USA > Oregon > History of Oregon, Vol. II, 1848-1888 > Part 7
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The act of the legislature did not escape criticism.28 But before the law could be carried into effect Gov- ernor Lane had issued his proclamation placing the territory under the government of the United States, and it became ineffectual, as well as illegal. The want, however, remaining the same, a partnership was formed called the Oregon Exchange Company, which proceeded to coin money after its own fashion, and on its own responsibility. The members were W. K. Kilborne, Theophilus Magruder, James Tay- lor, George Abernethy, W. H. Willson, W. H. Rector, J. G. Campbell, and Noyes Smith. Rector "being the only member with any mechanical skill " was depu- tized to furnish the stamps and dies, which he did, using a small machine for turning iron. The engrav- ing was done by Campbell. When all was in readi- ness, Rector was employed as coiner, no assaying being done or attempt made to part the silver from the gold. Indeed, it was not then known in Oregon that there was any silver in the crude metal, and all the pieces of the same denomination were made of the same weight, though the color varied considerably. About thirty thousand dollars were made into five-
26 \V. H. Rector's Oregon Exchange Company, in Or. Archives, MS., 193. 27 Moss' Pioneer Times, MS., 59.
28 Some severe strictures were passed upon it by A. E. Wait, a lawyer, and at that time editor of the Spectator, who declared with emphasis that the people of Oregon desired no law which conflicted with the laws of the United States; but only asked for the temporary privilege under the provisional gov- erninent of coining gold to meet the requirements of business for the present; and that if this act was to be numbered among those which congress was asked to confirm, it was a direct insult to the United States. Wait may have been right as to the general sentiment of thic people, or of the best and most patriotic men of the American party, but it is plain from the language of the memorial to the legislature that its framers were in a mood to defy the gov- ernment which had so long appeared to be unmindful of them.
55
BEAVER MONEY.
dollar pieces; and not quite the same amount into ten- dollar coins. 29 This coinage raised the price of dust from twelve to sixteen dollars an ounce, and caused a great saving to the territory. Being thrown into cir- culation, and quickly followed by an abundance of money from California, the intended check on the avarice of the merchants was effected.30 The Oregon Exchange coinage went by the name 'beaver money,' and was eventually all called in by the United States mint in San Francisco, a premium being paid upon it, as it was of greater value than the denominations on the coins indicated.31
I have said that the effect of the gold discovery was to change the habits of the people. Where all
29 The ten-dollar pieces differed from the fives by having over the beaver only the letters 'K. M. T. R. C. S.' underneath which were seven stars. Be-
CH
R
NGE
10. D 20.G.
**
N
NATIVE.
GOLD
COMP
O. T.
?
1849
TEN DOLLARS.
A.
W. R.G
130 G.
TO
NATIVE
GOLD.
5 D.
COMPA
O. T.
1849
FIVE DOLLARS.
neath the heaver was 'O. T., 1849.' On the reverse was 'Oregon Exchange Company' around the margin, and '10 D. 20 G. Native Gold' with 'Ten D.'in the centre. Thornton's Or. Relics, MS., 5.
30 Or. Archives, MS., 192-5; Buck's Enterprises, MS., 9-10. Rector says: 'I afterward learned that Kilborne took the rolling-mill to Umpqua. John G. Campbell had the dies the last I knew of them. He promised to destroy them;' to which J. Henry Brown adds that they were placed in the custody of the secretary of state, together with a $10 piece, and that he had made several impressions of the dies in block tin. A set of these impressions was presented to me in 1878 by Mr Brown, and is in my collection.
31 Or. Archives, MS., 191, 196. Other mention of the 'beaver money' is made in Or. Pioneer As80. Trans., 1875, 72, and Portland Oregonian, Dec. 8, 1866.
TEN. D
OR.
A
M.
