An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington, Part 8

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 8
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 8
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 8

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).

One might almost expect that Great Britain might utter some word of reproof to a company which could have the audacity to boast of violat- ing her treaty compacts with a friendly power. Not so, however. She was a party to the breach of faith. Instead of administering merited reproof, she rewards the wrongdoers by the prompt issuing of a new license to extend and be

in force for a period of twenty-one years. This renewed license, the date of which is May 31, 1838, granted to the company "the exclusive privilege of trading with the Indians in all such parts of North America, to the northward and westward of the islands and territories belonging to the United States of America, as shall not form part of any of our (British) provinces in North America or any lands or territories belong- ing to the said United States of America, or to any European government, state, or power. Without rent for the first five years, and after- ward the yearly rent of five shillings, payable on the first of June."

The company was again required to furnish a bond conditioned on their executing, by their authority over the persons in their employ, "all civil and criminal process by the officers or per- sons usually empowered to execute such process within all territories included in the grant, and for the producing or delivering into custody, for the purpose of trial, all persons in their employ or acting under their authority within the said territories, who shall be charged with any crim- inal offences."

The license, however, prohibited the company "from claiming or exercising any trade with the Indians on the northwest coast of America west- ward of the Rocky mountains to the prejudice or exclusion of any of the subjects of any foreign state, who, under or by force of any convention for the time being between Great Britain and such foreign states may be entitled to and shall be engaged in such trade." But no provision could be framed, nor was it the wish of the grantors to frame any, which should prevent the Hudson's Bay Company from driving out by har- assing tactics and fierce competition any Ameri- can who might enter the Oregon territory as a trader.

One of the strangest ruses of this wonder- fully shrewd and resourceful company must now receive notice. It was not in the power of the British government to convey lands in the Ore- gon country, neither could the Hudson's Bay Company in any way acquire legal title to realty. It therefore determined upon a bold artifice. A co-partnership was formed on the joint stock principle, the personnel of the company consist- ing largely of Hudson's Bay Company stock- holders. The name adopted for it was the Puget Sound Agricultural Company. The idea of this association was to acquire a possessory right to large tracts of rich tillable and grazing lands, use these for agricultural purposes and pasturage until the Oregon controversy was settled, then, should the British be successful in that contro- versy, apply at once for articles of incorporation and a grant. It was, of course, the purpose of the promoters, from motives of self-interest as well as of patriotism, to strengthen the claim of the mother country in every possible way. Great

CENTRAL WASHINGTON.

Britain never acquired title to the lands in ques- tion; the Puget Sound Agricultural Company never gained a corporate existence; it never had anything more than a bare possessory right to any lands, a right terminating on the death or withdrawal from the company of the person seized therewith. Logically, then, we should expect the absolute failure of the scheme. But it did not fail. So forceful was this legal figment and the Hudson's Bay Company behind it, that they had the power to demand as one of the condi- tions upon which peace might be maintained between the two governments chiefly concerned in the Oregon controversy, that "the farms, lands and other property of every description belonging to the Puget Sound Agricultural Com- pany, on the north side of the Columbia river, shall be confirmed to the said company. In case, however, the situation of those lands and farms should be considered by the United States to be of public and political importance, and the United States government should signify a desire to obtain possession of the whole or a part thereof, the property so required shall be trans-

ferred to the government at a proper valuation, to be agreed upon between the parties."

The Puget Sound Company laid claim under the treaty to two tracts-the tract of the Nis- qually, containing two hundred and sixty-one square miles, and the Cowlitz farm, containing three thousand five hundred and seventy-two acres. When the matter came up for settlement, the company asked five millions of dollars in liquidation of its claims. So the United States was forced, in the interests of peace and human- ity, into an illogical agreement to purchase lands, the claim to which was established in open viola- tion of the Joint-Occupancy treaties of 1818 and 1827. She was forced by a provision of the treaty of 1846 to obligate herself to purchase lands which the same treaty conceded as belong- ing to her. More humiliating still, she was com- pelled to reward a company for its acts of hostil- ity to her interests in keeping out her citizens and breaking up their establishments. But the sacrifice was made in the interests of peace and civilization, and who shall say that in conserving these it lacked an abundant justification?

