USA > Oregon > Pioneer days of Oregon history, Vol. I > Part 11
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The crowning hope of young Tillamook was to get rid of Sandy. Indians were expert with canoes and went outside to fish, especially to strike seals found on the rocks that line the coast. One winter day young Tillamook and another were so engaged when a sudden storm overtook them, upset the canoe and left them in hopeless struggle with the waves. No one dared to go to their rescue until Sandy launched a canoe and alone, with skill and strength, rescued them from impending fate at risk of his own life. If anything, this intensified the other's hate ; he simply wiped the brine from his eyes and went on plotting worse than ever.
Thus matters grew from bad to worse; the chief sided with his brother, and the tribe-as is the human way-sided with the most powerful coterie. Then, Nehala said bitterly, that he knew his own people no longer, for all were his ene- mies-an episode that proves human nature to be no better among savages than with so-called civilized peoples. What- ever the feeling of the tribe, there was one family who treas- ured every act of Sandy's life and left to future generations
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the story of his good deeds and of the courage and kindness of his stay among them.
Nehala had a summer home on the ocean shore, fourteen miles north, to which he determined to remove and have no further dealings with his tribe. When he made this known, Sandy asserted himself. The only condition under which he could remain was to have Ona for his wife. Thus he became part of the family and the love of Ona was rewarded. They were removing to the summer house, all loaded with the fam- ily possessions ; had surmounted Necarney, and came to a great rock close to the sea, known as Haystack Rock to this day. As the tide was at ebb, they were passing before it when they were met by two black bears, who rushed so that Nehala was overthrown. Sandy dropped his load and with his gun shot one of the bears, and before Nehala could rise had taken the gun he carried and shot the other.
There soon came, following the bears, a young Clatsop chief and his band, who, it seems, had attacked the bears, one of whom carried an arrow shot by the young chief. He greeted Nehala and said they had heard of the wreck and of the white stranger, and were on the way to see and learn fur- ther. But he was so satisfied with this meeting that he gave up the journey to return with them to the summer house not far away.
Sandy made a present of the bears to the Clatsop chief, who left his people to save and cache the meat while he went with the new-found friends. That night-Sandy said- young Tillamook was sure to follow them with his ven- geance, so the Clatsop chief and Nehala stood guard at the house, while Sandy went where the trail came up on the beach, a short distance back. He watched there while Ona
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slept near by. Just as the day was peeping over the ranges he heard a sound of feet, and soon a form parted the under- growth as the trail came up the beach. Sure enough, it was the malignant face of Tillamook he saw ; then, taking care- ful aim, his enemy fell back on the trail-dead; and Sandy heard the feet of his companions as they scampered away.
This tragedy caused a council of war, where the Clatsop chief invited Nehala to become one of his people and live with him on the beautiful Clatsop Plains. This was agreed to, and the Clatsop braves generously helped to carry all the possessions of their new allies to tribal headquarters, on the banks of the beautiful Nic-a-ni-cum, near where it enters the sea, and where to-day is one of the favorite re- sorts of the North Pacific region. They were a kindred race, so the change was not unpleasant, and there is every reason to believe that they lived happily and peacefully. Before they left the summer house, as an act of conciliation, the Clatsops conveyed the body of young Tillamook back where they left the bear meat and placed it so his friends could find it. It is not known that his death was resented, and tradition says the friendship of Sandy and the young Clatsop chief was lifelong and unbroken.
