USA > Oregon > The Oregon native son, Vol. I > Part 56
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"'Hoo!' he would say, and he would claphimself on the breast and 'hoo' again. 'When I get my part of that boodle you don't catch me trampin' round the deck of an old tub like this any longer. I'll go back to Cape Cod and buy an oyster stand, get married and settle down. that's what I'll do.' If Ike said them words once he said them fifty times. I guess I wasn't much better than Ike, for I caught myself sittin' up in my bunk two or three times countin' doubloons that looked as big as cartwheels.
"Well. as I was sayin', we were lavin' off the cape out yonder about two bells in the mornin', waitin' for day. When it got light enough to see good. we steamed in close to shore and passed up the coast right under the frownin' wall of the mountain. But we couldn't find the estuary. Then we went back and tried it again, this time steamin' in a little closer. You see, rot knowin' the coast, we didn't dare to get too close at first. We didn't find the estuary that
427
THE PIRATES' TREASURE CHAMBER.
time, either. Then we tried it the third time, steamin' right in so close under them overhangin' rocks that we could see all manner of sea birds perched away up yonder on the crags, in the mysty air, and almost see the color of their eyes.
"This trip we found it. The mouth of the estuary wasn't much wider than the Flyin' Kate, so that the mist, which fell like rain from the cliffs, made it mighty hard to find. A man might sail by it fifty times and not see it, not knowin' where to look for it. Well, we turned and made a circle, bringin' us opposite the hidden harbor, then when the Flyin' Kate's nose was on a bee-line with the openin', I rang a slow bell to Jim and steamed right in. Durin' the trip in I kept a man heavin' the lead all the time, for fear of foulin' the bottom. But. law. the big battleship Oregon could have went in there easy, pro- vidin' the harbor had been wide enough, and had five hundred feet of water under hier keel to spare. It was after we got in we found it the prettiest little gourd- shaped harbor you ever saw, with tow- erin' granite walls, just wide enough for the Flyin' Kate to turn round in easy.
"The old wind-jammer hadn't more than poked her nose through the openin' than Ike gave a yell and pointed to a big black hole in the face of the cliff straight ahead It was the tunnel the old parchment told about, twenty-five or thirty feet above the water line. But there wasn't any iron ladder leadin' up to the tunnel. Iron don't last long with salt air and water playin' on it, and the ladder had rusted away and dropped in- to the sea long years before. How to get to that tunnel puzzled us like sixty. We couldn't steam alongside and run out a plank, owin' to some saw-toothed rocks right under the hole. so we just steamed round and round the little har- bor. a frettin' and a fumin' and a cud- gelin' our excited brains tryin' to think of a way to get up to that tunnel.
"By and by old Jim got tired of steamin' round so much and stopped the engine and come on deck. Bein' cool and collected he hit on a plan right off.
Takin' a dozen men with him, he went down into the hold and brought up a spare anchor. Then he went down again and brought up nine hundred feet of two- inch cable. After fastenin' the anchor to one end of the line, Ike and Jim and the men lugged it aft and dropped it overboard. The anchor went down six hundred feet a whizzin', leavin, three hundred feet to spare, which Jim fasten- ed the aft L'+-head on the poop deck. Then Jim sent Ike down to look after the engine and took the wheel. Swingin' the Flyin' Kate round till her nose was on a line with the tunnel, Jim signaled for Ike to go ahead, and a minute later the old wind-jammer's bowsprit centered the tunnel fair and square, and there we were, with the anchor line taut as a fid- dlestring to keep us from swingin', and an easy way to get up into that hole, all owin' to the ingenuity of old Jim.
"I hadn't more than shinned up the bowsprit than up comes Ike. He was so excited and afraid he would lose on the deal, that he forgot to turn off the steam, and there the Flyin' Kate was a churnin' and a kickin' up the water with her pro- peller as if she would push the whole mountain in. Then up comes old Jim, then the sailors, and lastly. Jam Kack, with a lighted bull's eve lantern in his hand. Ike wasn't in half the hurry he thought he was, and when I tried to get him to lead the way into the tunnel he up and says:
""Not much! You are goin' to get the most boodle so you must take the most chances'. Ladies," and the captain added solemnly. "I felt just like takin' that little whip-snapper by the nape of the neck and pitchin' him head foremost down the old wind-jam- mer's smoke stack, right under us, for them words: for the whole gang. Jim in- cluded, sided in with him. But I didn't do it for it wouldn't have been right. So, after standin' round and arguin' the question awhile, I took the bull's eye and started into the tunnel, feelin' as creepy as a man enterin' a rattle snake den."
