An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington, Part 4

Author: Interstate publishing co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate publishing company
Number of Pages: 1146

USA > Washington > Kittitas County > An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington > Part 4
USA > Washington > Yakima County > An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington > Part 4
USA > Washington > Klickitat County > An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington > Part 4

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).

Shortly afterward Vancouver came to Cape Disappointment to explore the Columbia, of which he had heard indirectly from Captain Gray. Lieutenant Broughton, of Vancouver's expedition, sailed over the bar, ascended the river a distance of more than one hundred miles to the site of the present Vancouver, and with a modesty truly remarkable, took "possession of the river and the country in its vicinity in His Britannic Majesty's name, having every reason to believe that the subjects of no other civilized nation or state had ever entered it before." This, too, though he had received a salute of one gun from an American vessel, the Jennie, on his entrance to the bay. The lieutenant's claim was not to remain forever unchallenged, as will appear presently.

CHAPTER II.

EXPLORATIONS BY LAND.

With the exploration of Puget sound and the discovery of the Columbia, history-making mari- time adventure practically ceased. But as the fabled strait of Anian had drawn explorers to the Pacific shores in quest of the mythical pas- sage to the treasures of Ind, so likewise did the fairy tales of La Hontan and others stimulate inland exploration. Furthermore, the mystic charm always possessed by a terra incognita was becoming irresistible to adventurous spirits, and the possibilities of discovering untold wealth in the vaults of its "Shining mountains" and in the sands of its crystal rivers were exceedingly fascinating to the lover of gain.

The honor of pioneership in overland explora- tion belongs to one Verendrye, who, under authority of the governor-general of New France, in 1773 set out on an expedition to the Rocky mountains from Canada. This explorer and his brother and sons made many important explora- tions. but as they failed to find a pass through the Rocky mountains, by which they could come to the Pacific side, their adventures do not fall within the purview of our volume. They are said to have reached the vicinity of the present city of Helena.

If, as seems highly probable, the events chronicled by Le Page in his charming "Histoire de la Louisiane," published in 1758, should be taken as authentic, the first man to scale the Rocky mountains from the east and to make his way overland to the shores of the Pacific was a Yazoo Indian, Moncacht-ape, or Moncachabe, by name. But "the first traveler to lead a party of civilized men through the territory of the Stony mountains to the South sea" was Alexander Mackenzie, who, in 1793, reached the coast at fifty-two degrees, twenty-four minutes, forty- eight seconds north, leaving as a memorial of his visit, inscribed on a rock with vermilion and grease, the words, "Alexander Mackenzie, from Canada by land, July 22, 1793." His field of discovery was also without the scope of our pur- pose, being too far north to figure prominently in the international complications of later years.

Western exploration by land had, however, elicited the interest of one whose energy and force were sufficient to bring to a successful issue almost any undertaking worth the effort. While the other statesmen and legislators of his time

were fully engaged with the problems of the moment, the great mind of Thomas Jefferson, endowed as it was with a wider range of vision and more comprehensive grasp of the true situa- tion, was projecting exploring expeditions into the Northwest. In 1786, while serving as minis- ter to Paris, he had fallen in with the ardent Ledyard, who was on fire with the idea of open- ing a large and profitable fur trade in the north Pacific region. To this young man he had sug- gested the idea of journeying to Kamchatka, then in a Russian vessel to Nootka sound, from which, as a starting point, he should make an exploring expedition eastward to the United States. Led- yard acted on the suggestion, but was arrested as a spy in the spring of 1787 by Russian officials and so severely treated as to cause a failure of his health and a consequent failure of his enter- prise.

The next effort of Jefferson was made in 1792, when he proposed to the American Philo- sophical Society that it should engage a compe- tent scientist "to explore northwest America from the eastward by ascending the Missouri, .crossing the Rocky mountains and descending the nearest river to the Pacific ocean." The idea was favorably received. Captain Meriwether Lewis, who afterward distinguished himself as one of the leaders of the Lewis and Clarke expe- dition, offered his services, but for some reason Andre Michaux, a French botanist, was given the preference. Michaux proceeded as far as Kentucky, but there received an order from the French minister, to whom, it seems, he also owed obedience, that he should relinquish his appoint- ment and engage upon the duties of another commission.

