USA > Oregon > The Oregon native son, Vol. I > Part 78
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him why he did not tie rope to the horse and get his friends to help drag him away. "My door vas two feet; tee hips mit dot horse vas four feet. Ter tifel pring him to my house whole, I must fetch him away in pieces. He vas too tam big anyways, I make some ponies of him. Dot last het on mine pack was bigger tan some shackasses."
About this time we had an Indian scare. Two prospectors returned and re- ported that 1500 Indians headed by old Eagle-of-the-Light, were about twelve miles north of us. The report created great excitement, and seemed not im- probable, as that warlike chief had threatened the miners with destruction should they persist in invading his do- mains.
He was a renegade Nez Perce sup- ported by the same band of Snakes which has since given so much trouble in Idaho and Washington territories. We enrolled two companies under Jeff Stanifer and Jack Stanfield, and started out to meet the hostiles. Great caution was necessary to prevent a surprise in that broken country, and we were sev- eral days before we discovered the cause of our first alarm. The whole thing originated in a trifling affair. Three men had sunk a prospect hole, and find- ing nothing were making merry over their disappointment. One beat a tatoo on a pan while the others danced around and yelled, imitating the war dance of the Sioux. Just at this moment the men who spread the alarm hearing the noise, peered over the hill and saw the dance. Two of the dancers had on red shirts and being a mile distant were mistaken for Indians. The echoes multiplied the whoops and warlike notes until 1500 painted warriors, was the least estimate made of the advancing army. Discour- aged at finding no one to shoot at but one another, we went back to town, in- tending to make a miniature lead mine of the men who had deceived us, but they were never found, and are probably today living in peaceful seclusion under laws which would have been no protec- tion to them had they met the two ar- mies which marched back to Florence
from tlfe scene of the mimic war dance.
All this time the weather was getting colder; the snow deeper and provisions becoming more and more scarce. Still men came and went. Pack animals could no longer reach the camp, and pack trains of men brought flour fron Slate Creek. Each packer carried his own train and loaded up and unloaded as he pleased. He could carry from 50 to ico pounds, making the trip in two days, was paid one dollar per pound freight. Some men established reputations for strength and endurance, rivaling that of a mule, by the enormous loads they packed, while others received less envi- able ones by taking their meals from the contents of the sack they carried. Es- tablished packers had a reputation to maintain and could not afford to lose it for a few pounds of flour, and a sack which came in on the shoulders of Long Jim or Big Jack was taken at par, while those brought by men of less repute were subject to closer scrutiny and often re- weighed.
Many of the miners were from Oregon and had brought from their homes sober habits and quiet dispositions, to- gether with other adjuncts of civilized life. Vocal and instrumental music, with anecdotes and intelligent conversation, whiled away the evening hours within the rugged cabins.
But the town had received many ac- cessions from Washoe and other min- ing camps, of a different style of men. Fred Patterson, Billy Mayfield, Jakey Williams, Cherokee Bob, and a dozen other desperadoes, were amongst us. Each could boast of several men who had lost their lives while fooling with them. And all were anxious to add to their laurels by securing a few more victims. before some quicker hand than theirs should stop their fated course. Poor old man Lyons! He was not allowed to rest alone on the claim we gave him. Hur- rying crowds have tramped above his bed; the hill has opened and men with boots upon their feet, with bloody hands and blackened souls, have laid them down to sleep beside him. To me this seemed a desecration, but I hold less
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censure now, and hope the blood of Christ has power enough to wash their stains away, and purge their souls so white that sometime in eternity, good old Father Lyons, in the realmns above, shall not shudder, but rejoice to see them come. Reckless men held high carnival in: Florence for a year, when those who survived the knife and pistol, finding money was getting scarce, sought other scenes, and Placerville, Bannock, Rocky Bar and Silver City trembled at their deeds. Not one of those I have men- tioned are now alive, and many of their ciass have joined them in their bloody graves. Not one has lived a worthy life or died a noble death. And yet they were not wholly bad. Their generous impulses were known throughout the land, and witnessing their noble bear- ing and desperate courage, I could but regret they had not been turned in youth to nobler fields of conquest, where gen- erous courage could adorn a well-spent life, and where the world would look the brighter for their lives. I feel like saying more about these men, and think some day I shall. But youth will not be led astray, or decent people shocked, as when the life of Jesse James appeared, for I shall speak the truth; record the deeds they did; point to their bloody graves, which tell the moral out so plain that though their deeds were crimes, the lessons which they truly teach may prove a blessing now.
