USA > Oregon > Pioneer days of Oregon history, Vol. II > Part 8
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My father, Dr. Iberion Baldwin, a graduate of Yale, 1807, was one of the pioneers of Illinois, engaged for some time in missionary work, and later in educational work, until in 1844 he came to New York. As a little child I accompanied my parents on missionary trips, on one of which we were guests of Mrs. Henry Hale, at St. Louis.
While we were there, among others there came a strange-looking man dressed in dilapidated and worn-out buffalo skins. To me, a child in years, he was a gruesome sight. I have remembrance of his story: of a wife left among Indians; of ice-bound rivers, drowning horses, hunger and cold; and, more than all, the description of the grand country, so soon to be captured by the Hudson's Bay Company, if something were not done at once.
There was a hurried conference between Mrs. Hale and my mother, the result being the fitting out of Dr. Whitman in a suit of clothes proper for the immediate journey to Washington.
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The writer was Mrs. Caroline Baldwin Robertson of Nevada at that time, but visiting in New York City when the letter was written. Her remembrance is a strong con- firmation of Whitman's motive, and that he went immedi- ately to Washington to work for Oregon.
I have no doubt that the story here told is true and worthy of credence, for I gathered it in the way I have gathered all information for publication and had no object but to arrive at the facts of history, with no prejudice or prefer- ence to satisfy.
Early in the spring of 1843, as if by spontaneous move- ment, a gathering began from Missouri, and somewhat also from Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Iowa, and even Texas. The usual rendezvous for all plains travel was near Independence. Sometimes there would be groups from the same neighborhood, it might be a company made from brothers and their families ; or a father and his mar- ried children. These would come together and plan to finally gather at Fitzhugh's mill, twelve miles west from Independence, on the 20th of May, to effect organization. It was not easy to organize, as all who were expected had not come, but rules were adopted and the vanguard moved on to commence the long and weary journey to the western shore.
At Kansas River, Peter H. Burnett was chosen captain and J. W. Nesmith, a young man who had been some time at Leavenworth with the army, was orderly sergeant. Captain John Gault, formerly an army officer, then a mountain man, was engaged to pilot them to Fort Hall, on Snake River. From Jesse Applegate's journal we learn that it had been a very backward spring, that it was July when the immi- gration got finally under way, and that there were nearly
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or quite a thousand in the entire company was shown by Nesmith's roll. That immigration was to bear an important part in the destinies of the entire Pacific Coast. Burnett was to be the first governor of California; Nesmith to be- come one of the most prominent men of Oregon and have influence in the Senate of the United States during the Civil War ; Applegate to bear a hand in the formation of the state government, and leave a name to be honorably pre- served for all time. Many others who were in this immi- gration were to take prominent part in the pioneer history of Oregon and leave honored names.
It was a weary journey; the great caravan of wagons and ox teams drew its slow length along over dusty roads to the wail of children and sometimes the groans of their elders, for there was sickness and at times accidents oc- curred to mark the way.
They passed through the country of Sioux, Pawnees and . other tribes in safety ; then broke up into small companies and got on with little trouble. The plains Indians were not then so dangerous as they became in later years. Those who had many cattle brought up the rear in their own com- pany; those with lighter array of herds pushed on in ad- vance. Jesse Applegate had charge of the "cow column," and in later years wrote an interesting paper with this title for the Overland Magazine.
Burnett only held command eight days, and was succeeded by William Martin until the immigration broke into smaller parties. They were singularly free from Indian trouble and from sickness. Claiborne Payne died and was buried by the way, as also a Mr. Stevenson, but the number in- creased for all that ; for at times mothers had tents pitched
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by the roadside as their children were born. As weeks passed on they made good progress, each night camping nearer to the setting sun.
When the front of the long line reached Fort Hall they were met by the assurance of agent Grant that their wagons could go no further. This had always been the assertion of the Hudson's Bay Company managers, and they had lived up to it by their practice. Many have said this was only to keep back Americans, but we have other proof that Dr. Mc- Loughlin held this view, as in conversation with his intimate friends he gave it as his opinion that wagon roads would never cross the continent.
