An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington, Part 5

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 5
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 5
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 5

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mal sough, as though the rocks below were rub- bing their black sides together in a vain effort to close over the escaping river. The river here is "turned on edge." In fact, its depth has not been found to this day. Some suppose that there was once a natural tunnel here through which the river flowed, and that in consequence of a volcanic convulsion the top of the tunnel fell in. If there be any truth in this, the width of the channel is no doubt much greater at the bottom than at the top. Lewis and Clarke, finding that the roughness of the shore made it almost impossible to carry their boats over, and seeing no evidence of rocks in the channel, boldly steered through this "witches' cauldron." Though no doubt hurled along with frightful rapidity and flung like foam flakes on the crest of the boiling surges, they reached the end of the "chute" without accident, to the amazement of the Indians who had collected on the bluff to witness the daring experiment. After two more portages the party safely entered the broad, still flood beginning where the town of The Dalles now stands. Here they paused for two days to hunt and caulk their boats. They here began to see evidences of the white traders below, in blankets, axes, brass kettles, and other articles of civilized manufacture. The Indians, too, were more inclined to be saucy and suspicious.

The Dalles seemed to be a dividing line between the Indian tribes. Those living at the falls, where Celilo now is, called the Eneeshurs, understood and "fellowshipped" with the up-river tribes, but at the narrows and thence to The Dalles was a tribe called the Escheloots. These were alien to the Indians above, but on intimate terms with those below the Cascades. Among the Escheloots the explorers first noticed the peculiar "cluck" in speech common to all down- river tribes. The flattening of the head, which above belonged to females only, was now the common thing.

The place where Lewis and Clarke camped while at The Dalles was just below Mill creek (called by the natives Quenett), on a point of rock near the location of the present car shops.

The next Indian tribe, extending apparently from the vicinity of Crate's point to the Cas- cades, capped the climax of tongue-twisting names by calling themselves Chilluckitte- quaws.

Nothing of extraordinary character seems to have been encountered between The Dalles and the Cascades. But the explorers had their eyes wide open, and the calm majesty of the river and savage grandeur of its shores received due notice. They observed and named most of the streams on the route, the first of importance being the Cat- aract river (now the Klickitat), then Labieshe's river (Hood river), Canoe creek (White Salmon) and Crusatte's river. This last must have been Little White Salmon, though they were greatly

CENTRAL WASHINGTON.

deceived as to its size, stating it to be sixty yards wide. In this vicinity they were much struck with the sunken forest, which, at that low stage of the water, was very conspicuous. They cor- rectly inferred that this indicated a damming up of the river at a very recent time. Indeed, they judged that it must have occurred within twenty years. It is well known, however, that sub- merged trees or piles, as indicated by remains of old Roman wharves in Britain, may remain intact for hundreds of years; but it is nevertheless evi- dent that the closing of the river at the Cascades is a very recent event. It is also evident from the sliding, sinking and grinding constantly seen there now that a similar event is liable to hap- pen at any time.

The Cascades having been reached, more portages were required. Slow and tedious though they were, the explorers seem to have endured them with unfailing patience. They were cheered by the prospect of soon putting all the rapids behind and launching their canoes on the unobstructed vastness of the lower river. This was prosperously accomplished on the 2d of November. They were greatly delighted with the verdure which now robed the gaunt naked- ness of the rocks. The island formed at the lower cascade by Columbia slough also pleased them by its fertility and its dense growth of grass and strawberry vines. From this last cir- cumstance they named it Strawberry island. At the lower part of that cluster of islands, that spired and turreted rock of the old feudal age of the river, when the volcano kings stormed each other's castles with earthquakes and spouts of lava, riveted their attention. They named it Beacon rock, but it is now called Castle rock. They estimated its height at eight hundred feet and its circumference at four hundred yards, the latter being only a fourth of the reality.