On Clatsop Plain is a beautiful spot known as Cullaby's Island-four acres overgrown by great forest trees, located between the waters of Cullaby's Lake and a marsh, where the family of Sandy and his descendants made their homes until Clatsop was settled by the whites half a century ago. Ona became the mother of four children-three daughters and one son. The government exploring expedition, under Lewis and Clark, crossed the continent and wintered at Clatsop because elk and deer were so abundant there. Their journal
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shows that they saw, on the ocean shore, the summer home of Nehala yet standing in 1806, and met there an Indian- who must have been Sandy's grandson-with features show- ing Caucasian origin; a face that was pale and freckled, and hair and beard that was reddish in color. Forty years later-in 1846-John Minto, then young and not long from England, who is well known in connection with pioneer his- tory, at Cullaby's Lake met an Indian, who made his home there, and was descended from a white man who was saved from a wreck of prehistoric times. Cullaby had tools and a workshop, was making a new stock for his gun and showing considerable skill. He was reticent by nature, and when asked concerning the red-headed Indian seen by Lewis and Clark, his answer was: "Okook nica papa." (That was my father). Then he spoke in Chinook and called from the other room his son, Edwin, who spoke English well. He listened to his father awhile, then said: "My father says he will tell me all the story of his family to-night and I will come to tell it to you to-morrow."
Very early the next morning Edwin came where Minto was, and taking him to the shore of the ocean, a few miles away, spent the entire day telling him the story of the past.
Edwin became much attached to Minto from that time; but I will tell the rest of the story of the Scot and his Ona. Sandy was fond of isolation, and his home on the island he seldom left. He had few intimates-the Clatsop chief being his nearest friend. He was a famous hunter, and as the years passed was universally respected. All this was before the Columbia River was discovered or the presence of white men known, so his life had no break from its isolation. Even at this early time the smallpox had been among the Indians.
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One day word came that it was among the Clatsops. Soon he heard that his friend, the Clatsop chief, was down with the fell disease. Then Ona and her four children were sent to the mountains, to be out of the way of the pestilence, for Sandy had determined to go to the sick bed of his friend.
He charged Ona not to come to him. If he survived he would come to her, but she was to take no risks. We can imagine the tenderness of that parting, as well as the strong motive that made him capable of such self-sacrifice. Years before, in their young manhood, the chief had befriended him, and through all the intervening years had remained his friend, to make his life safe, respected and happy. It required a soul of more than ordinary appreciation to be willing to face pestilence-even for so true a friend.
Our story ends with the death of both of these friends as victims of the plague, but has its lesson of human faith and trust, and perfect love that is not often equalled among the most enlightened races.
The tenderness with which, for a century, this man's de- scendants treasured his memory, transmitting from genera- tion to generation so many minute details, to repeat them in the earliest days of Oregon history, assures us that he was well beloved. We have, among the last words of the Christ -told in the Gospel of St. John :
"Greater love has no man than this : that a man lay down his life for his friend."
CHAPTER XXI
PREHISTORIC WRECKS
(Written in 1900)
LOOKING back over the centuries, we find that Spanish ves- sels were sailing the Pacific Ocean long before there was any discovery of the Columbia River. Cabrillo saw and named Cape Mendocino and the Farellones, in 1543. In 1578, Francis Drake got up to latitude 48°. In 1602, Sebastian Viciano was looking for the wreck of the San Augustine, lost on the north coast in 1595; from that date to 1769-when missions were first established at San Diego, Monterey and San Francisco-a period of 167 years- those shores were unknown to trade or commerce ; missions had no footing north of Lower California, and had very little encouragement there.
So far back as the middle of the last century there was no settlement of Alaska ; no trade along this coast with the Indians by ships, nor was there any whaling fleet in the North Pacific Ocean. It is an interesting query as to what brought the vessels that were wrecked on the north coast in that very early time, for several were wrecked on Nehalem Beach close under the shadow of Mount Necarney. My scrap-book has several notices of treasure landed and buried on the benches of Necarney that are various and curious. The Tillamook Indians told us, when we went there about
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thirty-five years ago their traditions of the past, one of which was concerning the Chinese junk wrecked on Neha- lem sands ; another was of a vessel from which white men with heavy beards were saved. When more recently, at Astoria, Silas B. Smith gave other legends, of which he was a treasury.
Sol Smith, his father, was a Vermonter, who crossed the continent with Wyeth, from Boston, in 1832, to meet a ves- sel loaded with Indian goods. That vessel never was heard of, so Wyeth returned for another cargo. Smith remained, taught school at Vancouver to educate the half-breed chil- dren of the fur traders; married an intelligent woman, daughter of a Clatsop chief, and finally came to Clatsop. Mrs. Helen Smith was somewhat schooled, had influence with the Indians and took pains to investigate their traditions relative to those wrecks and told them to her son when he returned from being educated at the East. She told all that was of interest or that could be relied on.
