USA > Oregon > Pioneer days of Oregon history, Vol. I > Part 13
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In connection with the well-proved fact that wrecks from the Orient had occurred as stated, all through the centuries we can know of, it would seem that the question of the origin of the first inhabitants of America can be traced more easily than to trace them back to any possible advent through the hyperborean regions. The Chinese had much the same civil- ization and commerce when Rome, Greece and Persia were new that they possessed when Captain Cook made his first voyage around the world. If their junks reached the shores of North America in the last century, there is reason to be- lieve they did so in centuries before that ; those saved from such wrecks may have included a few women as well as men. If Adam and Eve could populate a world-as the orthodox believe a pair of their descendants could found new dynas- ties in newer lands.
WRECK OF WILLIAM AND ANN
About 1828, the Hudson's Bay Company's ship William and Ann was wrecked on Clatsop beach, or spit, and all on board lost. It was thought the Indians had killed them, as they had stolen all the cargo. Dr. McLoughlin sent to the chiefs and accused them, when they answered that they had
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saved the goods and the stuff was all theirs. The chief sarcastically sent the governor an old rusty tin dipper, that had been used for bailing, with word that he was welcome to that.
This was too much for "The Czar of all the West," so he sent his schooner, with howitzer on board, to bombard the Indian village on Clatsop Point. The Tillamooks were also there as they came to Clatsop for the summer fishing. The schooner's fusillade knocked down the lodges with shells and the natives all ran to the woods and hid. There were several hundred Indians at the fishery and a Nehalem man was killed. A squad of fifty or so, landed to punish and pursue, looted the village and found much spoil from the wreck. The chief who so impudently acted persuaded two of his men to go back and fight. These attacked the whites from ambush as they went by, but did no harm; the whites fired into the brush and killed their assailants.
Then Dr. McLoughlin sent Helen Smith, wife of Sol Smith, who was daughter of a Clatsop chief, to make peace. They told her they had killed no men from the ship ; that the crew were all lost during the fearful storm that raged at the time.
The schooner Convoy followed the William and Ann into the river and was close by when she grounded, but bore off in safety. They would have launched a boat to rescue the others, but the storm was too fierce, so there was reason to believe that the crew was lost as the Indians claimed. Felix Hathaway was on the Convoy, having come from California on her, and he said it was impossible to save those on the wrecked vessel.
CHAPTER XXIII
VANCOUVER AND THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY
TEN years passed from the time the Northwest Company, by the treachery of McDougall, who was Astor's partner, became possessed of Astoria and the business of the Colum- bia, until Sir George Simpson, governor of the Hudson's Bay Company-that had meantime absorbed the Northwest Company-concluded that the best point for the headquarters of their trade would be at the head of navigation, to be nearer the scene of operations while still accessible to the ocean. He selected for this purpose the site of Vancouver, eighty-eight miles above Astoria, on the north side of the river. At that time there was deep water to this point and the vessels of the company could land at its wharf, though since then the river has become too shallow there for deep sea vessels. This change was determined in 1824, but several years' time had passed before its entire accomplishment.
In 1846, John Dunn, who had been connected with the Hudson's Bay Company for eight years, though he does not say what years, published a work on Oregon for the purpose of defining the British right and title to the coun- try. He describes Vancouver as he knew it. The situation is one of the most beautiful on the entire river, on a plain that gradually rises to the north from the shore of the Columbia, with mountains in the background and mountain views in all directions. No finer view can be had of Mount Hood than from this rising shore, the majestic summit
FORT VANCOUVER IN 1845 From an old print
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gleaming over the intervening ranges as it towers in supernal splendor, robed with eternal snows and not more than fifty miles to the southeast. From across the river St. Helen's, scarcely less wonderful, is to be seen about thirty miles away among the ranges on the north, and Mount Adams, fifty miles on the northeast, forming a wonder view from the mouth of the Willamette, not surpassed from the flow of any of earth's great rivers. From salient points of the Willamette Hills this view is enlarged by the addition of Mount Rainier, that overlooks the waters of Puget Sound, over a hundred miles to the north, and Mount Jefferson is seen seventy-five miles south. Dr. William McKay, the grandson of Aleck McKay, who was of the Astor expedition and was killed near Nootka Sound on the ill-fated Tonquin, in 1814, whose Red River widow became the wife of Dr. John McLoughlin, chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company, saw the removal completed from Astoria to Vancouver about 1830, when a mere child, and gave me a pleasant description of the scene. He lived at Vancouver with his grandmother and was a favorite with McLoughlin himself ; he remained a member of the family until 1838, when he went East to be educated. He studied medicine and was a practicing physician until he died, about 1894. Those who knew him will appreciate my description of him as a charming companion, a cultivated man by education, a gentleman by nature ; his mind was stored with the facts and legends of the olden time, and these I succeeded in obtaining from him as material for much of the record of "Pioneer Days" that I contributed to the world in 1885-86. His mother was a princess of the Chinook tribe, near Astoria.
