USA > Oregon > History of Oregon, Vol. II, 1848-1888 > Part 9
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The new land law amended the old to make it con- form to the territorial act, declaring that none but white male citizens of the United States, over eigh- teen years of age, should be entitled to take claims under the act revived. The privilege of holding claims during absence from the territory by paying five dollars annually was repealed; but it was declared not necessary to reside upon the land, if the claimnant continued to improve it, provided the claimant should not be absent more than six months. It was also de-
20 The first territorial legislature changed the name of Champoeg county to Marion; of Tualatin to Washington, and of Vancouver to Clarke. Or. Spec- tator, Oct. 18th.
21 As there was yet no judge for the third judicial district, and the time for holding the court in Lewis county had been appointed for the second Mon- day in May and November, Governor Lane prevailed upon the legislature to attach the county of Lewis to the first judicial district which was to hold its first session on the first Monday in September, and to appoint the first Mouday in October for holding the district court at Steilacoom in the county of Lewis. This change was made in order to bring the trial of the Snoqua- limichs in a season of the year when it would be possible for the court to travel to Puget Sound.
22 " During the month of May several hundred foreigners were naturalized.' Honolulu Friend, Oct. 1, 1840. There was a doubt in the mind of Judge Bryant whether Hawaiians could become naturalized, the law of congress being explicit as to negroes and Indians, but not mentioning Sandwich Islanders.
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SCHOOL LAW.
clared that land claims should descend to heirs at law as personal property.
An act was passed at this session which made it unlawful for any negro or mulatto to come into or reside in the territory; that masters of vessels bring- ing them should be held responsible for their conduet, and they should not be permitted to leave the port where the vessel was lying except with the consent of the master of the vessel, who should cause them to depart with the vessel that brought them, or some other, within forty days after the time of their ar- rival. Masters or owners of vessels failing to observe this law were made subject to fine not less than five hundred dollars, and imprisonment. If a negro or mulatto should be found in the territory, it became the duty of any judge to issue a warrant for his arrest, and cause his removal; and if the same negro or mulatto were twice found in the territory, he should be fined and imprisoned at the discretion of the court. This law, however, did not apply to the negroes already in the territory. The act was ordered published in the newspapers of California.23
The next most interesting action of the legislative assembly was the enactment of a school law, which provided for the establishment of a permanent irre- ducible fund, the interest on which should be divided annually among the districts; but as the school lands could not be made immediately available, a tax of two mills was levied for the support of common schools in the interim. The act in its several chapters created the offices of school commissioner and directors for each county and defined their duties; also the duties of teachers. The eighth chapter relating to the powers of district meetings provided that until the counties were districted the people in any neighborhood, on ten days' notice, given by any two legal voters, might call a meeting and organize a district; and the district
23 Or. Statutes, 1850-51, 181-2, 246-7; Dix. Speeches, i. 309-45, 372, 377-8.
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LANE'S ADMINISTRATION.
meeting might impose an ad valorem tax on ali taxa- ble property in the district for the erection of school houses, and to defray the incidental expenses of the districts, and for the support of teachers. All chil- dren between the ages of four and twenty-one years were entitled to the benefits of public education.24
It is unnecessary to the purposes of this history to follow the legislature of the first territorial assembly further. No money having been received25 for the payment of the legislators or the printing of the laws, the legislators magnanimously waived their right to take the remaining thirty days allowed them, and thus left some work for the next assembly to do.28
On the 21st of September the assembly was noti- fied, by a special message from the governor, of the death of ex-President James K. Polk, the friend of Oregon, and the revered of the western democracy. As a personal friend of Lane, also, his death created a profound sensation. The legislature after draping both houses in mourning adjourned for a week. Pub- lic obsequies were celebrated, and Lane delivered a highly eulogistic address. Perhaps the admirers of Polk's administration and political principles were all the more earnest to do hin honor that his successor
24 Says Buck in his Enterprises, MS., 11-12: 'They had to make the first beginning in schools in Oregon City, and got up the present school law at the first session in 1849. It was drawn mostly after the Ohio law, and subsequently amended. F. C. Beatty taught the first (common) school at Oregon City in 1850.' Besides chartering the Tualatin Academy and Pacific University, a charter was granted to the Clackamas County Female Seminary, with G. Abernethy, A. L. Lovejoy, James Taylor, Hiram Clark, G. H. Atkinson, Hezekiah Johnson, and Wilson Blain as trustees.
