columbia River 'in a small vessel, deeply laden, which was never heard from;' but whether the Chenamus was the vessel I have no information. Her name appears no more on the shipping-list; but in her place next came the brig Henry. A glimpse here and there of the after lives of the pioneers of 1844 for all were pioneers before 1850-will give us a necessary clew to the manner of life of those who go forth to clear the way for their more favored brethren to follow, as well as the time and manner of their death.
M. G. Foisy, who came to Oregon in 1844, was the first printer in the terri- tory after Hall, who visited Lapwai from the Islands in 1841. Mr Foisy set up the book of Matthew as translated into the Nez Perce language by the Presbyterian missionaries, and printed on the little press presented to this mission by the native church of Honolulu, which press is now preserved in the state archives at Salem. He afterward went to California, where he worked at Monterey in the office of The Californian in the English and Span- ish languages, merged later into the Alta California.
468
THE IMMIGRATION OF 1844.
Pierce Asbill was born in Howard County, Missouri, in October 1835, whence he emigrated, with his parents, in 1844. In 1849 the family removed to California, finally settling in Sonoma County, since which time they have been engaged in various vocations, but principally in stock-raising. In their expeditions through the country Frank M. Asbill, in 1854, discovered Round Valley in California.
Daniel Clark, a native of King County, Ireland, was born Feb. 14, 1824. His father emigrated to Quebec in 1828, and went from Canada to Missouri in 1836. At 13 Daniel was impelled to begin life for himself, and engaged with a neighbor for 8 dollars a month to cut cord-wood. At 18 he was em- ployed as overseer on a plantation; but hearing of the prospective donation of land in Oregon to actual settlers, determined to go to the new country, and try his fortunes there. He joined the independent colony under Gilliam, and arriving late and destitute, went to making rails. Two years afterward he married Miss Bertha B. Herren. In 1848 he went to the California mines, returning to Oregon for his wife and infant child the same winter. In 1850 he left the mines and returned to his home 5 miles south of Salem. His wife dying in 1861, he married again in 1865 Miss Harriet Scheoffer. When the Oregon state grange was organized in 1873 he was elected master for his services in the movement, in which he has ever been heartily interested. Mr Clark lived long in firm health and vigor, enjoying the reward of a temperate and just life. S. F. Pacific Rural Press, in Or. Cultivator, June 15, 1876.
Willis Jenkins of the immigration of 1844 settled on the Luckiamute in Polk County, then Yamhill district. When the town of Dallas was laid off in 1852 he built the first dwelling, first store, and first hotel, and remained in business there for some time; but when eastern Oregon was opened up by the gold discoveries, he removed to that section and aided in its development. His wife, who came with him to Oregon, died in 1872. His son, Henry Jenkins, became a Methodist preacher, and his other children were scattered over Oregon. Dallas Republican, in Portland Oregonian, Jan. 17, 1874.
Dr J. L. Barlow, 'an honorable gentleman and excellent citizen,' died at his home in Oregon City, March 7, 1879, where he had lived since 1844. Salem Statesman, March 14, 1879.
James Welch, who arrived in Oregon in November 1844, removed from the Willamette Valley in 1846 to Astoria, and took the land claim adjoining John McClure's, on the east, which became a part of the town of Astoria. Welch continued to reside at Astoria, where he held several offices of trust, and engaged actively in the business of milling, salmon fishing and canning, and town improvements. In 1876, while on a visit to his son, James W. Welch, internal revenue collector at Walla Walla, he passed suddenly away while asleep, on the night of the 20th of September, at the age of 60 years. His family continued to reside at Astoria. Walla Walla Union, in Salem Statesman, Oct. 12, 1876.
Bartholomew White was a cripple who came to Oregon and took a claim in 1844 on the south bank of the Columbia, where St Helen now stands, and which he afterward sold or abandoned to Knighton in 1847.