It was not until after the opening of a new century that another opportunity for furthering his favorite project presented itself to Jefferson. An act of congress, under which trading houses had been established for facilitating commerce with the Indians, was about to expire by limita- tion, and President Jefferson, in recommending its continuance, seized the opportunity to urge upon congress the advisability of fitting out an expedition, the object of which should be "to explore the Missouri river and such principal stream of it as, by its course of communication with the waters of the Pacific ocean, whether the

CENTRAL WASHINGTON.

Columbia, Oregon, Colorado or any other river, may offer the most direct and practical water communication across the continent, for the pur- pose of commerce."

Congress voted an appropriation for the pur- pose, and the expedition was placed in charge of Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clarke. President Jefferson gave the explorers minute and particular instructions as to investigations to be made by them. They were to inform themselves, should they reach the Pacific ocean, "of the circumstances which may decide whether the furs of those parts may be collected as advan- tageously at the head of the Missouri (convenient as is supposed to the Colorado and Oregon or Columbia) as at Nootka sound or any other part of that coast; and the trade be constantly con- ducted through the Missouri and the United States more beneficially than by the circumnavi- gation now practiced." In addition to the instructions already quoted, these explorers were directed to ascertain if possible on arriving at the seaboard if there were any ports within their reach frequented by the sea vessels of any nation, and to send, if practicable, two of their most trusted people back by sea with copies of their notes. They were also, if they deemed a return by the way they had come imminently hazardous, to ship the entire party and return via Good Hope or Cape Horn, as they might be able.

A few days before the initial steps were taken in discharge of the instruction of President Jefferson, news reached the seat of government of a transaction which added materially to the significance of the enterprise. Negotiations had been successfully consummated for the purchase of Louisiana on April 30, 1803, but the authori- ties at Washington did not hear of the important transfer until the first of July. Of such tran- scendent import to the future of our country was this transaction and of such vital moment to the section with which our volume is primarily con- cerned, that we must here interrupt the trend of our narrative to give the reader an idea of the extent of territory involved, and, if possible, to enable him to appreciate the influence of the pur- chase. France, by her land explorations and the establishment of trading posts and forts, first acquired title to the territory west of the Missis- sippi and east of the Rocky mountains, though Great Britain claimed the territory in accordance with her doctrine of continuity and contiguity, most of her colonial grants extending in express terms to the Pacific ocean. Spain also claimed the country by grant of Pope Alexander VI. A constant warfare had been waged between France and Great Britain for supremacy in America. The latter was the winner in the con- test, and, in 1762, France, apparently discour- aged, ceded to Spain the province of Louisiana. By the treaty of February 10, 1763, which gave

Great Britain the Canadas, it was agreed that the western boundary between English and Spanish possessions in America should be the Mississippi river, Great Britain renouncing all claims to the territory west of that boundary. In 1800 Spain retroceded Louisiana to France "with the same extent it has now in the hands of Spain and which it had when France possessed it, and such as it should be according to the treaties subse- quently made between Spain and other states."

The order for the formal delivery of the prov- ince to France was issued by the Spanish king on October 15, 1802, and, as above stated, the United States succeeded to the title by treaty of April 30, 1803.

Exact boundaries had not been established at the time of the Louisiana purchase, but some idea of the vastness of the territory thereby acquired by the United States may be had when we consider that it extended from the present British line to the Gulf of Mexico and included what are now the states of Minnesota, North Dakota, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana, the territory of Okla- homa, Indian territory, more than three-fourths of Montana and Wyoming, and parts of Colorado and New Mexico.

And so the Lewis and Clarke expedition, which had in its inception for its chief object to promote the commercial interests of the United States, acquired a new purpose, namely, the extending of geographical and scientific knowledge of our own domain. Upon its members a further duty devolved, that of informing the natives that obe- dience was now due to a new great father.