25 Lane's Rept. in 31st Cong., 2d Sess., H. Ex. Doc., i.
26 One of the members tells us something about the legislators: 'I have heard some people say that the first legislature was better than any one we have had since. I think it was as good. It was composed of more substan- tial men than they have had in since; men who represented the people better. The second one was probably as good. The third one met in Salem. It is my impression they had deteriorated a little; but I would not like to say so, because I was in the first one. I know there were no such men in it as go to the legislature now.' Buck's Enterprises, MS., 11. 'The only difference among members was that each one was most partial to the state from which he had emigrated, and with the operations of which he was familiar. This difficulty proved a serious one, and retarded the progress of business throughout.' Or. Spectator, Oct. 18, 1849.
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ACCOMMODATION COURT.
in office was a whig, with whose appointments they were predetermined not to be pleased. The officers elected by the legislature were: A. A. Skinner, com- missioner to settle the Cayuse war debt; Bernard Genoise, territorial auditor; James Taylor, treasurer; Wm. T. Matlock, librarian; James McBride, superin- tendent of schools; C. M. Walker, prosecuting attor- ney first judicial district; David Stone, prosecuting attorney second judicial district; Wilson Blain, public printer; A. L. Lovejoy and W. W. Buck, commission- ers to let the printing of the laws and journals. Other offices being still vacant, an act was passed providing for a special election to be held in each of the several counties on the third Monday in October for the election of probate judges, clerks, sheriffs, assessors, treasurers, school commissioners, and justices of the peace.
As by the territorial act the governor had no veto power, congress having reserved this right, there was nothing for him to do at Oregon City; and being accustomed of late to the stir and incident of military camps he longed for activity, and employed his time visiting the Indians on the coast, and sending couriers to the Cayuses, to endeavor to prevail upon them to give up the Waiilatpu murderers.27 The legislative assembly having in the mean time passed a special act to enable him to bring to trial the Snoqualimichs, and Thornton's munificent offer of reward having prompted the avaricious savages to give up to Captain Hill at Steilacoom certain of their number to be dealt with according to the white man's law, Lane had the satisfaction of seeing, about the last of September, the first district court, marshal and jurymen, grand and petit, on the way to Puget Sound,28 where the
27 Lane's Autobiography, MS., 55; 31st Cong., 1st Sess., Sen. Doc. 47, viii. pt. iii. 112.
28 There was a good deal of feeling on the part of the Hudson's Bay Com- pany concerning Lane's course, though according to Tolmie's account, in Truth Teller, the Indians were committing hostilities against them as well as
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LANE'S ADMINISTRATION.
American population was still so small that travelling courts were obliged to bring their own juries.
Judge Bryant provided for the decent administra- tion of justice by the appointment of A. A. Skinner, district attorney, for the prosecution, and David Stone for the defence. The whole company proceeded by canoes and horses to Steilacoom carrying with them their provisions and camping utensils. Several Indians had been arrested, but two only, Quallawort, brother of Patkanim, head chief of the Snoqualimichs, and Kas- sas, another Snoqualimich chief, were found guilty. On the day following their conviction they were hanged in the presence of the troops and many of their own and other tribes, Bryant expressing himself satisfied with the finding of the jury, and also with the opinion that the attacking party of Snoqualimichs had designed to take Fort Nisqually, in which attempt, had they succeeded, many lives would have been lost.29 The cost of this trial was $1,899.54, besides eighty blankets, the promised reward for the arrest and de- livery of the guilty parties, which amounted to $480 more. Many of the jurymen were obliged to travel two hundred miles, and the attorneys also, each of whom received two hundred and fifty dollars for his services. Notwithstanding this expensive lesson the same savages made away in some mysterious manner with one of the artillerymen from Fort Steilacoom the following winter.30
against the Americans. Roberts says that when Lane was returning from the Sound in June, he, Roberts, being at the Cowlitz farm, rode out to meet him, and answered his inquiries concerning the best way of preserving the peace of the country, then changing from the old regime to the new. 'I was astonished,' says Roberts, 'to hear him remark "Damn them ! (the Indians) it would do my soul good to be after them." This would never have escaped the lips of Dr McLoughlin or Douglas.' Recollections, MS., 15. There was always this rasping of the rude outspoken western sentiment on the feelings of the studiously trained Hudson's Pay Company. But an Indian to them was a different creature from the Indian toward whom the settlers were hostile. In the one case he was a means of making wealth; in the other of destroying property and life. Could the Hudson's Bay Company have changed places with the settlers they might have changed feelings too.