"The first thing I ran across was an old time brass cannon layin' in the mouth of the tunnel, with the date of
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OREGON NATIVE SON.
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Photo by Crow. WILEY B. ALLEN.
Photo by Moore. RICHMOND KELLY, M.D.
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. Photo by Crow.
JAMES K. LOCKE, M.D.
Photo by Crow. CHARLES W. CORNELIU'S, M.D.
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THE PIRATES' TREASURE CHAMBER.
1684 branded on the band back of the ouch-hole, and Cadiz, Spain, engraved on the brass knob. It was a wicked ookin' piece, and if a ship had tried to enter that little harbor durin' them pir- te's days, they could of blowed her out of the water. The next thing we run cross was a big rusted anchor, standin' ip against the wall alongside three great words with gingerbread steel hilts. The next thing we run up against was a light of sea birds, followed by a flight of queakin' bats, floppin' round and mak- n' things lively, tryin' to get out of the way. By and by we run across some- hin' else that was mighty interestin'- so interestin' was it, ladies, it made my heart come right up in my throat.'
"Was it the skull and cross-bones traced on the wall, Captain Tugg?" asked the young lady in pink and white.
"No, it wasn't exactly that," replied the captain. "It was two stone benches, one on each side of the tunnel. Chained to the wall were six grinnin' skeletons, three on each bench, facin' each other. Their clothin' was all gone, leavin' the white bones exposed. There was a heavy iron shackle around the ankle of each skeleton, too. Now, ladies, what do you think them pirates ' had left them poor fellows to eat, while they were away?" the captain asked.
Eight and twenty ladies shook their heads.
"Nothin' more or less than the very stuff they had bartered their souls away for -- gold. In front of each of them was a pile of it. and in every blessed one of them skeleton's bony fingers was a Span- ish doubloon! When Ike saw them skeletons he gave a yell and run back to the mouth of the tunnel, he was scairt so. But old Jim acted different. Layin' off his cap like a preacher does when he pro- nounces the benediction, Jim reached down and took the shackles off, then he picked up them skeletons and carried em. one by one, to the far end of the tunnel, some twenty paces back, and gently set 'em down."
"But skeletons as old as those were will drop to pieces when you touch them," interrupted another young lady.
"How old Jim, as you call him, could have carried them around like that is more than I can understand."
"Easy enough, Miss," explained the captain, "easy enough. These were wired together with a copper wire, and were the skeletons of six Injuns them pirates had captured. and the supposition is they used them in the initiation or mystic rites of the pirate order. Anyway, as soon as Jim got through carryin' them skeletons away, I called Ike, and we be- gan searchin' for that secret door. The reason I wanted Ike's assistance so bad just then was, while we were a wonder- in' and palaverin' over the skeletons and walkin' back and forth with Jim, I saw Ike goin' round gatherin' up doubloons and puttin' them in a sack Then, when he thought I wasn't lookin', I saw him slide out and shove the sack down the muzzle of that old cannon. I was afraid he would get away with them for good.
"'Ike Crow,' says I, when he come sneakin' back, 'you stay right here, else the sharks down vonder 'll have Crow meat for supper.' And I meant it, too. Why, if old Jim had got on to what was goin' on, Ike's span of life wouldn't of been worth that," and Captain Tugg reached out and rudely snapped his fin- ger in the face of his lady listener.
"But, as I started in to say," he resum- ed, "we began searchin' for that secret door. Holdin' the light low down and close up to the wall, I commenced at the entrance of the tunnel and stepped off twenty paces. But I didn't find any door, or skull and cross-bones, either. Then I walked back the way I come, holdin' the light on the wall about shoul- der high. Not findin' the door that way, I tried it by holdin' the bull's-eye a foot or so below the ceilin', examinin' every little nook and scam. Still we. didn't find what we was lookin' for. By and by old Jim started in and began ex- amin' the wall, by feelin' with his hand as he walked along, and there, just as the parchment said, twenty paces back from the entrance, he found by the sense of touch what we had failed to find by the sense of sight-the skull and cross-bones chiseled in the wall.
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OREGON NATIVE SON.