E
56
EFFECT OF THE CALIFORNIA GOLD DISCOVERY.
was economy and thrift before, there was now a ten- dency to profligacy and waste. This was natural. They had suffered so long the oppression of a want that could not be relieved, and the restraint of desires that could not be gratified without money, that when money came, and with such case, it was like a draught of brandy upon an empty stomach. There was in- toxication, sometimes delirium. Such was especially the case with the Canadians,32 some of whom brought home thirty or forty thousand dollars, but were unable to keep it. The same was true of others. The pleasure of spending, and of buying such articles of luxury as now began to find their way to Oregon from an overstocked California market, was too great to be resisted. If they could not keep their money, how- ever, they put it into circulation, and so contributed to supply a want in the community, and enable those who could not go to the mines, through fear of losing their land claims, or other cause, to share in the golden harvest.33
It has been held by some that the discovery of gold at this time seriously retarded the progress of Oregon.34 This was not the case in general, though it may have been so in particular instances. It took agriculturists temporarily from their farms and mechanics from their shops, thereby checking the steady if slow march of improvement. But it found a market for agricultural products, raising prices several hundred per cent, and enabled the farmer to get gold for his produce, instead of a poor class of goods at exorbitant prices. It checked for two or three years the progress of building. While mill- owners obtained enormous prices for their lumber, the wages of mechanics advanced from a dollar and a half a day to eight dollars, and the day laborer was able to demand and obtain four dollars per day35
32 Anderson's Northwest Coast, MS., 37-9; Johnson's Cal. and Or., 206-7. 33 Sayward's Pioneer Remin., MS., 7.
34 Deadly, in Overland Monthly, i. 36; Honolulu Friend, May 3, 1851.
35 Brown's Autobiography, MS., 37; Strong's Hist. Or., MS., 15.
57
WAGES AND DEBTS.
where he had received but one. Men who before were almost hopelessly in debt were enabled to pay. By the amended currency law, all debts that had to be collected by law were payable in gold instead of wheat. Many persons were in debt, and their credit- ors hesitated to sell their farms and thus ruin them; but all the same the dread of ruin hung over them, crushing their spirits. Six months in the gold mines changed all, and lifted the burden from their hearts. Another good effect was that it drew to the country a class, not agriculturists, nor mechanics, nor profes- sional men, but projectors of various enterprises bene- ficial to the public, and who in a short time built steamboats in place of sloops and flatboats, and estab- lished inland transportation for passengers and goods, which gradually displaced the pack-train and the universal horseback travel. These new inen enabled the United States government to carry out some of its proposed measures of relief in favor of the people of Oregon, in the matter of a mail service, to open trade with foreign ports, to establish telegraphic com- munication with California, and eventually to introduce railroads. These were certainly no light benefits, and were in a measure the result of the gold discovery. Without it, though the country had continued to fill up with the same class of people who first settled it, several generations must have passed before so much could have been effected as was now quickly accomplished. Even with the aid of government the country must have progressed slowly, owing to its distance from business and progressional centres, and the expense of maintaining intercourse with the parent government. Moreover, during this period of slow growth the average condition of the people with re- spect to intellectual progress would have retrograded. The adult population, having to labor for the support of families, and being deprived through distance and the want of money from keeping up their former intellectual pursuits, would have ceased to feel their
58
EFFECT OF THE CALIFORNIA GOLD DISCOVERY.
former interest in learning and literature. Their chil- dren, with but poor educational facilities and without the example, would have grown up with acquire- ments inferior to those of their parents before emi- grating. Reared in poor houses, without any of the elegancies of life,36 and with but few of the ordinary conveniences, they would have missed the refining influences of healthy environment, and have fallen below the level of their time in regard to the higher enjoyments of living. The people being chiefly agri- cultural and pastoral, from their isolation would have become fixed in their ideas and prejudices. As the means of living became plenty and little exertion was required, they would become attached to an easy, careless, unthinking mode of existence, with a ten- dency even to resent innovations in their habits to which a higher degree of civilization might invite them. Such is the tendency of poverty and isolation, or of isolation and rude physical comforts, without some constant refining agency at hand.
One of the immediate effects of the mining exodus of 1848 was the suspension of the legislature.37 On the day appointed by law for the assembling of the legislative body only nine members were present, representing four counties; and this notwithstanding the governor had issued proclamations to fill vacan- cies occurring through the resignation of members- elect.38 Even after the sergeant-at-arms had com- pelled the appearance of four members from Cham-
36 Strong's Hist. Or., MS., 21.
87 The members elect of the legislature were : from Clackamas, A. L. Love- joy, G. L. Curry, J. L. Snook; Tualatin, Samuel R. Thurston, P. H. Bur- nett, Ralph Wilcox; Champoeg, Albert Gains, Robert Newell, W. J. Bailey, William Porter; Yamhill, A. J. Hembree, L. A. Rice, William Martin; Polk, Harrison Linville, J. W. Nesmith, O. Russell; Linn, Henry J. Peter- son, Anderson Cox; Lewis, Levi L. Smith; Clatsop, A. H. Thompson; Van- couver, Adolphus L. Lewis. Grover's Or. Archives, 258.