29 Bryant's Rept. to Gov. Lane in 31st Cong., 2d Sess., H. Ex. Doc., i. 166-7; Hayes' Scraps, 22; Or. Spectator, Oct. 18, 1849.
80 Tolmie's Puget Sound, MS., 36.
81
THE MOUNTED RIFLE REGIMENT.
The arrest of the Cayuse murderers could not pro- ceed until the arrival of the mounted rifle regiment then en route, under the command of Brevet-Colonel W. W. Loring.31 This regiment which was provided expressly for service in Oregon and to garrison posts upon the cmigrant road, by authority of a congressional act passed May 19, 1846, was not raised till the spring of 1847, and was then ordered to Mexico, although the secretary of war in his instructions to the gov- ernor of Missouri, in which state the regiment was formed, had said that a part if not the whole of it would be employed in establishing posts on the route to Oregon.32 Its numbers being greatly reduced dur- ing the Mexican campaign, it was recruited at Fort Leavenworth, and at length set out upon its march to the Columbia in the spring of 1849. On the 10th of May the regiment left Fort Leavenworth with about 600 men, thirty-one commissioned officers, several women and children, the usual train agents, guides, and teamsters, 160 wagons, 1,200 mules, 700 horses, and subsistence for the march to the Pacific.33
Two posts were established on the way, one at Fort
11 The command was first given to Frémont, who resigned.
32 See letter of W. L. Marcy, secretary of war, in Or. Spectator, Nov. 11, 1847.
33 The officers were Bvt. Lieut. Col. A. Porter, Col. Benj. S. Roberts, Bvt. Major C. F. Ruff, Major George B. Crittenden, Bvt. Major J. S. Simonson, Bvt. Major S. S. Tucker, Bvt. Lieut. Col. J. B. Backenstos, Bvt. Major Kearney, Captains M. E. Van Buren, George McLane, Noah Newton, Llewellyn Jones, Bvt. Captain J. P. Hatch, R. Ajt., Bvt. Captains Thos. Claiborne Jr., Gordon Granger, James Stuart, and Thos. G. Rhett; Ist Lieuts Charles L. Denman, A. J. Lindsay, Julian May, F. S. K. Russell; 2d Lieuts D. M. Frost, R. Q. M., I. N. Palmer, J. McL. Addison, W. B. Lane, W. E. Jones, George W. Howland, C. E. Ervine; surgeons I. Moses, Charles H. Smith, and W. F. Edgar. The following were persons travelling with the regiment in various capacities: George Gihbs, deputy collector at Astoria; Alden H. Stecle, who settled in Oregon City, where he practised medicine till 1863, when he became a surgeon in the army, finally settling at Olympia in 1868, where in 1878 I met him, and he furnished a brief but pithy account in manuscript of the march of the Oregon Mounted Rifle Regiment; W. Frost, Prew, Wilcox, Leach, Bishop, Kitchen, Dudley, and Raymond. Present also was J. D. Haines, a native of Xenia, Ohio, born in 1828. After a residence in Portland, and removal to Jacksonville, he was elected to the house of representatives from Jackson county in 1862, and from Baker county in 1876, and to the state sen- ate in 1878. He married in 1871 and has several children. Salem Statesman, Nov. 15, 1878; U. S. Off. Reg., 1849, 160, 167.
HIST, OR., VOL. II. 6
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LANE'S ADMINISTRATION.
Laramie, with two companies, under Colonel Benja- min Roberts; and another at Cantonment Loring, three miles above Fort Hall,34 on Snake River, with an equal number of men under Major Simonson, the command being transferred soon after to Colonel Porter.35 The report made by the quartermaster is an account of discomforts from rains which lasted to the Rocky Mountains; of a great migration to the California gold mines36 where large numbers died of cholera, which dread disease invaded the military camps also to some extent; of the almost entire worth- lessness of the teamsters and men engaged at Fort Leavenworth, who had no knowledge of their duties, and were anxious only to reach California; of the loss by death and desertion of seventy of the late re- cruits to the regiment ;37 and of the loss of property and life in no way different from the usual experience of the annual emigrations.38
It was designed to meet the rifle regiment at Fort Hall, with a supply train, under Lieutenant G. W. Hawkins who was ordered to that post,39 but Hawkins
34 Cantonment Loring was soon abandoned, being too far from a base of supplies, and forage being scarce in the neighborhood. Brackett's Cavalry, 126-7; 31st Cong., 1st Sess., H. Ex. Doc. 5, pt. i. 182, 185-6, 188.