As I have said, the weather was get- ting very cold, and but little work could be done. A few men had rich claims but the majority were wandering around with nothing to do. My own hopes of a future had gradually withered, and I be- lieved, as afterwards proved true, the rich spots about Florence were mostly found. Moreover, I had promised some one to come back to the little school house by the bridge, and the second time I turned my back on Florence and waded through the snows to firmer foot- ing. I must reach Elk City before going home, or else I should return poorer than I came.
Again I left the traveled road at White Bird, skirted Camas Prairie, and reach-
Ed the crossing of the Clearwater. Some m.en mining on the bars just above the crossing declared that I could not wade the snow across the mountain. I made a pair of snowshoes and started up the steep incline. At first the snow was light, but steadily increased in depth un- til I could make but little headway. My snowshoes did not work well, and some- times where drifts of light snow lay, I was forced to lie full length and walk across them. I was five days going fifty miles, and endured fatigue and ex- posure enough to kill anything but a mule or a young webfoot. Elk City looked like a campmeeting the day after adjournment. Not one house in ten was occupied. My partners were not expect- ing me, but welcomed me back, and we all concluded to leave our claims until spring and go to Walla Walla to winter. I did not say to them I was going home, for fear they would all want to go, and we did not have enough money to send more than one off in good style. Webfoot boys become homesick very easily, and once taken, they are like the Swiss people when away from home, genuinely sick.
Carrying our blankets and camping out at night, we made our way across the mountains, and after a weary tramp arrived at Lewiston, the canvas town. It was quite a city now. The white tents standing in the plain looked like the bivouac of an army, and contrasted strangely with the other towns. The tents were in the form of one-story houses, standing in the regular order and supported with a light framework of wood. Some of them contained large stocks of goods, while others were sa- loons, hotels, etc.
We stopped at the Oro Fino House. and while at supper, noticed some bul- let holes in the canvas near where we sat. I remarked to the proprietor that he had probably had difficulty with his waiters. "No," said he, "those shots were fired at the French restaurant man at the other end of the block by his cook. They passed through the entire block, encountering nothing but canvas, but one of them killed a mule in the next
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SAMUEL ALLEN. A Pioneer of 1847.
MRS. MARY A. ALLEN, A Pioneer of 1819.
..
MRS. SARAH (ALLEN) TRIMBLE, A Pioneer of 1847.
THOMAS B. ALLEN, A Pioncer of 1817.
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street. There are some more in the back of the tent. They were fired from across the river by some one who was trying the range of a Sharp's rifle. I would like to put up some boards to pro- tect my patrons while at their meals, but the government officers stationed at Lapwai will not allow it, and I must do the best I can until a treaty can be made with the Indians. I always seat gentle- men on this side of the table, so that if hit by a bullet from the big saloon, it will not be in the back. But with govern- ment officers, lawyers, doctors and In- dian agents, it don't matter, and those reversed seats are for them."
Sincerely appreciating the courtesy of this man we made a hearty meal, and soon after went to rest, hoping our bod- ies would not be perforated during the night by shots from the big saloon. Three days' travel brought us to Walla Walla. Here I met the long-lost Thom- as, and we agreed to return home to- gether. The town was wonderfully im- proved, and business activity manifest on every street. The news from Florence had converted it into a mining camp, al- though two hundred miles from where the gold was found. The same wild ex- citement which I had witnessed at Oro Fino, Elk City, and Florence, was here. Everything was worth more money than it had ever been before. The most indolent men held up their heads, quickened their pace and boldly went into speculation. buying whatever was offered, and pay- ing but little attention to price. The mania for speculation was universal. The lazy Indian brought his ponies to market, and even the pony himself seem- ed to look proud when a white man thought him worth a hundred dollars. I felt as much excited as the rest. but "re- membering the things that were." I turned my back on all this, purchased a horse and started home. I had ridden about half way through the town when I met the Devil, in the form of an old friend, who said: "George, you are going back to poverty and obscurity. You are young and you should try to get a for- tune. If you will stay two years in this country, you can make money enough
to astonish the whole Webfoot nation." Some way this speech stuck to my ear. I always thought I should like to astonish the Webfeet, especially the girls. I said, "If I should stay, what can I do with my dust?" He cast his eye up the street for an investment; glanced at a hotel, a sa- loon, a blacksmith shop, and finally set -. tled his hellish gaze upon an ox team. "Buy that team," he said. "and go with my train to Lewiston. You can make a thousand dollars in thirty days."
