USA > Oregon > History of Oregon, Vol. II, 1848-1888 > Part 13
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"This company has been warring against our gov- ernment these forty years. Dr McLoughlin has been their chief fugleman, first to cheat our government out of the whole country, and next to prevent its settlement. He has driven men from claims and from
35 This was the principle of the donation law as passed. The surveyor- general usually inquired of the wife her choice, and was gallant enough to give it her; hence it usually happened that the portion having the dwelling and improvements upon it went to the wife.
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THE CHIEF OF LIARS.
the country to stifle the efforts at settlement. In 1845 he sent an express to Fort Hall, eight hundred miles, to warn the American emigrants that if they attempted to come to Willamette they would all be cut off; they went, and none were cut off ... I was instructed by my legislature to ask donations of land to American citizens only. The memorial of the Oregon legislature was reported so as to ask dona- tions to settlers, and the word was stricken out, and citizens inserted. This, sir, I consider fully bears me out in insisting that our public lands shall not be thrown into the hands of foreigners, who will not become citizens, and who sympathize with us with crocodile tears only.36. .. I can refer you to the su- preme judge of our territory37 for proof that this Dr McLoughlin refuses to file his intention to become an American citizen.38 If a foreigner would bona fide file his intentions I would not object to give him land. There are many Englishmen, members of the Hudson's
36 The assertion contained in this paragraph that the word 'settler' was altered to 'citizen' in the memorial was also untrue. I have a copy of the memorial signed by the chief cherk of both the house and council, and in- scribed, 'Passedl July 26, 1849,' in which congress is asked to make a grant of 640 acres of land 'to each actual settler, including widows and orphans.' Or. Archires, MS., 177.
37 Bryant was then in Washington to assist in the missionary scheme, of which, as the assignees of Abernethy, both he and Lane were abettors.
38 Thurston also knew this to be untrue. William J. Berry, writing in the Spectator, Dec. 26, 1850, says: 'Now, I assert that Mr Thurston knew, previous to the election, that Dr McLoughlin had filed his intentions. I heard him say, in a stump speech at the City Hotel, that he expected his (the doctor's) vote. At the election I happened to be one of the judges. Dr McLoughlin came up to vote; the question was asked by myself, if he had filed his intentions. The clerk of the court, George L. Curry, Esq., who was standing near the window, said that he had. He voted.' Says McLoughlin: 'I declared my intention to become an American citizen on the 30th of May, 1849, as any one may see who will examine the records of the court.' Or. Spectator, Sept. 12, 1850. Waldo, testifies: 'Thurston lied on the doctor. He did it because the doctor would not vote for him. He lied in congress, and got others to write lies from here about him-men who knew nothing about it. They falsified about the old doctor cheating the people, setting the Indians on them, and treating them hadly.' Critiques, MS., 15. Says Apple- gate: 'Thurston asserted among many other falsehoods, that the doctor utterly refused to become an American citizen, and Judge Bryant endorsed the asser- tion.' Historical Correspondence, MS., 14. Says Grover: 'The old doctor was looking to becoming a leading American citizen until this difficulty oc- curred in regard to his land. He had taken out naturalization papers. All his life from young manhood had been spent in the north-west; and he was not going to leave the conntry.' Public Life in Or., MS., 91.
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A DELEGATE TO CONGRESS.
Bay Company, who would file their intention merely to get the land, and then tell you to whistle. Now, sir, I hope this house, this congress, this country, will not allow that company to stealthily get possession of all the good land in Oregon, and thus keep it out of the hands of those who would become good and worthy citizens." 39
Having prepared the way by a letter to the house of representatives for introducing into the land bill a section depriving McLoughlin of his Oregon City claim, which he had the audacity to declare was first taken by the Methodist mission, section eleventh of the law as it finally passed, and as it now stands upon the sixty-eighth page of the General Laws of Ore- gon, was introduced and passed without opposition. Judge Bryant receiving his bribe for falsehood, by the reservation of Abernethy Island, which was "con- firmed to the legal assigns of the Willamette Milling and Trading Company," while the remainder, except lots sold or given away by McLoughlin previous to the 4th of March 1849, should be at the disposal of the legislative assembly of Oregon for the establish- ment and endowment of a university, to be located not at Oregon City, but at such place in the territory as the legislature might designate. Thus artfully did the servant of the Methodist mission strive for the ruin of McLoughlin and the approbation of his con- stituents, well knowing that they would not feel so much at liberty to reject a bounty to the cause of education, as a gift of any other kind.40
