History of Oregon, Vol. I, 1834-1848, Part 5

Author: Bancroft, Hubert Howe, 1832-1918; Victor, Mrs. Frances Auretta Fuller Barrett, 1826-1902
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: San Francisco : The History Co.
Number of Pages: 850

USA > Oregon > History of Oregon, Vol. I, 1834-1848 > Part 5

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

And if within the fort this industry was necessary, it was none the less so without, where a farm of about seven hundred acres had been brought under cultiva-

THE GARDEN AND FARM.

tion, on which was raised abundance of grain and vegetables, requiring extensive storehouses. Large bands of cattle and sheep were kept, the latter ini proved by careful breeding until they yielded twelve- pound fleeces. From the few English apple seeds elsewhere mentioned had sprung trees which, though young, were so crowded with fruit as to need propping, and from the peach sprouts brought from Juan Fer- nandez Island had grown large trees that were bearing their first fruit. Indeed, the garden at Fort Vancouver rejoiced in a scientific overseer by the name of Bruce, who on visiting England with McLoughlin would see nothing in the duke of Devonshire's garden so pleasing to him as his Fort Vancouver plants, yet was careful to abstract as many of the Chiswick improvements as his mind could carry. Even then, and before, Bruce cultivated strawberries, figs, and lemons, the first with great success, the other two with the fruitless efforts that alone could be expected in the northern ten- perate zone ; ornamental trees and flowers also received his fostering care.

On the farm was a flouring mill and thrashing machine, worked by oxen or horses in the Arcadian way, yet sufficient for the wants of all. A few miles above the fort, on a little stream falling into the Columbia, stood a saw-mill, cutting lumber enough during the year to supply not only the fort, but to load one or two vessels for the Hawaiian Islands.

Between the fort and the river, on the smooth sloping plain, lay a village consisting of thirty or forty log houses, ranged along a single street, and occupied by the servants of the company, Canadians, half-breeds, and Hawaiians, with a few from the Orkney Islands. In every house an Indian woman presided as mistress, and the street swarmed with children of mixed blood. Nothing offensive met the eye; everywhere cleanliness and decorum prevailed.

When a visitor came to Fort Vancouver- and the fort was seldom without its guest even in 1834-he

OREGON IN 1834.

would, if a person of consideration, be met at the boat- landing by the presiding officer, McLoughlin, a tall, large, commanding figure of benevolent mien, who courteously made him welcome to every comfort and convenience, as well as to his own genial society and that of his associates. Entering by one of the smaller gates at either side of the principal entrance, he was escorted to the doctor's own residence, and assigned plain but comfortable quarters; for it was not in empty show that the hospitality of Fort Vancouver consisted, but in its thorough home-like features, its plenty, and its frank and cordial intercourse. The visitors were all of the sterner sex, no white ladies having yet set foot within these precincts.

It was a rule of the company that the Indian wives and offspring of the officers should live in the seclusion of their own apartments, which left the officers' mess- room to themselves and their guests ; and while no more time than necessary was consumed at table, the good cheer and the enlightened conversation of educated gentlemen threw over the entertainment a luxury and refinement all the more enjoyable after the rude ex- periences of a journey across the continent or a long voyage by sea. After the substantial dinner, concluded with a temperate glass of wine or spirits, the company withdrew for half an hour to the 'bachelors' hall,' to indulge in a pipe, and discuss with animation the topics of the time. When the officers and clerks re- turned to business, the guest might choose between the library and out-door attractions. A book, a boat, and a horse were always at his command. The sab- bath was observed with the decorum of settled society. The service of the established church was read with impressiveness by Doctor McLoughlin himself, and listened to with reverence by the gentlemen and servants of the company. Respect for religion was inculcated both by precept and example. Observing that during his ten years' residence in the country many young children were coming forward in the

FORTS GEORGE AND NISQUALLY.

village and within the walls of the fort, McLoughlin secured the services of an American as teacher, one Solomon Smith, left objectless by the failure of Wyeth's expedition; and the school thus organized, the first in Oregon, was a good one, wherein were taught the English branches, singing, deportment, and morality. It was the heart and brain of the Oregon Territory, though there were other places pulsating in response to the efforts at Fort Vancouver.