Joseph Watt was born in Ohio, but emigrated from Missouri. He remained at Oregon City over two years, when he returned to the States to bring out sheep and a carding-machine. This attempt to drive sheep overland from the east was suggested by the fact that one of the Shaws in 1844 drove 16 sheep to Oregon, which he intended to kill for mutton by the way; finding that they travelled as well as the other stock, and buffalo being plenty, he spared them. This Shaw removed to Benicia, California. Watt had no sooner returned to Oregon with his carding-machine and sheep than the gold discovery in California drew everybody who could go to the mines, and he realized nothing from his scheme of introducing a useful manufacture. But his sheep increased, and money came into the country, until finally he con- ceived the idea of a woollen factory, which was finally established at Salem in 1857, this being the pioneer woollen-mill on the Pacific coast of the United States. Mr Watt still resides at Salem.
469
BIOGRAPHICAL.
Nathaniel Ford, of whose settlement in Polk County I have spoken, after a useful and honorable life, died at Dixie, in that county, January 9, 1870, at the age of 75 years. Lucinda Ford, his wife, died January 4, 1874, aged 74 years. Dallas Times, Jan. 15, 1870; Salem Statesman, Jan. 16, 1874. Samuel Walker, who had served 23 years in the army of the United States, and emi- grated in 1844, settled near Salem, where he lived 26 years, and accumulated a comfortable property. He died July 20, 1870, at St Joseph's hospital, Van- couver. Vancouver Register, July 23, 1870. Joel Crisman, a native of Virginia, died in Yamhill County, Aug. 16, 1875, aged 80 years. E. E. Parrish, born in West Virginia, Nov. 20, died in Linn County, Oct. 24, 1874.
E. B. Magruder, a native of Maryland, for a long time a resident of Jackson County, died July 1875, at Jacksonville, aged 74 years. He was identified with early enterprises in southern Oregon. With him emigrated to Oregon Theophilus R. Magruder, also a resident of southern Oregon, and a merchant. He died Oct. 5, 1871, aged 39 years. Theophilus Magruder re- sided for several years at Cresent City, California.
Jas B. Stephens was born in Washington County, Pennsylvania, in 1806. At the age of 8 years he removed with his father to Indiana, where he remained until he was 26, when he made another westward movement, and located on the Mississippi River, opposite Fort Madison, where he supplied the steamboats with wood and continued to reside for 11'years. Emigrating in 1844 to Oregon with his family, in the autumn of 1845 he bought a land claim on the east bank of the Willa.nette, opposite Portland, which is now the site of East Portland, and where he still resides. Overton, who had claimed on the other side, but wished to leave the country, offered Stephens his land for $200, but the latter having no money, and nothing to depend on except his trade, which was coopering, declined. It was after this offer that he purchased East Portland at an administrator's sale, Lovejoy being the seller. Nesmith was present for the purpose of bidding, but learning that Stephens desired the place for his business, and to make a home, the former gave way. This was during his term as judge of probate, the sale being under his order. The incident illustrates the generous spirit of the men of 1843. Minto's Early Days, MS., 32.
Franklin Sears was born in Orange County, New Jersey, June 28, 1817. At the age of 10 years he removed with his parents to Saline County, where he left then to join the emigration to Oregon in 1844. The following year he went to California, and settled in Sonoma County, where he held a large farm.
Isaac N. Gilbert, a native of New York, was born at Rushville, June 27, 1818. He went to Illinois when still a very young man, and from there emigrated to Oregon at the age of 27, in company with 3 others. He took a land claim 2 miles north-east of Salem, and in 1850 married Miss Marietta Stanton, daughter of Alfred Stanton, an immigrant of 1847. Gil- bert was the first county clerk of Marion county, holding the office for 3 years, and was for a time surveyor of the county. He made the first plat of the town of Salem. He laid out the road from Salem to Philip Foster's, at the foot of the Cascade Mountains, in 1846. He was one of the four original founders of the Congregational church in Salem in 1852; and during his life one of its principal supporters. He died March 20, 1879, at his home in Salem. Or. Pioneer Assoc., Trans., 1878, 82-3.
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