39 Cong. Globe, 1849-50, 1079.
4º In Thurston's letter to the house of representatives he appealed to them to pass the land bill without delay, on the ground that Oregon was becoming depopulated through the neglect of congress to keep its engagement. The people of the States had, he declared, lost all confidence in their previous belief that a donation law would be passed; and the people in the territory were ceasing to improve, were going to California, and when they were fortunate enough to make any money, were returning to the Atlantic States. 'Our pop- ulation,' he said, 'is dwindling away, and our anxieties and fears can easily be perceived.' Of the high water of 1849-50, which carried away property and damaged mills to the amount of about $300,000, he said: ' The owners who have means dare not rebuild because they have no title. Each man is collecting his means in anticipation that he may leave the country.' And this, although
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OVERREACHED HIMSELF.
In his endeavor to accomplish so much villany the delegate failed. The senate struck out a clause in the fourth section which required a foreigner to emigrate from the United States, and which he had persuaded the house to adopt by his assertions that without it the British fur company would secure to themselves all the best lands in Oregon. Another clause insisted on by Thurston when he found he could not exclude British subjects entirely, was that a foreigner could not become entitled to any land notwithstanding his intentions were declared, until he had completed his naturalization, which would require two years; and this was allowed to stand, to the annoyance of the Canadian settlers who had been twenty years on their claims." But the great point gained in Thurston's estimation by the Oregon land bill was the taking- away from the former head of the Hudson's Bay Company of his dearly bought claim at the falls of the Willamette, where a large portion of his fortune was invested in improvements. The last proviso of the fourth section forbade any one claiming under the land law to claim under the treaty of 1846. McLough- lin, having declared his intention to become an Ameri- can citizen was no longer qualified to claim under the treaty, and congress having, on the representations of Thurston, taken from McLoughlin what he claimed under the land law there was left no recourse what- ever. 42
he had told Johnson, California and Oregon, which see, page 252, exactly the contrary. See Or. Spectator, Sept. 12th, and compare with the following: There were 38 mills in Oregon at the taking of the census of 1850, and a fair proportion of them ground wheat. They were scattered through all the counties from the sound to the head of the Willamette Valley. Or. Statesman, April 25, 1851; and with this: 'The census of 1849 showed a population of over 9,000, about 2,000 being absent in the mines. The census of 1850 showed over 13,000, without counting the large immigration of that year or the few settlers in the most southern part of Oregon.' Or. Statesman, April 10th and 25, 1851.
41 Cong. Globe, 1849-50, 1853.
42 Says Applegate: 'It must have excited a kind of fiendish merriment in the hearts of Bryant and Thurston; for notwithstanding their assertions to the contrary, hoth well knew that the doctor by renouneing his allegiance to Great Britain had forfeited all claims as a British subject.' Historical Cor- respondence, MIS., 15.
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A DELEGATE TO CONGRESS.
I have said that Thurston claimed the Oregon land bill as his own. It was his own so far as concerned the amendments which damaged the interests of men in the country whom he designated as foreigners, but who really were the first white persons to maintain a settlement in the country, and who as individuals, were in every way entitled to the same privileges as the citizens of the United States, and who had at the first opportunity offered themselves as such. In no other sense was it his bill. There was not an important clause in it which had not been in conten- plation for years, or which was not suggested by the frequent memorials of the legislature on the subject. He worked earnestly to have it pass, for on it, he believed, hung his reëlection. So earnestly did he labor for the settlement of this great measure, and for all other measures which he knew to be most desired, that though they knew he was a most selfish and unprincipled politician, the people gave him their gratitude. 43
A frequent mistake of young, strong, talented, but inexperienced and unprincipled politicians, is that of going too fast and too far. Thurston was an exceed- ingly clever fellow; the measures which he took upon himself to champion, though in some respects unjust and infamous, were in other respects matters which lay very near the heart of the Oregon settler. But like Jason Lee, Thurston overreached himself. The good that he did was dimmed by a sinister shadow. In September a printed copy of the bill, containing the obnoxious eleventh section, with a copy of his letter to the house of representatives, and other like matter, was received by his confidants, together with an in- junction of secrecy until sufficient time should have
43 Grover, Public Life in Oregon, MS., 98-9, calls the land bill 'Thurston's work, based upon Linn's bill;' but Grover simply took Thurston's word for it, he being then a young man, whom Thurston persuaded into going to Oregon. Johnson's Cal. and Or., which is, as to the Oregon part, merely a repriut of Thurston's papers, calls it Thurston's bill. Hines, Or. and Institutions, does the same; but any one conversant with the congressional and legislative history of Oregon knows better.
