USA > Oregon > The Oregon native son, 1900-1901 > Part 55
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65
We would get musquash, raccoon and
.
lynx, but they were then of very little value. Often a dealer would be taken in by Indians, who would palm off on them wood rats for muskrats, the for- mer being of no value.
Until 1862 or 1863 we obtained no sea otters at Fort Nisqually, and only. perhaps, five or six yearly were traded at Fort Vancouver. White hunters had not yet found their way to the Gray's Harbor coast, and the few sea otters the Indians obtained prior to 1860 generally found their way to Victoria through the Cape Flattery Indians. There are but few places upon this coast where sea otters can be found. Crescent City. on the California coast, is one of the places. The coast between Point Greenville and Gray's Harbor is another, and up north- ward I know but little about. except that the primest and most valuable skins came from the Alaskan coast. The skins were dressed differently. Up north the otters were "cased," or not slit open ( furriers. I am told, preferring to get them that way). On the Che-chales coast the an- imals were always slit down the belly. the skin stretched and made as large- looking as possible. Of course, to the non-expert buyer the latter form of dress- ing is the most preferable, because the condition and value of the skin is more easily ascertained. It takes an expert to be sure as to the quality of a skin pre- pared the other way, the appearance of the skin (parchment ) and the feel of the fur upon the "tail." An expert buyer very seldom makes a mistake as to the quality of furs he is examining, I am told, and the prices quoted in newspapers confirms the report that sea otter skins are becoming scarce and are very valua- ble. Skins which I paid about $40 each for 35 or 40 years ago now readily bring $300 or $400 each, and I have been told by a credible friend that as high as $600 has been paid for an exceptionally good skin. I once bought a skin at the point (Gray's Harbor) for which I paid $50 in coin, a very high price in those days. It was a very choice skin and said to be the handsomest ever seen on that part of the coast. It was jet black. with very deep, thick fur, and was as
410
OREGON NATIVE SON.
glossy and shone like the finest black silk velvet; it was seven feet in length, including the tail, and was about thirty inches in width. Oh! it was a beauty, and I have no hesitation in saying that today such a skin would readily sell for $1,000 and perhaps more. There is some- thing curious about the habits of sea ot- ters. They are to be found in only a few places, and the only place upon this part of the coast where they are to be found is the little length of coast between the north side of Gray's Harbor ("John's Point" it was then called) and Point Greenville, a distance of about fifteen or eighteen miles, and an animal (sea otter) is very rarely seen outside of these points. I have traded only one skin from a Shoalwater Bay Indian which he claimed to have shot in the serf between the river's mouth and the bay (Shoal- water) lighthouse. I have traded sev- eral skins from the Que-ny-ulth, or, as it is generally termined. Quinault, Indians, but they might have been killed south of the point (Greenville), as the river is only a very few miles (perhaps three or four) from Point Greenville. I have never heard of any otters being found south of Fort Simpson, but I don't know much about that part of the coast, and consequently shall say but little about it. I am quite sure, though, that no sea otters have been killed in the waters of Puget Sound. I will now attempt to tell about my efforts to obtain sea otters and the success I met with. As I have before stated that during the last ten years of my connection with the Hud- son's Bay Company at Fort Nisqually, I devoted a good part of it to fur trading, and particularly to retrieving the sea ot- ter trade, which, I think. had been neg- lected both at Forts Vancouver and Nisqually, and as a beginning on my part I obtained from the board of man- agement at Victoria permission to make a trip to the coast, and was ordered to fully report upon my return about the country, the condition of the fur trade, etc. I made my first trip in April. 1863. On the 30th I started for Gray's Harbor. accompanied by one man. an Englishman named William Legg. He was one of the
lot of about eighty laborers sent out by the company, and leaving London on the Ioth day of October, 1849. I was also a passenger in the same ship (Norman Morrison).