CHAPTER V.

PERIOD OF SETTLEMENT.

Already, it is hoped, there has been conveyed to the mind of the reader as clear an impression as the limits of this volume will permit of the first faint knockings of civilization's standard- bearers upon our western shores, of some of the expeditions by which the land so long a terra incognita was robbed of its mystery and the over- land route to it discovered, and of the regime of the trapper and fur trader. It remains to treat of missionary occupancy, of the advent of the pioneer settler, of the diplomatic struggle for the possession of the country and of that second struggle for possession which cost so much hard- ship and sacrifice on the part of both the white and the red race and left so tragic a stain on our earlier annals.

With Wyeth's overland expedition, previously mentioned, were Dr. Nuttall, a naturalist, and J. K. Townsend, an ornithologist, both sent out by a Boston scientific society; also Rev. Jason Lee and his nephew, Rev. Daniel Lee, Cyrus Shepherd, Courtney M. Walker and P. L. Edwards, a missionary party sent out by the

Methodist Missionary Board of the United States. This body of unpretentious evangels of gospel truth were destined to exert an influence of which they little dreamed upon the imperial Hudson's Bay Company and the struggle for sovereignty in Oregon. The scientific men and the missionaries left Wyeth, who was delayed in the construction of Fort Hall, and were guided the remainder of the way by A. R. McLeod and Thomas Mckay, Hudson's Bay men, to old Fort Walla Walla, which they reached September Ist. The journey from that point to Vancouver was accomplished in two weeks. Little did these devoted servants of the British fur monopoly realize that the unassuming missionary party they so kindly piloted from Fort Hall to Van- couver would prove so potential in antagonizing their interests, and those of the imperial power whose patronage they enjoyed. The missionary party, it has been said, "was but another Trojan horse within whose apparently guileless interior was confined a hostile force, which would, within a decade of years, throw wide open the gates of

PERIOD OF SETTLEMENT.

exclusive privilege and introduce within the jeal- ously guarded walls a host of foes, to the utter destruction of intrenched monopoly and the final overthrow of British dominion and pretention on the Pacific coast! Well might Governor McLough- lin, the autocrat of the Pacific Northwest, when he welcomed this modest party of meek Method- ists, and assigned them land near Salem, have recalled the misgivings of the Trojan prophetess: 'Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes'-'I distrust the Greeks, though they offer gifts.' The American missionary was an advance agent of Yankee invasion.'

About the time Wyeth's main party arrived at Vancouver came also the ship on which were his goods for the fur trade, and the furniture and supplies of the missionary party. On October 6th the goods of the missionaries were landed at Wheatland, as they named the place where the mission was to be established. By November 3d a log house was advanced sufficiently for occupa- tion, but before the roof was on Indian children had been admitted as pupils, and by December 14th twenty-one persons, of whom seventeen were children, were baptized by Jason Lee at Vancouver.

Wyeth's enterprise, as well as all previous efforts of a like character inaugurated by Ameri- cans, was met by crushing and ruinous opposition from the autocratic British monopoly, but the missionaries were assisted and encouraged in every way. Bonneville, Wyeth and other Amer- ican adventurers and traders had come to Oregon to compete with the British traders or to colonize against the interests of their fatherland. Lee and his party were there to Christianize the pagan inhabitants, to instruct the ignorant, to minister to the sick and the dying, and to set a godly example to the irreligious, the reckless and semi- barbarous employees and ex-servants of the cor- poration. Hence the difference in their recep- tion. The Hudson's Bay Company, shrewd and vigilant though it was, did not and could not foresee that the attempt to convert the Indian would fail, owing to causes over which the mis- sionaries had no control, and that the mission people would form a settlement of their own, around which would naturally cluster all the ele- ments of society independent of the British cor- poration; that a social and political force would spring up hostile to the commercial interests and political ambitions of the company, potential to destroy its autocratic sway in the land and forceful to effect the final wresting of the coun- try entirely from its control. The coming of the missionaries has been well styled the entrance of the wedge of American occupancy.