The tides were now noticeable. This fact must have struck a new chord of reflection in the minds of these hardy adventurers, this first-felt pulse-beat of the dim vast of waters which grasps half the circumference of the earth. And so, as this mighty heart throb of the ocean, rising and falling in harmony with all nature, celestial and terrestrial, pulsated through a hundred and eighty miles of river, it might have seemed one of the ocean's multiplied fingers outstretched to welcome them, the first organized expedition of the new republic to this "westmost west." It might have betokened to them the harmony and unity of future nations as exemplified in the vast extent, the liberty, the human sympathies, the diver- sified interests, industries, and purposes of that republic whose motto yet remains "One from many. "

The rest of their journey was a calm floating between meadows and islands from whose shal- low ponds they obtained ducks and geese in great numbers. They thought the "Quick Sand

river"-Sandy-to be a large and important stream. They noticed the Washougal creek, which from the great number of seals around its mouth they called Seal river. But strange to say, they missed the Willamette entirely on their down trip. The Indians in this part of the river called themselves Skilloots. Dropping rapidly down the calm but misty stream, past a large river called by the Indians the Cowaliske-Cow- litz-to the country of the Wahkiacums, at last, on the 7th of November, the dense fog with which morning had enshrouded all objects suddenly broke away and they saw the bold, mountainous shores on either side vanish away in front, and through the parted head- lands they looked into the infinite expanse of the ocean.

Overjoyed at the successful termination of their journey, they sought the first pleasant camping ground and made haste to land. The rain, which is sometimes even now observed to characterize that part of Oregon, greatly marred the joy of their first night's rest within sound of the Pacific's billows.

Six days passed in moldy and dripping inac- tivity at a point a little above the present Chi- nook. They then spent nine much pleasanter days at Chinook point. This, however, not proving what they wanted for a permanent camp, they devoted themselves to explorations with a view to discovering a more suitable loca- tion.

The party wintered in a log building at a point named by them Fort Clatsop. On the 23d of March, 1806, they turned their faces home- ward, first, however, having given to the chiefs of the Clatsops and Chinooks certificate of hospit- able treatment and posted on the fort the fol- lowing notice: "The object of this last is that, through the medium of some civilized person, who may see the same, it may be made known to the world that the party consisting of the per- sons whose names are hereunto annexed and who were sent out by the government of the United States to explore the interior of the continent of North America, did penetrate the same by way of the Missouri and Columbia rivers, to the dis- charge of the latter into the Pacific ocean, at which they arrived on the 14th day of November, 1805, and departed on their return to the United States by the. same route by which they had come."

Of this notice several copies were left among the Indians, one of which fell into the hands of Captain Hall, of the brig Lydia, and was con- veyed to the United States.

The expedition made its way with no little difficulty up the Columbia river. They discov- ered on their return a large tributary of that river (the Willamette) which had escaped their notice on their outward journey, and made care- ful inquiry of the Indians concerning it, the

EXPLORATIONS BY LAND.

results of which were embodied in their map of the expedition.

At the mouth of the John Day river their canoes were abandoned, their baggage was packed on the backs of a few horses they had purchased from the Indians, and traveling in this manner, they continued their homeward march, arriving at the mouth of the Walla Walla river April 27th. The great chief Yellept was then the leader of the Walla Walla nation, and by him the explorers were received with such generous hospitality that they yielded to the temptation to linger a couple of days before undertaking fur- ther journeyings among the mountain fastnesses. Such was the treatment given them by these Indians that the journal of the expedition makes this appreciative notation concerning them : "We may indeed justly affirm that of all the Indians that we have seen since leaving the United States, the Walla Wallas are the most hospita- ble, honest and sincere."

Of the return journey for the next hundred and fifty miles, that venerable pioneer mission- ary, the late Dr. H. K. Hines, writes as follows: "Leaving these hospitable people on the 29th of April, the party passed eastward on the great 'Nez Perce trail.' This trail was the great high- way of the Walla Wallas, Cayuses and Nez Perces to the buffalo ranges, to which they annu- ally resorted for game and supplies. It passed up the valley of the Touchet, called by Lewis and Clarke the 'White Stallion,' thence over the high prairie ridges and down the Alpowa to the crossing of the Snake river, then up the north bank of Clearwater to the village of Twisted Hair, where the exploring party had left their horses on the way down the previous autumn. It was worn deep and broad by the constant rush of the Indian generations from time immemorial, and on many stretches on the open plains and over the smooth hills, twenty horsemen could ride abreast in parallel columns. The writer has often passed over it when it lay exactly as it did when the tribes of Yellept and Twisted Hair traced its sinuous courses, or when Lewis and Clarke and their companions first marked it with the heel of civilization. But the plow has long since obliterated it, and where the monotonous song of the Indian march was droningly chanted for so many barbaric ages, the song of the reaper thrills the clear air as he comes to his garner bringing in the sheaves. A more delightful ride of a hundred and fifty miles than this that the company of Lewis and Clarke made over the swell- ing prairie upland and along the crystal streams between Walla Walla and the village of Twisted Hair, in the soft May days of 1806, can scarcely be found anywhere on earth."