Whitman was with the rear of the immigration, and when he reached Fort Hall found those who led the van waiting to decide what course to follow. The custom had been to leave wagons at Fort Hall and go through to the Columbia with pack animals. But Whitman encouraged them to push on, with assurance that he could lead them through and reach the Columbia with their wagons. There was a strong sentiment in favor of this, as they saw its future bearing on the fortunes of Oregon, but their stock was weary and foot- sore, which made the last five hundred miles to the Columbia the most difficult to overcome of all the route. There was this argument in favor of taking the wagons farther : that whenever it should become necessary they could leave them by the way and proceed with their animals ; so they laid by for a few days to rest their teams and themselves. At Fort Hall Whitman found Cayuse Indians waiting who had come to meet him with supplies of provisions. With their help he undertook to pilot that immigration through. They pro- ceeded to Salmon Falls, where the Indians had fish for sale.
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In fording the Snake, Miles Eyres, a Scotchman, was drowned. Between Salmon Falls and Fort Boisé was a wide expanse of sage plain, over this Whitman and his nephew, with Ford, Lovejoy and Ricord, led the way on horseback, selecting the best route for the wagons to follow. It was slow work, crushing the mammoth sage brush under the wagon wheels, so their progress was but thirteen miles a day.
They reached Fort Boisé on the 20th of September ; Snake River was ferried by blocking up the wagon beds, as the stream was then low. On the 24th of September they entered Burnt River Cañon, then for twenty-five miles went up the bed of the stream nearly all the way. Some grading was needed at the top of the cañon, the first that had been necessary on all their way.
It was an easy road through the valleys of Burnt River and Powder River, and wonderful gleams of snowy moun- tains rose on the east and west as they passed along. Sur- mounting a not difficult divide, they wound their way down into the beautiful Grande Ronde valley, where immense summits of the Blue Mountains look down on pine-clad foot- hills. The valley lay below, in a wilderness of loveliness that earth has seldom equalled and never surpassed.
They arrived there on the first of October ; the next morn- ing a light snow fell, giving notice that they had no time to lose. Immediately before them was the mountain of diffi- culty they had been told was impossible. Nesmith went in advance with a corps of axemen, and the chorus of these woodsmen's axes made that mountain wilderness vocal as these pioneers hewed their way. Then was the time when the women drove the teams and the men cleared the road.
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Any history that fails to recognize that the pioneer women were heroic as well as the men, fails to be history or truth. From off the Blue Mountains they came down into the Uma- tilla valley, and in October camped near Whitman's station. At an Indian village up the valley they obtained a supply of vegetables. At Waiilatpu they purchased flour, wheat and potatoes. As the flouring mill had been destroyed by the Indians during Whitman's absence, flour had to be packed from Lapwai, an hundred and twenty miles. A severe snow- storm occurred as they were struggling through the moun- tains ; they were rejoiced beyond expression when from the mountain summits they overlooked the promised land.
Eighteen years after I saw that scene as they saw it, for the years had made but little change. Here and there curl- ing smoke still told of Indian lodge fires; then, the valley of the Columbia, clad only in bunch grass and destitute of timber, lay far spread below, with occasional groups of Indian horses to crop the abundant forage. Later, again, I saw it when the landscape was blocked with yellow fields ; when summer winds were billowing the waving grain ; when the golden harvests were turning ripe. It was that wagon track, made fifty years before, that made the harvests of to- day possible, and the patient heroism of Marcus Whitman caused those wheels to roll though the cañons and over those mountains as early as they did. Of course, a wagon road had to come and immigrations were sure to follow, but to Whitman we can well afford to do honor, for he was no bigot, no egoist, least of all a boaster, only a patriotic and earnest man who had faith in the future of his region, in the American people, and in himself.
