USA > Oregon > History of Oregon, Vol. II, 1848-1888 > Part 20
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2 John Adair at Astoria, F. Smith at Portland, George L. Curry at Oregon City, and J. B. McClane, at Salem. J. C. Avery was postmaster at Corvallis, Jesse Applegate at Yoncalla, S. F. Chadwick at Scottsburg.
26 Or. Spectator, Nov. 29, 1849; Rept. of Gen. Smith, in 31st Cong., 1st Sess., S. Doc. 47, 107.
21Or. Spectator, April 18, 1850.
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DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN OREGON.
then undiscovered mouth of the Klamath River for a distributing point for the Oregon mail! Thurston with characteristic energy soon procured the promise of the secretary that the notice should be immediately given, and that after June 1850 mail steamers should go "not only to Nisqually, but to Astoria."28 The postmaster-general also recommended the reduction of the postage to California and Oregon to take effect by the end of June 1851.29
At length in June 1850 the steamship Carolina, Captain R. L. Whiting, made her first trip to Port- land with mails and passengers.30 She was withdrawn in August and placed on the Panamá route in order to complete the semi-monthly communication called for between that port and San Francisco. On the 1st of September the California arrived at Astoria and departed the same day, having lost three days in a heavy fog off the bar. On the 27th the Panamá ar- rived at Astoria, and two days later the Seagull,31 a steam propeller. On the 24th of October the Oregon brought up the mail for the first time, and was an object of much interest on account of her name.32 There was no regularity in arrivals or departures until the coming from New York of the Columbia,
28 This quotation refers to an effort on the part of certain persons to make Nisqually the point of distribution of the mails. The proposition was sus- tained by Wilkes and Sir George Simpson. 'If they get ahead of me,' said Thurston in his letter, 'they will rise early and work late.'
29 31st Cong., 2d Sess., H. Ex. Doc. 1, 408, 410. This favor also was chiefly the result of the representations of the Oregon delegate. A single letter from Oregon to the States cost 40 cents; from California 123 cents, before the reduction which made the postage uniform for the Pacific coast and fixed it at six cents a single sheet, or double the rate in the Atlantic states. Or. Statesman, May 9, 1851.
80 McCracken's Early Steamboating, MS., 7; Salem Directory, 1874, 95; Portland Oregonian, Jan. 13, 1872. There was an incongruity in the law establishing the mail service, which provided for a semi-monthly mail to the river Chagre, but only a monthly mail from Panamá up the coast. Rept. of P. M. Gen., in 31st Cong., 2d Sess., H. Ex. Doc. 1, 410; Or. Spectator, Ang. 8, 1850.
31 The Seagull was wrecked on the Humboldt bar on her passage to Ore- gon, Feb. 26, 1852. Or. Statesman, March 2, 1832.
32 Or. Spectator, Oct. 31, 1850. The Oregon was transformed into a sail- ing vessel after many years of service, and was finally sunk in the strait of Juan de Fuca by collision with the bark Germania in 1880. Her commander when she first came to Oregon was Lieut. Charles P. Patterson of the navy.
189
COAST SURVEY.
brought out by Lieutenant G. W. Totten of the navy, in March 1851, and afterward commanded by William Dall.33
The Columbia supplied a great deficiency in com- munication with California and the east, though Oregon was still forced to be content with a monthly mail, while California had one twice a month. The postmaster-general's direction that Astoria should be made a distributing office was a blunder that the delegate failed to rectify. Owing to the lack of navi- gation by steamers on the rivers, Astoria was but a remove nearer than San Francisco, and while not quite so inaccessible as the mouth of the Klamath, was nearly so. When the post-routes were advertised, no bids were offered for the Astoria route, and when the mail for the interior was left at that place a special effort must be made to bring it to Portland.34
Troubled by reason of this isolation, the people of Oregon had asked over and over for increased mail facilities, and as one of the ways of obtaining them, and also of increasing their commercial opportunities, had prayed congress to order a survey of the coast, its bays and river entrances. Almost immediately
33 ' The Columbia was commenced in New York by a man named Hunt, who lived in Astoria, under an agreement with Coffin, Lownsdale, and Chap- man, the proprietors, of Portland, to furnish a certain amount of money to build a vessel to run between San Francisco and Astoria. Hunt went east, and the keel of the vessel was laid in 1849, and he got her on the ways and ready to launch when his money gave out, and the town proprietors of Port- land did not send any more. So she was sold, and Howland and Aspinwall bought her for this trade themselves .. . She ran regularly ouce a month from San Francisco to Portland, carrying the mails and passengers.' She was very stanchly built, of 700 tons register, would carry 50 or 60 cabin passengers, with about as many in the steerage, and cost $150,000. N. Y. Tribune, in Or. Spectator, Dec. 12, 1850; Deady's Hist. Or., MS., 10-11.