To trace the journeyings of these explorers further is not within the province of this work, but in order to convey a general idea of the

labors and extent of the voyage, we quote the brief summary made by Captain Lewis him- self:

"The road by which we went out by the way of the Missouri to its head is 3,096 miles; thence by land by way of Lewis river over to Clarke's river and down that to the entrance of Travelers' Rest creek, where all the roads from different routes meet; thence across the rugged part of the Rocky mountains to the navigable waters of the Columbia, 398 miles; thence down the river 640 miles to the Pacific ocean-making a total dis- tance of 4, 134 miles. On our return in 1806 we came from Travelers' Rest directly to the falls of the Missouri river, which shortens the distance about 579 miles, and is a much better route, reducing the distance from the Mississippi to the Pacific ocean to 3,555 miles. Of this dis- tance 2,575 miles is up the Missouri to the falls of that river; thence passing through the plains and across the Rocky mountains to the navi- gable waters of the Kooskooskie river, a branch of the Columbia, 340 miles, 200 of which is good road, 140 miles over a tremendous moun- tain, steep and broken, 60 miles of which is covered several feet deep with snow, and which we passed on the last of June; from the naviga- ble part of the Kooskooskie we descended that rapid river 73 miles to its entrance into Lewis river, and down that river 154 miles to the Columbia, and thence 413 miles to its entrance into the Pacific ocean. About 180 miles of this distance is tide land. We passed several bad rapids and narrows, and one considerable fall, 286 miles above the entrance of this river, 37 feet 8 inches; the total distance descending the Columbia waters 640 miles-making a total of 3.555 miles, on the most direct route from the Mississippi at the mouth of the Missouri to the Pacific ocean."

The safe return of the explorers to their homes in the United States naturally created a sensation throughout that country and the world. Leaders and men were suitably rewarded, and the fame of the former will live while the rivers to which their names have been given continue to pour their waters into the sea. President Jefferson, the great patron of the expedition, paying a tribute to Captain Lewis in 1813, said: "Never did a similar event excite more joy throughout the United States. The humblest of its citizens have taken a lively interest in the issue of this journey, and looked with impatience for the information it would furnish. Nothing short of the official journals of this extraordinary and interesting journey will exhibit the impor- tance of the service, the courage, devotion, zeal and perseverance under circumstances calculated to discourage, which animated this little band of heroes, throughout the long, dangerous and tedi- ous travel."

CHAPTER III.

THE ASTOR EXPEDITION.

While the limits of this volume render a full treatment of the early Northwest history impossi- ble, it is necessary to write briefly of those mam- moth forces of the first ages of the country, the great fur companies, those gigantic commercial organizations, whose plans were so bold, far- reaching and comprehensive, and whose theater of action included such vast areas of the earth's surface.

The profits of the fur trade were such as might well entice daring and avarice to run the gauntlet of icebergs, of starvation, of ferocious savages and of stormy seas. The net returns from a single voyage might liquidate even the enormous cost of the outfit. For instance, Ross, one of the clerks of Astor's company, and located at Okanogan, relates that one morning before breakfast he bought of Indians one hundred and ten beaver skins at the rate of five leaves of tobacco per skin. Afterward a yard of cotton cloth, worth, say, ten cents, purchased twenty- five beaver skins, the value of which in the New York market was five dollars a piece. For four fathoms of blue beads, worth, perhaps, a dollar, Lewis and Clarke obtained a sea otter's skin, the market price of which varied from forty-five to

sixty dollars. Ross notes in another place that for one hundred and sixty-five dollars in trinkets, cloth, etc., he purchased peltries valued in the Canton market at eleven thousand two hundred and fifty dollars. Indeed, even the ill-fated voy- age of Mr. Astor's partners proved that a cargo worth twenty-five thousand dollars in New York might be replaced in two years by one worth a quarter of a million, a profit of a thousand per cent. We can not wonder then at the eager enterprise and fierce, sometimes bloody, competi- tion of the fur traders.

