USA > Oregon > Oregon, pictorial and biographical > Part 6
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fairly out in the Yellow sea a typhoon struck them, with which they had a hard battle; his ship was partially dismasted, but he reached Hong Kong. He said the brig, which he watched from time to time as they were near together, and as far as he could see she rode out all right, making "better weather" than he did, but alas, this was the last authentic news that ever came back to me or to any one of the fate of her. Captain Sherman, his wife who went with him on his last voyage, the crew of six men, cook and boy, all went down. About a month after I reached Portland a bark arrived from Japan bringing me the sad news that she never reached her destination.
As soon as my business was closed in China I took passage for San Francisco in the fine ship-(I forget her name) belonging to the firm of A. A. Low & Company, New York, Captain Charles Low, and had a fine trip. Reached Portland once more, thus ending my cruis- ing on the Pacific. I found all my interests in business going along satisfactorily under the management of John and Henry Green and my brother Irving and Kinzo, in the employ of our gas company, and a member of our bachelor family.
Shortly after we purchased the franchise of the Portland Water Company, which had been given to a party a short time previous, they had made but a small start, having laid but a few blocks of three-inch wooden pipe, bored out by hand and furnishing a supply for but a small portion of the town, taking their power from a steam sawmill (a very small beginning). I soon started for New York and pur- chased about six hundred tons of cast iron pipe, suitable for both gas and water distribution, also pumping engines and more gas machinery, chartered the bark Julia Cobb and started her fully laden for a voyage around Cape Horn. She arrived all right in Portland. Then our work commenced in earnest; building a pumping station on the river above the city, built our first reservoir for city water and the laying of gas and water mains. Previous to this, we had entirely closed out our mercantile business and were devoting our entire energies and labor in keeping up our supply of both water and gas with the increasing demands upon them by the growth of the city of Portland, which was fast increasing, making it necessary for me to visit the east yearly for the purpose of purchasing the machinery, pipe and supplies necessary to keep pace with the demands, and this continued until closing the sale of our waterworks to the city of Portland and later the sale of our gas works to the present gas company. These events, I'can prop- erly say, closed up the business career of my old partner, Mr. John Green, and myself.
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I now must resume the story of Kinzo, the young Japanese I brought over in the year 1860. He had faithfully remained with us in our employ for nearly eight years. The day before I was starting for New York in the winter of 1866 via the Panama route, he came to me and said he would like to go with me as far as San Francisco. He was then not very well, and, as a trip might benefit him, I told him to get ready and go, he to stay there a few days and return next steamer. A few days after I sailed for Panama he met on the street in San Francisco four or five young Japs, old friends of his. They recognized each other and they exchanged the history of their lives since they had parted. They were the personal suite of Count Ito of Japan, on the way with him to Washington. They rushed off to their hotel and told the Count of their discovery. He sent them to Kinzo to invite him to call and see him; he went and Count Ito invited him to dine. He (Kinzo) next day returned the compliment to the Count. There was also at the hotel in charge of the Count, a party of about thirty young Japs, whom he was taking to the states to place in suit- able schools to prepare them for collegiate education. All were young men of good families and no doubt that many of them today, if living, are among the leading statesmen of Japan.