35 Steele says that Simonson was arrested for some dereliction of duty, and came to Vancouver in this situation; also that Major Crittenden was arrested on the way for drunkenness. Rifle Regiment, MS., 2.
36 Major Cross computed the overland emigration to the Pacific coast at 35,000; 20,000 of whom travelled the route by the Platte with 50,000 cattle. 31st Cong., 2d Sess., II. Ex. Doc. 1, 149.
37 Or. Spectator, Oct. 18, 1849; Weed's Queen Charlotte Island Exped., MS., 4.
38 On reaching The Dalles, the means of transportation to Vancouver was found to be '3 Mackinaw boats, 1 yawl, 4 canoes, and I whale-boat.' A raft was constructed to carry 4 or 5 tons, and loaded with goods chiefly private, 8 men being placed on board to manage the craft. They attempted to run the cascades and six of them werc drowned. Or. Spectator, Oct. IS, 1849. A part of the command with wagons, teams, and riding horses crossed the Cas- cade Mountains by the Mount Hood road, losing ' nearly two thirds' of the broken-down horses on the way. The loss on the journey amounted to 45 wagons, 1 ambulance, 30 horses, and 295 mules.
39 Applegate's Views, MS., 49. There were fifteen freight wagons and a herd of beef cattle in the train. Gen. Joel Palmer acted as guide, the com- pany taking the southern route. Palmer went to within a few days of Fort Hall, where another government train was encountered escorting the customs officer of California, Gen. Wilson and family, to Sacramento. The grass having been eaten along the Humboldt route by the cattle of the immigration,
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MILITARY POSTS.
missed Loring's command, he having already left Fort Hall when Hawkins arrived. As the supplies were needed by the companies at the new post they were left there, in consequence of which those destined to Oregon were in want of certain articles, and many of the men were barefoot and unable to walk, as their horses were too weak to carry them when they ar- rived at The Dalles.
On reaching their destination, and finding no accom- modations at Fort Vancouver, the regiment was quar- tered in Oregon City, at a great expense, and to the disturbance of the peace and order of that moral and temperate community; the material from which com- panics had been recruited being below the usual stan- dard of enlisted men.40
The history of the establishment of the Oregon military posts is not without interest. Under orders to take command of the Pacific division, General Per- sifer F. Smith left Baltimore the 24th of November, and New Orleans on the 18th of December 1848, pro- ceeding by the isthmus of Panamá, and arriving on the 23d of February following at Monterey, where was Colonel Mason's head-quarters. Smith remained in California arranging the distribution of posts, and the affairs of the division generally.
In May Captain Rufus Ingalls, assistant quarter- master, was directed by Major H. D. Vinton, chief
Palmer was engaged to conduct this company by the new route from Pit River, opened the previous autumn by the Oregon gold-seekers. At the crossing of a stream flowing from the Sierra, one of the party named Brown shot himself through the arm by accident, and the limb was amputated by two surgeons of an emigrant company. This incident detained Palmer in the mountains several weeks at a cabin supposed to have been built by some of Lassen's party the year before. A son of Gen. Wilson and three men re- mained with him until the snow and ice made it dangerous getting down to the Sacramento Valley, when Brown was left with his attendants and Palmer went home to Oregon by sea. The unlucky invalid, long famibarly known as 'one-armed Brown,' has for many years resided in Oregon, and has been con- nected with the Indian department and other branches of the public service. Palmer's Wagon Train, MS., 43-8.
40 This is what Steele says, and also that one of them who deserted, named Riley, was hanged in San Francisco. Rifle Regiment, MS., 7.
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LANE'S ADMINISTRATION.
of the quartermaster's department of the Pacific divis- ion, to proceed to Oregon and make preparations for the establishment of posts in that territory. Taking passage on the United States transport Anita, Cap- tain Ingalls arrived at Vancouver soon after Hatha- way landed the artilleymen and stores at that place. The Anita was followed by the Walpole with two years' supplies; but the vessel having been chartered for Astoria only, and the stores landed at that place, a difficulty arose as to the means of removing them to Vancouver, the transfer being accomplished at great labor and expense in small river craft. When the quatermaster began to look about for material and men to construct barracks for the troops already in the territory and those expected overland in the autumn, he found himself at a loss. Mechanics and laboring men were not to be found in Oregon, and Captain Ingalls employed soldiers, paying them a dollar a day extra to prepare timber from the woods and raft lumber from the fur-company's mill to build quarters. But even with the assistance of Chief Factor Ogden in procuring for him Indian labor, and placing at his disposal horses, bateaux, and sloops, at moderate charges, he was able to make but slow progress.41 Of the buildings occupied by the artillery two belonged to the fur company, having received alterations to adapt them to the purposes of bar- racks and mess-rooms, while a few small tenements also owned by the company42 were hired for offices and for servants of the quarter-master's department.