At Grande Ronde valley he was met by an express that
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summoned him to Lapwai, where Mr. and Mrs. Spaulding were ill and needed his presence. Dr. Geiger was there, and they had so much improved that he remained but a few days, then started for Waiilatpu. He got there in time to see the immigration's advance wagons come rolling down the mountain slopes and their patient teams emerge and un- yoke to crop the wild grasses of the Columbia valley.
The provisions that met the immigration as they reached Fort Hall were forwarded from the mission by his friend, Dr. Geiger, who had remained there during his absence. They were divided among those who were in need. This was proved by what J. B. McLane wrote to Rev. Mr. Eells, that the Indians brought considerable flour and that Whit- man, reserving fifty pounds for himself, distributed the rest to needy immigrants, and went then to Lapwai.
All the way across that long journey, for four and a half months, Whitman was ever on hand to lead in time of trouble ; he showed how streams were to be crossed and dan- gers met ; if any were sick he attended them; through all that great train. As Mr. Spaulding says-"During that whole summer the doctor was their everywhere-present angel of mercy, ministering to the sick, helping the weary, encouraging the wavering, cheering the mothers, mending wagons, setting broken bones, hunting stray oxen, climb- ing precipices ; now on the rear, now in the front, in rivers looking for fords through quicksands, in the desert looking for water, in the mountains looking out passes at noontide or at midnight, as if those people were his own children and those wagons and flocks were his own property."
The testimony of Jesse Applegate, Robert Newell, J. W. Nesmith and others, as is well known, confirm the fact of his
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great value to that immigration. His wide experience and indomitable energy were of priceless value to the migratory column. "His constant advice, which we knew was based on knowledge of the road before us was, 'Travel, travel, travel ; nothing is wise that does not help you along; nothing is good for you that causes a moment's delay.'"
Spaulding says: "He felt himself abundantly rewarded when he saw the desire of his heart accomplished, the great wagon road route over the mountains established ; and es- pecially he felt himself doubly repaid when, at the end of his successful expedition, and standing at the door of his home again, on the banks of the Walla Walla, those thousand of his fellow-pilgrims, wayworn and sunbrowned, took him by the hand and thanked him, with tears in their eyes, for what he had done."
Even if we make allowance for the natural exuberance with which Mr. Spaulding expresses himself, there is reason to think the picture he has given not overdrawn, for the help and encouragement of an active, experienced and self- reliant man like Marcus Whitman is worth far more than most can possibly realize when brought to bear on people struggling with dangers they never before have experienced, for it serves as a tonic to nerve the weak and give courage to those who would fail or faint without such example. Cer- tain it is, that of the thousand who composed that long train no one had ever expressed an unkind thought of Mar- cus Whitman.
Peter H. Burnett, in speaking of criticisms made by some when the immigrants were charged a dollar a bushel for wheat and forty cents a bushel for potatoes at the mission, says: "This was based on the fact that the people had been
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accustomed to sell their wheat at fifty cents to sixty cents a bushel and potatoes at twenty to twenty-five cents in the Western States, and thought the doctor's price was extor- tion ; they did not take into consideration what his supplies and other circumstances of life there cost. It is not easy to satisfy human nature; it is seldom that of a great company all are capable of judging others by themselves, or willing to be done by as they would be sure to do. It was not neces- sary for the immigrant to go by the mission ; probably they could have saved some time and distance to have followed down the Umatilla, but they would have found no whites living there and no supplies to purchase."
As Whitman knew nothing of the land route to The Dalles, and never had gone by land, but always up and down the river in boats, he could not tell the immigrants if they could ford the various streams that enter the Columbia from the South. Agent Mckinlay, at Walla Walla, as well as Whitman, advised to leave their teams and wagons there to be sent for in the spring. It was doubtless with this idea that Whitman had the immigration go by the mission as the natural way to get to Fort Walla Walla, where they could obtain boats to descend the Columbia. Had they known the land route it would have been far better to have had them go on by land to The Dalles ; but it was usual for the natives to burn off the grass in October, so that was urged as a reason for not driving cattle where no pasture might be had. It seems that the natives had not burned the grass, as was their custom, so those who went on by land found abundant grass.
