USA > Oregon > History of Oregon, Vol. II, 1848-1888 > Part 11
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66 Blanchet's attempts to excuse his neophytes are open to reproach. Not- withstanding that three men were assigned to their defence, and that the trial was regular and even solemn in its proceedings, and the evidence clear, he calls it 'a sham trial which deceived no one.' He relates, with a simplicity that would be affecting if it were not absurd after the proofs, that Tiloukaikt and the four others on the eve of their death made a declaration in duplicate before two witnesses, a sergeant and a corporal of the R. M. R., that each of the five was innocent. Cath. Ch. in Or., 181.
«7 Or. Spectator, May 30, 1850; Lane's Autobiography, MS., 58; Steele, in Or. Council Jour., 1857-8, app., 42-3.
68 Nathaniel Lane, who accompanied his father to Oregon, resided perma- nently in the country to the date of his death, the 22d of July 1878, at the age of 54 years. His home was in East Portland. His character was that of an honest and honorable citizen and kind neighbor. Portland Oregonian, July 23, 1878. He was twice married. His children by the first marriage were Joe and Ben. Lane, and Carrie, wife of George Haynes. His other children were Nat. and Harry Lane, and Jane, wife of Stephen Bailey. Roseburg Plain- dealer, July 24, 1878.
69 Meek, on being approached upon this subject, at first talked in an oblig- ing tone, and expressed his willingness to do any favor for the secretary, who was about to write a reprieve at once. 'But, Pritchett,' said Meek, seeing the effect of his professions of friendship, 'let us now talk like men. I have in
99
EXECUTION.
even feared that a rescue might be attempted by the Indians on the day of execution, and men coming in from the country round brought their rifles, hiding them in the outskirts of the town, not to create alarm.70 Nothing occurred, however, to cause excite- ment. The Catholic priests took charge of the spir- itual affairs of the condemned savages, administering the sacraments of baptism and confirmation, Father Veyret attending them to the scaffold, where prayers for the dying were offered. "Touching words of en- couragement," says Blanchet, "were addressed to them on the moment of being swung into the air: 'Onward, onward to heaven, children; into thy hands, O Lord Jesus, I commend my spirit.'""1 Oh loving and consistent Christians! While the world of Prot- estantism regarded the victims slain at Waiilatpu as martyrs, the priests of Catholicism made martyrs of the murderers, and wafted their spirits straight to heaven. So far as the sectarian quarrel is concerned it matters nothing, in my opinion, and I care not whose converts these heathen may have been, if of either; but sure I am that these Cayuses were mar- tyrs to a destiny too strong for them, to the Jugger- naut of an incompressible civilization, before whose wheels they were compelled to prostrate themselves, to that relentless law, the survival of the fittest, be- fore which, in spite of religion or science, we all in turn go down.
With the consummation of the last act of the Cayuse tragedy Lane's administration may be said to have closed, though he was for several weeks occupied with his duties as Indian agent in the south, a full account of which I shall give later. Having made a
my pocket the death-warrant of them Indians, signed by Governor Lane. The marshal will execute them men as certain as the day arrives.' Pritchett looked surprised and remarked: 'That is not what you just said, that you would do anything for me.' 'You were talking then to Meek,' Joe returned, ' not to the marshal, who always does his duty.' Victor's River of the West, 496. The marshal's honor was less corrupt than his grammar.
70 Bacon's Merc. Life Or., MS., 25.
11 Cath. Ch. in Or., 182.
100
LANE'S ADMINISTRATION.
treaty with the Rogue River people, he went to Cal- ifornia and busied himself with gold mining until the spring of 1851, when his friends and admirers recalled him to Oregon to run for delegate to congress. About the time of his return the rifle regiment departed to return by sea to Jefferson barracks, near St Louis, having been reduced to a mere remnant by deser- tions,72 and never having rendered any service of im- portance to the territory.
72 Brackett's U. S. Cavalry, 129-30. It was recruited afterward and sent to Texas under its colonel, Brevet General P. F. Smith.
CHAPTER IV.
A DELEGATE TO CONGRESS.
1849-1850.