3+ The postal agent appointed in 1851 was Nathaniel Coe, a man of high character and scholarly attainments, as well as religious habits. He was a native of Morristown, New Jersey, born September 11, 1788, a whig, and a member of the Baptist church. In his earlier years he represented Alleghany county, New York, in the state legislature. When his term of office in Oregon expired he remained in the country, settling on the Columbia River near the mouth of Hood River, on the eastern slope of the Cascade Mountains. 'His mental energy was such, that neither the rapid progress of the sciences of our time, nor his own great age of eighty, could check his habits of study. The ripened fruits of scholarship that resulted appeared as bright as ever even in the last weeks of his life. He died at Hood River, his residence, October 17, 1868.' Vancouver Register, Nov. 7, 1868; Dalles Mountaineer, Oct. 23, 1868.
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DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN OREGON.
upon the organization of the territory, Professor A. D. Baehe, superintendent of the United States coast survey, was notified that he would be expected to commence the survey of the coast of the United States on the Pacific. A corps of officers was se- leeted and divided into two branches, one party to conduet the duties of the service on shore, and the other to make a hydrographieal survey.
The former duty devolved upon assistant-superin- tendent, James S. Williams, Brevet-Captain D. P. Hammond, and Joseph S. Ruth, sub-assistant. The naval survey was conducted by Lieutenant W. P. MeArthur, in the schooner Ewing, which was com- manded by Lieutenant Washington Bartlett of the United States navy. The time of their advent on the coast was an unfortunate one, the spring of 1849, when the gold excitement was at its height, prices of labor and living extortionate, and the difficulty of restraining men on board ship, or in any service, excessive, the officers having to stand guard over the men,35 or to put to sea to prevent desertions.
So many delays were experienced from these and other causes that nothing was accomplished in 1849, and the Ewing wintered at the Hawaiian Islands, returning to San Francisco for her stores in the spring, and again losing some of her men. On the 3d of April, Bartlett succeeded in getting to sea with men enough to work the vessel, though some of these were placed in irons on reaching the Columbia River. The first Oregon newspaper which fell under Bart- lett's eye contained a letter of Thurston's, in which he reflected severely on the surveying expedition for neglect to proceed with their duties, which was sup- plemented by censorious remarks by the editor. To
$5 A mutiny occurred in which Passed Midshipman Gibson was nearly drowned in San Francisco Bay by five of the seamen. They escaped, were pursued, captured, and sentenced to death by a general court-martial. Two were hanged on board the Ewing and the others on the St Mary's, a ship of the U. S. squadron. Letter of Lieut. Bartlett, in Or. Spectator, June 27, 1850; Lawson's Autobiog., MS., 2; Davidson's Biography.
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WORK ACCOMPLISHED.
these attacks Bartlett replied through the same medium, and took occasion to reprove the Oregonians for their lack of enterprise in failing to sustain a pilot service at the mouth of the Columbia, which service, since the passage of the pilotage act, had received little encouragement or support,6 and also for giving countenance to the desertion of his men.
The work accomplished by the Ewing during the summer was the survey of the entrance to the Colum- bia, the designation of places for buoys to mark the channel, of a site for a light-house on Cape Disap- pointment, and the examination of the coast south of the Columbia. The survey showed that the "rock- ribbed and iron-bound" shore of Oregon really was a beach of sand from Point Adams to Cape Arago, a distance of one hundred and sixty-five miles, only thirty-three miles of that distance being cliffs of rock where the ocean touched the shore. From Cape Arago to the forty-second parallel, a distance of eighty-five miles, rock was found to predominate,
36 Capt White, a New York pilot, conceived the idea of establishing himself and a corps of competent assistants at the month of the Columbia, thereby conferring a great benefit on Oregon commerce, and presumably a reasonable amount of reward upon himself. But his venture, like a great many others projected from the other side of the continent, was a failure. On bring- ing his fine pilot-boat, the W'm G. Hagstaff, up the coast, in September 1849, he attempted to enter Rogue River, but got aground on the bar, was attacked by the Indians, and himself and associates, with their men, driven into the mountains, where they wandered for eighteen days in terrible destitution before reaching Fort Umpqua, at which post they received succor. The Hagstaff was robbed and burned, her place being supplied by another boat called the Mary Taylor. The Pioneer, i. 351; Davidson's Coast Pilot, 112- 13; Williams' S. W. Or., MS. 2. It was the neglect of the Oregonians to make good the loss of Captain White, or a portion of it, to which Bartlett referred. For the year during which White had charge of the bar pilot- age 69 vessels of from 60 to 650 tons crossed in all 128 times. The only loss of a vessel in that time was that of the Josephine, loaded with lumber of the Oregon Milling Company. She was becalmed on the bar, and a gale coming up in the night she dragged her anchor and was carried on the sands, where she was dismasted and abandoned. She afterward floated out to sea, being a total loss. George Gibbs, in Or. Spectator, May 2, 1850. The pilot commis- sioners, consisting at this time of Gov. Lane and captains Couch and Crosby, made a strong appeal in behalf of White, but he was left to bear his losses and go whither he pleased. Johnson's Cal. and Or., 254-5; Carrol's Star of the West, 200-5; Stevens, in Pac. R. R. Rept., i. 109, 201-2, 615-16; Poly- nesian, July 20, 1850. The merchants finally advanced the pay of pilots so as to be remunerative, after which time little was heard about the terrors of the Columbia bar.