I consented, purchased the team, and thirty minutes later was on the road to Lewiston, loaded with flour and bacon. I had abandoned cherished plans and embarked in a new enterprise. My emo- tions were high and conflicting, and as I walked along beside the oxen, I tried to compose a few lines of poetry to be sent below as an apology for not returning.
"O do not think that I am false,
That Florence snows have quenched my flame,
Men have been true a hundred years, But I'll be "
I never could finish that verse. The pcet's muse has not been aristocratic: it has cheered the lower walks of life; has sat by the sailor's cot, and lingered about the hut of the shepherd: has visited the blind and deaf, and even gilded the cap- tive's cell. But there is one thing it nev- er did do. it never fooled away any time with a man who was driving an ox team.
This I partly realized as I tried in vain to finish my verse, and cracked my whip upon the flagging team. It seemed that the oxen were moving slower at every step, and seemed to be pulling harder and harder. At last they stalled on a little hill. and I could not make them move. After much yelling and whip- ping. I looked back at the two wagons fawas trying to start. To the hindmost one my horse was tied with a stout rope. He was down on his side, and it was he who had caused the heavy pulling and finally stopped the team. He was chok- edi to death, had been dead for a quarter of an hour. A man who overtook me said he saw him down when I came over the last hill, and he had been halloing
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to me ever since, but as the wind was blowing I did not hear. My three lines of verse had cost me one hundred dol- lars.
My cattle which cost me ten times that amount proved of as little value as they, for the hard winter which was ushered in by the next day's storm, froze them all to death, and I was left with my bitter experience, my three lines of verse and my future expectations. During the whole of that winter, which was the hardest ever known in that country, Walla Walla was gathering from the miners a rich harvest of gold. While the snows were whitening upon the plain, and cattle were starving upon a thousand hills, the townspeople were gaining in wealth as never before. All kinds of trade were good, but gambling seemed to be in the summit of its glory. Ten thousand dollars were frequently bet on the turn of a single card, and the whole town was in a wild, mad state of uproarous hilarity. Some readers will remember Tom Gafner, who was accus- ed of killing a man in Eugene in the winter of 1860. He went to Walla Walla and soon distinguished himself as a quarrelsome and desperate man.
While passing along the street one evening, he saw a Jew sitting inside the window of his store, and taking a box which was filled with clay pipes, and had been placed outside for a tobacco sign,
threw it through the window upon the unoffending Jew. These people are gen- erally peaceable, and slow to wrath, but if there is anything that will overcome their natural reluctance to fight it is to see their property. destroyed, and es- pecially in such a wanton manner as this. The clay pipes had not ceased rat- tling upon the floor, before the Jew, armed with stout sword, sprang through the door and aimed a blow at the head of his assailant. Gafner skillful- ly parried it with a light thorn stick which he carried, and dealt a blow in re- turn which brought the swordsman to his knees. The Jew fought with the wild. rage of a maddened beast or the desperate courage of Roderick Dhu, whilst his antagonist laughed in his face and foiled his blows with the cool cour- age of Fitz James. Gafner was an ex- pert swordsman, and upon that slender cane received a dozen blows, and with it gave as many in return, until a down cut reached his right hand and left it useless. The cane fell, and as he stooped to pick it up, the sword was buried in his head. He died the next day, and all agreed he had received his just reward. Yet some where hearts were anguished by his fall. Some one loved him when a crowing or laughing baby. Some one waited for his coming. Somewhere tears were shed for him.
G. A. WAGGONER.
(To be continued.)