I knew nothing of these incidents above until I returned the next spring, when Kinzo related it (as written above), which was brought out by my handing him a telegram which came to our office from Mr. C. W. Brooks, Japanese consul at San Francisco, saying to Kinzo, "Count Ito has returned from Washington, goes to Japan next steamer, wishes you to join him, return to Japan, where a government appointment awaits you." He handed it to me to read. I asked him, "Who is this Count Ito, Kinzo?" He replied, "He is the greatest man, next to Mikado, in fact, the Premier." I asked him, "Are you not afraid to return there?" He said, "No, not at all. I had a long talk with the Count when I met him in San Francisco, and my country is all right now; the reform party, which I joined before I left there, went under at first and I was forced to flee to Hakodadi, when I met you and you saved my life. Had it not been for you I would have been soon arrested in Hakodadi and taken back, and that would have been the last." I said, "Kinzo you have asked my advice; we will hate to part with you, but this is another great turning point in your life. Get ready, take the next steamer and report yourself to Count Ito and return with him." He did so. He wrote me on arrival there that the Count received him cordially and said we sail in two days. "Mr. Kinzo, take this check on the bank for one thousand dollars. My other young men have been doing the same, and each one investing the same amount
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in the way I wish you to do. Find out from them what they have bought and shipped on board our steamer, and purchase such things as they have overlooked in the way of goods, particularly mechanics' tools, farming implements, and everything that we can manufacture in our country that will be useful to us." He wrote me all this before sailing away. Again he wrote me before he left, bidding me an affec- tionate farewell and sailed away for his home after an absence of near- ly eight years. He wrote me frequently, and about a year after he had reached home that he would pass through San Francisco on the next coming steamer from Japan, as he was on his way to England with the first ambassador's suite to the court of St. James in the capacity of secretary to the embassy (the first minister sent from Japan), and hoped I could meet him there, but I could not meet him. The following year I went to England and the day after I reached London I called at the minister's residence in Kensing- ton Park Gardens. He seemed overjoyed to meet me. The min- ister himself was about traveling on the continent, and Kinzo was in full management. He was very kind and polite to me while there and made me feel quite at home in London. Two years after I was in London again and found him still in the same position under a new minister. He told me then that he had asked his government to accept his resignation as his health was not very good. They declined that but gave him the privilege of leaving London to visit Japan in hopes he would regain his health and resume his position, which he accepted and was soon to leave for home via the East India route. He remained at home about a year. About then he wrote me from Japan, saying he would again pass through San Francisco on the following steamer, this time as secretary to the new ambassador to Washington. I hap- pened to have business calling me to San Francisco at that time and on the evening the steamer was due, about nine o'clock I was sitting in the Palace Hotel with a friend of mine, Mr. Bloomfield, who had lived in Portland and was the constructing engineer in the building of our gas works and knew Kinzo. Just then a genteel young Japanese came into the hotel. I called Bloomfield's attention to him. My friend said he was attached to the Japanese consulate. I said I presumed he has met Kinzo and very likely knows him. I stepped over to speak with him and (as he was in the custom house) asked him if the expected steamer had been signaled and saying I had a Japanese friend on board; I was expecting a Mr. Kinzo. As soon as I spoke he looked at me a moment and said, "Suzukie Kinzo?" "Yes," I replied, "that is his name. I brought him over to Portland from Japan and he lived with me eight years before he went back to Japan, and I am hoping to
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meet him as soon as he gets ashore." He looked me in the eye a few seconds and said, "I am sorry to have to say to you, sir, you will never meet him again. The steamer has arrived and is at her dock; our mail by her has been received an hour ago. Mr. Kinzo died in Tokio five days before she left that port." To say that this was a shock to me can hardly express my feelings, for I had formed a warm attachment to him. I have no doubt that had his life been spared him his next pro- motion would have been the next Japanese minister to our govern- ment. His career in life was a most interesting one and in which I was very much identified.
In the year 1876 we sold our waterworks property to the city of Portland and in the year 1892 closed the sale of our gas works to the present gas company of this city. This closed up the partnership of the old firm of Leonard & Green, which was first formed in 1850, and we both retired from active business and turned our attention to our private affairs.