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DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN OREGON.
there being only fifteen miles of sand on this part of the coast.37 Little attention was given to any bay or stream north of the Umpqua, MeArthur offering it as his opinion that they were accessible by small boats alone, except Yaquina, which might, he eonjeetured, be entered by vessels of a larger elass.
It will be remembered that the Samuel Roberts entered the Umpqua August 6, 1850, and surveyed the mouth of the river, and the river itself to Seotts- burg. As the Ewing did not leave the Columbia until the 7th, McArthur's survey was subsequent to this one. He erossed the bar in the second eutter and not in the schooner; and pronounced the channel practicable for steamers, but dangerous for sailing vessels, unless under favorable eireumstances. Slight examination was made of Coos Bay, an opinion being formed from simply looking at the mouth that it would be found available for steamers. The Coquille River was said to be only large enough for canoes; and Rogue River also unfit for sailing vessels, being so narrow as to scareely afford room to turn in. So much for the Oregon coast. As to the Klamath, while it had more water on the bar than any river south of the Columbia, it was so narrow and so rapid as to be unsafe for sailing vessels.38
This was a very unsatisfactory report for the pro- jeetors of seaport towns in southern Oregon. It was almost equally disappointing to the naval and post- office departments of the general government, and to the mail contractors, who were then still anxious to avoid running their steamers to the Columbia, and determined if possible to find a different mail route. The recommendation of the postmaster-general at the instance of the Oregon delegate, that they should be required to leave the mail at Scottsburg, as I have mentioned, indueed them to make a special effort to
37 Coast Survey, 1850, 70; S. F. Pac. News, Jan. 18, 1851.
38 McArthur died in 1851 while on his way to Panamá and the east. Law- son's Autobiog., MS., 26.
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PORT ORFORD ESTABLISHED.
found a settlement on the southern coast which would enable them to avoid the bar of the Umpqua.
The place selected was on a small bay about eight miles south of Cape Blanco, and a little south of Point Orford. Orders were issued to Captain Tichenor 33 of the Seagull, which was running to Portland, to put in at this place, previously visited by him,40 and there leave a small colony of settlers, who were to examine the country for a road into the interior. Accord- ingly in June 1851 the Seagull stopped at Port Or- ford, as it was named, and left there nine men, com- manded by J. M. Kirkpatrick, with the necessary stores and arms. A four-pounder was placed in position on the top of a high rock with one side sloping to the sea, and which at high tide became an island by the united waters of the ocean and a small creek which flowed by its base.
While the steamer remained in port, the Indians, of whom there were many in the neighborhood, ap- peared friendly. But on the second day after her departure, about forty of them held a war-dance, dur- ing which their numbers were constantly augmented by arrivals from the heavily wooded and hilly country back from the shore. When a considerable force was gathered the chief ordered an advance on the fortified
89 William Tichenor was born in Newark, N. J., June 13, IS13, his ances- tor Daniel Tichenor being one of the original proprietors of that town. He followed the sea, making his first voyage in 1825. In 1833 he married and went to Indiana, but could not remain in the interior. After again making a sea voyage he tried living in Edgar county, Illinois, where he represented the ninth senatorial district. In 1846 he recruited two companies for the regiment commanded by Col. E. D. Baker, whom he afterward helped to elect to the U. S. senate from Oregon. Tichenor came to the Pacific coast in 1849, and having mined for a short time on the American River, purchased the schooner J. M. Ryerson, and sailed for the gulf of California, exploring the coast to San Francisco and northward, discovering the bay spoken of above. He finally settled at Port Orford, and was three times elected to the lower house of the Oregon legislature, and once to the senate. He took up the study of law and practised for 16 years, and was at one time county judge of Curry county. Yet during all this time he never quite gave up sea- faring. Letter of Tichenor, in Historical Correspondence, MS.