The fur-producing animals of especial value in the old Oregon country were three in num- ber. The first, the beaver, was found in great abundance in all the interior valleys, the Wil- lamette country, as was discovered, being pre- eminent in this respect. The two others, the sea otter and the seal, were found on the coast. The sea otter fur was the most valuable, its velvety smoothness and glossy blackness rendering it first in the markets of the world of all furs from the temperate zone of North America, and infe- rior only to the ermine and sable, and possibly to the fiery fox of the far north.

Such, then, was the prospect which prompted the formation of the Pacific Fur Company, which shall have the first place in our narrative as being the first to enter the Columbia river basin, though it was long antedated in organization by several other large fur-trading corporations. The sole and prime mover of this enterprise was that famed commercial genius, John Jacob Astor, a native of Heidelberg, who had come to America poor, and had amassed a large fortune in com- mercial transactions. In 1810 there was con- ceived in the brain of this man a scheme which for magnitude of design and careful arrange- ment of detail was truly masterful, and in every sense worthy of the great entrepreneur. Even the one grand mistake which wrecked the enterprise was the result of a trait of char- acter which "leaned to virtue's side." Broad- minded and liberal himself, he did not appre- ciate the danger of entrusting his undertak- ing to the hands of men whose national preju- dices were bitterly anti-American and whose pre- vious connection with a rival company might affect their loyalty to this one. He regarded the enterprise as a purely commercial one, and selected its personnel accordingly, hence the fail- ure of the venture.

Mr. Astor's plan contemplated the prosecution of the fur trade in every unsettled territory of America claimed by the United States, the trade with China and the supply of the Russian settle- ments with trading stock and provisions, the goods to be paid for in peltries. A vessel was to be despatched at regular intervals from New York, bearing supplies of goods to be traded to the Indians. She was to discharge her cargo at a depot of trade to be established at the mouth of the Columbia river, then trade along the coast with Indians and at the Russian settlements until another cargo had been in part secured, return to the mouth of the river, complete her lading there, sail thence to China, receive a return cargo of Canton silks, nankeen and tea, and back to New York. Two years would pass in completing this vast commercial "rounding up." An important part of the plan was the supply of the Russian posts at New Archangel, the object being two- fold-first, to secure the profits accruing there- from, and, second, to shut off competition in Mr. Astor's own territory, through the semi-partner- ship with the Russians in furnishing them sup-

THE ASTOR EXPEDITION.

plies. Careful arrangements had been made with the Russian government to prevent any possible clash between the vessels of the two companies engaged in the coast trade. "It was," says Brewerton, "a colossal scheme and deserved to succeed; had it done so it would have advanced American settlement and actual occupancy on the northwest coast by at least a quarter of a century, giving employment to thousands, and transferred the enormous profits of the Hudson's Bay and North West British Fur Companies from English to American coffers."

Like a prudent business man, Mr. Astor antici- pated that, though the Northwest Company had no trading posts in the region west of the Rocky mountains and south of fifty-two degrees north, its enmity and jealousy would be speedily aronsed when a new competitor entered the field. He resolved to soften enmity by frankness, so wrote to the directors of the British company the details of his plan and generously offered them a third interest in the enterprise. This ingenuousness on his part found no response in the characters of the shrewd and unscrupulous men in whom he had so unwisely confided. Nobleness, in this instance, failed to enkindle nobleness. They met candor with duplicity, generosity with per- fidy.

Playing for time, they pretended, Cæsar-like, to take the matter under advisement, and at once despatched David Thompson, the astronomer and surveyor of their company, with instructions "to occupy the month of the Columbia, to explore the river to its headwaters, and, above all, to watch the progress of Mr. Astor's enterprise." They then declined the proposal.