Mary CR. Die Gray
William D. Gray
T HIS pioneer of pioneers and historian of events in which he took so conspicuous a part was born in Fairfield, New York, on the 8th of September, 1810, and was a gentleman of Scotch descent. When but a lad of fourteen he lost his father and was apprenticed to the cabinet-maker's trade. At the age of seventeen, before the term of his apprenticeship was completed, he became foreman of the shop. After attain- ing his majority he studied medicine and, being a member of the Presbyterian church, he was solicited by the American board to ac- company Dr. Whitman. He crossed the plains with Dr. Whitman and wife and Rev. Henry H. Spalding and wife, the party arriving at Fort Vancouver on the 12th of September, 1836. Having come with Whitman in 1836 across the plains in company with Sublette to the Greene river, having assisted the other missionaries in the journey to Vancouver and in establishing themselves at Wailatpu, and having himself gone to Alpona among the Flatheads, he deter- mined to return the next year for reinforcements. To defray the expenses of his journey he drove a band of twenty horses and also had as companions in his company three young Flathead Indians, one of whom was the son of a chief. All went well with the party until Ash Hallow on the Nebraska river was reached. There they were attacked by a war party of three hundred Sioux. The Flat- heads, being desperate fighters, although vastly outnumbered, kept the enemy at bay for three hours, laying fifteen of them dead on the sand. Gray himself took a hand in the fight, having two horses shot under him and receiving two bullets through his hat. The Sioux, having lost a war chief among the slain and seeing no likeli- hood of overcoming the doughty little band, proposed a truce. But while the chiefs were parleying with Gray, others of the Sioux treacherously attacked his young men, shooting down one Iroquois, one Snake and three Flatheads, one of whom was the chief's son. The French interpreter then declared that the others were prisoners and must give up their guns. This Gray refused to do and told the rest of his squad to sell their lives as dearly as possible. At this
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show of determination the Sioux gave back again and proposed a talk, and over the slain of both sides smoked the pipe of peace. It has been said variously that the death of this young chief alienated the Flatheads from Gray and that it was one of the causes of the Whitman massacre. Neither of these statements is correct or even reasonable. After his return to his mission, the Flatheads allowed Mr. Gray to live and teach among them until 1842; and his final withdrawal seems to have been due not to the disaffection of the Indians but to lack of agreement with his missionary companions. To suppose that the death of a Flathead in company with Gray in 1837 would cause another tribe, the Cayuses, two hundred miles off, to kill Whitman in 1847, is very peculiar.
Gray's services in establishing the provisional government were as that of originator of the scheme. His Americanism found no vent or scope in the Oregon of the old Hudson's Bay rule; and, shut off from the national life which had been a part of his own and learning to hate the plans and expectations of the British, he was no sooner in the Willamette valley than he conceived the idea of the American settlers establishing a government of their own. He took the re- sponsibility of agitating the matter, of interesting Le Breton and Matthieu and others, of getting up the Wolf meetings and of push- ing the scheme which seemed constantly on so slender a basis as to be ready to fall to the ground either on this side or that. With ad- mirable tact, shrewdness and force, Gray and Le Breton led the column and carried the matter through to a most pronounced victory. The following is an account of the "Wolf meeting." An avowed attempt to form a government would have arrayed the Canadian- French in opposition, would have confirmed the doubting or con- servative Americans into opponents. Hence the expedient was re- sorted to of bringing together all classes and uniting them in a movement in which all felt a common interest. A notice was issued for a meeting on the 2d of February, 1843, at the Oregon Institute, to consider the propriety of adopting measures for the protection of herds and for the destruction of animals which preyed upon cattle, stock, etc. The ulterior purpose was a combination of settlers-a cooperative association to concert measures for the formation of some kind of civil government. At this meeting William H. Gray was chosen a member of a committee of six to make arrangements for a general meeting and to report business to such meeting. This done, the "Wolf meeting," as it is known in history, adjourned to meet at the house of Joseph Gervais on the first Monday in March. After adopting resolutions looking to the defense and welfare of
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their live stock against predatory animals and organizing the "Wolf Association," the meeting did not adjourn but appointed a committee of twelve, of which Mr. Gray was a member, to take into considera- tion the propriety of taking measures for the civil and military pro- tection of this colony. That the outcome of that meeting to form a "Wolf Association" would prove to be either the submission of a plan of government, or a proposition to initiate the preliminary steps to organize, had been public expectation. There was an eventful meeting at Champoeg. Mr. Gray was chosen a member of the first legislative committee. He was a member of the first territorial legislature and was one of a committee of five appointed to draft a memorial to the congress of the United States, setting forth the con- dition, situation, relation and wants of the country. In achieving the success of the "Wolf Association," the cunning of Le Breton would have had no effect without the moral earnestness and direct force of Gray, who did the talking, made the appeals, wrote the reso- lutions and closed the debates. This detracts nothing from the mer- its of Griffin, Meek, Smith and others, who were not simply follow- ers but colaborers. It is to be regretted that no record remains of the secret sessions of these American agitators.