THE EARLY JUDICIARY -ISLAND MILLS-ARRIVAL OF WILLIAM STRONG- OPPOSITION TO THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY-ARREST OF BRITISH SHIP CAPTAINS-GEOROE GIBBS-THE ' ALBION' AFFAIR-SAMUEL R. THURS- TON CHOSEN DELEGATE TO CONGRESS-HIS LIFE AND CHARACTER-PRO- CEEDS TO WASHINGTON -MISREPRESENTATIONS AND UNPRINCIPLED MEASURES-RANK INJUSTICE TOWARD McLOUGHLIN-EFFICIENT WORK FOR OREGON-THE DONATION LAND BILL-THE CAYUSE WAR CLAIM AND OTHER APPROPRIATIONS SECURED-THE PEOPLE LOSE CONFIDENCE IN THEIR DELEGATE-DEATH OF THURSTON.
DURING the transition period through which the territory was passing, complaint was made that the judges devoted time to personal enterprises which was demanded for the public service. I am disposed to think that those who criticised the judges of the United States courts caviled because they overlooked the conditions then existing.
The members of the territorial supreme court were Chief Justice Bryant and Associate Justice Pratt.1 Within a few months, the chief justice's health
1 0. C. Pratt was born April 24, 1819, in Ontario County, New York. He entered West Point, in the class of 1837, and took two years of the course. His stand during this time was good, but he did not find technical military training congenial to his tastes, excepting the higher mathematics, and he obtained the consent of his parents to resign his cadetship, in order to com- plete his study of law, to which he had devoted two years previous to enter- ing the Military Academy. He passed his examination before the supreme court of New York in 1840, and was admitted to the bar. During this year he took an active part in the presidential campaign as an advocate of the election of Martin Van Buren. In 1843 he moved to Galena, Illinois, and established himself as an attorney at law. Iu 1814 he entered heartily into politics, as a friend of Polk, and attracted attention by his cogent discussion of the issues then uppermost, the annexation of Texas, and the Oregon ques- tion. In 1847 he was a member of the convention to make the first revision ( 101 )
102
A DELEGATE TO CONGRESS.
having become impaired, he left Oregon, returned to Indiana, resigned, and soon after died. Associate Justice Burnett, being in California, and very lucra- tively employed at the time that he learned of his appointment, declined it; and as their successors, Thomas Nelson and William Strong,2 were not soon appointed, and came ultimately to their field of duty around Cape Horn, Judge Pratt was left unaided nearly two years in the judicial labors of the territory.
By act of congress, March 3, 1859, it was provided, in the absence of United States courts in California, viola- tions of the revenue laws might be prosecuted before the judges of the supreme court of Oregon. Under this stat- ute, Judge Pratt went to San Francisco, by request of the secretary of the treasury, in 1849, and assisted in the adjustment of several important admiralty cases. Also, about the same time, in his own district, at Port- land, Oregon, as district judge of the United States for the territory of Oregon, he held the first court of admiralty jurisdiction within the limits of the region now covered by the states of Oregon and California.
Another evil to the peace and quiet of the commu- nity, and to the security of property, arose soon after the advent of the new justices-Strong,3 in August
of the constitution of Illinois. In the service of the government he crossed the plains to Santa Fe; thence to California. In 1848 he became a member of the supreme court of Oregon, as noted. He was a man of striking and distinguished personnel, fine sensibilities, analytic intelligence, eloquent, learned in the law, and honorable.
2 William Strong was born in St Albans, Vermont, in 1817, where he re- sided in early childhood, afterward removing to Connecticut and New York. He was educated at Yale college, began life as principal of an academy at Ithaca, New York, and followed this occupation while studying law, remov- ing to Cleveland, Ohio, in the mean time. On being appointed to Oregon he took passage with his wife on the United States store-ship Supply in Novem- ber 1849 for San Francisco, and thence proceeded to the Columbia by the sloop of war Falmouth. Judge Strong resided for a few years on the north side of the Columbia, but finally made Portland his home, where he has long practised law in company with his sons. During my visit to Oregon in 1878 Judge Strong, among others, dictated to my stenographer his varied experi- ences, and important facts concerning the history of Oregon. The manu- script thus made I entitled Strong's History of Oregon. It contains a long series of events, beginning August 1850, and running down to the time when it was given, and is enlivened by many anecdotes, amusing and curi- ous, of early times, Indian characteristics, political affairs, and court notes.
$ Strong, who seems to have had an cye to speculation as well as other offi-
103
DECADENCE OF THE FUR COMPANY.
1850, and Nelson, in April 1, 1851-from the inter- ference of one district court with the processes of another. Thus it was impossible, for a time, to main- tain order in Judge Pratt's district (the second) in two instances, sentences for contempt passed by him being practically nullified by the interference of the judge of the first district.