The event which prompted the outfitting of this missionary enterprise is one of the strangest and most romantic character. It shows how affairs apparently the most trivial will deeply influence and sometimes greatly change the cur-

rent of human history. In one of the former historical works, in the compilation of which the writer has had a part, the story is told by Colonel William Parsons, of Pendleton, Oregon, substan- tially as follows:

"Far up in the mountains of Montana, in one of the many valleys which sparkle like emer- alds on the western slope of the Stony range, a handful of natives, whom the whites call by the now inappropriate name of 'Flatheads,' met to ponder over the unique tale repeated by some passing mountaineer of a magic book possessed by the white man, which assured its owners of peace and comfort in this life and eternal bliss in the world beyond the grave. The Flatheads were a weak and unwarlike people; they were sorely beset by the fierce Blackfeet, their hered- itary foes, through whose terrible incursions the Flatheads had been reduced in numbers and harassed so continuously that their state was most pitiable. To this remnant of a once proud race the trapper's story was a rainbow of prom- ise; the chiefs resolved to seek this book, and possess themselves of the white man's treasure. They chose an embassy of four of their wisest and bravest men, and sent them trustfully on the tribe's errand. The quest of 'three kings of the orient,' who, two thousand years ago, started on their holy pilgrimage to the manger of the lowly babe of Bethlehem, was not more weird, nor was the search of the knights of King Arthur's round table for the Holy Grail more picturesque and seemingly more hopeless. Though they knew that there were men of the pale-face race on the lower waters of the Columbia, and one of these doubtless had told them of the book, they knew that these uncouth trappers, hunters and fishers were ungodly men in the main and not custo- dians of the precious volume for which their souls so earnestly longed. These were not like the fishers of old by the sea of Galilee, who received the gospel gladly, and, following the footsteps of the Master, themselves became fishers of men, but were scoffers, swearers and contemners of holy things. So the Indians, like the ancient wise men, turned their faces towards the east.

"They threaded their toilsome way by stealth through the dreaded Blackfoot country, scaled the perilous Stony mountains, descending the eastern slope, followed the tributaries of the Missouri through the dreaded country of the Dakotahs, and then pursued the windings of the Missouri till they struck the Father of Waters, arriving at St. Louis in the summer of 1832. Indians were no rarity in this outpost of civiliza- tion, and the friendless and forlorn Flatheads soon discovered that the white trappers, hunters, flatboat men, traders, teamsters, and riff-raff of a bustling young city were about the last people in the world to supply Indians who had no furs to sell with either spiritual or material solace. The embassy was not only without money, but

CENTRAL WASHINGTON.

its members could not even speak the language of the pale-faces. Nor was anyone found who could serve as interpreter. It would have been easy enough to have obtained a Bible, if they could have met with a stray colporteur, but none was in evidence, and the average denizen of St. Louis was better provided with cartridge belts and guns than with literature of any sort. In despair they applied to Governor Clarke, the offi- cial head of the territory, whose headquarters were in the town-the same William Clarke who, with Captain Meriwether Lewis, had led the expedition to the mouth of the Columbia nearly thirty years before. It is possible that they may have heard of Clarke by reason of his travels through their country a generation previous. By means of signs and such few words of jargon as they could muster they attempted to explain to Governor Clarke the purpose of their visit but it is evident that they succeeded none too well. In response to their prayer for spiritual food, he bestowed on them blankets, beads and tobacco --- the routine gifts to importunate redskins-and the discouraged Flatheads abandoned their illu- sive quest for the magic book. Before leaving for home, the Indians made a farewell call on Governor Clarke, during which they, or one of them, made a speech. Just what the speaker said, or tried to say, may be a matter of doubt, but the report made of it and given to the press is a marvel of simple eloquence. It is as follows:

"We came to you over a trail of many moons from the setting sun. You were the friend of our fathers, who have all gone the long road. We came with our eyes partly opened for more light for our people who sit in darkness. We go back with our eyes closed. How can we go back blind to our blind people? We made our way to you with strong arms, through many enemies and strange lands, that we might carry back much to them. We go back with both arms broken and empty. The two fathers who came with us-the braves of many winters and wars-we leave here asleep hy your great water and wigwams. They were tired with their journey of many moons and their moccasins were worn out.