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McLOUGHLIN'S REPLY.
passed for the bill to become a law." When the vile injustice to John McLoughlin became known, those of Thurston's friends who were not in the conspiracy met the charge with scornful denial. They would not believe it.45 And when time had passed, and the mat- ter became understood, the feeling was intense. Mc- Loughlin, as he had before been driven by the thrusts of his enemies to do, replied through the Spectator to the numerous falsehoods contained in the letter.46 He knew that although many of the older settlers
44 ' Keep this still,' writes the arch schemer, 'till next mail, when I shall send them generally. The debate on the California hill closes next Tuesday, when I hope to get passed my land bill; keep dark 'til next mail. Thurston. June 9, 1850.' Or. Spectator, Sept. 12, 1850.
45 Wilson Blain, who was at that time editor of the Spectator, as Robert Moore was proprietor, found himself unable to credit the rumor. 'We ven- turc the assertion,' he says, 'that the story was started by some malicious or mischief-making person for the purpose of preventing the improvement of Clackamas rapids.' Or. Spectator, Aug. 22, 1850.
46 . He says that I have realized, up to the 4th of March 1849, $200,000 from sale of lots; this is also wholly untrue. I have given away lots to the Metho- dists, Catholics, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Baptists. I have given eight lots to a Roman Catholic nunnery, and eight lots to the Clacka- mas Female Protestant seminary, incorporated by the Oregon legislature. The trustees are all Protestants, though it is well known I am a Roman Catholic. In short, in one way and another I have donated to the county, to schools, to churches, and private individuals, more than three hundred town lots, and I never realized in cash 820,000 from all the original sales I ever made .. . I was a chief factor in the Hudson's Bay Company service, and by the rules of the company enjoy a retired interest, as a matter of right. Capt. McNeil, a native-boru citizen of the United States of America, holds the same rank that I held in the Hudson's Bay Company's service. He never was required to become a British subject; he will be entitled, by the laws of the company, to the same retired interest, no matter to what country he may owe allegiance.' After declaring that he had taken out naturalization papers, and that Thurston was aware of it, and had asked him for his vote and influ- ence, but that he had voted against him, he says: 'But lie proceeds to refer to Judge Bryant for the truth of his statement, in which he affirms that I assigned to Judge Bryant as a reason why I still refused to declare my inten- tion to become an American citizen, that I could not do it without prejudic- ing my standing in England. I am astonished how the supreme judge could have made such a statement, as he had a letter from me pointing out that I had declared my intention of becoming an American citizen. The cause which led to my writing this letter is that the island, called Abernethy's Island by Mr Thurston, and which he proposes to donate to Mr Abernethy, his heirs and assigns, is the same island which Mr Hathaway and others jumped in 1841, and formed themselves into a joint stock company, and erected a saw and grist-mill on it, as already stated. From a desire to pre- serve the peace of the country, I deferred bringing the case to a trial 'til the government extended its jurisdiction over the country; but when it had done so, a few days after the arrival of Judge Bryant, and before the courts were organized, Judge Bryant bought the island of George Abernethy, Esq., who had bought the stock of the other associates, and as the island was in Judge Bryant's district, and as there were only two judges in the territory, I
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A DELEGATE TO CONGRESS.
understood the merits of the case, all classes were to be appealed to. There were those who had no regard for truth or justice; those who cared more for party than principle; those who had ignorantly believed the charges made against him; and those who, from national, religious, or jealous feelings, were united in a crusade against the man who represented in their eyes everything hateful in the British char- acter and unholy in the Catholic religion, as well as the few who were wilfully conspiring to complete the overthrow of this British Roman Catholic aristocrat.
