USA > Oregon > Pioneer days of Oregon history, Vol. II > Part 4
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The Dalles troubles were adjusted, then they went up the Columbia, and we take White's own account for his adven- tures. Dr. White was no mean writer, and I find in his letter of November 15, 1843, to Hon. J. M. Porter, Secretary of War, a succinct and rather glowing account of this expedi- tion and of the country at large. He cites the rumors and fears that existed ; some wanted a fort built and arms and ammunition provided, others suggested to go with an armed force to the disaffected region, but he selected a sensi- ble clergyman and an interpreter and threw himself sud- denly in the midst of the Cayuses. They wanted to know where his party was and refused to believe that he ventured among them alone and at their mercy ; thought he must have a large party near by ready to destroy them at a blow. He convinced them, however, when "they were quite astounded and much affected." They suffered even more from apprehension than the white settlers did-three hun- dred miles away. Promising to soon return and make a treaty, White and his party rode on to Lapwai to meet the Nez Percés, who came together in great numbers and were very cordial. Their school was improved, they had better fences and greater farm products. After a few pleasant days the head chiefs and four or five hundred men and women of the tribe rode to Waiilatpu with them to hold another council with the Cayuses and Walla Wallas to influence them. Five or six days were spent adjusting matters, adopting laws and electing a high chief, then two fat oxen were killed and they had a feast-the first at which women were ever present. More was done than ever before to elevate Indian women in the social scale.
Speeches were made by all sides, the pipe of peace was
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smoked; old Indians told of the coming of Lewis and Clark, and peace smiled again on all the land. It was true, how- ever, that the mill was burned; that both Mrs. Whitman and Mrs. Spaulding were vilely and insolently treated, and that evil threats had been made.
Returning to The Dalles, White spent two months in- structing Indians of several tribes, who came from dif- ferent directions on learning that an agent appointed to treat with them had arrived. He gave out rules and regu- lations, or "laws," for them to follow, and beyond doubt did much good in standing between natives and whites as he did. He also claims that in his capacity as a doctor he visited their sick daily, wherever he went. To improve the condition of the Indian women, he raised a fund to pro- cure clothing to trade to them for their baskets, mats, and other manufactures, and had the satisfaction to see them attend Sunday service dressed in semi-civilized garb. The mission ladies taught them to make up their clothing.
In the same communication he describes the Indians of the Lower Columbia, west of the Cascades; "In mind, the weakest and most depraved of their race, and physically thoroughly contaminated with the scrofula and a still more loathsome disease entailed by the whites; robbed of their game and former means of covering ; lost to the use of the bow and arrow, laughed at, scoffed and condemned by the whites and a hiss and byword to the surrounding tribes, they are too dejected and depressed to feel the least pleas- ure in their former amusements, and wander about seeking generally a scanty pittance by begging and pilfering; but the more ambitious and desperate among them stealing, and in some instances plundering on a large scale. Were it
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not that greater forbearance is exercised toward them than whites generally exercise, bloodshed, anarchy and con- fusion would reign predominant among us." Dr. White wanted more power, more money to spend and more salary, and it is possible he allowed his feelings to get away with him in penning this sketch. The settlers of the forties had very little trouble with the Indians of the Willamette, gen- erally felt very kindly toward them and acted considerately. White made a strong and pathetic appeal, we can respect, to the Honorable Secretary, to "save them from being forci- bly rejected from the lands and graves of their fathers, of which they begin to entertain serious fears."
In this same connection he notices that Dr. McLoughlin had assisted the immigration of 1843, that had just arrived, in a very generous manner, and speaks of his claim at Oregon City and his intention to become an American citi- zen. Just at this time the Methodist mission and Jason Lee were trying to claim Oregon City and the falls, but White was not in their confidence ; he had no love for Jason Lee or his friends. As Indian agent he extols the course of the Hudson's Bay Company toward the Indians and quotes its governor as asserting "there have not been ten Indians killed by whites in this whole region west of Fort Hall in twenty years." Most of those were executed after con- viction for wilful murder.