After the full establishment of the provisional government Gray went to Clatsop Plains and in 1852 went east once more for the pur- pose of getting sheep for the young settlement. The scheme had been original with him for some time; and it was a favorite theory with Whitman himself that sheep were of more value than soldiers to the early settlers and also to the Indians. Colonel James Taylor was interested in the same line and formed a partnership with Gray for the purpose. Gray made the arduous journey in safety, bringing his flock by boat down the Columbia, but at Tanzy Point a heavy south wind coming down Young's Bay prevented a landing. The scow was caught in a storm and blown out upon the sands and was wrecked on Chinook Spit, and the whole almost invaluable flock was drowned. He assumed the entire responsibility of the loss and gave up his farm and home to meet the obligation, yet was not disheart- ened by the reverse. He was engaged in many business operations, being in California in 1849 to dig gold. He went to the Fraser river mines at Fort Hope and Okanagan in 1858. In the winter of 1860- 61 he built a boat at Asooya's lake on the British border. This was a craft with ninety-one-foot keel and a twelve-foot beam. It was constructed with no tools but a saw, hatchet and chisel, and was caulked with wild flax mingled with pitch gathered from the pine trees. She was brought down the Okanagan and Columbia rivers to
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Celilo. Mr. Gray was also one of the earliest navigators of the vio- lent Snake river.
For many years he lived at Astoria and during part of that time was a government inspector of the port. His later years were most enjoyably spent on the farm of his son-in-law, Jacob Kamm, on the Klaskanine. It is a matter of justice, which he was never forward to claim for himself, to say that his reason for not going to the Cay- use war was on account of the prevalence of a dangerous epidemic of measles on Clatsop Plains, to prevent the ravages of which he was particularly desired to remain by those who were going to the scenes of war and who wanted some one upon whom they could rely to care for their families in this sickness. He was the only physician in that region. For a number of years he was thus practicing medicine on the plains and was ever successful. Dr. Gray performed the first operation of trephining of the skull on the Pacific coast, and the In- dian boy who was thus benefitted by his skill spread his good for- tune up and down through the forests. He was ever the friend of churches and schools, ever bore his hand in politics and public affairs, served as representative county judge and justice and found his chief interest in public improvements. He was exceedingly active in the promotion of temperance, holding the most advanced views upon that subject.
Mr. Gray's history of Oregon, the first history written in the state, is so well known and so important in its sphere that it is fitting to devote some space here to its special consideration. The history was published in 1870. It exhibits flashes of dramatic power throughout. To those who have no interest in the contests of old times and to whom it is somewhat offensive to read of plots, charges and countercharges, the book ceases to please. But while these ele- ments awaken the opposition of the reader, . . to the scien- tific or philosophical inquirer into the early conditions of our state, it is invaluable as presenting the feelings of all parties-not only of Gray himself, but of the Presbyterians, Methodists, the non- mission people and even of the English. This makes Gray's history a most useful work upon this subject. Gray discards nothing as unimportant and makes little use of the cloak of charity but tells everything with reckless truthfulness. He caters to no one, writes nothing for the sake of popularity and never changes a word for the sake of rhetoric.
In his political career, as well as in all his enterprises, Mr. Gray was ever inflexible, blunt and direct, hard to manage, a good hater, but keen and faithful to his cause. When he had some great object
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to accomplish, he showed address and appreciation of the circum- stances, and in the early days was without doubt the Achilles of the American party. He was an honest friend, moreover, and his per- sonal relations with Dr. McLoughlin were most kindly, although for many years they were firm political opponents. Mr. Gray died on the 14th of November, 1889, and his remains were taken to Astoria to rest beside those of his loved wife. Taken all in all, William H. Gray is one of the most remarkable characters of North Pacific history.