Among the changes occurring at this time none were more perceptible than the diminishing import- ance of the Hudson's Bay Company's business in Oregon. Not only the gold mania carried off their servants, but the naturalization act did likewise, and also the prospect of a title to six hundred and forty acres of land. And not only did their servants desert them, but the United States revenue officers and Ind- ian agents pursued them at every turn.4 When Thorn- ton was at Puget Sound in 1849 he caused the arrest of Captain Morris, of the Harpooner, an English ves- sel which had transported Hill's artillery company to Nisqually, for giving the customary grog to the Ind- ians and half-breeds hired to discharge the vessel in the absence of white labor. Captain Morris was held to bail in five hundred dollars by Judge Bryant, to appear before him at the next term of court. What the decision would have been can only be conjectured, as in the absence of the judges the case never came to trial. Morris was released on a promise never to return to those waters.5
But these annoyances were light compared to those which arose out of the establishment of a port of
cials, had purchased a lot of side-saddles before leaving New York, and other goods at auction, for sale in Oregon. His saddles cost him $7.50 and $13, and he soll them to women whose husbands had been to the gold mines for $50, $60, and $75. A gross of playing cards, purchased for a cent a pack at auc- tion, sold to the soldiers for $1.50 a pack. Brown sugar purchased for 5c. a pound by the barrel brought ten times that amount; and so on, the goods being sold for him at the fur company's store. Stronj's Ilist. Or., MS, 27-30.
+ Roberts says, in his Recollections, MS., that Douglas left Vancouver just in time to save his peace of mind; and it was perhaps partly with that object, for he was a strict disciplinarian, and could never have bent to the new order of things.
5 Roberts' Recollections, MS., 16.
104
A DELEGATE TO CONGRESS.
entry, and the extension of the revenue laws of the United States over the country. In the spring of 1849 arrived Oregon's first United States revenue officer, John Adair, of Kentucky; and in the autumn George Gibbs, deputy-collector.6 No trouble seems to have arisen for the first few months, though the company was subjected to much inconvenience by having to go from Fort Victoria to Astoria, a distance of over two hundred miles, to enter the goods designed for the American side of the strait, or for Fort Nis- qually to which they must travel back three hundred iniles.
About the last of December 1849 the British ship Albion, Captain Richard O. Hinderwell, William Brotchie, supercargo, entered the strait of Fuca with- out being aware of the United States revenue laws on that part of the coast, and proceeded to cut a cargo of spars at New Dungeness, at the same time trading with the natives, for which they were prepared, by permission of the Hudson's Bay Company in London, with certain Indian goods, though not allowed to buy furs. The owners of the Albion, who had a govern- ment contract, had instructed the captain and super- cargo to take the spars wherever they found the best timber, but if upon the American side of the strait, to pay for them if they could be bought cheap. But during a stay of about four months at Dungeness, as
6 Gibbs, who came with the rifle regiment, was employed in various posi- tions on the Pacific coast for several years. He became interested in philology and published a Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon, and other matter concern- ing the native races, as well as the geography and geology of the west coast. In Suckley and Cooper's Natural History it is said that he spent two years in southern Oregon, near the Klamath; that in 1853 he joined MeClellan's sur- veying party, and afterward made explorations with I. I. Stevens in Wash- ington. In 1859 he was still employed as geologist of the north-west boundary survey with Kennerly. He was for a short time collector of customs at Astoria. He went from there to Puget Sound, where he applied himself to the study of the habits, langnages, and traditions of the natives, which study enabled him to make some valuable contributions to the Smithsonian Insti- tution. Mr Gibbs died at New Haven, Conn., May 11, 1873. 'He was a man of fine scholarly attainments,' says the Olympia Pacific Tribune, May 17, 1873, 'and ardently devoted to science and polite literaturc. He was something of a wag withal, and on several occasions, in conjunction with the late Lieut. Derby (John Phoenix) and others, perpetrated "sells" that obtained a world wide publicity. His friends were many, warm, and earnest.'
105
A DISREPUTABLE AFFAIR.
no one had appeared of whom the timber could be purchased, the wood-cutters continued their work un- interruptedly. In the mean time the United States surveying schooner Ewing being in the sound, Lieu- tenant McArthur informed the officers of the Albion that they had no right to cut timber on American soil. When this came to the ears of deputy-collector Gibbs, Adair being absent in California, he appointed Eben May Dorr a special inspector of customs, with authority to seize the Albion for violation of the revenue laws. United States district attorney Hol- brook, and United States marshal Meek, were duly informed.