40 Port Orford was established and owned by Capt. Tichenor, T. Butler King, collector of the port of San Francisco, James Gamble, Fred M. Smith, M. Hubbard, and W. G. T'Vault. Or. Statesman, Aug. 19, 1851.
HIST. OR., VOL. II. 13
194
DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN OREGON.
rock of the settlers, who motioned them to keep back or receive their fire. But the savages, ignorant per- haps of the use of cannon, continued to come nearer until it became evident that a hand-to-hand conflict would soon ensue. When one of them had seized a musket in the hands of a settler, Kirkpatrick touched a fire-brand to the cannon, and discharged it in the midst of the advancing multitude, bringing several to the ground. The men then took aim and shot six at the first fire. Turning on those nearest with their guns clubbed, they were able to knock down several, and the battle was won. In fifteen minutes the Indians had twenty killed and fifteen wounded. Of the white men four were wounded by the arrows of the savages which fell in a shower upon them. The Indians were permitted to carry off their dead, and a lull followed.
But the condition of the settlers was harassing. They feared to leave their fortified camp to explore for a road to the interior, and determined to await the return of the Seagull, which was to bring an- other company from San Francisco. At the end of five days the Indians reappeared in greater force, and seeing the white men still in possession of their stronghold and presenting a determined front, retired a short distance down the coast to hold a war-dance and work up courage. The settlers, poorly supplied with ammunition, wished to avoid another conflict in which they might be defeated, and taking advantage of the temporary absence of the foe essayed to es- cape to the woods, carrying nothing but their arms.
It was a bold and desperate movement but it proved successful. Travelling as rapidly as possible in the almost tropical jungle of the Coast Range, and keep- ing in the forest for the first five or six miles, they emerged at night on the beach, and by using great caution eluded their pursuers. On coming to Coquille River, a village of about two hundred Indians was discovered on the bank opposite, which they avoided
195
THE ABANDONED SETTLEMENT.
by going up the stream for several miles and crossing it on a raft. To be secure against a similar en- counter, they now kept to the woods for two days, though by doing so they deprived themselves of the only food, except salmon berries, which they had been able to find. At one place they fell in with a small band of savages whom they frightened away by charg- ing toward them. Again emerging on the beach they lived on mussels for four days. The only as- sistance received was from the natives on Cowan River which empties into Coos Bay. These people were friendly, and fed and helped them on their way. On the eighth day the party reached the mouth of the Umpqua, where they were kindly cared for by the settlers at that place. 41
When Tichenor arrived at San Francisco, he pro- ceeded to raise a party of forty men to reënforce his settlement at Port Orford, to which he had promised to return by the 23d of the month. The Seagull being detained, he took passage on the Columbia, Captain Le Roy, and arrived at Port Orford as agreed, on the 23d, being surprised at not seeing any of his men on shore. He immediately landed, how- ever, with Le Roy and eight others, and saw provis- ions and tools scattered over the ground, and on every side the signs of a hard struggle. On the ground was a diary kept by one of the party, in which the begin- ning of the first day's battle was described, leaving off abruptly where the first Indian seized a comrade's gun. Hence it was thought that all had been killed, and the account first published of the affair set it down as a massacre; a report which about one week later was corrected by a letter from Kirkpatrick, who, after giving a history of his adventures, concluded
41 Williams' S. W. Oregon, MS., 1-6; Alta California, June 30th and July 25, 1851; Wills' Wild Life, in Van Tromp's Adventures, 149-50; Arm- strong's Or., 60-4; Crane's Top. Mem., 37-40; Overland Monthly, xiv. 179-82; Port'and Bulletin, Feb. 25, 1873; Or. Spectator, July 3, 1851; Or. Statesman, July 4th and 15, 1851; Parrish's Or. Anecdotes, MS., 41-5; Harper's Mag., xiii. 500-1; S. F. Herald, June 30, 1851; Id., July 15, 1851; Lawson's Autobioy., MS., 32-3; S. F. Alta, June 30, 1851; Taylor's Spec. Press, 19.
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DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN OREGON.
with a favorable description of the country and the announcement that he had discovered a fine bay at the mouth of the Cowan River.42 This important discovery was little heeded by the founders of Port Orford, who were bent upon establishing their settle- ment on a more southern point of the coast.
