USA > Oregon > History of Oregon, Vol. II, 1848-1888 > Part 30
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' Id., Feb. 12, 1853. The Statesman remarked that the majority in the house had killed the first bill and decided to leave the people without courts, unless they could carry a party point, when the council in a commendable spirit of conciliation passed a new bill.
5 The new board consisted of Eli M. Barnum, Albert W. Ferguson, and Alvis Kimsey. Barnum was from Ohio, and his wife was Frances Latimer of Norwalk, in that state. The penitentiary board consisted of William M. King, Samuel Parker, and Nathaniel Ford. University board, James A. Benuett, John Trapp, and Lucius Phelps.
" The acts of this legislature which it may be well to mention are as follows: Creating and regulating the office of prosecuting attorney; L. F. Grover be- ing appointed for the 2d district, R. E. Stratton for the 1st, and Alexander Camphell for the 3d. At the election of June following, R. P. Boise was chosen in the 2d district, Sims in the Ist, and Alex. Campbell in the 3d. Establishing probate courts, and providing for the election of constables and notaries public. A. M. Poe was made a notary for Thurston county, D. S. Maynard of King, John M. Chapman of Pierce, R. H. Lansdale of Island, A. A. Plummer of Jefferson, Adam Van Dusen of Clatsop, James Scudder of Pacific, Septimus Heulat of Clackamas, and W. M. King of Washington county. Or. Statesman, Feb. 26, 1853. An act was passed authorizing the appointment of two justices of the peace in that portion of Clackamas east of the Cascades, and appointing Cornelius Palmer and Justin Chenoweth. The commissioners of each county were authorized by act to locate a quarter- section of land for the benefit of county scats, in accordance with the law of
299
LEGISLATION.
The resolutions of instruction to the Oregon dele- gate in congress at this session required his endeavor to obtain $100,000 for the improvement of the Wil-
congress passed May 26, 1824, and report such locations to the surveyor general. Or. Gen. Laws, 1852-3, 68.
I have spoken before of the several new counties created at this session, making necessary a new apportionment of representatives. Those north of the Columbia were Pierce, King, Island, and Jefferson. The county seat of Pierce was located on the land claim of John M. Chapman at Steilacoom; King, on the claim of David S. Maynard at Seattle; Jefferson, on the claim of Alfred A. Plummer at Port Townsend; Lewis, on the claim of Frederick A. Clark at the upper landing of the Cowlitz. Commissioners of King county were A. A. Denny, John N. Lowe, Luther M. Collins; David C. Bor- ing, sheriff; H. D. Yesler, probate clerk. Commissioners of Jefferson county, Lucius B. Hastings, David F. Brownfield, Albert Briggs; H. C. Wilson, sheriff; A. A. Plummer, probate clerk. Commissioners of Island county, Samuel D. Howe, John Alexander, John Crockett; W. L. Allen, sheriff; R. H. Lansdale, probate clerk. Commissioners of Pierce county, Thomas M. Chambers, William Dougherty, Alexander Smith; John Bradley, sheriff; John M. Chapman, probate clerk. The county seat of Thurston county was located at Olympia, and that of Jackson county at Jacksonville. The com- missioners appointed were James Cluggage, James Dean, and Abel George; Sykes, sheriff; Levi A. Rice, probate clerk. The county seat of Lane was fixed at Eugene City. The earliest settlers of this part of the Willamette were, besides Skinner, Felix Scott, Jacob Spores, Benjamin Richardson, John Brown, Marion Scott, John Vallely, Benjamin and Joseph Davis, C. Mulli- gan, Lemuel Davis, Hilyard Shaw, Elijah Bristow, William Smith, Isaac and Elias Briggs.
The election law was amended, removing the five years' restriction from foreign-born citizens, and reducing the probationary period of naturalized foreigners to six months.
An act was passed creating an irreducible school fund out of all moneys in any way devoted to school purposes, whether by donation, bequest, sale, or rent of school lands, or in any manner whatever, the interest of which was to be divided among the school districts in proportion to the number of chil- dren between 4 and 21 years of age, with other regulations concerning educa- tional matters. A board of commissioners, consisting of Arnold Fuller, Jacob Martin, and Harrison Linnville, was created to select the two townships of land granted by congress to a territorial university; and an act was passed authorizing the university commissioners to sell one fourth or more of the township, to be selected south of the Columbia, for the purpose of erecting a university building.