Astoria offered no field for productions of the soil, for the
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vicinity was mountainous, or heavily timbered river bottoms, save the sandy reaches of Clatsop plains. So early as 1818, men capable of farming were sent above the falls of the Wil- lamette, to locate where they could grow wheat to fill the contract with the Russian Fur Company for supply of breadstuffs made by the Northwest Company. Wooded ridges formed the shores of the Columbia for most of the distance from the ocean until the beautiful location at Van- couver offered available land on the north shore, a few miles above the confluence with the Willamette.
In 1885, I spent several days with Dr. Mckay, at Pendle- ton, for the purpose of obtaining from him his recollection of the past. It must have been 1831 before much improve- ment was made at Vancouver. The first fort was built on a high hill, near where General Harney built his fine resi- dence, one mile east of the present military post and one mile back from the river, a sightly and commanding spot. The boy, not more than three years old, saw with delight the process of removal. A very large and ungainly craft was made to transport the live stock ; flat-bottomed, with masts, for the company's coasting vessel, the Cadboro had brought a few goats, milk-cows and oxen from California, and there were five work horses that came from Walla Walla, Indian ponies of good size and quality, for the Cayuses and Nez Percés had many good horses.
At that time communication with California was all by sea ; the overland trail was little used, even by hunters and trappers, as the southern tribes were savage and hostile. This stock was loaded on the great ark, and so taken, when the winds were up stream, to Vancouver. The little boy re- membered that the animals were much excited over their
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journey. At that time about ten acres were enclosed in a stockade twelve feet high, with bastions built at the lower corners, toward the river. These bastions formed quite a battery, as they contained four cannons each ; could point in every direction, and were high enough to sweep over the stockade and surrounding country. There were great gates, with smaller posterns for common use. All the buildings, except the stables, were inside the stockade. The site was commanding but lacked one essential; there was no water, nor could any be found by digging any ordinary depth. He remembered that old La Pierre- or Stone, as Americans literally translated it-was employed in hauling water, mak- ing two trips a day to the Columbia for it. The wheels of his wagon were sawed off a fir log. On these were two puncheons, or casks, which were filled and well lashed on, and the whip was then applied to Lion and Brandy, the two great oxen, as they travelled to the fort. This was found inconvenient, and after a few years the fort was removed to the open land where is now the military parade ground.
This was undoubtedly the site of the Hudson's Bay Com- pany's fort in the forties, or late in the thirties, when John Dunn, before alluded to, was at Vancouver. I will copy his description :
On a large level plain, about a quarter of a mile from the shore, and ninety miles from the Pacific. The river in front is seventeen hundred yards wide and the whole country round is covered with noble woods, consisting of many kinds of valuable trees, such as cedar, pine, etc. interspersed with open and fertile spaces. It was founded in 1824, by Governor Simpson, as the locality was more convenient for trade; had a larger and richer tract of land for cultivation, and afforded a more convenient landing place for cargoes than Fort George or Astoria, which lay near the mouth of the river.