The most western establishment was Fort George, the Astoria of 1811-14. It no longer deserved to be called a fort, the defences of every description having disappeared, while at a little distance from the old stockade, now in ruins, was one principal building of hewn boards, surrounded with a number of Indian huts. Only about four acres were under cultivation, and only one white man, the trader in charge, resided there. It was maintained more as a point of observa- tion than as a post affording commercial advantages.

A place of more importance was Fort Nisqually, situated on a little tributary of the river of that name, and less than a mile from the waters of Puget Sound. It consisted of a stockade about two hundred feet square, guarded by bastions well armed, enclosing a dozen small dwellings and the magazine and ware- houses of the company. The situation was unsur- passed, on an open plain, yet convenient to exhaust- less forests of good timber, within a short distance of navigable waters, and with the grand Mount Rainier in full view. The fort had only been established about one year, at this time. Away to the north, on rivers draining the valleys of British Columbia, were several trading posts, Fort Langley and the rest, owing allegiance to the Oregon governor, but not requiring mention in this connection.

The only other post of the Hudson's Bay Company, in what is now Oregon, was situated near the con- fluence of Elk Creek with the Umpqua River, two hundred miles south of the Columbia, and occupying

OREGON IN 1834.

a fine position among the hills of that beautiful coun- try. It was but a small place, with a twenty-acre farm attached, under the charge of a French trader. The neat dwellings and other buildings were surrounded by the usual palisade, with bastions at the corners,

VANCOUVER

Strait of

ISLAND Victoria

Fort Colville

uan

de Fuca

Okanagani R.

Ft.O kan

Stellacoom

Fort Nisqually

Shoaljater

t Rainfers

Bay

C.Disappointment

Fort Sir

pt.

Astoria

Tillamook Hd.

Walla Walla · Umatilla

C.Lookout

Columbia R.

Dalles

Champoeg

Willamett

C.Foulweather

vallis

Calapooya

G, Perpetua

Rua

FORTS.

for the Indians in this quarter were more savage than those in the vicinity of the Columbia.

About two hundred miles east of Fort Vancouver, on the east bank of the Columbia, near where it makes its great bend to the west, and at the mouth of the

Columbia R.

Snake or Less

INTÃIN

Fort Vancouver

WALLA WALLA AND OKANAGAN.

Walla Walla River, was a fort of that name. This establishment was also a stockade, and being in the country of warlike savages, there were two bastions, with an inner gallery, and other defences strongly constructed of drift-logs which had been brought from the mountains and heaped ashore at this place by the June freshets. Little agricultural land being found in the vicinity, and no timber, Fort Walla Walla was without the attractions of Fort Vancouver, but it ranked nevertheless as a place of importance, being the principal trading post between California and Stuart Lake, and accessible by water from Fort Van- couver. It was on the way from the great fur-hunt- ing region about the head-waters of the Snake River and its tributaries, and the first resting-place the overland traveller met after leaving the Missouri River. There was always a genial and generous officer stationed at Fort Walla Walla, on whose head many a weary pilgrim called down blessings for favors received. Horses were plentiful, and a few cattle were kept there, but no grain was raised. The little garden spot by the river furnished vegetables, and those of an excellent quality. The climate was usually delightful, the only discomfort being the strong sum- mer winds, which drove about with violence the dust, and sand, and gravel, so that it was deemed impossi- ble to cultivate trees or shrubbery; hence the situa- tion appeared without any beauty except that derived from a cloudless sky, and the near neighborhood of the picturesque cliffs of the Columbia and Walla Walla rivers.

One hundred and thirty-eight miles north from Fort Walla Walla lay Fort Okanagan, at the mouth of the Okanagan River, like the others a stockade, in charge of a gentlemanly officer. Other trading posts were located at favorable points on the Kootenais River, on the Spokane, on Lake Pend d'Oreille, and on the Flathead River, besides several north of the fiftieth parallel. But the post of the greatest impor-

OREGON IN 1834.

tance next to Fort Vancouver was Fort Colville, situ- ated on the Columbia River, one hundred miles north- east of Fort Okanagan, though much farther by the windings of the river. In the midst of a good agricul- tural country, with a fine climate, good fishing, and other advantages, it was the central supply post for all the other forts in the region of the north Columbia. Established shortly after Fort Vancouver, with its allotment of cattle, consisting of two cows and a bull, it had now like Fort Vancouver its lowing herds, furnishing beef, butter, and milk. It had, besides, bands of fine horses and other stock, and a grist-mill for the large yield of grain. On the well-cultivated farm grew also excellent vegetables in abundance.