38 The members elected to fill vacancies were Samuel Parker, in Cham- poeg County; D. Hill, in Tualatin; A. F. Hedges and M. Crawford, in Clack- amas. Id., 260. Two other substitutes were elected-Thomas J. Lovelady of Polk county, and A. M. Locke of Benton, neither of whom served.
59
THE WHEELS OF LEGISLATION.
poeg, Polk, and Linn counties, there were still but thirteen out of twenty-three allowed by the appor- tionment. After organizing by choosing Ralph Wil- cox speaker, W. G. T'Vault chief clerk, and William Holmes sergeant-at-arms and door-keeper, the house adjourned till the first Monday in February, to give time for special elections to fill the numerous vacan- cies.
The governor having again issued proclamations to the vacant districts to elect, on the 5th of February 1849 there convened at Oregon City the last session of the provisional legislature of the Oregon colony. It consisted of eighteen members, namely: Jesse Applegate, W. J. Bailey, A. Cox, M. Crawford, G. L. Curry, A. F. Hedges, A. J. Hembree, David Hill, John Hudson, A. L. Lewis, W. J. Martin, S. Parker, H. J. Peterson, William Portius, L. A. Rice, S. R. Thurston, J. C. Avery, and Ralph Wilcox. 39
Lewis County remained unrepresented, nor did Avery of Benton appear until brought with a war- rant, an organization being effected with seventeen members. Wilcox declining to act as speaker, Levi A. Rice was chosen in his place, and sworn into office by S. M. Holderness, secretary of state. T'Vault was reelected chief clerk; James Cluse enrolling clerk;
39 Ralph Wilcox was born in Ontario county, New York, July 9, 1818. He graduated at Geneva medical college in that state, soon after which he re- moved to Missouri, where on the 11th of October 1845 he married, emigrat- ing to Oregon the following year. In January 1847 he was appointed hy Abernethy county judge of Tualatin vice W. Burris resigned, and the same year was elected to the legislature from the same county, and re-elected in 1848. Besides being chosen speaker at this session, he was elected speaker of the lower house of the territorial legislature in 1850-1, and president of the council in 1853-4. During the years 1856-8 he was register of the U. S. land office at Oregon City, and was elected in the latter year county judge of Washington (formerly Tualatin) county, an office which he held till 1862, when he was again elected to the house of representatives for two years. In July 1865 he was appointed clerk of the U. S. district court for the district of Oregon, and U. S. commissioner for the same district, which office he con- tinued to hold down to the time of his death, which occurred hy suicide, April 18, 1877, having shot himself in a state of mental depression caused by paralysis. Notwithstanding his somewhat free living he had continued to enjoy the confidence of the public for thirty years. The Portland bar passed the usual eulogistic resolutions. Oregon City Enterprise, April 26, 1877; S. F. Alta, April 19, 1877; Cal. Christian Advorate, May 3, 1877; Portland Oregonian, April 21, 1877; Deady, in Or. Pioneer Asso. Trans., 1875, 37-8.
60
EFFECT OF THE CALIFORNIA GOLD DISCOVERY.
Stephen H. L. Meek sergeant-at-arms, and Wilson Blain chaplain.
Abernethy in his message to the legislature informed them that his proclamation had called them together for the purpose of transacting the business which should have been done at the regular session, relating chiefly to the adjustment of the expenses of the Cayuse war, which it was expected the United States government would assume; and also to act upon the amendments to the organic law concerning the oath of office, the prohibition of the sale and manufacture of ardent spirits, and to make the clerks of the sev- eral counties recorders of land claims, which amend- ments had been sanctioned by the vote of the people at the regular election. Information had been re- ceived, he said, that the officers necessary to establish and carry on the territorial government, for which they had so long hoped, were on their way and would soon arrive;40 and he plainly indicated that he expected the matters pointed out to be settled in a certain way, before the new government should be established, confirming the acts of the retiring organization.41
The laws passed relating to the Cayuse war were an act to provide for the pay of the commissioned offi-
40 This information seems to have been brought to Oregon in January 1849, by O. C. Pratt, one of the associate judges, who happened to be in Cali- fornia, whither he had gone in pursuit of health. His commission met him at Monterey about the last of Nov., and in Dec. he left for Oregon on the bark Undine which after a long voyage, and being carried into Shoalwater Bay, finally got into the Columbia in Jan. Salem Or. Statesman, Aug. 7, 1832; Or. Spectator, Jan. 25, 1849.