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Dr. Mckay says, at the first fort they cut down heavy timber to clear the land, and then worked it up to build the fort with. The stockade was of split logs, twelve feet high; the buildings were of hewn logs; flooring had been whip- sawed by hand at Astoria. They grew crops in open land about the forts, and had a farm of two hundred or three hundred acres, using Kanakas from the Sandwich Islands for workers, but also had half-breeds, French Canadians, and men from the Orkney Islands. As many as two hundred and fifty men were employed in all the work.
At that time, while horses were abundant east of the Cas- cades, the Indians of Western Oregon had none. They did their travelling with canoes, and hunted on foot from the rivers to the hunting grounds in the mountains. The nature of the country was very different, being generally heavily timbered, from the open ranges of the wide inland region where horses abounded. In due time Alderney cattle were imported to improve the Spanish breed that came from Mex- ico; and when they became more abundant a beef would be killed at Christmas, or some other great occasion, but that was seldom. The hunting of elk and deer in the mountains near by supplied meat in abundance. They had Klickitat hunters, as also two Umpqua Indian boys, captured in an In- dian raid, that Dr. McLoughlin bought. They were brought up at the fort and were treated exactly as were other employés, as they had regular duties and received wages. Those two boys hunted and caught fish in abun- dance.
In the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company was a Ken- tuckian, named Cannon, who was ingenious. The impera- tive Governor McLoughlin was quite friendly with him and
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spent many an hour in his shop watching him work at his anvil. Out in the open stood a majestic fir tree, that having plenty of room-"gladly to bourge on and broadly to grow" -spread its long limbs and made grateful shade and shel- ter. Beneath this spreading fir Cannon had his anvil and forge. When they built the greater fort he made an over- shot waterwheel at La Camas, six miles above Vancouver, where they sawed lumber ; and when they produced wheat and outgrew the great stump that had been hollowed, in which wheat was pounded with a spring pole that worked a heavy pestle, Cannon came to their relief again and made them a flouring mill, taking the granite found in the hills near by to make burrs, and rigging wheels and cogs, had power that it took four yoke of cattle to operate.
Cannon came over land with Mr. Hunt, partner of the Astor Expedition, in 1811, and remained with the fur com- pany ; lived later on French prairie and died about 1865, a good citizen. Little Willie Mckay looked on with wonder while all this was done, with more wonder yet when he saw the beautiful white flour come pouring out as it was ground. Later they had improved flour mills sent from England, but Cannon's mill filled a very important place in the economy of the time.
John Dunn explains the importance of Vancouver as "the grand mart and rendezvous for the company's trade and servants on the Pacific. Thither all the furs and other ar- ticles of trade collected west of the Rocky Mountains, from California to the Russian possessions, are brought from the other several forts and stations; and from thence they are shipped to England. There, too, all the goods brought from England for traffic are landed and from thence are
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distributed to the various parts of the interior and along the northern shores by sailing vessels, or by boat, or pack horses, as the routes permit for traffic among the natives or for the supply of the company's servants. In a word, Vancouver is the grand emporium of the company's trade west of the Rocky Mountains."
He describes the fort as a parallelogram, about 250 yards long by 150 broad, enclosed in a wooden wall twenty feet high, with buttresses within. At each angle there was a bastion, containing two twelve-pounder cannons, and in the centre were some eighteen pounders, but from the pacific character of the natives these had become useless. Within were two courts, around which were about forty neat wooden buildings, each one story high; there were offices for business, apartments for officers and clerks, warehouses for goods, as well as for furs, workshops of all kinds, that were the scene of unceasing activity ; also a schoolhouse and chapel ; besides a brick and stone powder magazine.
In the centre was the governor's residence, two stories high; the dining-hall and public sitting-room. All the clerks and officers dine together, the governor presiding. The dinner had several courses ; wine was allowed frequently, but no strong liquors. After dinner they adjourned to the bachelor's hall, or smoking-room, to smoke, read, or tell strange adventures. Often there would be an influx of com- pany, chief traders from the outposts come on business, or commanders of vessels just arrived. Those were gala times, for there was more to hear and know, with much amusement, but always kept under strict discipline and perfect pro- priety. No one need be weary or find lack of interest, for, if they wish, there is a horse to ride and a rifle to use. The
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voyager or trapper who had traversed the wilderness, and the mariner who had circled the globe, were grouped together singing, joking, telling their experiences, and thus banish- ing care until the time came to start again on their wild journeyings.