The Wallamet University was established, by act of the legislature Jan. 10, 1853, the trustees being David Leslie, William Roberts, George Abernethy, W. H. Wilson, Alanson Beers, Francis S. Hoyt, James H. Wilbur, Calviu S. Kingsley, John Flinn, E. M. Barnum, L. F. Grover, B. F. Harding, Samuel Burch, Francis Fletcher, Jeremiah Ralston, John D. Boon, Joseph Holman, Webley Hauxhurst, Jacob Conser. Alvin F. Waller, John Stewart, James R. Robb, Cyrus Olney, Asahel Bush, and Samuel Parker.
Pilotage was established at the mouth of the Umpqua, and the office of wreck-master created for the several counties bordering on the sea-coast. S. S. Mann was appointed for Umpqua and Jackson, Thomas Goodwin for Clat- sop and Pacific, and Samuel B. Crockett for the coast north of Pacific county, to serve until these offices were filled by election.
The First Methodist Church of Portland was incorporated January 25th, and the city of Portland on the 28th. A divorce law was passed at this ses-
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POLITICS AND PROGRESS.
lamette River; $30,000 for opening a military road from Steilacoom to Fort Walla Walla; $40,000 for a military road from Scottsburg to Rogue River Valley ; $15,000 to build a light-house at the mouth of the Umpqua; $15,000 for buoys at the entrance of that river; and $40,000 to erect a fire-proof custom-house at that place. He was also instructed to have St Helen made a port of delivery; to have the surveyor general's office removed to Salem; to procure an in- crease in the number of members of council from nine to fifteen, and in the house of representatives from eighteen to thirty; to ask for a military reconnoissance of the country between the Willamette Valley and Fort Boisé; to procure the establishment of a mail route from Olympia to Port Townsend, with post- offices at Steilacoom, Seattle, and Port Townsend, with other routes and offices at Whidby Island and the mouth of the Snohomish River; to urge the survey of the boundary line between California and Oregon ; to procure money for the continuance of the geologi- cal survey which had been carried on for one year previous in Oregon territory ;7 to call the attention of congress to the manner in which the Pacific Mail Steamship Company violated their contract to carry the mail from Panamá to Astoria;8 and to endeavor
sion, the first enacted in the territory, divorces hitherto having been granted by the legislature, which failed to inquire closely into the cause for com- plaint. The law made impotency, adultery, bigamy, compulsion or fraud, wilful desertion for two years, conviction of felony, habitual drunkenness, gross cruelty, and failure to support the wife, one or all justification for sev- ering the marriage tie. A later divorce law required three years' abandou- ment, not otherwise differing essentially from that of 1852-3. A large num- ber of road acts were passed, showing the development of the country.
" In 1851 congress ordered a general reconnoissance from the Rocky Moun- tains to the Pacific, to be performed by the geologists J. Evans, D. D. Owens, B. F. Shumard, and Norwood. It was useful in pointing out the location of various minerals used in the operations of commerce and manufacture, though most of the important discoveries have been made by the unlearned but prac- tical miner. U. S. H. Ex. Doc., 2, pt ii. 7, 321 cong. 1 sess .; U. S. Sen. Com. Rept, 177, 1-3, 6, 36th cong. Ist sess .; Or. Spectator, Nov. 18, 1851; Olym- pia Columbian, Jan. 22, 1852.
8 No steamship except the Frémont, and she only once, had ventured to cross the Umpqua bar. From 1851 to 1858 the following vessels were lost on the southern coast of Oregon: At or near the mouth of the Umpqua, the Bostonian, Caleb Curtis, Roanoke, Achilles, Nassau, Almira, Fawn, and Loo- Choo; and at or near the entrance of Coos Bay the Cyclops, Jackson, and two
30]
EMIGRANT ROAD.
to have the salary of the postmaster at that place raised to one thousand dollars.
This was a formidable amount of work for a single delegate, but Lane was equal to the undertaking. And here I will briefly review the congressional labors of Thurston's successor, who had won a lasting place in the esteem and confidence of his constituency by using his influence in favor of so amending the organic law as to permit the people to elect their own governor and judges, and when the measure failed, by sustaining the action of the legislature in the location of the seat of government.
Lane was always en rapport with the democracy of the territory; and while possessing less mind, less intellectual force and ability, and proceeding with less foresight than Thurston, he made a better impression in congress with his more superficial accomplishments, by his frankness, activity, and a certain gallantry and bonhomie natural to him.9 His first work in con- gress was in procuring the amendment to Thurston's bill to settle the Cayuse war accounts, which author- ized the payment of the amount already found due by the commissioners appointed by the legislature of 1850-1, amounting to $73,000.10
Among the charges brought against Governor Gaines was that of re-auditing and changing the values of the certificates of the commissioners ap-
others. In 1858 the Emily Packard was wrecked at Shoalwater Bay. When Gov. Curry in 1853-6 addressed a communication to the secretary of the U. S. treasury, reminding him that an appropriation had been made for light- houses and fog-signals at the Umpqua and Columbia rivers, but that none of these aids to commerce had been received, Guthrie replied that there was no immediate need of them at the Umpqua or at Shoalwater Bay, as not more than one vessel in a month visited either place! Perhaps there would have been more vessels had there been more light-houses. In Dec. 1856 the light- house at Cape Disappointment was completed, and in 1857 those at Cape Flattery, New Dungeness, and Umpqua; but the latter was undermined by the sea, being set upon the sands.
