USA > Oregon > History of Oregon, Vol. I, 1834-1848 > Part 77
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In the following year negotiations on this subject were interrupted, Buchanan declining to entertain the company's proposition to sell, for the reason that the British government interposed an injunction upon its officers, restraining them from transferring to the United States any of the rights secured to it by the treaty, the principal of which, in the estimation of
33 A correspondent of the New York Journal of Commerce, under date of August 7, 1848, says: 'The senate have before them in secret session the proposition of the Hudson's Bay Company and the Puget Sound Company for the conveyances to the United States of all their lands, buildings, im- provements, fields of cattle, forts, etc., and all their possessory rights south of 49°, as well as the territory, etc., north of that parallel. The governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, Sir John Henry Pelly represented to Lord Palmerston the expediency of the transfer of the territorial rights, prop- erties, and interests of the two companies to the U. S. government, and Lord Palmerston, readily embracing the project, instructed Mr Crampton, the British charge d'affaires, to bring it before this government. His letter to Mr Buchanan's is strong; and Mr Buchanan's communication to the senate, urging the acceptance of the proposition, presents incontrovertible arguments in favor of it. Mr Calhoun and Mr Webster are in favor of it; and to-day I learn that Mr Benton and Mr Hannegan have taken the matter in hand.' Polynesian, v. 150; Niles' Reg., lxxiv. 97.
34 Extract from New York Herald, in Niles' Reg., lxxiv. 224.
775
RETURN OF THORNTON.
this government, was the free navigation of the Co- lumbia River.35. Later, negotiations were resumed, but not until the establishment of a collection district in Oregon had shown the British government and the company that the free navigation of American waters was of little consequence, associated as it was with the obligation to pay duties on English goods, on the same footing with citizens of the United States. When that discovery was made, the value of their possessory rights was much lessened, and senators were not so ready to buy. The reader who will re- member Benton's remarks on the 2d article of the treaty of 1846, in secret session, knows that even at that time he comprehended the importance of the blunder made by the British embassador in regard to this article; and it does not appear likely that Thorn- ton was better informed on the subject than senators who had for years been engaged in the discussion of the Oregon Question from all points of view, or that the Hudson's Bay Company regarded his opinion as worth $25,000. The publication of a letter contain- ing a charge against the president of bribery, or of consenting to bribery, whether written by himself, or by another, as he has since declared, but emanating from him, would be very good reason for regarding him with disfavor.
Soon after the adjournment of congress Thornton received a little more than the sum allowed by the territorial bill for mileage of a delegate, and repairing to New York, took passage on the Sylvie De Grasse for Oregon, where he arrived in May 1849.36
$5 Washington letter, in Niles' Reg., Ixxiv. 312.
36 The person whom Thornton accuses of approaching him with the offer of a bribe, George N. Saunders, has had a notorious record as a politician, and was not above attempting to make the agents of the Hudson's Bay Com- pany pay for his assumed influence in their affairs. He was described as of an amiable and joyous temperament, but lacking in principle. He was for some years editor of the Democratic Review, which his management converted from a respectable magazine into a reckless and disreputable publication. Yet he was wont with it to make senators and members tremble, see Cong. Globe, 1851-2, pt. i. 712, and was often called the president-maker. In 1853 he was commissioned consul to London. New York cor. Or. Statesman,
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TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT.
President Polk, who was elected on the issues con- nected with the Oregon Question, was desirous of having the new territory established during his ad- ministration. It was already the middle of August when the bill passed, and it was a long journey to Oregon by whatever route the territorial officers might choose. No time was lost in making the ap- pointments; the appointees being urged to set out at once for the Pacific coast. The president's first choice for governor was General James Shields 37 of Illinois; but the appointment being declined, the position was offered to another general of the Mexi- can war, Joseph Lane of Indiana, who was requested to organize the government before the 4th of March following. Lane accepted.38 The other appointees
Oct. 4, 1853. He is described by a writer in the Boston Transcript, in Id., Sept. 16, 1862, as the head and director of all knavish expedients to secure the election of Buchanan in 1856. 'Nobody knew how he obtained his money or acquired his right to command; but money he had in abundance, and his right to command was not disputed. There, with his shining shock of brown hair, curling over the lowest of human foreheads and the most impudent of human faces, he freely dispensed the "influence " which carried Pennsylvania for Buchanan in spite of the Quaker vote. His reward was the office of navy agent in the city of New York.' He became a defaulter to the government to the extent of $21,000 in 1861. He settled in Louisville and preached secession, and afterward went to Canada, where he led the rebel fugitive ele- ment, and where he told George Augustus Sala that they were plotting atroci- ties in connection with the war which would 'make the world shudder.' Boisé City Statesman, July 13, 1865; Portland Oregonian, Nov. 9, 1865; Id., June 17, 1867.