It was undoubtedly believed at this time by both
11 Vinton, in 31st Cong., 2d Sess., S. Doc. 1, pt. ii. 263. Congress passed in September 1850 an act appropriating $325,854 to meet the unexpected outlay occasioned by the rise in prices of labor and army subsistence in California and Oregon, as well as extra pay demanded by military officers. See U. S. Acts and Res., 1850, 122-3.
42 In the testimony taken in the settlement of the Hudson's Bay Com- pany's claims, page 186, U. S. Ev., H. B. Co. Claims, Gray deposed that the U. S. troops did not occupy the buildings of the company but remained in camp until they had erected buildings for their own use. This is a misstate- ment, as the reports of the quarter-masters Vinton and Ingalls show, in 31st Cong., 2d Sess., S. Doc. 1., pt. ii. 123, 285.
S5
VANCOUVER AND STEILACOOM.
the Hudson's Bay Compay and the officers of the United States in Oregon, that the government would soon purchase the possessory right of the company, which was a reason, in addition to the eligibility of the situation, for beginning an establishment at Van- couver. This view was entertained by both Vinton 43 and Ogden. There being at that time no title to land in any part of the country except the possessory title of the fur company under the treaty of 1846, and the mission lands under the territorial act, Vancouver was in a safer condition, it might be thought, with regard to rights, than any other point; rights which Hathaway respected by leasing the company's lands for a military establishment, while the subject of purchase by the United States government was in abeyance. And Ogden, by inviting him to take pos- session of the lands claimed by the company, not in- closed, may have believed this the better manner of preventing the encroachments of squatters. At all events, matters proceeded amicably between Hatha- way and Ogden during the residence of the former at Vancouver.
The same state of tenancy existed at Fort Steila- coom where Captain Hill established himself August 27th, on the claim of the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, at a place formerly occupied by a farmer or herdsman of the company named Heath." Tolmie pointed out this location, perhaps with the same views entertained by Ogden, being more willing to deal with the officers of the government than with squatters.
On the 28th of September General Smith arrived in Oregon, accompanied by Vinton, with the purpose of examining the country with reference to the loca- tion of military posts; Theodore Talbot being ordered to examine the coast south of the Columbia, looking
43 Vinton said in his report: 'It is peculiarly desirable that we should be- come owners of their property at Fort Vancouver.' 31st Cong., 2d Sess., S. Doc. 1, pt. ii. 263.
44 Sylvester's Olympia, MS., 20; Morse's Notes on Hist. and Resources, Wash. Ter., MS., i. 109; Olympia Wash. Standard, April 11, 1868.
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LANE'S ADMINISTRATION.
for harbors and suitable places for light-houses and defences.45 The result of these examinations was the approval of the selections of Vancouver and Steila- coom. Of the "acquisition of the rights and prop- erty reserved, and guaranteed by the terms of the treaty," Smith spoke with the utmost respect for the claims of the companies, saying they were specially confirmed by the treaty, and that the public interest de- manded that the government should purchase them; 46 a sentiment which the reader is aware was not in accord with the ideas of a large class in Oregon.
It had been contemplated establishing a post on the upper Willamette for the protection of companies travelling to California, but the danger that every soldier would desert, if placed directly on the road to the gold mines, caused Smith to abandon that idea. He made arrangements, instead, for Hathaway's com- mand to remove to Astoria as early in the spring as the men could work in the forest, cutting timber for the erection of the required buildings, and for station- ing the riflemen at Vancouver and The Dalles, as well as recommending the abandonment of Fort Hall, or Cantonment Loring, owing to the climate and unpro- ductive nature of the soil, and the fact that immi- grants were taking a more southerly route than formerly. Smith seemed to have the welfare of the territory at heart, and recommended to the govern- ment many things which the people desired, among others fortifications at the mouth of the Columbia, in preparation for which he marked off reservations at Cape Disappointment and Point Adams. He also suggested the survey of the Rogue, Umpqua, Alseya, Yaquina, and Siletz rivers, and Shoalwater Bay; and the erection of light-houses at Cape Disappointment, Cape Flattery, and Protection Island, representing that it was a military as well as commercial necessity,
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