#] He submitted the report of the adjutant-general, by which it appeared that the amount due to privates and non-commissioned officers was $109,- 311.50, besides the pay of the officers and those persons employed in the different departments. He recommended that a law should be passed author- izing scrip to be issued for that amount, redeemable at an early date, and bearing interest until paid. The belief that the general government would become responsible would, he said, make the scrip salable, and enable the holders to whom it should be issued to realize something immediately for their services. Grover's Or. Archives, 273. This was the beginning of specu- lation in Oregon war scrip. As to the report of the commissary and quarter- master-general, the governor left that for the legislature to examine into, and the accounts so far as presented in these departments amounted to something like 857,000, making the cost of the war without the salaries of the cominis- sioned officers over $166,000. This was subsequently much reduced by a commission, as I shall show in the proper place.
61
ACTS PASSED.
cers employed in the service of the territory during the hostilities, and an act regulating the issuing and redemption of scrip,42 making it payable to the person to whom first issued, or bearer, the treasurer being authorized to exchange or redeem it whenever offered, with interest. Another act provided for the manner of exchange, and interest payments. An act was passed making a change in the oath of office, and making county clerks recorders of land claims, to which the governor refused his signature on the plea that the United States laws would provide for the manner of recording claims. On the other hand the legislature refused to amend the organic law by put- ting in the word 'prohibit' in place of 'regulate,' but passed an act making it necessary for every person applying for a license to sell or manufacture ardent spirits, to take an oath not to sell, barter, or give liquor to any Indian, fixing the penalty at one hundred dollars; and no distilleries were to be allowed beyond the limits of the white settlements. With this poor substitute for the entire interdiction he had so long desired, the governor was compelled to be so far sat- isfied as to append his signature.
Besides the act providing for weighing and stamp- ing gold, of which I have spoken, little more was done than is here mentioned. Some contests took place between members over proposed enactments, and Jesse Applegate,43 as customary with him, offered
42 The first act mentioned here I have been unable to find. I quote the Or. Spectator, Feb. 22, 1849. In place of it I find in the Or. Laws, 1843-9, 56-8, an act providing for 'the final settlement of claims against the Oregon government for and on account of the Cayuse war,' by which a board of com- missioners was appointed to settle and adjust those claims; said commission- ers being Thomas Magruder, Samuel Burch. and Wesley Shannon, whose duty was to exhibit in detail a statement of all accounts, whether for money or property furnished the government, or for services rendered, 'either as a citizen, soldier, or officer of the army.' This might be construed as an act to provide for the pay of commissioned officers.
43 Ever since first passing through southern Oregon on bis exploring expe- dition, he had entertained a high opinion of the country; and he brought in a bill to charter an association called the Klamath Company, which was to have power to treat with the natives and purchase lands from them. Mr Hedges opposed the bill, and offered a resolution, 'that it was not in the power of the house to grant a charter to any individual, or company, for
62
EFFECT OF THE CALIFORNIA GOLD DISCOVERY.
resolutions and protests ad arbitrium et propositum. Another man, Samuel R. Thurston, an emigrant of 1847, displayed indications of a purpose to make his talents recognized. In the course of proceedings A. L. Lewis, of Vancouver county, offered a resolution that the superintendent of Indian affairs be required to report,44 presently asking if there were an Indian superintendent in Oregon at all.
The governor replied that H. A. G. Lee had re- signed the superintendency because the compensation bore no proportion to the services required, and that since Lee's resignation he had performed the duties of superintendent, not being able to find any competent person who would accept the office. In a second com- munication he reported on Indian affairs that the course pursued had been conciliatory, and that the Indians had seemingly become quiet, and had ceased their clamor for pay for their lands, waiting for the United States to move in the matter; and the Cayuse murderers had not been secured. With regard to the confiscation of Indian lands, he returned for answer
treating for wild lands in the territory, or for holding treaties with the Indian tribes for the purchase of lands,' all of which was very apparent. But Mr Applegate introduced the counter resolution 'that if the doctrine in the reso- lution last passed be true, then the powers of the Oregon government are un- equal to the wants of the people,' which was of course equally true, as it was only provisional.