Dr. White was not incapable of doing justice to Jason Lee, for he advocates the mission land claimed thus: "Should the ground of his claim be predicated upon the much effected for the benefit of the Indians, I am not with him, for, with all that has been expended, without doubting the correctness of the intention, it is manifest to every ob-
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server that the Indians of this lower country, as a whole, have been very little benefited. But should he insist as a reason for his claim the benefit arising to the colony and country, I am with him heartily." He went on to credit Lee with having done much to advantage the native's in- terests, to bespeak for him a kind reception and hope that he would soon return to resume his labors. It was well to close the account of their differences and the bitterness of their disagreement with kindly words that could live to the credit of both when both should be gone the last journey from whence no trouble returns. It was Lee's last journey, for he died soon after reaching the East while visiting Canada. The long account of his trials, hopes, sufferings and aspirations was balanced by the not unkindly hand of death ; the softening touch of Time is all healing !
As to Elijah White's character, I have criticized him as unscrupulous and tried to deal fairly with his faults and virtues. His connection with the mission was ground for the worst of aspersion, for he was accused of moral de- linquencies of a flagrant nature as well as of dishonest pecu- lations. Whatever was at fault then, his services as Indian Agent in suppressing the manufacture of whiskey in a distillery and otherwise in official capacity, even if a usurpa- tion of power were usually productive of good and tended to peace between settlers as well as with the Indians.
In 1845 the provisional legislature requested that he should go East with the memorial they had prepared, and he consented to do so. He had been for some time exploring south to discover any possible route over the mountains in that direction that might be more favorable for emigrants to follow, but without success. He did find his way by the
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Siuslaw to the ocean ; it must be conceded that he was ready to undertake any journey, however rough and hazardous, that could promise advantage to the country.
When Dr. White reached the East, he found a new admin- istration at Washington and those in office did not know him or appear to know of him. There was trouble in settling his accounts, but he was requested to remain in office ; when they did finally get matters arranged, and had waited a year for consummation of all matters necessary in that connection, his enemies in Oregon had time to send East a protest against his receiving any appointment there, mak- ing statements that were much against him. Thus his official career closed, but in 1850 he returned and was en- gaged with I. D. Holman, trying to promote the fortunes of Pacific City, on Holman's land claim, on the north side of the Columbia entrance, intended to be a rival to Astoria. But this proved a failure.
In 1879, a note in Bancroft's "History of Oregon" says he found that Dr. Elijah White was practising medicine quite near his library, where he made his acquaintance, found him affable, and received from him much informa- tion that he found of value in connection with that early time. He died in San Francisco in 1879. He certainly was a prominent feature in the pioneer days of Oregon, and drawing the kindly veil of charity over the actions of the past, that caused so much animadversion and even enmity, we will claim that with all his faults he rendered good ser- vice at a critical time in shaping the destinies of Oregon.
CHAPTER XLII
STORY OF SOLOMON SMITH
FROM Silas B. Smith, I learn the story of his father, Solo- mon Smith, who came in 1832 with Wyeth, to meet a vessel that never arrived. Wyeth returned to Boston, but Smith remained at Vancouver and taught school in 1833 for Dr. John McLoughlin. He taught two years for $80 a year, teaching nine months in the year. In 1834 Wyeth re- turned with the ship May Dacre and had a trading post on Sauvie's Island. In 1834 Smith took for a wife a Clatsop woman at Vancouver, who had lived with a Frenchman. She was a chief's daughter and sister to Mrs. Louis La Bronte, of Yamhill.
They moved to the Willamette valley and located ten miles south of Salem, where Matheny's ferry was after- wards, on the old mission bottom, called Chemawa, and tanght school for the Canadian French who were living on French Prairie, probably the children of Gervais and others. When later Jason and Daniel Lee came, with Wyeth, they helped them teach the mission school. Mrs. Smith also tanght, as she had mastered simple words.
In 1836 he went to the mouth of the Chehalem River, on the Willamette, to build a saw and grist mill in partner- ship with Ewing Young, and remained there until 1840. Before that mill was completed all wheat had to be sent to Vancouver. When repairing the mill on one occasion they found teeth and large bones of a mastodon, that Dr. Mc-
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Loughlin sent to England. At the Chehalem he was troubled with fever and ague so badly that his wife told him Clatsop was much better for him, as there was no fever and ague there.