" There is a flattering biography of Lane, published in Washington in 1852, with the design of forwarding his political aspirations with the national democratic convention which met in Baltimore in June of that year.
10 U. S. II. Jour., 1059, 1224, 32d cong. Ist sess. ; U. S. Laws, in Cong. Globe, 1851-52, pt iii. ix .; U. S. H. Jour., 387, 33d cong. Ist sess .; Or. Statesman, July 10, 1852.
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POLITICS AND PROGRESS.
pointed by the legislature to audit the Cayuse war claims, and of retaining the warrants forwarded to him for delivery, to be used for political purposes. Lane had a different way of making the war claims profitable to himself. Gaines was informed from Washington that the report of the territorial commis- sioners would be the guide in the future adjustment of the Cayuse accounts. Lane procured the passage of an amendment to the former enactments on this subject, which made up the deficiency occasioned by the alteration of the certificates; and the different manner of making political capital out of the war claims commended the delegate to the affections of the peo- ple.11 The 33d congress concluded the business of the Cayuse war by appropriating $75,000 to pay its remaining expenses.12
Lane urged the establishment of mail routes through the territory, and the better performance of the mail service; but although congress had appropriated in 1852 over $348,000 for the ocean mail service on the Pacific coast,13 Oregon still justly complained that less than the right proportion was expended in carrying the mails north of San Francisco. The appropriations for the various branches of the public service in Ore- gon for 1852, besides mail-carrying, amounted to $78,300, and Lane collected about $800 more from the government to pay for taking the census of 1850. He also procured the passage of a bill authorizing the president to designate places for ports of entry and delivery for the collection districts of Puget Sound and Umpqua, instead of those already established, and increasing the salary of the collector at Astoria to $3,000; but he failed to secure additional collection districts, as had been prayed for by the legislature.
11 Or. Statesman, May 14, 1853; Letter of Gaines, in Id., Feb. 26, 1863; Cong. Globe, 1853, app. 341; U. S. H. Com. Rept, 122, vol. ii. 4-5, 32d cong. 1st sess.
12 U. S. H. Ex. Doc. 45, 33d cong. Ist sess .; U. S. H. Com. Rept, 122, 33d cong. Ist sess .; Cong. Globe, 1853-4, 2239, 33d cong. Ist sess.
13 U. S. Laws, in Cong. Globe, 1851-2, pt iii. xxix.
303
MATTERS IN CONGRESS.
He also introduced a bill granting bounty land to the officers and soldiers of the Cayuse war, which failed as first presented, but succeeded at a subsequent ses- sion.14
A measure in which Lane, with his genius for mil- itary affairs, was earnestly engaged, was one for the protection of the Oregon settlers and immigrants from Indian depredations. Early in February 1852 he of- fered a resolution in the house that the president should be requested to communicate to that body what steps if any had been taken to secure the safety of the immigration, and in case none had been taken, that he should cause a regiment of mounted riflemen to be placed on duty in Rogue River Valley, and on the road between The Dalles and Fort Hall.15 In the debate which followed, Lane was reproved for directing the president how to dispose of the army, and told that the matter could go before the military committee; to which he replied that there was no time for the ordinary routine, that the immigration would soon be upon the road, and that the regiment of mounted riflemen belonged of right to Oregon, having been raised for that territory. But he was met with the statement that his predecessor Thurston had declared the regiment unnecessary, and had asked its withdrawal in the name of the Oregon people; 16 to which Lane replied that Thurston might have so believed, but that although in the inhabited portion of the territory the people might be able to defend themselves, there was no protection for those
14 Speech of Brooks of N. Y., in Cong. Globe, 1851-52, 627. Failing to have Oregon embraced in the benefits of this bill, Lane introduced his own, as has been said, and lost it. But at the 2d session of the 33d congress a bounty land hill was passed, which by his exertions was made to cover 'any wars' in which volunteer troops had been regularly enrolled since 1790. Ba- con's Merc. Life, MS., 16.