Such a convenience as a saw-mill did not exist in all the upper country, notwithstanding the number of posts, hence there could be little architectural display or furniture except of the rudest kind. Bedsteads and chairs were luxuries not to be thought of; bunks and stools were made from split logs, with a hatchet. Yet, since those who called at Fort Colville had trav- elled many hundred miles with only a blanket for a bed, the good fare here afforded made the place to them a Canaan.

Two forts had this year been established in the ter- ritory east of the Blue Mountains drained by Snake River. The first was Fort Hall, erected by an Amer- ican, Nathaniel J. Wyeth, on this river, at its junc- tion with the Portneuf; the second was erected by the Hudson's Bay Company, on the same river, a mile below the mouth of the Boise, and called Fort Boise.

The American, Wyeth, this being his second ad- venture in these parts, who had thus recently built, stocked, and manned Fort Hall, went on to the lower Columbia River that same autumn to meet a vessel, the brig May Dacre, of Boston, laden with goods from the United States, as the eastern seaboard of the great republic was then designated by western adventurers, and at the time of which I write he was

FORT WILLIAM.

engaged in building a fort and trading post on Wapato Island, which he called Fort William. With him came others, of whom I shall have occasion to speak in another place. While the work was being advanced, the men in Wyeth's service were living in temporary huts; pigs, chickens, goats, and sheep were running about in the vicinity; the May Dacre was moored to the bank, and a prospective rival of Fort Vancouver was already well under way. Mr Wyeth's adventures are given at length in The Northwest Coast, this volume beginning with an account of settlers from the United States promising permanence.

Nor was Fort William the only settlement in Ore- gon exclusive of the Hudson's Bay Company's forts. Thomas McKay, one of the race of Alexander McKay of the Astor expedition, and one of the company's most celebrated leaders, occupied a farm on the Mult- nomah opposite the lower end of Wapato Island. And there were other farms from fifty to a hundred miles south of this. The servants of the company were hired for a term of years, and were free at its expiration. But as they had been obliged to receive their pay in kind, for which they had not always use, and had seldom saved their earnings, if they wished to retire they must live not far from Fort Vancouver, and continue as the company's depend- ents, raising wheat, in exchange for which they re- ceived such indispensable articles as their condition of life demanded.

There were of this class, commonly called the French Canadians, a dozen or more families, most of them settled on a beautiful and fertile prairie about forty miles south of the Columbia, in the Valley Wil- lamette. They lived in log houses, with large fire- places, after the manner of pioneers of other countries ; had considerable land under cultivation ; owned horses of the native stock, not remarkable for beauty, but tough and fleet; and had the use of such cattle as the

OREGON IN 1834.

fur company chose to lend them. Numerous half- breed children played about their doors; they had no cares of church or state; no aspirations beyond a com- fortable subsistence, which was theirs; and being on good terms with their only neighbors, the natives, they passed their lives in peaceful monotony. At the falls of the Willamette were the log houses which had been built by McLoughlin in connection with his mill-works there, and which were occupied occasion- ally by the company's servants, some improvements being still in progress at that place.

In addition to the French Canadians were a num- ber of Americans who had come to the country with Wyeth's first expedition, and had also made settle- ments in the same neighborhood, on the east side of the Willamette River. In all the American terri- tory west of the Blue Mountains there were about thirty-five white men, including the party at Fort William, who had not belonged to the Hudson's Bay Company, but were there with the intention to settle permanently.

Another element was this year introduced into the early society of Oregon. Since the fallen condition of the race left no spot of earth untainted, it followed that missionaries were needed to look after the spir- itual interests of the natives of this western Eden. Missionaries were there in the persons of two brothers, named Lee, assisted by certain laymen, who, after having been received with the usual hospitality at Fort Vancouver, were busy erecting a dwelling and making other improvements at the place selected for their station, a little to the south of the French Cana- cian settlement in the Willamette Valley.

Besides the missionary family, there were at Fort Vancouver two gentlemen from the United States, who were travelling in the interests of science, Messrs Townsend and Nuttall, naturalists, after whom and by whom so many of our western plants were named; so that it cannot be said of Oregon that her earliest

THE NAME OREGON.

society was not good. After the failure of the Astor adventure, and previous to 1834, few persons had visited the Columbia River except those in some way connected with the fur-traders. Wyeth's first com- pany of twelve, including himself, was the only party of the kind and number to enter Oregon. Two years previous, David Douglas, a Scotch botanist, had visited the territory and had spent some time roaming over its mountains; and rarely had the river been entered by a foreign or American vessel.