" He wished to know, he said, whether the superintendent had upon his own or the authority of any other officer of the government confiscated to the use of the people of Oregon any Indian country, and if so, why; if any grant or charter had been given hy him to any citizen or citizens for the set- tlement of any Indian country, and if so, by what authority; and whether he had enforced the law prohibiting the sale of liquor to Indians. 'A. Lee Lewis,' says Applegate, 'a bright young man, the son of a chief factor, afterward superintendent of Indian affairs, was the first representative of Vancouver district.' Views of Hist., MS., 45. Another British subject, who took a part in the provisional government, was Richard Lane, appointed by Abernethy county judge of Vancouver in 1847, vice Dugald McTavish resigned. Or. Spec- tator, Jan. 21, 1847. Lane came to Oregon in 1837 as a clerk to the Hudson's Bay Company. He was a ripe scholar and a good lawyer. He lived for some time at Oregon City, and afterward at Olympia, holding various offices, among others those of clerk of one branch of the territorial legislature of Washington, clerk of the supreme and district courts, county auditor, and clerk of the city corporation of Olympia. He died at The Dalles in the spring of 1877, from an overdose of morphine, apparently taken with sui- cidal intent. He was then about sixty years of age. Dalles Mountaineer, in Seattle Pacific Tribune, March 2, 1877.
63
IMMIGRATION.
that he believed Lee had invited the settlement of Americans in the Cayuse country, but that he knew nothing of any charter having been granted to any one, and that he presumed the settlement would have been made by each person locating a claim of six hundred and forty acres. He reiterated the opinion expressed to Lee, when the superintendent sought his advice, that the Cayuses having been engaged in war with the Americans the appropriation of their lands was justifiable, and would be so regarded by the neighboring tribes. As to liquor being sold to the Indians, though he believed it was done, he had never yet been able to prove it in a single instance, and recommended admitting Indian testimony.
The legislature adjourned February 16th, having put, so far as could be done, the provisional govern- ment in order, to be confirmed by act of congress, even to passing an act providing for the payment of the several departments-a necessary but hitherto much neglected duty of the organization45-and also to the election of territorial officers for another term.46 These were never permitted to exercise official func- tions, as but two weeks elapsed between the close of the session and the arrival of Lane with the new order of things.
Note finally the effect of the gold discovery on immigration. California in 1849 of course offered
45 The salary of the governor was nominally $500, but really nothing, as the condition of the treasury was such as to make drafts upon it worthless except in a few cases. Abernethy did not receive his pay from the provisional government, and as the territorial act did not confirm the statutes passed by the several colonial legislatures, he had no redress. After Oregon had become a state, and when by a series of misfortunes he had lost nearly all his posses- sions, after more than 20 years' waiting Abernethy received his salary as governor of the Oregon colony by an appropriation of the Oregon legislature Oct. 1872. The amount was $2,986.21, which congress was asked to make good to the state.
16 A. L. Lovejoy was elected supreme judge in place of Columbia Lan- caster, appointed by the governor in place of Thornton, who resigned in 1847. W. S. Mattock was chosen circuit judge; Samuel Parker, prosecuting attor- ney; Theophilus Magruder, secretary of the territory; W. K. Kilborne, treasurer; John G. Campbell, auditor; W. H. Bennett, marshal, and A. Lee Lewis, superintendent of Indian affairs. Or. Spectator, Feb. 22, 1849.
64
EFFECT OF THE CALIFORNIA GOLD DISCOVERY.
the great attraction. The four or five hundred who were not dazzled with the visions of immediate wealth that beckoned southward the great army of gold-seekers, but who suffered with them the common discomforts of the way, were glad to part company at the place where their roads divided on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains.
On the Oregon part of the road no particular dis- couragement or distress befell the travellers until they reached The Dalles and began the passage of the mountains or the river. As no emigration had ever passed over the last ninety miles of their journey to the Willamette Valley without accident or loss, so these had their trials with floods and mountain de- clivities,47 arriving, however, in good time, after having been detained in the mountains by forest fires which blocked the road with fallen timber. This was an- other form of the inevitable hardship which year after year fell upon travellers in some shape on this part of their journey. The fires were an evidence that the rains came later than usual, and that the former trials from this source of discomfort were thus absent.4 Such was the general absorption of the public mind in other affairs that the immigration re- ceived little notice.
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