"Our people sent us to get the white man's Book of Heaven. You took us where they worship the Great Spirit with candles, but the Book was not there. You showed us the images of good spirits, and pictures of the good land beyond, but the Book was not among them to tell us the way. You made our feet heavy with burdens of gifts, and our moccasins will grow old with carrying them, but the Book is not among them. We are going back the long, sad trail to our people. When we tell them, after one more snow, in the big council, that we did not bring the Book, no word will be spoken by our old men nor by our young braves. One by one they will rise up and go out in silence. Our people will die in darkness, and they will go on the long path to the other hunting grounds. No white man will go with them, and no Book of Heaven to make the way plain. We have no more words.

"The story of the Flathead embassy and their unique quest subsequently reached George Catlin through the medium of Governor Clarke. Catlin was an artist who had made a special study of Indian types and dress, and had painted with

great ability and fidelity many portraits of noted chiefs. In the national museum at Washington, D. C., may be seen a very extensive collection of his Indian paintings, supplemented with almost innumerable recent photographs, among which are those of Chief Joseph, the great Nez Perce warrior, and the Umatilla reservation chieftains-Homeli, Peo and Paul' Showeway. Mr. Catlin was not only a portrait painter, but a gifted writer. He converted the plain, unvar- nished tale of Governor Clarke concerning the Flatheads into an epic poem of thrilling inter- est, and gave it to the press. Its publication in the religious journals created a great sensation, and steps were immediately taken to answer the Macedonian cry of the Flatheads. The sending of Jason Lee and his party to Oregon was a result.

"The quest of the Flatheads, the sad deaths of all their ambassadors save one on the journey, and the temporary failure of their project seemed a hopeless defeat, but they 'builded wiser than they knew,' for the very fact of their mission stirred mightily the hearts of the church people, and through that instrumentality the attention of Americans was sharply directed to the enor- mous value of the Pacific Northwest. The inter- est thus excited was timely-another decade of supine lethargy and the entire Pacific coast from Mexico to the Russian possessions would have passed irretrievably under British control.

"The Flatheads' search for the magic book was to all appearance an ignominious failure, but their plaintive cry, feeble though it was, stirred the mountain heights, and precipitated an irresistible avalanche of American enterprise into the valley of the Columbia, overwhelming the Hudson's Bay Company with its swelling volume of American immigration.

"In a lesser way, also, their mission suc- ceeded, though success was long on the road. The western movement of white population engulfed the hated Blackfeet, thinned their numbers till they were no longer formidable, even to the Flatheads, confined them within the narrow limits of a reservation in northern Mon- tana, where they were ordered about by a con- sequential Indian agent, and collared and thrust into the agency jail for every trifling misde- meanor, by the agency police; while the one time harassed and outraged Flathead roams unvexed through his emerald vales, pursues without fear to its uttermost retreat in the Rockies the lordly elk or the elusive deer, tempts the wily trout from the dark pool of the sequestered mountain torrent with the seductive fly, or lazily floats on the surface of some placid lake, which mirrors the evergreen slopes of the environing hills, peacefully withdrawing, now and again, the appetizing salmon trout from its cool, transparent depths, to be transferred presently, in exchange for gleaming silver, to some thrifty pale-face

PERIOD OF SETTLEMENT.

housewife or some unctuous Chinese cook for a tenderfoot tourist's dinner-forgetful all and fearless of Blackfoot ambush or deadly foray. Of a verity, the childlike quest for the magic book was not without its compensation to the posterity of the Flathead ambassadors!"

Of those Americans who came to Oregon with the early expeditions, three in 1832 and twenty- two in 1834 became permanent settlers. The names of these are preserved by W. H. Gray in his history of Oregon as follows: "From Captain Wyeth's party of 1832, there remained S. H. Smith, Sergeant, and Tibbets, a stonecutter; and from his party of 1834, James O'Neil and T. J. Hubbard. From the wreck of the William and Ann, a survivor named Felix Hathaway remained. With Ewing Young from California in 1834, a party came who remained in Oregon, consisting of Joseph Gale, who died in Union county, that state, in 1882; John McCarty, Car- michael, John Hauxhurst, John Howard, Kil- born, Brandywine, and a colored man named George Winslow. An English sailor named Richard McCary reached the Willamette from the Rocky mountains that year, as did also Cap- tain J. H. Crouch, G. W. LeBreton, John Mc- Caddan and William Johnson from the brig Maryland. This made (with the missionaries heretofore named) twenty-five residents at the close of 1834, who were not in any way connected with the Hudson's Bay Company, all of whom were here for other than transient purposes. There were no arrivals in 1835."