The marshal, with Inspector Dorr, repaired to Steilacoom, where a requisition was made on Cap- tain Hill for a detachment of men, and Lieutenant Gibson, five soldiers, and several citizens proceeded down the sound to Dungeness, and made a formal seizure of the ship and stores on the 22d of April. The vessel was placed in charge of Charles Kinney, the English sailors willingly obeying him, and navi- gating the ship to Steilacoom. Arrived here every man, even to the cook, deserted, and the captain and supercargo were ordered ashore where they found succor at the hospitable hands of Tolmie, at Fort Nisqually.
It was not a very magnanimous proceeding on the part of officers of the great American republic, but was about what might have been expected from Indian fighters like Joe Meek raised to new dignities.7 We smile at the simple savage demanding pay from navi- gators for wood and water; but here were officers of the United States government seizing and confiscating a British vessel for cutting a few small trees from
1 See 31st Conq., 2d. Sess., S. Doc., 30, 15-16. 'We have met before,' said Brotchie to Meck as the latter presented himself. You did meet me at Vancouver several years ago, but I was then nothing but Joe Meek, and you ordered me ashore. Circumstances are changed sinee then. I am Colonel Joseph L. Meek, United States marshal for Oregon Territory, and you, sir, are only a damned smuggler ! Go ashore, sir!' Victor's River of the West, 505.
106
A DELEGATE TO CONGRESS.
land lately stolen from the Indians, relinquished by Great Britain as much through a desire for peace as from any other cause, and which the United States government afterward sold for a dollar and a quarter an acre, at which rate the present damage could not possibly have reached the sum of three cents!
Kinney proved a thief, and not only stole the goods intrusted to his care, but allowed others to do so,8 and was finally placed under bonds for his appearance to answer the charge of embezzlement. The ship and spars were condemned and sold at Steilacoom Novem- ber 23d, bringing about forty thousand dollars, which was considerably less than she was worth; the money, according to common report, never reaching the treas- ury.9 A formal protest was entered by the captain and supercargo immediately on the seizure of the Albion, and the whole correspondence finally came before congress on the matter being brought to the attention of the secretary of state by the British minister at Washington.
In the mean time congress had passed an act Sep- tember 28, 1850, relating to collection matters on the Pacific coast, and containing a proviso intended to meet such cases as this of the Albion,10 and by virtue of which the owners and officers of the vessel were indemnified for their losses.
This high-handed proceeding against the Albion, as we may well imagine, produced much bitterness of feeling on the part of the British residents north of the Columbia,11 and the more so that the vessels
8 Or. Spectator, Dec. 19, 1850.
9 This money fell into bad hands and was not accounted for. According to Meek 'the officers of the court' found a private use for it. Victor's River of the West, 506.
10 That where any ship or goods may have been subjected to seizure by any officer of the customs in the collection district of Upper California or the district of Oregon prior to the passage of this act, and it shall be made to appear to the satisfaction of the secretary of the treasury that the owner sustained loss by reason of any improper seizure, the said secretary is author- ized to extend such relief as he may deem just and proper. 31st Cong., 1st Sess., United States Acts and Res., 128-9.
11 . I fancy I am pretty cool about it now,' says Roberts, 'but then it did rather damp my democracy.' Recollections, MS., 17.
107
THE REVENUE LAWS.
of the Hudson's Bay Company were not exempt from these exactions. When the troops were to be removed from Nisqually to Steilacoom on the estab- lishment of that post, Captain Hill employed the Forager, one of the company's vessels, to transport the men and stores, and the settlers also having some shingles and other insignificant freight, which they wished carried down the sound, it was put on board the Forager. For this violation of the United States revenue laws the vessel was seized. But the secretary of the treasury decided that Hill and the artillerymen were not goods in the meaning of the statute, and that therefore the laws had not been violated.12
Soon after the seizure of the Albion, the company's schooner Cadboro was seized for carrying goods direct from Victoria to Nisqually, and that notwithstanding the duties were paid, though under protest. The Cadboro was released on Ogden reminding the col- lector that he had given notice of the desire of the company to continue the importation of goods direct from Victoria, their readiness to pay duties, and also that their business would be broken up at Nisqually and other posts in Oregon if they were compelled to import by the way of the Columbia River.13
In January 1850 President Taylor declared Port- land and Nisqually ports of delivery ; but subsequently the office was removed at the instance of the Oregon delegate from Nisqually to Olympia, when there followed other seizures, namely, of the Mary Dare, and the Beaver, the latter for landing Miss Rose Birnie, sister of James Birnie formerly of Fort George, at Fort Nisqually, without first having landed her at Olympia.14 The cases were tried before Judge Strong, who very justly released the vessels. Strong was accused of bribery by the collector; but the wiends of the judge held a public meeting at Olympia sus-