The smoking room, or bachelor's hall, was both a museum and an armory, for there were to be seen all sorts of weap- ons, dresses and curiosities of life, civilized or savage. This room was specially for the superior class, as mechanics and laborers or servants did not frequent it. Take what Eng- lish writers have said, the evidences of the best American authorities, and what the employés of all grades who left the service of the Fur Company to become American citizens say of the old time when Dr. McLoughlin was at the head of that great corporation, and it must have been organized and managed without favoritism and with a firmness and wisdom not often equalled in mundane affairs ; that reached through all ramifications and different branches of trade, extending over a thousand miles east and west, and nearly as far north and south.
There was the precision of military life in a wilderness, thousands of miles from anywhere, surrounded by savage tribes, employing Indians very often, with Kanakas and Canadians who were half wild themselves. Yet the genius of Governor McLoughlin wielded this crude material with the magnetism of a strong mind as well as the spirit and disci- pline of a great organizer.
McLoughlin himself was a man of arbitrary and impetu- ous nature, yet was capable of appreciating true value and doing justice, while he expected obedience.
There was a school for the half-breed children (for there
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were no white women) ; for, from accomplished gentlemen down to common trappers, all had their Indian or half- breed wives ; but even these were graded in character and na- tive rank to correspond with the men they mated with. Their children were fairly well schooled, as were those orphans left by any Indians who had been in the company's service.
Dunn says the front square was the place where Indians and trappers brought their furs and skins or other articles and made their sales ; there also were many who were busy sorting and packing these various goods ; Canadians beat- ing and cleaning the furs and taking out the coarse hairs previous to exportation. There was great care exercised to protect the valuable furs, so that they could endure the long voyage to London. Just imagine batteaux coming up and down the river, or from the Cowlitz or Willamette; or trains coming in from the mountains by various trails, all bringing their loads of furs to unload there, have their wares inspected by experts and receive their pay, often in goods suited to Indian trade. These groups were scattered all over the plains or under the beautiful oaks or maples, narrating their latest adventures or listening to the latest news ; the while, any detail of business is being conducted with exactness and impartiality like the working of ma- chinery.
Six hundred yards below the fort, on the bank of the Co- lumbia, was a village of about sixty well-built houses, where the mechanics and other employés of the company had their houses, usually Canadians and Scotchmen. There was also a hospital where employés, and indeed others who were in need, received treatment from Dr. Tolmie, the company's
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surgeon and physician. These usually had native women for wives, yet they lived neatly and comfortably. The officers often married half-breed women who had received some education and possessed natural adaption to such life, accompanying their husbands on difficult and dangerous journeys and voyages. They were often daughters of chief traders, factors, or others high in the service, from Indian mothers of superior birth and attractions. While these dressed in English fashion, all retained the braided, beaded or embroidered leggins, of gay cloth and fine quality, as a peculiarity of their class.
The company's lower servants married native women, usually from the tribes of the upper river that did not flatten the heads, who often were beautiful and attractive and never failed to make good wives and learn household arts, as their efforts to acquire domestic economy and com- fort were appreciated and rewarded by the company. The half-breed men were magnificent horsemen; one of them would mount the wildest untamed Cayuse horse, ride him over brake and through fell until he would come back to the starting point tamed and submissive. Mr. Dunn cites Jo McLoughlin, the governor's half-breed son, as the greatest master of horse among them all. Jo was so won- derful in his playful performance of feats with wild stallions that he reminded the staid Englishman of the fable of the Centaurs of old. Poor Jo, I remember, received in- juries by walking off a bluff by mistake in the night, in Southern Oregon, years after, when his company was camped on the bank of a creek that is known as "Jump off Jo" to this day, and did not live to repeat his equestrian per- formances.