The expedition of Lewis and Clarke excited a peculiar interest at the time of its occurrence, and has since occupied a unique place in our his- tory. The description of this expedition which follows is condensed from the writings upon the subject of Professor W. D. Lyman, of Whitman College, Walla Walla.

To our colonial ancestors, caged between the sea and the domains of hostile natives and rival colonies, afterward absorbed in a death struggle with the mother country, all the vast interior was a sealed book. And when the successful issue of the Revolutionary war permitted them to turn around and see where they were, still more when the great purchase of Louisiana from France enabled them to look toward the tops of the "Shining. mountains" with a sense of propri- etorship, all the romance and enthusiasm and excitement of exploration, hitherto sternly denied them by their narrow lot, seized and fascinated all classes.

On the 14th day of May, 1804, the Lewis and Clarke party left St. Louis by boat upon the muddy current of the Missouri, to search for the unknown mountains and rivers between that point and the Pacific. Their plan was to ascend the Missouri to its source, cross the divide, strike

EXPLORATIONS BY LAND.

the headwaters of the Columbia, and, descending it, reach the sea.

And what manner of men were undertaking this voyage, fraught with both interest and peril? Meriwether Lewis, the leader of the party, was a captain in the United States army, and in Jeffer- son's judgment was, by reason of endurance, boldness and energy, the fittest man within his knowledge for the responsible duties of com- mander. His whole life had been one of reck- less adventure. It appears that at the tender age of eight he was already illustrious for suc- cessful midnight forays upon the festive 'coon and the meditative 'possum. He was lacking in scien- tific knowledge, but when appointed captain of the expedition had, with characteristic pluck, spent a few spare weeks in study of some of the branches most essential to his new work. Will- iam Clarke, second in command, was also a United States officer, and seems to have been equally fitted with Lewis for his work. The party consisted of fourteen United States regu- lars, nine Kentucky volunteers, two French voy- ageurs, a hunter, an interpreter and a negro. To each of the common soldiers the government offered the munificent reward of retirement upon full pay with a recommendation for a soldier's grant of land. Special pains were taken to encourage the party to keep complete records of all they saw and heard and did. This was done with a vengeance, insomuch that seven journals besides those of the leaders were carefully kept, and in them was recorded nearly every event from the most important discoveries down to the ingredients of their meals and doses of medicine. They were abundantly provided with beads, mir- rors, knives, etc., wherewith to woo the savage hearts of the natives.

After an interesting and easy journey of five months, they reached the country of the Man- dans, and here they determined to winter. The winter having been profitably spent in making the acquaintance of the Indians and in collecting specimens of the natural history of the plains- which they now sent back to the president with great care-they again embarked in a squad of six canoes and two pirogues. June 13th they reached the great falls of the Missouri.

A month was spent within sound of the thun- der and in sight of the perpetual mist cloud rising from the abyss, before they could accom- plish the difficult portage of eighteen miles, make new canoes, mend their clothes and lay in a new stock of provisions.

The long bright days, the tingling air of the mountains, the pleasant swish of the water as their canoes breasted .the swift current, the vast campfires and the nightly buffalo roasts-all these must have made this the pleasantest section of their long journey.

The party seems to have pretty nearly exhausted its supply of names, and after having

made heavy drafts on their own with various permutatory combinations, they were reduced to the extremity of loading innocent creeks with the ponderous names of Wisdom, Philosophy and Philanthropy. Succeeding generations have relieved the unjust pressure in two of these cases with the sounding appellations of Big Hole and Stinking Water.

On the 12th day of August the explorers crossed the great divide, the birthplace of mighty rivers, and descending the sunset slope, found themselves in the land of the Shoshones. They had brought with them a Shoshone woman, rejoicing in the pleasant name of Sacajawea, for the express purpose of becoming acquainted with this tribe, through whom they hoped to get horses and valuable information as to their proper route to the ocean. But four days were con- sumed in enticing the suspicious savages near enough to hear the words of their own tongue proceeding from the camp of the strangers. When, however, the fair interpreter had been granted a hearing, she speedily won for the party the faithful allegiance of her kinsmen. They innocently accepted the rather general intimation of the explorers that this journey had for its primary object the happiness and prosperity of the Shoshone nation, and to these evidences of benevolence on the part of their newly adopted great father at Washington, they quickly responded by bringing plenty of horses and all the information in their poor power.