In her opinion, the most reliable related to a wreck that must have occurred as far back as 1700 or 1710. The story was that from this wreck twenty-five or thirty men got ashore, remaining among the Indians awhile, long enough to interfere with the women and become obnoxious to the men. These people had no guns, as they were probably lost in the wreck; or their ammunition may have been spoiled; but they made slung-shots and were armed with them. When the Indian men laid a plot to kill them, the white men fought with these slung-shots until they were all destroyed.
Another tale, that Mrs. Smith heard from her people, she thought was not so reliable. To the south of bold-faced
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Necarney there was a long beach and close to its base a small bay is formed. So long ago as early in the last century- 1700 or 1710-tradition says a vessel landed or anchored in this bay, south of Necarney, and sent ashore a boat, from which its crew took out a chest which they conveyed by a mountain trail to a bench, or terrace, on the southwestern face of the mountain ; they buried this in a ravine that crossed the trail, then killed one of their number and buried him with the chest, knowing that the superstition of the na- tives would prevent their ever interfering with a dead body. The men returned to the boat and the ship sailed away.
Mr. Warren, who has been alluded to, says his father heard from Swan, a very old Clatsop Indian, a story much the same that he had heard from his own father: That a long time ago a vessel was lost at Necarney Bay; that a number of her men came on shore, who carried a chest up the mountain and buried it on a bench ; they carried up sacks full of treasure and poured into the chest, or placed the bags therein. Then the crew separated, some going north and some south. Those who went south were all killed by the Rogue Rivers ; those who went north stopped on Clatsop with those Indians, but later got into a fight and two of them were killed. As far back as earliest days of white men, in passing back and forth the Indians pointed out to them the mountain terrace where the treasure was supposed to be, but nothing could induce them to go near the spot. The story told us at Tillamook, thirty years ago, was similar to this. But those Indians are no longer there, as they have been re- moved to a reservation to the south.
Old Swan injected a double dose of tragedy into his story of the burial of the treasure chest, for he made the men who
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had prepared the grave and carried up the sacks cast lots, as they stood about the grave ; the one who lost was immedi- ately dispatched and his remains consigned to protect the buried treasure. Ever since that time the Nehalems have been looking for these sea rovers to return and claim their own.
The legend must have had some foundation in fact, for the natives told it to all early comers and could not easily have invented it. Was it indeed pirates who roamed these seas? It is well known that the ocean trade avoids the equatorial calms and takes the northern route as the safest and quickest, though the longest. Pirates, who waited and watched to capture the commerce of Spain with the Orient, were not so very much out of the way in the latitude of Ore- gon. May it not have been possible that a mission ship had been captured by sea rovers, driven north, and was lost on this coast in that early time? If so, this vessel may have had on board supplies for the missions and churches of the entire coast.
The Indians of the Cascades told early comers that in the long ago a man or men who had been wrecked on the ocean shore came there and remained to take Indian wives and leave their descendants. This was corroborated by the testi- mony of Mrs. Helen Smith, that when at Vancouver, about 1826, she saw a middle-aged woman-at least sixty years old-whose hair and complexion were Caucasian, who claimed to be descended from a white man who lived and died at the Cascades, whose name was Ko-na-pee.
This corresponds with the legend handed down at Clatsop, as told by Mrs. Helen Smith to her son, Silas B. Smith. About the year 1750, early one morning, as an Indian
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woman was coming along the ocean shore near the South Cape, she saw a wreck on the sands. There were two bearded men, who were making a fire from driftwood, and cooking, or roasting, popcorn on the coals to make it pal- atable. They made signs they wanted water, and gave her a dish to get it in. She went on two miles to the village and told her people she had seen two men who were white, also were bears, as they had long beards. The Indians took these men as slaves and made them work, but burned the wreck to get the iron out of it; then discovered that one man, named Ko-na-pee, was a blacksmith and could make the iron into knives and tools they needed. Ko-na-pee was so useful that after awhile they set them free and gave them leave to try to get back to their own country, overland. They got as far as the Cascades and gave it up; the mountains seemed impassable, so they lived at the Cascades and had families long before any white man came to the country. This fin- ishes the record of the traditions of prehistoric wrecks that occurred south of the Columbia.