Another constituent of early Oregon society appears at this juncture, and if not so respectable as the fur magnates, so religious as the missionaries, so learned as the scientists, or so order-loving as the French Canadians, united with the small American element it became a power in the land. It made its appear- ance in the form of ten persons coming with a band of horses from California, and led by Hall J. Kelley, who once figured on paper as the would-be founder of a new Pacific empire.

East of the Blue Range, and in and about the Rocky Mountains, were American trappers and traders, who from their wandering and precarious mode of life could not be accurately numbered, but were in all probably ten or twelve hundred, to whom were opposed equal numbers owing allegiance to the Hudson's Bay Company. These were at that time hardly to be spoken of as component parts of any Oregon commu- nity, but some in time added themselves to those who had come from the United States.

Thus has been outlined a picture of the Oregon Territory in 1834, at which time this History of Ore- gon begins.

THE NAME OREGON.

In regard to the word Oregon, its signification and origin, I will here give what is known. Its first appearance in print was in the book of Jonathan Carver, who therein represents that he heard from the natives in the vicinity of the head-waters of the Mississippi, to which region he penetrated as early as 1766, of a great river flowing into the great western ocean, and called by

HIST. OR., VOL. I. 2

OREGON IN 1834.

them the Oregon, Oregan, or Origan. Nothing is said by Carver of the mean- ing or origin of the word. It is doubtful whether Carver understood the natives, or whether they made such a statement, though there may have been some sound or symbol by which or from which to coin the word. There could liave been no object, apparent to us, for him to misrepresent ; he could never have dreamed that this probably meaningless sound, caught up from the wind by his too attentive ear, should ever be applied to the designation of a great progressive state. From his standpoint, it was as much to his credit to report a great river to which there was no name, as one to which there was a name ; or he may have preferred to manufacture a name. We cannot tell. But if so, he did it in a most foolish and bungling manner, in evidence of which I will further explain.

As a rule, the aboriginals of America have no name for their rivers, and mountains, and lakes. It is not necessary they should have; they can live by but one river at one time, and that to them is 'the river.' Or they may apply to it, as to other natural objects, general, local, or descriptive terms; it is common for the town, country, river, and tribe to be designated by the name of the chief, which name changing, changes all the rest. According to Blanchet in Historical Magazine, ii. 335, the lower Chinooks called the Columbia yakaitl-wimakl, ' great river,' purely a general and descriptive term, and no name at all. Chief Factor Tolmie, of the Hudson's Bay Company, writes: 'Indians have names only for particular localities, and not for rivers. The white people gave the name Walamet to the whole Wallamet valley and river.' When Clarke, of the Lewis and Clarke expedition, visited the coast about Tillamook Head, he understood the Indians to say that they procured wapato roots by trading with the Indians over on the Shocatilcum or Columbia River. There can be no doubt of Clarke's misapprehension of the meaning of his informant, for the word was never heard of afterward, and it certainly bears no resemblance to the one whose origin we are seeking. With reference to this case I made special inquiry of an intelligent chief of one of the most intelli- gent tribes of the region of the upper Columbia, the Nez Percés, living on one of its tributaries, whether it was possible for that stream ever to have had a distinctive appellation by which it was known to any peoples upon it, or about it, or about the head-waters of the Mississippi, or Missouri, or any other stream; and he assured me, what I knew before, that it was not possible. It is very certain that the word Oregon does not belong to any of the several dialects of the territory drained by the Columbia River. In looking for traces of it among those of the country which was travelled over by Carver, in which the r sound is wanting, words must be looked for with the cognate / or other consonant. In the Iroquois language the word gwegon, meaning 'all,' is closely related to ' great,' as in kwan and kowanea of the Oneida and Cayuga dialects. It is to be noted here that the Iroquois travelled far and wide with the fur-traders. In the Algonquin tongue ouni-gam, according to Mackenzie, signifies ‘ port- age;' while again in Iroquois, according to Schoolcraft, ti-ar-o-ga means 'a place of water rocks,' ti being 'water,' oga 'a place,' and ar an abbreviation of tar, 'rock.' Gan, in Algonquin, Knisteneaux, Ojibwa, Snake, and other Indian tongues, is a common ending. In Algonquin, gan signifies ' lake,' being usually, however, combined with other words, as in Sagayigan, the Knisten-