37 Shields was born in Altmore, County Tyrone, Ireland, in 1810, and emi- grated to America at the age of 16. In 1832 he settled at Kaskaskia, Illi- nois, in the practice of the law. He was elected to the legislature in 1836, and was auditor of the state in 1839; was appointed judge of the supreme court in 1843, and commissioner of the general land-office in 1845. At the breaking-out of the Mexican war he received the appointment of brigadier- general in the United States army, and was brevetted major-general for dis- tinguished services. He served six years in the U. S. senate, being elected in 1849 from Illinois, and afterward two years from Minnesota Territory. He was for a short time in California and Mexico, and afterwards served as a gen- eral in the union army. In 1878 he was again elected to the U. S. senate from Missouri, but died a few weeks after taking his seat, in June 1879. Grover's Pub. Life, MS., 56; Niles' Reg., Ixxiv. 113, 337; S. F. Call, June 3, 1879; Salt Lake S. W. Herald, June 4, 1879.
38 Joseph Lane was born in Buncombe Co., N. C., in 1801. From healthy parentage and pure mountain air he derived a strong constitution, and though not a large man, he was well knit, tough, and wiry, with a lively and ambitious disposition. His father removed to Kentucky when he was a child. At 15 he left the paternal roof to seek his fortune, as sons of southern and western men were wont to do. He married at the age of 19. In 1820 he settled in Indiana. Struggling with poverty and inexperience, the gift of
777
OFFICERS APPOINTED.
were Knitzing Pritchett of Pennsylvania, secretary ; William P. Bryant of Indiana, chief justice; James Turney of Illinois and Peter H. Burnett of Oregon, associate justices ; Isaac W. R. Bromley of New York, United States attorney; Joseph L. Meek, marshal; and John Adair of Kentucky, collector for the dis- trict of Oregon.39 Of these, Turney declined, and O. C. Pratt was given the position. Burnett declin- ing, William Strong of Ohio was named in his place. Bromley also declined, and Amory Holbrook was ap- pointed in his stead.
Meek, now United States marshal," received his commission and that of Governor Lane on the 20th
tongue, which never deserted him, made him early a man of mark, and he was elected captain of the local militia, which at that time, when the late war with England and the frequent Indian wars hept alive the military spirit, was considered as a position of honor and trust. At this evidence of the esteem of his fellows, young Lane became ambitious to acquit himself in all respects creditably, and began to acquire that book knowledge which from the circumstances of his boyhood had been denied him, studying while his neighbors were sleeping. He also labored to acquire property, and made his first venture in business by buying a flat-boat and transporting freight on the Ohio River. Money came in, and when he was still young he was elected to the legislature of Indiana, first in the house and then in the senate. When the Mexican war broke out the military spirit of Captain Lane was fired. He enlisted as a private in the 2d Indiana regiment of volunteers, to take his chances of promotion to the captaincy of a company. When the regiment assembled, captains being plenty, Lane was chosen colonel; and the other two regiments from his state being equally anxious to be commanded by him, the president made him their general. For two years previous to his appoint- ment to the governorship of Oregon he was winning laurels on the battle-fields of Mexico; and to the history of that republic this portion of his biography belongs. Notes from a magazine of May 1858, in Lane's Autobiography, MS., 67-85.
39 New Orleans Picayune, Aug. 28, 1848; Honolulu Polynesian, Feb. 3, 1849; Oregon Facts, 8; Evans, in Or. Pioneer Assoc., Trans., 1877, 27; S. F. Alta, Jan. 4, 1849; S. F. California Star and Californian, Dec. 16, 1848; Or. Spectator, Feb. 8, 1849; S. I. Friend, Nov. 1, 1849; Am. Almanac, 1849, 313; Niles' Reg., Ixxiv. 97, 338; Victor's River of the West, 483.