However, the year 1836 was, as may be gleaned from previous pages, an important one for Oregon. While, as Gray states, there were no permanent residences established in Oregon in 1835, that was the year in which Rev. Samuel Parker and Dr. Marcus Whitman were sent out by the American Board to explore the country and report upon it as a field for missionary labors. These gentlemen were met at the trap- pers' rendezvous on Green river by the noted Chief Lawyer, by whom they were persuaded into the plan of establishing their proposed mis- sion among his people, the Nez Perces. . When this conclusion was reached, Dr. Whitman started back to the east accompanied by two Nez Perce boys, Mr. Parker continuing his journey westward to the shores of the Pacific. It was agreed that Parker should seek out a suitable location among the Nez Perces for the mission, while Dr. Whitman should make arrangements for the westward journey of a sufficient force and for the establishment and outfitting of the post. The results of Mr. Parker's journeyings are embodied in a work of great historic valne from his own pen, entitled "Parker's Exploring Tour Beyond the Rocky Mountains." From informa- tion conveyed by this volume, Gilbert summa- rizes the conditions in Oregon in 1835 as follows: "Fort Vancouver on the Columbia, under

charge of Dr. John McLoughlin, was established in 1824, and consisted of an enclosure by stock- ade, thirty-seven rods long by eighteen wide, that faced the south. About one hundred per- sons were employed at the place, and some three hundred Indians lived in the immediate vicinity. There were eight substantial buildings within the stockade, and a large number of small ones on the outside. There were 459 cattle, 100 horses, 200 sheep, 40 goats and 300 hogs belong- ing to the company at this place; and during the season of 1835 the crops produced in that vicinity amounted to 5, 000 bushels of wheat, 1, 300 bushels of potatoes, 1,000 bushels of barley, 1,000 bushels of oats, 2,000 bushels of peas, and garden vegeta- bles in proportion. The garden, containing five acres, besides its vegetable products, included apples, peaches, grapes and strawberries. A grist mill with machinery propelled by oxen was kept in constant use, while some six miles up the Columbia was a saw mill containing sev- eral saws, which supplied lumber for the Hud- son's Bay Company. Within the fort was a bakery employing three men, also shops for blacksmiths, joiners, carpenters and a tinner.

"Fort Williams, erected by N. J. Wyeth at the mouth of the Willamette, was nearly deserted, Mr. Townsend, the ornithologist, being about the only occupant at the time. Wyeth had gone to his Fort Hall in the interior. Of Astoria, at the mouth of the Columbia, but two log houses and a garden remained, where two white men dragged out a dull existence, to maintain possession of the historic ground. Its ancient, romantic grandeur had departed from its walls, when dismantled to assist in the con- struction and defenses of its rival, Fort Vancou- ver. Up the Willamette river was the Methodist mission, in the condition already noted, while between it and the present site of Oregon City were the Hudson's Bay Company's French settle- ments of Gervais and Mckay, containing some twenty families, whose children were being taught by young Americans. In one of these settlements a grist mill had just been completed. East of the Cascade mountains Fort Walla Walla was situated at the mouth of a river by that name. It was 'built of logs and was internally arranged to answer the purposes of trade and domestic comfort, and externally for defense, having two bastions, and was surrounded by a stockade.' It was accidentally burned in 1841 and rebuilt of adobe within a year. At this point the company had 'horses, cows, hogs, fowls, and they cultivated corn, potatoes and a variety of garden vegetables.' This fort was used for a trading post, where goods were stored for traffic with the Indians. Fort Colville, on the Colum- bia, a little above Kettle Falls, near the present line of Washington territory, a strongly stock- aded post, was occupied by a half dozen men with Indian families, and Mr. McDonald was in

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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 8

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