INDIAN AND SPANISH ORIGIN.

eaux as well a> Algonquin form. The terminal syllable in the different dialects is variously pronounced gan, gun, and gon. In the Shoshone language occur two words bearing some relation, if not a very near one, to the subject. O-gwa, says Stuart in his Montana, means 'river,' and Oo-rook-un 'under,' 'on the bottom;' and a word of a similar sound in Algonquin has a similar mean- ing. Schoolcraft mentions that o is a common prefix to the names of various parts of the body. Besides these various analogous sounds and meanings iu several of the native languages, we have in the Oregon territory one river with the prefix o and the terminal gan-the Okanagan. After all this research we arrive at nothing nearer than that the word gan relates in several dialects to water in some form, and might possibly be used to signify a river, any river, but not necessarily the Columbia.

A popular theory, and one frequently advanced as new, concerning the origin of the word, is that the first European discoverers called the Columbia River, and country adjacent, Oregon, from the abundance of origanum, or wild marjoranı, a plant possessing some medicinal virtues. This conjecture is open to several objections, the first that the plant mentioned grows a long distance from the coast, the only portion of the country visited by the early navigators; nor is the presence of it very conspicuous anywhere. Mengarini, a writer in the New York Ethnological Journal, i., 1871, advances the idea that the word comes from huracan, the Spanish for hurricane, founded on the fact that at some seasons of the year strong winds prevail on the Columbia River. The Spaniards derived their word 'huracan' from a native American word found among the people of the central parts; 'hurakan' is the name of a Quiché god, meaning the tempest. The English hurricane and the French ouragan are forms of the same word; but as the French had little to do with the earliest history of the Northwest Coast, the origin of the name has never been ascribed to them.

Of all the conjectures hazarded by writers from time to time, the one that suggests a Spanish origin from orejon, meaning 'a pull of the ear,' but for this purpose often interpreted 'long ear ' or 'lop ear,' seems to have been most popular, though not supported by facts or probabilities. It has been often repeated, with not so much as a qualifying doubt, that the Spaniards travel- ling up the northern coast met a tribe of Indians with ears of extreme lengtlı, weighed down by heavy ornaments, and from this circumstance the Span- iards called them 'Long-ears,' and the country La Tierra de los Orejons, which became corrupted into Oregon by Englishmen and Americans. Others assert that while the derivation is correct it was not properly applied by these first-named writers, but that it signifies the country of lop-eared rabbits, this animal abounding there as well as in California. So popular became this theory in the mining times of 1848-9 that the Oregonians went by the name of ' Lop-ears ' among the Californian miners. Indeed, I suspect this opportunity to ridicule their obtruding neighbors, proving too good to be lost, really first gave currency to the idea. From jest it grew to earnest; soberer- minded people then began to look for a more distant origin. On inves- tigation it does not appear that any tribe upon the Oregon coast was ever

OREGON IN 1834.

more addicted to ear ornamentation than is common to all savage nations, or that they wore heavier ornaments. Neither is Oregon inhabited by lop- eared rabbits in a degree to distinguish it from some other countries.

Dates must not be disregarded as we look for proof or disproof of the cur- rent theories concerning the word. That it is not of early Spanish origin is established by the fact that it does not occur in the Spanish voyages, or on the Spanish maps. The Spaniards never had a name for the Columbia River, unless it be San Roque, which they applied in 1775 on one of their maps,

AMERICA

PARTS UNKNOWN

Hudson

Bay

York R.

Fuca

WESTERN SEA

I. Meadows

L.Olinipique

1.5

R.of West

MOUNTAIN BRIGHT STONES

L. Woods

C.Blanco

N. ALBION

R.Manton

Red R.

L.Superior

C. Mendocin

TEGUAYO · QUIVIRA

Drake B.

Missouri

Mississipi R.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Oregon, Vol. I, 1834-1848, Part 5

Author: Bancroft, Hubert Howe, 1832-1918; Victor, Mrs. Frances Auretta Fuller Barrett, 1826-1902 Publication date: 1886 Publisher: San Francisco : The History Co. Number of Pages: 850

Author: Bancroft, Hubert Howe, 1832-1918; Victor, Mrs. Frances Auretta Fuller Barrett, 1826-1902
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: San Francisco : The History Co.
Number of Pages: 850