"Not havin' a heavy piece of iron along. I sent one of the men down to the ship for a crowbar. When he got back we put the bull's-eye on a shelf back of us, so the light would shine on the right spot. Then Jim took up the crowbar and struck the three given blows. But no door swung open. Then he ham- mered the face of the skull and cross- bones into smithereens, strikin' regular sledge-hammer blows, makin' the stone fly. Then he rested awhile, and then struck some more blows and strained his eyes lookin' for that door to swing open. But it didn't swing worth a cent. Seein'
B. Cuper
"An old-time brass cannon laying in the mouth of the tunnel."
the machinery wouldn't work, old Jim got mad. Steppin' back a ways. he sent that crowbar overhanded. sharp end first, against the wall, as hard as he could lam it. Whether the pirates used a se- cret wicket like them used in lodge rooms now-days, I can't cay: but at any rate, Miss, when that crowbar struck the wall, it didn't stop, but went on through and fell with a clatter on the other side. leavin' a nole big enough for a man to poke his head through. The bar must of struck a box and a knocked it down. for somethin' heavy fell on the floor, and there was the awfulest jinglin' of money you ever heard.
"Holdin' the bull's-eye so it would shine through, I went up to the hole and peeped in. The treasure chamb ::
not more than ten or twelve feet square. but it was full of gold. Piled clear up to the ceilin', on top of the other, was iron- bound box after box of it, some with sides rotted away, showin' great stacks of doubloons, and others moldy and mildewed and cracked, with all kinds of precious stones a gleamin' in the dull red light-such as diamonds and anie- thysts and garnets and gold brooches and gold mugs, and gold-headed dag- gers-all the ill-gotten gain of that mur- derin' band of Spanish cut-throats! (h. I tell you it was a sight enough to make one go stark starin' mad. The floor was covered inches deep with gold, too, hav- in' rained down out of them rotten boxes. And as I gazed spell-bound through that hole, I counted thirteen human skulls on the floor, nearly cover- ed with Spanish money-bein' the re- mains of the mutinous ones the parch- ment told about.
"After I had looked on as long as I wanted to, I had the inen come up and look on that vast hoard of money that had lain there them two hundred years. And there they stood and glued their eyes to that hole, and looked and looked. until I had to drag them away. Then Jim took a look; then Ike. And Ike he got so excited he didn't know what he was doin', and run his arm through the hole clear up to the shoulder, and stood there scroochin' up his back, tryin' to grab some of the money. Then we heard somethin' click, and Ike he jumped back a vellin' and screamin' with the end of his index finger gone-cut clean off, as if a butcher had cleaved it with a meat axe. What it was, ladies, that took it off, me and Ike'll never know-that's one thing certain.
"After bindin' up Ike's finger we went at it, tryin' to open that door. To make quick work of it, we brought up two fifteen-pound sledge hammers from the ship and went at it tooth and toe nail. First old Jim hammered at it till he got black in the face; then I pounded away at the wall until I run out of wind; then the crew took turns at it till they played out. The hole through the door showed the wall to be twelve inches thick, and we
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THE PIRATES' TREASURE CHAMBER.
couldn't budge it. Then Ike, who could- n't hammer on account of his finger, offered a suggestion.
"In the powder room of the Flyin' Kate was a lot of giant powder we were takin' over to the islands for the government to blow a ledge off the Honolulu harbor with. 'We'll bring up a lot of that pow- der,' says Ike, and drop it through the hole and do the job up quick. With the wall back of it the charge will blow that door out slick and clean. Then we can lug off all that money and them dia- monds and the li" e.'
"This seemed a good suggestion, so we went aboard ship. Then I got the powder room keys and opened the door. Old Jim then cut off twenty feet or so of fuse, got some caps and stuck a dozen sticks of the powder in his pocket. 'That ain't half enough,' says Ike, who was lookin' over his shoulder. . I'm third cousin to the head blaster in the big coal mines up on Vancouver's island, and have watched him prepare and shoot thousands of blasts. What we want is to take up about five boxes. It will make a sure job of it.'
"Ike seemed to, know what he was talkin' about, so we sent up the five box- es, and asked no questions. Countin' forty-six to the box, we shot off, as near as I can reckon it, two hundred and thirty sticks on the job. After Jam Kack had taken the boxes up, all hands shin- ned up the bowsprit again, and we went to work. We first made the sticks up into bunches of twenty each and lowered them mighty careful through the hole in- to the treasure chamber. Then Ike fixed a cap on one end of the fuse. rimmed out a hole in one of the giant powder candles, placed the cap in, pulled the paper up around the fuse and tied it with a string. Thenhe fuzzed the other end of the fuse by jammin' it against the stone wall, so there would be no hangin' fire, and lowered the charge through the door. Everything being ready, Jim touched her off, and all hands of us went to the far end of the tunnel, just as far back into the mountain as we could get, and waited, and waited, and waited."