12 Letter of N. M. Merideth to S. R. Thurston, in Or. Spectator, May 2, 1850. 13 31th Cong., 2d Sess., Sen. Doc. 30, 7.
14 Roberts' Recollections, MS., 16.
108
A DELEGATE TO CONGRESS.
taining him. The seizure cost the government twenty thousand dollars, and caused much ill-feeling. This was after the appointment of a collector for Puget Sound in 1851, whose construction of the revenue laws was even more strict than that of other Oregon officials. 15
Thus we see that the position of the Hudson's Bay Company in Oregon after the passage of the act establishing the territory was ever increasingly pre- carious and disagreeable. The treaty of 1846 had proven altogether insufficient to protect the assumed rights of the company, and was liable to different interpretations even by the ablest jurists. The com- pany claimed their lands in the nature of a grant, and as actually alienated to the British government. Before the passage of the territorial act, they had taken warning by the well known temper of the American occupants of Oregon toward them, and had offered their rights for sale to the government at one million of dollars; using, as I have previously inti- mated, the well known democratic editor and politician, George N. Sanders, as their agent in Washington.
As early as January 1848 Sir George Simpson addressed a confidential letter to Sanders, whom he had previously met in Montreal, in which he defined his view of the rights confirmed by the treaty, as the right to "cultivate the soil, to cut down and export the timber, to carry on the fisheries, to trade for furs with the natives, and all other rights we enjoyed at the time of framing the treaty." As to the free navi- gation of the Columbia, he held that this right like the others was salable and transferable. "Our possessions," he said, "embrace the very best situa- tions in the whole country for offensive and defensive operations, towns and villages." These were all in-
15 S. P. Moses was the first collector on Puget Sound. Roberts says con- cerning him that be 'took almost every British ship that came. His conduct was beneath the government, and probably was from beneath, also.' Recol- lections, MS., 16.
109
PROPOSALS OF SALE.
cluded in the offer of sale, as well as the lands of the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, together with their flocks and herds; the reason urged for making the offer being that the company in England were apprehensive that their possession of the country might lead to "endless disputes, which might be pro- ductive of difficulties between the two nations," to avoid which they were willing to make a sacrifice, and to withdraw within the territory north of 49.º16
Sanders laid this proposition before Secretary Buchanan in July, and a correspondence ensued between the officers and agents of the Hudson's Bay Company and the ministers of both governments, in the course of which it transpired that the United States government on learning the construction put upon the company's right to transfer the navigation of the Columbia, was dissatisfied with the terms of the treaty and wished to make a new one in which this right was surrendered, but that Great Britain declined to relinquish the right without a considera- tion. "Her Majesty's government," said Addington, "have no proposal to make, they being quite content to leave things as they are."
The operation of the revenue laws, however, which had not been anticipated by the British companies or government, considerably modified their tone as to the importance of their right of navigation on the Columbia, and their privileges generally. Instead of being in a position to dictate terms, they were at the mercy of the United States, which could well afford to allow them to navigate Oregon waters so long as they paid duties. Under this pressure, in the spring of 1849, a contract was drawn up conveying the rights of the company under their charter and the treaty, and appertaining to forts Disappointment, George, Vancouver, Umpqua, Walla Walla, Boisé, Okanagan, Colville, Kootenai, Flat Head, Nisqually, Cowlitz, and all other posts belonging to said com-
16 31st Cong., 2d Sess., Sen. Doc. 20, 4-5.
110
A DELEGATE TO CONGRESS.
panies, together with their wild lands, reserving only their shipping, merchandise, provisions, and stores of every description, and their enclosed lands, except such portions of them as the United States govern- ment might wish to appropriate for military reserves, which were included in the schedule offered, for the sum of seven hundred thousand dollars. The agree- ment further offered all their farms and real property not before conveyed, for one hundred and fifty thou- sand dollars, if purchased within one year by the government; or if the government should not elect to purchase, the companies bound themselves to sell all their farming lands to private citizens of the United States within two years, so that at the end of that time they would have no property rights whatever in the territories of the United States.
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