We drove a strong spring wagon by the way of Olympia to the mouth of Black river, a small, sluggish stream, but very much larger than the Sequallitchew creek, which runs through this place. A Mr. Hill was living there then, and was hewing a farm, with some success, out of the thick timber. The soil seemed to be very good, but the surrounding forest, in which were trees growing be- tween two and three hundred feet in height, and thirty and forty (about) feet in circumference, was enough to take all the pluck from an ordinary man at the idea of clearing and making a farm out of it, but 'tis often done, and I never shall forget my first trip up the Sno- qualmie river, I think it was, in a whale- boat, in the year 1864. I can clearly rec- ollect stopping at a little place called Snohomish City,. where, to my surprise, I recognized in the proprietor an old Steillacoom acquaintance, a carpenter then, named Ferguson. He afterwards became a prominent man, and was sev- eral times elected as a member of the legislature from the county of Snoho- mish. Some years after a friend of mine went up the same river, and he said that many of the little farms with less than an acre (sometimes larger) planted in onions, beans and potatoes in 1864 were now large, fine, productive farms. I rec- ollect that when I first saw these little clearings, with often a good-looking woman and five or six bare-footed chil- dren living in a small, log hut, the fan- ily of the brave, determined owner of the place. I would laugh to myself and think the man in charge must certainly be crazy to attempt to hew out a farm in such a place, but he wasn't a bit crazy, but, on the other hand. was a clear-headed, strong, sensible fellow, who saw ahead of him, if Providence gave him continued health and strength, a fine and wonderfully fertile farm two or three hundred acres in extent, and large and productive enough to support his
411
FUR TRADE ON PUGET SOUND.
own family and leave something for charity, if he felt so inclined. I am credibly informed that there are now many fine farms, such as I have just de- scribed, the owners of some of them be- ing the same men I saw laboring so slav- ishly (apparently) when I made my first trip up the river. I had a crew of five or six men, and I have a very vivid . recollection of the torture we sometimes suffered from the bites of mosquitoes. Oh! there seemed to be millions of them, and the only way to get any sleep was to sompletely envelop the head in the bed clothes, which was not very pleasant, es- pecially if the night was warm. My own men were sometimes hard to awaken in the morning, but I discovered a plan which never failed to arouse them with alacrity. I was always the first man up in the morning, when I would go to each man, turn down the bed clothes from his face and admit the mosquitoes, when they would immediately jump up, with an ejaculative prayer upon their lips.
We left our team and wagon at Hill's place, and after a good night's rest, pro- ceeded on foot to a place on the river (Che-chales) where we found an Indian encamped, and we soon hired him to take us down a few miles to a place called Elma, then only a farm, the soil of which is very good and capable of growing any kind of grain and grasses. None but the owner was residing there then, and I have forgotten his name. Elma is now a place of some importance : the railroad runs through it. and it possesses several manufactories, so I am informed. We re- niained here all night, and the next morn- ing started away, bright and' early, on foot for the next little town, called Mon- tesano, which was perhaps twelve or fit- teen miles down the river from Elma, and was then on the opposite or south side of the river. The road was not well fin- ished, and in places rather rough travel- ing for vehicles. We passed over some fine land, but saw but few well-improved farms, nothing to compare to the Upper Che-chales bottom country, which I passed through two or three times in 1854 and '55, and was much surprised to see at that early date many improved
farms. I recollect on this trip passing through a fine piece of land, part of it prairie, on which was the farm of a man named Brady. The soil of this place struck me as being remarkably fertile looking, and I am told that it is now a finely improved farm. We found no one at home when we passed, and we pro- ceeded on until towards evening we came to a prairie, the soil of which seemed to be alluvial in character and of very good quality. Passing on, we came to a larger prairie of the same kind of soil, upon which were many mprovements, such as fencing, and fields which had been cul- tivated, and soon we came to a large homestead, a farm house, large, and built of logs, several log outbuildings and a large and commodious barn. The owner of this place was a Mr. (have forgotten his name, but think it is Pear- son), an Englishman, with a large fam- ily, who had resided there since 1853, having, I was told, taken a donation claim of 640 acres in extent. It struck me as being a beautiful place, the soil of its prairie fields so very different from that, the prairie land, I had lived upon all my life nearly since attaining man- hood, and which I had tried in every inanner conceivable to farm, but without success, and I thought to myself that if the seventy or eighty thousand acres of prairie land to be found in Pierce county was only like this, what a fruitful coun- try (county) this would be ; but the Nis- qually prairie land is directly opposite in character. One acre of this lower Che- chales prairie land is worth ten of the other for farming purposes. We remained with these people all night, and were kindly treated. The next morning we started early and walked two miles, if I err not, and came to a river, the Wynoo- che. Near the mouth of and partly on the prairie is the present city of Mon- tesano, a place of about inhab- itants, banks, stores. saloons, jail and everything requisite to make a modern city. At the time of my visit there was no sign of a city on the present site, but right across the Che-chales river was then what was called the town of Mon- tesano. A man named Scammon was
-
412
OREGON· NATIVE SON.