Tichenor left his California party at Port Orford well armed and fortified and proceeded to Portland, where he advertised to land passengers within thirty- five miles of the Rogue River mines, having brought up about two dozen miners from San Francisco and landed them at Port Orford to make their way from thence to the interior, at their own hazard. On re- turning down the coast the Columbia again touched at Port Orford and left a party of Oregon men, so that by August there were about seventy persons at the new settlement. They were all well armed and kept guard with military regularity. To some was assigned the duty of hunting, elk, deer, and other game being plentiful on the coast mountains, and birds of numerous kinds inhabiting the woods and seashore. A whitehall boat was left for fishing and shooting purposes. These hunting tours were also exploring expeditions, resulting in a thorough exami- nation of the coast from the Coquille River on the north to a little below the California line on the south, in which distance no better port was discovered.43
The 24th of August a party of twenty-three # under T'Vault set out to explore the interior. T'Vault's experience as a pioneer was supposed to fit him for the position of guide and Indian-fighter, a most re- sponsible office in that region of hostile savages,
42 Now called Coos, an Indian name.
43 Says Williams in his S. W. Oregon, MS., 9: 'It was upon one of these expeditions, returning from a point where Crescent City now stands, that with a fair wind, myself at the helm, we sailed into the beautiful Chetcoe River which we ever pronounced the loveliest little spot upon that line of coast.'
# I give here the number as given by Williams, one of the company, though it is stated to be only 18 by T'Vault, the leader, in Altu California, Oct. 14, 1851.
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T'VAULT'S EXPLORATION.
particularly as the expedition was made up of im- migrants of the previous year, with little or no knowledge of the country, or of mountain life. Only two of them, Williams and Lount, both young men from Michigan, were good hunters; and on them would depend the food supply after the ten days' ra- tions with which each man was furnished should be exhausted.
Nothing daunted, however, they set out on horses, and proceeded southward along the coast as far as the mouth of Rogue River. The natives along the route were numerous, but shy, and on being approached fled into the woods. At Rogue River, however, they assumed a different air, and raised their bows threat- eningly, but on seeing guns levelled at them desisted. During the march they hovered about the rear of the party, who on camping at night selected an open place, and after feeding their horses burned the grass for two hundred yards around that the savages might not have it to hide in, keeping at the same time a double guard. Proceeding thus cautiously they avoided collision with these savages.
When they had reached a point about fifty miles from the ocean, on the north bank of Rogue River, having lost their way and provisions becoming low, some determined to turn back. T'Vault, unwilling to abandon the adventure, offered increased pay to such as would continue it. Accordingly nine went on with him toward the valley, though but one of them could be depended upon to bring in game.45 The separation took place on the 1st of September, the advancing party proceeding up Rogue River, by which course they were assured they could not fail soon to reach the travelled road.
On the evening of the 9th they came upon the
45 This was Williams. The others were: Patrick Murphy, of New York; A. S. Doherty and Gilbert Brush, of Texas; Cyrus Hedden, of Newark, N. J .; John P. Holland, of New Hampshire; T. J. Davenport, of Massachusetts; Jeremiah Ryan, of Maryland; J. P. Pepper, of New York. Alta California, Oct 14, 1851.
198
DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN OREGON.
head-waters of a stream flowing, it was believed, into the ocean near Cape Blanco. They were therefore, though designing to go south-eastwardly, actually some distance north as well as east from Port Orford, the nature of the country and the direction of the ridges forcing them out of their intended course. Finding an open country on this stream, they followed it down some distance, and chancing to meet an Indian boy engaged him as a guide, who brought them to the southern branch of a river, down which they travelled, finding the bottoms covered with a thick growth of trees peculiar to low, moist lands. It was now deter- mined to abandon their horses, as they could advance with difficulty, and had no longer anything to carry which could not be dispensed with. They therefore procured the services of some Indians with canoes to take them to the mouth of the river, which they found to have a beautiful valley of rich land, and to be, after passing the junction of the two forks, about eighty yards wide, with the tide ebbing and flowing from two to three feet.46 On the 14th, about ten o'clock in the morning, having descended to within a few miles of the ocean, a member of the party, Mr Hedden, one of those driven out of Port Orford in June, and who escaped up the coast, recognized the stream as the Coquille River, which the previous party had crossed on a raft. Too exhausted to navigate a boat for themselves, and overcome by hunger, they engaged some natives47 to take them down the river, instead of which they were carried to a large rancheria situated about two miles from the ocean.
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