There were others besides McLoughlin who felt themselves injured; those who had purchased lots in Oregon City since the 4th of March 1849. Notice was issued to these property-holders to meet for the purpose of asking congress to confirm their lots to them also. Such a meeting was held on the 19th of September, in Oregon City, Andrew Hood being chairman, and Noyes Smith secretary. The meeting was addressed by Thornton and Pritchett, and a memorial to congress prepared, which set forth that the Oregon City claim was taken and had been held in accordance with the laws of the provisional and territorial governments of Oregon; and that the memorialists considered it as fully entitled to pro- tection as any other claim; no intimation to the contrary ever having been made up to that time. That under this impression, both before and since the 4th of March 1849, large portions of it, in lots and blocks, had been purchased in good faith by many citizens of Oregon, who had erected valuable buildings thereon, in the expectation of having a complete and sufficient title when congress should grant a title to
thought I could not at the time bring the case to a satisfactory decision. I therefore deferred bringing the case to a time when the bench would be full. . . Can the people of Oregon City believe that Mr Thurston did not know, some months before he left this, that Mr Abernethy had sold his rights, whatever they were, to Judge Bryant, and therefore proposing to congress to donate this island to Mr Abernethy, his heirs and assigns, was in fact, proposing to donate it to Judge Bryant, his heirs and assigns.' Or. Spectator, Sept. 12, 1850.
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OREGON CITY CLAIM.
the original occupant. That since the date mentioned, the occupant of the claim had donated for county, educational, charitable, and religious purposes more than two hundred lots, which, if the bill pending should pass, would be lost to the public, as well as a great loss sustained by private individuals who had purchased property in good faith. They therefore prayed that the bill might not pass in its present form, believing that it would work a "severe, inequi- table, unnecessary, and irremediable injustice." The memorial was signed by fifty-six persons,47 and a reso- lution declaring the selection of the Oregon City clain for reservation uncalled for by any consider- able portion of the citizens of the territory, and as invidious and unjust to McLoughlin, was offered by Wait and adopted, followed by another by Thorn- ton declaring that the gratitude of multitudes of people in Oregon was due to John McLoughlin for assistance rendered them. In some preliminary re- marks, Thornton referred to the ingratitude shown their benefactor, by certain persons who had not paid their debts to McLoughlin, but who had secretly signed a petition to take away his property. Mc- Loughlin also refers to this petition in his newspaper defence; but if there was such a petition circulated or sent it does not appear in any of the public docu- ments, and must have been carefully suppressed by Thurston himself, and only used in the committee rooms of members of congress. 48
47 The names of the signers were: Andrew Hood, Noyes Smith, Forbes Barclay, A. A. Skinner, James D. Holman, W. C. Holman, J. Quinn Thorn- ton, Walter Pomeroy, A. E. Wait, Joseph C. Lewis, James M. Moore, Robert Moore, R. R. Thompson, George H. Atkinson, M. Crawford, Wm. Hood, Thomas Lowe, Wm. B. Campbell, John Fleming, G. Hanan, Robert Caofield, Alex. Brisser, Samuel Welch, Gustavus A. Cone, Albert Gaines, W. H. Tucker, Arch. Mckinlay, Richard McMahon, David Burnsides, Hezekiah Johnson, P. H. Hatch, J. L. Morrison, Joseph Parrott, Ezra Fisher, Geo. T. Allen, L. D. C. Latourette, D. D. Tompkins, Wm. Barlow, Amory Holbrook, Matthew Richardson, John McClosky, Wm. Holmes, H. Burns, Wm. Chap- man, Wm. K. Kilborn, J. R. Ralston, B. B. Rogers, Chas. Friedenberg, Abraham Wolfe, Samuel Vance, J. B. Backenstos, John J. Chandler. S. W. Moss, James Winston Jr., Septimus Huelot, Milton Elliott. Or. Spectator, Sept. 26, 1850.
48 Considering the fact that Thornton had been in the first instance the
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A DELEGATE TO CONGRESS.