its proprietor, and it was on liis pre- emption claim. Scammon kept what was called a hotel, which was his dwelling house, and we had to remain there two days to await the arrival of the man who carried the weekly mail to the point and along the beautiful sandy beach the mail was carried in a stage, driven and owned by Peterson ( the man the point is named after) about fifteen miles to Shoalwater Bay. Besides Scammon's house, there were four or five more houses in the town, but they were all empty at that time. The day after we arrived, a man named Bob, an English sailor, a runaway man-of-warsman from Esquimalt, B. C., arrived with a very decent boat, and he agreed to convey us to the point, at the mouth of the harbor, for a moderate fee, and about 5 P. M., the tide being favora- ble, we started on our voyage, the termi- nation of which was about thirty miles -ten along the extremely pretty river, which, from Montesano to the entrance of the harbor is wide and free from rapid and swift-running water: the remaining distance, twenty miles, is through the harbor, which is very wide in places, with several sand bars, some of them dry at low water, and five or six miles from the shore. When the wind blows hard, the navigation of this harbor is dangerous for boat and canoe traveling, and several fatal accidents-death by drowning- have occurred in it. The surf, or the breakers, upon the river bar makes a great noise, and the booming sound made can plainly be heard at Montesano. We had a pleasant passage until we got to Cosmopolis, at one time a town much larger than Seammon's Montesano, there being some eiglit or ten houses there and a large tannery, buildings and vats, all complete : but the most curious thing about this town was the houses, including the tannery, which were without inhabit- ants. The place was completely deserted. and not a single inhabitant was to be found anywhere. The tide having turned against us, we determined to camp here, and await the turn of the favorable tide : so we went to the largest and best-look- ing house, two stories in height, found the door unlocked, which we opened.
and, entering, made a fire in one of the rooms and made ourselves comfortable for the few hours we had to remain there. . I learned from Bob that the tan- nery belonged to Mr. C. Byles, who wa- living upon a farm near Montesano, but I couldn't learn why the place had been deserted. I think Cosmopolis is oppo- site the flourishing city of Aberdeen, and perhaps is part of Aberdeen. The rail- road from Tacoma and Olympia crosses the river (Che-chales) at this place. if 1 am not mistaken. When we left Cos- mopolis it was a dead calm, and the moon was shining brightly. We made good progress, Bob using the oars, and the tide running out with great velocity. Very often we would be startled by large fish jumping clear out of the water and making a great noise when again return- ing to their native element. I thought they were sharks, but Bob told us they were sturgeon, which, he said, were very plentiful in the river mouth and harbor. The river for about ten miles below Scammon's place ( Montesano) is almost beautiful. 'Tis wide, and there are no rapids or current swifter than the tide. and there are long reaches, through which, with a fair wind, a boat can do pretty sailing. The land each side of the river seems to be low, and is free from large timber: in fact, from the river it seems to be low land and liable at times to be inundated.
We reached the point about 8 A. M .. and it is but a short distance to Fort Che-chales, where I met my friend. Giles Ford, who was sub-Indian agent for the Que-ny-ulth Indians, and also had charge of the government buildings. I was much surprised to find such an estab- lishment there. Large barracks for one company of men, officers quarters, guard- house, storeroom and other outbuildings. Everything was well built, and it was Fort Steillacoom in miniature. It was built not far from high-water mark, and sometimes the roaring of the surf upon the bar of the river was almost deafening. I visited this place again on May 7. 1892. and couldn't find a vestige of these build- ings. Fir trees had formed almost a forest, and the wind from the ocean had
413
FUR TRADE ON PUGET SOUND.