₩ In the New York Tribune of Sept. 1849, a correspondent says of Meek that he was so illiterate as to be able 'to do little more than write his name, although President Polk, with a full knowledge of the fact, appointed him,' etc .; and states that he was an 'old trapper who had been 72 years in the mountains !' The Or. Spectator of Jan. 26, 1850, remarked upon this, that at that rate, as Meek had been 10 years in the Willamette Valley, and was probably 20 years old when he went to the mountains, he must be of the ven- erable age of 102 years-he was 40-and took occasion to say that notwith- standing his want of book learning, he had been peculiarly prompt and faithful in every office with which he had been intrusted. This was a decided change from the tone of Abernethey's private letters, written after Meek's appointment as messenger, in which he took frequent occasion to ridicule the choice of the legislature. Or. Archives, MS., 108.
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TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT.
of August, and followed the president to Bedford Springs, whither the family of the executive had gone to escape the heat of the capital. In such haste was Polk to put his officials on the way to Oregon that he had already taken a seat for Meek in the coach which would leave Bedford the day of his arrival, and on that same afternoon he bade farewell to all his summer's glory, and set out for the home of Lane, ·near Newburgh Landing in southern Indiana. On the 27th of August he presented Lane his commis- sion, and on the 29th this portion of the Oregon government was on the way to Fort Leavenworth, where was an escort of twenty-five men for the jour- ney across the plains.
Owing to the lateness of the season it was deter- mined to take the southern route by Santa Fé, El Paso, Tucson, and the Pima villages on the Gila River, following that stream to its junction with the Colo- rado, and thence north-westwardly to the bay of San Pedro in California, where they hoped to find a vessel to take them to San Francisco, and thence to the Columbia River. The company which left Fort Leavenworth on the 20th of September numbered about fifty persons, including Lane, his eldest son Nathaniel, Meek, and Dr Hayden, surgeon of the detachment under Lieutenant Hawkins, twenty-five riflemen, with wagon-masters, teamsters, and ser- vants.
On the Santa Fe trail they were met by the army under Price returning from Mexico. The passage of this host had swept the country of herbage. On arriving at Santa Fé it was found impracticable to proceed farther with wagons, and the baggage was placed on mnules for the march to the seaboard. At every stage feed was poorer, and the sandy plains of the Grande and Gila rivers reduced the mules to a pitiful condition. At Tucson the escort began to desert, and in an attempt to capture two of them two others were killed, making the loss double. After
779
ARRIVAL OF THE GOVERNOR.
crossing the Colorado 41 and entering California rumors of gold discoveries caused such desertion that when the expedition reached Williams' rancho on the Santa Ana River less than six men remained, and these were obliged to walk while the few animals left alive carried the baggage. At this place, however, the wayworn and wellnigh starved travellers found hos- pitable entertainment and were furnished with horses to take them to the coast. At Los Angeles they found stationed Major Graham with a company of United States troops; and thence they proceeded to San Pedro Bay; where a vessel, the Southampton, was ready to sail for San Francisco.
On entering the Golden Gate the Oregon officials encountered one of those wild phenomena which drop in on mankind once in a century or so. Hundreds of men from the Willamette, many of whom Meek last saw in the Cayuse country without money enough to purchase a suit of clothing had it been for sale in Oregon City, were waiting here for a passage to the Columbia, with thousands of dollars' worth of gold- dust buckled to their waists. A fever of excitement pervaded the shifting population of San Francisco which it was impossible to resist; and although neither Lane nor Meek would forsake their trust, they were tempted to fit out for the mines the few men who had remained with them from Fort Leavenworth, on a partnership agreement, and saw them depart for the gold-fields with Nathaniel Lane, before continuing their journey.42
Lane and Meek went on board the Janet, Captain Dring. The vessel was crowded with returning Ore- gonians, and after a tedious voyage of eighteen days anchored in the Columbia. The party to which Lieu-
41 Near Cook's Wells the company found 100 wagons which had been abandoned by Major Graham, who was unable to cross the Colorado desert with them.
42 Meek was to receive half the first year's profit. The result of his ven- ture was three pickle-jars of gold-dust, which young Lane brought to him the following year, and which no more than reimbursed him for his outlay. Victor's River of the West, 480.