Mrs. Tabitha M. Brown, a pioneer of 1846, established the first orphan asylum in the Pacific Northwest at Forest Grove. She was sixty years old when she crosed the plains. Not long after she came, she began to take care of a few orphans. She was one of the first to teach school in that place, a school that afterwards grew into the well known university now located there. She died at Salem, on May 18. 1858.
Rev. Wm. Roberts and J. H. Wilbur, pioneer Methodist ministers of 1847. or- ganized the first Methodist church estab- lished in California. On their arrival in
San Francisco they found that their com- ing on to Oregon would be delayed some time, and they devoted their six weeks' stop there laboring for the Mas- ter with the above-mentioned result.
It is not generally known that Dr. John McLoughlin had knighthood con- ferred upon him, but such was, however, a fact. He was made a knight of the order of St. Gregory Pope Gregory the XVI.
Capt. Robert Gray and - Hoskins were the first Americans to touch foot on the soil of the Pacific Northwest. This was on Tuesday, May 16, 1792.
ASTORIA.
EARLIER HISTORY OF THE VENICE OF OREGON.
The names of Captain Robert Gray. Thomas Jefferson and John Jacob Astor are so woven in the warp and woof of the Pacific Northwest, that the story cannot be told without them.
It was on the 11th day of May. 1792. that Captain Robert Gray, of Boston, first beheld the waters of the "River of the West." Long and hard had he bat- tled with wind and wave to effect an en- trance. Vancouver and others had pass- ed it and flouted the idea of the existence ·of the river. And as his ship plowed the waters that had never before felt the keel of the white man's craft, America reach- ed forth and grasped the Pacific North- west by right of original discovery. Gray named the river after his good ship Columbia. For ages had these waters rolled down from snow-capped mountain, lake and stream. draining an empire stored with primeval wealth. But now the white man was to inaugurate a new era, and thenceforth write its his- torv in his books.
Jefferson was a far-seeing statesman. Not only did his mind grasp the sub- lime principles of the Declaration of In- dependence, but he forsaw the destiny of the American people. His great mind preceived the value of this dis- covery and while minister to France he gave encouragement to the brilliant ad- ventuerer, Robert Ledyard, to explore the newly discovered country and follow the great river to its sources. Elected president of the new republic, he at once put into execution his ideas. Accord- ingly he sent a confidential message to congress, urging upon it the necessity of exploring and taking possession of Gray's discovery. Congress acquiessed and appropriated money to further the project. On the 14th day of May. 1804. Meriweather Lewis and William Clarke. armed with President Jefferson's author- ity, with a little band of twenty-seven men, of whom fourteen were United States soldiers, turned their faces reso- lutely to the west, and wended their way
up the broad waters of the Missouri. It was spring time ,and 'mid the twitter of birds, and the merry ripple of the waters, the wild song of the voyageurs arose as they drove their pierogues along their sunny way. On they toiled until spring turned to summer and summer to au- tumn, and the hoar frosts of autumn to bleak and chilling snow. At length closed in by dreary winter, amid the solitudes, in a village of Mandan In- dians, they waited the return of spring. Spring found them with their faces turn- ed toward the setting sun. Up the Mis- souri still they toiled, the great river now dwindled into a turbulent stream; up the dizzy heights of the "Stony Mount- ains," till the sources of the Missouri became a mere rivulet. Here the men of the expedition stood a foot on either bank facetiously remarking they were "bestriding the Missouri." From the fountain head of the Missouri a journey of two miles and they stood gazing down upon "the continuous woods where rolls the Oregon." Proceeding through the Bitter Root Mountains to the Clearwater. they constructed canoes and proceeding down this stream, at length swept into the Columbia. As they floated down its placid waters the red man stood and for the first time be- held the pale face. Far better for him that men had never gone down to the sea in ships. or white man's axe had never rang through his forests or plow- share turned his loamy pastures.
It was a cold and dreary November day in 1805 that their canoes skimmed the same waters that Captain Gray had discovered over thirteen years before. And they gazed upon the Pacific, which regarded alike mailed knight and pro- saic traveler as it rolls upon its placid sands and surges againt its beetling cliffs.