"Didn't the blast go off?" asked the
young lady, impatiently, as Captain Tugg paused and scanned the sea, a far- away look in his eyes.
"Yes, Miss," he answered, sorrowfully, "it went off. "If it hadn't, the chances are I would not be a pauper today. I can see the end of that fuse right now," he added, reminiscently, "as it sputtered and sizzed and flashed in the dark, and - smell the powder as it burnt its way along. When we saw the fuse begin to squirm like a serpent with a broken back, where it went through the hole in door, everybody breathed a little faster and scrooched a little closer to the wall and waited.
"We didn't have long to wait after that, either. All at once a livid sheet .of fire lit up the tunnel bright as day. It was followed by a jar and a rumble ten thousand times louder than any thunder you ever heard, leavin' some of us with buster ear-drums and bleedin' nostrils, and all stretched out in a bunch, galley west and crooked. You see that fool- killer, Ike, had put in two hundred sticks of that giant powder too much, and when it went off it cracked the whole face of the mountain. Pretty soon a crack, showin' daylight through it. ap- peared overhead, extendin' north and south and gettin' bigger every minute. Then the earth began to tremble and shake, and pretty soon the whole side of the mountain let go and slid kerswash into the sea, carryin' them doubloons and them diamonds and them precious stones, and the old brass cannon, and lit kerplunk right on the top of old Flyin' Kate, sendin' her to the bottom quick- er'n scat, and leavin' us standin' on a little shelf only ten feet wide."
"And how did you manage to get down, Captain?" asked the harbor-mast- er.
"We didn't get down," answered the captain, as he rose to go, "we got up. As I said before, that big blast blowed the whole side of the mountain off, leav- in' a slopin' side. Well, we went up this, like so many rats till we come to the top; then foNowed down the coast till we come out to the settlement. There all hands separated to the four winds, old
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OREGON NATIVE SON.
Jim goin' his way, Ike his and
Jan Kack his, and so on, till
all were gone tbu me. I stayed.
Havin' a few hundred dollars laid up in a Seattle bank, I sent for it, and here I be. And when I die, ladies," Captain Tugg stopped to say, as he
moved off the porch and raised his cap politely, "I've got it down in black and white that they're to weight my heels with lead and pitch my body into the little gourd-shaped harbor to keep the old wind-jammer company."
NEGR ) PIONEERS; THEIR PAGE IN OREGON HISTORY:
,
Not over many of the sons of Ham found their way out of the Southern states prio · to the rebellion, and but few to that po. tion of the United States lying west of the Rocky Mountains. A few of them were, however, pioneers, and came here as early as the 40's and very near all of them, in some manner, left an impress upon the history of the Paci- ic Northwest.
It is believed that the first colored per- son to come here was a man by the name of York, who was the servant of Cap- tain Clarke, of the Lewis and Clarke ex- pedition of 1805-6. He returned to the east. The next to come was probably a mulato, who was, during the first years of his stay, known by the name of George Winslow. He came with the ex- pedition of Hall J. Kelly, in 1834. After a time he took an Indian woman and scttled with her on a cabin on Clacka- mas prairie, six miles below Oregon City, and raised a family. George as- sumed to be a doctor, and complained to subsequent emigrants that the arrival of Dr. Forbes Barclay, of the Hudson's Bay Company had "bust out" his busi- ness. He sometimes repudiated his an- tecedents, and often related how he came here in 1811 as cook to the Astor expedition. But it is a well-known fact that the truth was never a conscious in- gredient of his character, and in his stories of himself and his doings brought about this opinion of him.
The next addition to the colored "400" was a man called Wallace. He was a de- serter from the bark Maryland. Captain John H. Couch, master, which arrived in 1840. . He settled on Clatsop plains, and there history seems to have left him without further mention.