15 Cong. Globe, 1851-2, 507.
16 The secretary of war writes Gaines: 'All accounts concur in representing the Indians of that region as neither numerous nor warlike. The late del- legate to congress, Mr Thurston, confirmed this account, and represented that some ill feeling had sprung up between the troops and the people of the ter- ritory, and that the latter desired their removal.' Or. Spectator. Aug. 12, 1851.
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POLITICS AND PROGRESS.
travelling upon the road several hundred miles from the settlements, and cited the occurrences of 1851 in the Shoshone country. His resolution was laid on the table, but in the mean time he obtained an assur- ance from the secretary of war that troops should be placed along the overland route in time to protect the travel of 1852.17 On the 8th of April Lane pre- sented a petition in his own name, as a citizen of Or- egon, praying for arms and ammunition to be placed by the government in the hands of the people for their defence against the savages; hoping, if no other measure was adopted, Thurston's plan, which had gained the favorable attention of congress, might be carried into effect. At the same time Senator Doug- las, who was ever ready to assist the representatives of the Pacific coast, reported a bill for the protection of the overland route,18 which was opposed because it would bring with it the discussion of the Pacific rail- road question, for which congress was not prepared, and which it was at that time anxious to avoid. The bill was postponed, Lane's efforts for the protection of the territory being partly successful, as the chapter following will show.
The reconnoissance from the Willamette Valley to Fort Boisé which the legislature asked for was de- signed not only to hold the Indians in check, but to explore that portion of Oregon lying to the east of the head waters of the Willamette with a view to opening a road directly from Boisé to the head of the valley, complaint having been made that the legisla- ture had not sufficiently interested itself hitherto in explorations for wagon routes. But no troops came overland this year, and it was left, as before, for the
17 At the same time Senator Gwin of California had a bill before the sen- ate 'to provide for the better protection of the people of California and Ore- gon.' Cong. Globe, vol. xxiv., pt i. p. 471, 32d cong. Ist sess .; Or. Statesman, April 6, 1852.
18 Cong. Globe, 1851-2, 1684.
305
MILITARY ROADS.
immigrations to open new routes, with the usual amount of peril and suffering.19
Appropriations for military roads, which were asked for by the legislature of 1852-3, had already been urged by Lane at the first session of the 32d congress, and were obtained at the second session, to the amount of forty thousand dollars; twenty thousand to con- struct a military road from Steilacoom to Walla Wal- la,20 and twenty thousand for the improvement of the road from the Umpqua Valley to Rogue River.21
19 The legislature of 1851-2 authorized a company of seven men, William Macey, John Diamond, W. T. Walker, William Tandy, Alexander King, Joseph Meadows, and J. Clarke, to explore an immigrant road from the up- per part of the Willamette Valley to Fort Boise, expending something over $3,000 in the enterprise. They proceeded by the middle branch of the river, by what is now known as the Diamond Peak pass, to the summit of the Cascade Mountains. They named the peak to the south of their route Macey, now called Scott peak; and that on the north Diamond peak. They followed down a small stream to its junction with Des Chutes River, naming the mountains which here cross the country from south-west to north-east the Walker l'ange, and down Des Chutes to Crooked River, from which they travelled cast to the head of Malheur River, naming the butte which here seems to terminate the Blue Range, King peak. After passing this peak they were attacked by Indians, who wounded three of the party and captured their baggage, when they wandered for 8 days with only wild berries to eat, coming to the old immigrant road 60 miles from Boisé, and returning to the Willamette by this route. Or. Jour. Council, 1852-3, app. 13-15. Another company was sent out in 1853 to improve the trail marked out by the first, which they did so hastily and imperfectly that about 1,500 people who took the new route were lost for five weeks among the mountains, marshes, and deserts of the region about the head waters of the Des Chutes, repeating the experiences in a great measure of the lost immigrants of 1845. No lives were lost, but many thousand dollars' worth of property was sacrificed. Or. Statesman, Nov. 1, 1853, May 16, 1854; Albany Register, Aug. 21, 1869. I have before me a manuscript by Mrs Rowena Nichols, entitled Indian Af- fairs. It relates chiefly to the Indian wars of southern and eastern Oregon, though treating also of other matters. Mrs Nichols was but 23 years old when with her mother and grandmother she passed through this experience. She, and one other child, a boy, lived on the milk of a cow which their elders managed to keep alive during about six weeks, being unable to eat the beef of starving oxen, like their elders. The immigration of this year amounted to 6.480 men, women, and children, much less than that of 1852. T. Mercer, in Washington Sketches, MS., 1; Hines' Or., 209; Olympia Columbian, Nov. 27, 1852; S. F. Alta, Aug. 1G, Sept. 19, Oct. 7, 8, 24, and 25, and Nov. 21, 1853; S. F. D. Herald, Aug. 31, 1852; Or. Statesman, Oct. 4 and Nov. 1, 1853; Olympia Columbian, Nov. 26, 1853.