These old Indian traditions make little mention of the beeswax, probably because they found no use for it or value in it.
There is a conflicting story told of a cannon said to have been left from some early wreck, and a certain part of the shore is called Cannon Beach, but it most likely was floated ashore with the woodwork of the United States schooner Shark, that was wrecked early in the century. Other stories, not considered reliable, say that it was an ancient Spanish piece, partly composed of silver, as was done of old to make the metal tougher.
The fact that ancient Spanish coins have been found, and.
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that weapons of ancient workmanship were in hands of the natives, that never could have been had by trade because of too fine workmanship, and that these legends have been handed down for so many generations, create very interest- ing inquiry as to where this wreck, so well indicated, could have come from at the time it should have occurred.
My scrap-book has many mentions of this treasure legend during the third of a century it has been kept. One says that Tom McKay, son of a Hudson's Bay man by a Red River woman, who after that was Mrs. John McLoughlin, was in the Tillamook region in early times, trapping for furs, and in wandering up and down the coast met an an- cient crone, who told him that when a child she witnessed the coming ashore of the Spaniards who buried the treasure. When Mckay importuned for further information, she took him to the mountain and pointed out the exact spot. He must have dug for it, as the Hudson's Bay Company people heard that he did so, so sent for him and placed him under rigid examination ; but he denied that he had found any treasure. It seems that the company claimed that all that their people discovered or found when in their service was the Company's property. Tom couldn't be blamed much if he did not think so. He was a generous fellow and always had money to spend and to give away, so much so that when he afterwards settled on French Prairie, he lived so well and was so liberal to all in need, that people believed that he had surely found that treasure and gloried that he made such good use of it. If he found it half a century ago, the age of the old crone who told him of it might carry it back to the middle of the eighteenth century.
Another clipping, published at Tillamook, and aged and
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soiled long ago, tells that many years back Spanish pirates roamed these seas, and when their wealth became oppressive they would sail up to Cape Floranda and deposit their un- wieldy surplus in a treasure vault they knew of. Since then the inconstant sea has so encroached on their safe deposit vault that it cannot any more be entered, so the curious and envious look for it in vain. The only token left is a great cross, carved on the cliff that faces the sea, which no doubt was meant to "point a moral and adorn a tale." The story verges on hyperbole, or tries to rival the tales of the thou- sand nights. Several have told of inscriptions on the rocks above, as well as those at the sea level-an arrow and figures that seem to say a tale they could unfold.
Another mystical story tells of a man who prospected that mountain terrace (it has been fairly honeycombed with pros- pect holes ), but made no sign. It is only known that after this practice with pick and shovel he "folded his tents like the Arab, and as silently stole away." Some one, who had the curiosity to trace his course in life, was astonished to learn that he was living in almost Oriental state in British Columbia, having a generally good time that, too, before the rich mines on Trail Creek had been discovered or the city of Rossland had reached its present opulence.
A friend at Astoria tells of meeting a well-known and sedate citizen of the vale of the Willamette, who looked shabby and soiled-and tired and disgusted besides ; when he expressed wonder to see him thus, and so far from home, the weary man told a weary tale of how, two years before, a weary wayfarer went to work on his farm, and as soon as he became sufficiently rested told that he knew a tale of treasure to be had for the mere digging and helping one's
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self. But the farmer was prudent and not looking for "adventitious aids of circumstances," so it took two years for this treasure-seeker to get a move on him; but when he did his "round unvarnished tale deliver," it told of a shipmate who showed plats and tracings of a mountain side that faced the Western Sea ; how that shipmate, before he died, had this information from a man in Boston ; that he had been to bold Necarney's front and was preparing to dig there, where the chart had told him to, when the people who lived thereabout told him his true business was at home-if he had one-and to "not stand on the order of his going, but go at once ;" so this sober-minded man from the cow counties took his satchel in hand, put on his summer overcoat and went two hundred miles with his hired man, by river, rail and afoot, to where Necarney fronts the sea. He soon saw that the fellow had lied as to having been there before, as he did not know the place, but this farmer had heard this story of buried treasure, had read it in the newspapers, so they digged and delved awhile, but he was now on his way back to his inland home, a wiser and a sadder man. Never more would he be enticed by illusive tales from off the sounding sea. French Prairie was enough for him!