When the U. S. sloop-of-war Peacock was wrecked on the sand spit at the northern entrance of the Columbia river in 1841, a spit which took and still bears her name, her cook, called Saul, but subsequently known as James D. Sauls, deserted therefrom. He seemed to nat- urally take to water and ran for many years a craft-a cross between a Japan- ese junk and a fore-and-aft schooner- between Astoria and Cathlamet, doing a very fair business. He claimed to be bar pilot and his services were accepted by the U. S. schooner Shad on her en- trance to the Columbia, but he ran her on Chinook shoal, and had it not been for an Englishman better acquainted with the river's shoals, who got her off and safe at anchor, she would no doubt have gone to wreck. Like many of his race he was musically inclined and could murder some three tunes on an old fiddle he had in great style. His lack of education in this respect was considered. pardonable at that date, for he had no rivals on Clatsop plains or in Astoria. and he was in great demand during 1848 and '49 as a musician, and if he played the same tune over and over again it made no difference to those attending the dances given. They danced "till broad daylight" any how.
Some years subsequent to the time of Winslow's settlement on the Clackama- prairie, it is said he removed further north and took up another ranch, turn- ing his attention to potato culture and other garden growing.
In 1844. while thus engaged, he hired a Wasco Indian by the name of Cock- Stock, who, it is said, was a sub-chief of his tribe, a man domineering, vicious and vain, to work for him, promising as pay-
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NEGRO PIONEERS.
":ent for certain work performed, an agreed upon horse. Before the work was finished Winslow sold both horse and claim to Saules, the colored man Have mentioned. The Indian was in- 'need to finish the work agreed upon after this, but when done some compli- ation arose by which the horse was not livered to him. He resolved to have what he believed to be his rights anyway, und took the horse forcibly. This action Mol to the filing of a complaint with Dr. Elijah White, who, while the govern- went had not as yet exerted jurisdiction over Oregon, represented it as Indian Agent "We t of the Rockies." . The doctor had, prior to this time, some per- sonal experience with the Indian, and all the depredations committed in the coun- try were charged to him, and it was thought advisable that it be suppressed, and the doctor offered a reward for his capture. Learning that he was charged with offenses which he did not commit, the chief visited Oregon City with a view of exculpating himself. He entered the town, stayed about an hour, and then crossed the river to the Indian village, opposite, to procure an interpreter. His actions and tenor of conversation, to- Kether with the fact that he was accom- panied by four Molalla Irdians that were i questionable repute brought about a reinsal on the part of the occupants of the village to return to town with him in „'v capacity, and he, with his Mollala Howers, started to return alone. On heir approach the citizens assembled and when he reached the landing all was rAcitement. His arrest was undertaken and a desperate resistance was offered. in the midst of the melee, George Lc- ḷƙ`ton, the secretary of the Provisional "Wernment, grabbed hold of Cock -. lock, when the latter began to. dis- his pistol, striking LeBreton ire, and afterwards began to stab him ha knife. Upon crying for assistance, Winslow, alias Anderson, who was near 1 v. ran up and, using his rifle as a club, 'mick the Indian over the head, killing
an instantly. From this time forward -
'r have no obtainable word as to the movement of either Saules or Winslow.
It is said. that Saules died a few years subsequent to this. Winslow went back to Clatsop county and lived in the neigh- borhood of the mouth of the Columbia river until 1851, when his right to live in Oregon, he being a negro, was ques- tioned. The laws were at that time to the effect that a negro could not be en- slaved, nor could he live in the territory. This law was decided to be constitution- al by Judge Nelson, supreme judge of the territory, and Winslow, with others, were given thirty days to leave Oregon. It is said that he obeyed the mandate, but history gives, so far as obtainable, no further mention of his movenents.
In 1843 Miles Carey brought a colored girl across the plains, with his family, who went to Yamhill county with him, and became a part of the ancient history of that county. In 1844. the emigration across the plains brought five other ne- groes. Two women. Eliza, of whom nothing further is mentioned except her coming, and Hannah, who came with the family of Jacob Myers, settlement not known. Two of the men were Scott and Robbin. They came with Col. Nathaniel Ford, and settled with him in Polk coun- ty. The other was George W. Bush. Bush was a man of considerable intelli- gence and great force of character, and deservedly commanded the respect of all who knew him. At the time he arrived it was the prevalent opinion that the Columbia river would be adopted as the boundary line between the United States and the British possessions, and having fled from Missouri to escape slavery, and as the color line had been drawn by the residents south of the Columbia, he concluded to settle in a country under British rule. He took up a claim on the Sound which soon became known as and still retains the name of Bush's prai- ric.
Mr. Bush was possessed of consider- able means and was very liberal. Sev- cral of the white families who accompan- ied the train of which he was a member had been assisted by him to procure out- fits. Without his generous aid they could not have come to Oregon. He al-
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OREGON NATIVE SON.
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