It appears that the expedition was at that time on the headwaters of the Salmon river near where Fort Lemhi afterward stood. With twenty-nine horses to carry their abundant bur- dens, they bade farewell to the friendly Sho- shones on the last day of August, and committed themselves to the dreary and desolate solitudes to the westward. They soon became entangled in the ridges and defiles, already spotted with snow, of the Bitter Root mountains.

Having crossed several branches of the great river, named in honor of Captain Clarke, and becoming distressed at the increasing dangers and delay, they turned to the left, and, having punished a brawling creek for its inhospitality by inflicting on it the name Colt Killed, commemo- rative of their extremity for food, they came upon a wild and beautiful stream. Inquiring the name of this from the Indians, they received the answer "Kooskooskie." This in reality meant simply that this was not the stream for which they were searching. But not understanding, they named the river Kooskooskie. This was afterward called the Clearwater, and is the most beautiful tributary of the Snake.

The country still frowned on them with the same forbidding rocky heights and snow-storms as before. It began to seem as though famine would ere long stare them in the face, and the shaggy precipices were marked with almost daily

CENTRAL WASHINGTON.

accidents to men and beasts. Their only meat was the flesh of their precious horses.

Under these circumstances Clarke decided to take six of the most active men and push ahead in search of game and a more hospitable country. A hard march of twenty miles rewarded him with a view of a vast open plain in front of the broken mountain chain across which they had been struggling. It was three days, however, before they fairly cleared the edge of the moun- tain and emerged on the great prairie north and east of where Lewiston now is. They found no game except a stray horse, which they speedily despatched. Here the advance guard waited for the main body to come up, and then altogether they went down to the Clearwater, where a large number of the Nez Perce Indians gathered to see and trade with them. Receiving from these Indians, who, like all that they had met, seemed very amicably disposed, the cheering news that the great river was not very distant, and seeing the Clearwater to be a fine, navigable stream, they determined to abandon the weary land march and make canoes. Five of these having been constructed, they laid in a stock of dog meat and then committed themselves to the sweeping current with which all the tributaries of the Columbia hastened to their destined place. They left their horses with the Nez Perces, and it is worthy of special notice that these were remarkably faithful to their trust. Indeed, it may be safely asserted that the first explorers of this country almost uniformly met with the kindest reception.

On the Ioth of October, having traveled sixty miles on the Clearwater, its pellucid current delivered them to the turbid, angry, sullen, lava- banked Snake. This great stream they called Kimooenim, its Indian name. It was in its low season, and it seems from their account that it, as well as all the other streams, must have been uncommonly low that year.

Thus they say that on October 13th they descended a very bad rapid four miles in length, at the lower part of which the whole river was compressed into a channel only twenty-five yards wide. Immediately below they passed a large stream on the right, which they called Drewyer's river, from one of their men. This must have been the Palouse river, and certainly it is very rare that the mighty Snake becomes attenuated at that point to a width of twenty-five yards. Next day as they were descending the worst rapid they had yet seen (probably the Monu- mental rapid), it repelled their effrontery by upsetting one of the boats. No lives were lost, but the cargo of the boat was badly water-soaked. For the purpose of drying it, they stopped a day, and finding no other timber, they were compelled to use a very appropriate pile which some Indi- ans had stored away and covered with stones. This trifling circumstance is noticed because of

the explorers' speaking in connection with it of their customary scrupulousness in never taking any property of the Indians, and of their deter- mination to repay the owner, if they could find him, on their return. If all explorers had been as particular, much is the distress and loss that would have been avoided.