blown up great heaps of sand where the nicely-finished buildings once stood. Mr. Ford gave me a kind reception, and I remained with him during my stay there. The Peterson family resided closely, Mr. l'eterson having taken a pre-emption or homestead claim, which embraced all the point. A Mr. Sam W-n and family also lived within a short distance of the fort, and kept a little bit of a store, trad- ing with the Indians for furs principally. It was publicly rumored that he traded whisky to the natives, or stuff which was called whisky. It was said to be of home manufacture, was very strong, and sometimes made the Indians who drank it veritable fiends, and many a wild orgie in the camp near the point wound up with a bloody fight. Sam himself was a great lover of strong drink, and had been a drunkard for many a year, but he was one of the few men found who could, apparently, drink an unlimited supply of the alcoholic mixture without it seriously affecting him. Perhaps he was careful not to drink the same stuff the Indians indulged in, and got drunk on a purer article, for he seemed to be alcohol proof, and the large amount he drank didn't appear to do him any in- jury. for he had been using the stuff for many years with impunity. I was told that when Sam went to Olympia he in- variably got on a big spree there, and al- most every one in the city knew it, for he was very noisy in his cups. When he got out of jail sobered up, amongst other goods he laid in a supply of stuff of an alcoholic charcater, and when he got home to the point he made it known by firing a salute from an old cannon he owned, and soon the Indians would be seen making for Sam's establishment, and most likely for a few days afterwards pandemonium would reign in the vicinity of Citizen Sam's tradeshop. I made it known to the Indians and the few white men on the beach who attempted to shoot sea otter, sometimes with success. that I wanted to purchase furs, and especially sea otter, and when they learned that I was a bona fide agent of the Hudson's Bay Company they promised to get all the skins they could and save them for
me. I met several of the Indian hunters, amongst them Copalis Jim, who lived at the mouth of a river of that name empty- ing into the Pacific ocean, about ten miles up the coast (north) from Gray's Har- bor. Jim was made notorious by Her- bert Bashford, the poet of Puget Sound, writing a pretty poem about him and a pretty, black-eyed Indian beauty, named Nawanda. Jim was represented as be- ing in a cage, built upon a rock, out in the ocean about a mile from the shore. He would sit there, day after day, watch- ing for a chance for a shot at a sea otter, and his thoughts would be full of this Nawanda, who, it seems, had gone back on him and bolted with some other fel- low; and I don't blame her a bit if she did, for Jim was a sour-looking, ill- natured old chap, who hadn't built any cage when I saw him, and an old, ugly, blear-eyed squaw with him was said to be Mrs. Copalis Jim. Perhaps she was the Nawanda of the poem, who looked like a woman might look who had been living with Jim for twenty or thirty years. I traded five fine sea otters from white hunters and about one hundred smaller skins (principally beaver and land otter) from the Indians, and after making a stay on the coast for about ten days I got everything ready for my trip home, which would have to be done in a canoe for fifty or sixty miles up the river Che-chales.
I found the point to be a nice place to spend a few of the summer months. There is a magnificent beach there, which extends for a distance of at least fifteen miles each side of the river, on one side ending at Shoalwater Bay, and the other extending a few miles bevond the Copalis river. I should think about five or six miles this side of Point Greenville the coast changes, and the shore line is rough and rocky, with hardly a landing place for a boat between Point Greenville and Cape Flattery. The beach referred to is composed of fine, white sand, which. in some places, at low water is two miles wide, or thereabouts. It is so hard that a galloping horse or a carriage wheel will scarcely leave a mark behind to show it has passed over it. Then the fish to be
+
414
OREGON NATIVE SON.