So it is, that this illusive legendary of treasure lost goes on from age to age, but never turns to treasure trove.
No doubt the scarred surface of old Necarney will show to other generations where men of this day toiled on this de- lusive quest, and no doubt the time to come will give rise to tales and legends yet unborn, and cause yet other prospect- ors to dig and delve so long as Necarney's front shall face the sea, and the never-tiring sea shall send its embattled waves against Necarney.
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Where the beeswax was found, at Nehalem Beach, there were also buried in the sand timbers fastened together by peculiar flat spikes, from half an inch to two inches wide and two to eight inches long. These were used in very hard woods, not like northern timber, and very durable-no doubt preserved by burial in the sands. These are in possession of Captain Edwards, examiner of hulls, at Portland, who wished some expert to identify them. It is thought they belonged to the wreck that carried the beeswax.
Not far south of Nehalem Beach is the Nestucca shore; at the southern extremity of this-as late as in 1882- Major J. H. Turner, of Yamhill, saw timbers of a wreck cast up by the highest tides, that were very old; from these projected copper "tree nails" an inch square. He had been a boat builder on Western waters and had knowledge of ship building. He thought the wood was white oak, and the construction indicated old age and old style. While he was there a very old Indian passed by to his fishing, and when asked what he knew of this wreck he said that his father told him it was there when he was young and long before his time, which would take it back for at least a century.
Bancroft's "History of the Pacific States" gives a list of Chinese or Japanese wrecks that had been found for a cen- tury or more, either derelict on the seas or wrecked on the shores of North America. This confirms the legends of the coast Indians concerning the Oriental wreck that occurred at Nehalem, the bones of which, they assert, were to be seen in the sands at low tide in pioneer days. Such wrecks were also known along the shore north of the Columbia, or on the coast of Vancouver Island, as reported by those con- nected with the early time.
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Three-quarters of a century ago the coast Indians sent word to Dr. McLoughlin, at Vancouver, of a wreck south of the Straits of Fuca, and also sent specimens of fine porcelain ware saved from the wreck.
The well-proved fact that from early days Oriental wrecks have been found adrift on this side of the Pacific Ocean, or stranded on the north shore, may have some bearing on the question as to whether this continent was peopled from Asia.
NEHALEM'S TREASURE SHIP
Mr. John Hobson, one of the oldest residents of Astoria, and Mr. Thomas H. Rogers, who has written an interesting novel based on the story of the Nehalem treasure ship, have each given interesting reminiscences that are worth quoting. Mr. Hobson says :
As I was coming to the Pioneer Reunion at Portland I bought a large piece of beeswax, with the letters "I. H. S." on its face, which I know was on it when taken from the sand, at the mouth of the Nehalem River in 1868, by a man named Baker, from whom I pur- cbased it.
When I first came here, fifty-one years ago, there was beeswax among the Indians, from Salmon River on the south to the Columbia on the north. They did not know what it was, using it for lights and leaky canvas. They said it came from a wreck, near the mouth of Nehalem River. The peninsula between the ocean and Nehalem is about one and a half miles north and south, and half a mile east and west, and about two or three feet above ordinary high tides, and is an uneven flat of small sand dunes. This is where the wax has been found.
In talking with the Indians from that place often, they would tell us of the wreck, and of the vessel that brought the gold and silver coin, and carried it up Necarney Mountain, and would refer us to some very old Indians. After the wreck of the Hudson's Bay Com-
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