No one who ever knew Marcus Whitman or Agent Archi- bald Mckinlay would believe them dishonest in statement,
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but neither had travelled the land route nor certainly knew about it. All the business of the Hudson's Bay Company and the mission had ever been done by water. Mckinlay offered to keep the cattle at a dollar a head, or to exchange for Spanish cattle in the Willamette in the spring, which was fair enough as to the pasturage, but the value of Ameri- can cattle was many times that of stock procured from Cali- fornia. Two-thirds of the immigrants went on by land and had little trouble, but seventy families left their wagons and stock at Walla Walla and went down the river in boats. Dr. Whitman also went to bring back Mrs. Whitman, who had wintered at The Dalles. The river trip was un- fortunate, as one of the boats of the Applegates was upset in the rapids and Jesse Applegate's son was drowned ; also C. M. Stringer and one McClellan were drowned; others escaped almost miraculously.
There was yet the worst part of the Columbia River be- fore them, below The Dalles. There was no possibility of crossing the mountains so late in the fall, even if they knew the route-which they did not. There was no trail down the river. The Columbia had cut its way through the loftiest of all western ranges, with the fearful Cascades midway, with no way possible but to descend the river. There was no trail along the mountain shores. There is virtually no trail or any kind of wagon road down that fear- ful shore to-day.
Going into the pine forests, they cut down timber and made rafts by lashing these together ; making rough cabins at times for the women and children. A child was born in such a cabin, on such a raft, as they were descending the river. Some left their wagons and cattle at The Dalles,
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others crossed to the north side and drove their stock down as they could.
The boats from Walla Walla went on to the Cascades, made the portage, driving the cattle as far as Vancouver, then swam them over to the south side. By this time the winter rains had commenced; it was bad weather at the Cascades, and they worked two weeks to make a road around the rapids and transport their goods. Governor McLough- lin furnished a canoe load of provisions at The Dalles for the seventy who came by boat from Walla Walla. It was a time of suffering to many ; hunger and semi-starvation for some. And all the while the winter rains came pouring down, on old and young, women and children. Human in- genuity was taxed to devise ways to pass the Cascades and so to reach the settlements.
James Waters, who arrived among the first, procured on credit of Dr. McLoughlin provisions that he took up in a batteau and sold to those in need at Vancouver prices; a kindness that relieved many. Learning that one large party was yet on the way, McLoughlin sent an expedition to their relief. They were wind-bound on the middle river and were reduced to the last extremity, living on raw hide, or, worse yet, without any food at all. Some asserted that there was more acute suffering while descending the Columbia, from The Dalles to the Willamette, than was endured on all the long way from the Missouri River to their destination. This same writer says they were saved from perishing by the benevolence of the Hudson's Bay Company, through the efforts of an American who saw that benevolence exercised ; meaning Mr. Waters.
All the settlers who preceded it were not over half as
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many as were added by this immigration-if in that propor- tion-and were too scattered to be kept informed as to cur- rent events ; nor were they able to render relief to any great extent. The mission was not possessed of means to do much, but those who knew they had friends on the way met them at The Dalles and did what was possible for them. No loss of life occurred, save with those who took Mckinlay's and Whitman's advice to descend the Columbia. It was deep cause for regret that this occurred. When we consider that a thousand people, women and children as well, suffered as these must have done, it seems strange that they escaped so well as they did.