obtained there are numerous and plenti- ful. Sturgeon in abundance; crabs, great, big, fat fellows, can be picked up upon the beach, and the fat razor clams can be obtained, by digging, in inexhaust- ible quantities. Salmon, also, from the Que-ny-ulth river, the most delicious fish I ever tasted. It is a small fish, about seven or eight pounds in weight, is very fat, and, in my opinion, is a better eat- ing fish than the far-famed Columbia river salmon. I am told that this little salmon is not found anywhere else upon the coast only in this one river, and that is included within the boundaries of the Que-ny-ulth Indian reserve. A company once made great efforts to buy the con- sent of the Indians to construct a can- nery at the mouth of the river and liberty to can this dainty salmon, but the Indians wouldn't listen to them. and for no amount of money would they grant such a privilege. Deer and elk meat can be obtained from the Indians, and game in abundance. Bear meat, too, for those that like it, but the bear killed near the beach is generally abnormaly fat, the effects of an unlimited diet of fish, which is to be found in abundance dead along the shore. I have seen sturgeon dead upon the beach from eight to ten feet in length; at least they looked to be that long, and I have seen a line of small fish, smelt and herring, left by the 'tide so thick that a wagon could be filled with them within a distance of fifty or sixty feet, so it's no wonder that the bear get fat, but the meat after it is cooked tastes more like fish than flesh. and I should have to be on the verge of starvation before I could eat it. I en- gaged Indian John, who resided on the north point of the harbor mouth, and five of his people to take me and my man, with the furs traded, up the river. We found the river very rapid in places, and its navigation in safety requires the aid of skilled canoeists, which we found in John and his men. We occupied two days and a half in making the blockhouse. so called because a large blockhouse was built there on the farm of Mr. Smith in 1855, during the Indian war. We parted with Jolin here and sent him on
his way home, well satisfied with what I paid him, and the other hands. We were not far from Hill's place, where we procured our wagon and team, and. after loading up our furs, we drove smartly home, well satisfied with the re- sult of the trip, having traded more than enough furs to pay our expenses twenty times over. I had promised to return to the point on or about the beginning of the coming August, and the white hunt- ers and the Indians had promised to save their furs for me. I immedately shipped the sea otter skins to Victoria. with a request that I should be informed as to the trade value of each skin so that I could be guided in my future trades in those pelts.
I obtained permission of the board of management to make another trip dur- ing the coming summer, and I determ- ined to take a good assortment of goods with me. suitable for such Indian trade as the Che-chales harbor country re- quired. I expected to be gone on this trip about six weeks, and my only assist- ant at Nisqually now being an old su- perannuated, but still useful, sea captain. Captain Wilie Mitchell, a young clerk was sent up from Victoria, a Mr. Weyn- ton, to assist Captain Mitchell during my absence.
Early in August, 1863, I received a let- ter from Mr. Ford informing me that the white hunters between them had up- wards of twenty-five sea otters, and the Indians had ten or twelve. and they were all very anxious to see me down there. and what interested me chiefly in the letter was a half-breed, a "Makah," or Cape Flattery half-Indian, was expected to appear daily by the way of the sea coast in a very large canoe to purchase all the sea otter he could for whisky and money. The liquor stock gave him great advantage over me: then he could talk to them, as he understood their lan- guage. The Indian agent then in charge was known to trade extensively in the most valuable of the furs. such as sea otter and fur seal, many of which latter skins were obtained off the cape : indeed. it was rumored that this half-breed was employed by Agent "W." In the fifties
415
FUR TRADE ON PUGET SOUND.
and early sixties, the position of super- intendent of Indian affairs was eagerly sought after, and that of agent under the superintendent also, and it was said that a great deal of money was made yearly besides the regular official pay per annum. Every year in those days a large amount of money was appropriated by congress with which to purchase goods, farming implements and all kinds of tools, which were distributed amongst the Indians, and this always large lot of goods was purchased by the superintend- ent or his agents, and the successful dealers supplying the goods were very generous, and didn't forget to remun- erate people for the trouble they were supposed to be put to on their account. It is different now. The law has been changed, and the places in the Indian de- partment are now not nearly so eagerly " sought after. In reply, I requested Mr. Ford to make it known that I was on the point of starting away with a fair as- sortment of goods, and, accordingly, on the 17th of August, 1863, I left the fort, accompanied by two men, William Legg (my former assistant) and Jack King- dom, a runaway English man-o'-wars- man. They were trusty men. but pos- sessed one great fault - an inordinate love of liquor-the indulgence in which ultimately caused their death, which oc- curred some years ago. The three of us with the goods filled a couple of wagons, and a couple of large canoes (previously arranged for) met us, and in which we stowed our goods, and proceeded down the river and reached Montesano in good time and in good order. Traveling down the Che-chales was a very different thing to traveling up. Going down required a good boat or canoe and a competent steersman, one well acquainted with the river and all its hidden rocks and falls, but the trip up is sometimes dangerous, and requires two good men, besides the four paddlers-one in the bow and the other in the stern. I recollect that in 1861 or 1862 Lieut. A. V. Kautz, after- wards one of the leading generals in the United States army, was placed in com- mand of the company of troops stationed at Fort Che-chales, and after bringing
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.