Sol Smith was a warm friend to Daniel Lee, who was then at the Wascopum mission at The Dalles. They no doubt corresponded. The result was that they concluded to go down the Columbia together. Daniel Lee was interested in a young lady who was coming to Oregon on the bark Lausanne, that was then due. He was going down to meet her with a crew of Wasco Indians. Smith and his wife met them and all went down the Columbia together. Mrs. Smith was the only one who had ever made the trip before.
They reached Chinook Point and camped near the Indian village Chenamus in their tents. The next morning Lee preached to the Indians, and later on the same day the bark Lausanne, that he came to meet, entered the river and anchored in Baker's Bay. They had a pilot from the Sandwich Islands who knew the river. Miss Ware was Lee's sweetheart.
Lee went with three Chinook Indians to Clatsop plains and was astonished at the high grass he saw on the way. Some beach grass that grew near the ocean was as high as a man's shoulder on horseback. He was delighted with Clat- sop and determined to make his home there. They all re- turned as far as Oak Point on the Lausanne, then the wind failing, they went by canoes to Vancouver.
Smith sold out at Chehalem and induced Jason Lee to send Rev. Mr. Frost-who came in the Lausanne-to es- tablish a mission at Clatsop; also Calvin Tibbitts, a Maine man, went to locate there, as Dr. McLoughlin said it would
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not be safe for less than three to locate anywhere, and his opinion went for law. The whole party took up land some distance south of Skipanon.
Smith went first to Clatsop in May, 1840, then went back to Chehalem, and harvested wheat that he took to Vancouver to be ground. This was taken to Clatsop, where there was plenty of game and a fall run of salmon, so there was food to eat. There were few horses on Clatsop when the Astor expedition arrived in 1811, and that was the only level land in all that country. The Canadians liked horse meat, so had traded for these and ate them.
The party built log houses on their claims; Smith got Indians to carry logs from the woods to the open. Smith's house was first built, then the others. Indians had two resorts : one on the ocean side, at the Neah Coxie, a branch of the Nic-a-ni-cum, for the winter; the other near where Fort Stevens now is, for summer, to be near the salmon fish- ing, inside the bay. Each Indian family had a lodge at both places ; they were eighteen miles apart. The last one was called Cla-at-sup ; which was the specific name for the point. Fall salmon run in both those creeks in late fall and early winter ; the royal Chinook entered the Columbia from April to September.
In fishing, the Indians used nets or seines made of wild flax, that grew east of the Cascades, for a fine flax is native to all the Inland Empire. They traded back and forth; the large ropes used with these nets were made of the inner bark of the cedar, twisted into strands. In the spring Smith planted a garden and went to Chehalem for two work horses. These he took by land to St. Helen's, there made a platform over two canoes, then boated them down
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one hundred miles to Clatsop. These were the first horses on Clatsop Plains. He planted three-fourths of an acre to potatoes and had six hundred bushels of product. W. W. Raymond dug these as fast as he could haul them a quarter of a mile and unload them.
Smith and Frost built houses by the point for fall fish- ing. Raymond, who also came in the Lausanne, went to Clatsop in the fall. In the spring of 1842 they sowed red fall wheat. Morrison, who came in 1844, had a hand mill that held a peck. They soon raised barley and peas in quan- tity. After scalding the barley in lye water it was pounded in wooden mortars, and thus they made samp.
In September, 1841, Smith took one horse and three Indians with Mr. Frost and an English sailor boy named Lewis Taylor, brother of John Taylor, of early days at Salem, and following Indian guides went south of Tilla- mook, then crossed the Coast ranges to Yamhill. They were the first whites who used the Grande Round Pass. They drove back cattle for the mission, and Smith brought the horses and cattle he had at Chehalem. Coming near the ocean Smith feared that the Indian dogs at one of their villages would stampede their stock. He met an Indian woman he had known, who went on and kept the dogs shut so closely that as they passed through that village there was not a dog in sight.