.After exploring the bay to Cape Dis- appointment they retraced their steps a distance of twelve or fifteeen miles to a point where the river is narrower and
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crossed over. They camped on a point now called Tongue Point and called it William. Here Lewis left them to locate winter quarters, and returning conduct- ed the expedition to a place selected. The point chosen was about three miles south of the peninsula, afterwards made famous by Astor. Elk, deer and all kinds of fowl were plentiful. They erected a fort on the banks of the river now bearing the name of the explorers, Lewis and Clarke, and named the fort, Clatsop, after the Indians they found there. They explored the coast for sev- eral miles south. At the beautiful sum- mer resort, Sea Side, they built salt kilns, and from the waters of the Pacific they made sufficient salt for their use. The remains of the kilns are still extant and afford a source of pleasant thought for the idle seasider, as he whiles away the long and dreamy summer days. Pro- ceeding down the coast they beheld the . great rocks,
hundreds of feet high, standing out in the Pacific like giant sentinels. They beheld also the singing sands of Canon Beach and Elk Creek. These sands are of such composition that, when stirred by the winds they send forth sounds, not unlike an Aeolian harp.
Spring having again opened, the little band beheld for the last time, the sun sink into the bounding billows of the Pacific, and turned their faces to the rising sun. Before departing they signed and nailed to Fort Clatsop the following writing: "The object of this last is, that through the medium of some civilized person who may see the same. it may be known to the world the party consisting of the persons hereto annexed, and who were sent out by the government of the United States to explore the interior of . throughout the United States.
CAPT. ROBERT GRAY.
the continent of North America, did pen- etrate the same by way of the Missouri and Columbia rivers, to the discharge of the latter into the Pacific Ocean, where they arrived on the 14th day of Novem- ber, 1805, and departed on the 23rd day of March, 1806, on their return to the United States by the same route by which they came out."
This document, in the following year. fell into the hands of Captain Hill, of the Bark Lydia. He carried it to China, and thence to America. On the back of it they had sketched the route followed.
Many of the native chiefs of the Catlı- lamets, Chinooks, Tillamooks and Clat- sops, native tribes, visited the fort. The Chinooks were giv- en to pilfering and were forbidden the fort. When an Indi- an of one of the Qth- er tribes approached he would shout, as a password, "No Chinook." Among these chiefs, and among all the chieis along the route. they distributed medals on behalf of the great father at Washington. Some of them are still ex- tant. These medals are of silver, and on one side there was a head and the words: "Th. Jefferson. President of the United States, 1801." on the other side were interlocked hands. surmounted by pipe and tomahawk, and above, the words, "Peace and Friend- shin."
September 3rd, 1806, after three years of hardship amid the solitudes of prime- val forests, having traveled a distance of 9000 miles. found them again at the mouth of the Missouri river. They has- tened to give an anxious people an ac- count of the wonderful country through which they had traveled. In speaking of the expedition, Jefferson said: "Never did similar event excite more joy
The
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humblest of her citizens have taken a lively interest in the issue of this jour- ney, and looked with impatience for the information it would furnish. Nothing short of the official journals of this ex- traordinary and interesting journey will exhibit the importance of the service, the courage, devotion ,zeal and persever- ence, under circumstances calculated to discourage which animated this little band of heroes, through the long, dan- gerous and tedious journey."
`John Jacob Astor preceived the value of the new territory. He saw it as did Jefferson. For Astor to preceive an ad- vantage was for him to execute. Al- ready wealthy hede-
sired to strike a blow not only for himself, but also for his country. Having sought Jefferson's advice, he received encouragement. Jet- ferson afterwards, in a letter to Astor, spoke of the country he so much admired. "I consider it," he wrote, "as a great public acquisition, the commencement of a settlement in that part of the west coast of America. and look forward with gratification to the time when its descendants have spread themselves through the whole length of the coast, covering it with free and independent Americans, unconnect- ed with us. but by the ties of blood and interest, and enjoying like us the rights of self-government.
And again. in writing of the death of Lewis, he said: "It lost to the nation the benefit of receiving from his own hands the narrative of his successes and sufferings, in endeavoring to extend for them the boundaries of science and to present to their knowledge that vast and fertile country which their sons are des- tined to fill with arts, with science, with freedom, and happiness."
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