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In Dunn's time, as indeed when I first knew Vancouver myself, in 1850, the company's farm covered 3,000 acres, the greater part of which was in cultivation. He saw it "fenced into beautiful corn fields, vegetable fields, orchards, gardens and pastures, interspersed with dairy houses, shep- herds' and herdsmens' cottages." There was an experienced farmer, as well as a gardener, both Scotchmen. There were other farmers, north and south, for at that time the fur trade had decreased, and they had profitable trade to supply the Russians in Kamchatka, trade with the Sandwich Isl- ands, as also English and American whalers and merchant vessels, not only with flour, but with beef, mutton, pork, fish, and lumber and timber for spars and other uses. They commanded in the early day all the ports and safe inlets of the coast, and this fact, due to their enterprise and just dealings, the loyal Englishmen thought excited the cupidity as well as stimulated the avarice, hatred and jealousy of Americans. It is a pity he had not the spirit of divination upon him, half a century or more ago, to see an American writing his story with general appreciation, and know that he credited the Hudson's Bay Company and Dr. McLough- lin, its great manager, with qualities for business and good management, and moral force among the natives of the country, our own people have never equalled !
Such was Vancouver previous to the coming of any Americans to settle the region of Oregon. It was a semi- barbaric outpost, where civilization was held in abeyance and the spell of the aboriginal was only held in thrall by the greater spell of progress. Such as it was, this continent will never see its like again, for the conditions that attended it are gone forever !
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ANNUAL SHIPS AND THE SPRING BRIGADES
Those were famous times, when the annual ship came from the Old World each spring to bring supplies and carry away as trophies of trade the spoils of rivers and moun- tains that had accumulated. To meet this ship and furnish its cargo, the spring brigades came down the tributaries, and in one great fleet of batteaux rode the June floods, when they could often run the overwhelmed falls and rapids and safely reach Vancouver. There was excitement, risk, danger, all the romance the wilds could furnish, in this life ; when they were assembled at Vancouver there was high festival, and something like license, for a few days, replaced the discipline and labors of the year.
That must have been a variegated assemblage, the white- haired and venerable McLoughlin at that time presided over, that feasted in the great dining-hall, or had the flow of soul that came when they were gathered in that bachelors' hall that all authorities of the time speak of. Many of them were educated gentlemen who preserved the garb of their class and who loved to read again and recall the classics they studied in their youth. There were sea- goers who had rounded the Horn and buffeted both oceans ; various classes of clerks and officers, who some of them were dressed in garments of tanned deer skins, with all the fringing and adornments their wives were capable of. Through this carnival time there was exuberance, perhaps, but within proper limits ; no rioting, no drunkenness. Yes! Vancouver knew then a condition and witnessed such a mingling of humanity as it never can realize again; for
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outside the officers' quarters was the common life of the hunters and trappers, Canadians and islanders, and looking on were the dusky sons of the forest who saw with wonder this occasional relaxation of the strict discipline that made every day Vancouver.
Supreme above all was the tall form and white head of McLoughlin. I have alluded to the fact that he married the widow of Aleck McKay, who came with the Astor expedition. She was only one-fourth Chippewa, from Red River of the north; could not read, but was remarkable for the possession of sound judgment and good qualities. That she had much influence with him was proof that she was no ordinary woman. Her grandson, Dr. William C. Mckay, has told me of times when McLoughlin came in where they were, walking up and down the room, angry and excited because something that had been ordered done was not well done, or had failed by mismanagement. He vowed in his anger that the fault should be punished and the one to blame suffer for his misconduct some terrible penalty that would teach others not to trifle with his instructions. In these fits of anger the good man was rather impetuous and ungovernable, but the woman went on with her knitting, for she was always busy; when the exuberance of wrath had somewhat subsided she made wise suggestions, and in the end was always able to bring him to reason and induce him to do exactly what was right. This had always seemed to be a charming picture of the home life at Vancouver, and Dr. Mckay assured me that the gentle and genial wisdom possessed by his part Indian grandmother had its qualify- ing effect on McLoughlin, and through him on life at head- quarters. It is a pleasure, in reading the noble character
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