20 Evans in his Puyallup address says: 'Congress having made an appro- priation for a military road between Fort Walla Walla and Fort Steilacoom, Lieut Richard Arnold was assigned the duty of expending it. He avoided that mountain beyond Greenwater, but in the main adopted the work of the immigrants of 1833. The money was exhausted in completing their road. He asked in vain that the labors of the citizens should be requited.' New Ta- coma Ledger, July 9, 1880. This road was opened in 1854 for travel.
21 This road was surveyed in 1853 by B. Alvord, assisted by Jesse Apple- HIST. OR., VOL. II. 20
306
POLITICS AND PROGRESS.
After his re-election, Lane secured another twenty- thousand-dollar appropriation to build the road asked for by the legislature, from Scottsburg to connect with the former road to Rogue River,22 besides other appropriations sufficient to justify his boast that he had obtained more money for his territory than any other delegate had ever done.23
I have already spoken of the division of the ter- ritory according to the petitions of the inhabitants of the territory north of the Columbia, and a memorial of the legislature of 1852-3. This measure also Lane advocated, upon the ground that the existing territory of Oregon was of too great an area, and en- couraged the democratic party in Oregon to persist in memorializing congress to remove the obnoxious federal officers appointed by a whig president.24
The spring of 1853 brought the long-hoped-for change in the federal appointments of the territory. Two weeks after the inauguration of Pieree as presi- dent, Lane wrote his friends in Oregon that all the
gate. It was thought that a route might be found which would avoid the Umpqua cauon; but after expending one quarter of the appropriation in sur- veying, the remainder was applied to improving the canon and the Grave Creek hills. The contracts were let to Lindsay Applegate and Jesse Roberts. Cong. Globe, 1852-3, app. 332; Or. Statesman, Nov. 8, 1853.
22 The survey of this road was begun in October 1834, by Lieut Withers, U. S. A., and completed, after another appropriation had been obtained, in 1858, by Col. Joseph Hooker, then employed by Capt. Mendall of the topo- graphical engineers. Hooker was born in Hadley, Mass., in 1819, graduated at West Point in 1837; was adjutant at that post in 1841, and regimental ad- jutant in 1846. He rose to the rank of brevet colonel in the Mexican war, after which he resigned and went to farming in Sonoma County, Cal., in 1853, losing all his savings. When the civil war broke out he was living in Rogue River Valley, and at once offered his services to the government, and made an honorable record. He died at Garden City, Long Island, in October 1879. Or. Statesman, June 3, 1861, and Aug. 18, 1862; Bowles' Far West, 433; S. F. Bulletin, Nov. 1, 1879.
23 Lane's Autobiography, MS., 131. For his territory, and not for himself. Lane's ambition was for glory, and not for money. He did compel congress to amend the organic act which gave the delegate from Oregon only $2,500 mileage, and to give him the same mileage enjoyed by the California senators and representatives, according to the law of ISI8 on this subject. In the de- bate it came out that Thurston had received $900 over the legal sum, 'by what authority the committee were unable to learn.' Cong. Globe, 1851-2, 1377.
24 The territorial officers chosen by the assembly were A. Bush, printer; L. F. Grover, auditor; C. N. Terry, librarian; J. D. Boon, treasurer.
307
DISTRICTS AND JUDGES.
former incumbents of the federal offices were dis- placed except Pratt, and he was made chief justice, with Matthew P. Deady and Cyrus Olney 25 as asso- ciates. Before the confirmation of the appointments, however, Pratt's name, owing to some rumors unfa- vorable to him having reached Washington, was with- drawn,26 and that of George H. Williams,27 a judge in Keokuk, Iowa, substituted.
With regard to the other judges, both residents of Oregon, it was said that Lane procured the appoint- ment of Deady in order to have him out of his way a few months later. But Deady was well worthy of the position, and had earned it fairly. The appoint- ments were well received in Oregon, and the judges opened courts in their respective districts under fa- vorable circumstances, Deady in the sonthern, Olney in the northern, and Williams in the central counties. But in October it began to be rumored that a new appointment had been made for a judgeship in Ore- gon; to what place remained unknown for several weeks, when O. B. McFadden, of Pennsylvania, ap- peared in Oregon and claimed the 1st district, upon the ground that in making out Deady's commission a mistake in the name had been made, and that there-
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