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TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT.
tenant Hawkins was still attached immediately took passage in a canoe for Oregon City, where they arrived the 2d of March, two days before the expira- tion of Polk's term of office. 48
On the day following his arrival Governor Lane published a proclamation as follows:
"In pursuance of an act of congress, approved the 14th of August, in the year of our Lord 1848, estab- lishing a territorial government in the territory of Oregon : I, Joseph Lane, was on the 18th day of Au- gust in the year 1848 appointed governor in and for the territory of Oregon. I have therefore thought it proper to issue this my proclamation, making known that I have this day entered upon the discharge of the duties of my office, and by virtue thereof do declare the laws of the United States extended over and de- clared to be in force in said territory, so far as the same or any portion thereof may be applicable. Given under my hand at Oregon City, in the territory of Oregon, this 3d day of March Anno Domini 1849.
JOSEPH LANE. " 44
Thus Oregon enjoyed one day's existence under the president whose acts were signally linked with her history, in the settlement of the boundary, and the establishment of the laws of the United States. The only other presidential appointee besides the gov- ernor and marshal present in the territory at its setting out on its new career was Associate Justice O. C. Pratt, who had arrived about a month pre- viously.45 He administered the oath of office to the
43 Crawford's Nar., MS., 185; Lane's Autobiography, MS., 3; Or. Argus, May 19, 1853.
$+ The proclamation was printed on the little press used by G. L. Curry to print his independent paper, the Free Press. Lane's Autobiography, MS., 5.
45 Pratt arrived on the bark Undine, loaded with returning gold-miners, which missed the river and ran into Shoalwater Bay. She entered afterward and went up the river for a cargo of lumber. Pratt landed at Shoalwater Bay, and went down the beach to Cape Disappointment and Baker Bay, and crossed to Astoria, where a large number of natives were congregated, to observe some of their barbarous festivals. 'At this war-dance,' says Craw- ford, 'I saw O. C. Pratt for the first time.' Nar., MS., 181.
781
SOCIAL CONDITION.
other officials, and helped to set in motion the wheels of the new political machine.
And so, without any noise or revolution, the old government went out and the new came in. The pro- visional government was voluntarily laid down, as it had voluntarily been taken up. It was an experiment of a part of the American people, who represented in their small and isolated community the principles of self-government in a manner worthy of the republican sentiments supposed to underlie the federal union, by which a local population could constitute an indepen- dent state, and yet be loyal to the general govern- ment. Under judicious management, good order and happiness, as well as a general condition of pros- perity, had been maintained. The people were indus- trious, because all must work to live; they were honest, because there was no temptation to steal; they were not miserly, because they had no money to hoard; they were hospitable, because every man ex- pected to need the kindness of his neighbor; and they were moral both on account of a public sentiment created by the mission and Hudson's Bay Company's influence, and from the absence of temptation. In such a community there is strength; and had there been neither Indian war nor gold-discovery, the same organization might have continued to stand for a generation without further assistance from the gen- eral government.46
46 ' In the din of battle it also stood the test. It declared and successfully waged war to redress the unprovoked wrongs the citizens had suffered; from its own resources, without extraneous aid, it levied the necessary troops; in the hour of danger its citizens responded to the call of their constituted author- ity. The Cayuse war was probably the most important historic feature of the period. By it was fully demonstrated, not only the inherent strength of the provisional government, the unity of feeling it had engendered, its entire capability to meet the requirements of the people, but the inciting cause of the war had been the constant surrounding of the pioneers.' Evans, in Or. Pioneer Assoc., Trans., 1877, 34. 'The men of the "forty's " were no common men; they would have been men in any country; they had been winnowed out of a great nation, a chosen band. They came as a community with all the necessary characteristics to establish a well-organized government; this they put into operation as soon as they arrived-rocked the cradle of the infant provisional government-nurtured and trained the rapidly developing youth of the 'territorial government.' Brown's Autobiography, MS., 33. Thirty
782
TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT.