The early settlers never had any trouble with the Clatsop Indians. Katata was sometimes rather turbulent, but he was only a sub-chief. When Parrish blamed him for having killed his wife, he went with a party to try to kill the mis- sionary, but Parrish talked him out of that intention. Wash Cost (called "Watercourse" by the whites) had two wives,
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but usually they had but one. Smith had some trouble with him. He had struck a white boy who lived with Smith be- cause he would not answer him when he asked a civil question. He sent Smith word that he would whip him. At daybreak, before Smith was up, Wash Cost broke into his house waving a big double-bladed knife. Smith jumped out of his bed, seized an old Queen Anne gun and knocked him with it so that it paralyzed his arm for awhile; then there was lasting peace.
CHAPTER XLIII
WHITMAN'S MID-WINTER RIDE
IN the autumn of 1842 Dr. Whitman's mind was much worked up by various occurrences that concerned his mission and the state of the country. The preceding year a com- pany of Canadians had crossed from the Red River of the North to make settlement in Oregon, with the undoubted intent to decide, if possible, the question of title by oc- cupancy. These people were British subjects and Roman Catholic by faith; if their success justified, other and larger emigrations would follow. It is well enough to ex- plain that they were sent to the gravelly plains of Nesqually, near Puget Sound, but not finding there a farming country, they removed the next year to the Willamette, and no further emigration of consequence was attempted.
The emigrants who came as the result of the effort of Dr. Elijah White, sub-Indian agent, were reaching the Colum- bia at that time, and Dr. White spent some days with Dr. Whitman discussing their journey. Whitman saw that if word could reach the frontier that White's company had ar- rived safely it would stimulate emigration the next spring. He also recognized that the Cayuses, as indeed every tribe of the Upper Country, were becoming dissatisfied and demoral- ized, and had unreasonable expectation as for what missions should do for them, with little appreciation for benefits con- ferred. What added to this dissatisfaction was, that Jesuit priests had found their way to his vicinity and were in-
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sidiously undermining his influence. Their spectacular ceremonies and solemn rites at once struck the superstitious fancy of the natives, and some of them took pains to let Whitman see that the new religion might supplant his teachings. With all their apparent childishness, many of them were capable of inventing fictitious tales to carry from one mission to another and aggravate what trouble might arise.
In addition to this perplexity, the American Board, it was said, urged that the missions at Lapwai and Waiilatpu be abandoned, Whitman to be transferred to Spokane, at Chemikane, Spaulding to return East. Both were zealously interested in their work and had made valuable improve- ments, as well as had induced many of the natives to become farmers, so that they made a fair living by that means. Each had stock increasing, mills built, orchards planted, and there was hope for the future. To leave all this for Jesuit priests to come and occupy, would not only be humiliating, but they thought a waste of means ex- pended that should yield good results.
Whitman thought it possible to increase emigration an- other year if he could visit the border, and hoped to secure families with religious antecedents who would be a blessing to the new region to give it moral status. He believed it possible to bring teams and wagons to the Columbia, and by so doing reduce greatly the fears of the journey. If he could appear in person he believed the Mission Board would be convinced of the value of both those missions. He wanted actual settlers for Walla Walla valley, as well as for the Willamette, and settle the trouble with the Cayuses by presence of Americans in numbers to command respect.
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Whitman's Mid-Winter Ride
He consulted with mountaineers and plainsmen, as well as with Archibald McKinley, at Fort Walla Walla, to plan a route by which to safely reach the frontier by a mid-winter journey.
He secured the company of A. L. Lovejoy, afterwards my personal friend, well known in Oregon history, who had just arrived by Dr. White's company. Lovejoy had a natural love of adventure that led him to undertake this fearful crossing of the continent at the worst time in the year. As late as 1869, when asked by Mr. W. H. Gray for particulars of that journey, he wrote as follows :
I was the travelling companion of the doctor in that arduous and trying journey, but at this late hour it will be almost impossible for me to give many of the thrilling scenes and hairbreadth escapes that we went through, travelling as we did almost the entire route through a hostile Indian country, as well as suffering much from the intense cold and storms that we had to encounter in passing over the Rocky Mountains in midwinter.