One of Mr. Gray's objects on his first return trip to the east, in 1837, was to claim his bride. The young lady to whom he was be- trothed was appalled by the prospect of a life in the far western wilderness among savages and remote from civilization, so the match was broken off. After a brief but ardent and forceful wooing, he married Miss Mary A. Dix, who was born in Ballston Spa, New York, on the 2d of January, 1810. The marriage ceremony took place on the 25th of February, 1838, Mrs. Gray being the daughter of a Revolutionary soldier who had decided to devote her life to mis- sionary work. In 1838 this courageous couple set forth upon their life mission in the west, taking with them three other missionaries and their wives and locating at Fort Lapwai, Idaho. The zeal of the missionaries is understood when it is known that two weeks after their arrival Mrs. Gray had started a school for Indians under a pine tree in the wilderness and had a membership of from fifty to one hundred. Nor were her efforts confined to teaching the chil- dren, for during leisure hours she instructed the mothers in keeping their homes clean, in the art of making bread, and also taught them to cut and make clothes for their families. In 1838 both Dr. Gray and his wife received certificates from Rev. Dr. Greene, of New York, as missionaries of the American Board of Foreign Missions, both of which now hang in the historical rooms together with their pass- ports. In July, 1842, Mr. Gray resigned from the Board of For- eign Missions and made a trip to the Willamette valley, where he became trustee and contractor and built the old Oregon Institute, since known as Willamette University. From 1842 until 1844 he lived with his family in Salem and then until 1846 in Oregon City. He next removed to Clatsop Plains, where, aided by his wife and three others, he organized the first Presbyterian church in Oregon. During the latter years of their lives Mr. and Mrs. Gray lived prin- cipally at Astoria. Mrs. Gray died in 1881. They had the fol- lowing children: Captain J. H. D. Gray, who died at Astoria on the 26th of October, 1902, and was ex-state senator and ex-county judge
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of Clatsop county; Mrs. Jacob Kamm; Mary S., deceased, who was the wife of Frank Tarbell of Tacoma, Washington; Sarah F., who became Mrs. Abernethy, of Oregon City and Portland; Captain William Polk; Captain Albert Williams; and Captain James T. Mrs. Gray was a lady of education and refinement and of unusually lovely person, manner, and character. She was an humble, conse- crated Christian. One especially interesting fact in connection with her labors at Lapwai has been handed down to us. She had a re- markably sweet, finely trained voice, and when upon the morning after her arrival she joined in the singing at family worship, Mr. Spalding felt that it would be a power in their Sabbath services and requested her to conduct that part of the worship. When the In- dians heard her sing they were visibly impressed and afterward spoke of her as "Christ's sister." While visiting at her mother's a few months before her death, Mrs. Kamm said to her one day. "Mother, I have often wondered how you, with your education and surround- ings, the refinements of life that you were accustomed to, and your own personal habits, could possibly have made up your mind to marry a man to whom you were a total stranger so short a time from your first meeting with him, and go with him on such a terrible journey, thousands of miles from civilization, into an unknown wilderness, across two chains of mountains and exposed to countless dangers. Mother, how did you ever do it?" Her mother sat with her eyes in- tently fixed upon the carpet and then, after a few moments' pause, replied with great earnestness and solemnity: "Carrie, I dared not refuse! Ever since the day when I gave myself up to Jesus, it had been my daily prayer, 'Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?' And when the question, 'Will you go to Oregon as one of a little band of self-denying missionaries and teach these poor Indians of their Savior?' was suddenly proposed to me, I felt that it was the call of the Lord and I could not do otherwise."
Mrs. UdI. D. Gray
Side by side with the fathers, husbands and brothers who con- stituted the mighty army that conquered the west for civilization stood the women who in spirit were as heroic, whose endurance was as great and whose zeal as untiring as that displayed by the men of the pioneer households. Many of them were reared in eastern homes of culture and refinement, tenderly nurtured and carefully educated. It seems that it would have required sterner stuff to meet the condi-
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