But Mr. Astor proceeded with his project energetically and skillfully. He associated with himself as partners in the enterprise (and here was his great mistake) Donald Mackenzie, Alex- ander Mackay, who had accompanied Alexander Mackenzie on his voyage of discovery, hence possessed invaluable experience, and Duncan Mac- dougal, all late of the Northwest Company, and, though men of great skill and experience, schooled in the prejudices of the association with which they had so long maintained a connection and able to see only through British eyes. To the partners already enumerated were subsequently added Wilson P. Hunt and Robert Maclellan, Americans; David and Robert Stuart and Ram- sey Crooks, Scotchmen ; John Clarke, a Canadian, and others.

Wilson P. Hunt was given the post of chief agent on the Columbia, his term of office being five years, and when he was obliged to be absent temporarily, a substitute was to be elected by the partners who happened to be present, to act in his place. Each partner obligated himself in the most solemn manner to go where sent and to faithfully execute the objects of the company, but before subscribing to this bond two of the British

perfidiously communicated to the British minis- ter, Mr. Jackson, temporarily in New York, the details of Mr. Astor's plan and inquired of him concerning their status as British subjects trading under the American flag in the event of war. They were given assurance that in case of war they would be protected as English subjects and merchants. Their scruples thus put at rest, they entered into the compact.

The larger part of the expedition was to go via Cape Horn and the Sandwich islands to the mouth of the Columbia, there to await the arrival of the Hunt party, which was sent out by land. To convey them thence the ship Tonquin, a vessel of two hundred and ninety tons burden, was fitted up for sea. She was commanded by Captain Thorne, a lieutenant of the United States navy on leave, and had on board Indian trading goods, the frame timbers for a coasting schooner, supplies of all kinds, and in fact, everything essential to comfort.

Before the vessel had left the harbor, Mr. Astor was apprised that a British war vessel was cruising off the coast for the purpose of inter- cepting the Tonquin, and impressing the Cana- dians and British who were on board. This was a ruse of the Northwest Company to delay the expedition so that their emissary, Thompson, should arrive at the mouth of the Columbia first. But Mr. Astor secured as convoy the now famous United States frigate, Constitution, commanded by the equally famons Captain Isaac Hull, and the Tonquin, thus protected, proceeded safely on her way. She arrived at her destination March 22, 18II, after a voyage the details of which may be found in Irving's Astoria, Franchere's narra- tive, or in some of the publications based upon the latter work. On the 12th of the following month a part of the crew crossed the river in a launch and established at Fort George a settle- ment to which the name Astoria was given in honor of the projector of the enterprise. They at once addressed themselves to the task of con- structing the schooner, the framed materials for which had been brought with them in the Ton- quin. An expedition also was made by Mr. Mackay to determine the truth or falsity of the rumor that a party of whites were establishing a post at the upper cascades of the river, but when the first rapids were reached the expedition had to be abandoned, the Indian crew positively refusing to proceed further.

On the Ist of June, the ill-fated Tonquin started north, Mr. Mackay accompanying. We must now pursue her fortunes to their terrible conclusion. Mr. Franchere, a Frenchman, one of Mr. Astor's clerks, is the chief authority for the story. With his account, Irving seems to have taken some poetic license. According to that graceful writer, with a total force of twenty- three and an Indian of the Chehalis tribe called Lamazee, for interpreter, the Tonquin entered

CENTRAL WASHINGTON.

the harbor of Neweetee. Franchere calls the Indian Lamanse, and the harbor, he says, the Indians called Newity. We shall probably be safe in following Bancroft, who surmises that the place was Nootka sound, where, in 1803, the ship Boston and all her crew but two had been destroyed.

Captain Thorne had been repeatedly and urgently warned by Mr. Astor against allowing more than four or five Indians on board at once, but the choleric skipper was not of the kind to listen to the voice of caution. When Indians appeared with a fine stock of sea otter skins, and the indications were for a profitable trade, he forgot everything in his eagerness to secure the peltry. But long experience with the whites and the instructions of their wily chief, Ma- quinna, had rendered these tribes less pliable and innocent than the captain expected. Being unable to strike a bargain with any of them and losing patience, Thorne ordered all to leave the deck. They paid no attention, and the captain, becoming violently enraged, seized their leader by the hair and hurried him toward the ship's ladder, emphasizing his exit by a stroke with a bundle of furs. The other Indians left forthwith.

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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 5

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