They found almost continuous rapids from this point to the mouth of the Snake, which they reached on October 16th. Here they were met by a regular procession of nearly two hundred Indians. They had a grand pow-wow, and both parties displayed great affection, the whites bestowing medals, shirts, trinkets, etc., in accordance with the rank of the recipient, and the Indians repaying the kindness with abundant and prolonged visits and accompanying gifts of wood and fish. On the next day they measured the rivers, finding the Columbia to be nine hun- dred and sixty yards wide and the Snake five hundred and seventy-five. They indulge in no poetic reveries as they stand by the river which has been one principal object of their search, but they seem to see pretty much everything of prac- tical value. In the glimmering haze of the pleas- ant October morning they notice the vast bare prairie stretching southward until broken by the rounded summits of the Blue mountains. They find the Sohulks, who live at the junction of the rivers, a mild and happy people, the men being content with one wife each, whom they actually assist in family work.

Captain Clarke ascended the Columbia to the mouth of a large river coming from the west, . which the Indians called the Tapteal. This was, of course, the Yakima. The people living at its mouth rejoiced in the liquid name of Chimnapum. Here Captain Clarke shot what he called a prairie cock, the first he had seen. It was no doubt a sage hen.

After two days of rest, being well supplied with fish, dog, roots, etc., and at peace with their own consciences and all the world, with satisfac- tion at the prospect of soon completing their journey, they re-embarked. Sixteen miles below the mouth of the Kimooenim, which they now began to call the Lewis river, they descried, cut clear against the dim horizon line of the south- west, a pyramidal mountain, covered with snow -their first view of Mount Hood.

The next day, being in the vicinity of Uma- tilla, they saw another snowy peak at a con- jectured distance of one hundred and fifty miles. Near here Captain Clarke, having landed, shot a crane and a duck. Some Indians near were almost paralyzed with terror, but at last they recovered enough to make the best possible use of their legs. Following them, Captain Clarke found a little cluster of huts. Pushing aside the mat door of one of them, he entered, and in the bright light of the unroofed hut discovered thirty-two persons, all of whom were in the

EXPLORATIONS BY LAND.

greatest terror, some wailing and wringing their hands.

Having by kind looks and gestures soothed their grief, he held up his burning-glass to catch a stray sunbeam with which to light his pipe. Thereat the consternation of the Indians revived, and they refused to be comforted. But when the rest of the party arrived with the two Indian guides who had come with them from the Clear- water, terror gave way to curiosity and pleasure. These Pishquitpaws-such was their name- explained to the guides their fear of Captain Clarke by saying that he came from the sky accompanied by a terrible noise, and they knew there was a bad medicine in it.

Being convinced now that he was a mortal after all, they became very affectionate, and having heard the music of two violins, they became so enamored of the strangers that they stayed up all night with them and collected to the number of two hundred to bid them good- bye in the morning. The principal business of these Indians seemed to be catching and curing salmon, which, in the clear water of the Colum- bia, the explorers could see swimming about in large numbers. Continuing with no extraordi- nary occurrence, they passed the river now called the John Day, to which they applied the name Lapage. Mount Hood was now almost con- stantly in view, and since the Indians told them it was near the great falls of the Columbia, they called it the Timm (this seems to be the Indian word for falls) mountain.

On the next day they reached a large river on the left, which came thundering through a narrow channel into the equally turbulent Columbia. This river, which Captain Lewis judged to contain one-fourth as much water as the Columbia (an enormous over-estimate), answered to the Indian name of Towahnahiooks. It afterwards received from the French the name now used, Des Chutes.

They now perceived that they were near the place hinted at by nearly every Indian that they had talked with since crossing the divide-the great falls. And a weird, savage place it proved to be. Here the clenched hands of trachyte and basalt, thrust through the soil from the buried realm of the volcanoes, almost clutch the rush- ing river. Only here and there between the parted fingers can he make his escape.

After making several portages they reached that extraordinary place (now called The Dalles) where all the waters gathered from half a million square miles of earth are squeezed into a crack forty-five yards wide. The desolation on either side of this frightful chasm is a fitting mar- gin. As one crawls to the edge and peeps over, he sees the waters to be of inky black- ness. Streaks of foam gridiron the blackness. There is little noise compared with that made by the shallow rapids above, but rather a dis-

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An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington, Part 4

Author: Interstate publishing co., Chicago, pub Publication date: 1904 Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate publishing company Number of Pages: 1146

Author: Interstate publishing co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate publishing company
Number of Pages: 1146