When we realize the noble conduct of Dr. McLoughlin and the Hudson's Bay Company, it should put to the blush those who accuse them of being inhuman to American set- tlers, and assert that the company was tyrannical. The good deeds of Dr. McLoughlin and his company did not end with what we have stated, but continued to all who were in need of supplies. Arriving in November, when winter had set in and rains were prevalent, without shelter, or food, or even means to carry on farming operations to raise food for the future, needing everything, and many of them destitute of money or means wherewith to purchase supplies, Dr. McLoughlin opened accounts with them on credit and gave them all the accommodation they could desire. This he did as manager for a great company whose interests were all opposed to their coming and must inevitably suffer by the fact of their presence in the country as settlers, and the influence they were sure to exercise on the future as Americans. While we must concede the despotic rule of the Hudson's Bay Company, and that its continual power and
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presence here was detrimental to American interests, it is well enough to recognize that only for the presence here of this same company, and for the assistance its officers gave to those early immigrations, and also to the mission- aries who preceded them, and to the stragglers of those times who, few in number, found their way to the Columbia, that early settlement would hardly have been possible.
The settlement of the Atlantic seaboard had no such dif- ficulties. The Puritans came by ships that brought sup- plies and all else needful to make life comfortable and farm- ing possible ; they were separated from the mother country by a voyage of a few weeks' time, and as they spread out to occupy the wide region were always in touch with bases of supply, or contiguous with settlers who had already made homes. It was considered a great feat when men moved with their families to the interior valleys of New York or Pennsylvania ; and wonderful adventure when first settle- ment was made west of the Alleghanies, as indeed it was ; but here were trains starting for a west that was two thousand miles away ; passing all the distance among tribes of a savage race, to make homes among savages and create civilization in newness and originality, where savage life only had been before.
It is true that mountaineers, trappers, traders, had pre- ceded them and so found life possible ; but such needed only a rifle and ammunition to make life possible anywhere. The Hudson's Bay Company and their predecessors depended on commercial advantages ; their ships came with regularity by the ocean route; their supplies for awhile were received from London, so their enterprise-bold and venturesome as it was-with immense capital at its control, bore no compari-
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son with the privation and discomfort that marked the ad- venture of these pioneer Americans. It was simply wonder- ful that men and families could dare so much ; and, viewed from features of that time, it does not seem that in all the history of pioneering in later centuries, any dared more, or that few encountered so much as did these early comers to the Pacific Northwest.
When the immigration of 1843 arrived, Western Ore- gon lay waiting for them, as it had been waiting through all the centuries, the fair valleys and hills of the beautiful Willamette inviting their occupancy. Here a savage race had lived and died; pestilence had come with the coming of white men, sweeping away the aboriginal element, so that only a fragment remained. The Klickitats, of the Upper Columbia, held these under tribute; the Wascoes, the Cayuses, even the far-away Nez Percés, came here to hunt and range at will ; but conditions were not hostile. From the south came Klamaths to fraternize with the Molallas ; from the coast came Tillamooks. The Methodist mission encoun- tered all these different classes when it was planted here.
Securing supplies, building material and farming tools, newcomers found little difficulty in choosing home spots. As fir timber was abundant everywhere, subdividing the prairies and hill-reaches with belting forests, they put up rude log shelters for temporary use, then commenced to plant land for gardens and fields. The mild climate was in their favor, as the winter rains were not cold and the wet season not unhealthy. One of the normal conditions of Western Oregon is, that little sickness prevails during the rains. Even bad colds come chiefly when the rains have cleared off. Under these conditions the immigrants found
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home spots, founded homes, and thus made life possible, even enjoyable, though it was unique in its naturalness and lacked wonderfully of the usual appliances of civilization. Rude furnishing answered, with split puncheons for floors, or no floors at all, for many times native soil answered for the parlor floor.
It was a struggle for life; for this the first settlers were somewhat prepared, as the prudent McLoughlin, with pro- vision for the future, had urged all to produce wheat and vegetables with a view to supplying any great increase of population. This wise prudence had much to do with the success of all this region in the early time. It was truly wonderful that he was willing to supply their wants so liberally, when it was plainly to be apprehended that in many cases there would be no repayment. Yet all came, handed in their orders for supplies and received their goods ; they were merely asked if they could pay money or wanted credit. No notes of indebtedness were given, all was done on personal obligation and verbal promise. Thus this people became citizens of Oregon and their coming paved the way for the coming of others ; made possible the settlement of all the great region lying west of the Rocky mountains.
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