Previous to leaving Waiilatpu, I often had conversations with the doctor touching the prospects of this coast. The doctor was alive to its interests and manifested a very warm desire to have this country properly represented at Washington. After some arrangements, we left Waiilatpu October 3, 1842, overland for the Eastern States.
We travelled rapidly and reached Fort Hall in eleven days, re- mained only a day or two and made a few purchases; took a guide and left for Fort Wintee, as the doctor changed from a direct route to a more southern, through the Spanish country, via Taos and Santa Fé. On our way from Fort Hall to Wintee we met with terribly severe weather; the snows greatly hindered our progress and blinded the trail, so that we lost much time. After reaching Fort Wintee, and making some suitable purchases for our trip, we took a new guide and started for Fort Macumpagra, situate on the waters of the Grande River in Spanish territory.
Here again our stay was very short. We simply made a few pur- chases, took a new guide and left for Taos. After being out some four or five days, as we were passing over high tableland, we encountered a most terrific snowstorm, which forced us to seek shelter
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at once. A deep ravine being near by, we made for it, but the snow fell so rapidly and the wind blew with such violence that it was almost impossible to reach it. After reaching the ravine and cutting cottonwood trees for our animals, we attempted some arrangements for camp as best we could under the circumstances, and remained snowed in for some three or four days. When the storm subsided, it cleared off intensely cold. It was with much difficulty we made our way upon the highlands; the snow was so deep and the wind so piercing and cold that we felt compelled to return to camp and wait a few days for a change of weather.
Our next cffort was more successful, and after spending several days wandering around in the snow without making much headway, and greatly fatiguing our animals to little or no purpose, our guide informed us that the deep snows had so changed the face of the country that he was completely lost and could take us no further.
This was a terrible blow to the doctor. He was determined not to give up without another effort. We at once agreed that the doctor should take the guide and make his way back to the fort, procure a new guide, and that I should remain with the animals until his return, which was on the seventh day, with a new guide.
We were soon on our way, travelling through the snow at rather a snail pace. Nothing occurred of much importance other than hard and slow travelling until we reached, as our guide informed us, the Grande River, which was frozen on either side about one-third across. The current was so very rapid that the centre of the stream remained open, although the weather was intensely cold.
This stream was 150 or 200 yards wide, and looked upon by our guide as very dangerous to cross in the present condition, but the doctor, nothing daunted, was the first to take the water. He mounted his horse, and the guide and myself pushed them off into the boiling, foaming stream. Away they went, completely under water, horses and all, but directly came up, and after buffeting the waves and foaming current, he made to the ice on the opposite side a long way down the stream, leaped from his horse upon the ice and soon had his noble animal by his side. The guide and myself forced in the pack animals, followed the doctor's example, and were soon drying our frozen clothes by a comfortable fire.
With our new guide, travelling slowly on, we reached Taos in about thirty days. We suffered considerably from cold and scarcity of provisions, and for food were compelled to use the flesh of mules, dogs and such other animals as came in our reach.
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We remained at Taos some twelve or fifteen days, when we changed off our animals, made such purchases as our journey required, then left for Bent's Fort, on the headwaters of the Arakansas River, where we arrived about the 3d day of January, 1843. The doctor left here on the 7th, at which time we parted, and I did not meet him again until some time in the month of July, above Fort Laramie, on his way with a train of immigrants. The doctor often expressed himself to me about the remainder of his journey and the manner in which he was received at Washington and by the Board of Missions at Boston.
The doctor had several interviews with President Tyler, Secretary Webster and many members of Congress touching the interests of Oregon. He urged the immediate termination of the treaty with Great Britain relative to this country, the extension of the laws of the United States, and to provide liberal inducements to immigrants to come to this coast. He felt chagrined at the lack of interest, the great want of knowledge concerning Oregon and the wants of this country, though he was very cordially and kindly received, and many seemed anxious to receive all the information he could give them. I have no doubt the doctor's interviews resulted greatly to the benefit of Oregon and the entire coast. But his reception at Boston was not so cordial. The Board censured him for leaving the coast, for the waste of time and the great expense attending so long a journey across the continent at that season of the year.
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