Not long after the meeting at Oregon City, a pub- lie gathering of about two hundred was convened at Salem for the purpose of expressing disapproval of the resolutions passed at the Oregon City meeting, and commendation of the cause of the Oregon delegate.49
In November a meeting was held in Linn county at which resolutions were passed endorsing Thurston and denouncing McLoughlin. Nor were there want- ing those who upheld the delegate privately, and who wrote approving letters to him, assuring him that he was losing no friends, but gaining them by the seore, and that his course with regard to the Oregon City claim would be sustained.50
Mr Thurston has been since condemned for his action in the matter of the Oregon City claims. But even while the honest historian must join in reprobat-
unsuccessful agent of the leading missionaries in an effort to take away the claim of McLoughlin, it might be difficult to understand how he could appear in the role of the doctor's defender. But ever since the failure of that secret mission there had been a coolness between Abernethy and his private delegate, who, now that he had been superseded by a bolder and more fortunate though no less unscrupulous man, had publicly espoused the cause of the victim of all this plotting, who still, it was supposed, had means enough left to pay for the legal advice he was likely to need, if ever he was extricated from the anomalous position into which he would be thrown by the passage of the Oregon land bill. His affectation of proper sentiment imposed upon McLoughlin, who gave him employment for a considerable time. As late as 1870, however, this doughty defender of the just, on the appearance in print of Mrs Victor's River of the W'est, in which the author gives a brief statement of the Oregon City claim case, having occasion at that time to court the patronage of the Methodist church, made a violent attack through its organ, the Pacific Christian Advo- cate, upon the author of that book for taking the same view of the case which is announced in the resolution published under his own name in the Spectator of September 26, 1850. But not having ever been able to regain in the church a standing which could be made profitable, and finding that history would vindicate the right, he has made a request in his autobiography that the fact of his having been McLoughlin's attorney should be mentioned, 'in justice to the doctor!' It will be left for posterity to judge whether Thornton or McLoughlin was honored by the association.
49 William Shaw, a member of the committee framing these resolutions, says, in his Pioneer Life, MS., 14-15: 'I came here, to Oregon City, and spent what money I had for flour, coffee, and one thing and another; and I went back to the Hudson's Bay Company and bought 1,000 pounds of flour from Douglass. I was to pay him for it after I came into the Valley. He trusted me for it, although he had never seen me before. I took it up to the Dalles and distributed it among the emigrants.' W. C. Rector has, in later years, declared that McLoughlin was the father of Oregon. McLoughlin little understood the manner in which public sentiment is manufactured for party or even for individual purposes, when he exclaimed indignantly: 'No man could be found to assert ' that he had done the things alleged.
50 Odell's Biog. of Thurston, MS., 26.
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UPHOLDING THE WRONG.
ing his unscrupulous sacrifice of truth to secure his object, the people then in Oregon should be held as deserving of a share in the censure which has attached to him. His course had been marked out for him by those who stood high in society, and who were leaders of the largest religious body in Oregon. He had been elected by a majority of the people. The people had been pleased and more than pleased with what he had done. When the alternative had been presented to them of condemning or endorsing him for this single action, their first impulse was to sustain the man who had shown himself their faithful servant, even in the wrong, rather than have his usefulness impaired. Al- most the only persons to protest against the robbery of McLoughlin were those who were made to suffer with him. All others either remained silent, or wrote encouraging letters to Thurston, and as Washington was far distant from Oregon he was liable to be de- ceived.51
When the memorial and petition of the owners of lots in Oregon City, purchased since the 4th of March 1849, came before congress, there was a stir, because Thurston had given assurances that he was acting in accordance with the will of the people. But the memorialists, with a contemptible selfishness not unu- sual in mankind, had not asked that McLoughlin's claim might be confirmed to him, but only that their lots might not he sacrificed.
Thurston sought everywhere for support. While in Washington he wrote to Wyeth for testimony against McLoughin, but received from that gentleman only the warmest praise of the chief factor. Sus- pecting Thurston's sinister design Wyeth even wrote
61 Thornton wrote several articles in vindication of McLoughlin's rights; but he was employed by the doctor as an attorney. A. E. Wait also denounced Thurston's course; but he also was at one time employed by the doctor. Wait said : ' I believed him (Thurston) to be strangely wanting in discretion; morally and politically corrupt; towering in ambition, and unscrupulous of the means by which to obtain it; fickle and suspicious in friendship; implaca- ble and revengeful in hatred, vulgar in speech, and prone to falsehood.' Or. Spectator, March 20, 1851.
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