With the going-out of the provisional government there was unloosed almost the last grasp of the Mis- sion political influence. The head and front of this power for several years had been Abernethy. He had stood high with the Methodists, the largest religious denomination in Oregon, and by a certain smooth- ness of face, of manner, and of soft brown hair over a sloping forehead, had created the impression of mild, almost weak amiability, rather than of any intellectual force. I have shown, however, with what pertinacity he could plot and plan against his British commercial or other rivals. His dislike of the western men was scarcely less, because he could not rule them, and be- cause they snapped their fingers at Mission influence. Like many another of the school in which he had been trained, he believed the Lord was on the side of professors of religion, and that if they obtained the advantage of other men, not of their belief, the Lord was rejoiced thereat, because the righteous shall inherit the earth. This belief made it right for the missionary party, of which he was the real head, to practise that underhanded policy, in certain cases, which when indulged in by men of the world is called dishonesty. In these disingenuous measures Aber- nethy was the prime mover; but the fear of injuring his business or his position as governor kept him silent. He was by nature, too, a quiet man, whose opinions were made known by what he did rather than by what he said. For a few years following the change in Oregon affairs, he accumulated money ; but he failed to keep the fortune circumstances threw into his lap. He bought everything that offered, whether he could pay for it or not, and when reaction came, lost all that he had made, besides being heavily in
years ago was established by a mere handful of people, on this then remote and inaccessible land, that famous provisional government which carried the country through the vicissitudes of peace and war, until March 3, 1849, when the territorial government provided by congress was proclaimed at Oregon City amid the rejoicings of the people, by its first governor, General Joseph Lane.' Deady, in Or. Pioncer Assoc., Trans., 1875, 42.
783
THE RETIRING GOVERNOR.
debt. It cannot, therefore, be said of him that he was greater in a business capacity than as a statesman or philanthropist.47
A history that is written from the very mouths of the living actors, and that despises no authority how- ever humble, if it has any claim to be thought just, should have brought to light, had there been anything to record, some acts of generosity, of self-sacrifice, of devotion to the good of the country, performed by this leading man among the missionaries; but in all the instances requiring the exhibition of these quali- ties, during the early period of Oregon history which closes with the establishment of the territorial gov- ernment, the men who came to the front were the men whom Governor Abernethy despised. There remains to be recorded yet one more act in the life of the colonial governor deserving of preservation in history, which I reserve for a future chapter.48
I have spoken freely of the Oregon colonists, their personal peculiarities, and all their little and great jealousies, and occasional misdoings. I have not made of them religious martyrs, but something better; I have not made of them pilgrim fathers, but something nobler, their fanaticism being less fierce and cruel, while for self-denying application and high and holy purpose they were the peers of any who landed on Plymouth Rock. If I have not presented the leaders of the several migrations as heroes, to me they were none the less heroic; while the people were filled with a patriotism as lofty and purposes as pure as any appearing upon the highways of history.49
47 Beacon's Mer. Life in Or. City, MS., 10; Moss' Pioneer Times, MS., 35-9; Mrs Wilson, in Or. Sketches, MS., 18; Buck's Enterprises, MS., 10.
48 Governor Abernethy, aside from his unfortunate speculations, sustained the wreck of the remnant of his fortune in the flood of 1861-2, which swept away the most valuable improvements at Oregon City. He then removed to Portland, and engaged in a small business, which he followed till his death in 1877. He remained always a firm friend of the church and of temperance, and is well spoken of for these traits. See Or. Pioneer Assoc., Trans., 1876, 68; Salem Statesman, in San José Pioneer, May 12, 1877.
49 Herewith I give some modern biographies, more of which will be found in vol. ii., History of Oregon. W. H. Effinger, born in Va, Nov. 14, 1839,
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TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT.
graduated from Dickinson college, Pa, in 1856, studied law, and took a tour through the south, intending to locate himself in either Miss. or La; but the breaking-out of the civil war caused him to return to Va and take service in the confederate army. During the war he was twice wounded. After its close he continued the practice of his profession in Va until 1872, when he re- moved to Oregon. At the time of the late Indian war he was maj .- gen. of the state militia, and accompanied Gov. Chadwick to Umatilla, where a ren- dezvous had been appointed with Gov. Ferry of Washington. Effinger desired to call out 800 militia, but Chadwick declined. It is Effinger's opinion that had this been done the Indians would not have broken through Howard's lines. I have explained Chadwick's actions in my account of this war in Hist. Idaho, this series. In 1880 Mr. Effinger was chairman of a delegation from Oregon to the national democratic convention at Cincinnati, which ad- vocated the nomination of Stephen J. Field for the presidency. As a lawyer, Effinger achieved a high position in Oregon.
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